Practical Essays by Alexander Bain (spicy books to read .txt) 📖

perhaps making a study of them all; yet, it is unwise to distract the attention with more than one, while the elements are to be learnt. In Geometry, the pupil begins upon Euclid, or some other compendium, and is not allowed to deviate from the single line of his author. If he is once thoroughly at home on the main ideas and the leading propositions of Geometry, he is safe in dipping into other manuals, in comparing the differences of treatment, and in widening his knowledge by additional theorems, and by various modes of demonstration.

In principle, the maxim is generally allowed. Nevertheless, it is often departed from in practice. This happens in several ways.

[MILTON'S PLAN WITH HIS PUPILS.]

[KEEPING TO A SINGLE LINE OF THOUGHT.]

One way is exemplified in Milton's Tractate, already referred to. His method of teaching any subject would appear to have been to take, the received authors, and to read them one after another, probably according to date; the reading pace, and degree of concentration, being apparently equal all through. His six authors on Rhetoric were--Plato (select Dialogues, of course), Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To read their several treatises through in the order named, with equal attention, would undoubtedly leave in the mind a good many thoughts on Rhetoric, but in a somewhat chaotic state. Much better would it have been to have adopted a Text-book-in-chief, the choice lying between Aristotle and Ouintilian (who comes in at a prior stage of the Miltonic curriculum). The book so chosen would be read, and re-read; or rather each chapter would be gone over several times, with appropriate testing exercises and examinations. The other works might then be overtaken and compared with the principal text-book; the judgment of the pupil being so far matured, as to see what in them was already superseded, and what might be adopted as additions to his already acquired stock of ideas. Milton's views of education embraced the useful to a remarkable degree; he was no pamperer of imagination and the ornamental. His list of subjects might be said to be utility run wild:--comprising the chief parts of Mathematics, together with Engineering, Navigation, Architecture, and Fortification; Natural Philosophy; Natural History; Anatomy, and Practice of Physic; Ethics, Politics, Economics, Jurisprudence, Theology; a full course of the Orators and Poets; Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics. He tumbles out a whole library of reading: but only in Ethics, does he indicate a leading or preferential work; the half-dozen of classical books on the subject are to be perused, "under the determinate sentence" of the scripture authorities. With all this voracity for the useful, Milton had no conception of scientific form, or method; and indeed, few of the subjects had as yet passed the stage of desultory treatment; so that the idea of casting the knowledge into some one form, under the guidance of a chosen author, would never occur to him. Better things might have been expected of James Mill, in conducting the education of his son. Yet we find his plan to have been to require an even and exhaustive perusal of nearly every book on nearly every subject, without singling out any one to impart the best known form in each case. The disadvantage of the process would be that, at first, all the writers were regarded as profitable alike. Nevertheless, in the special subjects that he knew himself, he gave his own instructions as the leading text, and his pupil's knowledge took form according to these. In some cases, accident gave a text-in-chief, as when young Mill at ten years of age, studied Thomson's Chemistry, without the distraction of any other work. If there had been half-a-dozen Chemical manuals in existence, he would probably have read them all, and fared much worse. It happens, however, that, in the more exact sciences, there is a greater sameness in the leading ideas, than in Politics, Morals, or the Human Mind; and the evil of distraction is so much smaller. Undoubtedly, the best of all ways of learning anything is to have a competent master to dole out a fixed quantity every day, just sufficient to be taken in, and no more; the pupils to apply themselves to the matter so imparted, and to do nothing else. The singleness of aim is favourable to the greatest rapidity of acquirement; and any defects are to be left out of account, until one thread of ideas is firmly set in the mind. Not unfrequently, however, and not improperly, the teacher has a text-book in aid of his oral instructions. To make this a help, and not a hindrance, demands the greatest delicacy; the sole consideration being that the pupil must be kept _in one single line of thought_, and never be required to comprehend, on the same point, conflicting or varying statements.

Even the foot-notes to a work may have to be disregarded, in the first instance. They may act like a second author, and keep up an irritating friction. There is, doubtless, a consummate power of annotation that anticipates difficulties, and clears away haze, without distracting the mind. There is also an art of bringing out relief by an accompaniment, like the two images of the stereoscope. This is most likely to arise through a living teacher or commentator, who, by his tones and emphasis, as well as by his very guarded and reserved additions, can make the meaning of the author take shape and fulness.

As the chief text-book is chosen, among other reasons, for its method and system, any defects on this head may be very suitably supplied, during the reader's progress, by notes or otherwise. When the end is clearly kept in view, we shall not go wrong as to the means: the spirit will remedy an undue bias to the letter.

