elied upon for creating the
love of knowledge in the practice of surveying. In this operation so
large an aggregate of subsidiary knowledge is demanded,--of
arithmetic, for instance--of mensuration--of trigonometry, together
with 'the manual facility of constructing maps and plans,' that a
sudden revelation is made to the pupils of the uses and
indispensableness of many previous studies which hitherto they had
imperfectly appreciated; they also 'exercise their discretion in
choosing points of observation; they learn expertness in the use, and
care in the preservation of instruments: and, above all,--from this
feeling that they are really _at work_, they acquire that sobriety and
steadiness of conduct in which the elder school-boy is so often
inferior to his less fortunate neighbour, who has been removed at an
early age to the accompting-house.'--The value of the sense of utility
the Experimentalist brings home forcibly to every reader's
recollections, by reminding him of the many cases in which a sudden
desire for self-education breaks out in a few months after the close
of an inefficient education: 'and what,' he asks, 'produces the
change? The experience, however short, of the utility of acquisitions,
which were perhaps lately despised.' Better then 'to spare the future
man many moments of painful retrospection,' by educing this sense of
utility, 'while the time and opportunity of improvement remain
unimpaired.' Finally, the sense of utility is connected with the
peculiar exercises in _composition_; 'a department of education which
we confess' (says the Experimentalist) 'has often caused us
considerable uneasiness;' an uneasiness which we, on our part, look
upon as groundless. For starting ourselves from the same point with
the Experimentalist and the authority he alleges--viz. that the
_matter_ of a good theme or essay altogether transcends the reflective
powers and the opportunities for observing of a raw school-boy,--we
yet come to a very different practical conclusion. The act of
composition cannot, it is true, create thoughts in a boy's head unless
they exist previously. On this consideration, let all questions of
general speculation be dismissed from school exercises: especially
questions of _moral_ speculation, which usually furnish the thesis of
a school-boy's essay: let us have no more themes on Justice--on
Ambition--on Benevolence--on the Love of Fame, &c.: for all theses
such as these, which treat moral qua