their instinct of 'similis simile gaudet'
gradually come to determine the nature of these institutions. There
may be a few people, hopelessly unfamiliar with pedagogical matters,
who believe that our present profusion of public schools and teachers,
which is manifestly out of all proportion, can be changed into a real
profusion, an _ubertas ingenii_, merely by a few rules and
regulations, and without any reduction in the number of these
institutions. But we may surely be unanimous in recognising that by
the very nature of things only an exceedingly small number of people
are destined for a true course of education, and that a much smaller
number of higher educational establishments would suffice for their
further development, but that, in view of the present large numbers of
educational institutions, those for whom in general such institutions
ought only to be established must feel themselves to be the least
facilitated in their progress.

"The same holds good in regard to teachers. It is precisely the best
teachers--those who, generally speaking, judged by a high standard,
are worthy of this honourable name--who are now perhaps the least
fitted, in view of the present standing of our public schools, for the
education of these unselected youths, huddled together in a confused
heap; but who must rather, to a certain extent, keep hidden from them
the best they could give: and, on the other hand, by far the larger
number of these teachers feel themselves quite at home in these
institutions, as their moderate abilities stand in a kind of
harmonious relationship to the dullness of their pupils. It is from
this majority that we hear the ever-resounding call for the
establishment of new public schools and higher educational
institutions: we are living in an age which, by ringing the changes on
its deafening and continual cry, would certainly give one the
impression that there was an unprecedented thirst for culture which
eagerly sought to be quenched. But it is just at this point that one
should learn to hear aright: it is here, without being disconcerted by
the thundering noise of the education-mongers, that we must confront
those who talk so tirelessly about the educational necessities of
their time. Then we should meet with a strange disillusionment, one
which we, my good friend, have often met with: those blatant heralds
of educational needs, when examined at close quarters, are suddenly
seen to be transformed into zealou