The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, February 1885

Transcriber’s Note: This cover has been created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The Chautauquan.
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.
Vol. V. FEBRUARY, 1885. No. 5.
President , Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio. Chancellor , J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn. Counselors , The Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; the Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.; Edward Everett Hale. Office Secretary , Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J. General Secretary , Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.
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BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
It has occurred to me that some readers of The Chautauquan may have been disappointed in these articles because in their judgment they have been thus far not sufficiently “practical.” Many people, far too many, desire chiefly to find some short, straight road to knowledge. They like to have some man who is called an “authority” upon a certain subject cut his knowledge up into small parcels or “chunks” of convenient size, and arrange them with labels, alphabetically, in an article or a book, so that they maybe referred to at need, and followed like a recipe for making a pudding, and with as little thought. But there are no such recipes for acquiring real knowledge. In this way an acquaintance with facts may be made which, used blindly, may prove of some immediate service, and may not. Nothing, however, learned in this perfunctory way is worthy of the name of knowledge. For it is a barren process; it really teaches nothing; it profits nothing; it does nothing for the education of the person by whom it is adopted. Real knowledge comes only by a thoughtful learning of the relations of facts. True as to all subjects, this is eminently true as to language; because, language is eminently a subject of relations. There is hardly a word that we use which has not relations to other words, and other forms of speech; relations historical, spiritual, almost moral; to set forth which in detail would furnish occasion for a little essay. The mere learning to speak and to write a language is only a matter of memory and practice; nothing more. It is child’s work, and it is continually done, and is best done, by children. A man may speak and write English, French, German or Latin with unexceptionable correctness and fluency, and yet know no more about that language than a well instructed parrot would which had been taught to use all the words which he uses. His study would not be a study of language; and in that which he had painfully learned he might be easily and unconsciously surpassed by a child who had never studied at all. Now what I hope to do here is to help my readers to some knowledge of the English language, in so far as my own imperfect acquaintance with my mother tongue and its literature will enable me to do so.