did not wish his son
to be a Coburg." But the Emperor himself was quite as much a dilettant
as Prince Albert; though their dilettantism did not lie in the same
directions. The Prince was an amateur musician and artist; the Emperor
was an amateur historian, an amateur scholar, and antiquary. It may be
added that Napoleon III. indulged in another and more dangerous kind of
amateurship. He had a taste for amateur generalship, and the
consequences of his indulgence of this taste are known to every one.

The variety of modern education encourages a scattered dilettantism. It
is only in professional life that the energies of young men are
powerfully concentrated. There is a steadying effect in thorough
professional training which school education does not supply. Our boys
receive praise and prizes for doing many things most imperfectly, and it
is not their fault if they remain ignorant of what perfection really is,
and of the immensity of the labor which it costs. I think that you would
do well, perhaps, without discouraging your son too much by chillingly
accurate estimates of the value of what he has done, to make him on all
proper occasions feel and see the difference between half-knowledge and
thorough mastery. It would be a good thing for a youth to be made
clearly aware how enormous a price of labor Nature has set upon high
accomplishment in everything that is really worthy of his pursuit. It is
this persuasion, which men usually arrive at only in their maturity,
that operates as the most effectual tranquillizer of frivolous
activities.

LETTER VI.

TO THE PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE.

The Author's dread of protection in intellectual pursuits--Example
from the Fine Arts--Prize poems--Governmental encouragement of
learning--The bad effects of it--Pet pursuits--Objection to the
interference of Ministers--A project for separate examinations.

What I am going to say will seem very strange to you, and is not
unlikely to arouse as much professional animosity as you are capable of
feeling against an old friend. You who are a dignitary of the
University, and have earned your various titles in a fair field, as a
soldier wins his epaulettes before the enemy, are not the likeliest
person to hear with patience the unauthorized theories of an innovator.
Take them, then, as mere speculations, if you will--not altogether
unworthy of consideration, for they are suggested by a sincere anxiety
for the best interests of