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 But this is only a popular way of expressing the fact that they have developed their abstract ideas to a degree which is not at once intelligible to the ordinary person. I suppose we call a man a prig when he is fond of speaking about things in the abstract, and the exact application of his wise words is not at once apparent. This shows us that education always complicates, and that after we have received if it be only some rudiments of it, we must go back to life, to actual life, to be simplified. The moment that we plunge into conclusions peculiar to the subject which we are studying, we make that subject dead rather than living, and if we deceive ourselves into thinking that it is living, we arrive at conclusions which are not in themselves true.

Now it seems to me that it is desirable that we should keep before ourselves the fact that there are some subjects which may not seem to us of great intellectual importance, but which can be used to simplify what we know, to vivify it, to give it force and power, by showing how it can be applied and by helping us to discover what are its limitations. This is what I wish to bring before you under the vague title of "The study of a country".

This is a study in which, if we would lend ourselves to it, we shall be forced to exhibit mental alertness. Mental alertness is a quality which may almost be said to be abhorrent to the purely scientific mind. What the scientific man wants is to get at positive conclusions according to a proper method. This in itself by no means encourages mental alertness. It does not necessarily call out the man who has the