The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

OCTOBER 25, 1856

MODERN EDUCATION AND GENERAL
READING.

THE Rev. Dr. BOOTH, F.R.S., delivered the opening
address at the Hitchin Mechanics' Institution.
The subject was the present aspect of education in
this country, and the probable future phases of its
development. In his lecture at Lewes, alluded to in
THE PRESS, Sept. 27, Dr. Booth dwelt on the diffi-
culties which beset the path of the learner, and
impede his progress. Having endeavoured to show
on that occasion how a young man should lesrn, his
object on this occasion was to discuss what it is he
ought to learn. Dr. Booth commenced by remarking
that the range of knowledge is now becoming so vast,
so entirely beyond the compass of any one man's
comprehension, however ample his leisure or un-
tiring his industry, however tenacious his memory or
intuitive his intellect, that no one can hope to master
more than a small portion. The practical question
with which they had to deal was this, "On what
principle were they to make their selection?"
He was opposed to a diffuse unreflective system of
light reading. Let them believe him, it was much
better, under every point of view, to know two or
three subjects well than to have a loose, rambling
sort of notion as to what several were about. That
was no needless caution at the present day, when a
diligent sitter out of lectures might during a session
assist at discourses on astronomy and astrology,
optics and clairvoyance, medicine and mesmerism,
mining and music, electricity and animal magnetism,
geology, conchology, physiology, and a heap of other
ologies in addition :

man was not at all the more clearheaded, or even the
better informed, for having all this farrago and jumble of
odds and ends, of bits and scraps of knowledge shot into
his memory, as a carter shoots rubbish into waste ground.
A man's mind which receives impressions in this way is
no better than the sheet on which one may see dissolving
views thrown in a chromatic exhibition. The figures mix,
and blend, and fade into each other; while, on the other
hand, if you look through a telescope, although the objects
you examine are but few, you recollect how bright and
distinct they are, how precise their outlines, how sharp
their edges. Much better is it for the traveller to have
ex ict information about a few prominent distant objects
by the help of a glass, than to gaze at a whole country's
side through a haze or fog.

Bishop Butler had observed on this point:—" The
great number of books and papers of amusement
which, of one kind or other, daily come in one's way,
have in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in
with and humour, this idle way of reading and con-
sidering thigs. By this means time, even solitude,
is got rid of without the pain of attention ; neither
is any part. of it more to be put to the account of
idleness, or spent with less thought, than a great
part of that which is spent in reading." And to the
same effect by another great authority :—" Nothing,"
says Dugald Stewart, " has such a tendency to
weaken not only the powers of invention, but the
intellectual powers in general, as a habit of extensive
and various reading without reflection. The activity
and force of the mind ore gradually impaired in
consequence of disuse, and not unfrequently all our
principles and opinions come to be lost in the in-
finite multiplicity and discordancy of our acquired
ideas." These were important points to be settled
by those who proposed to consider their own im-
provement ; and to the question so ably put by Lord
Ashburton, at the Society of Arts dinner last sum-
mer, " Man's wants are boundless ; his means of
carriage are small; life is short—school-time is still
shorter—knowledge is infinite ;—what shall his pack
of knowledge be ?" two general principles might
be offered in reply. First, that the knowledge in
question may be used as an instrument of intellec-
tual development, as an exercise of the understand-
ing ; and secondly, that this knowledge may be
capable of practical application. The acquisition of
knowledge which would not stand these tests need
not be regarded. As an illustration, Dr. Booth ad-
vanced the neglect in the present day of the study
of the old logic of the schoolmen

Why is this? Because the study of logic has failed in
this characteristic ; because it has been hustled cut of its
place by studies of more palpable utility. Logic may have
strengthened the grasp, may have nerved the intellectual
muscle ; but it provided no well-defined mental engine,
like mathematical analysis, or the doctrine of atomic
weights, which enabled their possessors to master the
stubborn resistance of nature. Your labourers in the Seld
do not practise gymnastics, because they sensibly feel that
their daily toil gives them quite enough of muscular exer-
tion. So, in our own day, men cannot afford the titre to
whet their wits on barren studies, no more than our mer-
chants can afford to take exercise of a morning by walking,
when they are forced to rush into town by the rail. Again,
a knowledge of Roman law would be a most useful ac•
quirement; but how can any one give his whole time to it,
while new discoveries in knowledge are matters of daily
expectation?

Dr. Booth then alluded to the principle of a classical
education. He was opposed to that excessive devo-
tion to the classics, so prominent a feature in the