The possibilities of education depend upon inborn capacities, but the unfolding of them is education. A man of large capacity, born among savages, remains a savage, an Arab is a Mohammedan, an Englishman is a Christian, a child among thieves is a thief, a child in a home of culture imbibes refinement and truth. Tennyson, in the interior of Africa, would not have developed his exquisite rhyme and rhythm, metaphor and verse, and polish and sparkle of expression, would not have conceived thoughts that penetrate the earth and the nature of man, and shoot upward to the quivering stars; he would have mused under his palm tree, and have fed, perhaps somewhat daintily, upon unlucky missionaries. An African of natural ability in the homes of Massachusetts, under the influence of Harvard, would become a man of vigorous thought and fine feeling, possibly of genius.
Since education is so potent, what shall the nature of it be? Shall knowledge of mountain and forest and the seasons, and the common sense that grows from experience, and the practical power to read and compute be sufficient? If all minds were equal, if the stores of wisdom were valueless, if special investigators found nothing worth revealing, if thoughts of master minds did not inspire, if men, like brutes, were governed by instincts and had no possibilities
