of self-development, which requires the original exercise of the greatest number of them.

Supposing this to be admitted, which I think will not be denied, the question will arise what studies are best adapted to our purpose. This is a question which cannot be settled by authority. We are just as capable of deciding it as the men who have gone before us. They were once, like ourselves, men of the present, and their wisdom has not certainly received any addition from the slumber of centuries. They may have been able to judge correctly for the time that then was, but could they revisit us now, they might certainly be no better able than ourselves to judge correctly for the time that now is. If any of us should be heard of 200 years hence, it would surely be strange folly for the men of A.D. 2054 to receive our sayings as oracles concerning the conditions of society which will be then existing. God gives to every age the means for perceiving its own wants and discovering the best manner of supplying them; and it is, therefore, certainly best that every age should decide such questions for itself. We cannot, certainly, decide them by authority.

There are two methods by which we can determine the truth in this matter. First, we may examine any particular study and observe the faculties of mind which it does and which it does not call into action. Every reasonable man, at all acquainted with the nature of his own mind, will be able to do this. Take, for instance, the studies which are pursued for the sake merely of discipline. Do they call into exercise one or many of our faculties? Suppose they cultivate the reasoning power, and the power of poetic combination; do they do anything else? If not, what have we by which to improve the powers of observation, of consciousness, of generalization, and combination, these most important and most valuable of our faculties? If, then, their range be so limited, it may be deserving of inquiry whether some studies which can improve a larger number of our faculties might not sometimes take their places; and yet more, whether they should occupy so large a portion of the time devoted to education.

But we may examine the subject by another test. We may ask what are the results actually produced by devotion to those studies which are allowed to be merely disciplinary. We teach the mathematics to cultivate the reasoning power, and the languages to improve the imagination and the taste. We then may very properly inquire, are mathematicians better reasoners than other men, in matters not mathematical? As a student advances in the mathematics, do we find his powers of ratiocination, in anything but the relations of quantity, to be visibly improved? Are philologists or classical students more likely to become poets, or artists, than other men; or, does their style by this mode of discipline approach more nearly to the classical models of their own, or of any other language?

It is by such considerations as these that this question is to be

answered. We have long since abjured all belief in magical influences. If we cannot discover any law of nature by which a cause produces its effect, and are unable to perceive that the effect is produced, we begin to doubt whether any causation exists in the

matter.

If there be any truth in the foregoing remarks, they would seem to lead us to the following conclusions:

First, that every branch of study should be so taught as to accomplish both the results of which we have been speaking; that is, that it should not only increase our knowledge, but also confer valuable discipline; and that it should not only confer valuable discipline, but also increase our knowledge; and that, if it does not accomplish both of these results, there is either some defect in our mode of teaching, or the study is imperfectly adapted to the purposes of education.

Secondly, that there seems no good reason for claiming preeminence for one study over another, at least in the manner to which we have been accustomed. The studies merely disciplinary have valuable practical uses. To many pursuits they are important, and to some indispensable. Let them, then, take their proper place in any system of good learning, and claim nothing more than to be judged of by their results. Let them not be the unmeaning shibboleth of a caste; but, standing on the same level with all other intellectual pursuits, be valued exactly in proportion to their ability to increase the power and range and skill of the human mind, and to furnish it with that knowledge which shall most signally promote the well-being and happiness of humanity.

And, thirdly, it would seem that our whole system of instruction requires an honest, thorough, and candid revision. It has been for centuries the child of authority and precedent. If those before us made it what it is, by applying to it the resources of earnest and fearless thought, I can see no reason why we, by pursuing the same course, might not improve it. God intended us for progress, and we counteract his design when we deify antiquity, and bow down and worship an opinion, not because it is either wise or true, but merely because it is ancient.

ON THOROUGHNESS OF INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENT.

(Extract from a Lecture delivered at University College, London, by PROFESSOR A. DE MORGAN.)

THERE are two ways in which education is to be considered: that is to say, with reference to its effect upon the character and disposition of the individual, and also with reference to the degree of power and energy which is communicated to the mind. Now,

firstly, with respect to character as formed by education, it is hardly necessary to say that knowledge, to be useful in its effect upon habits, must be both liberal and accurate must deal in reasoning and inference, and in sound reasoning and correct inference. So much is admitted by all; but I desire to be understood as going further. In looking over the various branches of human inquiry, I do not find that what is learned in a second period is merely a certain portion added to that which was acquired in the first. If I were to teach geometry for two months, I conceive that the geometry of the second month would not merely double the amount which the student gained in the first, but would be, as it were, a new study, showing other features and giving additional powers, with the advantage of its being evident that the second step is the development and consequence of the first. Suppose that, instead of employing the second month in geometry, I had turned the attention of the student to algebra, would he have been a gainer by the change? I answer confidently in the negative.

To carry this further, let us take the whole career of the learner, and apply the same argument. There is in every branch of knowledge a beginning, a middle, and an end: a beginning, in which the student is striving with new and difficult principles, and in which he is relying in a great measure on the authority of his instructor; a middle, in which he has gained some confidence in his own knowledge, and some power of applying his first principles. He is now in a state of danger, so far as the estimate which he is likely to form of himself is concerned. He has as yet no reason to suppose that his career can be checked-nothing to humble the high notion which he will entertain of himself, his teachers, and his subject. Let him only proceed, and he will come to what I have called the end of the subject, and will begin to see that there is, if not a boundary, yet the commencement of a region which has not been tracked and surveyed, and in which not all the skill which he has acquired in voyaging by the chart will save him from losing his way. It is at this period of his career that he will begin to form a true opinion of his own mind, which, I fully believe, is not done by many persons, simply because they have never been allowed to pursue any branch of inquiry to the extent which is necessary to show them where their power ends.

