LB 2325 
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AN- 
 
 ADDEESS 
 
 LIMITS OF EDUCATION, 
 
 READ BEFORE THE 
 
 Pa^^acftu^ftt^ f tt^tituk ot ^fchiwlagjjt 
 
 NOVEMBER 16, 1865. 
 
 By JACOB BIGELOW, M. D. 
 
 BOS T O N : 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, 
 
 135 Washinqton, cohnkh op ScnooL Strret. 
 
 1865. 
 
i.SS'^'^^ 
 
 ,3S 
 
 At a meeting of tlic MASSj^cauiEiis Lvstitlte or TucaxoLOGT, held 
 on the 16th inst., ir was 
 
 Toted, That the thanks of the Institute be presented to Db. Bigelow, 
 for the interesting and instructire Address br him read this evening, and 
 that, with'his permission, the same be printed for and at the expense of the 
 Institute. - - . 
 
 Attest, 
 
 THOMAS II. WEBB, Secretaut. 
 
 HSXST W. DCTX05 & SOS, PRESTSSS, 
 
 ^J i- 92 WAsaufixoar sraast. 
 
ADDEESS. 
 
 In 1829 a volume was published in Boston bearing the 
 name of "Elements of Technology." This name was not 
 then in use nor was it generally understood, except by those 
 who drew its meaning from its etymology. It was not in 
 Johnson's Dictionary, nor yet in Rees's Cyclopaedia. In 
 Worcester's Dictionary, where it now has a place, no older 
 authority is cited for its support than that of the volume 
 alluded to. Its analogue indeed was extant in some other 
 languages, and fifty years ago was published in Latin among 
 the " Theses " of the graduating class of Harvard College. 
 But its revival for the use of English readers had to be justi- 
 fied by the assertion that it might be found in some of the 
 older dictionaries. 
 
 Such, less than forty years ago, was the doubtful tenure in 
 Enolish literature of a Avord which now (Axes name in this 
 city to a vigorous and popular institution, a large endow- 
 ment, a magnificent edifice, and at the same time a great and 
 commanding department of scientific study in every (piartcr 
 of the civilized world. 
 
 It has happened In regard to technology tliat in tlic present 
 century and almost under our own eyes. It has aihanced with 
 o-reater strides than any other aovnt of civilization, and Inus 
 done; more than iwiy science to enhu'ge the boundaries of 
 profitable knowledge;, to exten;! the dominion of mankind 
 over nature, to ecoiiomizi' and ulili/.e both lalu r and t.me. 
 
and thus to add indefinitely to the effective and available 
 length of human existence. And next to the influence of 
 Christianity on our moral nature, it has had a leading sway 
 in promoting the progress and happiness of our race. 
 
 To appreciate what has been done by the applied sciences 
 operating through their dependent and associate arts, we 
 have only to go back a little more than two thirds of a 
 century, to the times of Franklin and Washington, and in 
 many cases to those of our own immediate fathers. In those 
 days of small things, men were compelled to pass their lives 
 in a sort of destitution which in this age of scientific luxury 
 would be considered a state of semi-barbarism. The means 
 of domestic convenience, personal neatness, easy locomotion, 
 rapid intelligence, agreeable warmth, abundant light, physical 
 as well as intellectual, were things wished and waited for, but 
 not yet found. 
 
 To us, their effeminate descendants, it might be painfully 
 interesting to witness the efforts of those hardy and much 
 enduring people to procure warmth in their dwellings, by the 
 scorchino; and freezlno; of their alternate sides, under the 
 blast that swept from many apertures towards the current of 
 a vast open chimney. And this state of things was hardly 
 bettered by the established zero temperature of an unwarmed 
 church, or the Irrespirable atmosphere of a stove-heated 
 school room or country court house. Our recent progenitors 
 read their dusky and infrequent newspaper by the light of a 
 tallow candle, and groped their way through dark and 
 unpaved streets under the guidance of a peripatetic lantern. 
 If in summer they desired a draught of cold water, there 
 was no ice ; and if in winter they wished for dry feet, there 
 was no India rubbar. If in darkness they sought for light, 
 there was neither gas nor even luclfer matches. 
 
 Men were stationary in their habits and deliberate under 
 their necessities. He who would communicate with a friend 
 
in a neighboring State might do it in a week, provided he 
 could devote a preparatory week to seeking a safe private 
 conveyance. And if any one had occasion to tranv«port himself 
 from one town or city to another, he coukl do it on a trusty 
 saddle horse, or still more rapidly in the organized relays of 
 the Boston and New York stage coach " Despatch Line," 
 which undertook to put him through in less than a week. 
 They who went down to the sea in ships could reach England 
 from either of the above named ports in from one to two 
 months if wind and weather were favorable. Literary pro- 
 ductions were written out with a goosequill, and printed in a 
 reasonable time by the labor of two men toiling at a hand 
 press. Housewives plied the spinning-wheel, the distaiF and 
 the shuttle, and webs of coarse texture grew into perceptible 
 existence with a speed which might be compared to that of a 
 growing vegetable. Beef was roasted on a revolving spit, 
 turned round by a man, a dog, or a smoke jack. And what 
 will hereafter be accounted still more strange, garments were 
 made by sewing slowly together their constituent parts with 
 a needle and thread. 
 
 I have taken technology as a leading exponent of the great 
 advance which was to be made, and has been made, during 
 the lifetime of some of us, in certain intellectual and practical 
 improvements of mankind, in supplying the wants, overcom- 
 ino; the difficulties and increasino; the elej^anccs of life. To 
 enumerate all these improvements would simply be to recount 
 the great steps by which our own age has advanced to the 
 elevated and privileged condition in which we now see it. 
 And yet, although the practical arts, in the hands of science, 
 have taken the lead in the great visible changes of tlic 
 present century, it would be presumptuous to call technology 
 the only field from the cultivation of which mankind have 
 obtained abundant and unlooked for harvests. In every 
 other walk or sphere of science, literature and refined 
 
6 
 
 Immanlty, the civilized world, with unfaltering progress, h.is 
 pushed forward, at the same time, its dominion over mind 
 and matter. 
 
