raditional
course of education, the encroachment was in matter of fact resisted.
There were those in the middle age, as John of Salisbury, who vigorously
protested against the extravagances and usurpations which ever attend the
introduction of any great good whatever, and which attended the rise of
the peculiar sciences of which Universities were the seat; and, though
there were times when the old traditions seemed to be on the point of
failing, somehow it has happened that they have never failed; for the
instinct of Civilization and the common sense of Society prevailed, and
the danger passed away, and the studies which seemed to be going out
gained their ancient place, and were acknowledged, as before, to be the
best instruments of mental cultivation, and the best guarantees for
intellectual progress.

And this experience of the past we may apply to the circumstances in which
we find ourselves at present; for, as there was a movement against the
Classics in the middle age, so has there been now. The truth of the
Baconian method for the purposes for which it was created, and its
inestimable services and inexhaustible applications in the interests of
our material well-being, have dazzled the imaginations of men, somewhat in
the same way as certain new sciences carried them away in the age of
Abelard; and since that method does such wonders in its own province, it
is not unfrequently supposed that it can do as much in any other province
also. Now, Bacon himself never would have so argued; he would not have
needed to be reminded that to advance the useful arts is one thing, and to
cultivate the mind another. The simple question to be considered is, how
best to strengthen, refine, and enrich the intellectual powers; the
perusal of the poets, historians, and philosophers of Greece and Rome will
accomplish this purpose, as long experience has shown; but that the study
of the experimental sciences will do the like, is proved to us as yet by
no experience whatever.

Far indeed am I from denying the extreme attractiveness, as well as the
practical benefit to the world at large, of the sciences of Chemistry,
Electricity, and Geology; but the question is not what department of study
contains the more wonderful facts, or promises the more brilliant
discoveries, and which is in the higher and which in an inferior rank; but
simply which out of all provides the most robust and invigorating
discipline for the unformed mind. And I con