reek roots and algebraical formulae--not of
the natural application of the thinking faculties to the ordinary
circumstances of everyday life.

The hopeless imbecility of this tenet of faith is only equalled by the
depth to which it has taken root in the popular mind. The wonderful
thing is that the total failure of the plan has not long ago convinced
everybody of its uselessness. But that is at once the mischief and the
charm of the convention: no amount of practical demonstration will
prejudice anybody against it.

In this way the great fallacy of education has been allowed to grow up
and to spread its false and obnoxious principles like a network over the
whole civilized world. With all the baneful effects produced by these
fallacious dogmas staring them in the face, people do not seem to have
been capable of tumbling to the fact that the origin of the social evils
which surround them lies in the very calf of gold that they and their
forefathers have set up and worshipped.

Even the reformers of education appear to have deceived themselves.
Many of them--Arnold and Thring conspicuous amongst their number--have
tried to abolish this abuse or to remedy that defect; but not one has
gone to the root of the evil, and has boldly stated that the whole
system of education is based upon totally erroneous principles--designed,
not to encourage progress and generate ideas, but to stifle development,
and to place an insurmountable obstacle in the path of the evolution of
humanity.

The world has acquiesced in the deceit, and so the great fallacy has
grown up unchecked, and, like a rolling stone, gathered moss from
generation to generation, until its hideous proportions seem to have
embraced the universe, and to have shut out every particle of light from
the vision of unhappy, convention-haunted mankind.

CHAPTER XV

REAL EDUCATION

There is no such thing in existence as a system of genuine education. A
large number of institutions exist, as we have seen, for the purpose of
manufacturing and cramming, after an approved plan, the youth of the
upper and middle classes, and there is a well-organized system of sham
education spread throughout the country under the title of 'public
elementary schools.' That is the sum of modern educational effort.

The word 'education,' when used in the sense that is commonly applied to
it, could not be satisfactorily and adequately defined in less than a
post octavo pamphlet. It sign