First, what those blemishes are which I observed in the main body
of learning, a subject so closely investigated in our day by such a
variety and excellence of learned wits that every branch of it is
thought to have recovered the consideration it had at its highest
point; secondly, why in regard to methods of teaching I do not
content myself with following the precedent of other writers, who
in great numbers have written learned treatises with the same end
in view, but rather toil myself with a private labour, the issue of
which is uncertain, whereas the previous writers on the subject,
being themselves learned, and having achieved success, may be
followed with assurance; thirdly, if it is my endeavour to handle
a learned subject in the English tongue, why I take so much pains
and such a special care in handling it, that the weaker sort, whose
benefit I profess to consider--nay, often others also of reasonable
study--can with difficulty understand the couching of my sentence
and the depth of my meaning.
While I answer these questions, I must pray your patience, my good
masters, because the things may not be lightly passed over, and in
satisfying your demands I shall pave the way for the suit I have to
make to you.
First, as for my general care for the whole course of learning, I
have thus much to say. The end of every individual man’s doings
for his own advantage, and the end of the whole commonweal for the
good of us all, are so much alike in aspect, and so entirely the
same in nature, that when the one is seen the other needs little
seeking. Each individual man labours in this world in order to win
rest after toil, to have ease after work; he does not wish to be
always engaged in labour, which would be exceedingly irksome if it
were endless. The soldier fights in his own intention perhaps to
gain ease through wealth, which he may win by spoil; in outward
appearance he labours for the advantage of his country by way of
defence and security. The merchant traffics in his own intention
to procure personal ease through private wealth; to the public
he seems to labour for the common benefit, by supplying wants in
necessary wares for general use. Indeed, all men, whatever be their
occupation, while seeking private ends in their actions, at the
same time concur in serving general ends. Thus it appears that ease
after labour is the common aim of both private and public efforts,
because everyone in the natural course of his whole conduct has
regard to the general prosperity and quiet, which maintain his own
personal well-being. Then the means both of coming by this end,
and when it is come by, of maintaining it in state, must needs lie
in such directions as make for the peace and quietness of a State,
for the keeping of concord and agreement without any main public
breach, both in private houses and generally throughout the whole
government. These peaceable directions I call, and not I alone,
by the simple name of _general learning_, comprising under it all
the arts of peace and the ministry of tranquillity--a matter of
great moment, being the only right means to so blessed a thing
as fortunate peace, imparting the benefit of public quietness to
every household, as a central fountain serves every man’s cistern
by private pipes, and if it be not sound, conveying the blemish
like the infected water of a fountain, or the corrupt blood that
escaping from the liver poisons the whole body. Even war itself, a
professed enemy to learning, because it is in feud with peace, may
by just handling be shown to work for peace at home by uniting the
minds of all against a common foe. By the employment of learning
in every department all princes govern their States; the general
control is exercised through grave and learned counsellors and
wise and faithful justiciaries, and the particular control, in
religion by divines, in the health of the body by physicians, in
the maintenance of right by lawyers, and so on in every particular
profession, from the greatest to the meanest, throughout the
whole government--a most blessed means to a most blessed end, a
learned maintenance of a heavenly happiness in an earthly State
of a heavenly constitution. Therefore, any error in this means is
an injury indeed, and deserves to be thought of as a hindrance to
peace, and a pernicious destroyer of the best public end, beginning
perhaps as a small spark, but always gathering strength by the
confluence of similar infection in some other parts, till at last
it sets all on fire, and bursts out in a confusion, the more to be
feared that it festers before it breaks into flame, and shrouding
itself under a show of peace, consumes without suspicion, and
escapes being brought to terms as a professed enemy. I may say that
in my reflection on this subject of the ascent of learning from
the elementary stage, I thought I found these four imperfections
in the whole body of learning--in some places an excess, in others
a defect, in others too great a variety, in others too much
disagreement. These are four great enormities in a peaceable means,
breeding great diseases, and bidding defiance to quiet, both within
the State in the governing direction, and outside it by evident
inflammation, and they are therefore to be thought of not only for
complaint in particular cases, but by magistrates in regard to
their amendment.
As for _excess_ I conceive that as in every natural body the number
of sinews, veins, and arteries to give it life and motion, is
definite and certain, so in a body politic the distributive use of
learning, which I compare to those parts, is everywhere certain.
And whatever is more than nature requires in either of them, as in
the one it breeds disease, so in the other it causes destruction
by breach of proportion, and so consequently of peace. In natural
bodies excess appears when one or more parts encroach on the others
and enfeeble them. In communities this excess in learning is to be
discerned when the private professions swell too much and so weaken
the whole body, either by the multitude of professional men, who
bite deeply where many must be fed and there is little to feed on,
or by unnecessary professions, which choke off the more useful, and
fill the world with trifles, or by an infinitude of books, which
cloy up students, and weaken them by an intolerable diffuseness of
treatment, fattening the carcass but lowering the strength of pithy
matter. Do not all these surfeits exist at this day in our own
State? Are they not enemies to the common good, being grown out of
proportion? Are they not worth consideration and redress?
