At first, my idea was to give the
children (they were all boys) a taste for the 'humanities,'
which might afterwards lead to their further pursuit. I
assumed that on the Sunday they would be thinking of the
baked meats awaiting them when church was over, or of their
week-day tops and tipcats; but I was equally sure that a time
would come when these would be forgotten, and the other
things remembered. The success was greater from the
beginning than could be looked for; and some years afterwards
I had reason to hope that the forecast was not altogether too
sanguine.
While the Victoria Tower was being built, I stopped one day
to watch the masons chiselling the blocks of stone.
Presently one of them, in a flannel jacket and a paper cap,
came and held out his hand to me. He was a handsome young
fellow with a big black beard and moustache, both powdered
with his chippings.
'You don't remember me, sir, do you?'
'Did I ever see you before?'
'My name is Richards; don't you remember, sir? I was one of
the boys you used to teach at the Sunday-school. It gave me
a turn for mechanics, which I followed up; and that's how I
took to this trade. I'm a master mason now, sir; and the
whole of this lot is under me.'
'I wonder what you would have been,' said I, 'if we'd stuck
to the collects?'
'I don't think I should have had a hand in this little job,'
he answered, looking up with pride at the mighty tower, as
though he had a creative share in its construction.
All this while I was working hard at my own education, and
trying to make up for the years I had wasted (so I thought of
them), by knocking about the world. I spent laborious days
and nights in reading, dabbling in geology, chemistry,
physiology, metaphysics, and what not. On the score of
dogmatic religion I was as restless as ever. I had an
insatiable thirst for knowledge; but was without guidance. I
wanted to learn everything; and, not knowing in what
direction to concentrate my efforts, learnt next to nothing.
All knowledge seemed to me equally important, for all bore
alike upon the great problems of belief and of existence.
But what to pursue, what to relinquish, appeared to me an
unanswerable riddle. Difficult as this puzzle was, I did not
know then that a long life's experience would hardly make it
simpler. The man who has to earn his bread must fain resolve
to adapt his studies to that end. His choice not often rests
with him. But the unfortunate being cursed in youth with the
means of idleness, yet without genius, without talents even,
is terribly handicapped and perplexed.
And now, with life behind me, how should I advise another in
such a plight? When a young lady, thus embarrassed, wrote to
Carlyle for counsel, he sympathetically bade her 'put her
drawers in order.'
Here is the truth to be faced at the outset: 'Man has but
the choice to go a little way in many paths, or a great way
in only one.' 'Tis thus John Mill puts it. Which will he,
which should he, choose? Both courses lead alike to
incompleteness. The universal man is no specialist, and has
to generalise without his details. The specialist sees only
through his microscope, and knows about as much of cosmology
as does his microbe. Goethe, the most comprehensive of
Seers, must needs expose his incompleteness by futile
attempts to disprove Newton's theory of colour. Newton must
needs expose his, by a still more lamentable attempt to prove
the Apocalypse as true as his own discovery of the laws of
gravitation. All science nowadays is necessarily confined to
experts. Without illustrating the fact by invidious hints, I
invite anyone to consider the intellectual cost to the world
which such limitation entails; nor is the loss merely
negative; the specialist is unfortunately too often a bigot,
when beyond his contracted sphere.
This, you will say, is arguing in a circle. The universal
must be given up for the detail, the detail for the
universal; we leave off where we began. Yes, that is the
dilemma. Still, the gain to science through a devotion of a
whole life to a mere group of facts, in a single branch of a
single science, may be an incalculable acquisition to human
knowledge, to the intellectual capital of the race - a gain
that sometimes far outweighs the loss. Even if we narrow the
question to the destiny of the individual, the sacrifice of
each one for the good of the whole is doubtless the highest
aim the one can have.
But this conclusion scarcely helps us; for remember, the
option is not given to all. Genius, or talent, or special
aptitude, is a necessary equipment for such an undertaking.
Great discoverers must be great observers, dexterous
manipulators, ingenious contrivers, and patient thinkers.
The difficulty we started with was, what you and I, my
friend, who perhaps have to row in the same boat, and perhaps
'with the same sculls,' without any of these provisions, what
we should do? What point of the compass should we steer for?
'Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.'
Truly there could be no better advice. But the 'finding' is
the puzzle; and like the search for truth it must, I fear, be
left to each one's power to do it. And then - and then the
countless thousands who have the leisure without the means -
who have hands at least, and yet no work to put them to -
what is to be done for these?
