Need we remind the reader of the
names of Havelock, Inglis, Neill, and Outram--men of truly heroic
mould--of each of whom it might with truth be said that he had the
heart of a chevalier, the soul of a believer, and the temperament
of a martyr. Montalembert has said of them that "they do honour to
the human race." But throughout that terrible trial almost all
proved equally great--women, civilians and soldiers--from the
general down through all grades to the private and bugleman. The
men were not picked: they belonged to the same ordinary people
whom we daily meet at home--in the streets, in workshops, in the
fields, at clubs; yet when sudden disaster fell upon them, each and
all displayed a wealth of personal resources and energy, and became
as it were individually heroic. "Not one of them," says
Montalembert, "shrank or trembled--all, military and civilians,
young and old, generals and soldiers, resisted, fought, and
perished with a coolness and intrepidity which never faltered. It
is in this circumstance that shines out the immense value of public
education, which invites the Englishman from his youth to make use
of his strength and his liberty, to associate, resist, fear
nothing, to be astonished at nothing, and to save himself, by his
own sole exertions, from every sore strait in life.
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