NOTE K. 



improving and accomplishing his system ; for he made even the most shining 

 transactions of his life, but subservient thereto. In a word, the introducing this 

 new method of attaining wisdom was his ruling passion, and his great spring of 

 action through life. It quickened him in the pursuit of employments ; it con 

 soled him when he met disappointments in that pursuit ; it filled up (most 

 agreeably) his few leisure moments when in the zenith of his grandeur ; it 

 softened his fall, by proposing a new road to fame and esteem, in which he was 

 in no danger of being either imposed on by one set of men, or sacrificed to the 

 interests of another. Thus, this was always, and in all conjunctures, his 

 leading object, of which he never lost sight ; and as we have already had 

 a train of evidence sufficient to convince us, that he conceived something of tins 

 kind when he was but sixteen, and brought it into some form by that time he 

 was twenty-six ; so the remainder of this article will show how warmly he pro 

 secuted this point till death overtook him on the road, when his mind was 

 wholly occupied with these speculations. Biog. Brit. 



K. Life, p. xi. 



His observations on universities will be found in the beginning of the second 

 part of the Advancement of Learning. The following analysis will exhibit an 

 outline of this tract. After having observed upon libraries, and upon the 

 teachers, he proceeds to the defects, which he thus enumerates : 



FIRST DEFECT. Colleges are all dedicated to professions. 



If men judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge well ; 

 but in tltis they fall into tlie error described in tJie ancient fable, in which 

 the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it 

 neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the 

 head doth ; but yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach that digesteth and 

 distributeth to all the rest : so if any man think philosophy and universality 

 to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence 

 served and supplied. And this I take to be a great cause that hath hindered 

 the progression of learning, because these fundamental knowledges Have been 

 studied but in passage. For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it 

 hath used to do, it is not any thing you can do to the boughs, but it is the 

 stirring of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots, that must 

 work it. 



It is injurious to government that there is not any collegiate education for 

 statesmen. 



SECOND DEFECT. The salaries of lecturers are too small. 



If you will have sciences flourish, you must observe David s military law, 

 which was t &quot; That those which stay ivith the carriage should have equal part 

 with those which were in the action.&quot; 



THIRD DEFECT. There are not sufficient funds for providing models, instru 

 ments, experiments, &c. 



FOURTH DEFECT. There is a neglect in the governors of consultation, and in 

 superiors of visitation, as to the propriety of continuing or amending the esta 

 blished courses of study. 



1. Scholars study too soon logic and rhetoric. 



For minds empty and unfraugJit with matter, and which have not gathered 

 that which Cicero calleth &quot; Sylva&quot; and &quot; supellex,&quot; stuff and variety, to 

 begin with those arts, (as if one should learn to weigh, or to measure, or to 

 paint the wind), doth work but this effect, that the wisdom of those arts, 

 v;hich is great and universal, is almost made contemptible, and is degenerate 

 into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation. (See Milton s Treatise on 

 Education.) 



2. There is too great a divorce between invention and memory. 