 It is the object of the present remarks to show that the 
 amount of knowledge appropriate to civilization which now 
 exists in the world is more than double, and in many cases 
 more than tenfold, what it was about half a century ago, and 
 that therefore no individual can expect to grasp in the limits 
 of a lifetime even an elementary knowledge of the many 
 provinces of old learning, augmented as they now are by the 
 vast annexations of modern discovery. Still farther, educa- 
 tion which represents the threshold of accessible knowledge. 
 Instead of being expanded, must be contracted in the number 
 and amount of its requirements, so that while all its doors arc 
 freely kept open to those who possess time, opportunity and 
 special aptitude or necessity, a part of them at least must be 
 closed to those who do not possess those requisites. If in 
 the days of the ancient Greeks " life was short," while " art 
 was long," how is it now, when life is not longer, but art, 
 literature and science are Immeasurably greater? How will 
 it be in another half century, when new discoveries shall 
 have arisen commensurate in their results with those of 
 electro-magnetism and of solar actinism, of modern optical 
 combinations and geographical and geological explorations ? 
 How will it be with the discoveries of newly armed astrono- 
 mers and the calculations of geometers yet to appear, — with 
 revolutions stirred up by chemists among elements that have 
 slumbered together since the creation, — with the augmented 
 conversions of heat into force, driving innumerable mechan- 
 isms to minister to man's pleasure and power, — and more 
 than all, how will it be with the cumbrous, vast and insur- 
 mountable weight of books, which shall render literary 
 distinction a thing of chance, of uncertainty, perhaps even 
 of impossibility. 
 
A law which obtauis in matter, obtauis also in reo^ard to 
 tlie mind and its acquirements, that strength is not increased 
 in proportion to magnitude. The static and dynamic strength 
 of materials for the most part decreases as their bulk in- 
 creases. A column or a bridge cannot be carried beyond a 
 certain size without crushing or breaking its substance, and 
 a whale, if unsupported by the surrounding water, would die 
 from the pressure of his own weight. A small animal will 
 leap many more times his length than a large one, and the 
 integrity of his slender limbs w^ill not be injured by the exer- 
 tion. The useful development of a tree is known to be 
 promoted by severe pruning, and where this is impossible, as 
 in primeval forests, the trees prune themselves and attain 
 greater height by the death of their under branches, the in- 
 sufficient supply of sunlight being monopolized by the upper 
 and dominant members at the expense of the lower. These 
 examples, drawn both from inert and organic matter, may 
 serve to illustrate the corresponding truth that human intellect, 
 though varying in capacity in different individuals, has its lim- 
 its in all plans of enlargement by acquisition, and that these 
 limits cannot be transcended without aggregate deterioration 
 in distracting the attention, overloading the memory or over- 
 working the brain and sapping the foundations of health. 
 
 The school system of New England is at the present 
 moment our glory and our shame. We feel a just pride that 
 among us education is accessible to all, because our pid)Hc 
 schools arc open to the humblest persons. But in our zeal 
 for general instruction, we sometimes forget that a majority 
 of men and women must labor with their hands, that the 
 world may not stand still, and that all may not lose by disuse 
 the power to labor. We cannot train all our boys to be 
 statesmen and divines, nor all our girls to be authors and 
 l(H!turers or even teachers. We ought not, therefore, to drive 
 them into the false position of expecting to attain by extraor- 
 
8 
 
 dinary effort a place wlilcli neither nature nor circumstances 
 have made possible. Many unfortunate children have been 
 ruined for life, in body and mind, by being stimulated with 
 various inducements to make exertions bevond their ao^e and 
 mental capacity. A feeble frame and a nervous temperament 
 are the too sure consequences of a brain overworked in child- 
 hood. Slow progress, rather than rapid growth, tends to 
 establish vigor, health and happiness. It has always ap- 
 peared to me that a desirable and profitable mode of school 
 education would be one in which every hour of study should 
 be offset by another hour of exercise required to be taken in 
 the open air. 
 
 To illustrate the impossibility of making any one what may 
 be called a o-eneral scholar, we need but to take a slio-ht view 
 of the extent and recent progress of a few of the most famil- 
 iar and popular sciences at the present day. Let us take 
 geography, which treats of the earth's external structure, and 
 geology which treats of its internal. In the first of these the 
 education of many of the present generation abounded in 
 Avhat are now found to be errors and defects. We were 
 tauo'ht that the Andes were the hio-hest mountains of the 
 o'lobe, and the Amazon the longest river. Discoverers had 
 then stopped a thousand miles short of the sources of the Nile 
 and of the Missouri. The Columbia and the Sacramento 
 were geographical myths, while a fabulous Oregon or Kiver 
 of the West was laid down on the maps on the hearsay 
 authority of Carver, displacing what are now the Rocky 
 Mountains, and entering the Pacific Ocean about latitude 43°. 
 The existence of the African Xio^er was knoAvn to the Ro- 
 mans, yet the Royal Geographical Society until 1830 did not 
 know where it reached the ocean, though a hundred English- 
 men at various times had laid down their lives in African 
 deserts in fr'uitless attempts to resolve the mysterious problem. 
 It was not until a still later period that the world knew that 
 
9 
 
 there was a continuous Arctic Sea, or any thing like an Ant- 
 arctic continent. 
 
