fumbling away at the keys to the room that was ransacked long ago. But
with educated men as teachers and practical handbooks to help, and
practical examiners to guide them, there is no reason whatever why the
great mass of the linguistic training of the citizen, in the use of his
own and any other necessary language, should not be done for good and
all by fourteen, why he should not have a fairly complete mastery of
form and quantity through mathematical training and drawing, and why
the way should not be clear and immediate for the development of that
adult mental edifice of which this is the foundation.

By fourteen the power of abstract reasoning and of an analytical
treatment of things is in existence, the learner is now less to be
moulded and more to be guided than he was. We want now to give this
mind we have established, the most stimulating and invigorating
training we can, we want to give it a sane coherent view of our
knowledge of the universe in relation to itself, and we want to equip
it for its own special work in the world. How, on the basis of the
Schooling we have predicated, are these ends to be attained?

Now let us first have it perfectly clear that this second stage in
development lies no more completely within the idea of College than the
former lay completely within the idea of School. In the general
discussion of these things we are constantly faced by the parallel
error to that we have tried to dissipate in regard to schools, the
error that the Professor and his Lecture and (in the case of
experimental sciences) his Laboratory make, or can make, the man, just
precisely in the same way that the Schoolmaster or Schoolmistress is
supposed to be omnipotent in the education of the boy or girl. And,
unhappily, the Professor, unless he is a man of quite exceptional
mental power for a Professor, shares this groundless opinion. The