90 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



taries and spies of princes and states bring in bills for intel 

 ligence, so you must allow the spies and intelligences of 

 nature to bring in their bills, or else you will be ignorant 

 of many things worthy to be known. And if Alexander 

 placed so large a treasure at Aristotle s command, for the 

 support of hunters, fowlers, fishers, and the like, in much 

 more need do they stand of this beneficence who unfold the 

 labyrinths of nature. 



Another defect I discover is the neglect in vice-chancel 

 lors, heads of houses, princes, inspectors, and others, of 

 proper supervision or diligent inquiry into the course of 

 studies, with a view to a thorough reformation of such 

 parts as are ill suited to the age, or of unwise institution. 

 For it is one of your Majesty s sage maxims, that as re 

 spects customs and precedents, we must consider the times 

 in which they took their rise, since much is detracted from 

 their authority, if such are found feeble and ignorant. It 

 is, therefore, all the more requisite, since the university 

 statutes were framed in very obscure times, to institute an 

 inquiry into their origin. Of errors of this nature I will 

 give an example or two from such objects as are most ob 

 vious and familiar. The one is, that scholars are inducted 

 too early into logic and rhetoric arts which, being the 

 cream of all others, are fitter for graduates than children 

 and novices. Now, being the gravest of the sciences, these 

 arts are composed of rules and directions, for setting forth 

 and methodizing the matter of the rest, and, therefore, for 

 rude -and blank minds, who have not yet gathered that 

 which Cicero styles sylva and supellex* matter, and fecun 

 dity, to begin with those arts is as if one were to paint or 

 measure the wind, and has no other effect than to degrade 

 the universal wisdom of these arts into childish sophistry 

 and contemptible affectation. This error has had the in 

 evitable result of rendering the treatises on those sciences 

 superficial, and dwarfing them to the capacities of children. 



Sylva de Orat. iii. 26 ; Supellex Orat. xxiv. 



