A LIBERAL EDUCATION 43 



mentioned to you ; you shall not so much as know that there are such 

 things as economical laws. 



"The mental power which will be of most importance in your daily 

 life will be the power of seeing things as they are without regard to au- 

 thority ; and of drawing accurate general conclusions from particular 5 

 facts. But at school and at college you shall know of no source of truth 

 but authority; nor exercise your reasoning faculty upon anything but 

 deduction from that which is laid down by authority. 



"You will have to weary your soul with work, and many a time eat 

 your bread in sorrow and in bitterness, and you shall not have learned 10 

 to take refuge in the great source of pleasure without alloy, the serene 

 resting place for worn human nature, the world of art." 



Said I not rightly that we are a wonderful people ? I am 

 quite prepared to allow, that education entirely devoted to 

 these omitted subjects might not be a completely liberal edu- 15 

 cation. But is an education which ignores them all, a liberal 

 education? Nay, is it too much to say that the education 

 which should embrace these subjects and no others, would be 

 a real education, though an incomplete one ; while an educa- 

 tion which omits them is really not an education at all, but a 20 

 more or less useful course of intellectual gymnastics ? 



For what does the middle class school put in the place of 

 all these things which are left out ? It substitutes what is 

 usually comprised under the compendious title of the "clas- 

 sics" - that is to say, the languages, the literature, and the 25 

 history of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the geography 

 of so much of the world as was known to these two great na- 

 tions of antiquity. Now, do not expect me to depreciate the 

 earnest and enlightened pursuit of classical learning. I have 

 not the least desire to speak ill of such occupations, nor any 30 

 sympathy with those who run them down. On the contrary, 

 if my opportunities had lain in that direction, there is no inves- 

 tigation into which I could have thrown myself with greater 

 delight than that of antiquity. 



