tal capacity, which is the indispensable requisite and best preparation for future success in life. But may not classical studies conduce to this? Must not classical studies conduce to this? Just take a glance at the sort of mental exercise to which a student of the learned languages is daily and hourly set. A passage from a Greek or Latin author is put before him, which he is required to parse and translate without any other help than his grammar and dictionary. He has to analyse every sentence, every clause, every phrase, every word. He has to be ever awake to the minutiae of inflexion and gender, of number and person, of tense and mood, of syntax and quantity. He has to discriminate between the radical and the secondary import of words. He has to weigh the value of synonyms and expletives. He has to ascertain the precise force of idiomatic phrases. He has to distinguish the delicate shades of meaning which particular terms and expressions take from the scope of the context, or from the peculiar style of the author. Nor is this elaborate and searching analysis all. He has further to put the whole together synthetically, arranging every part in grammatical order, and collecting the exact sense. And then, hardest task of all, he has to translate the passage, sentence by sentence, into the vernacular tongue-taking care that his version, while idiomatically different from the original, shall yet faithfully reproduce every shade of thought and every felicity of diction. Is such an exercise child's play? Can such an exercise be daily gone through, without serving to evolve and invigorate the mental powers? Why, at every stage of such a task the pupil must think and take heed, compare and combine, reflect and decide-always awake and vigilant, always holding to his object and hunting down his game always working with all his faculties on the stretch. Surely, if any exercise can furnish a real gymnastic for the youthful mind, it must be this. The boy who quits the classical school with a mind thus drilled and disciplined, can scarcely be an eventual loser, even should he forget every word of the learned languages. "His Greek and Latin may evaporate from his brain, as water from the body after a bath; but from having learnt what he has forgotten, his mind may possess quickness and strength-just as a swimmer, after his immersion, possesses greater physical capacity as the result of the past invigorating exercise."*

Nor is this mere theory. The surpassing power of classical studies as an engine of mental culture, is a great fact To the classics, next to Christianity, is the world indebted for that mighty awakening of the human mind which dates from the era of the Reformation. By the classics have nearly all the great men of modern times been disciplined for the parts. they have played in Church and State. And rare is it even now to find a man of real intellectual greatness, whose mind has not acquired its strength and nimbleness in wrestling with the ancient tongues. Indeed there is that in the very structure of these noble languages which must ever render them the most bracing of all studies for the intellect; while, in the exquisite style of the classic authors, and the consummate finish of their productions, there is a no less effectual provision for the culture and refinement of the taste. Such marvellous command over language do the Greek and Roman writers display, and with such invariable felicity do they select the very words and the very collocation of words best fitted to transfer to the reader's mind the precise idea and emotion in their own, that there is scarce a sentence in their works-nay, scarce a phrase, which does not furnish an agreeable and stimulating exercise and study for the critical and æsthetic faculties. In their hands, as Gibbon finely remarks, language "gives a soul * Binney on Education, p. 8.

to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy." There is no idea however shadowy, and no feeling however evanescent, which their lustrous phraseology does not enable them to photograph. There is no mood of mind, grave or gay, pensive or joyous, indignant or compassionate, into which they cannot cast you, by the spell and enchantment of their felicitous diction. Sometimes they awe you by periods which roll like thunder; and sometimes they electrify you by single words which flash like lightning. Now with utterance bold and brief they stir the spirit, like the sudden clang of trumpets; and now with linked sweetness long drawn out they take the prisoned soul, and lap it in Elysium. Adopt what form of composition they may-poem or oration, dialogue or narrative, they are ever able, by their wondrous mastery over language, to kindle up within you the very fire which two thousand years ago warmed their own bosoms. Since the days of the poets and orators of Greece and Rome, mankind have made astonishing progress in physical science and in commercial enterprize. The earth has been circumnavigated-the stars have been weighed-the printing press and the power-loom have been invented-the sunlight has been made our painter, and the electric fluid our messenger. But in all that falls within the province of taste-in architecture, sculpture, poetry, eloquence, the dead Greeks and Romans still remain unrivalled, unapproached; masters whom the artist and the author contemplate with "admiring despair."

V. The next misconception which I shall examine relates to what is styled professional education-that is, the kind of education best fitted to prepare a youth for the worldly calling to which he is destined. The notion on this point is, that a boy's education should correspond to his future vocation, and be conducted with an express view to that. Every branch of study, it is thought, should be determined, and every attainment measured, by its subserviency to his future calling. Of this plan the most zealous and consistent advocate is the father of Maria Edgeworth, who, in his elaborate work on the subject, contends that you ought to fix on your son's future profession from his childhood, and forthwith begin to regulate his studies and amusements accordingly. His doctrine is, that you cannot begin too soon to teach your little barrister to spout, your little physician to botanize, your little soldier to march; and that it is only by means of such appropriate studies, early commenced and exclusively pursued, that you can effectually qualify him for the sphere and station which he is in after life to occupy. It is not probable that many will agree with Mr. Edgeworth in thinking that the process should begin so early. Few parents, I suppose, would wish to see the nursery peopled with little orators, and doctors, and generals. Most parents, I suppose, would laugh at the folly of calling a boy to the bar as soon as he could articulate, or giving him a medical diploma before his bones were set, or appointing him to a regiment the moment he could keep the step. But very many parents are quite at one with Mr. Edgeworth in the notion that education ought to be distinctively professional, and mainly directed to professional attainments. "This boy," be an engineer; why waste his time upon the classics ?" tended for the law; what use has he for the sciences?" evermore after schools with fine professional names, such as "commercial schools," "military schools," "schools for engineers.' Schools which profess to give only a general or liberal education, they taboo as unworthy of their notice.

