It has been truly remarked that in order of time decoration precedes dress, the idea of ornament predominates over that of use. It is curious that the like relations hold with the mind. Among mental, as among bodily acquisitions, the ornamental comes before the useful. Alike in the Greek schools as in our own, this is the case. Men dress their children's minds as they do their bodies in the prevailing fashion; and in the treatment of both mind and body, the decorative element has continued to predominate in an even greater degree among women than among men. The births, deaths, and marriages of kings, and other like historic trivialities are committed to memory, not because of any direct benefit that can possibly result from knowing them, but because society considers them parts of a good education--because the absence of such knowledge may bring the contempt of others. Not what knowledge is of the most real worth is the consideration; but what will bring most applause, honour, respect--what will be the most imposing. As throughout life not what we are but what we shall be thought is the question, so in education the question is not the intrinsic value of knowledge so much as its extrinsic effect on others; and this being our dominant idea, direct utility is scarcely more regarded than by the barbarian when filing his teeth and staining his nails. The comparative worths of different kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even discussed. But before there can be a curriculum, we must determine, as Bacon would have said, the relative value of knowledges. To this end a measure of value is the first requisite, and here there can happily be no dispute. How to live?--that is the essential question for us. To prepare us for complete living is the function which education is to discharge. We must therefore classify the leading kinds of activity which constitute human life. In order of importance they are (1) those which directly minister to self-preservation, (2) those which by securing the necessaries of life indirectly minister to self-preservation, (3) those which have for their end the rearing and discipline of offspring, (4) those which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and political relations, (5) those miscellaneous activities which fill up the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings. It can easily be shown that these stand in something like their true order of subordination, and such should be the order of education. It must give attention to all of these; greatest where the value is greatest; less where the value is less; least where the value is least.