1850.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



17 



THE RUDIMENTARY TREATISES. 



Rudimentary Dictionary of Terms used in Civil Architecture, Naval 

 Architecture, Building and Construction, Early and Ecclesiastical 

 Art, Civil Enginceriny, Mechanical Enyineeriny, Fine Art, Mining,^ 

 Surveying, S^c. By John Weale, Author of 'Divers Works of 

 Early Masters in Christian Decoration,' &c., &c. London; 

 Weale, 1850. 



The booksellers in Berlin have lately been subjeeteil to a griev- 

 ous oppression — the necessity of reading the books tliey publish 

 or sell. Grocers, they say, never eat tigs, — booksellers do not read 

 books; and the Berlin booksellers have remonstrated against the 

 tyranny of the police, which subjects them to the task of reading 

 tiie contents of their own shelves. With the booksellers we take 

 part, if only for this reason: that the police are throvving away 

 their resources — disarming justice of her sharpest edged sword; 

 for if the reading were onfy enforced at the proper time, and re- 

 served as the punishment of oifences instead of an engine of pre- 

 vention, we believe the law would be armed with greater terrors. 

 There are booksellers in London, no less than in Paris and Berlin, 

 to whom we would not bate one page of the nauseous and nonsen- 

 sical trash which they have been guilty of giving to the world; 

 and the Ic.r talionis dictates they should be duly punished by its 

 perusal. 



From reading to writing, there is. however, a step; and upon 

 that booksellers but seldom venture, tliough there are some distin- 

 guished men in that business who have not hesitated. It is not 

 necessary that every man among them should be put to the test; 

 but it is gratifying to see they can take the pen in their hands, 

 and that they have a practical knowledge how a l)ook ought to be 

 written. Mr. A^eale, it is true, is not a new writer, but neverthe- 

 less there is no harm in making a commentary on his proceedings, 

 for a man is likely to be none the worse judge of a bo(d< who can 

 write one himself. For a man to be a good and enterprising pub- 

 lisher, he must have some knowledge of the requirements of the 

 public, and the means of gratifying them; and just in proportion 

 to his own knowledge and the interest he feels, will be the measure 

 of his exertions. A kindred zeal for the welfare of the pursuit 

 with which he is connected, will sometimes prompt him to produce 

 works of a higher class than his temporary interests would appear 

 to justify. He must be beyond his customers rather than merely up 

 to their mark; he must lean to the authors rather than to the 

 book-buyers; for if he only follow the taste of the public, the 

 taste of the public is not likely to make a forward movement. A 

 publisher may suit the taste of the public to a T, and yet only pro- 

 duce niarrowbone-and-cleaver ptdkas; or he may humbug, shave, 

 .^nd softsawder the public in another line, and spend thousands in 

 engraving royal marriages and christenings, and such miserable 

 flunkeyism, when a like expenditure in the hands of a Boydell 

 would give lasting glory to English art. IMr. Carter Hall has been 

 the means of rendering essential service to the English school, by 

 jiublishing in the Art-Journal the small engravings of the Vernon 

 Gillery; while, if we turn from him, a literary man, to the print- 

 p\iblishers, we find that those who have the means, completely mis- 

 use them, and while making enormous profits bring the arts into 

 contempt. The Art Union and the print publishers would be 

 enough to swamp English art, if it dei)ended on them alone. 



We are, therefore, for the march of intellect and education; for 

 having educated writers, educated artists, educated critics, edu- 

 cated publishers, and an educated public. An enlightened publisher 

 will often be called upon to carry out an enterprise of considerable 

 importance and considerable risk — nay, he may even suggest it; 

 and we are sure bookselling has been none the worse for such men 

 as Messrs. Charles Knight, Lovell Reeve, and John Weale. 

 Charles Knight's love of Shakspeare has made a Shaksjiearian era, 

 at a time when Shakspeare has been unshrined in his greatest 

 temples, and left to the incense of his meanest priests. Mr. 

 Knight has also taken a great share in those popular works under 

 bis name which have done so much for the spread of knowledge. 

 Had he been less in love with his subject, he would have done less. 

