Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
naturally in that manner; as a man wanted for teaching grammatical
utterance; the thing to utter being already there. The thing to utter,
here was the grand point! And perhaps this is the reason why among
earnest nations, as among the Romans for example, the craft of the
schoolmaster was held in little regard; for indeed as mere teacher of
grammar, of ciphering on the abacus and such like, how did he differ
much from the dancing-master or fencing-master, or deserve much
regard?--Such was the rule in the ancient healthy times.
Can it be doubtful that this is still the rule of human education; that
the human creature needs first of all to be educated not that he may
speak, but that he may have something weighty and valuable to say! If
speech is the bank-note of an inward capital of culture, of insight and
noble human worth, then speech is precious, and the art of speech shall
be honored. But if there is no inward capital; if speech represent no
real culture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, but
the fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas, said
bank-note is then a _forged_ one; passing freely current in the market;
but bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer, and to all the
world, which are in sad truth infallible, and of amount incalculable.
Few think of it at present; but the truth remains forever so. In
parliaments and other loud assemblages, your eloquent talk, disunited
from Nature and her facts, is taken as wisdom and the correct image of
said facts: but Nature well knows what it is, Nature will not have it
as such, and will reject your forged note one day, with huge costs. The
foolish traders in the market pass freely, nothing doubting, and rejoice
in the dexterous execution of the piece: and so it circulates from hand
to hand, and from class to class; gravitating ever downwards towards the
practical class; till at last it reaches some poor _working_ hand, who
can pass it no farther, but must take it to the bank to get bread with
it, and there the answer is, "Unhappy caitiff, this note is forged. It
does not mean performance and reality, in parliaments and elsewhere, for
thy behoof; it means fallacious semblance of performance; and thou, poor
dupe, art thrown into the stocks on offering it here!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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