MODERN OVER-EDUCATION. 403 



enough ; an exception, of course, must be made of those who are in- 

 tended for a learned profession, and especially of those whose life is 

 to be spent in instructing others. Clergymen and schoolmasters must 

 be well instructed, or they can not teach. A certain number of schol- 

 ars and men of science are necessary, but it is not necessary that any 

 of us should attempt the acquisition of universal knowledge. It is 

 not possible, nor desirable, if it were possible, that all should become 

 Bentleys or Porsons. Education does enough if it puts into the hands 

 of youth the key of knowledge, and teaches how to use it. It does 

 too much if it exhausts the brain, and burdens the memory with an 

 immense number of facts which can not be permanently retained with 

 sufficient accuracy to be useful, and which as frequently dwarf as en- 

 large the intellect by checking its tendency to originate. The creative 

 faculties of the mind are its noblest part, and what encouragement to 

 them is given by the system of modern education ? An original opin- 

 ion expressed in an essay may run counter to the prejudices and hurt 

 the feelings of the examiner, who promptly revenges himself by de- 

 priving the examinee of the marks to which he is fairly entitled. This 

 is no imaginary case, but it can be corroborated by many an unlucky 

 victim of this Chinese system, who has not comprehended that we 

 have imported with it the Celestial habit of close imitation, and that 

 we must now not only read but think in a groove, and follow, as closely 

 as we are able to discover them, the peculiarities of the examiner's 

 mind, after the manner of the Chinese tailor who, being directed to 

 make a European coat on the model of an old one supplied to him, re- 

 produced it in facsimile, patches and all. Fortunately, most of these 

 professors have written books ; it is, therefore, in most cases easy 

 enough to win their good graces by a slavish imitation, which is said 

 to be the most delicate and seductive kind of flattery. Thus both are 

 ingeniously demoralized, and learning certainly is not advanced. But 

 are not the advantages of education, even of the best, greatly over- 

 rated? One spark of genius is worth all that was ever taught in 

 schools. Who are the men who have enlightened and transformed 

 the world ? Certainly not the most highly educated. It might almost 

 be maintained that those who have done most have learned least from 

 others. Alexander the Great, indeed, was highly educated for his 

 time, but, as he began active life at sixteen, when he commanded 

 a wing of his father's army at the battle of Chseronea, he had not 

 leisure to acquire much ; and it may safely be affirmed that it was 

 not the precepts of Aristotle which showed him how to overthrow the 

 Persian Empire, and leave a name which will be remembered as long 

 as the world shall last. His acute intellect, his daring spirit, his 

 boundless ambition, resistless and untiring energy, and his iron will 

 were his instructors, and made him the master of the world. "Sweet- 

 est Shakespeare, Fancy's child," did not acquire the power to warble 

 " his native wood-notes wild " at the village school, which yet prepared 



