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The seed dropped into the crevophy underlying our subject, which should be briefly noticed in the outset. Whatever objections may be urged against that theory of "evolution," which would make the highest style of man only a monkey developed, there can be no question that the growth of the individual man from infancy to complete manhood is directed by a law of development, simple and uniform. All organic life begins with the germs only of the being that is to be. All growth is the simple unfolding of hidden functions, unrevealed capacities wrapped up in those germs. ice of the rock does wonders with the little which it finds to feed on, but some soil and moisture must be furnished, or it can do nothing. The plant growing in the cellar stretches away toward the distant light, but the gleam of light must be admitted first. The root may push its way many feet under ground to reach the water that it needs, but it is led on every inch by the moisture ministered on that side. The self-movement of the sensitive plant comes only as a response to the external touch. All the modifications and varieties of of flowers and fruit produced by man's contrivance only confirm this involuntariness as the leading characteristic of the process by which the germs of vegetable life are unfolded. The conditions of the unfolding process are different in the several departments of organic life. For we will not now trouble ourselves with the question whether or not all life may in the last analysis be re- In the animal kingdom life begins and solved into a single element. Leaving goes on with something of this passive that question to be settled, if it may be, dependence. But very soon appears, inby future scientific research, we take herent in the being itself, a spring of volthings as they are, in the well defined dis- untary action, a power of choice within a tinctions of vegetable life, animal life, certain range, a spirit of independence, and rational life. Now we observe that within defined bounds. The animal thinks throughout the vegetable kingdom the for himself, understands to some extent process of growth is, to all appearance, the conditions of his own being, and goes entirely involuntary. On the very organ-out under impulses that start within himization of the seed, in any case, there is self to fulfill the conditions. So a selfstamped a law of its life, which demands directing power combines with external agencies to direct the unfolding of his capacities, and for that reason they rise and expand away beyond anything we see in the unfolding of plant life. We recognize this as a higher order of being. To this leading characteristic of animal life we give the name of instinct. Yet it is not perfect freedom, complete independence. These instinctive impulses are confined to a comparatively narrow range, and beyond that range are inflexible, invariable. There is a bound beyond which they cannot advance the development. Like all the physical conditions of the being, these instincts are restricted by the prescribed law of life, and the action put forth is, after all, a kind of passive following of the prescription of nature. Man may lay hold on these instincts to secure a higher development in certain lines than could otherwise be attained. The horse may catch the spirit of his master, and under that impulse do far more than he would under any promptings of his own. But, so far as we can sce, it is with no conscious aim at selfimprovement. No such thing as self-discipline seems predicable of the animal. We turn now to the domain of rational life, and make mankind our study. Here we find that with respect to certain functions, the germs of life in man make an involuntary growth, like that of plants. With respect to certain other capacities, there is an instinctive development like that of the lower animals. But in neither respect is the growth strong and vigorous as in the other spheres. Whatever goes on in these ways is incidental, subordinate to a new principle. Here not only are the germs of life larger, enfolding more and higher properties, but the law of the unfolding of the germs is in a manner, throughout, self-regulating by the presence of an all controlling willpower. There is in every man a power of choice, the action of which begins very early and is the first sign of that rational element we call the soul. It qualifies and modifies all the subsequent growth more or less. It is the element of personality, and is with every one, determinative of the measure of his manhood. Though it does not clothe him with absolute independence, yet in a sense and to a degree, all the functions and capacities of his nature are subject to his own will. In respect to all that distinguishes him from the lower order of creation the processes of his growth are voluntary. He may, to a very great extent, make or mar himself. This makes him, as no other creature is, capable of self-discipline, and self discipline means the exercise of a man's own will-power over the processes of his own development. Now if I rightly apprehend it, the term "education" is properly applicable only to beings that are capable of self-discipline. Plants are improved by culture, animals are improved by training. So far as men partake of the nature of vegetables and of animals, culture and training may subserve their improvement. But their highest development into proper manhood goes on by processes of education peculiar to them. The rational soul unfolds its own germs, draws out its own capacities by a will of its own, and for cherished purposes of its own. It may avail itself of external helps, and it may be stimulated by external appliances, but the vital educating force is the will power of the soul itself. Nothing is properly education which does not grow mainly under that force. A consciousness of capacity and a will to exercise and unfold the capacity, are prime essentials of the whole process. We talk about self-educated men as a class distinct from other educated men, but in reality every man that is educated at all, is self-educated. External circumstances may be in differen', cases favorable or unfavorable, encouraging or discouraging to the exertion of the will for self-improvement, but the result is attained always in the same way. There is no dispensing with that force. Only, to the greater willpower that overcomes special obstacles, we cheerfully and justly accord special merit. The process of education involves the imparting and the receiving of knowledge; for truth is what the soul feeds on and grows by: but this giving and getting knowledge is not the main thing. graceful bearing, a power of endurance and a skill in evolu:ions, almost perfect. In a primary school, I watched a class just learning to read, under an apt teacher. It was a slow, hard, painful process; but to me exceedingly interesting. The inner working of each mind was clearly revealed. In each one, there was evident a will-power, strong or weak, determined or wavering, struggling to control those simple intellectual faculties, attention, perception, memory, association, for the One's mind may be stuffed till it is as full as an encyclopædia, and the man's real education will be hindered rather than helped thereby; his real manhood will be weakened instead of being strengthened, just as a man who makes a beer-barrel of his body debilitates all its tissues by bloating them. The teacher is called an educator, but he is properly so-called, only as he touches the springs of life in the soul of his pupil to wake the will power there, and give it direction and steadiness of application towards this