444 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual; for veracity is the 

 heart of morality.* 



This declaration should be accepted as the fundamental principle, 

 and the very inner spirit, of true education in all departments and as 

 being as truly characteristic of the right form of culture as of the 

 correct method of seeking professional knowledge. It is a character- 

 istic of every correct form of study or of aspiration. 



The 'ladder' which, in our country, leads 'from the gutter to the 

 university' for every man who, possessing brain and physical vigor, 

 wills it, includes the successive rounds of the public-school system. 

 The purpose of that organization is to fit, as well as may be, 'all sorts 

 and conditions' of youth for the life of the average citizen of our repub- 

 lic. It properly includes in its curriculum only those subjects which 

 are of most value to the average citizen and it can not, and should not 

 be expected to, provide either those luxuries of education rightfully 

 desired by the well-to-do, or the special forms of training demanded by 

 those proposing to enter on special lines of work, as into either of the 

 professions. If it offers manual training, it is because that is found, 

 on the whole, advantageous to all citizens, and sufficiently so to justify 

 its insertion into an already crowded curriculum. Should, here and 

 there, as in Europe, often, a trade-school be established, it should be 

 justified by the general demand, among the people of the vicinity, for 

 such a training; being a requirement of the place as a seat of the 

 special manufacture, or, as with the common trades, by its systematic 

 teaching of principles and methods that meet the needs of all and 

 which can not be as readily, perfectly, completely and economically 

 taught by other systems. 



That 'ladder' includes our secondary schools, in which a selected 

 body of youth are collected who have been found, by a sort of evolu- 

 tionary selection, to be exceptionally well fitted to receive that higher 

 sort of instruction. Here it is often possible for a determination of 

 the choice of vocation intelligently and safely to be made. The pole- 

 star may be discovered and the course may be laid directly for the 

 desired haven. But this course must be steered, as best possible, 

 through available and safe channels and the youth seeking ultimately 

 to enter a great profession may be compelled often indeed, greatly to 

 his advantage to follow the courses set for him by the school which 

 is intended to promote the education of other sorts of minds. It is 

 commonly the fact, however, that the studies here offered include those 

 fundamentals of professional preliminary work which should always 

 be acquired previous to entrance upon purely professional study and 

 hence time is not wasted in securing this, which is also, fortunately, 

 always desirable culture. 



* Huxley, * Coll. Essays/ III., 189. 



