THE ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE 533 



riot aiming at the application of theories which might or might not 

 hold true. The teaching of { modern ' subjects has not as yet settled 

 into custom similarly guided by the observation of results. The 

 essential difference between the classical and the modern system is the 

 difference between training and teaching. A classical education is 

 practically a training pure and simple: a modern education is a com- 

 bination of training and teaching with mainly a teaching aim. In 

 the pressure and struggle of life it is undoubtedly to the advantage 

 of young people that they should, when they leave school, not only 

 have the strength and agility which will enable them to use any weapon, 

 but also skill in handling the particular weapons with which they 

 will be called upon to fight. Like most other questions, there is no 

 absolute distinction between the two systems — their difference is a 

 matter of degree. The parent to whom money is of no consequence 

 may allow his sons an indefinite — that is to say, a classical — training 

 in the assurance that they will afterwards get a surer and more intel- 

 ligent grasp of the subjects upon which will depend their success in 

 the battle of life. He is wise in allowing them to continue their 

 general mental training if he is quite sure that the delay thus caused 

 will not prevent them from making their way to the first fighting 

 rank when they come to the front. Such a delay is not, so far as I 

 can judge, detrimental to success in preparing for the professions. 

 Eather is the delay a good thing in itelf, for various more or less 

 indirect reasons which, we need not discuss. But in the case of com- 

 mercial life the handicap is, I gather, heavily in favor of those who 

 are early in the field. The luxury of a classical education may prove 

 costly, either by delaying the acquisition of business methods, or by 

 causing the novice to hurry over and consequently to scamp the 

 inevitable routine of business training. Every business is based 

 upon knowledge of a specialized kind. It may be little more than 

 bookkeeping, or it may include a considerable acquaintance with vari- 

 ous branches of geography, science, modern languages, or other sub- 

 jects. The successful merchant who is fond of asserting that his sons 

 must begin their work young by ' learning to lick stamps ' is thinking 

 of the business machine which he has made, and which will continue 

 to work so long as it is kept well oiled; he is not thinking of new 

 developments, new competition, new needs for adaptation which will 

 give fortunes to those who have brains and take them away from mere 

 office machines. 'Licking stamps' was not the basis and source of 

 the business methods which he himself developed, although he is fond 

 of vaunting it as the open sesame of an ever-swelling banking account. 

 It is a perverse and paradoxical expression of a half-truth; but its 

 enunciation indicates a stupid incapacity of recognizing the causes 

 of success in the past, and a still more stupid inability to recognize 

 the trend of the forces which will make for success in the future. 