 But if so much has been done in the more difficult and in- 
 accessible parts of our globe, how much more has been 
 achieved in the parts accessible to settlement and cultivation. 
 The American continent, the interior map of which was 
 almost a blank at the close of our Revolution, is now profusely 
 dotted with towns, cities, forts, post offices and rail stations, 
 until the most diligent compiler of a Gazetteer is obliged to 
 pause in despair at the manifest defects of his latest edition. 
 
 Geology may be considered as almost- a creation of the 
 present age. When Werner visited Paris, in 1802, it could 
 hardly be said to consist of more than insulated observations 
 with a few crude and unsettled theories. But now it has be- 
 come a great, organized, and overshadowing department of 
 science. In every language of Europe it has its voluminous 
 systems and its unfailing periodicals. Societies of special 
 organization carry forward its labors, and every country of 
 the globe is traversed by its observers and collectors. The 
 shelves of museums are weighed down by its accumulations, 
 and in its palasontology alone the Greek language is ex- 
 hausted to furnisli factitious names for the continually 
 developed species of antecedent creations. 
 
 Chemistry in a limited degree appears to have attracted the 
 attention of the ancients, but of their proficiency in this pur- 
 suit we know more from their preserved relics and results 
 than from their cotemporaneous records. In modern times 
 the chemists constitute a philosophical comnmnity having 
 a language of their own, a history of their own, methods, 
 pursuits and controversies of their own, and a domain which 
 is coextensive with the materials of which our globe Is made. 
 Many men of gifted minds and high intellectual attainments, 
 have devoted their lives to the prosecution of this science. 
 Chemistry has unravelled tiie early mysteries of our planet, 
 
]0 
 
 and has liad a leaJino; a";encv in chann;ino; the arts and the 
 economy of human life. It now fills the civilized world with 
 its libraries, laboratories and lecture-rooms. Xo individual 
 can expect to study even its accessible books, still less to 
 become familiar with its recorded facts. Yet chemistry is 
 probably in its infancy, and opens one of the largest future 
 fields for scientific cultivation. 
 
 Natural history in its common acceptation implies the in- 
 vestigation, arrangement and description of all natural bodies, 
 includino' the whole oro-anized creation. If no other science 
 existed but this, there would be labor enough and more than 
 enough to employ for life the students and observers of the 
 world. Each kingdom of organic nature already offers to 
 our acquaintance its hundred thousand specific forms, and 
 these are but the vanguard of a still greater multitude be- 
 lieved to cover the surface of countries yet unexplored, and 
 to fill the mysterious recesses not yet penetrated by the 
 microscope. And as far as we know, every one of these 
 organisms, great or small, carries with it its parasites, to 
 which it affords habitation and food, and which may be sup- 
 posed not only to double but to multiply in an unknown ratio 
 its original numbers. Again, when we reflect that every 
 one of these species has its own anatomy, its physiology, its 
 peculiar chemistry, its habits, its sensations, its modes of 
 reproduction, its nutrition, its duration, its metamorphoses, 
 its diseases and its final mode of destruction, — we may well 
 despair of knowing much of the whole, w^hen a single species 
 might furnish materials of study for a human lifetime. 
 
 The foregoing are examples of the claim on our attention 
 and study advanced by a portion only of the progressive 
 sciences. They serve to develop truths and laws appertain- 
 ino- to the material earth, which truths and laws must have 
 existed had there never been minds to study them. The 
 Telations of number and figure, the laws of motion and rest. 
 
11 
 
 of gravity and affinity, of animal and vegetable life, must 
 have been the same had the dominant race of man never 
 appeared on earth. But there is another extensive class of 
 scientific pursuits, the subjects of which are drawn from his 
 % own nature. He has devised metaphysics to illustrate the 
 
 operations of his own mind. He has introduced ethical and 
 political science to promote order and happiness, and military 
 science to assist for a time at least in destrovlnff both. He 
 has built up history with. " her volumes vast," which volumes 
 are as yet a small thing compared with those that are to 
 come. Under the name of news the press daily inundates 
 the world with a million sheets of cotemporaneous history, 
 for history and new^s, under small qualifications, are identical. 
 The annals of the last four years may deserve as large a place 
 in the attention of mankind as was due w^hen the poet Camp- 
 bell informed the Egyptian mummy that since his decease, " a 
 Ivoman empire had begun and ended." The greatest part of 
 what should have been history is unwritten, and of what has 
 been written the greatest part is of little general value. If 
 all that has actually been committed to papyrus, parchment 
 or paper had by chance been preserved from the effects of 
 time and barbarism, the aggregate would be so vast and the 
 interest so little, that the busy wx^rld could hardly turn aside 
 for its examination from more absorbing and necessary pursuits. 
 But the world is not contented with history which states, 
 or professes to state, the progress, arts, dates, successes and 
 failures of distinguished men and nations. It requires 
 further, the supplementary aid of fiction which finds llicts, 
 not in testimony, but in probability ; not as they are rccordinl 
 to have happened, but as they ought to have happened under 
 the circumstances and with the actors. Fiction, moreover, 
 not being restrained by the limits of circumstantial trutli, is 
 at liberty to seek embellishment from exaggeration, from orna- 
 ment, from poetry, from dramatic utterance and passionate 
 
12 
 
 expression. Hence it has taken tlie lead in modern lit- 
 erature, and it is not pfobable that at this day the most 
 accomplished bibliographer or bookseller could point the 
 way to one-half of its multiplied and perishable produc- 
 tions. 
 
