X NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



men and women quite fit for all that you expect from education ; they 

 come to me, and they talk to me, about things that belong to natural 

 science ; about mesmerism, table-turning, flying through the air, about 

 the laws of gravity ; they come to me to ask me questions, and they 

 insist against me, who think I know a little of these laws, that I am 

 wrong and they are right, in a manner which shows how little the or- 

 dinary course of education has taught such minds. Let them study 

 natural things, and they will get a very different idea from that which they 

 have obtained by that education. It happens up to this day. I do not 

 wonder at those who have not been educated at all, but such as I refer 

 to, say to me, ' I have felt it, and done it, and seen it, and though I have 

 not flown through the air, I believe it.' * Persons who have been fully 

 educated according to the present system, come with the same propo- 

 sitions as the untaught and stronger ones, because they have a stronger 

 conviction that they are right. They are ignorant of their ignorance 

 at the end of all that education. It happens even with men who are 

 excellent mathematicians. * * * Who are the men whose powers 

 are really developed ? Who are they who have made the electric tele- 

 graph, the steam engine, and the railroad? Are they the men who 

 have been taught Latin and Greek? Were the Stephensons such? 

 These men had that knowledge which habitually had been neglected 



o * o 



and pushed down below. It has only been those who, having a 

 special inclination for this kind of knowledge, have forced themselves 

 out of that ignorance by an education and into a life of their own." 



The language of the other gentlemen consulted was of the same 

 tenor, and equally urgent for a change in the dominant system. They 

 showed that the physical sciences might be safely studied before the 

 languages are commenced ; that they might be pursued hand in hand 

 with the languages without crowding and with a gain of time. And 

 they especially insisted that no nation in this day can safely continue 

 a system of education which ignores the study of natural laws and the 

 physical constitution of the globe. 



In a recent series of lectures published by Prof. Max Muller on 

 the " Science of Language," this distinguished linguistic authority 

 thus speaks of the usefulness of the study of modern languages in 

 throwing light upon the laws of language : 



" The importance of the modern languages for a true insight into 

 the nature of language, and for a true appreciation of the principles 

 which govern the growth of ancient languages, has never been suffi- 

 ciently appreciated. Because a study of the ancient languages has 

 always been confined to a small minority, and because it is generally 

 supposed that it is easier to learn a modern than an ancient tongue, 

 people have become accustomed to look upon the so-called classical 



