The first consideration is one which was offered to me many years ago by Mr. Matthew Arnold, and which I can give, though from memory, very nearly in his own words. The multiplicity of things which make claim to the attention of the public is in these days such that it requires either uncommon strength of will or else the force of peculiar circumstances to make men follow any serious study to good result, and the great majority content themselves with the general enlightenment of the epoch, which they get from newspapers and reviews. Hence the efforts of the intellectual produce little effect, and it requires either extraordinary talent or extraordinary fanaticism to awaken the serious interest of any considerable number of readers. Yet, in spite of these discouragements, we ought to remember that our labors, if not applauded by others, may be of infinite value to ourselves, and also that beyond this gain to the individual, his culture is a gain to the nation, whether the nation formally recognizes it or not. For the intellectual life of a nation is the sum of the lives of all intellectual people belonging to it, and in this sense your culture is a gain to England, whether England counts you amongst her eminent sons, or leaves you forever obscure. Is it not a noble spectacle, a spectacle well worthy of a highly civilized country, when a private citizen, with an admirable combination of patriotism and self-respect, says to himself as he labors, "I know that in a country so great as England, where there are so many able men, all that I do can count for very little in public estimation, yet I will endeavor to store my mind with knowledge and make my judgment sure, in order that the national mind of England, of which my mind is a minute fraction, may be enlightened by so much, be it never so little"? I think the same noble feeling might animate a citizen with reference to his native town; I think a good townsman might say to himself, "Our folks are not much given to the cultivation of their minds, and they need a few to set them an example. I will be one of those few. I will work and think, in order that our town may not get into a state of perfect intellectual stagnation." But if the nation or the city were too vast to call forth any noble feeling of this kind, surely the family is little enough and near enough. Might not a man say, "I will go through a good deal of intellectual drudgery in order that my wife and children may unconsciously get the benefit of it; I will learn facts for them that they may be accurate, and get ideas for them that they may share with me a more elevated mental state; I will do something towards raising the tone of the whole household"?