A Liberal Education 51 



raveled skein of our neighbors. Much more to the 

 purpose is it to ask if we possess any clue of our own 

 which may guide us among these entanglements. And 

 by way of , a beginning, let us ask ourselves What is 

 education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a 5 

 thoroughly liberal education? of that education which, 

 if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves 

 of that education which, if we could mold the fates to 

 our own will, we would give our children. Well, I know 

 not what may be your conceptions upon this matter, 10 

 but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our 

 views are not very discrepant. 



Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and 

 fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, de- 

 pend upon his winning or losing a game at chess. Don't 15 

 you think that we should all consider it to be a primary 

 duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the 

 pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for 

 all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do 

 you not think that we should look with a disapprobation 20 

 amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, 

 or the state which allowed its members, to grow up 

 without knowing a pawn from a knight? 



Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the 

 life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, 25 

 and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do 

 depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a 

 game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. 

 It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every 

 man and woman of us being one of the two players in a 30 

 game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, 

 the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules 

 of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The 



