PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION 83 



because he cannot get partridge. Finally, I would add 

 instruction in either music or painting, or, if the child 

 should be so unhappy, as sometimes happens, as to 

 have no faculty for either of those, and no possibility 

 of doing anything in any artistic sense with them, then 

 I would see what could be done with literature alone ; 

 but I would provide, in the fullest sense, for the devel- 

 opment of the aesthetic side of the mind. In my judg- 

 ment, those are all the essentials of education for an 

 English child. With that outfit, such as it might be 

 made in the time given to education which is within 

 the reach of nine-tenths of the population with that 

 outfit, an Englishman, within the limits of English life, 

 is fitted to go anywhere, to occupy the highest posi- 

 tions, to fill the highest offices of the State, and to be- 

 come distinguished in practical pursuits, in science, or 

 in art. For, if he have the opportunity to learn all those 

 things, and have his mind disciplined in the various 

 directions the teaching of those topics would have ne- 

 cessitated, then, assuredly, he will be able to pick up, on 

 his road through life, all the rest of the intellectual bag- 

 gage he wants. 



If the educational time at our disposition were suffi- 

 cient, there are one or two things I would add to those 

 I have just now called the essentials ; and perhaps you 

 will be surprised to hear, though I hope you will not, 

 that I should add, not more science, but one, or, if pos- 

 sible, two languages. The knowledge of some other 

 language than one's own is, in fact, of singular intellec- 

 tual value. Many of the faults and mistakes of the 

 ancient philosophers are traceable to the fact that they 

 knew no language but their own, and were often led 

 into confusing the symbol with the thought which it 

 embodied. I think it is Locke who says that one-half 



