But it is one thing to approve of aesthetic culture as largely conducive to human happiness; and another thing to admit that it is a fundamental requisite to human happiness.  However important it may be, it must yield precedence to those kinds of culture which bear directly upon daily duties.  As before hinted, literature and the fine arts are made possible by those activities which make individual and social life possible; and manifestly, that which is made possible, must be postponed to that which makes it possible.  A florist cultivates a plant for the sake of its flower; and regards the roots and leaves as of value, chiefly because they are instrumental in producing the flower.  But while, as an ultimate product, the flower is the thing to which everything else is subordinate, the florist has learnt that the root and leaves are intrinsically of greater importance; because on them the evolution of the flower depends.  He bestows every care in rearing a healthy plant; and knows it would be folly if, in his anxiety to obtain the flower, he were to neglect the plant.  Similarly in the case before us.  Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.  But even supposing they are of such transcendent worth as to subordinate the civilised life out of which they grow (which can hardly be asserted), it will still be admitted that the production of a healthy civilised life must be the first consideration; and that culture subserving this must occupy the highest place.

And here we see most distinctly the vice of our educational system.  It neglects the plant for the sake of the flower.  In anxiety for elegance, it forgets substance.  While it gives no knowledge conducive to self-preservation—­while of knowledge that facilitates gaining a livelihood it gives but the rudiments, and leaves the greater part to be picked up any how in after life—­while for the discharge of parental functions it makes not the slightest provision—­and while for the duties of citizenship it prepares by imparting a mass of facts, most of which are irrelevant, and the rest without a key; it is diligent in teaching whatever adds to refinement, polish, eclat.  Fully as we may admit that extensive acquaintance with modern languages is a valuable accomplishment, which, through reading, conversation, and travel, aids in giving a certain finish; it by no means follows that this result is rightly purchased at the cost of the vitally important knowledge sacrificed to it.  Supposing it true that classical education conduces to elegance and correctness of style; it cannot be said that elegance and correctness of style are comparable in importance to a familiarity with the principles that should guide the rearing of children.  Grant that the taste may be improved by reading the poetry written in extinct languages; yet it is not to be inferred that such improvement of taste is equivalent in value to an acquaintance with the laws of health.  Accomplishments, the fine arts, belles-lettres, and all those things which, as we say, constitute the efflorescence of civilisation, should be wholly subordinate to that instruction and discipline in which civilisation rests. As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should they occupy the leisure part of education.