422 TECHNICAL EDUCATION xvi 



indeed, for excellence of any sort. Their ambition 

 is to go through life with moderate exertion and a 

 fair share of ease, doing common things in a com- 

 mon way. And a great blessing and comfort it is 

 that the majority of men are of this mind ; for the 

 majority of things to be done are common things, 

 and are quite well enough done when commonly 

 done. The great end of life is not knowledge but 

 action. What men need is, as much knowledge as 

 they can assimilate and organise into a basis for 

 action; give them more and it may become 

 injurious. One knows people who are as heavy 

 and stupid from undigested learning as others are 

 from over-fulness of meat and drink. But a small 

 percentage of the population is born with that most 

 excellent quality, a desire for excellence, or with 

 special aptitudes of some sort or another; Mr. 

 Galton tells us that not more than one in four thou- 

 sand may be expected to attain distinction, and not 

 more than one in a million some share of that 

 intensity of instinctive aptitude, that burning 

 thirst for excellence, which is called genius. 



Now, the most important object of all educa- 

 tional schemes is to catch these exceptional people, 

 and turn them to account for the good of society. 

 No man can say where they will crop up ; like 

 their opposites, the fools and knaves, they appear 

 sometimes in the palace, and sometimes in the 

 hovel ; but the great thing to be aimed at, I was 

 almost going to say the most important end of all 



