like to be the man to try and impose it on them. But I assure them most
emphatically--and if they study the experience of the Continent they
will convince themselves of the truth of what I say--that only on these
conditions of its equal and universal application is any law of
compulsory education possible."

We have now seen, at least in general outline, the system of National
Education which he would have wished to set up--how he would have
co-ordinated all instruction from the lowest to the highest, and how he
would have compelled all classes alike to submit their children, and in
the higher ranks of life to submit themselves, to the training which
should best equip them for their chosen or appointed work. We must now
enquire what sort of knowledge he would have endeavoured, by his
co-ordinated system, to impart.

He laid it down, more than once, that the aim of culture was "to know
ourselves and the world," and that, as the means to this end, we ought
"to know the best which has been thought and said in the world." He
recognized, candidly and fully, the claims of the physical sciences, and
their use and value in Education. For example, in advising about the
instruction of a little girl, in whom her teacher wished to arouse
"perception," he said, "You had much better take some science--(botany
is perhaps the best for a girl) and, choosing a good handbook, go
through it regularly with her.... The verification of the laws of
grammar, in the examples furnished by one's reading, is certainly a far
less fruitful stimulus of one's powers of observation and comparison,
than the verification of the laws of a science like botany in the
examples furnished by the world of nature before one's eyes."

But in spite of this, and of similar concessions, he deliberately held