22O LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



individuality and make each child the counter- 

 part of the standard child, often a very low 

 standard. At the most impressionable age, 

 we send our children to schools in which the 

 effort is to turn out boys and girls all knowing 

 the same thing, taking the same view of every 

 topic, and approaching more closely to a type 

 with which educated persons have really very 

 little sympathy. It is a standard in which the 

 commonplace dominates. Matthew Arnold at- 

 tributed the uninteresting character and mo- 

 notony of much of the casual talk which he 

 heard in our public places to the universal cus- 

 tom of sending children to the public schools. 

 Spencer holds that there is no harm, but rather 

 good, in allowing a child to grow up a healthy 

 animal almost ignorant of ordinary school rudi- 

 ments until he reaches the age of eight or ten. 

 By that time it is to be hoped that he will be 

 less plastic, and that the influence of home 

 surroundings will have brought out an individu- 

 ality not to be effaced by the routine schooling 

 of the next few years. The tendency to do 

 away with book lessons for young children has 

 always seemed to me one of the healthiest 

 signs of the day, and with my own children 



