It was proudly shared by some of the best
educated men in the service. I do not wish it to be
supposed, however, that many of them had more than a very
ordinary elementary education; but be that as it may, they
got along uncommonly well with the little they had. Mr.
Forster's Educational Bill of 1870, together with Wesleyan
Methodism, have done much to nullify that cultivation of
ignorance, once the peculiar province of the squire and the
parson. Amongst other influences, Board Schools have
revolutionised (especially in the villages and seaport
towns) a condition that was bordering on heathenism, and no
class of workmen has benefited more than seamen by the
propaganda which was established by that good Quaker who
spent his best years in hard effort to make it possible that
every English child, no matter how poor, should have an
education.
At the time of the passing of the Education Act there were
thousands of British lads who were absolutely illiterate
(this does not apply so much to Scottish boys); and there
were hundreds of master-mariners who could neither read nor
write, and who had a genuine contempt for those who could.
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