this inheritance is only potential: its realization depends partly on education; and the more of it there is, the more education is requisite. The truth which the above opinion has mistaken is, that the power of education is limited both for good and evil by the nature of a child. But this truth the world did not wait for the theory of evolution to reveal. The notion that character and understanding depend wholly on the experience and training of the individual was never adopted by common sense. It is everywhere recognized that no education, however good, can insure against taking one of the by-paths of the Pilgrim's Progress that man who has some deep ancestral taint—"a bad avidge" one calls it in Cornwall (however that word should be spelled). On the other hand, the first rule for a successful educator is to get a good pupil. But this does not conflict with the further truth that the greater natural potency of development which accompanies civilization, makes the teacher's task not less necessary, but (as far as it goes) more exacting, requiring greater care and skill; since, first, the subject to be trained becomes more complex and delicate; secondly, the time during which it requires supervision increases; thirdly, the changes occurring in it during that time are more numerous and less predictable; and, lastly (not to seek further reasons), the world to which it is to be adapted grows far more complex and exigent. How rapidly the world has changed in the last three hundred years, and how little scholastic education has tried to keep pace with it! So much the more desirable is it that the changes now inevitable should be made in the light of scientific criticism.
To the scientific criticism of education Mr. Sully brings every requisite. A wide reputation as a psychologist guarantees the competence of his theoretical knowledge. A deep and varied culture in science, literature, and art enables him to survey the whole field of labor. He has for a long time studied education as a science, and in so doing has availed himself of all the work of his predecessors and contemporaries both at home and abroad. Whoever wishes to make an exhaustive study of the subject will find in the appendices to his chapters a sort of index to educational literature. Mr. Sully has, moreover, direct experience of the difficulties of education both in its earliest and most advanced stages. Many of the anecdotes that enliven his book bear the stamp of personal observation. And a humane and serious spirit everywhere dispenses wisdom as well as knowledge.
In this "Hand-book" education is, of course, treated in a broad and general way, covering both the early years of training at home and the later periods at school. But there would be manifest advantages in treating these ages and conditions separately with more specific detail. Again, while a work of this sort begins with psychological principles and then proceeds to apply them to education, teachers might be more readily interested by the method of beginning with the particular problems and difficulties of their art, and then exhibiting
