THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 



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faculties to be developed, the problem of educa- 

 tion becomes complicated and difficult. 



By the study of what men are we learn of what 

 they are capable, and it is only by study of the 

 child that we shall solve the problem of his proper 

 education. Says Dr. Stanley Hall : " There is 

 one thing in nature, and one alone, fit to inspire 

 all true men and women with more awe and rev- 

 erence than Kant's starry heavens, and that is, 

 the soul and body of the healthy young child. 

 Heredity has freighted it with all the results 

 of parental well and ill doing, and filled it with 

 reverberations from the past more vast than 

 science can explore ; and on its right develop- 

 ment depends the entire future of civilization two 

 or three decades hence. Simple as childhood 

 seems, there is nothing harder to know ; and 

 responsive as it is to every influence about it, 

 nothing is harder to guide. To develop childhood 

 to virtue, power, and due freedom is the supreme 

 end of education, to which everything else must 

 be subordinated as means. Just as to command 

 inanimate nature we must constantly study, love, 

 and obey her, so to control child-nature we must 

 first and perhaps still more piously study, love, 

 and obey it. The best of us have far more to 

 learn from children than we can ever hope to 



