We wish a stop could be put to speeches on
education. We might just as well have speeches on washing and dressing, or eating and drinking. Man is condemned to wash and dress him- self during his earthly life, and to eat and drink too—some- times a great deal more than is good for him—but he never tries to "make believe very much " that he has a great deal to say about washing and dressing and eating and drinking. At least, what is said on these great subjects is said in private, and we are not particularly proud of our talks thereon. But as to education, there is no end to the repetition of the same truisms about it. Does not every one know by this time that it is better to know much than many things, and that a child should have its mind roused as well as its memory exercised, and all the rest of it? Has not primary education, at least, got to the working stage, and out of the talking stage? Why not try and be a little silent about it—give prizes and hold our- tongues,—or as the country gentleman said when the ladies left the dinner-table, "Now let us be jolly, and not talk."
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