Artists are seldom good critics of art, because their own practice biasses them, and they are not disinterested. The few artists who have written soundly about art have succeeded in the difficult task of detaching saying from doing; they have, in fact, become two distinct persons, each oblivious of the other.

publican form of government. How difficult | tion, that even past history is hardly ever it is to think out such a problem disinterest- written disinterestedly. Historians write with edly, and yet how necessary to the justice of one eye on the past and the other on the our conclusions that we should think disin-pre-occupations of the present. So far as terestedly if we pretend to think at all! It is they do this they fall short of the intellectual true that we have one circumstance in our standard. An ideally perfect history would favor-we are not French subjects, and this tell the pure truth, and all the truth, so far as is much. Still we are not disinterested, since it was ascertainable. we know that the settlement of a great political problem such as this, even though on 'foreign soil, cannot fail to have a powerful influence on opinion in our own country, and consequently upon the institutions of our native land. We are spectators only, it is true; but we are far from being disinterested spectators. And if you desire to measure the exact degree to which we are interested in the The strongest of all the reasons in favor of result, you need only look at the newspapers. the study of the dead languages and the literThe English newspapers always treat French atures preserved in them, has always ap affairs from the standpoint of their own peared to me to consist in the more perfect party. The Conservative journalist in Eng- disinterestedness with which we moderns can land is a Monarchist in France, and has no approach them. The men and events are sephopes for the Republic; the Liberal journalist arated from us by so wide an interval, not in England believes that the French dynas-only of time and locality, but especially of ties are used up, and sees no chance of tran- modes of thought, that our passions are not quillity outside of republican institutions. In often enlisted, and the intellect is sufficiently both cases there is an impediment to the intel-free. lectual appreciation of the problem. It may be noted that medical men, who are This difficulty is so strongly felt by those a scientific class, and therefore more than who write and read the sort of literature which aspires to permanence, and which, therefore, ought to have a substantial intellectual basis, that either our distinguished poets choose their subjects in actions long past and half-forgotten, or else, when tempted by present excitement, they produce work which is artistically far inferior to their best.

commonly aware of the great importance of disinterestedness in intellectual action, never trust their own judgment when they feel the approaches of disease. They know that it is difficult for a man, however learned in medicine, to arrive at accurate conclusions about the state of a human body that concerns him so nearly as his own, even although the person who suffers has the advantage of actually experiencing the morbid sensations.

Our own generation has witnessed three remarkable events which are poetical in the To all this you may answer that intellectual highest degree. The conquest of the Two disinterestedness seems more an accident of Sicilies by Garibaldi is a most perfect subject situation than a virtue. The virtue is not to for a heroic poem; the events which led to have it, but to seek it in all earnestness; to be the execution of the Emperor Maximilian and ready to accept the truth even when it is most deprived his Empress of reason, would, in the unfavorable to ourselves. I can illustrate my hands of a great dramatist, afford the finest meaning by a reference to a matter of everypossible material for a tragedy; the invasion day experience. There are people who cannot of France by the Germans, the overthrow of bear to look into their own accounts from a Napoleon III., the siege of Paris, are an epic dread that the clear revelation of figures may ready to hand that only awaits its Homer; be less agreeable to them than the illusions yet, with the exception of Victor Hugo, who which they cherish. There are others who is far gone in intellectual decadence, no great possess a kind of virtue which enables them poet has sung of these things yet. The sub-to see their own affairs as clearly as if they jects are as good as can be, but too near. had no personal interest in them. The weakNeither poet nor reader is disinterested ness of the first is one of the most fatal of inenough for the intellectual enjoyment of tellectual weaknesses; the mental indepenthese subjects: the poet would not see his way dence of the second is one of the most desiraclearly, the reader would not follow unre-ble of intellectual qualities. The endeavor to servedly. attain it, or to strengthen it, is a great virIt may be added, however, in this connec-tue, and of all the virtues the one most indis

pensable to the nobility of the intellectual | was really and knowingly immoral; Shelley,

repeat. I have heard the same thing of the the time. In every great intellectual career sentimental Lamartine. We know that there are situations like that of a steamer Turner, dreamer of enchanted landscapes, with a storm-wind directly against her and took the pleasures of a sailor on the spree. A friend said to me of one of the most exquisite living geniuses: "You can have no conception of the coarseness of his tastes; he associates with the very lowest women, and enjoys their rough brutality."

