It was for a long time the custom to recommend knowledge to the
attention of the people by depicting the material advantages and
pleasures incident to its pursuit. Glowing and attractive pictures were
exhibited of the career and progress of meritorious and successful
persons, who had been elevated by their intelligence to positions of
consideration and distinction. Universal history and biography were
ransacked to furnish instances of a persevering and well-rewarded
prosecution of knowledge 'under difficulties;' and the general mind
was invited to contemplate and reflect on these, as worthy exemplars
for its imitation. The inference, moreover, that was almost uniformly
intended to be drawn, was such a one as was naturally acceptable to
the crude and undisciplined understanding--the obvious purpose of all
such representations being to stimulate the energies and enterprise of
the ambitious, by the offer or indication of material rewards, and to
make intelligence respected and desirable for the sake of its sensible
compensations.
There might perhaps be reasons adducible to justify the employment of
such incitements, as there may doubtless be circumstances under which
the cultivation of knowledge might, for a time, be more effectually
advanced by means of interested considerations, than by an appeal to
motives more strictly rational, and accordant with a disinterested
reverence for its spiritual worth and dignity. There are evidently
stages of human progress when a regard for their personal interests
has a more powerful efficacy in urging men into improvement, than
any of the finer influences of which they are susceptible, or which
an advanced culture would probably awaken. Thus, as an exoteric or
introductory intimation of the value and desirableness of knowledge,
it may not be amiss to attract a people, otherwise indisposed to its
acquirement, by an exhibition of the conventional advantages and
distinctions which it may contribute, more or less successfully,
to realise. And though it cannot be allowed that the culture of
the intellect is to be subordinated to the acquisition of any of
the temporal benefits of life, yet inasmuch as an increase of
intelligence and sagacity may be reasonably applied to the promotion
of such comforts and conveniencies as tend to enhance the rational
satisfactions of existence, it is not to be questioned that the latter
may be innocently, and even serviceably, urged upon the attention,
as reasons and motives for stimulating the slothful or indifferent
mind to an appropriate activity, whensoever higher and worthier
considerations may have been found to be ineffectual, or are in any
likelihood of being imperfectly apprehended. The sole condition needful
to be observed by those who thus endeavour to promote the education
and enlightenment of the people, is a clear and firm persuasion in
themselves that such a method of interesting men in the pursuits of
literature or science, can only be considered as initiatory, and
preparatory to something higher, and that at last knowledge must stand
recommended to the mind by its own intrinsic charms, and by its grand
and native tendency to further a man's spiritual advancement.
It is scarcely to be doubted that the oversight of this has greatly
contributed to occasion the failure of many of those popular schemes
and institutions which have had for their object the intellectual
improvement of the people. Starting with the flattering assumption that
literary and scientific information possessed the power of raising men
to social consequence, it was presently perceived that the result was
not answerable to the expectations which had been excited, and that the
more generally intelligence was spread, the greater was the competition
for the advantages in view, and the less the chance of attaining them.
By being taught to regard their education as a means or process whereby
they might be more readily and securely inducted into positions of
emolument and honour, not only were the people misdirected with respect
to the real and authentic signification of manly culture, but even the
inducements held out as the encouragements of their efforts were found
to end mainly in disappointment. The generality were not, and could not
be enriched, nor very sensibly elevated in the estimation of the world;
they did not usually attain to what they had been taught to aim after,
which was, in most cases, antecedence of their fellow-men, distinction
and exalted notice in the eyes of accredited respectability. The
conditions of society to which they were subjected limited most of
them to their old employments and pursuits, and it only occasionally
happened that a man's personal fortunes were very materially promoted
by the intelligence he had gained through studious exertion. If, by
some favourable concurrence of circumstances, one might chance to
attain eminence, or realise any considerable share of the substantial
possessions of life, for every individual thus fortunate, there has
probably been a thousand whose efforts were utterly unproductive
of any such success. Upon the whole, it is evident that the more
universally the benefits of instruction are extended among a people,
the casual prizes which were formerly accessible to rare examples of
ability and intelligence become less and less easy of attainment, and
have an eventual tendency to become distributed altogether without
reference to that intellectual superiority which, when education was
less general, more invariably commanded them. The peculiar distinctions
which knowledge is competent to confer must be looked for in other
directions than those which are supposed to lead to the acquisition
of wealth or mere conventional reputability--must be sought, indeed,
among the inner laws and necessities of the human mind. The power which
we ascribe to intelligence must be exercised for ends and objects which
have hitherto been too commonly overlooked, and the purposes and aims
of education will need to be more intimately adjusted to the essential
demands of character.
