264 POSSIBLE EVIL OF COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. CHAP. X. complete as that already established in China may thereby be secured, it will probably be at the expense of that constitutional energy and vigour, which are so indispensable for attaining a robust manhood. Moreover, the tendency of this new movement seems to be, to draw the educated youth of the country aside from the paths of ordinary industry, and direct their eyes toward the public treasure as the highest object of their exertions; whilst beyond all, there is that danger to be apprehended, against which Montalembert has so eloquently warned us, of stimulating and propagating the passion for salaries and Government employment, which saps all national spirit of independence, and in some countries makes a whole people a mere crowd of servile solicitors for place. CHAP. XI. FACILITIES OF MODERN TIMES. 265 CHAPTER XI. FACILITIES AND DIFFICULTIES. "Is there one whom difficulties dishearten-who bends to the storm? He will do little. Is there one who will conquer? That kind of man never fails."-John Hunter. La “C'est des difficultés qui naissent les miracles."Bruyère. Tons THIS is an age pre-eminently distinguished for the facilities which it affords for human intercourse and the spread of knowledge. In travelling, telegraphing, printing, and postal communications, it surpasses every other. upon tons of machine-made paper are constantly being converted into machine - printed books and machineprinted newspapers, which are spread abroad at a marvellously low price; and as we look on, we are accustomed to congratulate ourselves upon the marvellous "progress of the age." If machinery and horse-power of steam could accomplish this, our progress were indeed rapid. But it still remains to be seen whether the vast amount of printed matter in circulation is calculated to produce wiser and better men, actuated by higher and more beneficent principles of action, than existed in England in times comparatively remote, in which books were far rarer but much more highly prized,—such times, for instance, as those for which Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, and Jeremy Taylor wrote. It will, perhaps, be acknowledged that, though the multiplication of books and newspapers by means of steam engines and printing machines is accompanied by unquestionable advantages, the facilities. thereby afforded for the spread of knowledge are not altogether an unmixed good. It doubtless furnishes un 266 THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. CHAP. XI. precedented facilities for learning many things easily and without effort; but at the same time it probably tends rather towards superficialism than depth or vigour of thinking; for while readers are tempted by the multitude of books to skim many subjects, they may thereby be so distracted by the variety, as to be induced to bottom none of them thoroughly. With all the facilities which exist for independent selfculture, it is even suspected that our life, like our literature, is becoming more mechanical. Large and increasing numbers of persons in our manufacturing districts occupy the chief part of their waking hours from day to day, in watching machines spinning or winding threads, the tendency being to produce a sort of mechanical human beings almost as devoid of individuality of character as the machines they watch. This is one of the defects of modern civilization, daily operating upon large classes of the people, which, in these days, is perhaps too little regarded. While we have been perfecting our mechanisms, we have sometimes forgotten that the finest of all raw material is to be found in Men; and we have not yet done our utmost—indeed we have done comparatively little-to work up and improve that. Speaking of our division of labour processes, Mr. Ruskin has said, "It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided, but the men, -divided into mere segments of men,-broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished, sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is, we should think there would be some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, that we manufacture every СНАР. ХІ. MECHANICAL EXPEDIENTS OF PROGRESS. 267 thing there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages.” The popular remedies proposed for existing social and political evils have also a strong mechanical tendency. There is a moral philosophy which proposes to measure our heads with callipers, and then cast up our propensities, moral sentiments, and intellectual faculties, like a sum in addition; thus determining the line of life we are to lead, or the moral hospital we are to be sent to. There are social reformers, who will have us established in parallelograms, and ripened into men by abnegation of all the hopes, struggles, and difficulties, by which men are made. We have logarithms ground out of a box, and calculations manufactured by merely turning a handle, over which men formerly educated their faculties by studying for months. And there are plans afloat for rescuing us from political infamy by the adoption of sundry arithmetical and mechanical expedients, the discussion of which need not here be entered on. The improved mechanism in our schools also promises to become so perfect that we may, before long, be almost as highly educated as the Chinese, and with quite as impotent a result. The process of filling the memory with facts and formulas got by rote is rapidly extending; but the practice of independent thinking in any but the beaten tracks is not only not taught, but is often carefully prevented. But the facility with which young people are thus made to acquire knowledge, though it may be cramming, is not education. It fills, but does not fructify the mind. It imparts a stimulus for the time, and produces a sort of intellectual keenness and cleverness; but, without an implanted purpose and a higher object than mere knowledge, it will bring with it no solid advantage. The rapidity with which young people now get at a knowledge of many things tends to make them easily satisfied, and 268 KNOWLEDGE MADE PLEASANT. СНАР. ХІ. they often become blasé at an early age. They may have read many books and gone through many branches of knowledge, but a lamentable indifference possesses them; their souls, without compass, without anchorage, are blown about by all winds; they may understand, but there is little active belief; their minds merely receive ideas with the passiveness of a mirror, and the impressions made are scarcely more permanent. Such persons are determined to no acts, have no desire to form convictions, arrive at no conclusions, and their will seems to be suspended, asleep, diseased, or dead. Knowledge, in cases of this sort, gives but a passing pleasure; a sensation, but no more; it is, in fact, the merest epicurism of intelligence-sensuous, but certainly not intellectual. The best part of such natures, that which is developed by vigorous effort and independent action, sleeps a deep sleep, and is often never called to life, except by the rough awakening of sudden calamity or suffering, which, in such cases, comes as a blessing, if it serves to rouse up a courageous spirit which, but for it, would have slumbered on. Growing out of the facilities for reading which exist now-a-days, there is also to be observed a sort of mania for "making things pleasant" on the road to knowledge; and hence amusement and excitement are among the most popular methods employed to inculcate knowledge and inspire a taste for reading. Our books and periodicals must be highly spiced, amusing, and interesting. We have already had comic grammars and histories, and we may yet possibly reach the heights of a Comic Euclid and a Comic Prayerbook. Solid subjects are eschewed; and books demanding application and study lie upon bookshelves unread. Douglas Jerrold, in one of his graver moods, once observed of this tendency : "I am convinced the world will get tired (at least I hope so) of this eternal guffaw about all things. After all, life has something serious in it. It cannot be all a comic history. of humanity. Some men would, I believe, write a Comic Sermon on the Mount. Think of a Comic |