Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/55

 Into both of these great courses, whose primary aim is to teach the pupil to know himself and the world by enforcing "the general training and invigoration of the mind," there must enter at some time the other two of the four kinds of knowledge and discipline which compose a liberal education. These are, the knowledge of the individual human mind, and the knowledge of the development of the race in history. The former should include the subjects of logic, psychology, and ethics; the latter should comprise an outline sketch of general history and a more special study of one or more epochs or nations, in order that the pupil may have some real experience of the spirit and method of genuine historical study. Both courses of the secondary grade should include these subjects, though possibly in different proportions. With the right arrangement and better teaching of the entire secondary education, there would be no insuperable difficulty in accomplishing at the average age of nineteen or twenty all that I have indicated as necessary in preparation for the university education. Indeed, the pupil thus trained should be quite as well fitted for that freedom in research and learning which is the way to the highest scientific culture as the average graduate, at present, of our best scientific schools and colleges.

During all these years of secondary training no pretence should be encouraged in the pupil that he