human," was for the first time publicly expressed in Rome, there ran a general murmur of applause through the amphitheatre. Would that such might be the case now! We have accustomed onrselves. (deceived by the familiar picture which makes the educator see in the faint charcoal sketch upon the artist's easel the splendor of the finished portrait) to look at the outward appearance, the (sometimes counterfeit) manifestation of knowledge, will, and power. Fully, nay more justly, might we think of the moving thoughts, the feelings, the heart. Oh! could we view our pupils, acting like Stephen of Colonna, who, when he fell into the hands of his base assailants, and they asked him in derision, "Where now is your fortress?" simply replied, placing his hand upon his heart, "Here!"

PRACTICAL EDUCATION.

BY WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE.

In this age of ours which is "nothing if not practical," we are accustomed to look with a half-pitying scorn upon the one who ventures to assert that its tendencies and aims are not the highest possible, and who dares challenge a comparison, and perhaps an unfavorable one, with some age merged in the past long since, and with which we flatter ourselves, in our self-sufficiency, that we are well done. We throw ourselves beneath the wheels of the locomotive-engine, true car of Juggernaut, and in base ecstasy of worship, stop our ears to the voice of the sage who tells us that our idol is, after all, a creature made with hands; that steam-engines are not the things most essential to civilization; that civilization could get along very well without them; that in our infatuation for the material things of which they are the fitting type, we are forgetting, if we have not already well-nigh forgotten, the higher things of the spirit.

"The world is too much with us, late and soon

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."

This noblest utterance of Wordsworth finds little echo in the ears of men who believe in all sincerity that the material advancement of this century is an unmitigated good, and that mankind is to-day actually, by just so much, better off than ever before.

It may indeed well be that Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin, in the white-heat of their indignation, have given expression to sentiments that cannot be honestly shared even by those who, free from the prevailing idol-worship, are capable of giving them dispassionate consideration. They have both, for example, said things on the subject of political economy which, from any other lips, would be deserving of no other comment than a smile, but which, coming whence they do, are at least deserving of respectful consideration, as affording indications unmistakable of the moral fervor which animates these men, if for no other reason.

It seems to be a law of human development that no error can be successfully combated save by an opposite view almost as extreme as the one fought against. Nothing is more clearly indicative of the moral corruption which such men see in our age of comfort, than the extreme remedies which they suggest. The Don Quixote of popular

imagination, who fights with wind-mills, is, no doubt, sufficiently amusing; but the real Don Quixote, as Cervantes meant that we should see him, the sensitive, refined, noble nature, surrounded by a world so vulgar, so incapable of construing the motives which actuate him, and of greeting with aught but ridicule his noblest impulses, that he is driven to madness and the ideal world of his own creation for solace, this should leave us grave, rather than smiling, this is matter not for laughter, but for tears.

In the pages of the greatest teacher which our age is fortunate enough still to possess, I find such words as these: "Modern education, for the most part, signifies giving people the faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to them." Considering whence it comes, this is a serious charge, and well worthy of our attention. I find elsewhere in the same book the following passage, which may perhaps serve to make clearer the meaning of the writer, and which will furnish the key-note of what I wish to say in this essay. "It happens," Mr. Ruskin says, " that I have practically some connection with schools for different classes of youth, and I receive many letters from parents respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these letters I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a 'position in life' takes above all other thoughts in the parents',-more especially in the mothers' minds. 'The education befitting such-and-such a station in life,'- this is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself. The conception of abstract rightness in training rarely seems reached by the writers. But an education which shall keep a good coat on my son's back; an education which shall enable him to ring with confidence the visitor's bell at double-belled doors; education which shall result ultimately in establishment of a double-belled door to his own house; in a word, which shall lead to advancement in life.' It never seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which, in itself, is advancement in life; that any other than that may, perhaps, be advancement in death; and that this essential education might be more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set about it in the right way; while it is for no price, and by no favor, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong." Let us see what light may be thrown upon the problem by the conditions of modern life, and endeavor to ascertain if they be such as to encourage the acquisition of that education which, in itself, is advancement in life.

