“Learn,” she continued,--as a low deep murmur of agreement ran through the room; “Learn to what strange uses God puts even such men of this world, whose sole existence has been for the cause of amassing money! They have acted as the merest machines, gathering in the millions;--gathering, gathering them in! For what purpose? Lo, they are smitten down in the prime of their lives, and the gold they have piled up is at once scattered! Much of it becomes used for educational purposes;--and some of these dead millionaires have, as it were thrown Education at the heads of the people, and almost pauperised it. Far away in Great Britain, a millionaire has recently made the Scottish University education ‘free’ to all students,--instead of, as it used to be, hard to get, and well worth working to win. Now,--through the wealth of one man, it is turned into a pauper’s allowance;--like offering the smallest silver coin to a reduced gentleman. The pride,--the skill,--the self-renunciation,--the strong determination to succeed, which form fine character, and which taught the struggling student to win his own University education, are all wiped out;--there is no longer any necessity for the practice of these manly and self-sustaining virtues. The harm that will be done is probably not yet perceivable; but it will be incalculable. Education, turned into a kind of pauper’s monopoly, will have widely different results to those just now imagined! But with all the contemptuous throwing out of the unneeded kitchen-waste of millionaires,--still Education is the thing to take at any price, and under any circumstances;--because it alone is capable of giving power! It alone will ‘put down the mighty from their seats, and exalt the humble and the meek.’ It alone will give us the force to fight our taskmasters with their own weapons, and to place them where they should be, coequal with us, but not superior,--considerate of us, but not commanding us,--and above all things, bound to make their records of such work as they do for the State--clean!” A hurricane of applause interrupted her,--she waited till it subsided, then went on quietly. “There should be no scheming in the dark; no secret contracts for which we have to pay blindly;--no refusal to explain the way in which the people’s hard-earned money is spent; and before foreign urbanities and diplomacies and concessions are allowed to take up time in the Senate, it is necessary that the frightful and abounding evils of our own land,--our own homes,--be considered. For this we purpose to demand redress,--and not only to demand it, but to obtain it! Ministers may refuse to hear us; but the Country’s claims are greater than any Ministry! A King’s displeasure may cause court-parasites to tremble--but a People’s Honour is more to be guarded than a thousand thrones!”