an iron-bound coast behind. If the engines are strong enough to gain an inch an hour she is safe, but if they lose there is no hope. Intellectual successes are so rewarding that they are worth any sacrifice of pleasure; the sense of defeat is so humiliating that fair VeThese cases only prove, what I have al- nus herself could not offer a consolation for ways willingly admitted, that the intellectual it. An ambitious man will govern himself life is not free from certain dangers if we for the sake of his ambition, and withstand lead it too exclusively. Intellectual excesses, the seductions of the senses. Can he be ever by the excitement which they communicate strong enough, can his brain ever be lucid to the whole system, have a direct tendency enough for the immensity of the task before to drive men into other excesses, and a too him? great refinement in one direction may pro- "Le jeune homme," says M. Taine, “ignore duce degrading reactions in another. Still qu'il n'y a pas de pire déperdition de forces, the cultivation of the mind, reasonably pur- que de tels commerces abaissent le cœur, sued, is, on the whole, decidedly favorable to qu'après dix ans d'une vie pareille il aura morality; and we may easily understand perdu la moitié de sa volonté, que ses pensées that it should be so, when we remember that auront un arrière-goût habituel d'amertume people have recourse to sensual indulgences et de tristesse, que son ressort intérieur sera simply from a desire for excitement, whilst amolli ou faussé. Il s'excuse à ses propres intellectual pursuits supply excitement of a yeux, en se disant qu'un homme doit tout more innocent kind and in the utmost vari- toucher pour tout connaître. De fait, il apety and abundance. If, instead of taking a prend la vie, mais bien souvent aussi il perd few individual instances, you broadly ob- l'énergie, la chaleur d'âme, la capacité d'agir, serve whole classes, you will recognize the et à trente ans il n'est plus bon qu'à faire un moral utility of culture. The most cultivated employé, un dilettante, ou un rentier." classes in our own country are also the most moral, and these classes have advanced in morality at the same time that they have advanced in culture. English gentlemen of the present day are superior to their forefathers whom Fielding described; they are better educated, and thy read more; they are at the same time both more sober and more chaste.

PART III.

OF EDUCATION.

LETTER I.

TO LEARN THIS THING AND THAT.

Lesson learned from a cook-The ingredients of knowledge Importance of proportion in the ingredients-Case of an English author-Two landscape painters-The unity and charm of character often dependent upon the limitations of culture-The burden of knowledge may diminish the energy of action-Difficulty of suggesting a safe rule for the selection of our knowledge-Men qualified for their work by ignorance as well as by knowledge-Men remarkable for the extent of their studies-Franz WoepkeGoethe-Hebrew proverb.

I may add that intellectual men have peculiar and most powerful reasons for avoiding the excesses of immorality, reasons which to TO A FRIEND WHO RECOMMENDED THE AUTHOR any one who has a noble ambition are quite enough to encourage him in self-control. Those excesses are the gradual self-destruction of the intellectual forces, for they weaken the spring of the mind, not leaving it will enough to face the drudgery that is inevitable in every career. Even in cases where they do not immediately lead to visible imbecility, they make the man less efficient and less capable than he might have been; and all experienced wrestlers with fate and fortune know well that success has often, at the critical time, depended upon some very trifling advantage which the slightest diminution of power would have lost to them. No one knows the full immensity of the difference between having power enough to make a little headway against obstacles, and just fall ing short of the power which is necessary at

I HAPPENED one day to converse with an excellent French cook about the delicate art which he professed, and he comprised the whole of it under two heads-the knowledge of the mutual influences of ingredients, and the judicious management of heat. It struck me that there existed a very close analogy between cookery and education; and, on following out the subject in my own way, I

every increase of knowledge.