That a great material development is the most marked characteristic of this age, there can be no manner of doubt. In the civilized

countries of the world of to-day, the thoughts of men are directed rather to mechanical inventions than to artistic creations; a new machine is of vastly more consequence than a new poem. An idea brought forward, whether new or old, is judged solely with reference to the narrow expediencies of the moment; if it fit into the order of things as existing just at present, well and good; if not, it is visionary, very well in theory, but impracticable, and practical men will have nothing to do with it. Let us consider for a moment what this state of things means, and this first, from the standpoint of the politico-economist.

It means, to begin with, that a given nation for the same amount of work as in times past is able to produce a much larger aggregate amount of the things which are needed to satisfy human desires; to a certain extent, better food, clothing, and shelter, but especially many things which, although not necessaries, are very pleasant things to have, and which formerly were not to be had at all. Viewed in this light alone (and in this light alone do most men view the matter), the state of human affairs seems cheerful enough, and the causes which have operated to bring about such a condition of things fit subject for unlimited complacency. So pleasant a subject of contemplation does this prove to most men, that they lose sight of the real question involved, which is not whether men to-day can satisfy a greater number of desires than they could formerly with a given amount of effort, but whether the ratio of satisfied desires to those remaining unsatisfied is greater now than in times past. This is the real question, upon the answer to which must depend the attitude we assume toward the material prosperity of the age. It is not to be disputed that men are to-day, on the whole, in possession of more comforts than at any time in the past. It is very much to be questioned if they are any happier, on the whole, than they have been in times past; for happiness, as far as it may be said to be proportional to anything, is not proportional to the number of desires that are gratified, but to the ratio between these desires and those which are not gratified. We know well that, as the desires of men become fulfilled, they invent new objects of desire; and if those new objects keep pace with those which, being gratified, no longer occupy the mind, men may be no better off than before, and a man born in the ninth century may have stood just as fair a chance of happiness as one born in the nineteenth. I do not say this because I think that men are equally well off in all ages, but simply to expose the utter fallacy of the vulgar assumption that an age of material prosperity, is, of necessity, an age of wide-spread happiness, and to place in a clear light the fact that individual happiness

depends upon too many things to be determined by a mere summing up of satisfied desires.

Let us again, for a moment, assume the standpoint of the economist, and inquire into the conditions of this material age, which offers so many problems to the thinking mind.

We find the chief cause of this condition of things to be the more intimate relations between different countries, and the consequent vast extension of the principle of the Division of Labor. The extent to which this is carried is, of course, something quite unparalleled in past history, because simply impossible in any age preceding our own.

In the Poet at the Breakfast Table we read of a man whose life is devoted to the study of insects, but he disclaims, as bordering on the impious, the presumption of styling himself an Entomologist. No man may rationally aspire to higher glory than to be known as, for example, a Coleopterist, and he will be quite content, for his part, if he may be found worthy of the name of Scarabæist!

Adam Smith tells us, and economists delight in repeating the story that in the manufacture of a pin there are some twenty distinct operations, which are performed by as many persons, each of whom makes one of these operations his life-work, pursuing it as a trade and coming eventually to be possessed of astonishing dexterity in drawing out the wire, or in cutting it into lengths, or in making the point, as the case may be; all of this being to the end that the twenty men together may make many more pins than could be made were each of them to perform all the operations and make his own pins. This is a concrete illustration of the state of things which so marks off the present age from all others. It may be expressed, in general terms, by saying that the work which the world wants done is parcelled out into a constantly-increasing number of occupations which, as their number is increased, become proportionally narrow in scope, and that the narrower the field which a man assigns himself for the labor by which he must gain his livelihood, the greater his chances of success.

This is both a tendency and a fact. A fact, in that the system which it represents has already gained firm foothold in every important branch of human effort; a tendency, in that all classes of effort are daily becoming more and more specialized. To the extension of this system there seems to be no assignable limit; the question arises, Is it a tendency to be regarded wholly with approval ? Is it something to be encouraged to the utmost by the men earnest for the good of mankind? In the highest sense, and viewed in the light of the largest expediencies, does it pay? To no one does this