God seems to have meant to ripen later, or by neglecting
to draw out and train in childhood those faculties which then most
naturally and aptly spring into vigorous growth. Youth, for instance, is
the season, of all others, when the memory is to be cultivated; the
season of all others, when the instinctive principle of faith is to have
free play. So, too, the moral and emotional faculties may receive the
first germs of their development at a very early stage in the history of
the human being. The education of this part of our nature begins,
indeed, with the first smile of recognition that passes between the
infant and its mother. Other faculties and powers, as the reason and the
judgment, for instance, come to maturity nearer the age of manhood, and
the normal period for their cultivation is accordingly near the end,
rather than near the beginning, of an educational course. It is not,
however, my object here to mark out an order for the development of the
faculties, but only to note that there is such an order, and that the
observance of this order is a most important element in our idea of what
education is.

The next element in this idea is that a certain proportion and symmetry
be observed in the development of the powers. Perhaps it might not be
strictly accurate to say that any faculty may be cultivated too highly.
Yet there certainly is an excess whenever one faculty or power is
cultivated quite out of proportion to the other faculties and powers. A
man in Boston a few years ago, by directing his attention exclusively
for a long time to the single act of lifting, educated his body to the
power of lifting enormous weights. But this power was gained at the
expense of agility, grace, and many other bodily qualities quite as
important as that of lifting weights. So the mental faculties may become
one-sided by injudicious training. The memory may be inordinately
developed at the expense of the reasoning power, the reason at the
expense of the imagination, the feelings at the expense of the judgment,
the mind at the expense of the body, the body at the expense of the
mind. In all right education, therefore, the faculties are to be
developed, not only in due order, but in due proportion.

The next element that enters into our idea is that of a proper
comprehensiveness. The educator must bear in mind that the being
committed to his care is one of a complex nature, and that every part of
this complex nature is to receive