Dean Stanley, in addressing the audience at the opening of
the Westminster and Pimlico Working-Classes Industrial Exhibition this day week, availed himself of the fact that the day on which he was speaking was Mr. Gladstone's birthday to relate that at Eton, Mr. Gladstone was something of a dunce at addition and anbtraction, though he has since become so great in finance, -and can, as Dean Stanley says, " deal with figures with wonderful facility," can " cast up large sums easily," and " can at a glance tell the price of every chair and every object in the room." We cOnfess' we are inclined to doubt Mr. Gladstone's posses- aft% of the last-named power, unless he has graduated in an upholsterer's academy, as well as at Oxford ; but though it is tinite clear from what Dean Stanley tells us that Mr. Gladstone has improved greatly in computation since he was at school, we aannot say that we should have been surprised at his becoming a great financier, even without improving very materially in addition -or subtraction. The late Mr. Bagehot was as masterly a financier as Mr. Gladstone, but he hardly ever did his own addition sums, and very much distrusted his results when he did. Financial cepa- ,city demands, of course, a certain sure though rough power of arith- metical apergu amongst its conditions, but by no means demands -a great facility in rapid or accurate computations. It involves a real knowledge of things,—the capacity to discern whence large gains, or large losses, or large savings may accrue,—rather than .any capacity for the nicer accuracies of computation. Many a lad who cannot "add up " with any certainty, has possessed that eye for profitable and unprofitable transactions by which financial ability is best tested.
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