"
"But does it succeed; do they make converts?"
"They make no converts, for the subtle Oriental swallows the jam
and rejects the pill; but the mere example of the sober, righteous,
and godly lives of the principals and professors who are most
excellent and devoted men, must have a certain moral value. Yet,
as Lord Lansdowne pointed out the other day, the market is
dangerously overstocked with graduates of our Universities who
look for employment in the administration. An immense number
are employed, but year by year the college mills grind out
increasing lists of youths foredoomed to failure and
disappointment, and meanwhile, trade. manufactures. and the
industrial
arts are neglected, and in fact regarded with contempt by our new
literary mandarins in posse."
"But our young friend said he wanted steam-engines and
factories," said Pagett.
"Yes, he would like to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at
the top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would
never defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects,
engineers, and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and
he would be aghast to learn that the leading names of industrial
enterprise in England belonged a generation or two since, or now
belong, to men who wrought with their own hands. And, though he
talks glibly of manufacturers, he refuses to see that the Indian
manufacturer of the future will be the despised workman of the
present.
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