years have not made obsolete for delight or instruction. It is a most singular fact, that with the Gospel parables full in view, there is not one educated Christian preacher in a hundred who dares to tell a story in the pulpit, and that in simple language. Uneducated ones do it not infrequently, and cover a multitude of sins thereby. But men of cultivation seem oppressed with a fear of making themselves or their subject ridiculous.

There is, however, a remedy for this, and it lies in a branch of study seemingly antagonistic to that I have just discussed-I mean the careful perusal of the great humorists of literature. Wisdom, piety, learning, will not prevent a man from doing absurd and ludicrous things at times; but humour is a sure preservative. It consists mainly in a keen sense of the incongruities of things, and thus is the direct converse of wit, and it is the best of beacons to warn men off the quicksands of ridicule, because it shows the grotesque aspect of an action in its true light, in sharp contrast with the nobler side, and not as an object of admiration. There are men totally devoid of this sense of humour, and very few women possess it at all, though tact often serves as a useful substitute; and for such the study has of course no value; but a low degree of the faculty can be educated into greater vigour, just as an imperfect ear for music can be trained. Another most valuable property of humour is that it instils a habit of tolerance and good temper, just because it shows so very clearly the absurdity of getting into a rage with human folly, instead of taking it for granted, and making due allowance for it. The true humorist is no cynic, and he keeps his tomahawk for abuses which need to be killed, not laughed at. The objection of coarseness which undoubtedly lies against some of the greatest names in this department of literature, such as Rabelais, Swift, Fielding, and Smollett, though not applying to Montaigne or Jean Paul, nor yet to Thackeray or Artemus Ward, may appear to some to overbalance their utility. I do not hold with this opinion so far as teachers are concerned, albeit there is much weight in it with reference to the mass of the taught, though even in their case the open-speaking and the comparatively healthy animalism of the writers named are far less dangerous to the mind than the veiled prurience of modern novels of the "Pelham " school on the one hand, or than the fetid cesspool lately dug for us by half-a-dozen nastyminded women on the other, following in emulous rivalry the lead of "Guy Livingstone," and surpassing the forgotten erotics of Mrs. Aphra Behn. It is also true that humour, if allowed to dominate the whole character, is destructive of Christian enthusiasm and of all lofty notions of life and duty, as we may see in men like Sydney Smith, but I am pleading for it as a condiment, not as the staple food of the mind.

Finally, I hold with the advantage of a careful study of really good criticism, not of such shallow censors as Lord Jeffrey, but produced by keener and deeper observers; and it seems to me that its utility is materially increased by being extended beyond the limits of English. A French or a German critic looks at literature and society from such a very different stand-point from ours, that the perusal of his remarks is almost equal to foreign travel as a means of lifting us out of an insular groove, which is generally the highway to a local rut. And the particular gain which good criticism is to the mind is, that it accustoms it to the habit of distinguishing the value of authorities and the merits of style, so that it does for letters what law does for daily facts. It is a protection against mistaking verbiage for thought, redundancy of words for fulness of ideas, and also against slipshod carelessness and inflated bombast, both of them rocks on which many a teacher wrecks his usefulness, and raises a smile or a sneer where he had hoped to impress a lesson.

I have left great departments of study completely out of view in this survey, some because their utility is sufficiently obvious, and does not need to be urged upon attention; others, such as the whole of classical literature, from mere lack of time. But even so, the range I have indicated is sufficiently wide to prompt two questions: What probability is there that the average minister of religion will trouble himself to cover so large an area? Supposing any one does wish to do so, where can he find a school to learn in, seeing that no English University or training college attempts so much? То answer these questions fully would require too much space. I am fully aware that the ordinary clergyman now cares no more for reading than any other average citizen, but my programme looks to the future rather than to the past. Every year convinces me more fully that there is no "spiritual destitution" like that of intrusting a sloth or dunce with the supreme function of religious teaching, and I do not believe in piety as a substitute for learning in a clergyman any more than in personal robust health as making a skilful doctor; or rather, to be more precise, I do not believe in the piety of a man who thrusts himself into the most difficult of duties without taking the pains to prepare himself to the best of his ability. I am satisfied that a very marked and simultaneous raising of the educational standard required from candidates for Holy Orders would be a most salutary step, at once and in the future, and I should make the test proportionably severer for literates, just because they lacked the culture of a University, requiring of them great accuracy within a limited range of study as a set-off for the absence of width. And I should exact of all men about to be promoted to their first benefice, proof by examination that they had not wasted their time as curates, but were

