lates to
them._)

The reader from whom I expect something must possess three qualities:
he must be calm and must read without haste; he must not be ever
interposing his own personality and his own special "culture"; and he
must not expect as the ultimate results of his study of these pages
that he will be presented with a set of new formulae. I do not propose
to furnish formulae or new plans of study for _Gymnasia_ or other
schools; and I am much more inclined to admire the extraordinary power
of those who are able to cover the whole distance between the depths
of empiricism and the heights of special culture-problems, and who
again descend to the level of the driest rules and the most neatly
expressed formulae. I shall be content if only I can ascend a tolerably
lofty mountain, from the summit of which, after having recovered my
breath, I may obtain a general survey of the ground; for I shall never
be able, in this book, to satisfy the votaries of tabulated rules.
Indeed, I see a time coming when serious men, working together in the
service of a completely rejuvenated and purified culture, may again
become the directors of a system of everyday instruction, calculated
to promote that culture; and they will probably be compelled once more
to draw up sets of rules: but how remote this time now seems! And what
may not happen meanwhile! It is just possible that between now and
then all _Gymnasia_--yea, and perhaps all universities, may be
destroyed, or have become so utterly transformed that their very
regulations may, in the eyes of future generations, seem to be but the
relics of the cave-dwellers' age.

This book is intended for calm readers,--for men who have not yet been
drawn into the mad headlong rush of our hurry-skurrying age, and who
do not experience any idolatrous delight in throwing themselves
beneath its chariot-wheels. It is for men, therefore, who are not
accustomed to estimate the value of everything according to the amount
of time it either saves or wastes. In short, it is for the few. These,
we believe, "still have time." Without any qualms of conscience they
may improve the most fruitful and vigorous hours of their day in
meditating on the future of our education; they may even believe when
the evening has come that they have used their day in the most
dignified and useful way, namely, in the _meditatio generis futuri_.
No one among them has yet forgotten to think while reading a book; he
still unde