down proofs glance off hie mind like water off a duck's back, and in my petulance I exclaimed:—
"These detestable tenets and practices could only exist among a people destitute of all religion and morality."
"The greatest good of the greatest number—the few must suffer that the many may be happy,—that is our morality," he retorted, "and the same maxims are freely inculcated in England, only you fear to carry them out to their logical consequences,—we don't. We, like you, acknowledge the obligation of the state to supply education to all. Without exhausting our efforts in the thankless task of rearing those who are extremely unlikely to be of service to the state, we place all sound and perfect children in a position to profit by the education we give, so that they may become useful citizens. You leave the children you propose to educate in squalid over-crowded dwellings, with insufficient food and clothing and vicious surroundings, so that, it seems to me, the education you give them will only make them more expert thieves or more crafty beggars."
"You forget," I said, "that the state has wisely ordained that the poison of secular knowledge shall only be administered along with its antidote the Bible, so that there is no fear of the education we give being perverted to vicious purposes."
With these words I hurriedly took my leave, feeling satisfied that I had had the best of the argument, but knowing from my experience of Colymbians that he would never acknowledge his defeat.
