they will consider that the all-important knowledge of surrounding objects which a child gets in its early years is got without help—­if they will remember that the child is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue—­if they will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every boy gathers for himself—­if they will mark the unusual intelligence of the uncared-for London gamin, as shown in whatever directions his faculties have been tasked—­if, further, they will think how many minds have struggled up unaided, not only through the mysteries of our irrationally-planned curriculum, but through hosts of other obstacles besides; they will find it a not unreasonable conclusion that if the subjects be put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will surmount his successive difficulties with but little assistance.  Who indeed can watch the ceaseless observation, and inquiry, and inference going on in a child’s mind, or listen to its acute remarks on matters within the range of its faculties, without perceiving that these powers it manifests, if brought to bear systematically upon studies within the same range, would readily master them without help?  This need for perpetual telling results from our stupidity, not from the child’s.  We drag it away from the facts in which it is interested, and which it is actively assimilating of itself.  We put before it facts far too complex for it to understand; and therefore distasteful to it.  Finding that it will not voluntarily acquire these facts, we thrust them into its mind by force of threats and punishment.  By thus denying the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we produce a morbid state of its faculties; and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general.  And when, as a result partly of the stolid indolence we have brought on, and partly of still-continued unfitness in its studies, the child can understand nothing without explanation, and becomes a mere passive recipient of our instruction, we infer that education must necessarily be carried on thus.  Having by our method induced helplessness, we make the helplessness a reason for our method.  Clearly then, the experience of pedagogues cannot rationally be quoted against the system we are advocating.  And whoever sees this, will see that we may safely follow the discipline of Nature throughout—­may, by a skilful ministration, make the mind as self-developing in its later stages as it is in its earlier ones; and that only by doing this can we produce the highest power and activity.