I pass now to the question of defect. In a natural body there is
too little, when either something necessary is wanting, or what
is there is too weak to serve its purpose. And does not learning
show the same defects, disquieting to a State, when the necessary
professional men are wanting either in number or in worthiness;
where show takes the place of sound stuff; where in place of real
learning only superficial knowledge is sought, enough to make a
shift with; when necessary professions are despised and trampled
under foot, because the cursory student has to post away in
haste; when there is a lack of needful books to further learning,
and those we have are of little use owing to insufficiency of
treatment? This corruption in learning any man may see who desires
to seek out either the malady or its cure; it is a breach of
proportion, and therefore of peace, in a commonwealth, a pining
evil which consumes by starving.
As for diversity in matters of learning, I think that as
it proceeds from differences in ability, in upbringing, in
intelligence, in judgment, because these are much finer in some
than in others, it does a great deal of harm to the peace of any
State, especially where its leaders, though they may not fall out,
but merely express their opinions, yet divide studies according to
their favourites, considering the importance of the subjects less
than the attraction of the authors. If this diversity breaks out
in earnest, as it has frequently done in our time, while printing
itself, which in its natural and best uses is the instrument of
necessity and the exponent of learning, becomes very often too easy
an outlet for vaunting ambition, for malicious envy and revenge,
for all passions to all purposes, what a sore blow is given to
the public quiet, when the means to welfare is made an instrument
of distemper! For will not he fight in his fury who brawls in
his books? Do not those minds seem armed for open conflict--nay,
do they not arm others too by pressing enmity forward--which in
private studies enter into combats on paper; which by too much
eagerness make a great ado in matters better quenched than stirred
to life; which whet their wits beforehand to be wranglers ever
after, and as far as lies in them disturb the general welfare?
What I disapprove of is needless combats in learning; those that
are fruitful may go on, yet with no more passion than common
civility and Christian charity will allow. Excess overburdens,
defect weakens, diversity distracts, but dissension destroys. You
know yourselves, my learned readers, what a wonderful stir there
is daily in your schools, through diverging opinions in logic,
in philosophy, in mathematics, in physics. The lawyer generally
abstains from controversal writing, because he does not gain by
it what he seeks; pleading in the Common Courts offers a better
pasture for a lean purse than a busy pen. The dissension in
divinity is specially fierce, the more so because it often falls
out that the adversaries intermingle their own passions with the
matters they treat of. For while our religious doctrines sometimes
require defence, disputes might often be compounded, if men’s
feelings were as readily cooled as they are inflamed. But in the
meanwhile how greatly is the general peace disturbed by dissensions
that turn aside a worthy means, to maintain a wrong and become
a slave to some inordinate passion! I cannot enter fully upon
this subject, but touch upon it merely that my good readers may
understand how much my desire for the furtherance of learning was
increased after I had noticed these inconveniences, though at first
I meant only to help the teaching of the learned tongues. Agreement
among the learned is the mother of general contentment; by carping
and contradicting they trouble the world and taint themselves,
bearing all the while the name of Christians--a title which
enjoins us to avoid contention, even by the submission of those
who are wronged, and charges us to defend our religion, not with
passionate minds, but with the armour of patience and truth. These
were the blemishes which I saw by the way, and lamented in the body
of learning. The amendment which I desire rests upon two great
pillars--the professors of learning, who must give intelligence of
the error, and the principal magistrates--nay, even the sovereign
prince--who being God’s great instruments to procure quietness
for our souls and bodies, our goods and actions, must bring about
redress in so important a matter as the course of learning.
The prince may cut off what is in excess, make up what is
deficient, reconcile diversities, expel dissensions, by his lawful
authority for the general good; and everyone will submit, because
everyone is benefited. This, indeed, confirms Plato’s saying
that kings should be philosophers; that is, that all magistrates
should be learned. It is a great corrosive to the whole body of
learning, which is the procurer of peace, when those who have to
direct gain their wisdom only through experience. That is much,
but experience and learning together make the better equipment. It
is an honourable conception, besides that it tends to the general
good, for a learned and virtuous prince, assisted by wise counsel,
to reduce the number of those that follow learning, by some
principle of selection in every department, to decide what kinds of
learning are most useful to the State, and to appoint a reasonable
number of such books as have the best methods of treatment. The
final authority in regard to every profession has always lain with
the prince. Action has been taken before in all the directions
I have spoken of, both by consent of the learned and by command
of good princes. As our country is small, the thing could be
the more easily done; as our livings are limited, it is the more
needful; as the evil is great, we are the less able to bear it; as
our sovereign is learned, we shall be the readier to give ear; as
our people are of good understanding, they are the better able to
inform her. But as the physician does not thrive by the prevention
of disease, nor the lawyer grow rich by arresting contentions, nor
a divine prosper so much in a heaven where all is good as on earth
where all is evil, and as private profit will be followed, though
it bring confusion to the State, redress will not stir, because it
judges the world to be in some fault which it is loth to confess.
