nd.

In the ordinary result-hunting school the scholar fares very
differently from this. As a rule, he takes but little pleasure in his
work, for subjects which have their chief value as means to desirable
ends are presented to him as ends in themselves, and as such are
rightly regarded by him as meaningless and therefore as intolerably
dull; while subjects which are either intrinsically attractive, as
being natural channels of self-expression, or potentially attractive
as providing opportunities for self-expression, have no attraction
for him, as in neither case is self-expression on his part permitted.
Again, he finds great difficulty in mastering the subjects on his
time-table, or even in making the first step towards mastering them,
for, owing to his perceptive faculties as a whole having been
starved by the repressive _regime_ which denied them the outlet
of expression, he has not evolved the power of putting forth an
appropriate sense in response to the stimulus of a new environment,
and is therefore helpless in the presence of what is unfamiliar or
unexpected. One of his faculties, his memory, has indeed been
hypertrophied by being unduly exercised, and his capacity for
receiving information is in consequence unhealthily great; but
because he lacks, in this case or in that, the _sense_ which might
enable him to digest the information received and convert it into
knowledge, the food with which he has been crammed speedily passes
through him, undigested and unassimilated, and the hours which he has
spent in acquiring information will have done as little for his
progress in the given subject as for the general growth of his mind.

The difference between the two schemes of education--that which
exacts mechanical obedience, and that which seeks to foster
growth--may be looked at from another point of view. Under the
former, interference with what I may call the subconscious processes
of Nature is at its maximum. Under the latter, at its minimum. In
order to realise what this means let us suppose that such
interference were possible where fortunately it is and must ever be
impossible,--in the first and second years of the child's life.
Fortunately for the child, it is impossible for us to educate him,
in any formal sense of the word, until he has mastered his mother
tongue. Were it otherwise, his mother tongue would never be mastered.
Before he reaches the age of two the child accomplishes the
marvellous feat of acq