Produced by Bill Hershey and PG Distributed Proofreaders
1873.
The "Critiques and Addresses" gathered together in this volume, likethe "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," published three years ago,deal chiefly with educational, scientific, and philosophical subjects;and, in fact, indicate the high-water mark of the various tides ofoccupation by which I have been carried along since the beginning ofthe year 1870.
In the end of that year, a confidence in my powers of work, which,unfortunately, has not been justified by events, led me to allowmyself to be brought forward as a candidate for a seat on the LondonSchool Board. Thanks to the energy of my supporters I was elected, andtook my share in the work of that body during the critical first yearof its existence. Then my health gave way, and I was obliged to resignmy place among colleagues whose large practical knowledge of thebusiness of primary education, and whose self-sacrificing zeal in thedischarge of the onerous and thankless duties thrown upon them bythe Legislature, made it a pleasure to work with them, even though myposition was usually that of a member of the minority.
I mention these circumstances in order to account for (I had almostsaid to apologize for) the existence of the two papers which headthe present series, and which are more or less political, both in thelower and in the higher senses of that word.
The question of the expediency of any form of State Education is, infact, a question of those higher politics which lie above the regionin which Tories, Whigs, and Radicals "delight to bark and bite." Indiscussing it in my address on "Administrative Nihilism," I foundmyself, to my profound regret, led to diverge very widely (though evenmore perhaps in seeming than in reality) from the opinions of a man ofgenius to whom I am bound by the twofold tie of the respect due to aprofound philosopher and the affection given to a very old friend. Buthad I no other means of knowing the fact, the kindly geniality of Mr.Herbert Spencer's reply[1] assures me that the tie to which I referwill bear a much heavier strain than I have put, or ever intend toput, upon it, and I rather rejoice that I have been the means ofcalling forth so vigorous a piece of argumentative writing. Nor isthis disinterested joy at an attack upon myself diminished by thecircumstance, that, in all humility, but in all sincerity, I think itmay be repulsed.
[Footnote 1: "Specialized Administration;" Fortnightly Review,
December 1871.]
Mr. Spencer complains that I have first misinterpreted, and thenmiscalled, the doctrine of which he is so able an expositor. It wouldgrieve me very much if I were really open to this charge. But what arethe facts? I define this doctrine as follows:—
"Those who hold these views support them by two lines of argument. They enforce them deductively by arguing from an assumed axiom, that the State has no right to do anything but protect its subjects from aggression. The State is simply a policeman, and its duty, neither more nor less than to prevent robbery and murder and enforce contracts. It is not to promote good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by the enforcement of penalties upon those who have been guilty of obvious and tangible assaults upon purse or person. And, according to this view, the proper form of government is neither a mona