Xll PREFACE. 



poor man a proprietor of books, lay in a glorious new art that 

 clothed all literature in a bodily frame of surpassing beauty and 

 usefulness, and placed it in the hands of the common people in a 

 form that before the invention of printing the greatest kings would 

 have envied; and which even Virgil or Cicero would not have dis- 

 dained as the material pedestal of their immortality. This art, 

 simpler and more universal than writing, was not lower but im- 

 measurably higher than its predecessor, whose services were for the 

 noble and the learned. 



Another illustration : The means of locomotion or material pro- 

 gress — what is their history ? Up to a recent date the coaches and 

 high-roads furnished nearly the only mode of land traveling. Jour- 

 neys by them were restricted to a small portion of the community. 

 The more the coaches were perfected, and the better horsed, the 

 more expensive and select they became. How shall we popularize 

 traveling ? By a viler expedient — of canals, carts, and the like ? 

 This too existed, but it was used merely for necessity, and did not 

 attract, or tend to make all men into travelers. To effect the latter 

 result, an invention grander and cheaper than had then traversed 

 space was required. To move the rich needed only a four-horse 

 coach running in an agony of ten miles an hour ; but to move the 

 poor required cars before which those of the triumphing Caesars must 

 pale their ineffectual competition. Thus though the problem was 

 the enfranchisement of the meaner classes from the fetters of pedes- 

 trianism, yet the only solution of it lay in the increased convenience 

 of all ranks from the noble to the peasant, and not in the degrada- 

 tion, but the elevation of the locomotive art. 



And so it must be, as we apprehend, with human knowledge ; the 

 arts of education that will summon the people to learn, are toto coelo 

 different from, and greater than, those which have been sufficient 

 for the schools. A petty magnet is sufficient to take up a few hun- 

 dreds of isolated persons ; but when the nations are to be attracted, 

 there is nothing less than the earth that will draw their feet. 



Here we touch the gist of the matter; for it is in fact powers of 

 attraction in knowledge that are demanded for the new education. 

 There are three heads to this, which form one. In the first place, 

 attractive knowledge gains the learner and keeps him. In the 



