in.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 1) 



education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, 

 upon the other side. 



It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such 

 thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose 

 that an adult man, in the full vigour of his faculties, could be 

 suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and 

 then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left 

 uneducated ? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach 

 him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. 

 Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this 

 and avoid that ; and by slow degrees the man would receive an 

 education, which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate 

 to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very 

 few accomplishments. 



And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam, or, better 

 still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral 

 phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with 

 which all others might seem but faint shadows, would spring 

 from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow would take the 

 place of the coarser monitors, pleasure and pain ; but conduct 

 would still be shaped by the observation of the natural con 

 sequences of actions ; or, in other words, by the laws of the 

 nature of man. 



To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as 

 to Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible of any 

 other mode of instruction, Nature took us in hand, and every 

 minute of waking life brought its educational influence, shaping 

 our actions into rough accordance with Nature s laws, so that 

 we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience. 

 Nor should I speak of this process of education as past for any 

 one, be he as old as he may. For every man, the world is as 

 fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties 

 for him who has the eyes to see them. And Nature is still 

 continuing her patient education of us in that great university, 

 the universe, of which we are all members Nature having no 

 Test-Acts. 



