vi THE HALL OF SHELLS. 
beyond the school and to make self-culture a habit 
of life. 
Looking more carefully at the difference between 
the two directions of the new education we can see 
what each accomplishes. There is first an effort to 
train the original powers of the individual and make 
him self-active, quick at observation, and free in his 
thinking. Next, the new education endeavors, by the 
reading of books and the study of the wisdom of the 
race, to make the child or youth a participator in the 
results of experience of all mankind. 
These two movements may be made antagonistic 
by poor teaching. The book knowledge, containing as 
it does the precious lesson of human experience, may 
be so taught as to bring with it only dead rules of 
conduct, only dead scraps of information, and no 
stimulant to original thinking. Its contents may be 
memorized without being understood. On the other 
hand, the self-activity of the child may be stimulated 
at the expense of his social well-being—his originality 
may be cultivated at the expense of his rationality. 
If he is taught persistently to have his own way, to 
trust only his own senses, to cling to his own opinions 
heedless of the experience of his fellows, he is pre- 
paring for an unsuccessful, misanthropic career, and 
is likely enough to end his life in a madhouse. 
It is admitted that a too exclusive study of the 
knowledge found in books, the knowledge which is 
aggregated from the experience and thought of other 
people, may result in loading the mind of the pupil 
with material which he can not use to advantage. 
