Why should it not transform some at least among the boys and girls who are thinking of entering the teaching profession into Egerias, or at any rate into teachers of Egeria's type?
Even as it is, replicas of Egeria,--not exact replicas, for she is too original to be easily replicated, but teachers who, like her, preach and practise the gospel of self-education,--are beginning to spring up in various parts of the country; and each of their schools, besides being a centre of light, may well become a nursery for teachers who will follow in the footsteps of those who have trained them, and will in their turn do pioneer work in other schools.

The thin end of the wedge is even now being driven into the close-grained mass of tradition and routine; and each successive blow that is struck by a teacher of intelligence and initiative will widen the incipient cleft.
The dream, then, of leading the children of England--the children of the "masses" as well as of the "classes"-- into the path of self-realisation, is not so widely impracticable as to convict the dreamer of insanity.

And if we could realise the dream, if we could go but a little way towards realising it, how immense would be the gain to our country! If the average level of mental development in England were as high as it is in Utopia, to what height would not the men and women of exceptional ability be able to rise?
The mountain peaks that spring from an upland plateau soar higher towards the sky than the peaks, of the same apparent height, that spring from a low-lying plain.

And "the great mountains lift the lowlands on to their sides." But this is not the only reason why the gospel of self-realisation should be preached in all parts of the land.

There is another reason which is becoming more and more urgent.