§ 16. I therefore differ, though with great respect, from the conclusions at which Mr. Spencer has arrived. But I heartily agree with him that we are bound to inquire into the relative value of knowledges, and if we take, as I should willingly do, Mr. Spencer’s test, and ask how does this or that knowledge influence action (including in our inquiry its influence on mind and character, through which it bears upon action), I think we should banish from our schools much that has hitherto been taught in them, besides those old tormentors of youth (laid, I fancy, at last—_requiescant in pace_)—the _Propria quæ Maribus_ and its kindred absurdities. What we _should_ teach is, of course, not so easily decided as what we _should not_. § 17. I now come to consider Mr. Spencer’s second chapter, in which, under the heading of “Intellectual Education,” he gives an admirable summing up of the main principles in which the great writers on the subject have agreed, from Comenius downwards. These principles are, perhaps, not all of them unassailable, and even where they are true, many mistakes must be expected before we arrive at the best method of applying them; but the only reason that can be assigned for the small amount of influence they have hitherto exercised is, that most teachers are as ignorant of them as of the abstrusest doctrines of Kant and Hegel. § 18. In stating these principles Mr. Spencer points out that they merely form a commencement for a science of education. “Before educational methods can be made to harmonise in character and arrangement with the faculties in the mode and order of unfolding, it is first needful that we ascertain with some completeness how the faculties _do_ unfold. At present we have acquired on this point only a few general notions. These general notions must be developed in detail—must be transformed into a multitude of specific propositions before we can be said to possess that _science_ on which the _art_ of education must be based. And then, when we have definitely made out in what succession and in what combinations the mental powers become active, it remains to choose out of the many possible ways of exercising each of them, that which best conforms to its natural mode of action. Evidently, therefore, it is not to be supposed that even our most advanced modes of teaching are the right ones, or nearly the right ones.” It is not to be wondered at that we have no science of education. Those who have been able to observe the phenomena have had no interest in generalising from them. Up to the present time the schoolmaster has been a person to whom boys were sent to learn Latin and Greek. He has had, therefore, no more need of a science than the dancing-master.[192] But the present century, which has brought in so many changes, will not leave the state of education as it found it. Latin and Greek, if they are not dethroned in our higher schools, will have their despotism changed for a very limited monarchy. A