Among all the evidences for the existence of an overruling Providence
that I can discover, I see none more convincing than the elaborate and
for the most part effectual provision that has been made for the
suppression of genius. The more I see of the world, the more necessary I
see it to be that by far the greater part of what is written or done
should be of so fleeting a character as to take itself away quickly.
That is the advantage in the fact that so much of our literature is
journalism.
Schools and colleges are not intended to foster genius and to bring it
out. Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools and colleges to
abate it by setting genius-traps in its way. They are as the artificial
obstructions in a hurdle race—tests of skill and endurance, but in
themselves useless. Still, so necessary is it that genius and
originality should be abated that, did not academies exist, we should
have had to invent them.