e occupations which most men take up
casually--as book-writing, digging, singing, and legislation, and the
like--there is much less exact knowledge, less form, more originality
and progress, and more of the public know something about them in an
unprofessional way.

The Caste system of India, Egypt, and Ancient Ireland carried out the
formal apprenticeship plan to its full extent. The United States of
America have very little of it. Modern Europe is between the two, as
she has in most things abolished caste or hereditary professions (kings
and nobles excepted), but has, in many things, retained exact
apprenticeships.

Marriage, and the bringing up of children, the employment of
dependants, travel, and daily sights and society, are our chief
teachers of morals, sentiment, taste, prudence and manners. Mechanical
and literary skill of all sorts, and most accomplishments, are usually
picked up in this same way.

We have said all this lest our less-instructed readers should fall into
a mistake common to all beginners in study, that books, and schooling,
and lectures, are the chief teachers in life; whereas most of the
things we learn here are learned from the experience of home, and of
the practical parts of our trades and amusements.

We pray our humbler friends to think long and often on this.

But let them not suppose we undervalue or wish them to neglect other
kinds of teaching; on the contrary, they should mark how much the
influences of home, and business, and society, are affected by the
quantity and sort of their scholarship.

Home life is obviously enough affected by education. Where the parents
read and write, the children learn to do so too, early in life and with
little trouble; where they know something of their religious creed they
give its rites a higher meaning than mere forms; where they know the
history of the country well, every field, every old tower or arch is a
subject of amusement, of fine old stories, and fine young hopes; where
they know the nature of other people and countries, their own country
and people become texts to be commented on, and likewise supply a
living comment on those peculiarities of which they have read.

Again, where the members of a family can read aloud, or play, or sing,
they have a well of pleasant thoughts and good feelings which can
hardly be dried or frozen up; and so of other things.

And in the trades and professions of life, to study in books the
objects, custo