Now you see what it all comes to.

In the old times all this was the result of _poverty_.

In the nineteenth century, society was so miserably poor, owing to the systematised robbery on which it was founded, that real education was impossible for anybody.

The whole theory of their so-called education was that it was necessary to shove a little information into a child, even if it were by means of torture, and accompanied by twaddle which it was well known was of no use, or else he would lack information lifelong: the hurry of poverty forbade anything else.

All that is past; we are no longer hurried, and the information lies ready to each one's hand when his own inclinations impel him to seek it.