help to establish some useful fact—­say, a good example of hereditary transmission.  But in these cases, every one would admit that there was no proportion between the required labour and the probable benefit.  No one would tolerate the proposal to devote some years of a boy’s time to getting such information, at the cost of much more valuable information which he might else have got.  And if here the test of relative value is appealed to and held conclusive, then should it be appealed to and held conclusive throughout.  Had we time to master all subjects we need not be particular.  To quote the old song:—­

  Could a man be secure
  That his day would endure
  As of old, for a thousand long years,
  What things might he know! 
  What deeds might he do! 
  And all without hurry or care.

“But we that have but span-long lives” must ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition.  And remembering how narrowly this time is limited, not only by the shortness of life, but also still more by the business of life, we ought to be especially solicitous to employ what time we have to the greatest advantage.  Before devoting years to some subject which fashion or fancy suggests, it is surely wise to weigh with great care the worth of the results, as compared with the worth of various alternative results which the same years might bring if otherwise applied.

In education, then, this is the question of questions, which it is high time we discussed in some methodic way.  The first in importance, though the last to be considered, is the problem—­how to decide among the conflicting claims of various subjects on our attention.  Before there can be a rational curriculum, we must settle which things it most concerns us to know; or, to use a word of Bacon’s, now unfortunately obsolete—­we must determine the relative values of knowledges.

* * * * *

To this end, a measure of value is the first requisite.  And happily, respecting the true measure of value, as expressed in general terms, there can be no dispute.  Every one in contending for the worth of any particular order of information, does so by showing its bearing upon some part of life.  In reply to the question—­“Of what use is it?” the mathematician, linguist, naturalist, or philosopher, explains the way in which his learning beneficially influences action—­saves from evil or secures good—­conduces to happiness.  When the teacher of writing has pointed out how great an aid writing is to success in business—­that is, to the obtainment of sustenance—­that is, to satisfactory living; he is held to have proved his case.  And when the collector of dead facts (say a numismatist) fails to make clear any appreciable effects which these facts can produce on human welfare, he is obliged to admit that they are comparatively valueless.  All then, either directly or by implication, appeal to this as the ultimate test.