experience to govern the course of things, so that they may not be
turned out into the world naked, defenceless, and a prey to the events
they might control.

A boy is taught to read his own and other languages, in order that he
may have access to infinitely wider stores of knowledge than could ever
be opened to him by oral intercourse with his fellow men; he learns to
write, that his means of communication with the rest of mankind may be
indefinitely enlarged, and that he may record and store up the knowledge
he acquires. He is taught elementary mathematics, that he may
understand all those relations of number and form, upon which the
transactions of men, associated in complicated societies, are built,
and that he may have some practice in deductive reasoning.

All these operations of reading, writing, and ciphering, are
intellectual tools, whose use should, before all things, be learned,
and learned thoroughly; so that the youth may be enabled to make his
life that which it ought to be, a continual progress in learning and in
wisdom.

But, in addition, primary education endeavours to fit a boy out with a
certain equipment of positive knowledge. He is taught the great laws
of morality; the religion of his sect; so much history and geography as
will tell him where the great countries of the world are, what they
are, and how they have become what they are.

Without doubt all these are most fitting and excellent things to teach a
boy; I should be very sorry to omit any of them from any scheme of
primary intellectual education. The system is excellent, so far as it
goes.