*

they say, "is to "That boy is inTheir enquiry is

Now, there are various fatal objections which I might urge against this plan of educating exclusively for a calling. I might urge, for one thing, * Davidson's Remains-Remarks on Edgeworth's Essays.

that it ignores the difficulty of settling, at the commencement of a boy's studies, what his future profession is to be a difficulty great in any case, but quite insuperable in the case of that numerous class of youths whose distinctive capacities and preferences do not develop themselves till a late period of boyhood. I might urge, for another thing, that it proceeds upon far too limited a view of the scope of education. Is your boy to be merely a lawyer, a physician, a soldier? Is he not to be a man as well? And why, then, should his training be professional, to the exclusion of that more comprehensive culture which is necessary to him as a man, and equally necessary in every condition of life?

But waiving these and other like considerations, I think it a sufficient condemnation of this system, to say that it is inadequate to even the limited object which it contemplates. It proposes to qualify boys for their future callings, and, as a means thereto, it relies on studies which bear an express reference to those callings. But is this method the best for the end proposed? I affirm that, so far from being the best, it is not even the proper method.

It is true, that, to fit a person for his calling, he must be taught the branches of knowledge which relate to it. It is true that the lawyer must be taught law; the physician, medicine; the divine, theology. But then, I contend, that, in order to become a good lawyer, or a good physician, or a good divine, he must be taught a great deal more besides law, or medicine, or theology. Is professional ability a thing which can be acquired apart from the general cultivation of the mind? Can a man attain to usefulness in his profession-not to speak of eminence—if he is without that disciplined judgment which enables him to seize the strong point in his subject, and separate what is essential from what is adventitious? Yet, where and how shall he acquire general mental power and capacity, if you confine him to purely professional studies? Mere professional training may make him a pedant, but never a man of sound practical judgment. It may give onesidedness to his mind, but never comprehensiveness; even as special training makes a pointer all nose. If he is trained to think on only one subject, he will never be a good judge on even that one. To ensure him "that real sense and sagacity which are of all professions alike," and equally indispensable in all, you must send him to those liberal studies which are and have ever been the only sure nurse of generous talent. Professional studies can only furnish him with his materials, his data, his facts. The capacity to use his materials, to reason upon his data, to apply his facts, must be gained from those masculine studies, classical and philosophical, whose proved tendency is to evolve and invigorate the whole intellectual nature.

And this view is corroborated by the fact, that professional pursuits do of themselves tend to contract the mind, apart from the superfluous help of a narrowing education. Men whose life is spent in a single engrossing pursuit, are generally one-idead and self-opinionative, conceited pedants in their own walk, and veriest children out of it. Their minds, by being concentrated on one subject, seem to lose the power of looking comprehensively on any other; just as the eye, after being intently fixed on one colour, loses the power of distinguishing surrounding colours. Your mere lawyer, your mere divine, your mere literateur, is not only a pedant within his own beat, but a simpleton beyond it, or if not a simpleton, he is worse -he is crotchetty and impracticable. Did a mere theologian ever yet make a good man of business? or a mere savans a useful member of parliament? We are told that Napoleon, after giving La Place a seat in the imperial cabinet, was obliged to turn him out because of his incapacity for business.

And we all recollect what a mess was made of the affairs of the French nation by that knot of sciolists who supplanted Louis Philippe. It is instructive to remember that Lamartine, Arago, Louis Blanc, and the other members of the Provisional Government were nearly all of them professional men, lawyers, savans, literateurs. And not less instructive is it to remember, as a per contra, that in our own island, whose public affairs have been so much better managed, there has not been, during the last fifty years, more than three cabinet ministers-Brougham, Macaulay, and Disraeli-who have gained distinction on the field of letters or science. Thus indubitable is the tendency of a professional life to dwarf and distort the mind. How foolish, then, to aggravate that tendency by a strait-jacket system of education. When a narrow professional spirit is already but too ready to grow spontaneously, how preposterous to prepare a hotbed for forcing it. Surely the wise and proper course with reference to boys destined to a profession, is to forestal the narrowing tendency of the profession by first giving them a thoroughly liberal education-an education which, instead of imparting undue force to one set of faculties at the expense of the rest, shall draw out and develop all and each of the faculties equably and harmoniously. Universal experience teaches nothing more emphatically than this, that able thinkers have evermore been formed, not by the parsimonious limitation of their thoughts to one definitive subject or class of subjects, but by the free discursive exercise of their minds on many subjects, and that with no further end in view than the growth and gratification of their intellectual being.