 There is neither time nor inducement to refer to the 
 pseudo-sciences, which in all ages have made serious drafts 
 upon the limited lifetime of man, nor to the ephemeral and 
 unprofitable issues which consume his time and labor and 
 wear out his strength. At the present day we have not 
 much to fear from alchemy, palmistry or astrology, nor yet 
 from spiritualism, homoeopathy or mormonism. But it is not 
 easy to prevent men from wasting their time in the pursuit of 
 shadows, from substituting exceptions for general laws, from 
 believing things, not because they are probable, but because 
 they are wonderful and entertaining. Still less can we divert 
 them from yielding to the guidance of an excited will, from 
 following prejudices or creating them, from adopting one side 
 of a controversy or party strife for no better reason than that 
 some other party has adopted the opposite. 
 
 It would be unnecessary to add to what has already been 
 said, even an inventory of other studies, which present se- 
 ducing but interminable claims on the life and labor of man. 
 It would be vain to open the flood gates of philology, and to 
 follow the thousand rills of lano^uao^e which have intersected 
 and troubled each other ever since they left their fountains at 
 Babel. And we pause in humility before the very portals of 
 astronomy, which has revealed to us that we roll and revolve, 
 and perhaps again revolve, around we know not what. And 
 helpless as animalcules on the surface of a floating globule, 
 we are ever striving to see, to explore, and to mark our way 
 through the "starry dust" of infinite space. Strong and de- 
 voted minds have piled up unreadable tomes, the result of 
 their life-long studies and observations, yet few, save the pro- 
 
13 
 
 fessional and the initiated, attempt to invade the recondite 
 sanctuary of their deposit. 
 
 Thus the immense amount of knowledge, general and 
 special, true and fictitious, salutary and detrimental, the 
 record of which is already in existence, has grown into an in- 
 surmountable accumulation, a terra incognita^ which from its 
 very magnitude is inaccessible to the inquiring world. Hence 
 the economy of the age has introduced the labor-saving 
 machinery of periodical literature, which, by substituting 
 compendiums and reviews for the more bulky originals, has 
 seemed to smooth the up-hill track of knowledge and lighten 
 the Sisyphean load of its travellers. But periodical literature, 
 useful or frivolous as it may be, and indispensable as it un- 
 doubtedly is, has become by its very success inflated to an 
 enormous growth, and bids fair in its turn to transcend the 
 overtaxed powers of attention of those for whose use it is pre- 
 pared. Like our street cars, while it helps forward to their 
 destination a multitude of struggling pedestrians, it substitutes 
 pressure for exercise, and does not save the fatigue of those 
 who are still obliged to stand that they may go. In looking 
 forward to another century, it is curious to consider who will 
 then review the reviews, and condense, redact and digest the 
 compends of compendiums from which the life has already 
 been pressed out by previous condensation. 
 
 Since these things arc so, — since in the dying words of 
 Laplace, "The known is little, but the unknown is im- 
 mense," and 
 
 " Since life can little more supply 
 Than just to look about us and to die," 
 
 it is a question of paramount importance, how in this short 
 period education can be made to conduce most to tlie pro- 
 gress, the efficiency, the virtue, and tlic welfare of man. 
 
 It is not presumptuous to s;iy that education to bo usof'ul 
 must, as far as posslbk', bj made slmi)lc, limited, practicable, 
 
14 
 
 acceptable to the learner, adapted to his character and wants, 
 and brought home to his particular case by suhdivislon and 
 selection. What is now called a liberal education is a term 
 which means something and nothing. Among us it generally 
 implies an attendance for four years upon the "curriculum" 
 or course of studies prescribed and pursued in some incorpor- 
 ated college or university. This attendance may be punctual 
 and thorough, or it may be negligent and unprofitable, so that 
 while one student makes a limited acquirement of multifarious 
 knowledge, another forgets a great part of what he knew on 
 entering the college, and prepares to forget the rest as soon as 
 he enters upon active life. 
 
 Subdivision and selection afford the principal avenues 
 through which men arrive at success in the humbler as 
 well as the more conspicuous walks of life. The mechan- 
 ical labor of artisans is best performed, and its best results 
 obtained, by distributing its duties among a multitude of 
 special agents, and this is more or less successfully done in 
 proportion as a society, or a craft, is more or less perfectly 
 ors^anized. So likewise in the hio^her or more intellectual 
 pursuits of life, in which men procure bread by the labor of 
 their heads instead of their hands, the number of learned 
 professions has been Avithin a short time wonderfully in- 
 creased. In the days of our fathers the learned professions 
 were accounted three in number, — Law, Physic, and Divin- 
 ity. But now more than three times that number afford 
 means of honorable subsistence to multitudes of duly edu- 
 cated persons. We have now a profession of authors, of 
 editors, of lecturers, of teachers, of engineers, of chemists, 
 of inventors, of architects and other artists ; and to these 
 may be added the better class of soldiers and politicians. 
 And all these professions are again subdivided in proportion 
 as society advances in its requirements. 
 
 For precisely the same reason that it would not be profit- 
 
able for experts in a mechanical vocation to distract and 
 dissipate their attention among pursuits alien to their tastes 
 and qualifications, it can hardly be advantageous for pupils 
 and neophytes in learning, to undertake to make themselves 
 competent representatives of the various sciences, the liter- 
 ary studies, the languages, dead and living, which are now 
 professedly taught in our colleges and seminaries. Every 
 individual is by nature comparatively qualified to succeed 
 in one path of life, and comparatively disqualified to shine in 
 another. The first step in education should be for the parties 
 most interested, to study, and as far as possible to ascertain, 
 the peculiar bent and capacity of a boy's mind. This being- 
 done, he should be put upon a course of intellectual and 
 physical training corresponding, as far as possible, to that for 
 which nature seems to have designed him. But in all cases a 
 preparatory general elementary education, such as is furnished 
 by our common schools, must be made a prerequisite even to 
 qualify him to inquire. The more thorough this preparatory 
 training is made, the better it is for the student. But after 
 this is completed a special or departmental course of studies 
 should be selected, such as appears most likely to conduct him 
 to his appropriate sphere of usefulness. Collateral studies of 
 different kinds may always be allowed, but they should be 
 subordinate and subsidiary, and need not interfere with the 
 great objects of his especial education. 
 
