On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    Nor would they lack opportunities to develope , in plain , striking examples , rather than by subtle , dry precepts , those processes of the mind by which every man , who has learnt to discover truth for himself , and to explode deception ,, becomes to a certain extent a logician and a rhetorician , even though he have scarcely heard of logic and rhetoric , either as sciences or as arts , or as practices .

    Shall I then conclude , that if our friend can find a real good reader , native as imported , and will engage him to read every evening , when the labours of the day are done , those works of genius which , when well read , are sure to draw and hold delighted audiences , that he will have taken the best first step towards establishing a Mechanics' Institute in a small country town ? And may we not add , that even in larger towns , where there is

    not inertness of intellect and apathy of feeling to be overcome , still the progress we have been considering , namely , from a developement of the imagination and the feelings , to a developement of the judg ment and the reason , has great advantages , both in naturalness and in effectiveness , to recommend it ?* I am quite sure you will not object to the simplicity of the plan proposed . For , none know better than yourselves , that a

    compliexemplified and examined in treating the errant barons of the * Crusaders , ' and the anarchized country in the ' Betrothed P Turning to the dramas of Shakspeare which continue the series thiough the proud times of the Plantagenets , what facts and reasons might be adduced to illustrate and explain the miseries of factious nobles , a disputed succession , and a civil war , with all the tinsel glory and iron crime of foreign conquests ! The immortal Poet's glance at the full-blown \ ices of the Tudor tyrant , might expose the unholy contest between kingcraft and priestcraft , between the Butcher King and the Butcher Cardinal , and may le ~ ad us back to the pages of the immortal novelist , to witness in the Monastery and the Ab \> ot , ' the downfal of

    papist bigotry and the rise of puritan fanaticism , and to observe in * Kenilworth , ' how , for a time , kingcraft holds the scales and equalizes the weights , arrogating to the civil power the infallibility of Rome and the license of Geneva . Passing onward to the unequalled pages of ' Old Mortality , ' we need no furthei illustrations or explanations of the league between kingcraft and priestcraft , on the one side , and political enthusiasm and spiritual fanaticism on the other . And , lastly , we hail in * Waverley' and * Rob Roy , ' the progress of that civic spirit , to which Church and King must eventually y ield every usurped authority , all power that is not founded on truth and justice . The commentator on Shakspeare and Scott has indeed a wide field before him !

    * I might add also that the discipline of one of our universities , at least , is not unfavourable for producing the imaginativeness of mind , and the stores of moral information , which this plan would require the teacher to possess . If a bond Jlde enthusiasm for the poetry of Greece , and a bond fide comprehension of the philosophy of Greece , were taught on the banks of Ibis , these might be made more popularly delightful and instructive , when connected with our own fabulists and our own moralists , than a superficial thinker would suppose possible . The classicists do nothing , except a few classically written sermons « md essays , and the romanticists

    insist , therefore , that nothing can be done by a classical discipline . There might bo a something done by a discipline of the imagination , not less suited to the wants of these times , than what may be done by a discipline of the judgment ' , if there were but an honest resolution in those who arc in authority over one at least of our ' normal schools . ' But to effect this , the via vivida of the very best men in the university must he freely displayed in the public chair , and not bo chilled and checked by the little decencies of the private class room . It is the union of the two systems , experto crede , which unites all points of discipline , which gives enlarged views to the class , and takes care these be tilled up by the individual .

    Untitled Article

    16 The Diffusion of Knowledge amongst the People .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/16/