ment to work hard, and he did work hard; and this was the grand source of the frugality, industry, and thrivingness of the Prussian peasant. It was the grand source, too, of his attachment to the State." "It was rotten bad political economy, though," exclaimed I. "Now I see what the Times meant by saying in its leading article yesterday that Ireland is incomparably better governed than the United States, France, Germany, or Italy, because the excellence of government consists in keeping obstacles out of the way of individual energy, and you throw obstacles in the way of your great proprietors' energy, and we throw none in the way of ours. Talk of a commutation like the tithe-commutation, indeed! Why it was downright spoliation; it was just what Lord Clanricarde says some people are driving at in Ireland, a system of confiscation." "Well," says Arminius, calmly, "that is exactly what the Prussian junkers called it. They did not call it commutation, they called it confiscation. They will tell you to this day that Stein confiscated their estates. But you will be shocked to hear that the Prussian Government had, even before Stein's time, this sad habit of playing tricks with political economy. To prevent the absorption of small proprietors by a great landed aristocracy, the Prussian Government made a rule that a bauer-gut,-a peasant property,-could not, even if the owner sold it, be bought up by the Lord Clanricarde of the neighbourhood; it must remain a bauer-gut still. I believe you in England are for improving small proprietors off the face of

the earth, but I assure you in Prussia we are very proud of ours, and think them the strength of the nation. Of late years the Hohenzollerns have taken up with the junkers, but for a long time their policy was to uphold the bauer class against the junker class; and, if you want to know the secret of the hold which the house of Hohenzollern has upon the heart of the Prussian people, it is not in Frederick the Great's victories that you will find it, it is in this policy of their domestic government." "My dear Arminius," said I, "you make me perfectly sick. Government here, government there! We English are for selfgovernment. What business has any Mr. Stein to settle that this or that estate is too large for Lord Clanricarde's virtues to expand in? Let each class settle its own affairs, and don't let us have Governments and Hohenzollerns pretending to be more enlightened than other people, and cutting and carving for what they call the general interest, and God knows what nonsense of that kind. If the landed class with us has got the magistracy and settled estates and game laws, has not the middle class got the vestries, and business, and civil and religious liberty? I remember when the late Sir George Cornwall Lewis wanted to get some statistics about the religious denominations, your friend Bottles, who is now a millionaire and a Churchman, was then a Particular Baptist. 'No,' says Bottles, 'here I put down my foot. No Government on earth shall ask me whether I am a Particular Baptist or a Muggletonian.' And Bottles beat the Government, because

of the thorough understanding the upper and middle classes in this country have with one another that each is to go its own way, and Government is not to be thrusting its nose into the concerns of either. There is a cordial alliance between them on this basis." "Yes, yes, I know," Arminius sneeringly answered; "Herod and Pontius Pilate have shaken hands."

"But I will show you, Arminius," I pursued, "on plain grounds of political economy" "Not tonight," interrupted Arminius, yawning; "I am going home to bed." And off he went, descending the garret stairs three at a time, and leaving me to burn the midnight oil in order to send you, Sir, what is really, I flatter myself, an interesting, and I may even say a valuable communication.

Your humble servant,

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

LETTER VI.

I BECOME INTRUSTED WITH THE VIEWS OF ARMINIUS ON COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

SIR,—

GRUB STREET, April 20, 1867.

It is a long while since you have heard anything of Arminius and me, though I do hope you have sometimes given a thought to us both. The truth is we have been in the country. You may imagine how horribly disagreeable Arminius made himself during the famous snow in London at the beginning of this year. About the state of the streets he was bad enough, but about the poor frozen-out working men who went singing without let or hindrance before our houses, he quite made my blood creep. "The dirge of a society qui s'en va," he used to call their pathetic songs. It is true I had always an answer for him— "Thank God, we are not Hausmannised yet!" and if that was not enough, and he wanted the philosophy of the thing, why I turned to a sort of constitutional common-place book, or true Englishman's vade mecum, which I have been these many years forming for my own use by potting extracts from the Times, and which I hope one day to give to the world, and I read him

this golden aphorism: "Administrative, military, and clerical tyranny are unknown in this country, because the educated class discharges all the corresponding functions through committees of its own body." "Well, then," Arminius would answer, "show me your administrative committee for ridding us of these cursed frozen-out impostors." "My dear Arminius," was my quiet reply, "voluntary organisations are not to be dealt with in this peremptory manner. The administrative committee you ask for will develop itself in good time; its future members are probably now at nurse. In England we like our improvements to grow, not to be manufactured."

However the mental strain, day after day, of this line of high constitutional argument was so wearing, that I gladly acceded to a proposal made by Arminius in one of his fits of grumbling to go with him for a little while into the country. So into the country we went, and there, under his able guidance, I have been assiduously pursuing the study of German philosophy. As a rule, I attend to nothing else just now; but when we were taking one of our walks abroad the other morning, an incident happened which led us to discuss the subject of compulsory education, and, as this subject is beginning to awaken deep interest in the public mind, I think you may be glad to have an account of the incident, and of the valuable remarks on compulsory education which were drawn from Arminius by it.

We were going out the other morning on one of our walks, as I said, when we saw a crowd before the VOL. III.

S