once. The idealist says, "Never mind the use; get the best
educational instrument for the training of the mind, and, when you
have finished your work, the mind will be bright and strong, and
capable of discharging any labour." That is a beautiful theory; but
it is not borne out by results; and one of the reasons of the
profound disbelief which is rapidly spreading in the country with
regard to our public schools, is that we send out so many boys, not
only without intellectual life, but not even capable of humble
usefulness. These theorists continue to talk of classics as a
splendid gymnastic, but in their hands it becomes a rack; instead
of leaving the limbs supple and well knit, they are strained,
disjointed, and feeble. Even the flower of our classical system are
too often left without any original power of expression; critical,
fastidious minds, admiring erudition, preferring the elucidation of
second-rate authors to the study of the best. A man who reads
Virgil for pleasure is a better result of a system of education
than one who re-edits Tibullus. Instead of having original
thoughts, and a style of their own to express them in, these high
classicists are left with a profound knowledge of the style and
usage of ancient authors, a thing not to be undervalued as a step
in a progress, but still essentially an anteroom of the mind.

The further task that lies before us educators, when we have
trained a mind to be useful, consists in the awakening, in whatever
regions may be possible, of the soul. By this I do not mean the
ethical soul, but the spirit of fine perception of beauty, of
generous admiration for what is noble and true and high. And here I
am sure that we fail, and fail miserably. For one thing, these
great classicists make the mistake of thinking that only through
literature, and, what is more, the austere literature of Greece and