s to test its correctness, and untiring
in his efforts to make known its success--each of them merciless in his
criticism on the rest; there cannot fail, by composition of forces, to
be a gradual approximation of all towards the right course. Whatever
portion of the normal method any one has discovered, must, by the
constant exhibition of its results, force itself into adoption; whatever
wrong practices he has joined with it must, by repeated experiment and
failure, be exploded. And by this aggregation of truths and elimination
of errors, there must eventually be developed a correct and complete
body of doctrine. Of the three phases through which human opinion
passes--the unanimity of the ignorant, the disagreement of the
inquiring, and the unanimity of the wise--it is manifest that the second
is the parent of the third. They are not sequences in time only, they
are sequences in causation. However impatiently, therefore, we may
witness the present conflict of educational systems, and however much we
may regret its accompanying evils, we must recognise it as a transition
stage needful to be passed through, and beneficent in its ultimate
effects.

Meanwhile, may we not advantageously take stock of our progress? After
fifty years of discussion, experiment, and comparison of results, may
we not expect a few steps towards the goal to be already made good? Some
old methods must by this time have fallen out of use; some new ones must
have become established; and many others must be in process of general
abandonment or adoption. Probably we may see in these various changes,
when put side by side, similar characteristics--may find in them a
common tendency; and so, by inference, may get a clue to the direction
in which experience is leading us, and gather hints how we may achieve
yet further improvements. Let us then, as a preliminary to a deeper
consideration of the matter, glance at the leading contrasts between the
education of the past and that of the present.

* * * * *

The suppression of every error is commonly followed by a temporary
ascendency of the contrary one; and so it happened, that after the ages
when physical development alone was aimed at, there came an age when
culture of the mind was the sole solicitude--when children had
lesson-books put before them at between two and three years old, and the
getting of knowledge was thought the one thing needful. As, further, it
usually hap