A notorious consequence of the popular instruction most prevalent
within the last twenty years, has been the elicitation of a certain
superficial cleverness, valuable principally for marketable or
ostentatious purposes, and no more indicative of intellectual elevation
than the frivolous accomplishment of rope-dancing. It is for the most
part an affair of memory, a mere mechanical agility, expertness in
acts of routine; and in its superior developments takes most commonly
the shape of a keen vulpine perspicacity, which may very readily
be cultivated independently of any coincident development of the
reflective reason or the moral attributes. The practical understanding,
being trained into separate activity, and exercised apart from its
constitutional connection, may obviously be used like an implement,
in subordination to the propensities or the will, and for the
accomplishment of purely selfish, or even discreditable ends. Thus,
while it is perfectly true that a liberal and complete education--using
the word in its largest and strictly philosophical significance--is the
sole and certain means of human elevation, it is not to be denied that
very considerable acquisitions of information, and much intellectual
ability and shrewdness, may subsist together with a manifest
unscrupulousness or depravity of disposition. And hence it is evident
that the power of knowledge is good or evil according as it is used;
and so long as its cultivation is enjoined out of motives involving a
primary regard to worldly advantages and promotions, there will never
be wanting persons to pursue it out of mercenary, and in other respects
questionable considerations. The entire grounds of the common advocacy
of education must be abandoned; we must ascend from the low places of
expediency and selfish benefit to the nobler platform of that universal
and inborn necessity in man, which demands a circular and simultaneous
culture of his whole nature--that essential and inward law of being
whose perfect and successful development shall be answerable to the
destination contemplated in the origin and intention of the human
constitution.
The true reason for individual cultivation is undoubtedly to be sought
for in the native requirements of the soul. The essential worth
of knowledge lies not so much in its adaptations to our temporal
conveniencies or ambition, as in the service it performs in promoting
spiritual enlargement. What we more especially understand by education
is a progressive process whereby the intellectual and moral powers
are expanded and developed to the extent of their capabilities,
and directed towards objects of action and speculation which have
a tendency to advance the effectual wellbeing of the individual--a
wellbeing whose character is not to be determined arbitrarily by
opinion, or considered as consisting in conditions accordant with
mere conventional preconceptions of mortal happiness, but one which
pre-exists as an ideal prefigurement in human nature. That only is a
right and sufficient education which aims at the perfect culture of the
man--which, as far as is possible with objective limitations, educes
and invigorates his latent aptitudes and gifts, to the end that he
may employ them in a manner which is consistent with the pure idea of
his own being. The consideration to be kept continually in view is,
what is a man by natural capacity destined to become?--what heights of
intellectual and moral worth is he capable of attaining to?--and, on
the whole, what courses of discipline and personal exertion are most
suitable, as the means of raising him to that condition wherein he
will most admirably fulfil the design of his creation? To instruct and
educate him with respect to this design is the highest and ultimate
purpose of all knowledge. It has thus a grander aim than the mere
promotion of the conveniencies of our material life. Prosecuted with
reference to this loftier end, it is exalted into the appropriate guide
of a man's endeavours--acquainting him with the laws and relations
of his existence, and shaping for him the authentic course of his
sublunary conduct.
It is accordingly obvious, that in order to obtain its lasting and most
prizable advantages, the pursuit of knowledge must be entered on and
followed as a _duty_. A man must esteem his personal culture as the
noblest end of his existence, and accept his responsibility in regard
to it as the most paramount of obligations. To this one pre-eminent
aim all other aims and aspirings must be held as inconsiderable and
subordinate. Let him know, and lay earnestly to heart, that all his
efforts at cultivation are to be everlasting in their results--fruitful
for ever in blessed consequences to himself and to the world, or
otherwise miserably and perpetually abortive, according to the
character and spirit of his activity. All learning and experience have
an intimate and natural respect to the progressive perfection of the
human soul. The original idea of a man--what he individually ought
to _be_ and _do_--that is the basis whereon he is to found and build
up his entire being. He must therefore prosecute knowledge with a
reverent and religious earnestness, strive diligently to comprehend the
relations in which he stands to God and his fellow-men, and sedulously
endeavour to fulfil his true and peculiar destination, which is, to
make his temporal existence correspondent with the inner laws of his
own soul, and to leave behind it in the spiritual world an imperishable
and eternal consequence.
