requires to be directed to this subject, and even if my own ideas
are mistaken, my time will not have been wasted if I stir up others
to form right ideas. A solitary who casts his writings before the
public without any one to advertise them, without any party ready
to defend them, one who does not even know what is thought and said
about those writings, is at least free from one anxiety--if he is
mistaken, no one will take his errors for gospel. I shall say very little about the value of a good education, nor
shall I stop to prove that the customary method of education is bad;
this has been done again and again, and I do not wish to fill my
book with things which everyone knows. I will merely state that, go
as far back as you will, you will find a continual outcry against
the established method, but no attempt to suggest a better. The
literature and science of our day tend rather to destroy than to
build up. We find fault after the manner of a master; to suggest,
we must adopt another style, a style less in accordance with the
pride of the philosopher. In spite of all those books, whose only
aim, so they say, is public utility, the most useful of all arts,
the art of training men, is still neglected. Even after Locke's
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