Among the many recommendations which will always attach to a public
system of education, the value of early emulation, the force of example,
the abandonment of sulky and selfish habits, and the acquirement of
generous, manly dispositions, are not to be overlooked. To begin at the
beginning is the only royal road to learning; and this is only to be
reached by attention to elementary truths. Yet this is difficult, even
for cultivated men. “In reality,” says Dr. Temple, “elementary truths
are the hardest of all to learn, unless we pass our childhood in an
atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with them; and then we imbibe them
unconsciously, and find it difficult to perceive their difficulty.”[71]
Yet how few children have this advantage: so many false impressions are
received in childhood, that the first business of education proper is to
_unlearn_.
The superior influence of example over precept is thus eloquently
illustrated by Carlyle: “Is not love, from of old, known to be the
beginning of all things? And what is admiration of the great but love of
the truly lovable? The first product of love is imitation, that
all-important peculiar gift of man, whereby mankind is not only held
socially together in the present time, but connected in like union with
the past and future; so that the attainment of the innumerable departed
can be conveyed down to the living, and transmitted with increase to the
unborn. Now, great men, in particular spiritually great men (for all men
have a spirit to guide, though all have not kingdoms to govern and
battles to fight), are the men universally imitated and learned of, the
glass in which whole generations survey and shape themselves.”