m, as the result of the contravention of the laws of
evolution, and the failure to perceive the analogy between the
simplest methods of agriculture, and the cultivation of mentality. We
have expected fruit and flowers from waste and untilled soil; we sowed
the seed of instruction without even ploughing the land, or
eradicating the prominent weeds, and we are reaping a crop of thistles
where we looked for figs, and thorns where we looked for grapes. The
seed scattered so lavishly by the wayside was devoured by the fowls of
the air; that which was sown upon the stony places, where there was
not much earth, could not withstand the heat of summer; and that which
fell among thorns was choked by the unconquered possessors of the
field. A little, a very little, which "fell into good ground brought
forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold";
and therein lies our only consolation.

The educational enthusiasts of 1870 forgot that the material they had
to work upon did not come from inherited refinement and intelligence;
that it was evolved from a parentage content with a vocabulary of some
500 words; that there was little nobility of home influence to assist
in the process of development; they crammed it with matter which it
could not assimilate, they took it from the open country air and the
sunshine, confined it in close and crowded school-rooms, and produced
what we see everywhere at the present time, at the cost of physical
deterioration--a diseased and unsettled mentality.

I am aware that there are those who decline to admit any influence of
mental heredity, and argue that environment is the only factor to be
considered. In a clever and well-reasoned work on the subject I lately
read, this proposition was substantiated by instances observable
especially among birds brought up in unnatural conditions. The writer,
however, entirely forgot the most conclusive piece of evidence in
favour of mental heredity which it is possible to adduce--namely, that
of the brood of ducklings, who, in spite of the unmistakable
manifestations of alarm on the part of a frantic foster-mother hen,
take to the water and enjoy it on the very first opportunity.

CHAPTER X.

VILLAGE INSTITUTIONS: CRICKET--FOOTBALL--FLOWERSHOW--BAND--POSTMAN--
CONCERTS.

"There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass."
_The Lotus-Eate