For this reason I think that, whatever else may be done, some one subject, at least, should be well and thoroughly investigated, for the sake of giving the proper tone to the mind upon the use, province, and extent of knowledge in general. I might insist upon other points connected with the disposition which a want of depth upon all subjects is likely to produce; but if what I have said be founded in reason, it is amply sufficient to justify my recommendation that, for character's sake, there should be in every liberal education at least one subject thoroughly studied. What the subject should be is comparatively of minor importance, and might, perhaps, be left in some degree to the student himself.

Neither is it necessary, as to the point just considered, that every study which is undertaken should be pursued to the same depth. Convince the mind by one example, and the similarity which exists between all branches of knowledge will teach the same truth for all. 1 now proceed with the consideration of the subject, in connexion with the power which is derived from deep study, and which is not to be obtained without.

The powers which we expect to give by liberal education, or at least a very considerable portion of the whole, may be comprised under two heads, which I will take separately.

Firstly, it is one of the most important points of education that the subject of it should be made a good learner. What is it that can be done before the age of twenty-one, either at school or college? Is the education then finished? Is the pupil to pursue no branch of study further? Nay, does not a professional career open upon him immediately? He is thrown upon the world to learn, with the resources of his education to rely on, and little other help; for it is well known that, throughout our different plans of professional education, there is found but a small amount of teaching, with free permission for the aspirant to teach himself. Now, in this new career there is no stopping half way, in accordance with a previous system of education, in which many subjects were only half taught. The lawyer or physician must be a finished lawyer or physician, able to investigate his subjects at the boundaries of knowledge, and to carry his previous studies successfully up to that point. So soon as either has arrived at the height where his education left him, as to the species of mental effort requisite to carry on his subject, from that moment his future professional study becomes, in point of fact, an awkward substitute for the education which his former teachers professed to supply. He must apply himself with pain to an isolated subject, under great difficulties and with small helps, to gain that power which might so much more easily have been gained when the mind was more supple, and formation of habits more easy. Seeing, then, that the future business of life will require a knowledge of the way to go through with a branch of inquiry, I submit that such a process should form, in one instance at least, the exercise of preceding years. The steady habit of reading, which extends over a long period; the practice of retaining difficulties in mind to be considered and reconsidered, to be taken up at the leisure moment, and laid down as deferred but not abandoned; the method of laying aside that which presents an obstacle insuperable for the time, but always bearing the point in mind in subsequent study, waiting to catch the moment at which more extensive reading will furnish the clue required ;-all these most essential requisites for successful prosecution of professional studies are not to be learnt by anything but practice; nor can they be practised upon the first half, so to speak, of a branch of knowledge. To make a subject teach the mind how to inquire, it must be carried beyond the point at which the necessity for

inquiry commences. I might, were it necessary, insist upon the success which so frequently in after life attends those who have exerted their juvenile powers in the thorough mastery of some main branch of knowledge, so far as their years rendered it practicable. But this would lead me too far, and I shall, therefore, proceed to the -second quality of mind in question.

Among the educated classes we find those who can readily combine the ideas which they possess, and can turn their previous acquirements to the original consideration of such questions as arise; and we also find those who are slow at such exercise, or almost altogether incapable of it. In the latter class we often meet with persons who receive what is submitted to them with sufficient readiness of perception, and decide upon it with judgment, but, nevertheless, seem incapable of making one step in advance, or, as we should say in conversation, "out of their own heads." That the faculty of thinking easily, and originating thought, should be carefully cultivated, needs not to be maintained; and it cannot be effectively done without a considerable degree of attention paid to the method of thinking which is chosen. Would you train a youth to discriminate nicely by aid of the study of etymology and verbal criticism, and by habituating him to recognise the very nice, but very true, distinctions which that study points out? Then he must leave his accidence far behind, and become well practised in the routine of language: the beginner is not made ready to approach his ultimate object in a twelvemonth. Is it desired to sharpen his power of suggesting methods of deduction by means of mathematical studies? He must go through the elements, during which he will find neither the materials for his original investigations, nor power to pursue them. He must first patiently collect knowledge, and the power of application will come by very slow degrees, and will not be in that state of activity which will answer the purpose, until something more than mere elements is effectively learnt. Considerations of the same character apply to every department of knowledge there is a lower stage in which the pupil can do little more than collect; there is a higher state of knowledge in which he can begin effectively to apply thought to his collected stores, and thus make them help him to useful habits of mind. If it be desired to train the power of investigation, and to enable the student to do something for himself, it must be by following up one subject at least, to the extent just described.

I might, further, instance the tendency to create power of perseverance which must exist in sustained and digested study, and the habit of steady application thereby fostered. But upon these points there will be no dispute. I will only observe, that accuracy is seldom the fruit of an attention much divided in early years. Generally speaking, correctness in any branch of knowledge is a result only of much study. However simple the subject may be, however absurd the only possible mistake may be, I believe it may be taken as an axiom that the beginner is always inaccurate, and remains