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    tem : for , while it is necessary to commence a synthetical course of instruction by the inculcation of rules , an analytical course can best be carried on by furnishing the pupil with materials , and merely suggesting by inquiry the way to make use of them , all impediments and foreign admixtures being at the same time carefully removed . The favourite maxim of the school of Jacotot is , " All is in all : " their

    all-comprehensive rule , " Learn something thoroughly , and refer every thing else to it . " That truth is one , and that therefore by a thorough discernment of any one of its manifestations all others may be penetrated , no philosopher will be disposed to question : but there may be an unlimited licence in the application of this mighty principle ; and the justice of the application depends on the advancement of the investigator . An angel may evolve all truth from a butterfly ' s wing ; but can we do it ? We will suppose that Jacotot may unfold the principles of mathematical science ( though

    we could not ) from Telemaque ; but have any of his pupils ever done it ? Granting that Fenelon himself was all-wise in mathematics , it would seem scarcely possible that the best disciplined pupil should be able to separate elements so multifariously compounded , and to arrange them into a perfect science ; and if he could , it would be a round-about way of making the attainment , since , with the same powers , he might achieve the work much more easily by contemplating rocks and seas , or the fixed and moving lights of heaven . But when we further consider that Fenelon was not all-wise in

    mathematics , that whatever scientific truth there is in his work is amalgamated with error , it is plain that though the winged ones who guide the spheres and wield the golden plummet may draw forth truth pure from its defilements wherever it may be , nothing can be more hopeless than the endeavour to urge to such an achievement an intellect which has not yet appropriated the very truth it is desired to evolve . The shepherd boy who measures the stars with a beaded string , and cuts his dial in the turf , is

    making a rapid progress in mathematical science in comparison with "him who is labouring to deduce its principles from Telemaque . The one gathers his knowledge slowly , but directly from the mind of God ; the other , if at all , more slowly , indirectly , and deeply tainted with the errors of the intellect through which it has passed . Let it be understood that it is only to the injudicious application of the principle that we object , and that we are ready to admit its practical efficacy as well as substantial truth , under the

    restrictions which the present conditions of out intellect render necessary . There are examples enough before us of what may be done with small means , of the ample floods which maybe poured out after a long accumulation of single drops from the minutest crevice , to authorize us to teach that " all is in all . " What we question is , whether there is any occasion to filter , when the element may he nad pure ; and further , whether the acts of detecting the source and drawing out its contributions do not presuppose that the labour is unnecessary . The prevalence of this presupposition strikes us more than any thing else in Mr . Payne * s account of Jacotot ' s system . He would have

    us believe that the pupils learn every thing from Teleraaque , while it is evident all the while that they must have elsewhere learned to observe , to compare , to judge , to abstract and generalize , and , in short , to philosophize : and when this is done , it matters comparativel y little what subjects are placed before the mind . The method by which the intellect is here taught to philosophize is the same as that by which all sound intellects have ever philosophized . We approve it , of course ; and respect M . Jacotot fot the success with which he has used it ; but it has nothing to do with Telemaque or any

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    262 Exposition of Prqfessor Ja colons System of Education .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 262, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/46/