1855.] On Mental Ediication. 473 



lookers-on ; their desire that the reserved and cautious objector 

 should be in error ; and I wish, by calling attention to these 

 things, to make the general want of mental discipline and 

 education manifest. 



Having endeavoured to point out this great deficiency in 

 the exercise of the intellect, I will offer a few remarks upon the 

 means of subjecting it to the improving processes of instruction. 

 Perhaps many who watch over the interests of the community, 

 and are anxious for its welfare, will conclude that the deve- 

 lopment of the judgment cannot properly be included in the 

 general idea of education ; that as the education proposed must, 

 to a very large degree, be of self, it is so far incommunicable ; 

 that the master and the scholar merge into one, and both dis- 

 appear ; that the instructor is no wiser than the one to be 

 instructed, and thus the usual relations of the two lose their 

 power. Still, I believe that the judgment may be educated 

 to a very large extent, and might refer to the fine arts, as 

 giving proof in the affirmative ; and though, as repects the 

 community and its improvement in relation to common things, 

 any useful education must be of self, I think that society, as a 

 body, may act powerfully in the cause. Or it may still be 

 objected that my experience is imperfect, is chiefly derived 

 from exercise of the mind within the precincts of natural 

 philosophy, and has not that generality of application which 

 can make it of any value to society at large. I can only repeat 

 my conviction, that society occupies itself now-a-days about 

 physical matters and judges them as common things. Failing 

 in relation to them, it is equally liable to carry such failures 

 into other matters of life. The proof of deficient judgment 

 in one department shows the habit of mind, and the general 

 want, in relation to others. I am persuaded that all persons 

 may find in natural things an admirable school for self-instruc- 

 tion, and a field for the necessary mental exercise ; that they 

 may easily apply their habits of thought, thus formed, to a 

 social use ; and that they ought to do this, as a duty to them- 

 selves and their generation. 



Let me try to illustrate the former part of the case, and at 

 the same time state what I think a man may and ought to do 

 for himself. 



