An important scientific school in America had been created and endowed by one of our "poor boys," become plutocrat. He was dissuaded with difficulty by the President from carrying out the idea which he proposed, that the teachers should be hired by the month, as were the clerks in his factories, so that they could be discharged whenever he wanted to do so! You see, even in democratic nations, the trail of Respectability is over education. FOOTNOTES: [6] "Jude the Obscure." [7] From article "Freedom in the American Colleges," in "Progressive Review," January, 1897. CHAPTER VII. PLUTOCRACY. "Constant at church and change; his gains were sure, His givings rare, save farthings to the poor." POPE. "Of the Use of Riches." "Here you a muckworm of the town might see At his dull desk, amid his ledgers stall'd, Eat up with carking care." THOMSON. "Castle of Indolence." Everyone knows Pugsley, _the great Pugsley_, proprietor of Pugsley's Pure Piquant Pickles. You have seen his gracefully alliterative advertisements on the hoardings at the railway stations, and all down the Great Turnover Line, glaring at you in pastoral scenes, where Chloris led her lambkins in the pre-plutocratic days of "merrie England," and even obtruding their hideous drawing of the pickle bottles ("Ask for Pugsley's, Pure and Piquant") upon you in lonely mountain inns of the Grampians. There is no escaping the all-pervading Pugsley. Your grocer has foisted Pugsley's Pickles on you, and you have had to taste them, willy-nilly. He had a good reason for sending you Pugsley's Pickles. The firm are able to undersell all other competitors in the drysaltery interest, because they pay low wages to their workpeople. But, though you are familiar with the name of the Great Pugsley, and know the flavour of his relishes and condiments, you have never troubled to learn how the man made his huge business. I will tell you his history. It is very instructive. Pugsley's father was a village grocer at Hookham Nooton. He sold butter and cheese and tea for forty years, and left his son £500 at his demise. Young Pugsley early developed shrewd commercial instincts. At school he retailed his father's sugar to the boys, making a clear halfpenny profit on each penny; and when he had made a little capital by this huckstering, he launched out into bigger trading ventures, such as the vending of knives and cricket bats, and cheap magic lanterns, till he became a kind of "Universal Provider" at the select academy for young gentlemen. This was good training for his after career of buying, and selling, and exploiting. There is nothing like beginning these things when you are young.