A Spirit of Self-Reliance
William Gladstone urges Government not to take away from people the things they have a right to do for themselves.
1889
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
William Gladstone urges Government not to take away from people the things they have a right to do for themselves.
1889
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
In 1889, at the opening of Reading and Recreation Rooms at the Saltney Literary Institute in Cheshire, Prime Minister William Gladstone spoke warmly of the benefits of lifelong, self-directed education for the working man, and warned against letting Government take it over.
WE live at a time when there is a disposition to think that the Government ought to do this and that, and that the Government ought to do everything. There are things which the Government ought to do, I have no doubt. In former periods the Government have neglected much, and possibly even now they neglect something. But there is a danger on the other side. If the Government takes into its hands that which the man ought to do for himself, it will inflict upon him greater mischiefs than all the benefits he will have received or all the advantages that would accrue from them.
The essence of the whole thing is, that the spirit of self-reliance, the spirit of true and genuine manly independence, should be preserved in the minds of the people. If the individual loses his self-reliance, if he learns to live in a craven dependence upon wealthier people rather than upon himself, he incurs mischiefs for which no compensation can be made.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.