Reginald Bateman, Teacher and Soldier: A Memorial Volume of Selections from His Lectures and Other WritingsBateman, Reginald
History
Reginald Bateman, Teacher and Soldier: A Memorial Volume of Selections from His Lectures and Other Writings
Bateman, Reginald
Bateman, Reginald, 1884?-1918; English literature -- History and criticism; World War, 1914-1918
What, then, is the justification for the maintenance in a community of
a purely intellectual class of people, occupied with problems which
have nothing to do with actual life, and which apparently contribute
nothing to the common stock of "useful" knowledge, the kind of
knowledge that can be turned into money. Why, for example, do we
maintain at great expense in our universities professors of literature,
philosophy, and pure science to devote their time to the study of
merely academic problems, and to teach our sons and daughters such a
smattering of these things as is of no practical use to them whatever,
and which causes most of them a good deal of trouble and annoyance?
It is easy to understand why we should maintain professors of such
subjects as engineering, dentistry, and agriculture, for engines and
teeth are both things that will not allow themselves to be neglected,
and it is undoubtedly a good thing to make two blades of grass grow
where only one grew before. But why should a man be afraid to devote
his time to making an appreciation of Greek tragedy grow where none
grew before, or to try to arouse an interest in such a problem as the
psychology of metre.
It may be argued, of course, that University professors provide a good
deal of amusement for their students, that their personal
peculiarities, carefully observed through four years of class-room
work, often furnish rich entertainment at convivial gatherings. Or,
again, it may be urged that the study of professors (in so far as
professors can be regarded as human) is the study of human nature, and
that students who observe their professors carefully are gaining an
acquaintance with a practical branch of the science of anthropology.
But neither of these answers to our question can be regarded as wholly
satisfactory.
Let us consider briefly the function of intellect in the individual,
and see if it will throw any light on the function of the intellectual
class in the community. When intellect is developed at all in the
average citizen, its sole function seems to be to make him either
uncomfortable or objectionable. For suppose a small puny growth of
intellect does appear in a man, it generally has one of two effects;
either it makes him _dissatisfied_ with himself, troubled with vague
yearnings after a higher life, worried with misgivings on religious
questions, annoyed by the feeling that he ought to be able to enjoy
books and pictures and music which afford him no real enjoyment; or, he
becomes abnormally _satisfied_ with himself, propounds half-baked
theories of the universe, teems with criticisms of books which he has
not read or does not understand, or bubbles over with solutions of
problems upon which he has never seriously pondered.
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