the wrong-doer may be
cured of his fault. The principle of vicarious suffering lies at the
root of all spiritual healing.

_III.--The Limits of Education._

Sec. 46. As far as the external form of education is concerned, its limit
is reached in the instrumentality of punishment in which we seek to turn
the activity which has been employed in a wrong direction into its
proper channel, to make the deed positive instead of negative, to
substitute for the destructive deed one which shall be in harmony with
the constructive forces of society. But education implies its real
limits in its definition, which is to build up the individual into
theoretical and practical Reason. When this work goes properly on, the
authority of the educator, as authority, necessarily loses, every day,
some of its force, as the guiding principles come to form a part of the
pupil's own character, instead of being super-imposed on him from
without through the mediation of the educator. What was authority
becomes now advice and example; unreasoning and implicit obedience
passes into gratitude and affection. The pupil wears off the rough edges
of his crude individuality, which is transfigured, so to speak, into the
universality and necessity of Reason, but without losing his identity in
the process. Work becomes enjoyment, and Play is found only in a change
of activity. The youth takes possession of himself, and may now be left
to himself. There are two widely differing views with regard to the
limits of education; one lays great stress on the powerlessness of the
pupil and the great power of the teacher, and asserts that the teacher
must create something out of the pupil.

This view is often seen to have undesirable results, where large
numbers are to be educated together. It assumes that each pupil is only
"a sample of the lot" on whom the teacher is to affix his stamp, as if
they were different pieces of goods from some factory. Thus
individuality is destroyed, and all reduced to one level, as in
cloisters, barracks, and orphan asylums, where only one individual seems
to exist. Sometimes it takes the form of a theory which holds that one
can at will flog anything into or out of a pupil. This may be called a
superstitious belief in the power of education. The opposite extreme may
be found in that system which advocates a "severe letting alone,"
asserting that individuality is unconquerable, and that often the most
careful and circumspect educati