XX. 



THE PLAIN "ENGLISH" OF IT. 



WHAT a curious, complicate, half-interesting, half- 

 provoking problem is that presented by a shrewd, 

 practical, experienced, and well-poised mind, without 

 education. Of course I am not speaking of that 

 education which every active mind, learned or un- 

 learned, is daily picking up, from the first entrance 

 into real life, till " the night cometh when no man 

 can work ; " but that particular appropriation of 

 certain early years to the school-room process, (such 

 as it still is!) by which the mind is kneaded, and 

 tempered, and subdued, during its only plastic age, 

 into that peculiar tilth and texture, whose after- 

 benefit is known, not by the acquisition of the 

 prescribed formula and rudiments of knowledge, 

 but chiefly by the having learnt the art of learning. 

 If the knowledge that is carried away from school, 



or college, were all, Heaven help our First-class-men 

 9* 



