78 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



English elementary education. I do not mean that lie 

 shall be able to pass in such and such a standard that 

 may or may not be an equivalent expression but that 

 his teaching shall have been such as to have given him 

 command of the common implements of learning and to 

 have created a desire for the things of the understanding. 



Further, I should like him to know the elements of 

 physical science, and especially of physics and chemistry, 

 and I should take care that this elementary knowledge 

 was real. I should like my aspirant to be able to read a 

 scientific treatise in Latin, French, or German, because 

 an enormous amount of anatomical knowledge is locked 

 up in those languages. And especially, I should require 

 some ability to draw I do not mean artistically, for 

 that is a gift which may be cultivated but cannot be 

 learned, but with fair accuracy. I will not say that 

 everybody can learn even this ; for the negative devel- 

 opment of the faculty of drawing in some people is 

 almost miraculous. Still everybody, or almost every- 

 body, can learn to write ; and, as writing is a kind of 

 drawing, I suppose that the majority of the people who 

 say they cannot draw, and give copious evidence of the 

 accuracy of their assertion, could draw, after a fashion, 

 if they tried. And that "after a fashion" would be 

 better than nothing for my purposes. 



Above all things, let my imaginary pupil have pre- 

 served the freshness and vigour of youth in his rnind as 

 well as his body. The educational abomination of deso- 

 lation of the present day is the stimulation of young 