VI.-The only other misconception to which I shall advert, regards the education of females of the upper and middle classes of society.

The notion that general learning is not so necessary for young ladies as ornamental and showy accomplishments, is perhaps not quite so much in vogue as it once was. Yet it is far from being wholly obsolete. Boys, it is thought, should be introduced to various learning, and subjected to stringent intellectual discipline. But for girls an arduous course of study is considered unsuitable. What use have girls for the dead languages, or the philosophy of grammar, or the more rigorous sciences? If they can read and write, talk a little French, perform on the piano or the harp, and recollect the chief facts of geography and history,--is not that enough for them? Anything beyond that would make them blues!"

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Now I hold that girls cannot be too thoroughly versed in language and philosophy. I hold that, much as boys require the intellectual bracing of liberal studies, girls require that bracing yet more. Only think of the arduous and responsible duties which await girls when they grow up to be women. Are not girls-to name but one thing-the destined mothers and moulders of the generation to come? Is that a function which can be performed aright by ill-educated women? Can a mother duly nurture her child, implant right principles, and inspire pure tastes, if she is not herself a woman of sense, and solid information, and cultivated faculties? Admit as you cannot but admit-that on her does it devolve, far more than on the other parent, to shape and fashion those tastes and tendencies in which "the child is father to the man; admit as you cannot but admitthat on its future mothers, far more than on its future fathers, does our race depend for its physical, intellectual, and moral well-being, and you must also admit that it would be wiser and safer for us to dispense with well-educated men than to dispense with well-educated women.

Nor is it merely on the ground of their high and responsible function as mothers, that I claim for females a thorough intellectual culture, I claim

it on the further ground of their peculiar temperament. Woman is, confessedly, more susceptible, more imaginative, more enthusiastic than man; and consequently in greater need than he of the check and counterpoise of a well-informed and disciplined judgment. Cut off by her domestic insulation from the active pursuits of this "working-day world," she is prone to substitute the imaginary for the real, and to live in an ideal world of her own creating. Her affections and hopes fix, of course, on the men and things around her; but it is on the men and things, not as they really are, but as they appear in the glowing colours of her own imagination. And hence, when brought into actual contact with them, she is often destined to experience the bitterness of disappointed hope and misplaced affection.

Suppose the case of a young lady who has received only that showy, shallow education which a fashionable boarding-school provides. Suppose her of active imagination and quick sensibility, but without a disciplined judgment and taste. Suppose her to have returned from school, and to have "come out," as it is called. How does she now occupy her mind and spend her time? Why, by help of music and Berlin wool, of shopping and sight-seeing, of concerts and evening parties, a portion of her days and nights is consumed pleasantly enough. But she has still some spare time upon her hands, which must drag heavily along without something to excite and amuse her vacant mind. How does she spend it? Perhaps as a resource she takes to reading,—but to what sort of reading? Unfit and indisposed to grapple with books which require close attention and strenuous thought, she resorts to works of fiction-to novels and plays, and these of the secondary class. The higher works of fiction have too much of this real, every-day world about them for her taste. Her passion is for the sentimental and the romantic-for stories of love and tales of wonder. And so to these she repairs for mental entertainment; and out of these she builds up a dreamland of hopes and aspirations which squares not at all with the actual world, and only creates a distate for its commonplace duties and cares. Her brother, of the same age, who has commenced his profession, may sometimes read the same class of books. But his life is too much in contact with realities to render such reading of equal peril to him. He reads as an amusement; and however morbidly stimulative the reading may be at the time, its evil influence is soon neutralized by the pressure of daily business. But she reads to fill a craving void, to excite and occupy a mind otherwise vacant; and the inevitable consequence to her, is a morbid sentimentalism wholly out of tune with the homely realities of her sphere and station. Miserable preparation for the care of a household, the responsibilities of a mother, and the stern exigencies of mature life!

But would I do away with ornamental accomplishments, and confine a girl to studies exclusively liberal and masculine? Certainly not. Though claiming for solid learning the foremost place, I would not exclude music and the sister arts. Though insisting first of all on a substantial edifice, I would not forbid architectural ornament. On the contrary, I would rather increase than diminish the number of accomplishments. And there is one in particular, which I would gladly see added to the list, and even placed at the head of the list-the homely, as some may think it, but in my judgment, the high and womanly accomplishment of good reading. By "good reading," I do not of course mean the mere ability to read correctly and fluently; neither do I mean that artificial, inflated style of reading, to which the pompous quacks who teach it give the name of Elocution. The latter, with its regulated inflections, and rhetorical pauses, and theatrical gesticulations, is not an accomplishment, but an intolerable