high and seemingly transcendent effort to glorify the infinite and limitless One? When, therefore, we perceive that by the cultivation and increase of all the powers of our nature to the greatest possible intensity, and in the greatest possible harmony, we are enabled to glorify Him in whose image our nature is cast, we feel that the formula is translated for us from the abstract to the concrete. It is by the use of all powers, by becoming the very best and highest that as human beings we can become, by neglecting no part of our complex natures, but developing to the very uttermost all the talents with which we are endowed, that our humanity can alone grow up into perfection, compacted by that which every joint supplieth." In all this process of assiduous culture and effort, man is but an agent under the will of One higher than himself, whose perfection he is instrumentally revealing. He is achieving an end, and furthering a plan which reaches immeasurably beyond himself; and he may make that end, and realize that plan, as a conscious object of pursuit; but he is also an end to himself, and inward perfection should be a no less conscious aim of his life. We do not say that he may concentrate attention upon himself, and pursue his culture in exclusiveness and isolation from his fellows, but we do say that the perfection of his inward nature is at once a definite end of his labour, and the only means by which he can glorify Him who created that nature, and whose power co-operates with his own in all the processes of culture which tend to that glory. "It is manifest," says Sir William Hamilton," that man, in so far as he is a mean for the glory of God, must be an end unto himself, for it is only in the accomplishment of his own perfection that as a creature he can manifest the glory of his Creator. Though, therefore, man by relation to God be but a mean, for that very reason, in relation to all else, he is an end." The apparent paradox is thus strictly true, that man is an end to himself, though that end is not selfish or utilitarian. At one and the same time he stands in a twofold relationship to himself and to God, and the selfregarding with the self-forgetting instincts are the two forces (centripetal and centrifugal) which, working in union-a union most perfect when it has become so natural as to be unconscious-cause his being to revolve in harmony around the central sun of the universe. When, now, we turn to the educational schemes of the so-called "practical men" of our time, we find that they nearly all ignore the principle we have stated. The funda mental flaw which vitiates their system. (whether they explicitly avow it, or only tacitly hold it) is the ignoble concession that man may renounce his prerogative as an end, and become mainly or merely a professional mean. The practical educationist abhors an ideal, as nature was said of old to abhor a vacuum; and his abhorrence of an ideal explains the fact that he cannot comprehend how a man can be an end to himself. He cannot appreciate culture which does not promise a return in some benefit beyond itself; and to secure some obvious practical utility, certain educational appliances are set agoing to obtain it, in the shortest possible time, and with the least possible cost. It is desirable to know the facts of history, and the laws of social statics, because these bear practically upon modern political progress. It is wise to wrest its secrets from the shrine of nature, for these can be made available in industrial production, and increase the "wellbeing" of man. Science is a fruitful branch of education, because science has joined hands with utility. But the ideal of a many-sided culture, in which a man regards the attainment of that culture as an end in itself, and not as a means to any end lower than himself, resting in the insight and intellectual harmony which culture brings him, is regarded by our practical educationists as at once unsubstantial, and incapable of realization. It is also represented as inconsistent with the position men occupy in a world of manifold competition, and highly complex civilisation, with enormous subdivision of labour. We admit that to succeed in any one pathway of culture, a man must willingly renounce much that lies along its margin, and invites him on either side. There must be the distinct concentration of a special faculty on a special object to effect a special end. The brevity of life, the division of labour, the complexity of our modern civilisation, and the many new and recondite paths of research that are continually being disclosed in the onward march of discovery, these things necessitate a sacrifice of some things for the attainment of others; and while without division of labour no culture would be possible, with that division comes inevitably the narrowing influence of the exercise of a special faculty. As our doctrine applies not merely to the few who have the leisure, and the means for the prosecution of the highest culture, but also to the many who have them not, we admit that most men must concentrate themselves with a piercing intensity of aim on one field of action. There must be some point towards which our main efforts tend, and around which our chief sympathies | prolific powers which we all possess in gravitate. Without such precision of aim, germ, budding forth into leaf and bloom even splendid powers would be lost. The and fruit, not for the sake of the use to be practical man works by concentration and made of that fruit, nor even for the reflex Îimitation. Admitting this, we at the same joy which the growth and expansion yield, time contend that the general cultivation of but for the larger wealth of experience