The subjects that depend for their full comprehension upon a certain method and order of details, are numerous, and include the most important branches of human culture. The Sciences, in mass, are avowedly of this character: even such departments as Theology, Ethics, Rhetoric, and Criticism have their definite form; and, until the mind of the student is fully impressed with this, all the particulars are vague and chaotic, and comparatively useless for practical application. So, any subject cast in a _polemic_ form must be received and held in the connection thereby given to it. If the arguments _pro_ and _con_ fall out of their places in the mind of the reader, their force is missed or misconceived.

History is pre-eminently a subject for method, and, therefore, involves some such plan as is here recommended. Every narrative read otherwise than for mere amusement, as we read a novel, should leave in the mind--(1) the Chronological sequence (more or less detailed); and (2) the Causal sequence, that is, the influences at work in bringing about the events. These are best gained by application to a single work in the first place; other works being resorted to in due time.

Of the non-methodical subjects, forming an illustrative contrast, mention may be made of purely didactic treatises, where the precepts are each valuable for itself, and by itself: such as, until very recently, the works on Agriculture, and even on Medicine. A book of Domestic Receipts, consulted by index, is not a work for study.

Poems and fictitious narrations will naturally be regarded as of the un-methodical class. If there are exceptions, they consist of long poems--Epics and Dramas--whose plan is highly artistic, and must be felt in order to the full effect. Probably, however, this is the merit that the generality of readers are content to miss, especially if greater strain of attention is needed to discover it. Readers bent on enjoyment dwell on the passing page, and are not inclined to carry with them what has gone before, in order to understand what is to follow.

[REPUDIATION OF METHOD BY MEN OF REPUTE.]

Very intelligent and superior men have wholly repudiated the notion of study by method. We must not lay too much stress upon these disclaimers, seeing that they are usually cited from those in advanced years, or men whose day of methodical education is passed. When Johnson said--"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him," he was not thinking of beginners, for whom he would probably have dictated a different course. Still, it is a prevailing tendency of many minds, to read all books equally, provided the interest or enjoyment of them is equal. Macaulay, Sir William Hamilton, De Quincey, as well as Johnson, and a numerous host besides, were book-gluttons, books in breeches; they imbibed information copiously, and also retained it, but as a matter of chance. The enjoyment of their life was to read; whereas, to master thoroughly a considerable field of knowledge, can never be all enjoyment. Gibbon was a book devourer, but he had a plan; he was organizing a vast work of composition. Macaulay, also, showed himself capable of realizing a scheme of composition; both his History and his Speeches have the stamp of method, even to the pitch of being valuable as models. Hamilton and De Quincey, each in his way, could form high ideals of work, and in part execute them; but their productiveness suffered from too much bookish intoxication. While readers generally mix the motive of instruction with stimulation, the class that seek instruction solely is but small; the other extreme is frequent enough.

[DIFFICULTY IN CHOOSING A FIRST TEXT-BOOK.]

In many subjects, the difficulties of fixing upon the proper Text-book are not inconsiderable. The mere reputation of a book may be great, and well-founded; and yet the merits may not be of the kind that fits it for the commencing student. Such conditions as the following must be taken into account. The Form or Method should be of a high order: this we shall have occasion to illustrate under the next head. It should be abreast: of the time, on its own subject. It should be moderately full, without being necessarily exhaustive in detail. It is on this point that the cheap primers of the present day are mainly defective. They state general ideas, and lay down outlines; but they do not provide sufficiently expanded illustration to stamp these on the mind of the learner. A shilling primer is really a more advanced book than one on a triple scale, that should embrace the same compass of leading ideas. As a farther condition, the work chosen should not have so much of individuality as to fail in the character of representing the prevailing views. The greatest authors often err on this point; and, while a work of genius is not to be neglected, it may, for this reason, have to take the second place in the order of study. Newton's _Principia_ could never be a work suited for an early stage of mathematical study. Lyell's Geology has been a landmark in the history of the subject; but it is not cast in the form for a beginner in Geology. It is, in its whole plan, argumentative; setting up and defending a special thesis in Geology; the facts being arrayed with that view. Many other great works have assumed a like form; such are Malthus on Population, Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces, Darwin's Origin of Species. Even expressly didactic works are often composed more to bring forward a peculiar view, than from the desire to develop a subject in its due proportions. Locke's Essay on the Understanding does not propose to give a methodical and exhaustive handling of the Powers of the Mind, or even of the Intellect. That was reserved for Reid.

The question as between old writers and new, would receive an easy solution upon such grounds as the foregoing, were it not for the sentiment of veneration for the old, because they are old. If an ancient writer retains a place by virtue