that we can in such cases accomplish, is to occasion an alteration as regards the objects to which they are directed, and also as regards their mode of operation upon them. Thus, although we cannot refine an appetite or a passion, we may select a proper object for it; and although we cannot actually change its nature, we may very greatly vary the mode of its application.

Hence, the ultimate effect of education, is not to eradicate, or even to weaken, either the emotions, appetites, passions, affections, or desires; but simply to reduce their influence to its legitimate level, and to direct them in their proper course. On the other hand, the higher powers and endowments of our nature, those belonging to our mental constitution, will by education be expanded and developed, and enabled to acquire their due ascendancy.

Thus, in the education of each department of our constitution, whether mental, moral, or medial, the ultimate object and the result are the same, being not only to increase, but to direct aright the powers so operated upon. A man may be endowed with great talents, and excellent disposition; and although education cannot alter the actual nature of any of these endowments, it may so direct their application as to render that which would have been pernicious or abortive, useful and productive. So, in the case of a garden, although the most skilful cultivation cannot enlarge its extent, or vary its situation, yet its power of producing may be prodigiously increased by this means; and on this, indeed, mainly depends whether it brings forth flowers or only weeds.

The world is, moreover, the best and most eligible school to which any one may be sent to render his education complete ; and nature is the most efficient teacher, although a very strict and severe disciplinarian. It is withal very just; not only punishing impartially every violation of her laws, but visiting them in the precise way they most deserve: in a mode, too, closely akin to the very offence itself, and one from which there is no escape.

In all our proceedings and operations, but more especially with respect to education, nature, which is the most perfect instructor, is therefore ever to be observed and ever to be followed; and natural education, whether mental, moral, or medial, is in each case, where applicable, that which is most efficient. It should be moreover observed alike, in what mode nature has allotted and distributed our several capacities, and our moral and medial endowments as well, and in what way she prompts us to exercise them; and, not least, the influence which she causes one to exert upon the operation of the other.

5 Civilization Considered as a Science. Moral Jurisprudence, pp. 262, 263. (Bohn's Library Edition.)

NATURE THEBESTINSTRUCTOR.

459

By the efforts and products of nature, the most valuable lessons are afforded. Her teaching is the most instructive; her language is the most forcible. Instead of books and pictures, she presents to us life and reality. In the place of shadows, she gives us substance.

Nevertheless, although it is well to observe and to follow nature in framing and carrying out a system of education, whether material or artificial; yet even here, as also in many other pursuits, resort may advantageously be had to certain artificial appliances, not indeed to counteract or supersede, but to assist, and indeed to perfect nature. This is however effected, not by any actual diversion of her efforts, but by continuing their course in their proper channel, and in removing those obstacles which impede the operation of nature, and thus allowing her to pursue her own free bent. Hence, what books are to artificial education, experience is to natural education, or the teaching of nature. Hers is the soundest, because the most impressive, of all education; but her lessons are costly, and the punishment for neglect is generally very

severe.

In the case of animals, the education which is imparted to them by mankind, is mainly of a medial kind, and is effected by acting upon those parts in their constitution which are of this class, such as the senses, emotions, appetites, and passions. To a certain extent artificial education is capable of being supplied, as that by which we train horses and dogs, and some other domestic animals, to perform certain acts, and to submit to our rule. So far as obedience to a superior is sought to be regulated, it might be contended that moral education also is inculcated. All the education which animals effect by themselves, and in which they become perfect in their own pursuits and contrivances, may be said to be natural. That by which we discipline them to serve for our domestic use, is artificial. But comparatively few animals have been subjected to artificial training or education of any kind, being those only which from their nature and quality appeared adapted to be useful to us if so taught. Probably many more of them are capable of such education; while to a large number it seems impossible to impart artificial instruction of any kind.

3. Each distinct Faculty, and Capacity, independently
improvable by Education.

As it is of the essential nature of the mind to owe its advancement to the education that it receives, which is to this being what exercise and nutriment are to the material frame;

so, according to the quality of that education, will be the character of its development and progress.

There is, however, this peculiarity about the mental powers, that not only is the entire mind capable of being thus benefited and improved, but each distinct faculty, and each distinct capacity, may be by this means ameliorated; and each of them is moreover qualified to receive its own distinct, particular, and individual discipline, and cultivation, either natural or artificial, independent of all the others, and in the way especially adapted for it. The body has but one inlet for food, and each particle that it consumes contributes alike to the nutriment of the whole frame, and to no one portion of it independent of the other. In the case of the mind, however, each capacity constitutes, as it were, a distinct organ for digesting that share of the intellectual nutriment with which it is especially fitted to deal; and draws from it, and absorbs into its own system alone, whatever it so imbibes, however the other endowments of the mind may indirectly and eventually derive benefit from the food thus obtained."

Moreover, as it is with material machinery, so is it also with the machinery of the mind, that it rusts and becomes disordered for want of use. By neglect, each capacity loses the power of applying itself efficiently; while by over-exertion, each is worn out and destroyed.