However, to secure some redress and help in this matter at the hand
of the ruler, is the duty of all who make a profession of learning,
if they will but consider the reputation of learning in our day,
whether from the contempt in which some professions are held, or
from a deficiency in those who enter them.
In the professors of learning, to whose solicitation this point
is recommended, two things are chiefly required. First, that with
minds given to peace they should study soundly themselves, and that
the matter be worthy and taken in due order. For sound learning
will not so soon be shaken at every eager point of controversy
as that which is shallow. Orderly progress gives security, and a
pacific temper furthers the end that is desired both privately and
publicly. The consent of the learned and their quiet inclination
are a great blessing to any Commonwealth, but especially to ours
in this contentious time, when overwhetted minds do very little
good to some worthy professions. The distracting division of
minds into sects and sorts of philosophy did much injury in the
countries where it befel, and those nations among which religious
dissensions arose have never been quiet since. The second point
required in a student is not to seek his own advancement so much as
that of the things he professes, and indeed the possession of these
things is the best means to advance himself, for, where ignorance
is blamed, knowledge is approved, even though the approver may not
be learned. He who studies soundly recommends letters by his own
example; he who solicits the help of those in authority advances
learning still further; he who uses his pen to strengthen the best
current of opinion proves the genuineness of his desire by his
own practice. In this last form my own labour seeks to recommend
uniformity, to strip off what is needless, to supply some defects,
to help everyone to as quiet a course as I can temper my style to.
The second question which I said might be demanded of me, why I do
not follow the precedent of those learned writers who have handled
the subject with great admiration may be very soon answered. I
admit that the number of those who have written upon the upbringing
of children might be considered sufficient, and I grant the
excellence of many of them, such as Bembus, Sturmius, and Erasmus.
But the situation is different. A free city and a country under a
monarchy are not in the same position, though they agree in some
general respects, in which indeed these writers do not dissent from
me. Nor do I fail to follow good writers, taking example from those
authors who taught all the later ones to write so well. I am the
servant of my country; for her sake I labour, her circumstances I
must consider, and whatsoever I shall pen I shall myself see it
carried out, by the grace of God, in order the better to persuade
others by offering the proof of trial.
The third question, as to my writing in English, and my being so
careful--I will not say fastidious--in expression, concerns me more
nearly, for it has some importance. It is the opinion of some that
we should not treat any philosophical subject, or any ordinary
subject in a philosophical manner, in the English tongue, because
the unlearned find it too difficult to understand in any case, and
the learned, holding it in little esteem, get no pleasure from it.
In regard both to writing in English generally, and my own writing
in particular, I have this to say: No one language is finer than
any other naturally, but each becomes cultivated by the efforts of
the speaker who, using such opportunities as are afforded by the
kind of government under which he lives, endeavours to garnish it
with eloquence, and enrich it with learning. Such a tongue, elegant
in form and learned in matter, while it keeps within its natural
soil, not only serves its immediate purpose with just admiration,
but in foreigners who become acquainted with it, it kindles a great
desire to have their own language resemble it. Thus it came to pass
that the people of Athens beautified their speech in the practice
of pleading, and enriched it with all kinds of knowledge, bred both
within Greece and outside of it. Thus it came to pass that the
people of Rome, having formed their practice in imitation of the
Athenian, became enamoured with the eloquence of those from whom
they were borrowing, and translated their learning also. However,
there was not nearly the same amount of learning in the Latin
tongue during the time of the Romans as there is at this day by the
industry of students throughout the whole of Europe, who use Latin
as a common means of expression, both in original works and in
translations. Roman authority first planted Latin among us here,
by force of their conquest, and its use in matters of learning
causes it to continue. Therefore the so-called Latin tongues have
their own peoples to thank, both for their own cultivation at
home and for the favour they enjoy abroad. So it falls out that,
as we are profited by means of these tongues, we should pay them
honour, and yet not without cherishing our own, in regard both to
cases where the usage is best and to those where it is open to
improvement. For did not these tongues use even the same means
to cultivate themselves before they proved so beautiful? Did the
people shrink from putting into their own language the ideas they
borrowed from foreign sources? If they had done so, we should never
have had the works we so greatly admire.
