about before the earth can become the scene of a happy but
considerate development of power on the part of free and fine
human beings. Every contest decided by examinations and prizes
is ultimately an immoral method of training. It awakens only
evil passions, envy and the impression of injustice on the one
side, arrogance on the other. After I had during the course of
twenty years fought these school examinations, I read with
thorough agreement a short time ago, Ruskin's views on the
subject. He believed that all competition was a false basis of
stimulus, and every distribution of prizes a false means. He
thought that the real sign of talent in a boy, auspicious for
his future career, was his desire to work for work's sake. He
declared that the real aim of instruction should be to show him
his own proper and special gifts, to strengthen them in him,
not to spur him on to an empty competition with those who were
plainly his superiors in capacity.

Moreover it ought not to be forgotten that success and failure
involve of themselves their own punishment and their own
reward, the one bitter, the other sweet enough to secure in a
natural way increased strength, care, prudence, and endurance.
It is completely unnecessary for the educator to use, besides
these, some special punishments or special rewards, and so
pervert the conceptions of the child that failure seems to him
to be a wrong, success on the other hand as the right.

No matter where one turns one's gaze, it is notorious that the
externally encouraging or awe-inspiring means of education, are
an obstacle to what are the chief human characteristics,
courage in oneself and goodness to others.