A Liberal Education 59 



won't make me less of either one or the other unless 

 somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing 

 to wise and good purposes. 



Suppose any one were to argue that medicine is of no 

 use, because it could be proved statistically, that the 5 

 percentage of deaths was just the same, among people 

 who had been taught how to open a medicine chest, and 

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

 sight. The argument is absurd; but it is not more pre- 

 posterous than that against which I am contending. The 10 

 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 15 

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

 the first drug 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 20 

 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 25 

 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 30 

 schools, those to which the great middle class of the 

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

 struction given in the primary schools? There is a little 



