to which they are subjected; and it is little wonder, in general, that it should be so. But, if an effort were being vigorously made to carry every natural faculty they possessed to its perfection—to make the eyes quick and true, the voice sweet and full, the hearing sensitive and discriminating, the bodily movements vigorous and graceful, and so on—the beneficence of the process would impress itself even on the juvenile mind, and thus half the battle would be gained, for we want the children's confidence before we can do them much good. Nothing, we believe, would do so much toward the development of the all-important quality of self-respect as a careful physical training. It would, on the one hand, promote individuality, inasmuch as the child would be made to feel what he or she was capable of individually, and, on the other, it would promote a true comradeship, as it would awaken a consciousness of that common physical nature, with its varied powers, of which all partake.
Here, therefore, is a part of education about which there can be no mistake—a preparation for perfect living in the physical sense—that perfect living which economizes both mental and moral force, and places the individual in a position of advantage for the accomplishment of all the ends of life. Under a system which made due provision for this kind of training, questions of diet, of clothing, of exercise, of ventilation, of bodily habits, and so forth, would, of course, be carefully considered, and whatever was best in all these respects would be suitably held up for guidance and instruction. It is true that there is much that is defective from a hygienic point of view in the home life of nearly all classes, and on that very account it is important that true hygienic principles should be inculcated, in a manner as free as possible from pedantry, in the schools; for if the children can be taught simply and clearly the conditions on which their health and comfort depend, they will themselves exert a wholesome influence in the household.
What Paul said to the Athenians might be said to-day to ourselves: We are in all things too superstitious, and particularly in the matter of education. Instead of seeking as we do now to see how much we can cram into youthful minds, or in other words how much ot the elastic force of the brain we can destroy—for that is what it comes to in at least a multitude of cases—we should consider all so-called knowledge contraband of the childish mind until its assimilable character has been fully demonstrated. When we are satisfied that it will act as food and not as the mere stuffing of the taxidermist to bulge out the intellectual nature into a conventional shape, let us impart it, and not before; but do not let us give too much even of food, remembering that the animal which goes in search of its own food gets the highest and best development, the most ingeniously adapted structure, the widest range of faculty. The most fatal fault we can commit is that of unduly taming and domesticating the mind, so to speak, so that it expects to be fed by others, instead of going abroad to see what the universe will do for it.
The more we expect from education, the less we are apt to get from it in the way of useful results. We form an idea of a highly rationalized man of refined intellectual and artistic tastes, with perhaps a large element of moral idealism, and generally "up to date"; and that we set up, as Nebuchadnezzar did his brazen image, for all the world to bow down to. The object of education, we think, is to produce something like that. Well, education isn't going to do it. Men of that kind have always been exceptional, nor is it education that has given them the qualities we so much admire. If education had done it for them, why then, doubtless, it could do it for others; but what do we see? From the same
