IIL> TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 71 



noon and stupid all the afternoon. Now whether this 

 is true of early risers in the common acceptation of 

 the word or not, I will not pretend to say ; but it is 

 too often true of the unhappy children who are forced 

 to rise too early in their classes. They are conceited 

 all the forenoon of life, and stupid all its afternoon. 

 The vigour and freshness, which should have been 

 stored up for the purposes of the hard struggle for 

 existence in practical life, have been washed out of 

 them by precocious mental debauchery by book 

 gluttony and lesson bibbing. Their faculties are 

 worn out by the strain put upon their callow brains, 

 and they are demoralised by worthless childish 

 triumphs before the real work of life begins. I have 

 no compassion for sloth, but youth has more need for 

 intellectual rest than age ; and the cheerfulness, the 

 tenacity of purpose, the power of work which make 

 many a successful man what he is, must often be 

 placed to the credit, not of his hours of industry, but 

 to that of his hours of idleness, in boyhood. Even 

 the hardest worker of us all, if he has to deal with 

 anything above mere details, will do well, now and 

 again, to let his brain lie fallow for a space. The 

 next crop of thought will certainly be all the fuller in 

 the ear and the weeds fewer. 



This is the sort of education which I should like 

 any one who was going to devote himself to my handi- 

 craft to undergo. As to knowing anything about 

 anatomy itself, on the whole I would rather he left 

 that alone until he took it up seriously in my labora- 

 tory. It is hard work enough to teach, and I should 



