MEMORY VERSUS IMAGINATION 197 



only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness, 

 and that you do not form your opinions without under- 

 going labour of some kind.' x 



The first research which has tempted a young man 

 over the Rubicon of his life is and ought to be every- 

 thing to him. It is a crisis in his life when, in spite of 

 all the inspiration of the work itself, he needs every 

 encouragement, and yet is apt to find disappointment 

 and neglect as an incidental result of the devotion of 

 other workers to other work. The position looks like a 

 dilemma, but fortunately for scientific students the escape 

 is easy. The conditions of science are daily becoming 

 more favourable at our Universities. Here the older 

 worker has a parental interest in the younger, and will 

 by no means quench the smoking flax by unintended 

 neglect., Science is also rich in numerous societies where 

 old and young can meet, and where through personal 

 contact, far better than by endless hours of reading, 

 the deepest inspiration and the highest encouragement 

 can be given and received. 



If however the antagonism between the excessive 

 cultivation of the memory and the development of 

 originality is seen in the lives of older men whose capacity 

 for the highest work is proved and certain, surely con- 

 clusions of value may be learned by those whose duty it 

 is to watch over and direct the developing mind of the 

 young. A little knowledge, we are told, is a dangerous 

 thing, but as regards the awakening and the growth of 

 the most indispensable part of our intellectual equipment 

 — the imagination — it may be more truly said that 

 excessive knowledge is a dangerous thing. Owing to the 

 deadly grip of the examination system upon our country, 

 we develop the memory far too exclusively, and a poor 

 sort of memory at that, valuable for the purposes of the 

 barrister but of little use for any other career. The 

 imagination is not only neglected but actually stunted 

 and atrophied by forcing into disproportionate growth an 

 antagonistic intellectual faculty of a rather low order. 

 Not unintentionally, Kingsley chose the turnip, beet, and 

 1 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. i, pp. 334—5. 



