Mental Discipline in fcthieatwn. 441 



nothing but use, and hence spends tin- least, possible time 

 in grinding and polishing tliein. Words are the vehicles of 

 thought; but as the farmer, who, having ten thousand dollars 

 to invest in his business, should put nine thousand of it in 

 wagons to carry his produce to market, reserving only one 

 thousand to buy a farm, would be justly chargeable with 

 stupidity, so the student who invests the principal share of 

 his time and power in variously constructed vehicles of 

 thought, with a corresponding neglect of what they are to 

 carry, is chargeable with an analogous folly. So much 

 of the study of language, and in such forms as are neces- 

 sary to its intelligent use, is demanded in education; but 

 while this places the study upon explicit grounds of utility, 

 by the principle of utility should it be limited. But the 

 lingual student, captivated by the interest of word studies, 

 loses the end in the means. A plough was sent to a bar- 

 barian tribe: they hung it over with ornaments, and fell 

 down and worshipped it. In much the same manner is 

 language treated in education.* 



The old scholasticism sported with symbols, ideal and 

 verbal ; science makes a serious inquest into the reali- 

 ties for which they stand. The greatest secular event in 

 history was this inversion of values among subjects of 

 thought, and the rise of science and conquest of Nature 

 which followed ; and an event of no less moment will be 

 the carrying out of this great intellectual movement in 

 education. 



As respects discipline, these considerations present the 

 question thus: Shall it consist in the mere futile flourish- 

 ing of the instruments of inquiry, or shall it be obtained 



* " There is no study that could prove more successful in producing 

 often thorough idleness and vacancy of mind, parrot-like repetition and 

 sing-song knowledge, to the abeyance and destruction of the intellectual 

 powers, as well as to the loss and paralysis of the outward senses, than our 

 traditional study and idolatry of language." Prof. Halfoni I'aug/ian. 



