732 THE DISEASES AND DISORDERS OF THE OX. 



only to the necessity of providing them with the requisites of 

 healthy life. 



** Whether we hold that the Government of a country should 

 employ direct means to secure the right bringing up and care of 

 the minds as well as the bodies of the young, and, if so, what 

 the nature and extent of that direct method should be, or 

 whether, on the other hand, we are disposed to believe that the 

 governing powers should not directly interpose and interfere, all 

 must agree that one great aim of every nation should be to 

 foster to the utmost the spirit of culture and research. 



'* This being so, those who are practically engaged in the work 

 of education feel that they are right in asking for, and even, we 

 will add, justified in demanding, the interest and influence of all. 



" The great differences of opinion on this subject of training, 

 and the widely divergent views of those who have had years and 

 years of practical experience in teaching, constitute «ufficient 

 evidence that men have at least been convinced that there are 

 still presented for solution major and minor problems of the 

 greatest difficulty. Indeed, it needs but little exemplification 

 to show that much advance must still be made in our methods 

 of tuition, and especially is there need for light in the choice of 

 subjects and parts of subjects to be taught, in order that there 

 may be the least possible expenditure of time and labour and 

 friction in bringing about a knowledge of the most essential 

 principles, and the chief facts which support such principles, on 

 the part of the pupils. It has been insisted that it should not 

 be our object to lessen the difificulties encountered in the process 

 of learning. Only a little consideration, however, is needed to 

 show how erroneous this view is. It is doubtless true that facts 

 which have been easily learned place the learner on a vantage 

 ground, the importance of which he is apt to under-rate. Yet 

 we must remember that this argument would apply to every one 

 bom at this epoch, inasmuch as we are all ** heirs of past ages.^' 

 It would obviously be impossible for us to realise, even in a dim 

 degree, the labour that has been done for us by our pro- 

 genitors. Further, they, too, had advantages bequeathed to 

 them in like manner, and, unless they had possessed them, recent 

 discoveries could not have been made. To those who are 

 sanguine and optimistic in their views — and it is one of the best 

 signs of the times that men are holding up their heads with firm 



