e made altogether
what they should be. Contrariwise, we are satisfied that though
imperfections of nature may be diminished by wise management, they
cannot be removed by it. The notion that an ideal humanity might be
forthwith produced by a perfect system of education, is near akin to
that implied in the poems of Shelley, that would mankind give up their
old institutions and prejudices, all the evils in the world would at
once disappear: neither notion being acceptable to such as have
dispassionately studied human affairs.

Nevertheless, we may fitly sympathise with those who entertain these too
sanguine hopes. Enthusiasm, pushed even to fanaticism, is a useful
motive-power--perhaps an indispensable one. It is clear that the ardent
politician would never undergo the labours and make the sacrifices he
does, did he not believe that the reform he fights for is the one thing
needful. But for his conviction that drunkenness is the root of all
social evils, the teetotaler would agitate far less energetically. In
philanthropy, as in other things, great advantage results from division
of labour; and that there may be division of labour, each class of
philanthropists must be more or less subordinated to its function--must
have an exaggerated faith in its work. Hence, of those who regard
education, intellectual or moral, as the panacea, we may say that their
undue expectations are not without use; and that perhaps it is part of
the beneficent order of things that their confidence cannot be shaken.

Even were it true, however, that by some possible system of moral
control, children could be moulded into the desired form; and even could
every parent be indoctrinated with this system, we should still be far
from achieving the object in view. It is forgotten that the carrying out
of any such system presupposes, on the part of adults, a degree of
intelligence, of goodness, of self-control, possessed by no one. The
error made by those who discuss questions of domestic discipline, lies
in ascribing all the faults and difficulties to the children, and none
to the parents. The current assumption respecting family government, as
respecting national government, is, that the virtues are with the rulers
and the vices with the ruled. Judging by educational theories, men and
women are entirely transfigured in their relations to offspring. The
citizens we do business with, the people we meet in the world, we know
to be very imperfect creatures.