isy and slower-footed thought
Can overtake the rapture of the sense.

The extinction of the early poetry and romance which gave beauty to the
first view of these realities has often been accomplished by the most
deliberate educational processes. There are two kinds of
education,--that which educates, and that which eradicates. The latter
is the easier and the more ancient method.

Wordsworth writes:--

Oh, many are the poets that are sown
By Nature, men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine.

But with this broad-sowing of the highest gifts it is astonishing how
few come to maturity. I imagine that the Educational Man with the Hoe is
responsible for a good deal of the loss. In his desire for clean culture
he treats any sproutings of the faculty divine as mere weeds, if they
come up between the rows.

If the Educational Man with the Hoe is to be feared, the Educational Man
with the Pruning Shears is an equal menace.

There is an art, once highly esteemed, called topiary. The object of
topiary when carried to excess was to take a tree, preferably a yew
tree, and by careful trimming to make it look like something else, say a
peacock standing under an umbrella. Curious effects could be produced in
this way, leafy similitudes of birds and animals could be made so that
the resemblance was almost as striking as if they had been cut out of
gingerbread.

The object of educational topiary is to take a child, and, by careful
pruning away of all his natural propensities, make of him a miniature
grown-up. It is an interesting art, for it shows what can be done; the
only wonder is why any one should want to do it. If you would see this
art at its best, turn to Miss Edgeworth's "Frank," a book much admired
in its day. Frank, to begin with, was a very likable little boy. If he
was not made of the "sugar and spice and all things nice" that little
girls are made of, he had all the more homely miscellaneous ingredients
that little boys are made of. The problem of the careful father and
mother was to take Frank and reduce him in the shortest possible time to
the adult frame of mind. To this end they sought out any vagrant fancies
and inquisitive yearnings and wayward adventurousness, and destroyed
them. This slaughter of the innocents continued till Frank's mind was a
model of propriety.

It was hard work, but there was a satisfaction in doing it thoroughly.
The evening meal was