Education Quote by Henry Mayhew

Raw facts are cheap; Mayhew is arguing that meaning is the real luxury good. His line treats a “fact” as inert material, something that doesn’t automatically enlighten just because it’s accurate. Only when you fit it into a pattern (“assimilated with”) or separate it from misleading neighbors (“discriminated from”) does it earn the “dignity of a truth.” That word choice is pointed: truth isn’t presented as a divine bolt, but as a social and intellectual achievement, conferred through comparison, sorting, and judgment.

The subtext is a rebuke to the Victorian faith that piling up information equals progress. Mayhew, a journalist famous for documenting London’s working poor with obsessive detail, knew how easily reportage can become a cabinet of curiosities: vivid, numerous, and finally numbing. He’s warning his own profession that data without framing is just noise - and that “knowledge” isn’t delivered to “the mind” by dumping observations onto the page. It has to be processed, argued into place, made legible against other realities.

There’s also a quiet ethical angle. “Discriminated from” isn’t snobbery here; it’s responsibility. If you don’t distinguish one fact from another, you invite false equivalence, sensationalism, and the comforting lie of neutrality. Mayhew’s intent is methodological but also moral: the journalist’s job is not merely to witness, but to organize the witnessed world so readers can actually understand it - and act on it.