The omission to discipline and cultivate any intellectual capacity, of itself at once occasions a deficiency. Narrowmindedness, for instance, arises from the neglect to develope the capacity of comprehension; want of refinement from the neglect of taste; general want of accuracy from the neglect of deprehension. But, on the other hand, it is especially to be observed, which all experience proves, that the education of one particular capacity, however extensive, is never of itself productive of any such defect, by injuring or subduing the proper influence of any other. For instance, deprehension, however extensively educated, never leads to narrow-mindedness; nor does the education of comprehension to want of accuracy.

"Every part of the mind should be brought into its regular exercise, that each may attain an equal strength, and none attain to an ascendancy to the detriment of the rest. When any man uses any part of his mind to the neglect of the other part, the whole degenerates, and there is no longer that perfection of which the human mind is capable."-Smee. The Mind of Man, c. vi. p. 45.

Mr. Smee informed me, during a conference on the subject of the points embraced in the above paragraph with which he was so kind as to favour me, that in his opinion very little is effected in the way of education as to the exercise of the mind. He maintains that both the senses and the memory should be cultivated. As education is now conducted, the whole mind, he says, is not brought equally into play; so that when a man exercises his judgment, he does not do so on all points, and in regard to all its powers.

CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTED EDUCATION.

461

Each capacity should, however, be educated to the full, and each of them together. And And it is only when they are duly and appropriately so trained, that the mind becomes perfectly and systematically developed.

Nevertheless, the higher the faculties and capacities are, the more difficult are they of improvement by artificial education. The understanding, on the other hand, is as a whole, dependent on cultivation of this kind for its development, and can never fructify without such aid. Genius, as a whole, owes but little to artificial cultivation, and developes itself, independent of any assistance of this sort. The understanding is like our corn-fields, which, without tilling, would be barren and produce no grain. Genius is like the wild fruits of the forest, which are independent of tillage, and owe nothing to its efforts, however capable of being in certain respects improved by them. This faculty may be also aided as regards the ends at which it ought to aim, by the co-operation of the other faculties."

In the case, however, of each of the faculties, the middle capacity appears to be that which most admits of artificial cultivation. Deprehension owes much more to this kind of cultivation, and is far more capable of being improved by it, than is either apprehension or comprehension; analysis considerably more than sense or judgment; and taste, which alone indeed of the capacities of genius is extensively improvable by cultivation of any kind, than wit or origination.

4. Education of the Understanding by the Acquisition of
Knowledge.

As the reception of ideas, as has been shown in a previous chapter, is the proper function of the understanding; so its education, and that of each of its constituent capacities, is effected by the acquisition of knowledge of each kind. The understanding is however, in reality, cultivated, and disciplined, and invigorated, not by storing the mind with ideas or information, but by the effort of acquiring them in different modes through the several capacities of this faculty, according to the nature of such particular capacity, corresponding with the particular subject on which it is employed.

This faculty is moreover educated by the acquisition of

8" From whatever source the creative power of genius is derived, it is capable of being improved by culture; and in its highest exercise it is directed by knowledge acquired by study, and disciplined by judgment based on extended experience."-Dr. Carpenter. Mental Physiology, p. 509.

knowledge, whether the ideas which it obtains be received from books, such as artificial education consists in, or from surveying the objects themselves, in which mainly consists natural education, both as regards the cultivation that this faculty obtains, and the discipline to which it is thus subjected. Knowledge has been remarked to be the light of the soul. In this respect, knowledge through natural education might be compared to the light of the sun, or natural light; and that which we obtain by artificial education, to artificial light, such as is afforded us by lamps and candles, and which, although varying much in its nature according to the material by which the light is supplied-analogous to the case of artificial education-is as dim and feeble when compared with the light of the sun, as artificial education is when compared with that which is natural. By storing the understanding with ideas, it becomes well furnished with knowledge; although these ideas are actually deposited, not in the understanding itself, but in the memory, which serves as the treasury or storehouse of this faculty. The understanding is, however, able, having so imbibed these ideas, to recall them from the memory; and possesses, when it has once received them, the ability to summon them to its service at its will, and continues to be constantly nurtured by them. Hence, it results that by storing the understanding with ideas, it not only becomes enriched, but is able to turn its riches to account.

Where the communication of knowledge is the branch of education aimed at, it is of great importance not only to supply actual facts, but to supply them by real objects, the remembrance of which is far better retained, than is the narration of events relating to them. It is this circumstance that occasions diagrams and experiments to be so useful in the illustration of lectures,-without which, indeed, lectures are very inefficient substitutes for books. And more especially, it is peculiarly this which renders foreign travel so essentially serviceable in the promotion of education, more particularly of that kind of it which aims to store the mind with information.

Education of the understanding consists therefore, in disciplining the different capacities of this faculty in the exercise of acquiring knowledge, in cultivating them by the nutriment which they derive from such knowledge, and in storing the mind with ideas. As the understanding itself, and each of its capacities, is improved by the acquisition of knowledge; so from the neglect thus to educate the understanding, it sustains

"If England desires to rival Germany, she must do as Germany does, by teaching her sons and daughters a knowledge of natural objects before they study the abstract sciences at our great universities.”—Smee. Mind of Man, c. v. p. 36.