found that what he told me suggested several of the profession will tell you that they dread considerations of the very highest importance an unprofessional use of time; but the more in the culture of the human intellect. thoughtful are not so apprehensive about Amongst the dishes for which my friend hours and days, they dread that sure transhad a deserved reputation was a certain gá-formation of the whole intellect which follows teau de foie which had a very exquisite flavor. The principal ingredient, not in quan- I knew an English author who by great tity but in power, was the liver of a fowl; but care and labor had succeeded in forming a there were several other ingredients also, and style which harmonized quite perfectly with amongst these a leaf or two of parsley. He the character of his thinking, and served as told me that the influence of the parsley was an unfailing means of communication with a good illustration of his theory about his art. his readers. Every one recognized its simple If the parsley were omitted, the flavor he ease and charm, and he might have gone on aimed at was not produced at all; but, on the writing with that enviable facility had he other hand, if the quantity of parsley was in not determined to study Locke's philosophithe least excessive, then the gâteau instead of cal compositions. Shortly afterwards my being a delicacy for gourmets became an un- friend's style suddenly lost its grace; he becatable mess. Perceiving that I was really gan to write with difficulty, and what he interested in the subject, he kindly promised wrote was unpleasantly difficult to read. a practical evidence of his doctrine, and the Even the thinking was no longer his own next day intentionally spoiled his dish by a thinking. Having been in too close commutrifling addition of parsley. He had not ex-nication with a writer who was not a literary aggerated the consequences; the delicate fla- artist, his own art had deteriorated in consevor entirely departed, and left a nauseous bit-quence. terness in its place, like the remembrance of an ill-spent youth.

I could mention an English landscape painter who diminished the pictorial excelAnd so it is, I thought, with the different lence of his works by taking too much interingredients of knowledge which are so eagerly est in geology. His landscapes became geoand indiscriminately recommended. We are logical illustrations, and no longer held told that we ought to learn this thing and together pictorially. Another landscape that, as if every new ingredient did not affect painter, who began by taking a healthy dethe whole flavor of the mind. There is a sort light in the beauty of natural scenery, became of intellectual chemistry which is quite as morbidly religious after an illness, and thencemarvellous as material chemistry, and a thou-forth passed by the loveliest European scenery sand times more difficult to observe. One as comparatively unworthy of his attention, general truth may, however, be relied upon to go and make ugly pictures of places that as surely and permanently our own. It is had sacred associations. true that everything we learn affects the rhole character of the mind.

For people who produce nothing these risks appear to be less serious; and yet there have Consider how incalculably important be- been admirable characters, not productive, comes the question of proportion in our knowl-whose admirableness might have been lessedge, and how that which we are is dependent ened by the addition of certain kinds of learnas much upon our ignorance as our science. ing. The last generation of the English counWhat we call ignorance is only a smaller pro- try aristocracy was particularly rich in charportion-what we call science only a larger. acters whose unity and charm was dependent The larger quantity is recommended as an un- upon the limitations of their culture, and questionable good, but the goodness of it is which would have been entirely altered, perentirely dependent on the mental product that haps not for the better, by simply knowing a we want. Aristocracies have always instinc-science or a literature that was closed to tively felt this, and have decided that a gen-them.

tleman ought not to know too much of cer- Abundant illustrations might be collected tain arts and sciences. The character which | in evidence of the well-known truth that the they had accepted as their ideal would have burden of knowledge may diminish the enbeen destroyed by indiscriminate additions ergy of action; but this is rather outside of to those ingredients of which long experience had fixed the exact proportions. The same feeling is strong in the various professions: there is an apprehension that the disproportionate knowledge may destroy the professional nature. The less intelligent members

what we are considering, which is the influence of knowledge upon the intellectual and not the active life.

