be developed a correct and complete body of doctrine.  Of the three phases through which human opinion passes—­the unanimity of the ignorant, the disagreement of the inquiring, and the unanimity of the wise—­it is manifest that the second is the parent of the third.  They are not sequences in time only, they are sequences in causation.  However impatiently, therefore, we may witness the present conflict of educational systems, and however much we may regret its accompanying evils, we must recognise it as a transition stage needful to be passed through, and beneficent in its ultimate effects.

Meanwhile, may we not advantageously take stock of our progress?  After fifty years of discussion, experiment, and comparison of results, may we not expect a few steps towards the goal to be already made good?  Some old methods must by this time have fallen out of use; some new ones must have become established; and many others must be in process of general abandonment or adoption.  Probably we may see in these various changes, when put side by side, similar characteristics—­may find in them a common tendency; and so, by inference, may get a clue to the direction in which experience is leading us, and gather hints how we may achieve yet further improvements.  Let us then, as a preliminary to a deeper consideration of the matter, glance at the leading contrasts between the education of the past and that of the present.

* * * * *

The suppression of every error is commonly followed by a temporary ascendency of the contrary one; and so it happened, that after the ages when physical development alone was aimed at, there came an age when culture of the mind was the sole solicitude—­when children had lesson-books put before them at between two and three years old, and the getting of knowledge was thought the one thing needful.  As, further, it usually happens that after one of these reactions the next advance is achieved by co-ordinating the antagonist errors, and perceiving that they are opposite sides of one truth; so, we are now coming to the conviction that body and mind must both be cared for, and the whole thing being unfolded.  The forcing-system has been, by many, given up; and precocity is discouraged.  People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life, is to be a good animal.  The best brain is found of little service, if there be not enough vital energy to work it; and hence to obtain the one by sacrificing the source of the other, is now considered a folly—­a folly which the eventual failure of juvenile prodigies constantly illustrates.  Thus we are discovering the wisdom of the saying, that one secret in education is “to know how wisely to lose time.”