A motto—Nineteenth-century formula, Education is an atmosphere—Results in inanition—And _ennui_—Eighteenth-century formula, Education is a life, results in intellectual exhaustion—Education is the cultivation of faculties, leads to abnormal developments—Education has three faces—Education is a life, one of these—A creed which unifies life—The diet of great ideas—Science, _the_ teaching vouchsafed to men to-day—Evolution, the master-thought of our age—The ages have sought for a unifying principle—But personality remains—Attitude of parents and teachers towards evolution—Education is a world business—A captain idea for us, Education is the science of relations—A wide curriculum—We may not choose or reject subjects arbitrarily, 148 CHAPTER XV SCHOOL-BOOKS AND HOW THEY MAKE FOR EDUCATION Line upon line—An incident of schoolgirl life—How did the girls get their enthusiasm?—What manner of book sustains the life of thought—The ‘school-books’ of the publishers—Reason for oral teaching—Limitations of teachers—Our aim in education is to give a full life—We undervalue children—Children of the last generation—Children as they are—Our work, to give vitalising ideas, 164 CHAPTER XVI HOW TO USE SCHOOL-BOOKS Disciplinary subjects of instruction—‘Open sesame’—The Bible, the great storehouse of moral impressions—Effect of our liturgy on a child—Principles on which to select school-books—Marks of a fit book—How to use the right books—Children must labour—Value of narration—A single careful reading—Other ways of using books—The teacher’s part—Disciplinary devices must not come between children and the soul of the book, 174 CHAPTER XVII EDUCATION THE SCIENCE OF RELATIONS: WE ARE EDUCATED BY OUR INTIMACIES: _THE PRELUDE_ AND _PRÆTERITA_ Only three educational instruments—Our limitations—We temper life too much for the children—Fairy lore, a screen and shelter—Spontaneous living—On what does fulness of living depend?—The child, a person—An infant’s self-education—Our part, to remove obstructions and to give stimulus—Our error—‘Business and desire’—The setting up of dynamic relations—Ruskin’s indictment of the limitations of his condition—Wordsworth’s recognition of his opportunities, 182 CHAPTER XVIII WE ARE EDUCATED BY OUR INTIMACIES _Part II.—Further Affinities_