A. [. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., ON EDUCATION. 101 
shrink from the words, that there are unconscious psychic 
powers, and that these can be educated; and not only so, 
but that it is on their proper education rather than on that 
addressed to consciousness that the most important part of 
the character of the individual depends. Dr. Carpenter, for 
example, says :— 
“There are two sorts of influence: that which is active 
and voluntary and which we exert purposively ; and that 
which is unconscious and flows from us unawares to our- 
selves. The influence we exert unconsciously will hardly 
ever disagree with our real character.’* 
Of course education in the ordinary sense knows nothing 
of this. “For a long time the error prevailed that for a 
child’s first learning there was absolute necessity of a 
teacher, as if only complete thought could be impressed on 
the child’s brain, and that only by this means the mind 
would finally be developed in the right manner. Herein lies 
a gross fallacy.’t ‘The fallacy is, in fact, that only the 
conscious mind is susceptible of education. 
What is generally understood by early education and 
child-training is the guidance of the child consciously, by 
rules and commands and precepts (a fresh one, may be, each 
day) enforced by smacks and slaps and other penal measures 
many times a day, coupled with direct instruction in A, B, C, 
1, 2, 3, and other forerunners of intellectual culture. 
Herbert Spencer forcibly describes the prevailing ignorance 
and what ordinarily passes as parental education. “ While 
it is seen that to gain a livelihood an elaborate preparation 
is needed, it appears to be thought that for the bringing up of 
children no preparation whatever is needed. Not an hour is 
spent by either a boy or girl in preparation for that gravest 
of all responsibilities—the management of a family. No 
rational plea can be put forward tor leaving the act of Educa- 
tion out of our curriculum. The subject which involves all 
other subjects, and that in which education should cul- 
minate is the theory and practice of education. The 
management of children is lamentably bad. In most cases 
the treatment adopted on every occasion is that. which the 
impulse of the moment prompts, and varies from hour to 
hour, as the feelings vary.’ 
* W. B. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 4th edit., p. 542. 
+ Preyer, Mental Development of Childhood, p. 66. 
{ Herbert Spencer, Hducation, pp. 95, 96. 
