238	A  MODERN ZOKOASTJtUAtt.
show for this time and money, even in the case of the highest schools, which ought to give the highest education?    On the credit side, a little Latin and less Greek, plenty of cricket and athletics, good physical training, and, best of all, on the whole a manly, honourable, and gentlemanlike spirit.    But on the debit side, absolute ignorance, except in the case of a few unusually clever and ambitious boys, of all that a cultivated man of the nineteenth century ought  to  know.    No French,  no German, and, what is worse, no English.    The average boy can neither write his  own  language legibly nor grammatically, and, if he goes straight from a public school into a competitive examination, stands an excellent chance of being plucked for spelling.    And, what is worst of all, he not only knows nothing, but cares to know nothing; his reasoning faculty has never been cultivated, and his interest in interesting things has never been awakened.    What is the first lesson he has had to learn ? ^6 Propria quae maribus dicantur inascula dicas/ that is, words appropriated to males are called masculine—a lesson which elicits as much reasoning faculty,   and creates as much interest, as if he had been made to commit to memory that things made of gold are called golden.    Suppose instead of this that the lesson had been that two volumes of hydrogen combine with one volume of oxygen to form water.    The exercise to the memory is the same, but how different is the amount of thought and interest evoked, especially if the experiment is made before the class and each boy Has to repeat it for himself!    How  many new  subjects  of interest would this -open up in the mind of any lad of average intelligence!    How strange that there should be airs other Aan the air we breathe, which can be