knew no other methods of training. Finally the evil that was
done for gain by the greedy was refined on and done for pleasure by the
lustful. Flogging has become a pleasure purchasable in our streets, and
inhibition a grown-up habit that children play at. "Go and see what baby
is doing; and tell him he mustnt" is the last word of the nursery; and
the grimmest aspect of it is that it was first formulated by a comic
paper as a capital joke.

Technical Instruction

Technical instruction tempts to violence (as a short cut) more
than liberal education. The sailor in Mr Rudyard Kipling's Captains
Courageous, teaching the boy the names of the ship's tackle with a
rope's end, does not disgust us as our schoolmasters do, especially as
the boy was a spoiled boy. But an unspoiled boy would not have needed
that drastic medicine. Technical training may be as tedious as learning
to skate or to play the piano or violin; but it is the price one must
pay to achieve certain desirable results or necessary ends. It is a
monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics
on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental
powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true; for there is no
labor that might not be imposed on a child or an adult on the same
pretext; but as a glance at the average products of our public school
and university education shews that it is not true, it need not trouble
us. But it is a fact that ignorance of Latin and Greek and mathematics
closes certain careers to men (I do not mean artificial, unnecessary,
noxious careers like those of the commercial schoolmaster). Languages,
even dead ones, have their uses; and, as it seems to many of us,
mathematics have their uses. They will always be learned by people who
want to learn them; and people will always want to learn them as long as
they are of any importance in life: indeed the want will survive their
importance: superstition is nowhere stronger than in the field of
obsolete acquirements. And they will never be learnt fruitfully by
people who do not want to learn them either for their own sake or for
use in necessary work. There is no harder schoolmaster than experience;
and yet experience fails to teach where there is no desire to learn.

Still, one must not begin to apply this generalization too early.
And this brings me to an important factor in the case: the factor of
evolution.

Docility and Dependence

I