4 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



boards make continually increasing demands upon the property of the 

 rich, and, in the true spirit of all Liberal legislation, tyrannically en- 

 croach upon the liberties of the poor. Cramming and competition, 

 standards and examinations, are being multiplied to such an extent 

 that they occupy a large portion of human life, which is becoming a 

 scene of probation indeed, in a sense in which the phrase was never 

 before used. At this rate of progress we seem likely soon to arrive at 

 the educational absurdity which prevails in the Chinese Empire, where 

 an official in his ninetieth year has recently passed his " final examina- 

 tion," which places him on the pinnacle of Chinese wisdom and enrolls 

 him in the most exalted rank of mandarins, a sublime elevation which 

 the lengthened period of study it has taken to acquire it has left him 

 little time to enjoy. 



But, in spite of all this clamor, it is open to question whether the 

 present rising generation are well educated, or even educated, in the 

 original and natural sense of the word, at all. The Latin word ednco, 

 from which our English w r ord is derived, means simply to draw out or 

 train. To strengthen the faculties, to sharpen the intelligence, and to 

 form the character are any of these objects attained, or even aimed 

 at, in modern education ? Practically only one faculty memory is 

 cultivated at the expense of all the rest, and that is overburdened. 

 The impossible is attempted, and the young mind strained and ex- 

 hausted, rather than strengthened, in the desperate effort to acquire a 

 superficial acquaintance with almost every form of human knowledge, 

 in order to answer the catch-questions of an examiner, who would be 

 baffled by his own wisdom if he had not the resource of referring, 

 when his memory fails him, to his notes or his books. A boy has 

 now no time to digest and assimilate what he acquires, nor has he any 

 encouragement to do so. He must " think nothing gained while aught 

 remains," and push on to new conquests until either the dreaded day 

 of examination arrives, or his health breaks down, and renders him 

 unfit to be examined, or perhaps unequal to any occupation at all. 

 The simple course of education of the ancient Persians, to ride, to 

 draw the bow, and to speak the truth, had its advantages as compared 

 with the modern system. Of course, in these days it is not possible to 

 be satisfied with so limited a curriculum, though the native virtue of 

 speaking the truth might with advantage be cultivated much more 

 diligently than it is, more especially by some of our public men, who, 

 by-the-way, are the real teachers, for they it is who complete the edu- 

 cation of men Avho in their turn teach the youth. But some approach 

 might be made to the simplicity of the Greek system, -which, based 

 upon the truism that it is impossible to overstrain the mind in a 

 healthy body, in full exercise, seems to have been directed chiefly to 

 strengthening the frame and the mental powers without exhausting 

 either, cultivating a taste for study, and to acquiring the arts of 

 rhetoric and elocution. For most men at the present day this is 



