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which was originally composed at a time when the country was in a very different state of civilisation to what it is in at present, a state which has long since exploded and been superseded. Many valuable maxims and noble thoughts which were at one time concealed in it have become current in their modern literature, and have been translated over and over again into the language now spoken. Surely then it would seem to be enough that the study of the original language should be consigned to the few whose instincts led them naturally to pursue it. But the Erewhonians think differently; the store they set by it is perfectly astonishing; they will even give any one a maintenance for life if he attains a considerable proficiency in the study; nay, they will spend years in learning to translate some of their own good poetry into the hypothetical language, to do which with fluency is reckoned a distinguishing mark of a scholar and a gentleman. Heaven forbid that I should be flippant, but it appeared to me to be a very wanton waste of good human energy that men should spend years and years in the perfection of so barren an exercise, when their own civilisation presented actual living problems by the hundred which cried aloud for solution and would have paid the solver handsomely; but people know their own affairs best. If the youths chose it for themselves I should have wondered less; but they do not choose it, they have it thrust upon them, and for the most part are disinclined towards it. I can only say that all I heard in defence of the system was insufficient to make me think very highly of its general advantages.

The arguments in favour of the deliberate develop-