sing musical material the _Stadt Gymnasium_
manufactured the usual piece of intellectual mediocrity. He was stuffed
with the regulation measure of facts, scraped through the customary
examination, and was despatched, much against his will, to the
universities of Jena and Zuerich. When I last saw him he was a plodding
lawyer of the conventional type, doing his duties in a listless manner,
with very indifferent success, and quite broken down in spirit. The
_Gymnasium_, the university, and the parental obstinacy had done their
work very effectually. They had succeeded in reducing him to the level
of a machine, and in all probability Germany lost an excellent musician
who might have given pleasure to thousands of others, besides enjoying
an honourable career of useful and congenial work.

We have seen that between the stupidity of the parent and the
inflexibility of the school system children have little chance of
developing their natural propensities. The results surround us
everywhere, and there is no getting away from them. All that the school
professes to do is to stuff the pupil with a certain quantity of facts
according to a fixed curriculum. It does not pretend to exercise any
other function. There is no effort to differentiate between individuals,
or to discover the natural bent of each particular child. Instruction
consists in cramming and prescribing by a more or less pernicious
method--according to the lights of the particular school authorities in
some cases, and in others according to a hard and fast code enforced by
the State--a certain quantity of facts into all pupils without
distinction.

Parents, on the other hand, think they have fulfilled their duty simply
by sending their children to school. The only thing considered necessary
to equip a child for the battle of life is to get him an education, and
nobody bothers his head about the principles or the effects of the
process. The parent leaves everything to the school, regardless of the
fact that schools do not pretend to concern themselves about the
natural tendencies of their pupils. He is satisfied if his son is
receiving the same education as his neighbour's, and is quite contented
to leave the question of his future career to be an after-consideration.

The result upon the world in general of this double neglect on the part
of parents and school systems is disastrous in the extreme. In the first
place, it makes the life of the misplaced individual a