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Massachusetts (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): chapter 21
ch of all branches of knowledge, finds them steadily slipping away from him, and may be glad if he can watch with fidelity the newest developments in some single minute field, such as fossil cockroaches or the genitive case. It is useless for Mr. Cabot to tell us that Emerson was not a great scholar; we knew it already, he could not in this age have been a great scholar and a great writer. Thoreau resolutely limited himself to the observation of external nature in one small township in Massachusetts; and he assigned himself a task so far beyond his grasp that we find him in his diaries puzzling over the common brown cocoon of the Attacus moth as if it was some wholly new phenomenon; indeed, he seems scarcely to have noticed the insect world at all. The best-trained observation, in presence of the vast advance of knowledge, is very limited; and the human memory, instead of being, as people think, an india-rubber bag of indefinite expansion, is much more like those pop-guns made by b
P. H. Fitzgerald (search for this): chapter 21
rs bid us read only the best books, why not follow their counsel, and keep to Aeschylus and Homer? Who could have foreseen, in Dr. Popkin's day, the vast expansion of modern literatures, which, after exhausting all the Latin races, keeps opening upon us new treasure-houses elsewhere; so that Mr. Howells would bid us all learn Russian and Mr. Boyesen the Scandinavian tongues. Who could have foreseen the relentless Max Miller, marshalling before us by dozens the Oriental religions; and Mr. Fitzgerald concentrating the wonders of them all into Omar Khayyam, who offers no religion whatever, and makes denial more eloquent than faith? Who had then dreamed of the Shakespearian literature, the Dantean literature, the Goethean literature; even the literature of Petrarch, as catalogued by Prof. Willard Fiske, to the extent of nearly a thousand entries? Who had looked forward to vast American historical works like Hubert Bancroft's fifty ample volumes on the Pacific Coast, or Winsor's Narr
C. C. Felton (search for this): chapter 21
licidoe, or gnats. There was nothing extreme in this confession; it might be paralleled in every department of study. But meanwhile what becomes of, the authors? I am not now speaking with any special reference to the Greeks. The fate of the ancient classics among us was long since settled. When the successor of Dr. Popkin was made President of Harvard College, in 1860, he virtually surrendered his traditions by translating the Greek quotations in his Inaugural Address; and what President Felton did for the elder language, President Eliot did for the Latin when he at the 250th anniversary of that institution, bestowed the honorary degrees in most sonorous English. Grant that the authors now share with all other writers, in all languages and departments, the limitations of the life of man, it is plain that those limitations bring the greatest change to those two languages which were once thought to hold all knowledge in their grasp. But the same stern restriction makes itself
Margaret Fuller (search for this): chapter 21
of knowledge is, after all, a process of selection rather than of collection. We forget as fast as we learn, and it is doubtful if the most learned man really knows more at fifty than at twenty; he has merely driven out a multitude of insignificant details by those of greater value. The travelling salesman and the horse-car conductor are probably possessed of as many items of detached knowledge as Von Humboldt or Darwin; the difference is in their quality and their use. It was one of Margaret Fuller's acutest sayings that a man who expects to accomplish much in the world must learn after five and twenty to read with his fingers. Dr. Johnson, who said to the man who thanked God for his ignorance, Then, sir, you have a great deal to be thankful for, was in a similar position to the person at whom he sneered, but was less frank in his ascriptions of gratitude. The elder Agassiz once said to me that so vast was becoming the multiplicity of publications in every branch of science, th
Ignatius Donnelly (search for this): chapter 21
ts few simple and convenient playthings, and must choose amid a myriad of edgetools. There will never be another universal scholar. The time when Aristotle or Plutarch went the rounds of the universe, and tried to label each phenomenon, looks now like the childhood of the world, no matter how precocious the children. The period when Bacon sought to imitate them is scarcely nearer; and when that great intellect found itself so over-weighted with the visible facts, it seems unkind for Mr. Donnelly to burden him retrospectively with even one cipher more. The omnivorous student, who would gladly keep the touch of all branches of knowledge, finds them steadily slipping away from him, and may be glad if he can watch with fidelity the newest developments in some single minute field, such as fossil cockroaches or the genitive case. It is useless for Mr. Cabot to tell us that Emerson was not a great scholar; we knew it already, he could not in this age have been a great scholar and a gr
