school, and where every boy has his place on the list, higher or lower, are another thing; though these also appeal to the emulous principle, they do not do so in excess, the point to be noted. But, why should so useful an incentive to work as a competitive examination be called in question? There are certain facts which may be predicated of every human being who is not, as the country folk say, “wanting.” Every one wants to get on; whatever place we occupy we aim at the next above it. Every one wants to get rich, or, anyway, richer; whether the wealth he chooses to acquire be money or autographs. Every one wants the society of his fellows; if he does not, we call him a misanthrope and say, to use another popular and telling phrase, “He’s not quite right.” We all want to excel, to do better than the rest, whether in a tennis-match or an examination. We all want to know, though some of us are content to know our neighbours’ affairs, while others would fain know about the stars in their courses. We all, from the sergeant in his stripes to the much decorated commanding officer, want people to think well of us. Now these several desires, of power, of wealth, of society, of excelling, of knowledge, of esteem, are primary springs of action in every human being. Touch any one of them, in savage or in _savant_, and you cannot fail of a response. The Russian Moujik besieges a passing traveller with questions about the lands he has seen, because he _wants to know_. The small boy gambles with his marbles because he _wants to get_. The dairymaid dons a new bow because she _wants to be admired_, the only form of esteem to which she is awake. Tom drives when the children play horses because he _wants to rule_. Maud works herself into a fever for her examination because she _wants to excel_, and “to pass” is the hallmark of excellence, that is, of those who excel. Now these primary desires are neither virtuous nor vicious. They are common to us all and necessary to us all, and appear to play the same part towards our spiritual being that the appetites do to our material existence; that is, they stimulate us to the constant effort which is the condition of progress, and at the same time the condition of health. We know how that soul stagnates which thinks nothing worth an effort. He is a poor thing who is content to be beaten on all hands. We do not quarrel with the principle of emulation, any more than we do with that of respiration. The one is as natural and as necessary as the other, and as little to be brought before a moral tribunal. But it is the part of the educator to recognise that a child does not come into the world a harp with one string; and that the perpetual play upon this one chord through all the years of adolescence is an evil, not because emulation is a vicious principle, but because the balance of character is destroyed by the constant stimulation of this one desire at the expense of the rest.