Much the same sort of dissection is necessary in considering the other side of this controversy. To call the other side “ornamental” is, of course, to concede a point to the advocate of utility, since “ornament” is understood to be more or less trivial. The epithet “ornamental” is quite justified as applied to the traditional conception of a “gentleman” or a “lady”. The eighteenth-century gentleman spoke with a refined accent, quoted the classics on appropriate occasions, dressed in the fashion, understood punctilio and knew when a duel would advance his reputation. There is a man in “The Rape of the Lock” who was of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane. His education had been ornamental in the narrowest sense, and in our age few of us are rich enough to be content with his accomplishments. The ideal of an “ornamental” education in the old sense is aristocratic: it presupposes a class with plenty of money and no need to work. Fine gentlemen and fine ladies are charming to contemplate in history; their memoirs and their country houses give us a certain kind of pleasure which we no longer provide for our posterity. But their excellences, even when real, were by no means supreme, and they were an incredibly expensive product: Hogarth’s “Gin Lane” gives a vivid idea of the price that was paid for them. No one nowadays would advocate an ornamental education in this narrow sense. But that is not the real issue. The real issue is: should we, in education, aim at filling the mind with knowledge which has direct practical utility, or should we try to give our pupils mental possessions which are good on their own account? It is useful to know that there are twelve inches in a foot, and three feet in a yard, but this knowledge has no intrinsic value; to those who live where the metric system is in use, it is utterly worthless. To appreciate “Hamlet”, on the other hand, will not be much use in practical life, except in those rare cases where a man is called upon to kill his uncle; but it gives a man a mental possession which he would be sorry to be without, and makes him in some sense a more excellent human being. It is this latter sort of knowledge that is preferred by the man who argues that utility is not the sole aim of education.