end of self-apprehension of a thought through the development. The fundamental idea cannot be too strongly emphasized, that education is self development, of which the efficient force is a man's own will. If these things are so, if this philosophy is sound, it follows as a necessary consequence that whatever is employed as a means of education must touch that inner spring, the will-power, and will work genuine results only by inducing through it, self-discipline. This statement will be best confirmed by illustration. At West Point, not long ago, I was much interested in watching the process of "setting up" the new cadets, as it is termed, that is the physical exercise with which the education of the young soldier begins. Each new recruit is put under the charge of a cadet of the previous class, and for two or three hours each day, is required by word of command to go through an almost endless variety of bodily motions. At first sight, everything in the process seemed unnatural and awkward. What ever of natural grace a man had must be laid aside, that he might come under an artificial constraint. The attitudes were stiff-the motions angular, and the steps ungainly. But as I studied the matter more closely and carefully, it appeared plain that the real intent of the whole process was just to bring the man's will to bear directly on every nerve and cord and muscle of that body, till its control was complete over the whole. It was in other words, self-discipline applied to physical education, and in the upper classes the result appeared. That will power over the action of every part of the body had grown into a habit of manly, printed churacter. It was simple selfdiscipline applied to intellectual education, and when a little one stumbled and stuck, the teacher was too wise to spoil the effort by doing the work for the pupil. She spoke a cheering word to sustain the developing will, or dropped a hint to direct the effort, till the victory was won and the little face glowed with tho sweet consciousness of capacity enlarged. The principle is beautifully illustrated by that incident reported of Agassiz, when a youth came to take lessons in Natural History, and he brought out a fish, and just bade him look at it and record what he saw. What could the professor's own lectures have done for the education of that young man, compared with the effect of that two hours of sustained will-power in the self-discipline of his faculty of observation? And Sir Isaac Newton told the whole story, when being asked what was the secret of his intellectual powers, he replied, “I know not that I differ from other men unless it be in the power of holding my mind to a more steady and continuous attention to the subject before me"-a simple will-power exercised in self-discipline. For another illustration, I cannot do better than to quote a passage from Curtins's History of Greece. Speaking of Socrates, as a teacher, he says: He incidentally attached the thread of his discourse to the most insignificant objects of daily life; by a series of simple questions, he endeavored to arouse an impulse towards serious and independent thought, which seized upon the whole mind, for the first time opened to his youthful companions the depths of the life of their own souls, and awakened a movement full of anticipa tions of truth, and not devoid of pain-a move- ency for the development in fit proportion ment which they were themselves unable either of all his capacities, so that under selfto comprehend or to command, and which he compared to the throes of labor preceding the unfold-prescribed law, the royal law of love, his ing of a new life; and he, therefore, himself desired to be nothing but the man-midwife, in order to deliver the germs of the Divine existing in the human breast from the forces obstructing them, and to bring these germs forth to light." whole being is held in fellowship and union with God, and the feeling of subjection is lost in the consciousness of complete harmony between the created will and the will supreme of the Creator. Such was the process of self-discipline, There is an educating power of great guided by a wise teacher, in its applica- value in this self-discipline applied in tion to moral education. Its legitimate either of the directions indicated, and fruits appeared in his noble pupil, Plato. what is done in one department is a help It almost succeeded in lifting that gifted to all the others. The intellect works youth, the brilliant, but reckless, Alci- better for the bodily discipline, and the biades, out of the intoxicating fumes of moral and religious development goes on sensuality, and in persuading him to re- more surely and healthily for all expannounce himself, to accept the principles sion of the mental faculties. But the full of Socratic virtue and abide by them, and benefit of self-discipline, as a means of so became another man, true to himself education is realized only when the prinand true to the State. But, alas, for him ciple is applied all around, for the symand for Athens, the correcting influence metrical development of the whole man. came too late-the forces of that self-in-There is a serious fault in the education, dulgent will were already too strongly set for evil. if this self-discipline is neglected in any department and the fault is greater when the higher powers of our nature are neg lected. When genius spurns the restraints of morality and religion, it must work only mischief to the world and ruin to itself. A complete education is attained only by bringing the body and the intellect, and the conscience and the religious affinities, through self-discipline applied to each, all out in full development, all down in balanced subjection to the will as formed by the unfolding of all, yet supreme in the mastery of all. In the yet higher department of spiritual, religious education, the principle is fully illustrated by Him, who came from God, a teacher-the Great Teacher, Jesus, the Christ. As he went about doing good, his one aim was to drop into the souls with whom he came in contact, seeds of living truth, which should kindle aspirations after the veritable summum bonum, and set them on that self-discipline which should crown the education of beings made in the image of God, by drawing out, as through a new birth, the God-like But we are to speak of self-discipline capacities of their nature, the germs of also as an end of education. A few words the spiritual, the immortal, the holy. The on this part of our subject must suffice. whole philosophy of education is embod The key to the whole matter here, lies in ied in his striking paradox, "He that two simple facts; first, that every effort findeth his life shall lose it, and he that in self-discipline brings, as its fruit, selfloseth his life for my sake shall find it." possession—that is, some real command of That great problem which he came to the faculties exercised; and second, that solve, the salvation of the soul and the there is no definable limit to the unfoldredemption of the world, turned not on ing of those capacities with which rationany body of doctrines to be held as a al creatures are endowed. A limit is soon creed, not on any outward observances of reached in the development of the phys worship and church order, not on a mere ical powers, but the soul has before it an perfunctory obedience to a prescribed endless progression. We can have now, code of morals, but on just that sustained no distinct conception of an absolute, self-discipline which gives to the sanctified finished development of a human soul. free will of every man in its due ascend-In our idea of God, we try to define to |