Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-01-24
Man Cannot Live Icy Bread Alone

! terryman.
Man Cannot Live Icy Bread Alone
/ Mr.. Arnold, in his lecture on sLitera-
| ture and Science. gives his hearers a
good deal to think of, perhaps more
than they were aware of at the moment
! of hearing his voice, but thoughts GER
tain to recur to them afterwards. His
absolute simplicity of STYLE without the
least eXaggeration or emphasis of adj
| jectives especially to us who are ac-
/ customed to a good deal of emphasis
| is apt to mislead at first as TO the i'm
| pOrtance of the thoughts he is uttering.
! he put the current discussion as to
! the relative Importance of literature
and science in education on q high
| plane, by an appeal to human nature
! itself, that is to what is needed to sat
| isfy the wants, the desires and the as
| pirations of the majority of mankind.
! There are q few men who are satisfied
with the discovery, the collection of the
facts OF natural history; they are born
naturalists. Mr.. Darwin was such q
man. But the majority of men need
something more than this, need to re-
late those facts, as Mr.. Arnold said, to
religion, to the instinct for beauty and
for conduct. This need of the majority
of men cannot be satisfied in any other
educational method in our experience
except by the study of literature, the
cultivation of the humanities With
out repeating at all Mr.. Arnold, it is
| enough to refer to his conclusion, that
human nature itself, that is a we'll de-
velOped human life, demands and will
continue to demand a study of the hui
manities, or a knowledge of what has
been done, said and thought in the
world.
There is another aspect of the sub
iect which we should like to hear Mr.
Arnold enlarge upon. knowledge not
only begets knowledge, but also ne
cessity in our life for an application of
it, its relation somehow to the emo
tional and higher part of us. A bald
fact of science, however interesting,
does not, as the lecturer showed, affect
us as we are affected by the sentiment
in line of poetry-though both state
facts of a different kind. Now an ar
gument for the necessity, greater than
ever, for the continued prominence of
literature in our education, can be
drawn from the increase of scientific
knowledge itself. The more we know
about the universe, about our own
world, about our own physical nature,
about material life in all its forms, the
more strongly we feel the need of Just
that cultivation which can compreaen-
sively group all this and appropriate it
to our individual life. As our world of
what is called experience widens, so in
a healthier development the longing
for completion in our whole nature
grows. There have been speculations
from time to time upon the effect upon
literature of the prominence of scien-
titic methods and study; and the wits
have exercised themselves to construct
poems as they will be written when
science gains the complete mastery.
There is in all this recognition of the
fact that there is a want in human ma
ture that science fails to supply; that
man is an emotional and religious
being.
The truth seems to be, without argu-
ing it, and wisely appealing to our con-
seriousness, that just rs the pursuit of
money-getting must be supplemented
by some other taste and the cultivation
of some other faculties, or the money
getting will shrink his soul into a size
inappreclable to the naked eye, so nat
ural facts alone, gathered in never so
great quantities and classified, cannot
fully develop any man, and cannot sat
isfy the vast N jority of men. We see
very c early, on a large SCALE what be-
comes of Il society which is wholly de-
voted to material pursuits, to the en-
joyment of luxury, and does not make
any room in its plan for spiritual things.
We are quite alive to the necessity, the
greater the material prosperity, of in
Producing into our life cultivation of
the higher faculties and the refining in
fuences of literature and art So we
may concede, at least we doubt not
that Mr. Arnold could make the argu-
ment conclusive, that the more we have
OF science in human life the more need
there is of the humanities, and not, as
some hold, the less need.