XX. 



THE PLAIN 'ENGLISH' OF IT. 



WHAT a curious, complicate, half-interesting half- 

 provoking problem is that presented by a shrewd, 

 practical, experienced, and well-poised mind, without 

 education \ Of course I am not speaking of that 

 education which every active mind, learned or un- 

 learned, is daily picking up, from the first entrance 

 into real life, till * the night cometh when no man 

 can work ; ' but that particular appropriation of cer- 

 tain early years to the school-room process (even 

 such as it still is !) by which the mind is kneaded, and 

 tempered, and subdued, during its only plastic age, 

 into that peculiar tilth and texture, whose after-benefit 

 is known, not by the mere acquisition of the prescribed 

 formulae and rudiments of knowledge, but chiefly by 

 the having learnt the art of learning. If the know- 

 ledge that is carried away from school or college 