 A common colleg^e education now culminates in the student 
 })ecomIng what is called a master of arts. But this in a ma- 
 jority of instances means simply a master of notliing. It 
 means that he has spent much time and some lahur in be- 
 sieging tlie many doors of tlie tenq)le of kn()^vledge, witliout 
 (iffecting an entrance at any of them. In the })ractical life 
 which he is about to fi)llow he will often have occasion to 
 lament, be he ever so exemplary and diligent, tliat he has 
 wasted on subjects irrelevant to his vocation, botli time and 
 
16 
 
 labor, which, had they been otherwise devoted, would hare 
 prepared and assisted him in the particular work he is called 
 on to do. 
 
 Young men, as well as their parents in tlieir behalf, are 
 justly ambitious of a collegiate education. Older men often 
 regret that they hare not had the opportunity to receive it 
 when young. And this is because of the generally acknowl- 
 edged fact, that four years, spent under the tuition of faiththl. 
 accompHshed and gentlemanly teachers, can hardly fail to im- 
 prove their character, language and bearing, as well as their 
 store of useful knowledge. It is the habinial contact and 
 guidance of superior minds, as well as the progres*sive attri- 
 tion with each other, which make young men proficients in 
 rectitude, in honor, in science, in poKte hterature, in tact, and 
 in manners. And this resnlt will appear, whether they have 
 been taught French at TTest Point, or Greek in Harvard or 
 Yale. 
 
 It is the province of the Institute of Technology, so largely 
 and hberallv sustained bv the Lecrislature. bv the munificence 
 
 c • 
 
 of individuals, and by the untiring labors of its distinguished 
 president, to endeavor within its sphere to assist in providing 
 for the educational wants of the most practical and progres- 
 sive people that the world has seen. By its programme of 
 instruction a separate path is provided for all who require to 
 accomphsh themselves in any one or more of the especial 
 branches of useful knowledge. It would not be just to ignore 
 the fact that the same thing has long been doing in several of 
 our larger universities, where the practical sciences and the 
 modern languages are extensively taught. But these time- 
 honored institutions exceed some of their younger associates 
 in this respect, that under the name of classical hterature 
 thev premise and afterwards cany on a cumbrous burden of 
 dead lanoruacres. kept alive through the dark ages and now 
 stereotyped in England by the persistent conservatism of a 
 
ir 
 
 privileged order. I cannot here say much to add to the lucid, 
 scholarly and convincing exposition of the state of education 
 as it now is in the great schools of England, given in a re- 
 cent lecture before this Institute, by one of its professors, on 
 the subject of classical and scientific studies.* No one vsdio 
 examines this discourse can fail to be impressed with the in- 
 judicious exactions made in favor of the dead languages in the 
 English schools and universities, their superfluity as means of 
 intellectual training, and their limited applicability to the 
 wants of the present advanced generation. 
 
 I would not underrate the value or interest of classical 
 studies. They give pleasure,, refinement to taste,, breadth to 
 thought, and power and copiousness to expression. Any one 
 who in this busy world has not much else to do, may well 
 turn over by night and by day the " exemplaria Grasca." 
 But if, in a practical age and country, he is expected to get a 
 useful education;, a competent living, an enlarged power of 
 serving oth<ers, or even of saving them from being burdened 
 with his support, he can hardly afford to surrender four or 
 five years of the most susceptible part of life to acquiring a 
 minute familiarity with tongues which are daily becoming 
 more obsolete, and each of which is obtained at the sacrifice 
 of some more important science or some more desirable lan- 
 guage. It may not be doubted that a few years devoted to 
 the study of Greek will make a man a more elegant scholar, 
 a more accomplished philologist, a more accurate and affluent 
 writer, and, if all other things conspire, a more finished orator. 
 But of themselves they will not make him what the world 
 now demands, a better citizen, a more sagacious statesman, a 
 more far-sighted economist, a more able financier, a more 
 skilful engineer, manufacturer, merchant, or military com- 
 mander. They will not make him a better mathematician, 
 physicist, agriculturist, chemist, navigator, physician, lawyer, 
 
 * Professor W. Atkinson. 
 
18 
 
 arcMtect, painter, or musician. The ancient Greeks knew 
 but little, though they knew how to express that little well. 
 The moderns know a great deal more, and know how to ex- 
 press it intelligiblv. Antiquity has produced many great 
 men. Modern times have produced equally great men, and 
 more of them. 
 
 It is common at the present day to say that the Greek 
 language disciplines the mind, extends the compass and ap- 
 plication of thought, and that, by its copiousness, and by its 
 TcrsatiHty of inflection and arrangement it trains the mind to 
 a better comprehension of words, thoughts, and things. All 
 this is no doubt true, and mio-ht have o-reat weio-ht as a o-qy- 
 
 " O SCO 
 
 erning motive in education, were it not that the same ends 
 can be more cheaply obtained by the agency of other means. 
 Unfortunately for the supremacy of classical literature, all 
 civilized countries are at this moment full of distinguished 
 men and women who write well and speak well, and who 
 have never acquired the learned languages. It is easy to say 
 that such persons would have been more distinguished if 
 they had known the classics. It is easy to say that Laplace 
 would have been a better mathematician, and Faraday a 
 better chemist, if by chance they had been duly instructed 
 in Greek. But this is gratuitous assumption. The contrary 
 result is more probable, inasmuch as the pursuit of classical 
 literature would have abstracted just so much time from more 
 pertinent and profitable investigations. At this day nobody 
 believes that Watt would have made a better steam eno-ine, 
 or Stephenson a better locomotive, if they had been taught 
 philosophy by Plato himself. 
 
