74 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT. 



of difficulties and dangers, under the most favourable 

 circumstances ; and, even among the well-to-do, who 

 can afford to surround their children with the most 

 favourable conditions, examples of a career ruined, 

 before it has well begun, are but too frequent. More- 

 over, those who have to live by labour must be shaped 

 to labour early. The colt that is left at grass too 

 long makes but a sorry draught-horse, though his way 

 of life does not bring him within the reach of artificial 

 temptations. Perhaps the most valuable result of all 

 education is the ability to make yourself do the thing 

 you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether 

 you like it or not ; it is the first lesson that ought 

 to be learned ; and, however early a man's training 

 begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns 

 thoroughly. 



There is another reason, to which I have already 

 adverted, and which I would reiterate, why any ex- 

 tension of the time devoted to ordinary school- work 

 is undesirable. In the newly awakened zeal for 

 education, we run some risk of forgetting the truth 

 that while under -instruction is a bad thing, over- 

 instruction may possibly be a worse. 



Success in any kind of practical life is not depend- 

 ent solely, or indeed chiefly, upon knowledge. Even 

 in the learned professions, knowledge, alone, is of less 

 consequence than people are apt to suppose. And, if 

 much expenditure of bodily energy is involved in the 

 day's work, mere knowledge is of still less importance 

 when weighed against the probable cost of its acquire- 

 ment. To do a fair day's work with his hands, a 



