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ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book. IV 

 Chapter 3 



will, when he comes to maturity, be unable to gratify; 

 nor is any one made better or happier by the develop- 

 ment of gifts which, however exceptional, can, by 

 reason of their incompleteness, do nothing but give 

 currency to error, or initiate abortive action. 



It is the latter of these dangers that is practically 

 the source of the former. The average man would, 

 as has been said already, probably suffer little from 

 over-development under existing systems of edu- 

 cation if it were not for the effects of these systems 

 on inefficiently exceptional men whose superiorities 

 ought never to be developed at all. It is doubtless 

 impossible to avoid this danger completely. If 

 educational opportunities are to be of a kind that 

 will enable the efficiently exceptional to work their 

 way to the top, and advance or maintain civilisation 

 by their influence or domination over others, it is in- 

 evitable that a certain proportion of the inefficiently 

 exceptional will be induced to develop their unhappy 

 capabilities also ; but the number of these may, at 

 all events, be reduced to a minimum. The funda- 

 mental fault of contemporary educational theories is, 

 that in proportion to the completeness with which 

 they were carried out, they would tend to raise 

 the number of these men to a maximum. And the 

 reason why they would have this tendency is that 

 they are founded on two absolutely false principles. 

 The current The first of these principles is, that whatever 



theory that all 



talents should potential talents any man may possess, it is desirable 



foe developed 



is false; to assist and encourage him to develop them to 

 the utmost. The second is that the type of educa- 



It cannot be 

 completely 

 avoided, but 

 present 

 theories of 



to minimise it. 