 The ancient languages, if applied to use, are not adequate 
 to supply the wants of modern cultivation. Truths and things 
 have grown faster than words. Modern customs, arts and 
 sciences can be expressed in French or German, but not in 
 Greek a^d Latin. A French writer, Professor Goffaux, has 
 
19 
 
 undertaken to translate Eobinson Crusoe into Latin. The 
 translation is successful as far as easy diction and pure latinity 
 are concerned. But the language of the Eomans is at fault 
 in the islands of the Pacific, and new words must be coined 
 to express even imperfectly things which are not coeval with 
 the language employed. The world-renowned "man Fri- 
 day" is introduced to us under the vicarious name of 
 " Yendredi," and when Friday goes a shooting he loads 
 his "sclopetum" with " pulvis nitralis." If modern Greece 
 should ever become a first-class power among the nations, it 
 will have to complete, as it is now trying to do, a vocabulary 
 of new terms to express the arts and commerce, the facts and 
 fancies, the business and belles lettres of the existing time. 
 In other words, it must reenforce its language with a new 
 half, not found in the ancient classics. 
 
 The admiration of the old Romans for the Greek language 
 and literature had its ori^-ln in the fact that in that ao;e of 
 limited civilization they found not much else of the kind to 
 admire. They looked to Greece as the fountain of what had 
 been achieved in art, philosophy, poetry and eloquence. Of 
 consequence it was chosen as the great place of resort for 
 educational objects, and Athens became the emporium of 
 literary and philosophic instruction. But the Koman youth 
 would never have been sent to Athens, had there been, as 
 now, a railroad to take them to Paris, or a steamship to bring 
 them to America. They would not have consumed their 
 time in the groves of Academus, if they could have gained 
 admittance to the Ecole Polytechniciue, or to the Poyal 
 Institution. 
 
 At the present day we relish the Greek language, from the 
 mingled impression not only of its own sui)eri()rity, but of the 
 pleasure it gives us and the; pains it has cost us. A\ e r(^lish 
 it as the musician enjoys liis nuisic, the matlieniadcian his 
 geometry, and the antiquarian his diggings. A^\' are plea?e(I 
 
20 
 
 that it has been preserved Avith its euphonious intonations, its 
 copious expressiveness, and its noble literature. VTe know 
 that the spirit of Homer cannot be translated into English, 
 any more than the soul of Shakspeare can be done into Greek. 
 All languages have their idiomatic expressions of thought, 
 and in all of them translation has a killing' effect on the stronir 
 ])oints of literature. In the opera of Macbetto the term " hell 
 broth" in the witch scene, is rendered in Italian as " polto 
 inferno." And on the opposite page of the libretto, it is 
 served up afresh in English as " infernal soup." It is highly 
 probable that the half savage accomplishments of Homer's 
 heroes and gods cannot be made duly appreciable in the 
 Eno^lish tono-ue. Xevertheless, the modern world can oret on 
 without them, and we may be excused for believing that if 
 tlie study of Greek should be abandoned as a rec^uisite in our 
 universities, althouo^h it would still be cultivated, like other 
 exceptional studies, with success and delight by a few devotees, 
 yet our practical, bustling and overcrowded generation would 
 never again postpone more useful occupations to adopt it as 
 an indispensable academical study. 
 
 In regard to success in the world at the present day, it is 
 not an academic education, however desirable in any shape it 
 may be, that gives a man access to the confidence and general 
 favor of his fellow-men, or to the influential posts of society. 
 It is native talent, reliability, perseverance and indomitable 
 will, that conduct him to the high places of the world. In 
 all countries, and most of all in our own country, a contest 
 continually goes on between academic education and self 
 education, the education that comes from without and the 
 education that comes from within. The much cultivated boy, 
 who under favor of advantages, performs faithfully his allotted 
 tasks, who fulfils the requirements of his teachers, who is 
 accustomed to subordinate his own judgment to the dictation 
 <jf others : althouo-h he mav hold a hloh rank in the scale of 
 
21 
 
 proficiency and the amount of acquisition, is liable on arriving 
 at manhood, to continue to lean rather than to lead, and 
 thence to occupy a secondary place in the struggle for worldly 
 distinction. On the other hand, the neglected but independent 
 youth, who is brought up in the suggestive school of necessity, 
 who becomes orioinal and inventive because his life is a con- 
 tinned contest with difficulties, who balances character against 
 opportvmity, and individual vigor and patience against external 
 guidance ; — such an one from the habit of directing himself 
 becomes more competent to direct others, and to wear more 
 easily offices of trust and responsibility. It is remarkable 
 how many of our distinguished men have been self educated, 
 or at least without academic education. Franklin was a 
 philosopher, Washington a statesman, Patrick Henry an ora- 
 tor, but not by the grace of classical education. Henry Clay 
 knew nothing of the Greek language, nor did probably Thomas 
 Benton. Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson had rougher 
 nursing than that of an alma mater. Eumford, Bowditch and 
 Fulton did not develop their intellects under the shades of 
 academic seclusion. And if we were to go abroad for exam- 
 ples, we should find that Napoleon was no classical scholar, 
 and that Peter the Great, Avhen he issued from his lair at 
 Moscow to study the civilization of Western Europe, did not 
 repair to the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, but 
 entered as a working mechanic in the shipyards of Saardam 
 and Deptford. 
 
 We need not regret that our country is the field of whoU^- 
 some competition between the well taught and the self tauglit, 
 between advantai>c on the one side and encrjiijv on the otlier, 
 between early develo})ment under assistance and sh)w maturity 
 under difficulties. The success of cither condition awakens 
 and stimuUites tlie zeal of the other. 
 
