TECHNICAL EDUCATION X 71 



with the most favourable conditions, examples of a 

 career ruined, before it has well begun, are but too 

 frequent. Moreover, those who have to live by 

 labour must be shaped to labour early. The colt 

 that is left at grass too long makes but a sorry 

 draught-horse, though his way of life does not bring 

 him within the reach of artificial temptations. Per- 

 haps the most valuable result of all education is the 

 ability to make yourself do the thing you have to 

 do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or 

 not ; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned ; 

 and, however early a man's training begins, it is 

 probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. 



There is another reason, to which I have already 

 adverted, and which I would reiterate, why any ex- 

 tension of the time devoted to ordinary school- 

 work is undesirable. In the newly-awakened zeal 

 for edu Cation, we run some risk of forgetting the 

 truth that while under-instruction is a. bad thing, 

 over-instruction may possibly be a worse. 



Success in any kind of practical life is not de- 

 pendent solely, or indeed chiefly, upon knowledge. 

 Even in the learned professions, knowledge 

 alone, is of less consequence than people are apt 

 to suppose. And. if much expenditure of bodily 

 energy is involved in the day's work, mere know- 

 ledge is of stillless importance when weighed against 

 the probable cost of its acquirement. To do a fair 

 day's work with his hands, a man needs, above all 

 things, health, strength, and the patience and cheer- 



