A Liberal Education 55 



and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of 

 the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of 

 the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the 

 laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is 

 full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come 5 

 to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender con- 

 science; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of 

 Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others 

 as himself. 



Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal 10 

 education; for he is, as completely as a man can be, in 

 harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her, 

 and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she 

 as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouth-piece, her 

 conscious self, her minister and interpreter. 15 



Where is such an education as this to be had ? Where 

 is there any approximation to it? Has any one tried to 

 found such an education? Looking over the length 

 and breadth of these islands, I am afraid that all these 

 questions must receive a negative answer. Consider our 20 

 primary schools, and what is taught in them. A child 

 learns : 



1. To read, write, and cipher, more or less well; but 

 in a very large proportion of cases not so well as to take 

 pleasure in reading, or to be able to write the commonest 25 

 letter properly. 



2. A quantity of dogmatic theology, of which the child, 

 nine times out of ten, understands next to nothing. 



3. Mixed up with this, so as to seem to stand or fall 

 with it, a few of the broadest and simplest principles of 30 

 morality. This, to my mind, is much as if a man of 

 science should make the story of the fall of the apple in 

 Newton's garden an integral part of the doctrine of 



