An Essay on the Evils of Popular IgnoranceFoster, John
Philosophy
An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance
Foster, John
Education; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Literacy; Missions -- India; Religious education
The laborers in the institutions for instructing the young descendants of
an ill-fated generation, may often regret to perceive how little the
process is as yet informed with the energy which is ultimately to pervade
the world. But let them regard as one great undivided economy and train of
operation, these initiatory efforts and all that is to follow, till that
time "when all shall know the Lord;" and take by anticipation, as in
fraternity with the happier future laborers, their just share of that
ultimate triumph. Those active spirits, in the happier periods, will look
back with this sentiment of kindred and complacency to those who sustained
the earlier toils of the good cause, and did not suffer their zeal to
languish under the comparative smallness of their success.
* * * * *
We shall conclude with a few sentences in the way of reply to another
question, which we can surmise there may be persons ready to ask, after
this long iteration of the assertion of the necessity of knowledge to the
common people. The question would be to this effect: What do you, all this
while, mean to assign as the _measure_ of knowledge proper for the people
to be put in possession of?--for you do not specify the kinds, or limit
the extent: you talk in vague general terms of mental improvement; you
leave the whole matter indefinite; and for all that appears, the people
are never to know when they know enough.
It is answered, that we _do_ leave the extent undefined, and should
request to be informed where, and why, the line of circumscription and
exclusion should be drawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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