" " ladened vice.
Every branch of veracity in the next some latent vice.
Every reach of their ascidity indicates some advice.

In another part of the passage occurred the following:

Petty operations.
Petty alterations.
Petty observations.
Patriarchal occupations.
Petty oblations.

Now of what use is it to a boy who mistakes "petty" for "patriarchal,"
"latent vice" for "great advice," "breach of veracity" for "reach of
their ascidity," who is so untrained that he really cannot hear what is
said, or see what is done,--of what use is it to such a boy, merely
because he has gone through a prescribed routine of books and classes,
or perchance because he has attained a certain amount of years and of
pounds avoirdupois, to be pushed forward into a higher department to
attend lectures on chemistry, or anatomy, or morals, or history, or
literature? It is preposterous. It is an insult to the Professor, and an
injury to the boy.

This, then, is the burden of my song. We cannot take too much pains in
early life in rousing this power of attention. Depend upon it, no matter
how much learning, so called, is crammed into a youth, his intellectual
development has not begun until this power is roused. He may have a
vague, dreamy sort of knowledge; he may do sums by rule, and he may
parse by rote, and do many other wondrous things; but his powers are not
invigorated, he does not grow, until he begins really to see and hear,
and feel _terra firma_ under his feet.

The principle which I am illustrating applies with special force to that
part of a child's education which consists in learning the meaning of
words. I have serious doubts whether children ordinarily learn much of
the real meaning of words by committing definitions to memory. What is a
definition? It is only expressing the meaning of one word by the use of
another word as nearly as possible synonymous. Now, in the case of a
child, it is at least an even chance that that other word is just as
unknown as the one it is intended to explain. It is like, in algebra,
solving an equation with two unknown quantities, by giving the value of
one unknown quantity in terms of the other. A child, for instance, is
told that "potent" means "efficacious," that "power" means "ability,"
that "potion" means a "physical draught," that "potential" means
"existing in possibility, not in act." These are definitions taken at
random from a book in common use in our p