120 ON THR EXPEDIENCY AND MEANS OF 



deed is his type and monogram " for there is no man alone, because 

 every man is a microcosm and carries the whole world about him."* 



The relation of the school. — The humiliation of the profession 

 through the educator, has most effectually abolished that course of 

 education which would be most suitable, to the universal and indi- 

 vidual mind. The educator receives no authority but his own will, 

 nor is answerable, for the efficiency of his plan. Children are sent 

 to learn, the quality of that learning is generalized under the term 

 liberal or classical education. This monitory process includes the 

 mechanism of writing, spelling, English grammar, arithmetic, ele- 

 mentary geography, and the church catechism, to which elaborate 

 course of study may be added the higher claims of instruction in the 

 classics, the French language, and the use of the globes, a few et ce- 

 teras fill up the " prospectus," crowned with the finishing accom- 

 plishments of the '' gentleman and the scholar'' as dancing, fencing, 

 and elocution. There is no speculation more fallacious than what in 

 the world is called a liberal or a commercial education. A liberal edu- 

 cation, however much it may promise in the school prospectus and 

 school system usually ends in the acquisition of a certain rote know- 

 ledge of the latin grammar, and a very loose way of translating 

 some of the school classics, which has been so drummed into the 

 mind, or rather memory of the scholar, that they ever after look 

 upon classical books with indifference or disgust. 



The useful knowledge of grammar, writing, and cyphering, and 

 geography which belong alike to the classical and commercial 

 schools, is so inadequately taught, or at least so indifferently learned, 

 that knowledge of one or all of these studies is with most persons 

 obtained in after life, and of which, the greater number of respect- 

 able persons are after all comparatively ignorant. How few are 

 there of the liberally instructed, who could analyze a single sen_ 

 tence grammatically, or even apply one rule of all they had formerly 

 learned ; if it were honestly confessed the greater number of per- 

 sons are egregiously ignorant of the philosophy of their own lan- 

 guage, and not until after the experience of many years are the 

 simplest rules understood, no wonder therefore that the speaking of 

 most persons is hesitating and their language incorrect and obscure. 

 Writing which is so plain and easy an art, (after consuming many 

 years in labouring at it) is generally no further useful than to kill 



• Religio Medici, p. 160. 



