THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. 103 
Now the secret is that, through good luck it may be 
rather than good care, the “wild” child has been cast 
amongst unnoticed forces, beneficial to its character, that 
have trained its unconscious mind and produced the better 
result of the two. 
And this brings us to a further point in the education of 
the unconscious mind. It is nature’s education, natural, and 
therefore divine, instead of artificial and thus human. This 
education is no invention of ours. All that is done here is to 
point out its existence and its importance, and indicate the 
methods by which the education may be guided into good 
and wise channels, instead of bad ; always remembering that 
for good or ill, this education steadily proceeds all ouv lives, 
though pre-eminently in childhood. 
“The soul (unconsciously) observes and reflects and as- 
similates the countless products of nature;and art which 
enter it. The result is formation of character, and all which 
we call life is impressed. The influences from without make 
a man what he is.”* 
‘We are momentarily under the influence of outward 
events, which are registered within, and become, as it were, 
part of ourselves; being, indeed, factors in most of our 
feelings and motives.” f 
“The least valuable part of education is that which we 
owe to the schoolmaster (conscious); the most precious 
lessons are those which we learn out of school (uncon- 
scious). f 
Let us not, however, think from this that direct teaching, 
instruction, and precept, too, have not their right and proper 
place, but it is indeed a far lower and humbler one than that 
generally imagined, and far indeed from occupying the 
exclusive place it has been given. 
Three varieties of education are possible with regard to 
consciousness and unconsciousness: First, there is the 
ordinary education; the conscious instruction of the con- 
scious; as, for example, in being taught the French lan- 
guage by a master and books. Secondly, there is the 
unconscious education of the conscious; or in other words, 
the education of the conscious through the unconscious. In 
this it is the unconscious mind that is primarily reached, but 
* Dr. Jno. Pollock, Book of Health, p. 525. 
t Ibid., p. 524. 
{ Sir J. C. Browne, Book of Health, p. 345. 
