If I had a clever boy to teach a language, I would read some interesting book with him, telling him the meaning of words, until he got a big stock of ordinary words; I would just teach him the common inflexions; and when he could read an easy book, and write the language intelligibly, then I would try to teach him a few niceties and idioms, and make him look out for differences of style and language.  But we begin at the wrong end, and store his memory with exceptions and idioms and niceties first.  No sensible human being who wanted, let us say, to know enough Italian to read Dante, would dream of setting to work as we set to work on classics.  Well then,” Father Payne went on, “I should cultivate the imagination of children a great deal more.  I should try to teach them all I could about the world as it is—­the different nations, and how they live, the distribution of plants and animals, the simpler sorts of science.  I don’t think that it need be very accurate, all that.  But children ought to realise that the world is a big place, with all sorts of interesting and exciting things going on.  I would try to give them a general view of history and the movement of civilisation.  I don’t mean a romantic view of it, with the pomps and shows and battles in the foreground; but a real view—­how people lived, and what they were driving at.  The thing could be done, if it were not for the bugbear of inaccuracy.  To know a little perfectly isn’t enough; of course, people ought to be able to write their own language accurately, and to do arithmetic.  Outside of that, you want a lot of general ideas.  It is no good teaching everything as if everyone was to end as a Professor.”

“That is a reasonable general scheme,” said Barthrop, “but what about special aptitudes?”

“Why,” said Father Payne, “I should go on those general lines till boys and girls were about fourteen.  And I should teach them with a view to the lives they were going to live.  I should teach girls a good deal of house-work, and country boys about the country—­we mustn’t forget that the common work of the world has to be done.  You must somehow interest people in the sort of work they are going to do.  It is hopeless without that.  And then we must gradually begin to specialise.  But I’m not going into all that now.  The general aim I should have in view would be to give people some idea of the world they were living in, and try to interest them in the part they were going to play; and I should try to teach them how to employ their leisure.  That seems entirely left out at present.  I want to develop people on simple and contented lines, with intelligent interests and, if possible, a special taste.  The happy man is the man who likes his work, and all education is a fraud if it turns out people who don’t like their work; and then I want people to have something to fall back upon which they enjoy.  No one can live a decent life without having things to look forward to.  But, of course, the whole thing turns on