ons, is
opposed at once as a sensational, visionary, and revolutionary doctrine.

There are two most powerful objections to the doctrine of natural
selection in education. One of these is the scholastic objection and the
other is the religious one.

The scholastic objection is that natural selection in education is
impracticable. It cannot be made to operate mechanically, or for large
numbers, and it interferes with nearly all of the educational machinery
for hammering heads in rows, which we have at command at present. Even
if the machinery could be stopped and natural selection could be given
the place that belongs to it, all success in acting on it would call for
hand-made teachers; and hand-made teachers are not being produced when
we have nothing but machines to produce them with. The scholastic
objection--that natural selection in education is impracticable under
existing conditions--is obviously well taken. As it cannot be answered,
it had best be taken, perhaps, as a recommendation.

The religious objection to natural selection in education is not that it
is impracticable, but that it is wicked. It rests its case on the
defence of the weak.

But the question at issue is not whether the weak shall be served and
defended or whether they shall not. We all would serve and defend the
weak. If a teacher feels that he can serve his inferior pupils best by
making his superior pupils inferior too, it is probable that he had
better do it, and that he will know how to do it, and that he will know
how to do it better than any one else. There are many teachers, however,
who have the instinctive belief, and who act on it so far as they are
allowed to, that to take the stand that the inferior pupil must be
defended at the expense of the superior pupil is to take a sentimental
stand. It is not a stand in favour of the inferior pupil, but against
him.

The best way to respect an inferior pupil is to keep him in place. The
more he is kept in place, the more his powers will be called upon. If he
is in the place above him, he may see much that he would not see
otherwise, much at which he will wonder, perhaps; but he deserves to be
treated spiritually and thoroughly, to be kept where he will be
creative, where his wondering will be to the point, both at once and
eventually.

It is a law that holds as good in the life of a teacher of literature as
it does in the lives of makers of literature. From the point of view of
the wor