 There are many j)ersons who even in tliis ngc speak In 
 terms of deroiration of what are called utilitarian studies, in 
 
22 
 
 contrast with classical and ideal literature, as if pursuits 
 which tend directly to the preservation and happiness of man 
 were less worthy of his attention than those which may be 
 founded in fancy, exaggeration and passion. Poetry, art and 
 fiction have souorht for the beautiful and sublime in creations 
 which are imaginary and often untrue, which " o'er inform th 2 
 pencil and the pen," and attract because they are mysterious 
 and inaccessible. But in the present age, fact has overtaken 
 fancy and passed beyond it. We have no need to create new 
 miracles, nor imagine them, Avhen the appetite for wonder is 
 more than satiated with reality, and objects of deliglit and 
 amazement confront us in the walks of daily life. I know 
 nothing in nature or art more beautiful than a railroad train, 
 when it shoots by us with a swiftness that renders its inmates 
 invisible, and winds oif its sinuous way among mountains and 
 forests, spanning abysses, cleaving hills asunder, and travelling 
 onward to its destination, steadily, smoothly, unerringly, as a 
 migratory bird advances to the polar regions. And I know 
 of nothing more sublime than in the hold of an ocean steam- 
 ship, to look on the mightiest enginery that has been raised 
 by man, as it wields its enormous limbs like a living thing, 
 and heaves and pants and rolls and plunges — urged onward 
 by the struggling of the imprisoned elements. 
 
 The traveller passes daily by the never-ending rows of posts 
 and wires which mark the pathway of the electric telegraph, 
 until at length by their very frequency they are blended in 
 the inert features of the landscape and cease to attract atten- 
 tion. Yet, all the while, invisible thought is riding on those 
 wires, and mind is answerina; to mind over a thousand miles 
 of distance. 
 
 The half fabulous siege of Troy has been made immortal in 
 the epics of Homer and Virgil, and we are led by their poetry 
 to admire the achievements of heathen gods and of heroes 
 descended from them. We stand In awe at the exploits of 
 
23 
 
 primitive warriors with the same emotions with which we 
 afterwards mark in history the real deeds and eras of great 
 mihtary commanders. But however much we may be im- 
 pressed with the imagined spectacle of a host of disciplined 
 barbarians fighting with swords and. bucklers, we cannot 
 keep out of sight that they would have been chaff before the 
 wind in the presence of modern militar}^ science. Ulysses and 
 Agamemnon were ten years in taking the city of Troy. 
 Ulysses Grant with his batteries would have taken it in ten 
 minutes. Artists, historians and poets depict even now the 
 memorable battles of Alexander and Ctesar. But half a dozen 
 shells would have scattered the Macedonian phalanx, and the 
 Roman Empire could not have stood many days after a 
 modern Avar steamer should have found its way up the Tiber. 
 
 The march of military improvement has not yet halted in 
 its course. The great war of American conservation has 
 been eminently a war of science, and has changed by its in- 
 ventions the whole face of modern conflicts. Huo^e forts and 
 strong war ships no longer protect harbors from the inroads 
 of invulnerable enemies. The wooden walls of England, so 
 long her defence and her boast, like the walls of Jericho, 
 have fallen flat before the sound of the distant crashing of 
 rams and monitors and torpedoes. If the time shall ever 
 come when classical readers shall tire at the monotonous 
 championship of Trojans, Greeks and llutulians, they will 
 kindle with wonder over that miracle of romance and reality, 
 " The Bay Eight " of Mobile, by Henry Howard Brownell. 
 
 It is the duty of educational institutions to adapt tliom- 
 sclves to the wants of the phice and time in which tliey exist. 
 It needs no uncommon penetration to see that we are non 
 living in a great transition period, and that the world Is rest- 
 ing its future hopes, and cpiieting its future fears In rc>llanc(^ 
 on an educated and cnlio-htened democracv. AVIumi Andrew 
 Johnson, at the inauguration ceremony of 181)."), t^omewhat 
 
24 
 
 hastily declared himself a plebeian, dependent on the will of 
 the people, and applied the same impeachment to his fellow 
 functionaries, — like Paul of old, he was not mad, but spoke 
 forth the words of truth and soberness. The last few years 
 of history, the greatest and most momentous that the world 
 has ever witnessed, bear testimony to the power of an edu- 
 cated common people, to perceive and to carry forward 
 their own true interests. Against the whiles of an astute 
 and determined oligarchy, against the frowns of foreign 
 privileged orders, amid the vicissitudes of good and evil for- 
 tune, this great people have advanced to their final triumph, 
 not of revolution but of conservation, under the guidance of 
 men like themselves, of men who had been cleavers of wood 
 and sewers of 2:arments, who had wrought as farmers, as 
 tanners, and as homely manufacturers, wdio knew the genius 
 and character of their constituents and the roads throuo^h 
 which they were to be conducted to natural and necessary 
 success. 
 
 At this moment no nation of the globe can be called more 
 truly powerful than one which has peacefully absorbed into 
 its interior depths half a million of veterans, with discipline in 
 their history, arms in their hands and education in their 
 heads. The most formidable ruler whom the world now 
 knows, is a self-educated man, who could hardly read and 
 write at the age of twenty. 
 
 It is a fact so generally admitted, in this country at least, 
 as to have become almost a truism, that prescriptive and 
 hereditary positions are declining in social influence. Per- 
 sonal unworthiness or incompetency cannot be covered up by 
 personal privilege. It is better to be the founder of a great 
 name, than its disreputable survivor. When a marshal of 
 France, Duke of Abrantes and Governor of Paris, was re- 
 minded by others of the obscurity of his birth, he proudly 
 replied, ''^ Moi je suis mon ancetre^^ (I am my own ancestor). 
 
