The mirror., 1919-09-25
Wall WITHOUT attempting for
NE1 a moment to aid and
MEA abet illiteracy, one can
lS9ll easily coma To the con.

uNMEHNNH mOm0nG 10 alQ ana
R%(ESy4REI abet illiteracy, one can
gGSzSgD easily come to the con-
clusion and proclaim it that man
knows to-day too much for his
brains. Such is the view of Doc
tor Charles Gray Shaw, professor
of philosophy at New York Uni
versity. The brain is so con-
structed, according to him, as to
do more work than is involved in
merely receiving impressions from
the world without, which has for
US tens of thousands of sensations.
It is the business of the brain to
retain impressions, as also to react
upon them in appropriate ways
from psychological point of view.
As the brain of schoolchild, stu
dent. scientist and man of the
world would appear to be working
at present, the functions of re-
captivity are so absorbed in the
acquisition of knowledge that
there is no ability to retain what is
learned, still less to return it to
the world in suitable forms of
creation. This excess of mentality
appears not only in the sciences
but in the affairs of man as man.
Thus it is not sufficient to live,
according to the present view; one
must master the science of
hygiene. It is not enough to be-
get children and replenish the
earth; one must master the science
of eugenics. In all our mental
getting, moreover, we have been
obsessed by the idea that it is
quantity aud not quality Of know
ledge that is the principal thing.
Doctor Shaw adds, in the New
York American:
A fact is a fact, one fact is as
good as another, hence the more
facts we have the more knowledge
we possess. Hence schoolchildren
have a colporteur's library under
their puny arms, colleges print
longer and longer curriculums,
libraries install more and more
shelves. The time when one brain
like that of Aristotle or Bacon
could encompass about all the
knowledge there was has long
since passed away. New sciences
have come into being, old ones
have been subdivided, specializa-
ton has become the invariable
rule.
In the midst of all this, it is
the same brain in the same limited
skull which must set up an atti-
tude toward knowledge as a whole.
and that brain seems about to
strike, to insist that there has been
an overproduction in the wares of
the intellect. We have knowledge,
but it is too big for the brain we
carry around with us.
The moment we consider how
the great mental work was done by
the great minds, we discover that
as rule from which there is little
variation great minds have pro-
ceeded to truth with a minimum of
facts and laws. Socrates laid the
basis for all western speculation,
but his knowledge of the human
mind would never enable him to
pass an examination in psychology
such as is given in normal
school. Plato worked the universe
over into a world of ideas, about
which men are still disputing, but
his knowledge of the universe was
so limited that he could not think
of entering a freshman class in
even a fresh-water college.
1T has been said upon good
authority that if Copernicus had
had before his mind the facts of
contemporary astronomy he would
never have. been able to discover
that the earth moves about the
sun. It was the lack of rich, de-
tailed knowledge which helped