Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1879-12-27
Short Cuts Go Learning,


isIf one were asked to name the class OF publ
ca ions most characteristic of the present period
there would be little hesitation In giving the
other short cuts 70 learning which issue from
the presses OF this country and England In an
endless stream. Knowledge is sugar-cOated
nowadays, and Is administered in easy doses.
There is so much to be learned that nobody
can be expected to learn 1t all for himself and
accordingly some specialists must be employed
TO find out all that Is known upon any given
subject, end give US an abstract OF it. In this
way we are p.nYiaed with primers Of history.
OF science. of the fine arts Condensed biogra-
phies OF the worlds great men are prepared for
for ourselves The great writer's OF all times and of
all countries poets his or1ans noveliss even, are
served up In co1venie9t digests SO that one may
ing word OF Greek, and OF Horace without
being able to scan Latin verse. The wonders
OF modern science, Of astronomy, Of geology, OF
chemistry and physics, are in a like manner
brought within the grasp OF every one and there
is none OF us who may not, by the expenditure
OF a few small coins and few hours snatched
from business, qualify ourselves to discourse on
the co: relation OF forces or defend the doctrine
Of evolution. There never was q time when
learning was such simple thing. Formerly, it
edge OF classical literature or of ancient history,
even as then understood, or to qualify cne's self
to have an opinion even in the elementary
science of those days. But in these days or the
railroad and the telegraph we have changed all
that. The ascent Of Parnassus is now made by
a
ticket at the booksellers and we are whisked
away to an elevation from which we may look
down with lofty scorn upon our plodding ances-
tors
"AIl this is very delightful but one cannot
help questioning whether the pleasure is likely
to endure: and whether the multiplication OF
books really has so great help to knowledge
as it seems. 1t will hardly be denied that, In
spite OF all our modern Improvements AMI not
withstanding the indisputably wider diffusion
OF knowledge among all classes, the proportion
OF really educated nd c
If as large, as 1t was in the time of our grand
fathers There is, however a reason for this in
the vast extension of the field of human inquiry.
Our gTandfathers were better read than we, but
they did not read as much nor have as much to
read. II they knew Horace and Demosthenes,
they did not know Huxley and Darwin If they
the subject Of the Lake Dwellers; If they read
their Bible, they had few newspapers to read.
IL Is TACT that man needs, or thinks he
needs, to know so many things now that
general scholarship is becoming very rare.
All branches of research are falling
more and more into the hands of spe-
eialists, by whom the real work is
labors to the world. This is what makes the
genuine scholarship and genuine science of our
day so complete, and enables it to achieve such
really great results, and the man who knows one
thing well may be content to accept what other
men have learned on other things. The trouble
is that the most of us do not know anything
well. We let others do not only a part but all
of the work, and we calmly appropriate the re-
suits Ia fifty cent primers and Halter ourselves
that we are educated" Herein Is the weak
ness of all this primer business, that 1t tends to
destroy all habits of real study and to substitute
a superficial smattering of universal informa-
ton for well-grounded, because patiently-ac-
CURED knowledge of some one helpful thing.
The primers are all very well If they are rightly
used as helps to reading, not as substitutes for
1t, but man will find more profit frem reading
the book for himself than from having some
body else read dozen for hint Philadelphia