The duke inquires contemptuously whether his gamekeeper is the equal of the Astronomer Royal; but he insists that they shall both be hanged equally if they murder him. The notion that the colonel need be a better man than the private is as confused as the notion that the keystone need be stronger than the coping stone. Where equality is undisputed, so also is subordination. Equality is fundamental in every department of social organization. The relation of superior to inferior excludes good manners. EDUCATION When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman. A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parent's first duty. The vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a child's character. At the University every great treatise is postponed until its author attains impartial judgment and perfect knowledge. If a horse could wait as long for its shoes and would pay for them in advance, our blacksmiths would all be college dons. He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance. Activity is the only road to knowledge. Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation. No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another. No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot. Do not give your children moral and religious instruction unless you are quite sure they will not take it too seriously. Better be the mother of Henri Quatre and Nell Gwynne than of Robespierre and Queen Mary Tudor. MARRIAGE Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity. Marriage is the only legal contract which abrogates as between the parties all the laws that safeguard the particular relation to which it refers. The essential function of marriage is the continuance of the race, as stated in the Book of Common Prayer. The accidental function of marriage is the gratification of the amoristic sentiment of mankind. The artificial sterilization of marriage makes it possible for marriage to fulfill its accidental function whilst neglecting its essential one. The most revolutionary invention of the XIX century was the artificial sterilization of marriage. Any marriage system which condemns a majority of the population to celibacy will be violently wrecked on the pretext that it outrages morality.