Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/575

Rh separation between profession and practice. Profession comes from the region of the conscious, and practice largely from that of the subconscious. Of course, many actions, and particularly our most public ones, are dictated by the active consciousness; but those that make up the main tissue of our lives have their springs in a deeper region and furnish a better index to our true selves. It is of the highest importance, therefore, that the young should not only receive formal instruction in right principles, but that their habitual surroundings should be such as to promote the general health of the moral and intellectual nature. They should see as little as possible of angry passion, of selfish scheming, of duplicity in any form; and every effort should be made to lead them to appreciate and enjoy the finer and happier effects of Nature and all that is harmonious and elevating in the world of art and of human effort generally. It may be said that this would give them an incorrect idea of the world as it is; but it should be borne in mind that the object is to make the world other than it is—to make men and women more humane, more reasonable, more equitable, to endow them with more correct perceptions in all matters of taste, and fit them for a higher plane of social life. If we were to proceed upon the assumption that the world is incapable of amendment, and that the only thing is to make ourselves at home in it exactly as it is, there would be an end to all progress in education.

There are some good remarks in Dr. Waldstein's book about the danger of crowding too much into consciousness and so impairing the subconscious receptivity of the whole nature. We have all heard of prodigies at school who have turned out very dull men in after life. As long as it was a question of absorbing the formal instruction imparted by masters, such individuals were far to the front; but afterward, when it came to be a question of individual resource, of energy, initiative, originality, they relapsed into quite a commonplace if not inferior position. It is very undesirable that anybody should be all consciousness. It is Shakespeare who says:

 If springing things be any jot diminished, They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth."

In our schools many a "springing thing" is thus "diminished" through the very forcing which seems at the time to produce so great an enlargement of mental faculty. The careful educator should be constantly asking himself the question, Is the mind before me getting into contact with things? and his chief effort should be to establish and promote this contact, so that the mind may draw instruction from its surroundings as a plant derives nourishment from the soil. There is nothing absolutely new in Dr. Waldstein's views, because ages ago men recognized the comparative futility of brilliant faculties unsupported by solid qualities of mind and character; but he has brought forward what he has to say at a very good moment, when, almost more than ever, we need the quiet teachings of Nature to curb our mental restlessness and enable us to "see things steadily and see them whole."