Page 200 - erewhon

With the less well-dressed classes the harm was not so
great; for among these, at about ten years old, the child has
to begin doing something: if he is capable he makes his
way up; if he is not, he is at any rate not made more inca-
pable by what his friends are pleased to call his education.
People find their level as a rule; and though they unfortu-
nately sometimes miss it, it is in the main true that those
who have valuable qualities are perceived to have them and
can sell them. I think that the Erewhonians are beginning
to become aware of these things, for there was much talk
about putting a tax upon all parents whose children were
not earning a competence according to their degrees by the
time they were twenty years old. I am sure that if they will
have the courage to carry it through they will never regret
it; for the parents will take care that the children shall begin
earning money (which means ‘doing good’ to society) at an
early age; then the children will be independent early, and
they will not press on the parents, nor the parents on them,
and they will like each other better than they do now.
This is the true philanthropy. He who makes a colossal
fortune in the hosiery trade, and by his energy has succeed-
ed in reducing the price of woollen goods by the thousandth
part of a penny in the pound—this man is worth ten pro-
fessional philanthropists. So strongly are the Erewhonians
impressed with this, that if a man has made a fortune of
over 20,000 pounds a year they exempt him from all taxa-
tion, considering him as a work of art, and too precious to
be meddled with; they say, ‘How very much he must have
done for society before society could have been prevailed

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