§ 50. For children then Comenius gave good counsel when he would have their senses exercised on the world about them. But after all, whatever may be thought of the proposition that all knowledge comes through the senses, we must not ignore what is bequeathed to us, both in science and in literature. Comenius says: “And now I beseech you let this be our business that the schools may cease to _persuade_ and begin to _demonstrate_; cease to _dispute_ and begin to _look_; cease lastly to _believe_ and begin to _know_. For that Aristotellical maxim ‘_Discentem oportet credere_, A learner must believe,’ is as tyrannical as it is dangerous; so also is that same Pythagorean ‘_Ipse dixit_, The Master has said it.’ Let no man be compelled to swear to his Masters words, but let the things themselves constrain the intellect.” (P. to _Nat. Phil. R._) But the things themselves will not take us far. Even in Natural Science we need teachers, for Science is not reached through the senses but through the intellectual grasp of knowledge which has been accumulating for centuries. If the education of times past has neglected the senses, we must not demand that the education of the future should care for the senses only. There is as yet little danger of our thinking too much of physical education; but we sometimes hear reformers talking as if the true ideal were sketched in “Locksley Hall:” “Iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun, Whistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks; Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books.”