on fails of reaching its aim because the
inherent nature of the youth has fought against it with such force as to
render abortive all opposing efforts. This idea of Pedagogy produces a
sort of indifference about means and ends which would leave each
individuality to grow as its own instinct and the chance influences of
the world might direct. The latter view would, of course, preclude the
possibility of any science of education, and make the youth only the
sport of blind fate. The comparative power of inherited tendencies and
of educational appliances is, however, one which every educator should
carefully study. Much careless generalization has been made on this
topic, and opinion is too often based upon some one instance where
accurate observation of methods and influences have been wanting.

Sec. 47. Education has necessarily a definite _subjective limit_ in the
individuality of the youth, for it can develop in him only that which
exists in him as a possibility. It can lead and assist, but it has no
power to create. What nature has denied to a man education cannot give
him, any more than it can on the other hand annihilate his original
gifts, though it may suppress, distort, and measurably destroy them. And
yet it is impossible to decide what is the real essence of a man's
individuality until he has left behind him the years of growth, because
it is not till then that he fully attains conscious possession of
himself. Moreover, at this critical time many traits which were supposed
to be characteristic may prove themselves not to be so by disappearing,
while long-slumbering and unsuspected talents may crop out. Whatever has
been forced upon a child, though not in harmony with his individuality,
whatever has been driven into him without having been actively accepted
by him, or having had a definite relation to his culture--will remain
perhaps, but only as an external foreign ornament, only as a parasitic
growth which weakens the force of his real nature. But we must
distinguish from these little affectations which arise from a
misconception of the limits of individuality that effort of imitation
which children and young people often exhibit in trying to copy in their
own actions those peculiarities which they observe and admire in
perfectly-developed persons with whom they may come in contact. They see
a reality which corresponds to their own possibility, and the
presentiment of a like or a similar attainment stirs them t