§ 10. But are we driven to the alternative of agreeing either with Locke or with the schoolmaster? I do not see that we are. The thought which underlies Locke’s system of education is this: true knowledge can be acquired only by the exercise of the reason: in childhood the reasoning power is not strong enough for the pursuit of knowledge: knowledge, therefore, is out of the question at that age, and the only thing to be thought of is the formation of habits. Opposed to this we have the schoolmaster’s ideal which is governed by examinations. According to this ideal the object of the school course is to give certain “knowledge,” linguistic and other, and to fix it in the memory in such a manner that it can be displayed on the day of examination. “Knowledge” of this kind often makes no demand whatever on the reasoning faculty, or indeed on any faculty but that of remembering and reproducing what the learner has been told; in extreme cases the memory of mere sounds or symbols suffices. But after all we are not compelled to choose between these two theories. Take, _e.g._, the subject which Locke has mentioned, geography. The schoolmasters of the olden time began with the use of the globes, a plan which, by the way, Locke himself seems to have winked at. His disciple Molyneux tells him of the performances of the small Molyneux. When he was but just turned five he could read perfectly well, and on the globe could have traced out and pointed at all the noted ports, countries, and cities of the world, both land and sea; by five and a half could perform many of the plainest problems on the globe, as the longitude and latitude, the Antipodes, the time with them and other countries, &c. (Molyneux to L., 24th August, 1695.) Here we find a child brought up, without any protest from Locke, on mere examination knowledge, which according to Locke himself is not knowledge at all. It is strange that Locke did not at once point out to Molyneux that the child was not really learning what the father supposed him to be learning. When the child turned over the plaster ball and found the word “Paris,” the father no doubt attributed to the child much that was in his own mind only. To the child “the Globe” (as Rousseau afterwards said), was nothing but a plaster ball; “Paris” was nothing but some letters marked on that ball. Comenius had already got a notion how children may be given some knowledge of geography. “Children begin geography,” said he, “when they get to understand what a hill, a valley, a field, a river, a village, a town is.” (_Supra_, p. 145.) When this beginning has been made, geographical knowledge is at once possible to the child, and not before.