(iii) That all obstacles be removed out of the way of schools.
“For it is of no use to give precepts,” says Seneca, “unless the obstacles that stand in the way be removed.” But of this we will treat in the following chapter.
Fourth Principle
26. Nature is not confused in its operations, but in its forward progress advances distinctly from one point to another.
For example: if a bird is being produced, its bones, veins, and nerves are formed at separate and distinct periods; at one time its flesh becomes firm, at another it receives its covering of skin or feathers, and at another it learns how to fly, etc.
27. Imitation.—When a builder lays foundations he does not build the walls at the same time, much less does he put on the roof, but does each of these things at the proper time and in the proper place.
28. In the same way a painter does not work at twenty or thirty pictures at once, but occupies himself with one only. For, though he may from time to time put a few touches to some others or give his attention to something else, it is on one picture and one only that he concentrates his energies.
29. In the same way the gardener does not plant several shoots at once, but plants them one after the other, that he may neither confuse himself nor spoil the operation of nature.
30. Deviation.—Confusion has arisen in the schools through the endeavour to teach the scholars many things at one time. As, for example, Latin and Greek grammar, perhaps rhetoric and poetic as well, and a multitude of other subjects. For it is notorious that in the classical schools the subject-matter for reading and for composition is changed almost every hour throughout the day. If this be not confusion I should like to know what is. It is just as if a shoemaker wished to make six or seven new