This view of the intrinsic worth and significance of knowledge must
be admitted to be far more exalting and salutary to the mind than
any which has reference exclusively or principally to its agency in
simply secular affairs. It leads a man inevitably to respect the
integrity and rightful exercise of his capacities, by discountenancing
all employment of them which might tend in anyway to invalidate or
impair the natural supremacy of the moral sentiment. Considered as the
power whereby he may cultivate and enlarge his being, knowledge is
invested with a lofty and perennial momentousness, which cannot, and
may not, be disregarded without derogation to our highest interests
as human and spiritual intelligences. It is indeed a revelation, in
all its manifold departments, of that vital and sustaining element of
things which is designated Truth, and whereon every effort that can
reasonably be expected to be lastingly successful is most intimately
dependent. As man liveth not by bread alone, but by every gracious word
that proceedeth from the mouth of God, by every just and everlasting
law which He has established for the guidance and edification of
mankind, so assuredly is it of primary concern to men to be qualified
to interpret those sublime utterances, and to apprehend their import
and significancy, in relation to the aims and hopes of life. This is
the great and inestimable excellency of knowledge, that it acquaints
us with something of the reality and nature of the mysterious frame
of things wherein we live, and are necessitated constantly to work,
and unfolds for us the laws and reasons of that obedience which we are
constrained to yield to the established economy wherewith our existence
and essential welfare are connected. The highest and most binding
obligation for us to know anything at all, is our natural need of
intellectual enlightenment--the soul's unquestionable necessity for an
intimacy with Truth, and the joy and satisfaction which it finds in its
contemplation. And thus it is that all knowledge is eminently sacred,
as being the stream through which a human mind draws insight from the
central source of all intelligence; as being that which informs us of
self-subsistent Law and Power, and consciously connects us with their
reality and operations. That baneful divorce between intelligence
and holiness which a sceptical and frivolous age has so disastrously
effected, will need to be set aside as altogether founded on a serious
mistake; and indeed men are already beginning to apprehend that no
pure faith can be sustained, no sound or abiding virtue inculcated and
established, which is not deeply grounded in that mental certainty and
assurance which clear, indisputable knowledge alone can furnish.
Let knowledge, then, be recognised as a primary indispensability for
the mind, the natural and appropriate inheritance of every human
soul; and let us esteem it as a sufficient and authentic plea for
its universal dissemination, that it is ever needful for the soul's
health and welfare; and condescend not to demand it on any inferior
pretext. If there is one right of man more essentially sacred than
another, it is his right to as complete and perfect an education as
his own capacity, and the attainments and adaptations of the age he
lives in, are adequate to supply him with; and again, if there is one
human duty more paramount and obligatory than the rest, it is that
which enjoins upon a man the use of his best energies and efforts to
advance himself in intellectual and moral vigour, and to turn every
talent and capability most honestly to account; since upon the depth
and extent of his own inward force will depend the essential worth of
his subsequent performances. The rational enlargement of the individual
is indeed the one great end of life. Nothing has so high a claim on
us as the cultivation of ourselves. 'It is most true,' as a vigorous
and thoughtful modern writer has remarked--'it is most true, and most
fitting to be said to many in our day, that a man has no business to
cut himself off from communion with so rich and manifold a world as
ours, or arbitrarily to harden and narrow his life on any of the sides
on which it is open and sensitive. But it is also no less necessary,
and perhaps in this time more required to urge, that a man's first
vocation is to be a man--a practical, personal being, with a reasonable
and moral existence, which must be kept strong, and in working order,
at all expense of pleasure, talent, brilliancy, and success. It is easy
to lose one's self, or, as the Scripture has it, one's own soul, in the
midst of the many and glittering forms of good which the world offers,
and which our life apprehends: but to know any of these as realities,
it is necessary to begin by being real in our own human ground of will,
conscience, personal energy. Then will the world also begin to be real
for us; and we may go on through eternity mining deeper and deeper,
and in endless diversities of direction, in a region of inexhaustible
realities.'[1]