After an exhaustive inquiry into the multifarious evils which must be laid at the door of education, it is refreshing to turn to history for illustrious examples of men who not only did not owe their greatness to academic training, but who actually owed it to what would nowadays be designated a neglected education.

The chronicles of the past teem with instances of youths who have developed into brilliant men, in spite of the fact that they had either had no schooling at all, or had been considered the dunces of their class. It would, in fact, be far more difficult to supply illustrations of great men who have succeeded on account of their academic distinction, than to give examples of those who failed to distinguish themselves at school, but who nevertheless became famous afterwards as men of unusual talent.

When Napoleon Bonaparte, at the age of fifteen, left the military college of Brienne, where he had been a pupil for five years and a half, the inspector of military schools gave him the following certificate:

'M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born August 15, 1769; height 4 feet 10 inches 10 lines; is in the fourth class; has a good constitution, excellent health, character obedient, upright, grateful, conduct very regular; has always been distinguished by his application to mathematics. He knows history and geography very passably. He is not well up in ornamental studies or in Latin, in which he is only in the fourth class. He will be an excellent sailor. He deserves to be passed on to the military school of Paris.'

This was an optimistic description of the youthful Napoleon's accomplishments, for he was, as a matter of fact, so backward in Latin that his removal to Paris was opposed by the sub-principal of the college. According to the testimony of his schoolfellow and biographer, M. de Bourrienne, he exhibited backwardness in every branch of education except mathematics, for which he showed a distinct natural bent.

The only professor at Brienne who took any notice of Napoleon was the mathematical master. The others thought him stupid because he had no taste for the study of languages, literature, and the various subjects that formed the curriculum of the establishment; and as there seemed no chance of his becoming a scholar, they took no interest in him.

'His superior intelligence was, however, sufficiently perceptible,' writes M. de Bourrienne, 'even through the reserve under which it was veiled. If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment was confided had understood the organization of his mind, if they had engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career more brilliant, it is true, but less useful to mankind. Unfortunately, the monks did not perceive this, and were too poor to pay for good masters.... The often-repeated assertion of Bonaparte having received a careful education at Brienne is therefore untrue.'

Napoleon's military bent showed itself whilst he was at the College of Brienne. Heavy snow fell during one winter, and prevented him from taking the solitary walks that were his chief recreation. He therefore fell back upon the expedient of getting his school companions to dig trenches and build snow fortifications. 'This being done,' he said, 'we may divide ourselves into sections, form a siege, and I will undertake to direct the attacks.' In this way he organized a sham war that was carried on with great success for a fortnight.

This brief sketch of Napoleon Bonaparte's schooldays has been given in order to show that the development of his genius owed nothing to academic training. Without being actually a dunce, he was backward in all the subjects except the one in which he took a vivid interest; and, doubtless, had he cared as little for mathematics as for Latin, he would have left Brienne with a reputation for profound stupidity.

The school career of his great opponent, Wellington, was even less distinguished. Tradition has handed down to posterity no further details regarding his Eton days beyond the record of a fight with Sydney Smith's elder brother 'Bobus.' Alluding to him as a dull boy, Mr. Smiles states, in a footnote, in his book on 'Self-Help': 'A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, 1859) observes that "the Duke's talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only 'food for powder.' He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angiers." It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded him from the army.'

Lord Clive was a perfectly hopeless youth from the schoolmaster's point of view. He loathed work, and was always up to some prank or other. In the vain hope of inducing him to learn something, he was sent to four schools in succession; but, with a single exception, every master under whom he was placed declared him to be an incorrigible idler. The exception was Dr. Eaton of Lostock, who predicted a great career for Clive, provided an opportunity were afforded him for the exercise of his talents.

At Market Drayton he amused himself by organizing a band of idle scamps, who went about threatening to smash the windows of tradespeople unless they paid a fine of apples or pence; and on one occasion he alarmed the inhabitants of the town by climbing a church steeple and seating himself upon a stone spout near the top.

A man of the same stamp who received the scantiest education was George Washington. He is described as having been given a common-school education, with a little mathematical training, but no instruction whatever in ancient or modern languages.

Christopher Columbus, another adventurous spirit, owed very little to his schooling. 'He soon evinced a strong passion for geographical knowledge,' writes Washington Irving in his interesting Life of the explorer, 'and an irresistible inclination for the sea.... His father, seeing the bent of his mind, endeavoured to give him an education suitable for maritime life. He sent him, therefore, to the university of Pavia, where he was instructed in geometry, geography, astronomy and navigation.... He remained but a short time at Pavia, barely sufficient to give him the rudiments of the necessary sciences; the thorough acquaintance with them which he displayed in after-life must have been the result of diligent self-schooling, and of casual hours of study amidst the cares and vicissitudes of a rugged and wandering life.'

