362 NATURE AND LIFE. 



health. It is not a question about disturbing classical 

 studies or the humanities, which will continue to be the 

 chief element of moral culture ; it is a question merely of 

 finding out whether children might not gain an acquaint- 

 ance with the treasures of Latin and Greek learning a lit- 

 tle more quickly and more thoroughly, and at the same 

 time live in a little closer intercourse with modern in- 

 terests. Many of those things are never taught them, 

 though they are such as might be taught them with great 

 advantage to their mental development. This is not the 

 place to dwell upon the subject ; but it does seem, and 

 nobody doubts it, that by a vigorous training, one that 

 aims boldly at renovation, it might be possible, if not, as 

 Leibnitz asserted, to change the nature of a people, at least 

 to destroy most of those causes of decline to which a people 

 surrenders itself when unconnected by suitable discipline. 



The conviction that it is possible actively to counter- 

 vail the dangerous tendencies of heredity, and to triumph 

 over its ruinous domination, at least in the region of morals, 

 is, moreover, one of the most wholesome that could gain 

 currency and credit in the world. To will strongly, is of 

 itself the power to do. Even though it were not so easy 

 as it really is to quell those blind forces by the mere ascen- 

 dency of a firm and enlightened will, there still would be 

 reasons for persuading men that they are their own masters 

 as to modifying and correcting themselves ; that they are 

 not the playthings of an unbending fate, and that they 

 have no right to give way to their evil instincts without 

 resistance and without remorse. Let us have faith in the 

 might of heredity in so far as it can become a means of 

 melioration and free improvement. Let us have no faith 

 in it if it is averred to exert so absolute a tyranny that it 

 would be folly to refuse submission. Education should not 

 only take the improvement of men for its aim, it should also 

 assume the task of animating them with a passion for im- 



