But when those words were written, compulsion was near at hand.  The Parliament of 1868-1874—­the first elected by a democratic suffrage—­was intent on Reform, and the right of a father to starve his child’s mind was strenuously denied.  Forster, then Vice-President of the Council, was charged with the duty of preparing a Bill to establish Compulsory Education.  Arnold was Forster’s brother-in-law, and “heard the contents” of the Bill in November, 1869.  When in the following February it was brought in, he wrote:  “I think William’s Bill will do very well.  I am glad it is so little altered”; and, after the Second Reading, he wrote:  “The majority on the Education Bill is a great relief; it will now, if William has tolerable luck, get through safely this session.”  By this time, therefore, he must have become a convert to the system of compulsion.  Perhaps he regarded the demand for the Bill as a proof that the English people were at length waking up to a sense of the value of Education.  But, while the State thus outstripped his ideal by establishing compulsion, it fell short of his ideal by severely limiting the area of the population to which compulsion was to apply.  Again and again he warned his countrymen, then unaccustomed to the practical working of Compulsory Education, that it would be intolerable, unjust, and absurd if it were applied only to the children of the poor.  He contended that the Upper and Middle Classes were every bit as much in need of a compulsory system, if their children were to be properly educated, as the working classes for whom it was proposed to legislate.  This theme he illustrated, with the most exuberant fun and fancy, in a letter addressed to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1867, and afterwards republished in Friendship’s Garland.  Arminius, the cultivated Prussian, accompanies his English friend to Petty Sessions in a country town, and is horrified by the degraded plight of an old peasant who is tried for poaching.  The English friend (the imaginary Arnold) says that for his own part he is not so much concerned about the poacher as about his children.  They are being allowed to grow up anyhow.  Really he thinks the time has come when compulsion must be applied to the education of children of this class.  “The gap between them and our educated and intelligent classes is really too frightful.”

“Your educated and intelligent classes,” sneered Arminius, in his most offensive manner—­“where are they?  I should like to see them.”  The English friend, thus rudely challenged, leads the Prussian into the justice-room, where they find on the Bench three excellent specimens of education and intelligence—­Lord Lumpington, the Rev. Esau Hittall, and Mr. Bottles.  Arminius insists on knowing their qualifications for the post of magistrate.  He begins by defining the principle of Compulsory Education.  “It means that to ensure, as far as you can, every man’s being fit for his business in life, you put education as a bar, or condition,