The care and expense our parents are at have no other aim but to furnish our heads with knowledge, but not a word of judgment and virtue. Cry out of one that passes by to our people, “Oh, what a learned man is that!” and of another, “Oh, what a good man is that!” they will not fail to turn their eyes and pay their respects to the former. There should then be a third man to cry out, “Oh, what blockheads they are!” Men are ready to ask, “Does he understand Greek or Latin—is he a poet or prose-writer?” But whether he is the better or more discreet man, though it is the main question, is the last; for the inquiry should be, who has the best learning, not who has the most. We only take pains to stuff the memory, and leave the understanding and conscience quite unfurnished. Of what service is it to us to have a bellyful of meat, if it does not digest—if it does not change its form in our bodies—and if it does not nourish and strengthen us? We suffer ourselves to lean so much upon the arms of others, that our strength is of no use to us. Would I fortify myself against the fear of death, I do it at the expense of Seneca; would I extract consolation for myself or my friend, I borrow it from Cicero; whereas I might have found it in myself, if I had been trained up in the exercise of my own reason. I do not fancy the acquiescence in second-hand hearsay knowledge; for though we may be learned by the help of another’s knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own wisdom. Agesilaus being asked what he thought most proper for boys to learn, replied: What they ought to do when they come to be men. --------------------- Footnote 81: Thring’s _Sermons delivered at Uppingham School_. ---------------------------- EDUCATION ALARMISTS. That a little learning is a dangerous thing, is an old saying, which has been fearfully repeated in these days; but a little learning every one will have, and the only way of averting the danger is, by providing the people with all facilities for acquiring more. Lord Stowell was no admirer of the prevailing rage for universal education, and made a remark with which Lord Sidmouth was much struck: “If you provide,” he said, “a larger amount of cultivated talent than there is a demand for, the surplus is very likely to turn sour.”