Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

Principles of Education and Ethics. 55
cma increasing conviction that Education would
prove a panacea for all our evils; and that if we
could begin with the young, and have the training
of children, we could eventually reform society,
even though these children might be the offspring of
vicious parentage. That "we must educate or we
must perish" contains, no doubt, a great truth; but
it is offset by another saying: "Education cannot
repair the defects of birth." What real education
is, how and when it should begin, and what, under
the most favorable circumstances, it may be expected
to accomplish, we do not yet perceive.
The
saying that it takes at least three generations to
make a Gentleman contains a truth, even if the
criterion as to what constitutes a real gentleman
may be uncertain or defective. And again, the saying,
that the education of a child should begin at
least nine months before it is born, shows that prenatal
conditions and influences are at least recognized
as existing. But in this last direction, viz., as
to the environment of the Mother during gestation,
the Ancient Greeks knew far more than we, and
enacted laws to prevent physical deformity from
being propagated or even seen. The result was
physical symmetry such as the world has seldom
seen.