and _are peopled_, he readily forms distinct ideas of their surfaces, and their moral traits: their mountains, rivers, and cities, their arts, commerce, manners, institutions, and wars, rise before his imagination, or are grasped by his knowledge: and whatever he hears, he is prepared rationally to credit or reject, to approve or censure, as it comports well or ill with probability and with reason. Now, to counteract the one, and to promote the other, of these two conditions of mind, are precisely what is proposed by the advocates of popular instruction. They propose to teach _outlines_; and carefully to impress the fact, that _only outlines are taught_: so as to shew the learner, plainly, the precise extent of his knowledge, and (what is yet more important) of his _ignorance_. It is thus, that, being not "proud that he hath learned so much," but rather "humble that he knows no more," vanity and self-conceit will be most certainly prevented: {23} that a wise doubt of his own infallibility will make him tolerant of dissent from his opinions: that he will be prepared at all times to extend his acquisitions easily and judiciously, and to connect them well with previous acquisitions--proving how truly Blackstone has said, in paraphrase of Cicero,[15] "the sciences are _social_, and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other:" in short, that he will approach most nearly to that "healthful, well proportioned" expansion of intellect and liberality of character, which Locke[16] terms a _large, sound, roundabout sense_. In this point of view, it will be found that "a little learning is" _not_ "a dangerous thing." [Footnote 13: In "The Heart of Mid Lothian," and "Redgauntlet."] [Footnote 14: "All men are created equal," &c. This principle is, in substance, asserted in the Bill of Rights or Constitution of almost every State in the Union.] [Footnote 15: ----"omnes artes, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter sese continentur." _Orat. pro Arch. Poet._] [Footnote 16: Conduct of the Understanding.]