"IT is an observation no less true than common, that the HUMAN MIND bears a strong resemblance to the wild and unmanured garden of nature, which (tho' amidst an infinite profusion of weeds and briers) by diligence and culture becomes fertile, fair and flourishing. Our minds being furnished with latent powers, it is the business of EDUCATION to unfold and bring them to light. EDUCATION is a kind of second creation; it gives form and comeliness to those rude and unwrought materials, which, like the natural World, in its chaotic state, are "without order and void." NATURE gives us talents; it is EDUCATION which applies them right or wrong; the first bestows propensities and affections which may be directed to good, either public or private; the latter improves or perverts them. The infant mind is pliant and ductile, like wax, you may mould it to any form; you may stamp a fair or deformed impression upon it; error or knowledge, indolence or industry, virtue or vice."
This is an edition of a classical book first published in the eighteenth century.
