XVI TECHNICAL EDUCATION 411 



callow brains, and they are demoralised by worth- 

 less 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 handicraft to undergo. As to knowing any- 

 thing about anatomy itself, on the whole I would 

 rather he left that alone until he took it up 

 seriously in my laboratory. It is hard work 

 enough to teach, and I should not like to have 

 superadded to that the possible need of un- 

 teaching. 



Well, but, you will say, this is Hamlet with the 

 Prince of Denmark left out ; your " technical 

 education " is simply a good education, with 

 more attention to physical science, to draw- 

 ing, and to modern languages than is com- 

 mon, and there is nothing specially technical 

 about it. 



