Page:The Teacher's Practical Philosophy.djvu/18

6 nature for being educated,— in even this loosest and most general meaning of the word. But all this will become more evident, by the easier way of illustration, as the course of lectures moves forward over the field of the different topics it is intended to examine.

Education is also, and of necessity, a development. Man, whether considered as an individual or as society,—collective man,—can not be educated all at once. And here we come upon a withering rebuke to all attempts at cramming, or rushing, or scamping, or over-hurrying the process. In education, you can not get around ''Old Father Time." If you try it, his sickle is so long and sharp, that he will either drive you back or cut you down. Education is, indeed, a development: It is, therefore, a process which takes time, and can be accomplished only by taking time. You can, indeed, shorten the time by cutting out the waste of time ; but you can not secure thoroughness and reality, and eliminate time.

From the foregoing two conceptions, another follows: Education always implies a complicated and variable system of actions and reactions. Even when we—not improperly—speak of the physical environment, or so-called Nature, as an important educative influence, we imply a sort of reciprocal activity between this physical environment and the conscious soul of man. If man were not a