We get our
smattering of science in the same way; we learn chemistry by
listening to a short course of lectures enlivened by experiments,
and when we have inhaled laughing gas, seen green water turned to
red, and phosphorus burnt in oxygen, we have got our smattering, of
which the most that can be said is, that though it may be better
than nothing, it is yet good for nothing. Thus we often imagine we
are being educated while we are only being amused.
The facility with which young people are thus induced to acquire
knowledge, without study and labour, is not education. It occupies
but does not enrich the mind. It imparts a stimulus for the time,
and produces a sort of intellectual keenness and cleverness; but,
without an implanted purpose and a higher object than mere
pleasure, it will bring with it no solid advantage. In such cases
knowledge produces but a passing impression; a sensation, but no
more; it is, in fact, the merest epicurism of intelligence--
sensuous, but certainly not intellectual. Thus the best qualities
of many minds, those which are evoked by vigorous effort and
independent action, sleep a deep sleep, and are often never called
to life, except by the rough awakening of sudden calamity or
suffering, which, in such cases, comes as a blessing, if it serves
to rouse up a courageous spirit that, but for it, would have slept
on.
Pages:
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471