Charles Darwin (search for this): chapter 21
chance hold more than two bits of potato at the same time. The acquisition of knowledge is, after all, a process of selection rather than of collection. We forget as fast as we learn, and it is doubtful if the most learned man really knows more at fifty than at twenty; he has merely driven out a multitude of insignificant details by those of greater value. The travelling salesman and the horse-car conductor are probably possessed of as many items of detached knowledge as Von Humboldt or Darwin; the difference is in their quality and their use. It was one of Margaret Fuller's acutest sayings that a man who expects to accomplish much in the world must learn after five and twenty to read with his fingers. Dr. Johnson, who said to the man who thanked God for his ignorance, Then, sir, you have a great deal to be thankful for, was in a similar position to the person at whom he sneered, but was less frank in his ascriptions of gratitude. The elder Agassiz once said to me that so vast
Samuel Johnson (search for this): chapter 21
ed man really knows more at fifty than at twenty; he has merely driven out a multitude of insignificant details by those of greater value. The travelling salesman and the horse-car conductor are probably possessed of as many items of detached knowledge as Von Humboldt or Darwin; the difference is in their quality and their use. It was one of Margaret Fuller's acutest sayings that a man who expects to accomplish much in the world must learn after five and twenty to read with his fingers. Dr. Johnson, who said to the man who thanked God for his ignorance, Then, sir, you have a great deal to be thankful for, was in a similar position to the person at whom he sneered, but was less frank in his ascriptions of gratitude. The elder Agassiz once said to me that so vast was becoming the multiplicity of publications in every branch of science, the time was approaching when no man would be able to write on any subject with the slightest sense of security. The hope is that by new intellectua
Grant (search for this): chapter 21
ing with any special reference to the Greeks. The fate of the ancient classics among us was long since settled. When the successor of Dr. Popkin was made President of Harvard College, in 1860, he virtually surrendered his traditions by translating the Greek quotations in his Inaugural Address; and what President Felton did for the elder language, President Eliot did for the Latin when he at the 250th anniversary of that institution, bestowed the honorary degrees in most sonorous English. Grant that the authors now share with all other writers, in all languages and departments, the limitations of the life of man, it is plain that those limitations bring the greatest change to those two languages which were once thought to hold all knowledge in their grasp. But the same stern restriction makes itself felt in all directions; the age has outgrown its few simple and convenient playthings, and must choose amid a myriad of edgetools. There will never be another universal scholar. Th
J. E. Cabot (search for this): chapter 21
em is scarcely nearer; and when that great intellect found itself so over-weighted with the visible facts, it seems unkind for Mr. Donnelly to burden him retrospectively with even one cipher more. The omnivorous student, who would gladly keep the touch of all branches of knowledge, finds them steadily slipping away from him, and may be glad if he can watch with fidelity the newest developments in some single minute field, such as fossil cockroaches or the genitive case. It is useless for Mr. Cabot to tell us that Emerson was not a great scholar; we knew it already, he could not in this age have been a great scholar and a great writer. Thoreau resolutely limited himself to the observation of external nature in one small township in Massachusetts; and he assigned himself a task so far beyond his grasp that we find him in his diaries puzzling over the common brown cocoon of the Attacus moth as if it was some wholly new phenomenon; indeed, he seems scarcely to have noticed the insect w
Aeschylus (search for this): chapter 21
oreover read a newspaper once a week, and occasionally ran through a few pages of Virgil and Cicero, just to satisfy himself that it was a waste of time for any one who could read Greek to look at anything else. Simple and perennial felicity! no vacillation, no variableness or shadow of turning; no doubting between literature or science, still less between this or that department of literature. Since all advisers bid us read only the best books, why not follow their counsel, and keep to Aeschylus and Homer? Who could have foreseen, in Dr. Popkin's day, the vast expansion of modern literatures, which, after exhausting all the Latin races, keeps opening upon us new treasure-houses elsewhere; so that Mr. Howells would bid us all learn Russian and Mr. Boyesen the Scandinavian tongues. Who could have foreseen the relentless Max Miller, marshalling before us by dozens the Oriental religions; and Mr. Fitzgerald concentrating the wonders of them all into Omar Khayyam, who offers no re
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