Note 52 — Chapter XIX · AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION—Continued.

“Mercantile honor is held so high in some countries that the calamity of bankruptcy drives men mad. In France there are numerous instances of almost superhuman struggles on the part of ruined merchants to regain, by patient effort and pinching economy, their lost station in the business community. César Birotteau, Balzac’s hero of such a struggle, dies from excess of emotion in the hour of his triumph. ‘Behold the death of the just!’ the Abbé Loraux exclaims, as he regards, with lofty pride, the expiring merchant.”—“Ten-minute Sketches,” p. 220. By Charles H. Ham. Chicago and New York: Belford, Clark & Co., 1884.