which the other powers, on every possible occa- they confer, while the glory of Another assion, should not lame the special power. cends from it, and our culture is pursued General education, with its wide and varied with a tacit reference to Him, is unquestionculture, while it gives a larger mental hori- ably a nobler ambition than to convert zon, and broadens sympathy, should not one's-self into a passive means for the atparalyse special effort in a chosen sphere. tianment of some result connected with our But the position assumed by the advocates earthly life. And in order to reach it, to of special and practical, as opposed to gen- make our inward being vaster, fuller, more eral and catholic culture, is usually tainted mellowed and refined, we strive to deepen by the base spirit of utilitarianism. Wheth- our intelligence, to etherealize our feelings, er in its grosser or more refined form, it es- to chasten yet intensify our energies. timates the value of culture, in the special But as this doctrine of culture has been department it selects, by the use to be made rashly stigmatized as an appeal to the selfof it, by the ends it may subserve. It thus ish principle in human nature, we must degrades it to the position of an instrumen- observe the real breadth of area which it tal means. It reverses the true position of covers. It is not separative and exclusive, the "means" and the "end" respectively. but intensely social. A profound interest Instead of regarding the universe as a store- in other lives, sympathy with other minds, house of educational forces, and man himself and effort to carry them with us in the as greater than anything that educates him, pathways of culture, is so essential, that -instead of interpreting the whole arrange- without the possession of that sympathy, ments of human life as a complex apparatus and without the forthputting of that effort, by which the powers of the soul may be edu- no man is himself truly cultivated. One cated to their noblest height, it turns these large section of our complex humanity of powers into a number of passive instruments which the powers must be evoked, is that for the conquest of nature, and the accumula- which unites us with our fellow-men. It is tion of results! But to estimate the value of at the peril of our success in personal culany department of culture by the extent to ture that we neglect to carry others with which it is available for professional uses, is us to the best of our ability. Efforts to as complete a degradation of our faculties as educate and raise the tone of society, to to measure the worth of knowledge by its redress all the wrongs we see and can remarket value in the world. It turns man dress, to relieve misery, to promote the into an ignoble utilitarian machine,-an in- freedom and happiness of our fellows, and strument for the attainment of some trivial the moral health of the community in end relative to this brief time-life; nay, we which we live,-all these are parts of our maintain that professional success, however culture. It is true that the doctrine which brilliant, if unidealized by this wide view of we teach tends to concentrate thought and human culture and wide sympathy with attention in the first place on the perfectman's varied nature and possibilities, while ing of the individual, but as he progresses it narrows and hardens the character, is of towards the goal a corresponding influence slightly higher value than mere skill in a is sent outwards on all sides along his path, handicraft. Therefore, to train and to in- to aid his fellow-creatures who are toiling vigorate the entire circle of the powers; to with him. He strives after the realization form not so much the accomplished profes- of the ideal in himself, but this realization sional man, the thinker, or the artist, or the is impossible if he does not interest himman of science, or the statesman; but to self profoundly and unselfishly in the good form a harmonious human being, with all of his fellow-men. Thus as he advances he his faculties educated to the fullest self-gov- creates around himself an altered world. ernment, self-possession, repose, refinement, In all culture we must "consider our neighand activity, is the very goal of human en- bours with ourselves;" only it is necessary deavour. To secure the inward ripening that our consideration be enlightened and and the outward expansion of our life, the courteous, and that our deeds be wise,— culture of thought and feeling, of imagina- not the crude and hasty efforts of our own tion and sympathy, of our powers of reflec- idiosyncrasy, but broad, large-minded, and tion and our powers of action in a harmon-humane. If those actions which tend outious many-sidedness, is a clearly intelligible wards from self to reach and help our felend of human existence. To feel the rich lows are to prove either stable or produc tive, they must be based on wisdom, they The advocates of a partial and utilitarian, as distinguished from a harmonious and many-sided education, aim at completeness in one special direction. It is in this their strength lies: their clear mastery of what they do achieve. And so far as their practice tends to thoroughness, as opposed to a shallow surface culture, it is a useful protest against dilettantism. But too often the concentration of effort to one path begets a bias in favour of it so strong that it at once absorbs the entire energy of the man, and blinds his eyes to the value of what lies on either side. Thus most of the advocates of scientific culture, not content with magnifying the value of a wide knowledge of the laws and phenomena of nature, proceed to depreciate classical or æsthetic culture; or