To read the first
book we come across, in the wilderness of books, is to learn nothing. To
turn over the pages of ten thousand volumes is to be practically
indifferent to all that is good.
But this warns me that I am entering on a subject which is far too big
and solemn. It is plain that to organise our knowledge, even to
systematise our reading, to make a working selection of books for
general study, really implies a complete scheme of education. A scheme
of education ultimately implies a system of philosophy, a view of man's
duty and powers as a moral and social being--a religion. Before a
problem so great as this, on which readers have such different ideas and
wants, and differ so profoundly on the very premises from which we
start, before such a problem as a general theory of education, I prefer
to pause. I will keep silence even from good words. I have chosen my own
part, and adopted my own teacher. But to ask men to adopt the education
of Auguste Comte, is almost to ask them to adopt Positivism itself.
Nor will I enlarge on the matter for thought, for foreboding, almost for
despair, that is presented to us by the fact of our familiar literary
ways and our recognised literary profession.
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