nr.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 39 



among those who did not so much as know the key by 

 sio-ht. The argument is absurd ; but it is not more 

 preposterous than that against which I am contending. 

 The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other 

 woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and 

 write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of 

 the wisdom box. But it is quite another matter whether 

 he ever opens the box or not. And he is as likely to 

 poison as to cure himself, if, without guidance, he 

 swallows the first diw that comes to hand. In these 

 times a man may as well be purblind, as unable to read 

 — lame, as unable to write. But I protest that, if I 

 thought the alternative were a necessary one, I would 

 rather that the children of the poor should grow up 

 ignorant of both these mighty arts, than that they should 

 remain ignorant of that knowledge to which these arts 

 are means. 



It may be said that all these animadversions may 

 apply to primary schools, but that the higher schools, at 

 any rate, must be allowed to give a liberal education. 

 In fact, they professedly sacrifice everything else to this 

 object. 



Let us inquire into this matter. What do the higher 

 schools, those to which the great middle class of the 

 country sends it children, teach, over and above the in- 

 struction given in the primary schools ? There is a little 

 more reading and writing of English. But, for all that, 

 every one knows that it is a rare thing to find a boy of 

 the middle or upper classes who can read aloud decently, 

 or who can put his thoughts on paper in clear and gram- 

 matical (to say nothing of good or elegant) language. 

 The " ciphering'' of the lower schools expands into 

 elementary mathematics in the higher ; into arithmetic, 

 with a little algebra, a little Euclid. But I doubt if 



