ABSTRACT
The opportunity of development for which Kay-Shuttleworth was waiting seemed to have come in 1846. Lord John Russell was once more Prime Minister, and the repeal of the Corn Laws had checked the rise in the cost of living, and thrown open the ports to the cheap corn which railways and steamships would soon be bringing from the bounteous prairies of North America. The Ten Hours Bill had not yet been passed, but in their hearts the nation had accepted it; and recognized that even the working man had a right to live as a human being. The attitude to education had changed.
The clergy have, God be praised, preached down effectively that heresy of which I remember the prevalence, according to which even good men were induced to suppose that the all-wise God had given to men immortal minds, capable of great things, without the intention, with respect to a large portion of the human race, that it should be exercised. That ungodly selfishness is now exploded by which the upper classes of society were induced to suppose that mental pleasures were a luxury reserved for their exclusive enjoyment. 1
