18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



what are called the learned professions. The layman has nothing to 

 do with the study of the science of theology : that must be expounded 

 to him by his priest. The layman has nothing to do with the science 

 of medicine : he must be cured, or, more probably, killed, secundum 

 artem, by his physician. The layman has nothing to do with the 

 science of the law : it is his business to get into lawsuits, and it is 

 the lawyer's secret how to extricate him. But these superstitions, 

 the relics of an age of popular ignorance, are in their turn disappear- 

 ing, as just ideas of what constitutes real knowledge begin to penetrate 

 the minds of the whole people. It is seen that, so far from being mys- 

 terious, such knowledge is the very substance and material of sound 

 education for all men ; and the layman will no longer allow himself 

 to be led blindfold by priest, or lawyer, or physician, for there is no 

 longer any magical sacredness in their callings. And thus it comes 

 about that a knowledge of physiology, which will help save the pa- 

 tient from any need of a physician ; a knowledge of law, that shall 

 obviate the necessity for lawsuits ; a knowledge of political science 

 and history worthy of men who have become their own rulers; a 

 knowledge of political economy, that shall raise the honorable calling 

 of the merchant to the dignity of a liberal profession ; a knowledge of 

 theology that shall save us the degrading spectacle of the unchristian 

 quarrels of bigoted and superstitious sects — are reckoned more and 

 more to be essential elements in all education. It is only on sound, 

 general knowledge, disseminated through the whole people by a lib- 

 eral education of the whole people, that we shall ever build up pro- 

 fessions, in regard to which we are not forced to entertain a doubt as 

 to whether they are not on the whole more of a curse to us than a 

 blessing. 1 And an education of this sort must be begun in the primary 

 school, must have for its instrument the mother-tongue. It cannot be 

 based on the study of Greek particles, or any amount of skill, either in 

 the reading or the manufacture of Latin verses. 



It is sometimes said that we, who have received this liberal educa- 

 tion we decry, are ungrateful in thus decrying it, and unconscious of, 

 and insensible to, all the benefits we derive from it. I am conscious of 

 no ingratitude in agreeing with an eminent Scotchman who discusses 

 these subjects, when he says, in speaking of knowledge and studies such 

 as I have been enumerating : " I am sure no one seriously applies him- 

 self to such studies without wishing that he had given to them many 

 hours in his youth which he fooled away, in obedience to his ' £>astors 



1 " We need diffused knowledge in the community to sustain soundness of public 

 opinion, and prevent the perversion of separate sciences into black arts and professional 

 secrets." — (Prof. Newman, on the Relations of Free Knowledge to Modern Sentiments.) 



The affirmation of Prof. Seeley is destined, I fear, to find an illustration in the expe- 

 rience of this country, " that a people will never have a supply of competent politicians 

 until political science ... is made a prominent part of the higher education." — Inaugu- 

 ral Address on the Teaching of Politics. 