There are two chief reasons which keep Latin, and to some extent
other learned tongues, in high consideration among us,--the
knowledge which is registered in them, and their use as a means
of communication, in both speaking and writing, by the learned
class throughout Europe. While these two benefits are retained,
if there is anything else that can be done with our own tongue,
either in beautifying it, or in turning it to practical account,
we cannot but take advantage of it, even though Latin should thus
be displaced, as it displaced others, bequeathing its learning to
us. For is it not indeed a marvellous bondage, to become servants
to one tongue for the sake of learning, during the greater part
of our time, when we can have the very same treasure in our own
language, which forms the joyful title to our liberty, as the Latin
reminds us of our thraldom? I love Rome, but I love London better;
I favour Italy, but I favour England more; I honour the Latin
tongue, but I worship the English. I wish everything were in our
tongue which the learned tongues gained from others, nor do I wrong
them in treating them as they did their predecessors, teaching us
by their example how boldly we may venture, notwithstanding the
opinion of some among us, who desire rather to please themselves
with a foreign language that they know, than to profit their
country in their own language, which they ought to know. It is
no argument to say: Will you dishonour those tongues which have
honoured you, and without which you could never have enjoyed the
learning of which you propose to rob them? For I honour them still,
as much as any one, even in wishing my own tongue to be a partaker
of their honour. For if I did not hold them in great admiration,
because I know their value, I would not think it any honour for
my own language to imitate their grace. I wish we had the stores
with which they furnished themselves from foreign sources. For
the tongues that we study were not the first getters, though by
learned labour they prove to be good keepers, and they are ready to
discharge their trust, in handing on to others what was committed
to them for a term, and not in perpetuity. There can be no
disgrace in their delivering to others what they received on that
understanding. The dishonour will lie rather with the tongue that
refuses to receive the inheritance intended for it and duly offered
to it, and from this dishonour I would our language were free. I
admit the good fortune of those tongues that had so great a start
over others that they are most welcome wherever they set foot, and
are always admired for their rare excellence, disposing all men to
think little of any form of speech that does not resemble them, and
to rank even the best of these as marvellously behind them. The
diligent labour of the learned men of ancient times so enriched
their tongues that they proved very pliable, as I am assured our
own will prove, if our learned fellow-countrymen will bestow their
labour on it. And why, I pray you, should such labour not be
bestowed on English, as well as on Latin or any other language?
Will you say it is needless? Certainly that will not hold. If loss
of time over tongues, while you are pilgrims to learning, is no
injury, or lack of sound skill, while language distracts the mind
from the sense, especially with the foolish and inexperienced, then
there might be some ground for holding it needless. But since there
was no need for the present loss of time in study through labouring
with tongues, and since our understanding is more perfect in our
natural speech, however well we may know the foreign language,
methinks necessity itself calls for English, by which all that
bravery may be had at home that makes us gaze so much at the fine
stranger. But you will say it is uncouth; so it is, through being
unused. So was it with Latin, and so it is with every language.
Cicero himself, the paragon of Rome while he was alive, and our
best pattern now though he is dead, had great wrestling with such
wranglers, and their disdain of their natural speech, before he won
from the public of his time the opinion in which he was held by the
best of his friends then, and is held by us now. Are not all his
prefaces to his philosophical writings full of such conflicts with
these cavillers? English wits are very well able, thank God, if the
good will were present, to make that uncouth and unknown learning
very familiar to our people in our own tongue, even by the example
of those very writers we esteem so highly, who having done for
other languages what I wish for ours in the like case, must needs
approve of us, unless they assert that the merit of conveying
knowledge from a foreign tongue died with them, not to revive
among us. But whatever they may say to continue their own credit,
our fellow-countrymen cannot but think that it is our praise to
obtain by purchase and transplanting into our own tongue what they
were so desirous to place in theirs, and are now so loth to forgo
again; it is indeed the fairest flower of their whole garland, for
these tongues would wither soon, or decay altogether, but for the
great knowledge contained therein. If our people were not readier
to wonder at their workmanship than to take trouble with their own
tongue, they might have the same advantage. Our English is our own,
and must be used by those to whom it belongs, as were those others
that were ranked with the best.
But it may be replied that our English tongue is not worthy of such
cultivation, because it has so little extent, stretching no further
than this island of ours, and not even over the whole of that. What
though this be true? Still it reigns here and serves our purpose;
it should be brushed clean in order to be worn. Are not English
folk, I pray you, as particular as foreigners? And is not as much
taste needed for our tongue in speaking, and our pen in writing, as
for apparel and diet? But, it will be said, our State is no empire,
hoping to enlarge itself by ruling other countries. What then?
Though it be neither large in possession, nor in present hope of
great increase, yet where it rules it can make good laws to suit
its position, as well as the largest country can, and often better,
since in the greatest governments there is often confusion.