i 3 z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



development would be the subject of the same foresight now, which 

 the development of the corporeal powers was wont to call forth ir 

 former days. It might be expected (although strength and activity oi 

 limb are left to come of themselves, under the unaided influence oi 

 that playful restlessness of the young which provides against muscular 

 atrophy) that the training of the higher faculties of the mind into 

 due vigor and perfect symmetry would be carefully studied as a 

 science, and diligently practised as an art. It might be expected 

 that the mechanism of observation and of thought, the nature and 

 order of the processes by which, chiefly, wealth, and power, and fame 

 are to be acquired, would be the subjects of an attention corresponding 

 to the degree in which wealth, and power, and fame are prized. It 

 might be expected that every one the poor man to the extent of his 

 means, and the rich man to the extent of his knowledge would seek 

 to confirm and strengthen in his offspring the qualities by which the 

 world is ruled. 



That the endeavor would not be fruitless, we have abundant evi- 

 dence. Reasoning from an analogy which cannot fail, we find that 

 the human organism scarcely ever approaches, under the influence of 

 casual impressions or spontaneous acts, to any thing like the full meas- 

 ure of its powers. The average athlete is but the corporeal perfection 

 of the average man a perfection the result of labor, and which the 

 common games of youth or pursuits of manhood are insufficient to pro- 

 duce or to maintain. The most striking example upon record of the 

 physical predominance of one class of men over all others with whom 

 they came in contact, was furnished by the Roman legionaries, in the 

 days of the Roman conquests. It may be explained by the system 

 which trained each legionary like a gladiator ; and it disappeared as 

 that system was relaxed and abandoned. The citizens of Rome, as 

 such, could possess no natural superiority over, and in some cases not 

 even an equality with, the inhabitants of the countries they subdued ; 

 but the citizens of Rome were trained to the exercises and formed to 

 the discipline of war. Their physical powers were improved to the 

 utmost, and they were inured to every variety of labor, fatigue, and 

 hardship. The world has not witnessed a school of mental education 

 upon a method so excellent, or upon a scale so grand ; but the prover- 

 bial sagacity of the Jesuits, and the proverbial erudition of the Benedic- 

 tines, may be cited to show that the mind will respond, always in some 

 degree, and often vigorously, to a stimulus greater than that which is 

 supplied by the usual events of life. It has been well said that Nature 

 throws forth her able men as a salmon does its spawn, but produces 

 her great ones as a lioness does her cub singly, and at rare intervals. 

 Whenever the want of an able man is felt and acknowledged, it is 

 almost invariably supplied from among a limited circle of lookers-on, 

 one of whom will find in the occasion a means of at once discovering 

 and developing capabilities formerly dormant. 