 The Dictionary of Terms is a kind of introduction to the Rudi- 

 mentary works — a series which we make no question will do very 

 much good to the cause of education. It was, it seems. Colonel 

 Ileid, the author of the 'Law of Storms,' who gave the first hint 

 for this series. At Bermuda, and afterwards at Barbadoes, he 

 took a personal interest in the construction of several useful 

 works; and he saw the lamentable want of knowledge of the West 

 Indian workmen. For the commonest work, not only an engineer 

 must be sent out, but workmen; and this is one of the great obsta- 



cles to West Indian progress. The introduction of Mr. Gordon's 

 iron lighthouse, and of Messrs. H. O. and A. Robinson's sugar mills, 

 which have boiler and rollers on the same platform, are therefore 

 most useful in the islands; for what would here be simple ma- 

 chinery, cannot, out there, command the services of a good black- 

 smith. It is further to be observed, that the planters are not by 

 any means fitly taught; for they go out from England raw lads, 

 and learn little after: and it is not, therefore, to be looked for that 

 they should teach negro carpenters and bhicksmiths. As one 

 means of instruction. Colonel Ileid forwarded to Mr. Weale a copy 

 of Professor Fownes's Rudimentary Chemistry, with a recommen- 

 dation that it should be printed; and it was adopted as the first of 

 the new series. We believe we are right in saying that not only 

 in the 'West Indies, but likewise in the East, many of these Rudi- 

 mentary works have been distributed by the government, for 

 popular instruction. 



Piniiock's Catechisms were good compilations in their day. 

 They formed a popular cyclopaedia, a curriculum of education, 

 which, for completeness, has not yet been equalled; and in lan- 

 guage, no less than in many branches of science, they have been 

 the means of greatly promoting the love of knowledge. It was 

 not that a ninepenny treatise was held forth as self-sufficient for 

 the acquirement of any branch of knowledge, but it was a prepa- 

 r:itory step— as an introduction, and as an incentive. Just in the 

 same'way as Pinnock's Child's First Book, English Grammar, and 

 Geogi-aphy, led the way to larger works, so did the catechism of 

 Greek Grammar, or of Hebrew Grammar, lead many a lad to more 

 laborious studies. He bought a small book which was cheap, and 

 promised to be easy; and he was enabled, by its perusal, to judge 

 whether there was sufficient encouragement for his further study. 



The works of the Useful Knowledge Society are of a very differ- 

 ent class; they are calculated for students of a higher class, and 

 are works of an original character: but although tliey |)rovide for 

 science and history, they do little for letters or language. They 

 supplied one defect, but they do not meet another. In a country 

 like this, with its peculiar political organisation, the life of a young 

 man is no less occupied in the preparation for his political career 

 than in the attainment of those special branches of knowledge pe- 

 culiarly useful in his ordinary business. Literature enters largely 

 into his amusements; the composition of lectures, the preparation 

 for the discussion class, the studies for the elocution class, the 

 acquisition of the knowledge of Latin and French, which he ne- 

 glected in boyiiood, or could not then learn, — all these take up 

 much time and attention in the literary and mechanics' institu- 

 tions, no less than with the self-student; and it is a capital defect 

 to prepare a course of educational works which does not provide for 

 these wants. Indeed, the cause of science would be as much pro- 

 moted by the completion of the circle of knowledge in this way, 

 as by any direct contribution. 



In our view, there can be no greater mistake, so far as higher or 

 supplementary education is concerned, than the restriction to 

 empiric instruction. As all the law codes written do not embrace 

 all the forms of litigation, and as all the medical works do not 

 embrace all the cases of disease, so neither can all the books ever 

 written meet all the contingencies of practice. The lawyer, the 

 surgeon, or the engineer, is called upon to act for himself — and 

 then it is he wants something beyond his books. The best works 

 on geometry, and the best works on algebra, will be insufficient of 

 themselves alone to constitute sound reasoners; and they too often 

 have the tendency to narrow the mind rather than to enlai-ge it. 

 \Vhen from abstractions or recognised definitions we come to lan- 

 guage, the ambiguous vehicle of thought, the self-taught mathe- 

 matician is found as perverse, as prejudiced, and as unsound, as 

 any other imperfectly educated man. It is for this reason we 

 object to mutilated studies and mutilated schemes of educational 

 works, « hen too there is so much to be done. We are sure the 

 Useful Knowledge Society would have done great good in pro- 

 ducing uniformly with their other books, good treatises on logic 

 and rhetoric, an idiomp'ic English grammar, a manual of philology, 

 grammars of the modern languages in conformity with modern 

 science, a work on drawing, as an instrument for training in habits 

 of observation, some decent compositions on political geography, — 

 aye, and they might go further, and let the public know something 

 of ethnology, ontology, the study of the fine arts, the art of teach- 

 ing, and many otlier things, old and new, on which there are no 

 good and cheap popular works. 



The Frencli have a cheap popular series called the Manuels 

 Roret, ranging in price from two shillings to four or five, which 

 include not merely every branch of science, but every trade and 

 profession. Charles Knight has published some small manuals for 



