1S4 SCIENCE AND ART AND EDUCATION vii 



mankind are more deficient than in any otlier 

 mental quality whatever. The whole of my lii'c 

 has been spent in trying to give my proper atten- 

 tion to things and to be accurate, and I have 

 not succeeded as well as I could wish; and other 

 people, I am afraid, are not much more fortu- 

 nate. You cannot begin this habit too early, and 

 I consider there is nothing of so great a value as 

 the habit of drawing, to secure those two desira- 

 ble ends. 



Then we come to the subject-matter, whether 

 scientific or a}sthetic, of education, and I should 

 naturally have no question at all about teaching 

 the elements of physical science of the kind I 

 have sketched, in a practical manner; but among 

 scientific topics, using the word scientific in the 

 broadest sense, I would also include the elements 

 of tlie theory of morals and of that of political 

 and social life, which, strangely enough, it never 

 seems to occur to anybody to teach a child. I 

 would have the history of our own country, and 

 of all tlio influences which have been brought to 

 bear u])on it, with incidental geography, not as a 

 mere chronicle of reigns and battles, but as a 

 chapter in the development of the race, and the 

 history of civilisation. 



Then with res])ect to aesthetic knowledge and 

 discii)line, we have happily in the English lan- 

 guage one of the most magnificent storehouses of 

 artistic beauty and of models of literary excellence 



