him best.  In sociology, as well as physics and dynamics,—­the angle of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence,—­the psychologic rebound is ever in proportion to the mental pressure; one extreme invariably impinges upon the opposite,—­and when the pendulum has reached one end of the arc, it must of necessity swing back to the other.  In all social revolutions the moderate and reasonable concessions which might have appeased the discontent in its incipiency are gladly tendered much too late in the contest, when the insurgents stung by injustice and conscious of their grievances, refuse all temperate compromise, and run riot.  This woman’s-rights and woman’s-suffrage abomination is no suddenly concocted social bottle of yeast:  it has been fermenting for ages, and, having finally blown out the cork, is rapidly leavening the mass of female malcontents.”

“But, Uncle Peyton, you surely discriminate between a few noisy ambitious sciolists who mistake lyceum notoriety for renown, and the noble band of delicate, refined women whose brilliant attainments in the republic of letters are surpassed only by their beautiful devotion to God, family, and home?  Fancy Mrs. Somerville demanding a seat in Parliament, or Miss Herschel elbowing her way to the hustings!  Whose domestic record is more lovely in its pure womanliness than Hannah More’s, or Miss Mitford’s, or Mrs. Browning’s? who wears deathless laurels more modestly than Rosa Bonheur?  It seems to me, sir, that it is not so much the amount as the quality of the learning that just now ought to engage attention.  I see that one of the ablest and strongest thinkers of the day has handled this matter in a masterly way, and with your permission I should like to read a passage:  ’In these times the educational tree seems to me to have its roots in the air, its leaves and flowers in the ground; and I confess I should very much like to turn it upside down, so that its roots might be solidly embedded among the facts of Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment for the foliage and fruit of literature and of art.  No educational system can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognizes the truth that education has two great ends, to which everything else must be subordinated.  One of these is to increase knowledge; the other is to develop the love of right and the hatred of wrong.  At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of the power of expression, and of the sense of literary beauty.  The matter of having anything to say beyond a hash of other people’s opinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the God-like and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment.  I think I do not err in saying that if science were made the foundation of education, instead of being at most stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this state of things could not exist.’  Such is the system I should like to see established in our own country.”