lation is to be passively,
almost unconsciously enlightened, by the mere multiplication and
dissemination of volumes. Whether it be the school boy, or the school
girl, or the youth at college, or the mechanic in the town, or the
politician in the senate, all have been the victims in one way or other of
this most preposterous and pernicious of delusions. Wise men have lifted
up their voices in vain; and at length, lest their own institutions should
be outshone and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they have been
obliged, as far as they could with a good conscience, to humour a spirit
which they could not withstand, and make temporizing concessions at which
they could not but inwardly smile.

It must not be supposed that, because I so speak, therefore I have some
sort of fear of the education of the people: on the contrary, the more
education they have, the better, so that it is really education. Nor am I
an enemy to the cheap publication of scientific and literary works, which
is now in vogue: on the contrary, I consider it a great advantage,
convenience, and gain; that is, to those to whom education has given a
capacity for using them. Further, I consider such innocent recreations as
science and literature are able to furnish will be a very fit occupation
of the thoughts and the leisure of young persons, and may be made the
means of keeping them from bad employments and bad companions. Moreover,
as to that superficial acquaintance with chemistry, and geology, and
astronomy, and political economy, and modern history, and biography, and
other branches of knowledge, which periodical literature and occasional
lectures and scientific institutions diffuse through the community, I
think it a graceful accomplishment, and a suitable, nay, in this day a
necessary accomplishment, in the case of educated men. Nor, lastly, am I
disparaging or discouraging the thorough acquisition of any one of these
studies, or denying that, as far as it goes, such thorough acquisition is
a real education of the mind. All I say is, call things by their right
names, and do not confuse together ideas which are essentially different.
A thorough knowledge of one science and a superficial acquaintance with
many, are not the same thing; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory
for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive view. Recreations are
not education; accomplishments are not education. Do not say, the people
must be educated, when