. On the
other hand, if I am to understand by a literary education the study
of the literatures of either ancient or modern nations--but especially
those of antiquity, and especially that of ancient Greece; if this
literature is studied, not merely from the point of view of philological
science, and its practical application to the interpretation of texts,
but as an exemplification of and commentary upon the principles of
art; if you look upon the literature of a people as a chapter in the
development of the human mind, if you work out this in a broad spirit,
and with such collateral references to morals and politics, and physical
geography, and the like as are needful to make you comprehend what the
meaning of ancient literature and civilisation is,--then, assuredly,
it affords a splendid and noble education. But I still think it is
susceptible of improvement, and that no man will ever comprehend the
real secret of the difference between the ancient world and our present
time, unless he has learned to see the difference which the late
development of physical science has made between the thought of this day
and the thought of that, and he will never see that difference, unless
he has some practical insight into some branches of physical science;
and you must remember that a literary education such as that which I
have just referred to, is out of the reach of those whose school life is
cut short at sixteen or seventeen.

But, you will say, all this is fault-finding; let us hear what you have
in the way of positive suggestion. Then I am bound to tell you that,
if I could make a clean sweep of everything--I am very glad I cannot
because I might, and probably should, make mistakes,--but if I could
make a clean sweep of everything and start afresh, I should, in the
first place, secure that training of the young in reading and writing,
and in the habit of attention and observation, both to that which is
told them, and that which they see, which everybody agrees to. But in
addition to that, I should make it absolutely necessary for everybody,
for a longer or shorter period, to learn to draw. Now, you may say,
there are some people who cannot draw, however much they may be taught.
I deny that in toto, because I never yet met with anybody who could not
learn to write. Writing is a form of drawing; therefore if you give the
same attention and trouble to drawing as you do to writing, depend upon
it, there is nobody who cannot be m