No better instance of the advantage of natural development and self-culture could be afforded than by the career of Dr. Livingstone. Working in a cotton factory as a boy of ten, he studied scientific works and books of travel, besides the classics, not only at night, but during the hours of labour.

'Looking back now at that life of toil,' he wrote afterwards, 'I cannot but feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early education; and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training.'

Dr. Adam Clarke, the celebrated divine, scholar, and philanthropist, was a regular dunce in his early youth. It was only with difficulty, and an undue proportion of whacking, that the elements of the alphabet were driven into his head by an impatient teacher—a mode of instruction that probably caused him to remark, in after life, that 'many children, not naturally dull, have become so under the influence of the schoolmaster.'

It is related of Dr. Clarke that when he reached the middle of 'As in prÆsenti,' in Lilly's Latin Grammar, he came to a dead stop and could get no further. His fellow-pupils, however, jeered him to such an extent that he determined to go on and conquer the difficulty. And this resolution seems to have helped him considerably, as, instead of the grammar being forced into him, he began to study and think for himself.

Nevertheless, he always found great difficulty in learning anything at school, but was passionately devoted to reading imaginative books and stories of adventure, such as 'Jack the Giant-killer,' 'Arabian Nights,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Sir Francis Drake,' and a host of similar works. To these, in fact, and not to his painfully acquired school education, he was wont to attribute the formation of his literary taste.

Disraeli's education was by no means thorough. There is no record of his having distinguished himself academically in the slightest degree. It is related of him, on the contrary, that he was such a duffer at classics as to be incapable of grasping the rule that 'ut' should be followed by the subjunctive mood. The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, given by one of his school-fellows, is quoted by Sir William Fraser:

'I cannot say that Benjamin Disraeli at this period of his life exhibited any unusual zeal for classical studies; and I doubt whether his attainments in this direction, when he left the school for Mr. Cogan's at Walthamstow, reached higher than the usual grind in Livy and CÆsar. But I well remember that he was the compiler and editor of a school newspaper, which made its appearance on Saturdays, when the gingerbread-seller was also to be seen, and that the right of perusal was estimated at the cost of a sheet of gingerbread, the money value of which was in those days the third of a penny.'

Turning to literary men, we find an imposing array of dunces. I have not had time to examine into the school experiences of more than a limited number of great names. If the reader is anxious to pursue the investigation further, he will doubtless find that there is scarcely a famous man of letters who made his mark at school or university.

The first person to teach Oliver Goldsmith his letters was a woman, who afterwards became village schoolmistress, named Elizabeth Delap. She did not form a very flattering opinion of her young pupil. 'Never was so dull a boy,' she was wont to declare; 'he seemed impenetrably stupid.' From this kind but undiscriminating teacher Oliver gravitated to the village school, where he learnt nothing. Thence he was sent to Elphin; and of this period of his school life Dr. Strean says: 'He was considered by his contemporaries and school-fellows, with whom I have often conversed on the subject, as a stupid heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom every one made fun of.'

Goldsmith has himself, in his 'Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,' recorded some very striking impressions as to the value of academic success. 'A lad whose passions are not strong enough in youth,' he writes, 'to mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance, probably obtains every advantage and honour his college can bestow. I forget whether the simile has been used before, but I would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispassionate prudence to liquors that never ferment, and consequently continue always muddy. Passions may raise a commotion in the youthful breast, but they disturb only to refine it. However this be, mean talents are often rewarded in colleges with an easy subsistence.'

Another 'impenetrable dunce,' according to the opinion of his tutor, an eminent Dublin scholar, was Richard Sheridan. He was afterwards sent to Harrow, where he earned for himself a great reputation for idleness. Dr. Parr, one of the under-masters, wrote to Sheridan's biographer the following expression of opinion:

'There was little in his boyhood worth communication. He was inferior to many of his schoolfellows in the ordinary business of a school, and I do not remember any one instance in which he distinguished himself by Latin or English composition, in prose or verse.... He was at the uppermost part of the fifth form, but he never reached the sixth, and, if I mistake not, he had no opportunity of attending the most difficult and the most honourable of school business, when the Greek plays were taught—and it was the custom at Harrow to teach these at least every year. He went through his lessons in Horace and Virgil and Homer well enough for a time. But, in the absence of the upper master, Dr. Sumner, it once fell in my way to instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly in construing, but unusually defective in his Greek grammar.... I ought to have told you that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency.'

