On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
thought , and thought is to have nothing to do with them ; until religion , instead pf a spirit pervading the n * ind , becomes a crust encircling it , nowise penetrating the obdurate mass within , but only keeping out such rays pf precious light or genial heat as might haply have come from elsewhere . And after all which has been done to break down these
vitiating , soul-debasing prejudices , against which every great mind of the last two centuries has protested , where arejwe now ? Are not the very first general propositions that are presented for a child ' s acceptance , theological dogmas , presented not as truths believed by others , and which the child will hereafter be encouraged to know for itself , but as doctrines which it is to believe before it can attach any meaning to them , or be chargeable with
the greatest guilt ? At school , what is the child taught , except to repeat by rote , or at most to apply technical rules , which are lodged , not in his reason , but in his memory ? When he leaves school , does not everything which a young person sees and hears conspire to tell him , that it is not expected he shall think , but only that he shall profess no opinion on any subject different from
that professed by other people ? Is there anything a man can do , short of swindling or forgery , ( a fortiori a woman , ) which will so surely gain him the reputation of a dangerous , or , at least , an unaccountable person , as daring , without either rank or reputation as a warrant for the eccentricity , to make a practice of forming his opinions for himself ?
Modern education is all cram , —Latin cram , mathematical cram , literary cram , political cram , theological cram , moral cram . The world already knows everything , and has only to tell it to its children , who , on their part , have only to hear , and lay it to rote ( not to heart ) . Any purpose , any idea of training the mind itself , has gone out of the world . Nor can I yet perceive many symptoms of amendment . Those who dislike what is
taught , mostly—if I may trust rny own experience—dislike it nqt for being cram , but for being other people ' s cram , and not theirs . Were they the teachers , they would teach different doctrines , but they would teach them as doctrines , not as subjects for impartial inquiry . Those studies which only train the faculties , and produce no fruits obvious to the sense , are fallen into neglect . The most valuable kind of mental gymnastics , logic and metaphysics , have been more neglected and undervalued for the last thirty
• years , than at any time since the revival of letters . Even the ancient languages , which , when rationally taught , are , from their regular and complicated structure , to a certain extent a lesson of logical classification and analysis , and which give access to a literature more rich than any other , in all that forms a vigorous intellect and a manly character , are insensibly falling into disrepute as a branch of liberal education . Instead of them , we are getting the ready current coin of modern Languages , and physical
Untitled Article
6 § 8 On Genius .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 658, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/10/
-