TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 79 



people to work at high pressure by incessant competitive 

 examinations. Some wise man (who probably was not 

 an early riser) has said of early risers in general, that 

 they are conceited all the forenoon and stupid all the 

 afternoon. Now whether this is true of early risers in 

 the common acceptation of the word or not, I will not 

 pretend to say ; but it is too often true of the unhappy 

 children who are forced to rise too early in their classes. 

 They are conceited all the forenoon of life, and stupid 

 all its afternoon. The vigour and freshness, which 

 should have been stored up for the purposes of the hard 

 struggle for existence in practical life, have been washed 

 out of them by precocious mental debauchery by book 

 gluttony and lesson bibbing. Their faculties are worn 

 out by the strain put upon their callow brains, and they 

 are demoralised by worthless 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 boy- 

 hood. 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 



