Literally Illiterate

It is indeed their feeble boast that they are not literally illiterate.  They are always saying the ancient barons could not sign their own names—­for they know less of history perhaps than of anything else.  The modern barons, however, can sign their own names—­or someone else’s for a change.  They can sign their own names; and that is about all they can do.  They cannot face a fact, or follow an argument, or feel a tradition; but, least of all, can they, upon any persuasion, read through a plain impartial book, English or foreign, that is not specially written to soothe their panic or to please their pride.  Looking up at these seats of the mighty I can only say, with something of despair, what Robert Lowe said of the enfranchised workmen:  “We must educate our masters.”

I do not mean this as paradoxical, or even as symbolical; it is simply tame and true.  The modern English rich know nothing about things, not even about the things to which they appeal.  Compared with them, the poor are pretty sure to get some enlightenment, even if they cannot get liberty; they must at least be technical.  An old apprentice learnt a trade, even if his master came like any Turk and banged him most severely.  The old housewife knew which side her bread was buttered, even if it were so thin as to be almost imperceptible.  The old sailor knew the ropes; even if he knew the rope’s end.  Consequently, when any of these revolted, they were concerned with things they knew, pains, practical impossibilities, or the personal record.

But They Know

The apprentice cried “Clubs?” and cracked his neighbours’ heads with the precision and fineness of touch which only manual craftsmanship can give.  The housewives who flatly refused to cook the hot dinner knew how much or how little, cold meat there was in the house.  The sailor who defied discipline by mutinying at the Nore did not defy discipline in the sense of falling off the rigging or letting the water into the hold.  Similarly the modern proletariat, however little it may know, knows what it is talking about.

But the curious thing about the educated class is that exactly what it does not know is what it is talking about.  I mean that it is startlingly ignorant of those special things which it is supposed to invoke and keep inviolate.  The things that workmen invoke may be uglier, more acrid, more sordid; but they know all about them.  They know enough arithmetic to know that prices have risen; the kind Levantine gentleman is always there to make them fully understand the meaning of an interest sum; and the landlord will define Rent as rigidly as Ricardo.  The doctors can always tell them the Latin for an empty stomach; and when the poor man is treated for the time with some human respect (by the Coronet) it almost seems a pity he is not alive to hear how legally he died.