unplastic. The "deep mind of dauntless infancy" is, in fact, the only
revelation we have, except divine revelation itself, of that pure and
natural life of man which we dream of, and liken to heaven; but we,
nevertheless, in our penny-wise, pound-foolish way, insist upon regarding
it as ignorance, and do our best, from the earliest possible moment, to
disenchant and dispel it. We call the outrage education, understanding
thereby the process of exterminating in the child the higher order of
faculties and the intuitions, and substituting for them the external
memory, timidity, self-esteem, and all that armament of petty weapons and
defences which may enable us to get the better of our fellow-creatures in
this world, and receive the reward of our sagacity in the next. The
success of our efforts is pitiably complete; for though the child, if
fairly engaged in single combat, might make a formidable resistance
against the infliction of "lessons," it cannot long withstand our crafty
device of sending it to a place where it sees a score or a hundred of
little victims like itself, all being driven to the same Siberia. The
spirit of emulation is aroused, and lo! away they all scamper, each
straining its utmost to reach the barren goal ahead of all competitors. So
do we make the most ignoble passions of our children our allies in the
unholy task of divesting them of their childhood. And yet, who is not
aware that the best men the world has seen have been those who, throughout
their lives, retained the aroma of childlike simplicity which they brought
with them into existence? Learning--the acquisition of specific facts--is
not wisdom; it is almost incompatible with wisdom; indeed, unless the mind
be powerful enough not only to fuse its facts, but to vaporize them,--to
sublimate them into an impalpable atmosphere,--they will stand in wisdom's
way. Wisdom comes from the pondering and the application to life of
certain truths quite above the sphere of facts, and of infinitely more
moment and less complexity,--truths which are often found to be in
accordance with the spiritual instinct called intuition, which children