In a school which lays itself out to teach one or two subjects thoroughly, to the neglect of others, a sense, or special perceptive faculty, will gradually be evolved by the study of each subject, provided, of course, that the path of self-expression is followed,--a literary sense, a historical sense, a mathematical sense, and so on.

But while these special senses are being developed, the remaining perceptive faculties are being starved, and no attempt is being made to cultivate that general capacity of which I have just spoken.

The consequent loss to the child, both in his school-life and in his after-life, is very great.

For not only is his mental growth one-sided and inharmonious, but even in the subjects in which he specialises he will lose appreciably, owing to his special perceptive faculties not having as their background any general capacity for seeing things as they are.
I will try to explain what I mean.

In what is known as "Society" there is a valuable quality called "tact," in virtue of which the man or woman who is endowed with it always says and does "the right thing." This quality is compounded partly of sympathetic insight into the feelings, actual and possible, of others, and partly of a keen and subtle sense for all the _nuances_ of social propriety.
Like every other perceptive faculty, it is the outcome of self-expression,--of years of self-expression on the plane of social intercourse.