Of the Conduct of the Understanding

what were then the main ingredients of a public-school education, theme-writing, verse-writing, repetition, and grammar, and on the irrational severity which mai-ked the scholastic discipline of that time, may still be read with interest, perhaps even with profit. /Though Locke had refused diplomatic employment, he was frequently consulted by the government and contributed often very largely to the various political measures which were passed during William's reign. Thus, he probably took a considerable share in settling the terms of the Toleration Act of J 689, though the 'small beginnings,' as he calls them, of that act by no means satisfied his ideal of religious liberty. Another order of questions which greatly interested him, and towards the solution of which he probably contributed more than any other man of that generation, was connected with the monetary and financial difficulties which specially embarrassed William the Third's government during its earlier years. It had been proposed to lower the maximum rate of interest, allowed by law, from six per cent, to four, with the mistaken idea that the trade of the country would, by this means, be improved. It had also been proposed to remedy the very serious evils under which the country was suffering from the clipped coinage by * raising the value,' as it was called, or, in other words, lowering the denomination of the silver coins. Both these schemes were opposed by Locke in the tract just referred to, which was dedicated to Somers, an old friend of his, now rapidly becoming one of the most powerful of William the Third's ministers. Two other tracts on the latter of these subjects followed in 1695. But Locke did not content himself simply with opposing the schemes of others.