Next, there is an important distinction between studies for a
professional walk, and the studies of a man's leisure, with a view to
gratifying a special taste, or for the higher object of independent
thinking on all the higher questions belonging to a citizen and a man.
Both positions has its peculiarities; and an art of study should be
catholic enough to embrace them. To have the best part of the day for
study, and the rest for recreation and refreshment, is one thing: and to
study in by-hours, in snatches of time, and in holidays is quite another
thing. In the latter case, the choice of subjects, and the extent of
them, must be considerably different; while the consideration of the
best modes of economizing time and strength, and of harmonizing one's
life as a whole, is more pressing and more arduous. But, when the course
is chalked out, the details of study must conform to the general
conditions of all acquirements in knowledge through the instrumentality
of books.
One, and only one, more preliminary clearing. When an instructor
proceeds, as Milton in his school, or as James Mill with his son, by
prescribing to each pupil a mass of books to be read, with more or less
of examination as to their contents; in such a case, education from
without has passed into study in our narrow sense; and the procedure for
one situation is applicable to both. The two cases are equally in
contrast to educating by the direct instruction of the teacher. In so
far, however, as any teacher requires book study to co-operate with his
own addresses, to that extent do the methods laid down for private study
come into play.
Under every view, it is a momentous fact, that the man of modern times
has become a book-reading animal. The acquisition of knowledge and the
cultivation of the intellectual powers of the mind, form only a small
part of the use of books; although the part more properly named Study.
The moral tendencies are controlled; the emotions regulated; sympathy
with mankind, or the opposite, generated; pleasurable excitement
afforded. These other uses may be provided apart, as in our literature
of amusement, or they may be given in combination with the element of
knowledge, in which case they are apt to be a disturbing force,
rendering uncertain our calculations as to the efficacy of particular
modes of study.
* * * * *
The practical problem of Study is not to be approached by any high
_priori_ road; in other words, by setting out from abstract principles
as to the nature of the mind's receptivity and the operation of
book-reading upon that receptivity. A humbler line of approach will be
more likely to succeed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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