316 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



children, whose dawning intelligence is expanded by Kinder- 

 garten and object lessons. Their subsequent education 

 pursues an equally rational course. So strong is the interest 

 aroused by some elementary teachers that I have often heard 

 working-class children greet holidays with regret. More- 

 over, the education is practical; the knowledge acquired in 

 school links up with the interests of adult life, so that the 

 individual rarely forgets much of that which he has learned 

 in the class-room. We see the result in the growing intel- 

 ligence, the lessened brutality of the hand-workers ; in the 

 fall of the crime-rate ; in the intellectual and moral improve- 

 ment manifested by soldiers and sailors, who we are told 

 are enlisted from the lowest classes. As compared to his 

 progenitors the modern workman has a greatly improved 

 set of mental acquirements. Because more intelligent he 

 is more civilized. 



499. Improvement is less marked in the education of the 

 higher classes. I suppose no healthy child exists among 

 them but detests most of his lessons. Their instructors, from 

 the nursery governess to the university tutor, are seldom 

 trained to teach. Both the subjects taught and the methods 

 by which they are taught seem purposely designed to inflict 

 the maximum of labour, boredom, and suffering, while obtain- 

 ing the minimum of desirable results. All formal education 

 should have two main objects to impart useful information, 

 and to create a right tone of mind. Information that is 

 obviously useful is imparted mainly at the beginning and at 

 the end of the period of instruction. The very young child 

 of the upper classes learns to read and write and acquires 

 the rudiments of mathematics. The nearly grown boy or 

 the young man devotes his time to acquiring the special 

 information which will fit him for his chosen walk in life. 

 Between the two periods is an interval of eight or ten years 

 during which the main endeavour is to form the mind, to 

 develop the thinking faculties. If the lessons by means of 

 which we seek to expand the reflective powers impart at the 

 same time useful information, it is of course so much the better. 



500. Two principal methods of intellectual training are 

 advocated at the present day, the classical and the scientific. 

 The first has been in use for hundreds of years. The second 

 was anciently practised and has now again come into vogue. 

 They cannot both be employed for the same individual with 

 advantage, for the classical method, if pursued with any 

 thoroughness, makes too great a demand on the available time. 

 Moreover, the habits of thought engendered are incompatible. 



