4 
FURTHER THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. 
“ A LITTLE learning is a dangerous thing,” is often argued by 
those who are adverse to the wide extent of education ; and perhaps 
there is no adage, founded on fact as this is, which has been more 
frequently perverted and misunderstood. Many construe it, that as 
danger is to be apprehended from the possession of a little learning, 
so would security necessarily be maintained by the continuance of 
ignorance. This cannot be. Man is endowed with reasoning and 
reflecting faculties, which render him a free agent, and place him 
above the brute. There are innumerable objects on which these fa- 
culties can be exercised ; and the power of exercising them is the 
highest privilege which he inherits. The goal to which all human 
exertion aspires is perfection ; and though this may not be obtained 
in all its purity, every approach to it is answering in a great degree 
one end of our creation. Therefore is it that to extend wisdom is 
to increase happiness ; because extension of knowledge necessarily 
furnishes greater opportunities of employing the talents bestowed 
upon us, while to sanction ignorance is at once to withhold a uni- 
versal blessing, and to oppose the intention of the Creator as evinced 
in the mental constitution of man. 
“ A little learning is a dangerous thing” might be far more pro- 
fitably construed by being supposed to imply the necessity of a con- 
stant progression in knowledge, thus converting the bane into the 
antidote. Knowledge, it may be said, is only dangerous when an 
equal degree of it is attempted to be indiscriminately bestowed, 
without regard to the respective condition of the receivers. In this 
case, it too frequently happens that the feelings of self-esteem and 
vanity are unduly called into action, whereby the legitimate pro- 
gress of learning is crippled and retarded. But as the abuse of a 
thing is no argument against its use, so the occasional evil which 
may have resulted from misapplied education is no argument against 
the advantage of freely and universally disseminating all kinds of 
useful knowledge ; ever keeping in view the different constitutions 
of different minds, and adapting the instructions to the peculiar abi- 
lity of each, at the same time continuing to prosecute the improve- 
ment to the utmost extent of which the mental powers may be found 
capable. The ultimate constitution of the mind, together with the 
mode in which it acts in creating thought and directing action, will 
most probably ever escape human research. Its mysterious power 
VOL, IX., NO. XXV. 13 
