NATURE AND HAN. 439 



theory of education has been enunciated which fits in with this defence 

 of the continued attempt to compel young men to acquire a knowledge, 

 however imperfect, of the Latin and Greek languages. It is held that 

 what is called ' training the mind ' is the chief, if not the only proper, 

 aim of education; and it is declared that the continuation of the study 

 of those once useful, but now useless, keys — Latin and Greek — is an 

 all-sufficient training. If this theory were in accordance with the 

 facts, the conclusion in favor of giving a very high place to the study 

 so recommended would be inevitable. But the facts do not support 

 this theory. Clever youths are taken and pressed into the study of 

 Greek and Latin, and we are asked to conclude that their cleverness is 

 due to these studies. On the other hand, we maintain that though 

 the study of grammar may be, when properly carried out, a valuable 

 exercise, yet that it is easily converted into a worthless one, and can 

 never in any case take the place of various other forms of mental 

 training, such as the observation of natural objects, the following out 

 of experimental demonstration of the qualities and relations of natural 

 bodies, and the devising and execution of experiment as the test of 

 hypothesis. Apart from * training ' there is the need for providing 

 the mind with information as well as method. The knowledge of 

 nature is eagerly assimilated by young people, and no training in 

 mental gymnastics can be a substitute for it or an excuse for depriving 

 the young of what is of inestimable value and instinctively desired. 



The prominence which is assigned to a familiarity with the details 

 of history, more especially of what may be called biographical history, 

 in the educational system favored by Oxford, seems to depend on the 

 same causes as those which have led to the maintenance of the study 

 of Greek and Latin. To read history is a pleasant occupation which 

 has become a habit and tradition. At one time men believed that 

 history repeats itself, and it was thought to be a proper and useful train- 

 ing for one who would take part in public affairs to store his mind 

 with precedents and picturesque narratives of prominent statesmen 

 and rulers in far-off days and distant lands. As a matter of fact it 

 can not be shown that any statesman, or even the humblest politician, 

 has ever been guided to useful action by such knowledge. History 

 does not repeat itself, and the man who thinks that it does will be led 

 by his fragmentary knowledge of stories of the past into serious 

 blunders. To the fashionable journalist such biographical history 

 furnishes the seasoning for his essays on political questions of the 

 day. But this does not seem to be a sufficient reason for assigning so 

 prominent a place in university studies to this kind of history as is 

 at present the case. The reason, perhaps, of the favor which it re- 

 ceives, is that it is one of the few subjects which a man of purely 

 classical education can pursue without commencing his education in 

 elementary matters afresh. 



