tual education presupposes three essential features: the
selection of the most suitable subjects for study; the proper
presentation of these, in the order of their dependence, and in view of
the gradual growth of the pupil's powers of comprehension; and, not less
important than either of these, the finding out and following of the
best method and order of presenting the truths belonging to each subject
to be studied. These are the problems with which, as something apart
from Metaphysics or Logic, the possible but yet unachieved pedagogical
science has to deal. To the first of these questions, What shall we
teach? or, as he phrases it, 'What knowledge is of most worth?' Mr.
Spencer (presuming the child already supplied with his bare implements,
reading, spelling, and penmanship) is led, after a long discussion, to
conclude that 'the uniform reply is, Science.' The 'counts' on which he
bases this verdict, are, the purposes of self-preservation; the gaining
of a livelihood; the due discharge of parental functions; qualification
for political responsibilities; the production and enjoyment of art; and
discipline, whether intellectual, moral, or religious. Taken at his own
showing, Mr. Spencer seems to contemplate, as his model of an educated
man, a prodigiously capable and efficient mute. But can he deny that the
ability _to express_ what one may know, and in speech, as well as in
production, is at once the final proof, and in a very real sense the
indispensable consummation of such knowing? _Language_ is the
counterpart and complement of _Science_. The two are but two sides, and
either separately an incomplete one, of one thing; that one thing we may
name _definite and practical knowledge_; and it is the only sort of
knowledge that has real value. Language is yet larger than all the
sciences proper which it embodies, namely, those clustering about
Philology, Grammar, and Rhetoric. Of these, all deal with words, or
those larger words--sentences; but under these forms they deal, in
reality, with the objective world as perceived or apprehended by us, and
as named and uttered in accordance with subjective aptitudes and laws.
In language, then, there stands revealed, in the degree in which we can
ascend to it, all that is yet known of the external world, and all that
has yet evolved itself of the human mind. Can we decry the study of that
which, whether as articulate breath, or through a symbolism of visible
forms, mirrors to us a