the self-cultured
man has no mentor to guide him when he is in perplexity, and would
profit by experienced advice.

But even were this not the case, it would be far better to abolish
schools and universities and to let everybody shift for himself, than to
insist upon subjecting the youth of the nation to a system that
ingeniously manufactures failures for every walk in life, and
accomplishes practically nothing else.

CHAPTER XVI

THE OPEN DOOR TO INTELLIGENCE

It has been the chief aim in these pages, not to elaborate a scheme of
education on new principles, but to point out the utter folly of
persisting with a system that has worked a vast amount of evil, and
cannot be proved to have achieved any real good.

Our great men have not been the product of a school curriculum, or of an
academic training. In no single instance, as far as can be ascertained,
has nobility of character, or the possession of genius, or soundness of
judgment, or even beauty of diction in literature, been attributable to
the grind in grammatical rules, the fact-cramming, and the mental
gymnastics which go to make up what is called 'a liberal education.'

In science, where the highest intellectual qualities are brought into
play, most of the great discoverers have owed their entire scientific
knowledge to self-taught methods of investigation. And it is the same
thing in every field of research where the thinking faculties must reach
the supreme limit of development--namely, that nothing is traceable to
academic learning, and that everything is owing to the mental
initiative which is produced solely by self-inculcated habits of
reflection.

To give education systems the credit, or even a share in the credit, of
all the splendid achievements in politics, science, art, and literature
is sheer intellectual laziness. It is the curse of the age that few
people will trouble to question the existing order of things, and that
nobody--except those who make the manufacture of opinions their
profession--can be found to express an independent opinion on any
subject under the sun.

That is one reason why newspapers exist in their present form. The
leading article is primarily the invention of the stupid, conventional,
well-educated man whose profound knowledge of dates and irregular verbs
has, unfortunately, had the effect of preventing him from forming his
own judgment on public affairs. The Press, which must have been
originally established,