116 A. T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., ON 
however, a distinction might here be drawn with advantage. 
There are some influences of which the child may be altogether 
unconscious—others of which he is conscious as to their external 
effects, but he is unconscious of the influences they are exerting 
on himself; and, I suppose, we might find all degrees and 
gradations between complete consciousness and complete uncon- 
sciousness. But if there are unconscious influences for good, it 
must surely be admitted that there are also unconscious influences 
for evil; and therefore I cannot agree with the statement that if 
one parent adopts all the means “‘at her disposal for the artificial 
fashioning of her child’s mind, and another lets the child run 
absolutely wild, that the result is often to make the former doubt 
the wisdom of her methods.” It may be that sometimes when a 
child is allowed to run wild, by a happy accident good influences 
will predominate; but in the majority of cases the reverse would 
be the result. As far as my own experience goes, the result of 
leaving a child to run wild before he has any conscious power of 
his own to refuse the evil and to choose the good, is simply 
disastrous. 
Nor can I agree with the next point—that “the education of 
the unconscious mind is nature’s education, natural and therefore 
’_or at least, I must. 
divine, instead of artificial and thus human’ 
protest against the idea that seems to be implied that what is haman 
is less divine than what is merely natural; for surely what is truly 
human is at once the highest and most divine thing in nature, 
and the conscious powers of man are higher and more divine than 
his unconscious powers. And what can I say as a schoolmaster to. 
the dictum that “the least valuable part of education is that 
which we owe to the schoolmaster, and the most precious lessons 
are those which we learn out of school”? Now of course if we 
give the widest meaning to the term “education,” so as to make 
it include the discipline of life with all its efforts and failures, its. 
hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows, it is then a mere truism to say that. 
this is a far greater thing than school education; but taking 
education in the narrower sense in which the term is generally 
used, is it true to say that what we owe to the school or school- 
master is only or even chiefly the conscious training of the 
intellect? I think not. J perfectly agree with what Dr. 
Schofield says—that “every parent who has a son at Hton or 
Harrow, well knows that the greatest value to the boy is the 
