well, cannot mend that vulgar discontent with circumstances which
he had felt--and who with more right?--and conquered, and
despised. For that is the discontent of children, wanting always
more holidays and more sweets. But I wish my readers to have, and
to cherish, the discontent of men and women.

Therefore I would make men and women discontented, with the divine
and wholesome discontent, at their own physical frame, and at that
of their children. I would accustom their eyes to those precious
heirlooms of the human race, the statues of the old Greeks; to
their tender grandeur, their chaste healthfulness, their
unconscious, because perfect might: and say--There; these are
tokens to you, and to all generations yet unborn, of what man
could be once; of what he can be again if he will obey those laws
of nature which are the voice of God. I would make them
discontented with the ugliness and closeness of their dwellings; I
would make them discontented with the fashion of their garments,
and still more just now the women, of all ranks, with the fashion
of theirs; and with everything around them which they have the
power of improving, if it be at all ungraceful, superfluous,
tawdry, ridiculous, unwholesome. I would make them discontented
with what they call their education, and say to them--You call the
three Royal R's education? They are not education: no more is
the knowledge which would enable you to take the highest prizes
given by the Society of Arts, or any other body. They are not
education: they are only instruction; a necessary groundwork, in
an age like this, for making practical use of your education: but
not the education itself.

And if they asked me, What then education meant? I should point