§ 22. In all occupations there is of necessity a tradition. In the higher callings the tradition may be of several kinds. First there may be a tradition of noble thoughts and high ideals, which will be conveyed in the words of the greatest men who have been engaged in that calling, or have thought out the theory of it. Next there will be the tradition of the very best workers in it. And lastly there is the tradition of the common man who learns and passes on just the ordinary views of his class and the ordinary expedients for getting through ordinary work. Of these different kinds of tradition, the school-room has always shown a tendency to keep to this last, and the common man is supreme. Young teachers are mostly required to fulfil their daily tasks without the smallest preparation for them; so they have to get through as best they can, and have no time to think of any high ideal, or of any way of doing their work except that which gives them least trouble. “Practice makes perfect,” says the proverb, but it would be truer to say that practice in doing work badly soon makes perfect in contentment with bad workmanship. Thus it is that the tradition of the school-room settles down for the most part into a deadly routine, and teachers who have long been engaged in carrying it on seem to lose their powers of vision like horses who turn mills in the dark. The Gentlemen of Port-Royal worked free from school-room tradition. “If the want of emulation was a drawback,” says Sainte-Beuve, “it was a clear gain to escape from all routine, from all pedantry. _La crasse et la morgue des régents n’en approchaient pas._” (_P.R._ vol. iij, p. 414) Piety as we have seen was their main object. Next to it they wished to “carry the intellects of their pupils to the highest point they could attain to.” § 23. In doing this they profited by their freedom from routine to try experiments. They used their own judgments and sought to train the judgment of their pupils. Themselves knowing the delights of literature, they resolved that their pupils should know them also. They would banish all useless difficulties and do what they could to “help the young and make study even more pleasant to them than play and pastime.” (Preface to Cic.’s _Billets_, quoted by Sainte-Beuve, vol. iij, p. 423.)