Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/21

 labour and the slave made rapid progress impossible. Beautiful work was done by all manner of bondsmen, of helots, of serfs, and villeins; but the "scholars" turned away from the study of such people and their work. To be sure, all did not turn away completely. The ethical teachers found their impetus in the study of the body. Thus Plato in youth was a sculptor, and Aristotle the son and grandson of physicians. Coming down the centuries, we find the life-sciences, even in their crudest, rudest forms, still giving their impetus to the pioneer. From Paracelsus, with his perplexities, to clearer thinkers, such as Harvey, Galileo, Priestley, Galvani, Lavoisier. Even in our generation the same influences determine the bent of genius. Darwin was a doctor's son, and Herbert Spencer a student of physiology, and more especially of the nervous system.

But the two factors in the whole problem—that is to say, the worker and his tools—were not often studied together. Their relation to one another was as a rule ignored even by great writers. And so there were theories of education, but no science. And neither workman nor physiologist, save those by chance admitted, darkened the doors of the modern elementary schools until, in very recent days, a movement was begun to admit at least the latter.