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 uncorrected 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 
meloration and free improvement. Let us have no faith 
in itif it is averred to exert so absolute a tyrauny 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- 