the partisans of classical study similarly ignore the claims of physical science. The speculative thinker, the poet, the historian, the mathematician, the artist, the musician, severally exalt their own department to the disparagement of the other (as they think), outlying realms. Each elevates his own section to the foreground, but usually he sacrifices his completeness to his speciality. So far it is essential that he should do so; for the prosecution of cul ture no less than the business of life is regulated by the division of labour. But when the partisan of one department would urge all men to follow him, and desert the ancient pathways with which he is unfamiliar, or which he has no genius to pursue, he transgresses against a primary rule of culture, and a fundamental law of progress. Thus Mr. Lowe and Mr. John S. Mill would remove from the old curriculum of university study, or shut up within the narrowest possible limits, sections of culture most valuable to the race, which have hitherto evoked its noblest powers, and proved their value by their fruits, because to themselves they are of little worth, and possess but a slight significance. Such reformers, like all iconoclasts, betray a certain rudeness towards unfamiliar phases of knowledge and of human interest, not far removed from that conceit which vaunts its little light, though it be but "the twinkling of a taper," as the most important light for future ages. One of the very best criteria of a welleducated mind is the range of its sympathy with departments of human labour and study with which it has a very partial practical acquaintance, and over which it may have no expectation of ever ranging freely. An ungrudged recognition of their value, as probably equal to that which the individual is pursuing, and a power of appreciating their results, while the processes by which these results have been reached are not known, is as rare as it is fruitful to the mind that has attained to it. But surely it is possible to glance over some broad area, or down some long avenue of culture, which we can never hope ourselves to traverse step by step, without falling into the snare of the dilettante. sympathize with much which we cannot personally pursue, and appreciate much that we have neither the leisure nor the genius to explore. And thus our many-sided culture grows. Our faculties are not left to To possess a soul at once intense and stagnate, even although we can carry their many-sided, free in thought, flexile in symculture but a little way; and it is the ten-pathy, yet energetic in action; ready to dency towards perfection thereby fostered which secures a gradual harmony in the soul. No faculty is consciously arrested, but all are evoked according to opportunity. The result is the concord of many powers co-operant to one end. We may receive and to retain new impressions, yet swift in its executive function which carries these into practice; willing to see as many sides of every question as the question possesses for finite minds, yet not paralysed by the multitude of competing views, and not 1 indifferent to a decision because a fragment | part (though by far the highest part) of this universal completeness which is the ideal of man's destiny. We assume it as an axiom which no thoughtful man can gainsay, that exclusive absorption in religious enterprise, or devotion to religious thought and contemplation, is not the absolute end of a human being's existence. It is in these things that our human nature culminates. In these it finds its richest bloom and fruit. Within the area, so to speak, of religion, we find the sphere for the highest exercise of our highest faculties. But if the call to be devout were a call to subordinate the whole nature to the religious faculty, to secure for that not only a dominant and regulative, but an exclusive authority over us, then, in consistency, the sooner we adopted the rules of asceticism the better, and that unlovely ideal of the medieval church were made real on our modern earth the better. We may not confound the perfection of our religious being with the perfection of our whole nature. Many a man is tolerably well dis ciplined as a religious being, who is sig. nally defective as a thinker, as a student of nature, and of humanity, or as a mem ber of society. His mind may never be permitted to receive the genial influences of Nature, or, it may be so cabined and confined to the narrow path of some outré experience that it may shrink sensitively from exposure to the bracing air of the world of thought. His feelings may austere, his sympathies with his follow-men soured and contorted, his very patriotism twisted, all through his exclusive absorp tion in what he deems religious culture. But ultimately his religion itself will suffer. It will pay the penalty of its own ambition. Desirous to absorb the whole nature, it may ultimately lose its rightful hold of a part. And even spiritual progress may be pursued in such a fashion as to take all and grace loveliness out of it, and turn it into the grim and forbidding image of a supersti tion. Nay, it is possible, in an unhealthy and overstrained sanctimony which is not religion, to neglect the common duties of life, on the plea that all the energies of the soul are engrossed with devotion. In all ages, the merely "religious world" has tended to narrowness, by contracting the basis from which devotion springs. "Mere spirituality," says one of our most thoughtful writers, seems to exhaust the soil that rears it, so that Christianity must always gain much from extraneous sources." But, on the other hand, a culture which ignores religion,-which is so devoted to the perfecting of the other powers