Among the many recommendations which will always attach to a public system of education, the value of early emulation, the force of example, the abandonment of sulky and selfish habits, and the acquirement of generous, manly dispositions, are not to be overlooked. To begin at the beginning is the only royal road to learning; and this is only to be reached by attention to elementary truths. Yet this is difficult, even for cultivated men. “In reality,” says Dr. Temple, “elementary truths are the hardest of all to learn, unless we pass our childhood in an atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with them; and then we imbibe them unconsciously, and find it difficult to perceive their difficulty.”[71] Yet how few children have this advantage: so many false impressions are received in childhood, that the first business of education proper is to _unlearn_. The superior influence of example over precept is thus eloquently illustrated by Carlyle: “Is not love, from of old, known to be the beginning of all things? And what is admiration of the great but love of the truly lovable? The first product of love is imitation, that all-important peculiar gift of man, whereby mankind is not only held socially together in the present time, but connected in like union with the past and future; so that the attainment of the innumerable departed can be conveyed down to the living, and transmitted with increase to the unborn. Now, great men, in particular spiritually great men (for all men have a spirit to guide, though all have not kingdoms to govern and battles to fight), are the men universally imitated and learned of, the glass in which whole generations survey and shape themselves.” Lord Jeffrey has remarked upon the necessity of early restraint, that Young people who have been habitually gratified in all their desires will not only more indulge in capricious desires, but will infallibly take it more amiss when the feelings or happiness of others require that they should be thwarted, than those who have been practically trained to the habit of subduing and restraining them; and consequently will in general sacrifice the happiness of others to their own selfish indulgence. To what else is the selfishness of princes and other great people to be attributed? It is in vain to think of cultivating principles of generosity and beneficence by mere exhortation and reasoning. Nothing but the _practical habit_ of overcoming our own selfishness, and of familiarly encountering privations and discomfort on account of others, will ever enable us to do it when required. And therefore I am firmly persuaded that indulgence infallibly produces selfishness and hardness of heart, and that nothing but a pretty severe discipline and control can lay the foundation of a magnanimous character. --------------------- Footnote 71: _Education of the World._ ----------------------------