Human Physiology. 463 



The mere rudiments of education, learning to read, write, 

 and reckon, have great value as far as they go. They are 

 keys to knowledge, but they may have little influence on cha- 

 racter or manners. We must train people for what we wish 

 them to become. If we wish them to be honest, we must train 

 them to honesty ; and a great deal of our education, or the 

 influence of our surroundings, is in quite another direction. 

 Truth, gentleness, benevolence, order, obedience, and all the 

 duties which human beings owe to each other, the habits and 

 virtues which make the benefit, comfort, and delight of human 

 society, children can be educated in from their tenderest years, 

 their unsocial faults restrained, and all the social virtues brought 

 into vigorous and habitual action. 



There are schools in England where every boy is said to 

 acquire, from* the general tone of the school, the example of 

 those about him, the traditional behaviour of class after class, 

 more or less of the bearing, manners, and habits of a gentleman. 

 Such schools may not be remarkable for learning or science, 

 but they give a certain stamp of breeding and character which 

 is considered very desirable. And there are schools for young 

 ladies which have a similar influence. If men and women of 

 the highest and purest character, gentlemen and ladies, who 

 have had the best opportunities for culture, would devote 

 themselves to teaching the children and youth of England, as 

 some devote themselves to teaching heathen children in foreign 

 missions, great good might be accomplished. We need here 

 at home, in every town and village, a great deal of true devotion 

 and missionary zeal. 



The faults of education are those of our society. We edu- 

 cate our children for the world as it is; and society educates in 

 its own manners and morals, and so perpetuates and intensifies 

 its evils. Mr. William Howitt, in his notes to "The Mad War 

 Planet," makes a vigorous protest against the Pagan character 

 of our classical education. Boys at the High Schools of Eng- 



