Mental Discipline in Education. 419 



regular college studies, or to their neutralization by the 

 vigorous pursuit of other subjects; and equally notorious 

 that in numberless other cases, where the student has sur- 

 rendered himself to college influences and conquered his 

 curriculum, exactly in proportion to his fidelity has been 

 his defeat. He has mastered a disqualifying culture. In 

 hundreds of instances it has been the lot of the writer to 

 listen to expressions of bitter regret on the part of college 

 graduates at the misdirected studies and the misapplied 

 time which their " liberal " education had involved. * O 

 that I had some knowledge of those imminent questions 

 that are urging themselves on public attention, in place of 

 my college lumber / " is a stereotyped exclamation in these 

 cases. And this turn of expression discloses the worst 

 aspect of the matter,, for the lumber cannot be got rid of. 

 The mind is not a reservoir to be emptied and refilled at 

 pleasure. The student has not been preparing a soil for 

 future sowing; he has sown it, and to extirpate the roots 

 will consume half a lifetime. In the most plastic period 

 of receptivity he has been making acquisitions and forming 

 habits which, by coercing his attention and engrossing his 

 thoughts, will operate powerfully to obstruct subsequent 

 mental operations ; for if they do not help, they must inev- 

 itably hinder. 



In the preceding pages, after pointing out some of the 

 special disciplinary defects of the traditional scheme of 

 study, I have endeavored to show that in its very concep- 

 tion of mental training there is involved enormous waste of 

 power, and in its course of study a total nonrecognition 

 of the great law by which alone the highest mental attain- 

 ment can be reached. I have also shown that this errone- 

 ous conception of discipline, by ignoring the great ends 

 of culture, and the adaptation of studies to them, not only 

 wastes power, but gives a false preparation for life. It re- 



