42 A LIBERAL EDUCATION 



education of us in that great university, the universe, 

 of which we are all members Nature having no 

 Test-Acts. 



Those who take honours in Nature's university, 

 who learn the laws which govern men and things and 

 obey them, are the really great and successful men in 

 this world. The great mass of mankind are the " Poll," 

 who pick up just enough to get through without much 

 discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; 

 and then you can't come up again. Nature's pluck 

 means extermination. 



Thus the question of compulsory education is settled 

 so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question 

 was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compul- 

 sory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful 

 in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as 

 wilful disobedience incapacity meets with the same 

 punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even 

 a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow 

 without the word. It is left to you to find out why your 

 ears are boxed. 



The object of what we commonly call education 

 that education in which man intervenes and which 

 I shall distinguish as artificial education is to make 

 good these defects in Nature's methods; to prepare 

 the child to receive Nature's education, neither in- 

 capably nor ignorantly, nor with wilful disobedience; 

 and to understand the preliminary symptoms of her 

 pleasure, without waiting for the box on the ear. In 

 short, all artificial education ought to be an anticipa- 

 tion of natural education. And a liberal education is 

 an artificial education which has not only prepared a 

 man to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural 

 laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to seize 