The latter statement speaks volumes for a method of teaching which failed to evoke, even in such a master of English literature as Sheridan eventually proved himself to be, a proper development of his greatest talent. No doubt the exercises in which so little proficiency was shown were compulsorily executed against the grain, being of such a pedantic character that no sane schoolboy could possibly be found to evince the smallest interest in them.

Dean Swift and Sir Walter Scott were both dull boys. The former says of himself that he was 'stopped of his degree for dulness and insufficiency.' Scott, in his autobiographical sketch, does not make himself out to have been the dunce that he really was supposed to be at school. If not bright at his lessons, however, he was certainly clever in other ways and capable of thinking for himself. An excellent illustration of this is contained in the story that though Scott, as a boy, used invariably to go to sleep in church in the course of the sermon, yet, when questioned about the latter afterwards, he was generally able to sketch out most of the points dwelt upon by the preacher—the explanation being, of course, that, given the text, he was able to follow the probable train of thought inspired by its wording. Summing up Scott's attainments, a biographer gives expression to the opinion that he was 'self-educated in every branch of knowledge he ever turned to account in the works of his genius.'

Neither Burns nor Carlyle was a scholar. The former received a grounding in grammar, reading, and writing. He acquired a little French, but learnt no Latin at all. Whatever he knew he owed to the fact that he exercised his own taste for knowledge by choosing his own books and devouring only what appealed to his mind. Carlyle, like many another famous man of letters, had little Latin and less Greek. 'In the classical field,' he wrote, 'I am truly as nothing.' For mathematics he showed a certain amount of inclination, but even in that field did not succeed in carrying off any prizes. His own opinion of a conventional education is very tersely rendered by his exclamation: 'Academia! High School instructors of youth! Oh, ye unspeakable!'

The poet Wordsworth was educated at the grammar school at Hawkshead. He always declared that the great merit of the school was the liberty allowed to the scholars. No attempt was made to cram or to produce model pupils. Within limits they appear, in fact, to have been allowed to read precisely what they pleased. In this way Wordsworth received in every sense of the term a liberal education; and when he went to Cambridge, 'he enjoyed even more thoroughly than at Hawkshead whatever advantages might be derived from the neglect of his teachers.'

The poet had a great contempt for academical training, and refused to go through the usual Cambridge course. He finally graduated as B.A. without honours, afterwards recording his indifference to academic distinction in the well-known lines:

More forcibly expressed was Rousseau's derision of ordinary educational methods. Writing in his 'Confessions' about the school days of his cousin and himself, he says: 'We were sent together to Bossey, to board with the Protestant minister Lambercier, in order to learn, together with Latin, all the sorry trash which is included under the name of education.... M. Lambercier was a very intelligent person who, without neglecting our education, never imposed excessive tasks upon us. The fact that, in spite of my dislike to restraint, I have never recalled my hours of study with any feeling of disgust, and also that, even if I did not learn much from him, I learnt without difficulty what I did learn, and never forgot it, is sufficient proof that his system of instruction was a good one.'

As far as the history of science is concerned, there is a long array of self-cultured men to whom most of the discoveries that have been made are due. In no other occupation is the faculty of thinking originally and independently more essential than in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and it is significant that amongst famous scientists more instances are to be found of men who owe nothing to school instruction or academic training than in almost any other walk of life.

In this connection mention has already been made of the famous botanist LinnÆus. The whole of his school life was one unremitting protest against the usual educational methods of endeavouring to force the mind away from its natural bent. LinnÆus detested metaphysics, Latin, Greek, and every subject except physics and mathematics, in which he usually outstripped his fellow-pupils. But his nose was kept to the grindstone until the authorities informed his father that he was not fit for a learned education, and recommended his being given some manual employment. Thus were twelve precious years of the life of one of the most gifted men of science, save for what he accomplished out of school hours, wasted to no purpose. It is not to be wondered at that he spoke of one of his masters as 'a passionate and morose man, better calculated for extinguishing a youth's talents than for improving them.'

One of the greatest anatomists that ever lived, John Hunter, who numbered Dr. Jenner amongst his pupils, was scarcely educated at all for the first twenty years of his life. Mr. Smiles states that 'it was with difficulty that he acquired the arts of reading and writing.' Originally a carpenter, he became assistant to his brother, who was established in London as a surgeon. He acquired all his knowledge of anatomy in the dissecting-room, and owed everything he had learnt to his own hard work and habit of thinking things out for himself.

