his father, forgetting his displeasure in the joy of copying from
life, into a comedy he was writing, the manner and speech of an old
man enraged with his son.

'Cowley, in the history of his own mind, shews the influence of boyish
fancies upon later life. He compares them to letters cut in the bark
of a young tree, which grow and widen with it. We are not surprised to
hear from a school-fellow of the Chancellor Somers, that he was a
weakly boy, who always had a book in his hand, and never looked up at
the play of his companions; to learn from his affectionate biographer,
that Hammond at Eton sought opportunities of stealing away to say his
prayers; to read that Tournefort forsook his college class, that he
might search for plants in the neighbouring fields; or that Smeaton,
in petticoats, was discovered on the top of his father's barn, in the
act of fixing the model of a windmill which he had constructed. These
early traits of character are such as we expect to find in the
cultivated lawyer, who turned the eyes of his age upon Milton; in the
Christian, whose life was one varied strain of devout praise; in the
naturalist, who enriched science by his discoveries; and in the
engineer, who built the Eddystone Lighthouse.'

This accords very well with a notion of our own. We hold that men have
a tendency to follow what they are by nature best qualified to succeed
in; and that the fact ought to be regarded in the education of the
individual. Education should include the study and trial of aptitudes,
so that each may be directed to his appropriate vocation. It is true,
there are sometimes such things as 'false tendencies' to be
encountered; but these, as Goethe has shewn, may be readily detected,
inasmuch as they are plainly 'unproductive;' that is to say, the thing
aimed after does not come out as a recognisable success. False