and without a single decided instance in exception, fallen short of aught that could be styled a perfect method of education, and so closely must educational training affect every nascent man or woman in those vitalest particulars,—­character and capability,—­that, could the perfect method sought once be brought into effective operation on the plastic child-manhood of a nation, or of all nations, we are not prepared to deny the possibility of any results therefrom to humanity, even the grandest utterable or conceivable.  Admitting such method found, and in process, Beccaria could have dispensed with his tell-tale ‘most,’ and written, The certain means of rendering a people free and happy, is, to establish a perfect method of education.

To secure, therefore, so great an end:  First, find—­the perfect educational method!  The recipe is brief; the labor it imposes is more than Herculean.  To measure it, we should have to find the ratio in which mind transcends matter, or that in which the broad generalizations of genius in the materials of science surpass the poor conceptions that the wild Australian must almost utter audibly in his own ear to realize that he at all possesses them.

In the 5,865 years which the most unquestioned belief accords to the history of man on our planet, could we suppose the average duration of life throughout equal to that of a generation now, there would have been time for 177 generations of working, planning, inventive men—­of men desiring at each period the best they could conceive of, and framing the best schemes they were capable of to attain it.  Here has been space for the slow rise and fall of nation after nation,—­vast solitary tides heaving at long intervals the face of a wide, living, sullen sea:  and history reports that the nations have actually risen, flourished, and fallen.  Here has been space for exquisite triumphs of art; for the late birth, and nevertheless large progress, of the sciences concerned about phenomena of physical nature; the art triumphs have been achieved, and the germs of sciences are in our possession.  Here has been space for the multiplication, upon all imaginable themes, of books, to a number and volume utterly beyond the powers of the most prolonged and assiduous life even to peruse; and the books crowd our alcoves, and meet us wherever men are wont to make their abode or transit.  Here has been space for the organization, though so long impracticable and late conceived, of a system of daily diffusion of intelligence, and to such a pitch as almost to bring the world freshly photographed to our eyes with each returning sun; and, lo! the photographs are here; they await us at the breakfast or the counting table.  Here has been space for the springing up among the people, at distances of years or centuries, of profound educating intellects, marked by clear insight, large human love, and patient self-sacrifice, and contributing to the growth of humanity by worthy examples, and by propounding