'The brilliant Sir Humphry Davy,' says Mr. Smiles, 'was no cleverer than other boys. His teacher, Dr. Cardew, once said of him, "While he was with me I could not discern the faculties by which he was so much distinguished." Indeed, Davy himself in after life considered it fortunate that he had been left to "enjoy so much idleness" at school.'

Newton was always at the bottom of his class, until he suddenly took it into his head to give a boy, whom he had already thrashed in another sense, an intellectual beating. 'It is very probable,' writes Sir David Brewster in his biography, 'that Newton's idleness arose from the occupation of his mind with subjects in which he felt a deeper interest.' Nobody could have penned a more incisive indictment against the imbecility of an education system that forces all boys, irrespective of their wishes or talents, into a fixed groove. It was Newton who, in answer to an inquiry as to how the principle of gravity was discovered, replied: 'By always thinking of it.'

When Watt, as a boy, was engaged in investigating the condensation of steam, his aunt, who was sitting with him at the tea-table, exclaimed:

'James, I never saw such an idle boy! Take a book or employ yourself usefully. For the last half hour you have not spoken a word, but taken off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and counting the drops of water.'

In this sympathetic way children are usually encouraged to think by their elders. Watt's faculties were developed entirely at home. He was sent to a public elementary school in Scotland; but, fortunately for science, he was so delicate that he was nearly always absent through indisposition. A visitor, who found the boy drawing lines and circles on the hearth with a piece of coloured chalk, once remonstrated with Mr. James Watt, senior, for allowing his son to waste his time at home. Watt had the good fortune, however, to possess an intelligent father, who encouraged the boy as far as it lay in his power.

Left to his own devices, Watt not only contrived to make himself the foremost engineer of his time, but he also developed his talents in many other directions. Sir Walter Scott says of him that 'his talents and fancy overflowed on every subject.' And M. Arago, the French scientist, in his memoir of Watt, expresses the view that the latter, in spite of his excellent memory, 'might, nevertheless, not have peculiarly distinguished himself among the youthful prodigies of ordinary schools. He could never have learned his lessons like a parrot, for he experienced a necessity of carefully elaborating the intellectual elements presented to his attention, and Nature had peculiarly endowed him with the faculty of meditation.'

This is only a roundabout way of saying that the conventional process of cramming would have destroyed the fine intellectual faculties possessed by Watt. But if in his case, why not in that of another? That is the strange thing about the light shed upon educational problems by cases like that of Watt, Newton, and other men of commanding genius. People only perceive in it a half-truth. They think that it is only in these exceptional instances that the mind is incapable of being developed by ordinary rough-and-ready methods.

Upon what grounds is such an absurd deduction founded? It is true that individuals differ widely as to the capabilities of their mental machinery; but it does not follow that the intellectual fibre of one person is more delicate than that of another.

The difference is not mental, but physical. It is because a boy is healthy, and not because his intellectual fibre is coarse, that he is better able to withstand the strain of an educational training than a weaker and more nervous boy.

Until the discovery is made that all minds are sensitive, when they have been actually reached, people will go on ignorantly destroying the finer faculties under the impression that genius or talent is a very rare thing, and can always shift for itself.

Yet, as I have attempted to show, the evidence of history points conclusively to the fact that the contrary is the case.

Is it really supposed that the great names that have been handed down to posterity represent all the genius to which the world has given birth?

The idea is preposterous.

For every man of genius or talent who has been permitted to survive, education systems have killed a hundred.

If it had not been for Dr. Rothmann, there would probably have been no LinnÆus to revolutionize the system of botanical classification. Had tyrannical parents and schoolmasters compelled Watt and Newton to give up mechanics and scientific study for a thorough cramming in Latin grammar and Greek roots, we might to-day be without a steam-engine or a theory of the law of gravitation. Even the genius of Napoleon and Wellington might easily have been crushed under the auspices of a modern competitive examination.

Would stupid Oliver Goldsmith have written his immortal 'Vicar of Wakefield' and 'She Stoops to Conquer,' or would idle Sheridan have penned the exquisite comedies that have not to this day been approached by any subsequent writer, if their idleness and stupidity had been submitted to the test of an enforced academic training for classical or mathematical honours?

Surely the evidence of history points to only one conclusion—namely, that all the genius in the world cannot survive the hopeless imbecility of educational methods, except by successfully dodging them through stupidity and idleness, whilst the faculties develop themselves at stolen intervals.