This is a discipline that we learn from everything that we have to do; it is not a prerogative of any one study or occupation, and it does not necessarily extend itself beyond the special subject. Because a man can hunt well, it does not follow that he shall be a good politician or a good judge; although in all these functions there. is the common circumstance of taking account of every condition that enters into a given effect. A very superior mind, like Cromwell's, probably transfers the conditions of efficiency from one department to others remote from it; and thus becomes rapidly developed into fitness for new domains of practice.

In our subsequent review of Education Values, the difference between Information and Training will be rendered still more precise.

ONE THING WELL.

This is a favourite commonplace of teaching and of private study. It proceeds upon the idea that it is better to be thoroughly versed in one limited walk of knowledge or culture, than to pass slightly over a wider

area.

There are different senses attached to learning anything well. In the first place, it may mean simply that full habituation to any piece of knowledge or practice that makes it a matter of mechanical certainty and ease; as in the case of a thorough proficient in Arithmetical sums. Long iteration has this effect in everything; and it is indispensable in matters of business occupation.

In the second place, there is a higher form of learn. ing anything well, by which is meant a full and minute acquaintance with all details, qualifications, exceptions,

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and whatever is included in the complete mastery of a large and complicated system. This is the equipment of a thorough lawyer or a thorough physician, who must know both leading doctrines and their varying applications to a wide host of varying circumstances. So much is involved in these professions, that no man is expected to be versed in more than one. So, in any of the leading sciences, there is a kind of mastery that is equally multifarious and absorbing; whether it be the innumerable combinations of mathematical formulæ, the vast details accompanying an experimental science, like Chemistry, or the seemingly still more inexhaustible fields of Botany and Zoology. To be thoroughly accomplished in any one of these branches, we must be content with a limited acquaintance with the other departments. The expression for this higher knowledge is more properly multa than multum; the field may be circumscribed, but its minute and exhaustive survey implies a multitudinous knowledge. For the highest uses of a science, this is the only knowledge that avails.

In the point of view of information, a single fact, if clearly understood, is of value, although no other be drawn from the same source. And even as regards discipline, in the acceptation of special method, this is best learned in a select and limited portion of material; as when we study classification from Botany. In neither of these respects is it necessary to spend time over an exclusive subject. Having a definite purpose, we must pick and choose at many points, and the present maxin, is without relevance.

In a right view of scientific education, the first principles and leading examples, with select details, of all

the great sciences, are the proper basis of the complete and exhaustive study of any single science. This may not be apparent in Mathematics, the first of the fundamental sciences, but it applies to all beyond. A man cannot be a good chemist without possessing, on the one side, a fair knowledge of Physics, grounded in Mathematics, and, on the other, some acquaintance with Physiology. The thorough knowledge of every subject implicates everything that leads up to it, as well as everything that can throw side-lights upon it; although, of course, these aiding subjec s are not mastered to the same extent as the subject that they are intended to assist. In almost all departments of study there are gradations of acquirement, each thorough and sufficient for a given purpose. This is least true of languages; seeing that, till we have reached the point when a language can be used in communication, we have done little or nothing.

In the situation of the beginner in any branch of knowledge, it is expedient to abide by one course, one scheme, one book, although not absolutely perfect. Whenthe very groundwork has to be laid, distracting views are to be avoided. Before criticizing, controverting, or amending a system, the teacher should make his pupils perfectly familiar with its details. In Geometry, Euclid, or whatever other book is chosen, is verbally adhered to, as if it were an infallible revelation; when once thoroughly known, defects may be pointed out, and alternative lines. of demonstration indicated. It is very desirable, notwithstanding, that the book so used should have as few defects as possible. The principle contended for by De Morgan, that Euclid is the best book for begin

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ners because of its defects, is not merely paradoxical but positively unsound. It proceeds upon the admitted necessity of finding some exercises for the pupils' own powers, in teaching a science. But such exercises can be obtained apart from the blunders of a text-book; which blunders, being unintended, cannot, except by the barest accident, answer any purpose of tuition.

The present doctrine is abused in the great English schools by being made the pretext of narrowing the studies to the old traditional classics, as against the admixture of science and modern thought. The allegation is that two or three subjects well taught-meaning Latin, Greek, and Mathematics-do more good than six or seven less well taught, although these may include English, Physics, and Chemistry. The same narrowing tendency is repeated, from the modern side, in the demand for very minute and practical knowledge in such vast and absorbing subjects as Chemistry, Physiology, Zoology. In estimating the value of a branch of study, we must consider not merely what it gives us, but what, through engrossment of our time, it deprives us of.

The multum non multa is in curious conflict with the most popular current definition of education—the harmonious and balanced cultivation of all the faculties.1

There is much force in the following observations quoted from Mr. T. Davison, in Mark Pattison's article on Oxford Studies in Oxford Essays, 1855: A man who has been trained to think upon one subject, or for one subject only, will never be a good judge in that one; whereas the enlargement of his circle gives him increased knowledge and power in a rapidly increasing ratio. So much do ideas act, not as solitary units, but by grouping and combination; and so clearly do all the things that fall within the proper province of the same faculty of the mind, intertwine with and support each other. Judgment lives as it were by comparison and discrimination.'

CHAPTER V.

EDUCATION VALUES.

I WILL now glance at the leading branches of human culture, with a view to seize the characteristic mental efficacy of each. I do not propose to take up every assignable acquisition, but merely those things that enter into the ordinary course of school education. There are various departments of valuable training that properly come under individual self-culture; such are games, arts, and accomplishments.

The carrying out of our design involves a full consideration of the two leading departments, SCIENCE and LANGUAGE. These comprise the great mass of human information in its purest types, and should be thoroughly appraised before entering upon mixed subjects, such as Geography and History. Fine Art will be touched on, and then adjourned to a chapter apart. The mere purely mechanical acquirements, as Drawing and Handicraft, will be considered only in their subser vience to Intellectual Education.

THE SCIENCES.

Of Science generally we can remark, first, that it is the most perfect embodiment of Truth, and of the wavs