part, I am not sure whether (with the exception, perhaps, of the highest
gifts of song) the whole distinction is not fanciful.

We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow that 'practice makes
perfect,' and the limit of that principle is yet to be found. Moreover,
the vast importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. We see
it, indeed, in men of science and in lawyers, but without recognition;
nay, socially, it is even quoted against them. The mathematician may be
very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may be at the head of his
profession, but we find him dull; and it is observed on all sides how
very little great A and great B, notwithstanding the high position they
have earned for themselves in their calling, know of matters out of
their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that
'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring
monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who have only
fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and who
diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few are
aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile
essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is
concentrated--you may call it 'narrowed' if you please--there is hardly
anything within its own sphere of action of which it is not capable. So
many high motives (though also some mean ones) prompt us to make broad
the bases of education, that any proposal to contract them must needs be
thankless and unpopular; but it is certain that, among the upper classes
at least, the reason why so many men are unable to make their way in the
world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, they are Jacks of
all trades and masters of none; and even as Jacks they cut a very poor
figure.

How large and varied is the educational bill of fare set before every