better instructed than when they first entered Holy Orders. This would give an incentive now lacking, for as regards promotion in the Established Church, learning is no aid, from a union chaplaincy to an archbishopric, and therefore the marvel is that the clergy are even as well read as they prove to be. As to the school, all true education is that which a man gives himself. Masters, tutors, and professors, can do no more than lead him to the water; it depends on himself alone whether he will drink. Nor is it necessary to swill gallons and tuns. All that I have sketched out, and a great deal more, can be readily acquired by the simple rules of keeping to comparatively few books, but these the best of their kind, and thinking more than reading. There is one further objection. What, some men will ask, is the practical utility of all this study to a teacher who has to deal with stolid peasants or with poverty-dulled artisans? It may be good for those who have congregations of University men, of lawyers, of the literary class generally, but not for such. I reply with one historical fact. The counter-Reformation, which snatched half of Europe back from the hands of Protestantism, was mainly carried out by means of the schools set on foot by the Jesuits; and their unexampled success was due to the observance of one rule. According as a teacher showed more and more aptitude for his office, and proved it by the rapid progress of his pupils, he was promoted in the school by being set to hear a class junior to his former one, till the ablest tutor was found, and set to teach the rudiments of knowledge only, on the sound principle that when the art of learning has once been acquired, and a taste for reading instilled, the pupil may be safely left in great measure to his own exertions, but that no task is harder than that of arousing a hitherto sluggish and unawakened mind. RICHARD FREDERICK LITTLEDALE.

It

THE subject of the prospects of the working classes is a very large one; much too large and many-sided to be ranked-as it often is-as merely one of the many questions of the day. It is a great deal more than that, comprehending, as it does, within itself most of the questions of the day, however varied in themselves or remote from it those questions may at a first glance appear. Indeed, taken broadly-and it is worse than useless to approach a consideration of it in any but the broadest spirit-it is less a question of the day than the problem which the questions of the day seek to solve. It cannot be relegated to any one of the great spheres of thought or action under which questions of the day are usually classed. enters into the domains of religion, morality, politics, physics, and psychology. They all bear upon it, while it belongs exclusively to none of them; and, though politicians claim it as lying chiefly within their province, it is perhaps not too much to say that it belongs to no one of those spheres more than to another. Certain it is, at any rate, that no one of them, or all but one of them, could deal with it effectually while ignoring the influence and operation of the others, or other. It is as important as it is large and varied; and it is, moreover, a subject the discussion of which should have an attraction for every one, even on the low ground-supposing no higher one prompted attention to it-of self-interest. The future of the working

classes means more than a strictly literal interpretation of the phrase would indicate-means the future of all classes, the future of civilized society. Though they may not be as they are so often told they are the entire salt and savour of the earth, and the sole props and support of the social system; though they may not be all this, they are, undoubtedly, the most important division of society, and their importance is daily waxing greater as it becomes more and more evident that they are realizing the commanding extent of their potential strength, and moulding it into practical shapes. That there will always be distinctively working classes may, we think, be taken for granted-taken, that is, as a law of nature-but that they will remain in the same position relatively to other classes that they occupy now is highly improbable. So far as they can be taken as foreshadowing the future, the " signs of the times" all seem to indicate that there will be material changes in the condition of the working classes, and a moment's consideration must, we think, make it evident that this will involve changes in all other classes. And though the probabilities are in favour of the supposition that the coming changes will be for the better both for the working classes and society, that is not necessarily the case; therefore, as we have said, the subject of the prospects of the working classes concerns every one.

Before entering upon the direct consideration of these prospects, it is for the sake of clearness necessary that we should first glance at the existing condition of the working classes-the stand-point from whence the prospective outlook commences. There are some who hold that the present condition of the working classes is of a flourishing and satisfactory character, and that if it is not all that could be desired the fault lies with those classes themselves-with their drunkenness, animal indulgences, improvidence, and (self-removable) ignorance. Those of this opinion, however, are few in number, are all outside the working classes, and so far as our own experience enables us to speak, are either very simple people, or people who are not very simple; who have a case involving this view to make out, and who are greatly wronged if they are not capable of manipulating and dislocating facts to make them appear to suit their view. For all practical purposes of dealing with our subject, it may be taken as a substantial and demonstrable fact, that the condition of the working classes is to them at any rate-of so hard and unsatisfactory a character as to, in a great measure, justify the bitter and, to a certain extent, dangerous discontent existing among them on the point. With nothing but their labour to depend upon, and the wages of labour so low as in a vast number of instances to make it a practical impossibility to do anything beyond provide in a coarse and limited