orces are daily
and hourly educating us--_i.e._, calling out our possibilities into
real existence. If we set up our will in opposition to either of these;
if we act in opposition to the laws of nature; if we seriously offend
the laws, or even the customs, of the people among whom we live; or if
we despise our individual lot, we do so only to find ourselves crushed
in the encounter. We only learn the impotence of the individual against
these mighty powers; and that discovery is, of itself, a part of our
education. It is sometimes only by such severe means that God is
revealed to the man who persistently misunderstands and defies His
creation. All suffering brought on ourselves by our own violation of
laws, whether natural, ethical, or divine, must be, however, thus
recognized as the richest blessing. We do not mean to say that it is
never allowable for a man, in obedience to the highest laws of his
spiritual being, to break away from the fetters of nature--to offend the
ethical sense of his own people, or to struggle against the might of
destiny. Reformers and martyrs would be examples of such, and our
remarks above do not apply to them, but to the perverse, the frivolous,
and the conceited; to those who are seeking in their action, not the
undoubted will of God, but their own individual will or caprice.

Sec. 17. But we generally use the word Education in a still narrower
sense than either of these, for we mean by it the working of one
individual mind upon or within another in some definite and premeditated
way, so as to fit the pupil for life generally, or for some special
pursuit. For this end the educator must be relatively finished in his
own education, and the pupil must possess confidence in him, or
docility. He must be teachable. That the work be successful, demands the
very highest degree of talent, knowledge, skill, and prudence; and any
development is impossible if a well-founded authority be wanting in the
educator, or docility on the part of the pupil.

Education, in this narrowest and technical sense, is an outgrowth of
city or urban life. As long as men do not congregate in large cities,
the three forces spoken of in Sec. 16--_i.e._, the forces of nature,
national customs, and circumstances--will be left to perform most of the
work of Education; but, in modern city life, the great complication of
events, the uncertainty in the results--though careful forethought has
been used--the immense development of