"Any good schoolmaster knows vastly more than you or I.Would you like to be governed by a majority of schoolmasters ?" "That is a plausible argument," laughed Del Ferice, "but it is not sound." "It is not sound!" repeated Giovanni, impatiently.

"People are so fond of exclaiming that what they do not like is not sound! Do you think that it would not be a fair case to put five hundred schoolmasters against five hundred gentlemen of average education?
I think it would be very fair.
The schoolmasters would certainly have the advantage in education: do you mean to say they would make better or wiser electors than the same number of gentlemen who cannot name all the cities and rivers in Italy, nor translate a page of Latin without a mistake, but who understand the conditions of property by practical experience as no schoolmaster can possibly understand them?
I tell you it is nonsense.

Education, of the kind which is of any practical value in the government of a nation, means the teaching of human motives, of humanising ideas, of some system whereby the majority of electors can distinguish the qualities of honesty and common-sense in the candidate they wish to elect.

I do not pretend to say what that system may be, but I assert that no education which does not lead to that kind of knowledge is of any practical use to the voting majority of a constitutionally governed country." Del Ferice sighed rather sadly.
"I am afraid you will not discover that system in Europe," he said.

He was disappointed in Giovanni, and in his hopes of detecting in him some signs of a revolutionary spirit.