that the reli of truth may lie in every one of these; not languid in action from the width of the intellectual prospect it surveys-such is the ideal of an educated life. It involves the possession of the amplest knowledge that is possible in alliance with the largest feeling, the widest range of sympathy in alliance with the most vigorous and energetic action; every healthy human tendency finding free scope for its exercise, every desire that is legitimate finding satisfaction, every one that is illegitimate being controlled, the defective called forth into power, those in excess restrained;-in other words, the highest human culture is the greatest possible health of the whole man. All our powers must be braced by exercise, if they are to be healthy; while the activity of each power is at once a stimulus and a check to the rest. From the very constitution of human nature, each power must be curbed to make room for the action of the others; and self-denial, instead of being a special duty to be exercised towards a special portion of our nature under a religious sanction, is a universal necessity of our human life, if we are to approach towards the ideal of health. Health is maintained only through the control of each of our powers by the joint action of all the rest. A curb must be laid upon certain appetites, if a human being is to be even a healthy animal. Restraint must be laid upon his animal nature if he is to be a healthy human being, and his intelligent nature unstarved. But he must deny himself the exclusive pursuit of knowledge, as much as the unrestrained pursuit of mere physical perfection. He must check the outflow of his feelings by his reason; his moral perfection must go hand in hand with the culture of his imagination; his religious aspirations must have free course to ascend above the horizon of the present, and to start their hymn of praise as they ascend, but they must rise in union with his reason, and in harmony with his understanding. We do not mean that he is to turn to one part of his nature for guidance in the education of another; but he is to allow no part to encroach upon the rights of another, and that involves self-restraint in the culture of all. Thus our doctrine is opposed to all the unbridled individualism of modern culture. It opposes all forms of anarchic liberty in the prosecution of a special end, on the plea that such is the one thing needful for man, as much as it opposes a general torpor or lazy acquiescence in one set of ideas or one system of thought. It will thus be seen that religious culture is but a 66 be gious instincts lie untouched,-is equally "A reasoning self-sufficient thing, The merely knowing man is in reality an uneducated man, because he is so exclusively knowing. He cannot fail to be so; as he ignores those feelings which either underlie or are intertwined with all our knowledge, and, in so doing, he not only mutilates his nature as a whole, but attenuates his very intellect. No purely intellectual conclusion is ever reached, or, if reached, is of much value, without the co-operation of those instincts and emotions which intertwine their roots with all our knowledge. Thus the logical mind, always clear and exact, but sharpened to a thin point, may tunnel its way into the heart of problems, but it works like the mole underground. It lacks vision in lacking heart, which is often the very eye to knowledge. And so those systems of the universe built up by the logical mind alone, present us with the mere skeleton or framework of knowledge. They are not clothed with muscle and flesh, or animated with the warm blood of our humanity; while the cloistered students who elaborate them, cut off from the complex and manycoloured streams of human feeling, are generally as imperfect men as their systems are defective structures. But, to return to the relation in which religious culture stands to human perfection, it is true that instead of regarding the religious as one of the several faculties which we must cultivate in order to be perfect men, we may broaden the meaning of the word " religion," and include within it the harmony of the whole individual life, as it is re-bound to God, in obedience to the precept, "Be ye perfect." It is a fair question whether this extension of the meaning of the word is not at once a more accurate interpretation of it, and a better safeguard both for religion and for culture. Religious culture would thus be the culture of the whole powers of man's nature in their upward tendency. It would describe the uprise of the several powers-their homage in the course of their education into life and power. But in either case we must guard against identifying a narrow range of special thought and feeling which we choose to call "religion," with the true destination of man, the end which all men ought exclusively to aim at. In advocating this many-sided culture, we do not forget that the majority of men must limit themselves to a very narrow sphere of effort, and that the perfection to which they attain cannot but be exceedingly partial in the present life. This fact, however, does not invalidate the general axiom that the grand aim of every life, fettered as it may be by circumstance, should be to expand to the very utmost limit of which it is capable. That remains its ideal, however much its realization is hindered by the accidents of its present lot. And the injury that would otherwise accrue to one who is meanwhile "in narrowest working shut," may be indefinitely lessened, if he admits that his nature ought to be trained to the very highest energy and harmony of which it is capable; and if he refuses to acquiesce in bland contentment or dull apathy with |