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Untitled Article
- ^ when , as yet , few facts had been observed and recorded , and there was nothing or but little to learn by rote , those who had curiosity to gratify , or who desired to acquaint themselves with nature and life , were fain to look into things , and not pay themselves with opinions ; to see the objects themselves , and not their mere images reflected from the minds of those who had formerly seen them . Education then consisted not in giving what is called knowledge , that is , grinding down other men ' s ideas to a convenient size , and administering them in the form of cram—it was a series of exercises to form the thinking faculty itself , that the mind , being active and vigorous , might go forth and know .
Such was the education of Greece and Rome , especially Greece . Her philosophers were not formed , nor did they form their scholars , by placing a suit of ready-made truths before them , and helping them to put it on . They helped the disciple to form to himself an intellect fitted to seek truth for itself and to find it . No Greek or Roman schoolboy learnt anything by rote , unless
it were verses of Homer or songs in honour of the gods . Modern superciliousness and superficiality have treated the disputations of the sophists as they have those of the schoolmen , with unbounded contempt : the contempt would be better bestowed on the tuition of Eton or Westminster . Those disputations were a kind of mental gymnastics , eminently conducive
to acuteness in detecting fallacies ; consistency and circumspection in tracing a principle to its consequences ; and a faculty of penetrating and searching analysis . They became ridiculous only when , like all other successful systems , they were imitated by persons incapable of entering into their spirit , and degenerated into foppery and charlatanerie . With powers thus formed , and no possibility of parroting where there was scarcely anything to
parrot , what a man knew was his own , got at by using his own senses or his own reason ; and every new acquisition strengthened the powers , by the exercise of which it had been gained . Nor must we forget to notice the fact to which you have yourself alluded , that the life of a Greek was a perpetual conflict of adverse intellects , struggling with each other , or struggling with difficulty and necessity . Every man had to play his part upon a stage where cram was of no use—nothing but genuine power
would serve his turn . The studies of the closet were combined with , and were intended as , a preparation for the pursuits of -active life . There was no litterature des salons , no dilettantism in ancient Greece : wisdom was not something to be prattled about , but something to be done . It was this which , during the bright days of Greece , prevented theory from degenerating into vain and idle refinements , and produced that rare combination which distinguishes the great minds of that glorious people , —of profound speculation , and business-like matter-of-fact common s ^ nse . It was not the least of the effects of this union of theory
Untitled Article
656 On Genius .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 656, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/8/
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