The Old Humanities and the New Science — John Shaqi
The Old Humanities and the New ScienceOsler, William, Sir
Philosophy
The Old Humanities and the New Science
Osler, William, Sir
Classical education; Science
It is not the dominance, but the unequal dominance that is a cause of
just complaint. As to methods of teaching--by their fruits ye shall know
them. The product of "Greats" needs no description in this place. Many
deny the art to find the mind's construction in the face, but surely not
the possibility of diagnosing at a glance a "first in Greats"! Only in
him is seen that altogether superior expression, that self-consciousness
of having reached life's goal, of having, in that pickled sentence of
Dean Gaisford's Christmas sermon, done something "that not only elevates
above the common herd, but leads not unfrequently to positions of
considerable emolument." "Many are the wand-bearers, few are the
mystics," and a system should not be judged by the exceptions. As a
discipline of the mind for the few, the system should not be touched,
and we should be ready to sacrifice a holocaust of undergraduates every
year to produce in each generation a scholar of the type of, say, Ingram
Bywater. 'Tis Nature's method--does it not cost some thousands of eggs
and fry to produce one salmon?
But the average man, not of scholar timber, may bring one railing
accusation against his school and college. Apart from mental discipline,
the value of the ancient languages is to give a key to their
literatures. Yet we make boys and young men spend ten or more years on
the study of Greek and Latin, at the end of which time the beauties of
the languages are still hidden because of the pernicious method in which
they are taught. It passes my understanding how the more excellent way
of Montaigne, of Milton, and of Locke should have been neglected until
recently. Make the language an instrument to play with and to play with
thoroughly, and recognize that except for the few in "Mods." and
"Greats" it is superfluous to know how the instrument is constructed, or
to dissect the neuro-muscular mechanism by which it is played. It is
satisfactory to read that the Greek Curriculum Committee thinks "it is
possible in a comparatively short time to acquire a really valuable
knowledge of Greek, and to learn to read with accuracy and fair fluency
some of the most important works in Greek literature." I am sure of it,
if the teacher will go to school to Montaigne and feed fat against that
old scoundrel Protagoras a well-earned grudge for inventing
grammar--_pace_ Mr. Livingstone, every chapter in whose two books appeal
to me, except those on grammar, against which I have a medullary
prejudice. I speak, of course, as a fool among the wise, and I am not
pleading for the "Greats" men, but for the average man, whom to infect
with the spirit of the Humanities is the greatest single gift in
education. To you of the elect this is pure _camouflage_--the amateur
talking to the experts; but there is another side upon which I feel
something may be said by one whose best friends have been the old
Humanists, and whose breviary is Plutarch, or rather Plutarch gallicized
by Montaigne.
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