25 
 
 In this great and original country, which is now treading in 
 the van of a new reformation, we have thousands yet un- 
 taught, who are to become ancestors in fame, ancestors in 
 fortune, ancestors in science, ancestors in virtue. May their 
 descendants be worthy of them. 
 
 These are the men who may well claim to "constitute a 
 State." They are, as it were, the granite substratum which 
 underlies the rich coal fields and the arable soils of the earth's 
 exterior surface. Like that they wiU last when softer and 
 richer tracts shall have been swept away. Yet a conti- 
 nent as extensive and various as ours should be capable of 
 furnishing all soils and materials for all needful and desirable 
 productions. When the necessaries which sustain life are 
 provided, the luxuries which adorn and gratify it must follow 
 in their order. " In every country," says Buckle, " as soon 
 as the accumulation of wealth has reached a certain point, 
 the produce of each man's labor becomes more than sufficient 
 for his support ; it is no longer necessary that all should 
 work ; and there is found a separate class, the members 
 of which pass their lives for the most part in the pursuit of 
 pleasure; a very few, however, in the acquisition and dif- 
 fusion of knowledge." This statement is a good exposition 
 of the law which rules in the affairs of this country ; it con- 
 tains the danger and the safety, the bane and the antidote, of 
 our social destiny. In a nation in which " the government is 
 made for the people, and not the people for the government," 
 whose fundamental requisite is "the greatest good of tlio 
 greatest number," education, elementary and practical, such 
 as common schools can furnish, must be made accessible to all 
 who can be withdrawn, either from labor or idleness, for a 
 sufficient time to realize its advantage. Afterwards those 
 whom favor of fortune or strength of will has qualified 
 to approach higher paths of intellectual culture should be 
 
26 
 
 encouraged, assisted and excited to enter and occupy either 
 one or many of the more difficult fields of hterature and science, 
 preferring those that best harmonize with the adopted path 
 which is to be the occupation of life. And as to the residuary 
 class, not numerous in any country, to whom is left the option 
 of pursuing pleasure or knowledge, it is fortunate when there 
 is judgment enough to perceive that these two objects can be 
 identified in one pursuit. Knowledge is never so successftilly 
 cultivated as when it becomes a pleasure, and no pleasure is 
 more permanent than the successful pursuit of knowledge, 
 combined, as it should be, with moral progress. Natural 
 gifts and variations of aptitude qualify men to tread with 
 advantage the special paths of art and science ; and such 
 gifts are most frequently born in and with them, and cannot 
 be imparted from without. A musical ear, an artistic eye and 
 a poetic sense are not to be created in any man. We might as 
 well expect to endow him with the sagacity of the hound, the 
 quick ear of the hare, or the lightning sense of danger which 
 preserves and insures the perilous life of the summer insect. 
 
 The man of robust though ungainly fi-ame, may make a 
 first-rate laborer; the slender, shy and delicate youth may 
 shine in the walks of literature ; the man of strong voice and 
 prompt and comprehensive intellect may take precedence as 
 an orator. But transpose these conditions, and we have a re- 
 sult of mistakes and failures. What God hath put asunder, 
 man cannot well join together. 
 
 I have dwelt on the importance of a special and well se- 
 lected path of study as leading to success in education, and 
 not less in subsequent hfe. Nevertheless, the necessity of ab- 
 solute confinement to this path is to be accepted with great 
 modifications. A youth with vigorous and varied powers 
 will not easily restrict himself to a beaten track, but as his 
 mind grows he wdll become discursive in his aspirations. He 
 
27 
 
 will carry along with him, not only the adopted or select pur- 
 suit which has enabled him to serve, to impress or to excel 
 others, but he will also be prompted, both before and after he 
 has grown up, to entertain himself and to extend his relations 
 with those who surround him, by devoting his surplus time, 
 which his very success has given him, to the enlargement of 
 his sphere of occupation. Every professional man, however 
 efficient and prosperous he may be in the discharge of his 
 daily routine, must have, if he would not rust, some collateral 
 pursuits, some by-play of life, in which he may recreate him- 
 self and keep up a wholesome freshness by intercourse with 
 congenial minds, and at times with the ideal world. Our 
 country has been called in reproach the arena of a cultivated 
 mediocrity. Happy would it be if all mankind coidd be 
 brought up even to that level. A cultivated mediocrity is 
 the boundless soil from out of which must spring at times the 
 vigorous and favored shoots of genius, sparse and exceptional 
 though they may be, yet sufficient to supply the just needs of 
 mankind, — various and eccentric in their character, yet con- 
 spiring to dignify and ennoble our race. Men cannot all be 
 geniuses, yet there are many in whom exist the germs of art, 
 poetry and eloquence, the love of beauty, the sense of the 
 ideal, and the perception of the unseen. These are the men 
 who, when discovered and brought out, delight, attract, and 
 impress the world ; who are generally appreciated, though 
 not often followed ; whose presence and inspiration are neces- 
 sary to the enjoyment and the upward progress of the human 
 race. They spread the sails in the adventurous and perilous 
 voyage of life, while others hold the helm and labor at the 
 ropes. 
 
 Our country, with its vast territory, its inviting regions, 
 its various population, its untrammelled freedom, looks for- 
 ward now to a future which hitherto it has hardlv dared to 
 
28 
 
 anticipate. Let us hopefully await the period when the world 
 shall do homage to our national refinement, as it now does to 
 our national strength ; when the column shall have received 
 its Corinthian capital ; and when the proportions of the native 
 oak shall be decorated, but not concealed, by the cultivated 
 luxuriance of vines and flowers. 
 
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