he
acquisition of knowledge has been rendered habitually gratifying, then
will there be as prevailing a tendency to continue, without
superintendence, that self-culture previously carried on under
superintendence. These results are inevitable. While the laws of mental
association remain true--while men dislike the things and places that
suggest painful recollections, and delight in those which call to mind
by-gone pleasures--painful lessons will make knowledge repulsive, and
pleasurable lessons will make it attractive. The men to whom in boyhood
information came in dreary tasks along with threats of punishment, and
who were never led into habits of independent inquiry, are unlikely to
be students in after years; while those to whom it came in the natural
forms, at the proper times, and who remember its facts as not only
interesting in themselves, but as the occasions of a long series of
gratifying successes, are likely to continue through life that
self-instruction commenced in youth.

[1] Those who seek aid in carrying out the system of culture above
described, will find it in a little work entitled _Inventional
Geometry_; published by J. and C. Mozley, Paternoster Row, London.

MORAL EDUCATION

The greatest defect in our programmes of education is entirely
overlooked. While much is being done in the detailed improvement of our
systems in respect both of matter and manner, the most pressing
desideratum has not yet been even recognised as a desideratum. To
prepare the young for the duties of life is tacitly admitted to be the
end which parents and schoolmasters should have in view; and happily,
the value of the things taught, and the goodness of the methods followed
in teaching them, are now ostensibly judged by their fitness to this
end. The propriety of substituting for an exclusively classical
training, a training in which the modern languages shall have a share,
is argued on this ground. The necessity of increasing the amount of
science is urged for like reasons. But though some care is taken to fit
youth of both sexes for society and citizenship, no care whatever is
taken to fit them for the position of parents. While it is seen that for
the purpose of gaining a livelihood, an elaborate preparation is needed,
it appears to be thought that for the bringing up of children, no
preparation whatever is needed. While many years are spent by a boy in
gaining knowledge of which the chief value is that it const