In our foregoing talk we were led to frame a very simple conception of
what an education means. In the last analysis it consists in the
organizing of _resources_ in the human being, of powers of conduct which
shall fit him to his social and physical world. An 'uneducated' person
is one who is nonplussed by all but the most habitual situations. On the
contrary, one who is educated is able practically to extricate himself,
by means of the examples with which his memory is stored and of the
abstract conceptions which he has acquired, from circumstances in which
he never was placed before. Education, in short, cannot be better
described than by calling it _the organization of acquired habits of
conduct and tendencies to behavior_.

To illustrate. You and I are each and all of us educated, in our several
ways; and we show our education at this present moment by different
conduct. It would be quite impossible for me, with my mind technically
and professionally organized as it is, and with the optical stimulus
which your presence affords, to remain sitting here entirely silent and
inactive. Something tells me that I am expected to speak, and must
speak; something forces me to keep on speaking. My organs of
articulation are continuously innervated by outgoing currents, which the
currents passing inward at my eyes and through my educated brain have
set in motion; and the particular movements which they make have their
form and order determined altogether by the training of all my past
years of lecturing and reading. Your conduct, on the other hand, might
seem at first sight purely receptive and inactive,--leaving out those
among you who happen to be taking notes. But the very listening which
you are carrying on is itself a determinate kind of conduct. All the
muscular tensions of your body are distributed in a peculiar way as you
listen. Your head, your eyes, are fixed characteristically. And, when