"Of all many-sided subjects, education is the one which has the greatest number of sides. Not only does it include whatever we do for ourselves, and whatever is done for us by others, for the express purpose of bringing us somewhat nearer to the perfection of our nature; it does more in its largest acceptation, it comprehends even the indirect effects produced on character and on the human faculties, by things of which the direct purposes are quite different; by laws, by forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes of social life; nay, even by physical facts not dependent on human will; by climate, soil, and local position. Whatever helps to shape the human being— to make the individual what he is, or hinder him from being what he is not-is part of his education. -Mr. Mill's "Inaugural Address, delivered to the University of St. Andrew's in 1867.” IT CHAPTER I. EDUCATION AND NATIONAL EDUCATION. is common to speak of national education, as if all that was or could be meant was a system of schools, or at most of schools and colleges, for the people. The schools of The schools of the nation, it is never doubted, will educate the nation. Education itself is truly understood at least by most who have any thought about the matter to mean instruction and training, to include the conveyance of knowledge, and the discipline and development of character. And all the world talks, nearly all public speakers speak, public journalists--with here and there, or now and then, a rare exception-write, as if all that is needed adequately to furnish the mind, and rightly to mould the character, of the generations which are coming forward, would be secured and determined by a proper and effective school education, made compulsory and universal. My object in this chapter will be to show how serious a mistake is involved in this expectation-a mistake, indeed, fatal, as I conceive, to any prospect of attaining to a true solution of the all-important problem which presses for solution. Many years of study and observation, of inquiry and discussion, have B settled and sealed the conviction in my mind that the nation never will or can be educated, as a whole, until it is understood that schools can only furnish a part, perhaps hardly the most important part, of the education of the people. A nation may have a system of schools as complete as can be organized, and yet be very imperfectly educated. On the other hand, a nation might have a very imperfect system of schools, or no system of schools at all-might have none but purely voluntary schools, or none but voluntary and parochial or municipal schools, without anything like a State system, and yet might be much better educated, might be a people of better knowledge and of better character, than the people of another country where the system of schools was as complete and as theoretically perfect as could well be organized. At the same time it is, of course, true and beyond doubt that no nation can be thoroughly educated-can be as well educated as it ought to be unless the national school education be thorough, and adequate to the national demands and capacities. An educated man is a man who has the power and habit of forethought and of self-control, and has also knowledge and mental discipline adequate to his position and opportunities in life. So an educated nation is one which, taken collectively, may be said to have the power and habit of forethought and of selfcontrol, and knowledge and mental discipline adequate to its position and opportunities. Class by class this character should be predicable of all the people. National education in the wide, adequate, true sense, which we are now thinking of, is the course of discipline, or the combination of influences, by means of which the whole nation, throughout its various classes, is brought under the control of good habits, habits of moral reflection, of providence, of selfrestraint, and is furnished with the requisite knowledge and mental discipline to enable it to discharge efficiently all the duties, and to embrace the fair opportunities, which belong to its position. When the scope of national education is thus indicated, a little reflection will serve to show that school education cannot do more than furnish a fractional part of the total sum of a thorough and effective national education. National education, thus regarded, will be seen to include besides the general, pervasive, influence of religion the influences of home and family, of street, school, work-place,-be this a shop, or office, or factory, or pit, or simple chamber,-of each person's business, craft, or profession, of society, of civil and political duties and ideas, of the public press, including books and journals, especially the cheapest and most widely circulated of these, and finally of all life's prizes to each man, as these successively come into view, that is, in other words, of the various. motives, incentives, and opportunities which stir up desire and suggest or determine action. All these things, and such things as these, go to elicit, to mould, to form and fix character. The process begins with the first opening of life, and continues through all life's stages, until the character has been determined in its final maturity. In the sum-total of this human education the schooling of the child is but one among many important elements. The influences of home and family are yet more important than those of schools; they precede, surround, and interpenetrate all the ideas and impressions which |