EDITOR'S TABLE. 



119 



needed for life, he was pointed to 

 the hrilliant men who had come 

 from the forms and the playgrounds 

 of Eton and Winchester and Har- 

 row; and the discussion was consid- 

 ered closed. The fact is that the radi- 

 cal insufficiency of the system was 

 masked to a great extent hy the cir- 

 cumstance that it was mainly applied 

 to a ruling class, who early in life 

 obtained a more practical training 

 in public affairs. Pitt was educated, 

 as has been remarked, by that great 

 statesman, his father, the Earl of 

 Chatham, and Peel by a great manu- 

 facturer who took a keen interest in 

 politics. Robert Walpole, leaving 

 the university at an early age, had 

 the society of his father, a most 

 practical - minded country squire, 

 whose original ambition had been to 

 make him the greatest grazier in the 

 kingdom. Many similar cases could 

 be cited in which early introduction 

 to society and to practical life made 

 up for the deficiencies of scholastic 

 training, and reflected, or seemed to 

 reflect, on that training a much great- 

 er credit than it deserved. 



It may be admitted, however, that 

 as a preparation for a political or 

 forensic career an old-fashioned clas- 

 sical education was not wholly with- 

 out efficacy. It was systematic and 

 orderly ; it was rigid in its require- 

 ments; it presented difficulties which 

 had to be overcome, and afforded the 

 means for unmasking looseness and 

 inaccuracy of thought ; finally, it 

 called into constant activity, though 

 in a narrow field, the discriminative 

 and analytical faculties. Its weak- 

 ness lay in this, that it did not reveal 

 the nature of things, but promoted a 

 dangerous habit of " moving about 

 in worlds not realized," and of giv- 

 ing to words an importance which 

 should only be conceded to verified 

 and comprehended facts. 



Nowadays we mix, or try to mix, 

 a modicum of scientific knowledge 



with the education we impart. This 

 is so far good. It affords a trainiug 

 in observation and verification, and 

 opens up to the young sources of 

 interest of which they may increas- 

 ingly avail themselves in later years. 

 Moreover, as the scientific instruc- 

 tion generally embraces more or less 

 of physiology and hygiene, it places 

 them on their guard against the 

 formation of injurious habits, and 

 shows them the conditions on which 

 health depends. These are advan- 

 tages which, so far as they go, it is 

 impossible to appreciate too highly. 

 It takes more, however, than the 

 admixture of a little physical science 

 in a school curriculum to make, in a 

 wide sense, the education that is re- 

 quired for life. What is further re- 

 quired is a proper adjustment of the 

 mind toward life with its varied 

 activities and its infinite possibili- 

 ties of good and evil. When we see 

 men of fine literary gifts growing 

 more cynical as they advance in 

 years, and treating the world to 

 stronger and stronger doses of pes- 

 simism in their writings, we are com- 

 pelled to believe that their adjust- 

 ment to life must have been wrong. 

 When we see men of science who 

 year by year appear to have less and 

 less in common with their fellow- 

 creatures, and whose studies only 

 develop on the intellectual side an 

 ever-increasing passion for the in- 

 finitely minute and the vastly unim- 

 portant, and, on the moral, a morbid 

 sensitiveness to all kinds of personal 

 questions, we find it difficult to think 

 that they were properly oriented at 

 the start. It may not be given to 

 every one to " see life steadily and 

 see it whole" ; but it ought to be 

 possible for a well-trained mind to 

 see it with an eye of calm, tolerant, 

 and sympathetic contemplation. No 

 education is complete wdiich leaves 

 out such knowledge of the world, 

 and of the relation which the indi- 



