ABSTRACT
When John Locke wrote to his friend Edward Clarke those letters known as “Thoughts on Education,” he admitted at the start that he considered that education principally-concerned itself with the forming of children’s minds, “giving them that seasoning early, which shall influence their lives later.” He moreover advanced the novel position that he should put the subject of learning last, because, “I tell you I think it the least part. This may seem strange in the mouth of a bookish man, and this making usually the chief if not only bustle about children; this being almost that alone, which is thought on, when People talk about Education.” Wise words which, if they had been more nearly followed in the education of our youth, might have lessened our perplexities to-day in regard to the problem of the intelligent direction of activities.
