p>Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 / Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852
HINTS ON THE USEFUL-KNOWLEDGE MOVEMENT
The advocates of the diffusion of useful knowledge among the great body of the people, found one of their greatest difficulties to lie in an inability on the part of the people themselves to see what benefit they were to derive from the knowledge proposed to be imparted. This knowledge consisted of such a huge mass of facts of all kinds, that few could overcome a sense of hopelessness as attending every endeavour to acquire it. Take botany alone, it was said. You have a hundred thousand species of plants to become acquainted with—to learn their names, and to what genera and orders they belong, besides everything like a knowledge of their habitats, their properties, and their physiology. Seeing that this is but one of the sciences, there might well be a pause before admitting that the moral and intellectual regeneration of our people was to be brought about by the useful-knowledge movement.
There was here, however, a mistake on both hands, and one which we are only now beginning to appreciate. It was not observed at first, that there is a great distinction to be drawn between the relations of science to its cultivators or investigators, and those which it bears to the community at large. It is most important that a scientific zoologist like Mr Waterhouse, or a profound physiologist like Professor Owen, should determine and describe every species with the minutest care, even to the slightest peculiarities in the markings of a shell or the arrangements of a joint, because that exactness of description is necessary in the foundations of the science. But it is not necessary that every member of the public should follow the man of science into all these minutiæ. It is not required of him, that he should have the names of even the seventy families of plants at his finger-ends, though that is not beyond the reach of most people. Some summation of the facts, some adroit generalisation, if such be attainable, is enough for him. The man of science is, as it were, a workman employed in rearing up a structure for the man of the world to look at or live in. The latter has no more necessary concern with the processes of investigation and compilation, than a gentleman has with the making of the mortar and hewing of the stones used in a house which he has ordered to be built for his residence.
Were the facts of science thus generalised, it is surprising how comprehensive a knowledge of the whole system of the universe every person might have. Only generalise enough, and no one need to be ignorant. Just in proportion as a man has little time to bestow on learning, condense the more what you wish to impart, and the result, where there is any fair degree of preparedness, will be all the better. In the very last degree of exigency, explain that nature is a system of fixed method and order, standing in a beneficial relation to us, but requiring a harmonious conformity on our part, in order that good may be realised and evil avoided, and you have taken your pupil by one flight to the very summit of practical wisdom. The most illustrious savant, while knowing some of the intermediate steps by which that wisdom was attained, and having many delightful subjects of reflection in the various phenomena involved in the generalisation, cannot go an inch further.
This is putting the matter in its extreme form. We are entitled to suppose that the bulk of mankind have some time to spend on the acquirement of a knowledge of the natural system of things into which their Maker has thrown them. Grant a little time to such a science, for example, as botany; we would never attempt impressing a vast nomenclature upon them. We would give them at once more pleasure and more instruction in shewing some of the phenomena of vegetable physiology: fundamental and profoundly interesting matters, of which specific distinctions and external characters of all kinds are only accidental results—that is, results determined by the outer phenomena affecting the existence of plants. A single lesson on the profound wonders of morphology would go further, we verily believe, in making our pupil a man of science, than the committing of the whole Linnæan system to memory. In zoology, again, we would leave the endless details of minute description to the tomes of the scientific naturalist, and be content to sketch animals in broad masses—first, in regard to grades of organisation; and, second, in regard to family types. The Feline Animal, we say, is one idea of the Creator—a destructive creature of wonderful strength in comparison with its bulk—of immense agility, furtive in its movements, furnished with great powers for the destruction of others. Lion, tiger, panther, ounce, lynx, jaguar, cat, are all essentially one creature—not the slightest difference can be traced in their osteological structure, hardly any in their habits. Why dwell, then, on minutiæ of external appearances, if time presses, and there be much of more importance to be learned? So, also, is the Cirrhopode one idea of the author of nature. You may find a very respectable quarto account of the family, tracing them in all their varieties; but a page might inform you of all that is essential about the barnacle, curious as its history has been, and you need not ponder on the quarto unless you have some particular curiosity to gratify. The Types of nature, both in her vegetable and animal departments are, after all, few. Describe each comprehensively, group them all in correct relations to each other, and display their various destinies and connections with the rest of creation, and you enable your pupil to learn in a few weeks more than Pliny mastered in a lifetime.
It appears to us that the reason why science is so coldly received in ordinary society is, that either by reason of its unripeness for generalisation, or of the tendency of its cultivators to keep continually analysing and multiplying facts, it has not in general been presented in propositions which the ordinary mind can comprehend or make use of. We should be loath to urge it into generalisations for which it was not prepared; but while this is duly avoided, we would have it to be somewhat more vigilant than it usually is, in taking opportunities of proceeding with those synthetical clumpings of facts which we conceive to be so essential, on mere grounds of convenience, to its success with the multitude. Better be a little dogmatical, than insupportably tedious. Better have your knowledge in some order, though not perhaps beyond correction, than in no order at all. It is to be feared, however, that the thing wanting is not the sufficiency of particulars out of which to make general or comprehensive truths, but that of the requisite intellectual power and habit on the part of the men of science. The constant working towards separate facts seems to disqualify the mind for grouping or clustering them. Hundreds can detect a new sphinx or butterfly in the fauna of a country or a county, and are content with such small results, for one who can lay a few facts together, and make one truth out of all. One could almost believe, that there is a greater want of comprehensive intellect in the walks of science, than in some other fields of labour which make less pretension to an exertion of the mental faculties: for example, merchandise. And does not that very appearance of continual peddling amongst trifles, in some degree prevent the highest kind of minds from going into the fields of science? There is here, it appears to us, a great error to be corrected.
Another cause why science makes little way with the multitude is, that there is too little connection to be observed between the ordinary proceedings of the scientific and learned, and the practical good of the community. The British Association meets, and has its week of notoriety, and when we look into the resulting volume, what do we find? Doubtless, many ingenious speculations and many curious investigations, which may in the long-run prove beneficial in some indirect way. But it must be admitted, that there is hardly anything bearing directly upon the great interests of contemporary humanity. The crying social evils of our time and country obtain no notice from the recognised students of science. To all appearance, the political error which legitimated scarcity would have never been put an end to by them. The sanitary evils which press so severely upon the health and morals of the common people, would apparently go on for ever, for anything that philosophers have to say to the contrary. What concern have they taken in the question of education, either in promoting its extension to the masses, or improving its quality? Our national councils, and every deliberative public body throughout the country, spend one half their time in wrangling about the most contemptible puerilities, without drawing one word of indignant comment, or one effort at correction, from the learned. The studious are like stars, and dwell apart. Busying themselves in a world of their own, exercising no visible influence on the current of ordinary things, is it to be wondered at that the common people of the world put them and their pursuits almost as entirely out of account as they do the proceedings at Melton Mowbray? We grant it is not desirable that the cui bono should be the ruling consideration in matters of science; but we at the same time feel, that it would be well for it if it gave a little more attention to the social and moral questions affecting living