Education in China is remarkably general and widespread; it extends to classes considerably below those which, in France, might conceivably feel the want of it. The cheapness of books,[43] the number and the low fees of the schools, bring a certain measure of education within the reach of everybody. The aims and spirit of the laws are generally well understood, and the government is proud of having made legal knowledge accessible to all. There is a strong instinct of repulsion against radical changes in the Government. A very trustworthy critic on this point, Mr. John F. Davis, the British Commissioner in China, who has not only lived in Canton but has studied its affairs with the closest application, says that the Chinese are a people whose history does not show a single attempt at a social revolution, or any alteration in the outward forms of power. In his opinion, they are best described as “a nation of steady conservatives.” The contrast is very striking, when we turn to the civilization of the Roman world, where changes of government followed each other with startling rapidity right up to the coming of the northern peoples. Everywhere in this great society, and at every time, we can find populations so detached from the existing order as to be ready for the wildest experiments. Nothing was left untried in this long period, no principle respected. Property, religion, the family were all called in question, and many, both in the North and South, were inclined to put the novel theories into practice. Absolutely nothing in the Græco-Roman world rested on a solid foundation, not even the unity of the Empire, so necessary one would think for the general safety. Further, it was not only the armies, with their hosts of improvised Cæsars, who were continually battering at this Palladium of society; the emperors themselves, beginning with Diocletian, had so little belief in the monarchy, that they established of their own accord a division of power. At last there were four rulers at once. Not a single institution, not a single principle, was fixed, in this unhappy society, which had no better reason for continuing to exist than the physical impossibility of deciding on which rock it should founder; until the moment came when it was crushed in the vigorous arms of the North, and forced at last to become something definite.