I regret very much not to be able to suggest anything like a safe rule for the selection of our knowledge. The most rational one which

not belong to us. In vain you urge me to go in quest of sciences for which I have no natural aptitude. Would you have me act like that foolish camel in the Hebrew proverb. which in going to seek horns lost his ears?

has been hit upon as yet appears to be a sim- |ance, but he did not go out of his way to find ple confidence in the feeling that we inwardly it. The objectionable seeking after knowledge want to know. If I feel the inward want for is the seeking after the knowledge which does a certain kind of knowledge, it may perhaps be presumed that it would be good for me; but even this feeling is not perfectly reliable, since people are often curious about things that do not closely concern them, whilst they neglect what it is most important for them to ascertain. All that I venture to insist upon is, that we cannot learn any new thing without changing our whole intellectual composition as a chemical compound is changed by another ingredient; that the mere addition of knowledge may be good for us or bad for us; Men cannot restrict themselves in learning-Description of

and that whether it will be good or bad is usually a more obscure problem than the enthusiasm of educators will allow. That depends entirely on the work we have to do. Men are qualified for their work by knowledge, but they are also negatively qualified for it by their ignorance. Nature herself appears to

take care that the workman shall not know too much-she keeps him steadily to his task; fixes him in one place mentally if not corporeally, and conquers his restlessness by fatigue. As we are bound to a little planet, and hindered by impassable gulfs of space from wandering in stars where we have no business, so we are kept by the force of circumstances to the limited studies that belong to us. If we have any kind of efficiency, very much of it is owing to our narrowness, which is favorable to a powerful individuality.

LETTER II.

TO A FRIEND WHO STUDIED MANY THINGS.

a Latin scholar of two generations since-What is attempted by a cultivated contemporary-Advantages of a more restricted field-Privilege of instant admission-Many pursuits cannot be kept up simultaneously-The deterioration of knowledge through neglect-What it really is-The only available knowledge that which we habitually use-Difficulty in modern education-That it is inevitably a beginning of many things and no more-The simpler education of an ancient Greek -That of Alcibiades-How the Romans were situated as to this-The privilege of limited studies belongs to the earlier ages-They learned and we attempt to learn.

It appears to be henceforth inevitable that men should be unable to restrict themselves to one or two pursuits, and you who are in most respects a very perfect specimen of what the age naturally produces in the way of culture, have studied subjects so many and so various that a mere catalogue of them would astonish your grandfather if his shade could revisit his old home. And yet your grandfaSometimes, it is true, we meet with instances ther was considered a very highly cultivated of men remarkable for the extent of their gentleman according to the ideas and requirestudies. Franz Woepke, who died in 1864, ments of his time. He was an elegant scholar, was an extraordinary example of this kind. but in Latin chiefly, for he said that he never In the course of a short life he became, al- read Greek easily, and indeed he abandoned though unknown, a prodigy of various learn- that language entirely on leaving the Univering. His friend M. Taine says that he was sity. But his Latin, from daily use and prac erudite in many eruditions. His favorite tice (for he let no day slip by without reading pursuit was the history of mathematics, but some ancient author) and from the thoroughas auxiliaries he had learned Arabic, and Per-ness and accuracy of his scholarship, was sian, and Sanskrit. He was classically edu- always as ready for service as the saddled cated, he wrote and spoke the principal mod- steeds of Branksome. I think he got more ern languages easily and correctly;* his culture, more of the best effects of good literprinted works are in three languages. He ature, out of that one language than some had lived in several nations, and known their polyglots get out of a dozen. He knew no leading men of science. And yet this aston-modern tongue, he had not even the common ishing list of acquirements may be reduced to pretension to read a little French, and in his the exercise of two decided and natural tastes. Franz Woepke had the gift of the linguist and an interest in mathematics, the first serving as auxiliary to the second.

Goethe said that "a vast abundance of objects must lie before us ere we can think upon them." Woepke felt the need of this abund

* According to M. Taine. I have elsewhere expressed a doubt about polyglots.

day hardly anybody studied German. He had no scientific training of any kind except mathematics, in which I have heard him say that he had never been proficient. Of the fine arts his ignorance was complete, so complete that I doubt if he could have distinguished Rigaud from Reynolds, and he had never played upon any musical instrument. The leisure which he enjoyed during a long and