400 THE SCHOOL BOARDS XY 



about which so much is now said, but the organi- 

 sation for carrying it into effect already exists. The 

 Science and Art Department, the operations of 

 which have already attained considerable magni- 

 tude, not only offers to examine and pay the 

 results of such examination in elementary science 

 and art, but it provides what is still more import- 

 ant, viz. a means of giving children of high 

 natural ability, who are just as abundant among 

 the poor as among the rich, a helping hand. A 

 good old proverb tells us that " One should not take 

 a razor to cut a block : " the razor is soon spoiled, 

 and the block is not so well cut as it would be with 

 a hatchet. But it is worse economy to prevent a 

 possible Watt from being anything but a stoker, 

 or to give a possible Faraday no chance of doing 

 anything but to bind books. Indeed, the loss in 

 such cases of mistaken vocation has no measure ; 

 it is absolutely infinite and irreparable. And 

 among the arguments in favour of the interference 

 of the State in education, none seems to be 

 stronger than this that it is the interest of every 

 one that ability should be neither wasted, nor 

 misapplied, by any one : and, therefore, that every 

 one's representative, the State, is necessarily 

 fulfilling the wishes of its constituents when 

 it is helping the capacities to reach their proper 

 places. 



It may be said that the scheme of education 

 here sketched is too large to be effected in the 



