In the current phrase, "studying under some one," there is a more express reference to being taught by a master, as in listening to lectures. There is, however, the implication that the learner is applying his own mind to the special field, and, at the same time, is not neglecting the other sources of knowledge, such as books. The master is looked upon rather as a guide to enquiry, than as the sole fountain of the information sought.
Thus, then, the mental exercise that we now call "study" began when books began; when knowledge was reduced to language and laid out systematically in verbal compositions. A certain form of it existed in the days when language was as yet oral merely; when there might be long compositions existing only in the memory of experts, and communicable by speech alone. But study then was a very simple affair: it would consist mainly in attentive listening to recitation, so as to store up in the memory what was thus communicated. The art, if any, would attach equally to the reciter and to the listener; the duty of the one would be to accommodate his lessons in time, quantity, and mode of delivery to the retentive capacity of the other; who, in his turn, would be required to con and recapitulate what he had been told, until he made it his own, whatever it might be worth.
[BOOK STUDY AMONG THE ANCIENTS]
Even when books came into existence, an art of study would be at first very simple. The whole extent of book literature among the Jews before Christ would be soon read; and, when once read, there was nothing left but to re-read it in whole or in part, with a view of committal to memory, whether for meditative reflection, or for awakening the emotions. We see, in the Psalms of David, the emphasis attached to mental dwelling on the particulars of the Mosaic Law, as the nourishment of the feelings of devotion.
The Greek Literature about 350 B.C., when Aristotle and Demosthenes had reached manhood (being then 34), had attained a considerable mass; as one may see at a glance from Jebb's chronology attached to his Primer. There was a splendid poetical library, including all the great tragedians, with the older and the middle Comedy. There were the three great historians—Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; and the orators—- Lysias, Isocrates, and Isaeus; there were the precursors of Socrates in Philosophy; and, finally, the Platonic Dialogues. To overtake all these would employ several years of learned leisure; and to imbibe their substance would be a rich and varied culture, especially of the poetic and rhetorical kind. To make the most of the field, a judicious procedure would be very helpful; there was evident scope for an art of study. The fertile intellect of the Greeks produced the first systematic guides to high culture; the Rhetorical art for Oratory and Poetry, the Logical art for Reasoning, and the Eristic art for Disputation. There was nothing precisely corresponding to an Art of Study, but there were examples of the self-culture of celebrated men. The most notorious of these is Demosthenes; of whom we know that, while he took special lessons in the art of oratory, he also bestowed extraordinary pains upon the general cultivation of his intellectual powers. His application to Thucydides in particular is recounted in terms of obvious mythical exaggeration; showing, nevertheless, his idea of fixing upon a special book with a view to extracting from it every particle of intellectual nourishment that it could yield: in which we have an example of the art of study as I have defined it. Then, it is said that, in his anxiety to master his author, he copied the entire work eight times, with his own hand, and had it by heart verbatim, so as to be able to re-write it when the manuscripts were accidentally destroyed. Both points enter into the art of study, and will come under review in the sequel.
We do not possess from the genius of Aristotle—the originator or improver of so many practical departments—an Art of Study. The omission was not supplied by any other Greek writer known to us. The oratorical art was a prominent part of education both in Greece and in Rome; and was discussed by many authors—notably by Cicero himself; but the exhaustive treatment is found in Quintilian. The very wide scope of the "Institutes of Oratory" comprises a chapter upon the orator's reading, in which the author reviews the principal Greek and Roman classics from Homer to Seneca, with remarks upon the value of each for the mental cultivation of the oratorical pupil. Something of this sort might be legitimately included in the art of study, but might also be withheld, as being provided in the critical estimates already formed respecting all writers of note.
[MODERN GUIDES TO STUDY.]
After Ouintilian, it is little use to search for an art of study, either among the later Latin classics, or among the mediaeval authors generally. I proceed at once to remark upon the well-known essay of Bacon, which shows his characteristic subtlety, judiciousness, and weight; yet is too short for practical guidance. He hits the point, as I conceive it, when he identifies study with reading, and brings in, but only by way of contrast and complement, conference or conversation and composition. He endeavours to indicate the worth of book learning, as an essential addition to the actual practice of business, and the experience, of life. He marks a difference between books that we are merely to dip into (books to be tasted) and such as are to be mastered; without, however, stating examples. He ventures also to settle the respective kinds of culture assignable to different departments of knowledge—history, poetry, mathematics, natural philosophy, moral philosophy, logic and rhetoric; a very useful attempt in its own way, and one that may well enough enter into a comprehensive art of study, if not provided for in the still wider theory of Education at large.
Bacon's illustrious friend, Hobbes, did not write on studies, but made a notable remark bearing on one topic connected with the art,—namely, that if he had read as much as other men, he should have remained still as ignorant as other men. This must not be interpreted too literally. Hobbes was really a great reader of the ancients, and must have studied with care some of the philosophers immediately preceding himself. Still, it indicates an important point for discussion in the art of study, in which great men have gone to opposite extremes—I mean in reference to the amount of attention to be given to previous writers, in taking up new ground.
To come down to another great name, we have Milton's ideal of Education, given in his short Tractate. Here, with many protestations of knowing things, rather than words, we find an enormous prescription of book reading, including, in fact, every known author on every one of a wide circle of subjects. This was characteristic of the man: he was a voracious reader himself, and an example to show, in opposition to Hobbes, that original genius is not necessarily quenched by great or even excessive erudition. As bearing on the art of study, especially for striplings under twenty, Milton's scheme is open to two criticisms: first, that the amount of reading on the whole is too great; second, that in subjects handled by several authors of repute, one should have been selected as the leading text-book and got up thoroughly; the others being taken in due time as enlarging or correcting the knowledge thus laid in. Think of a boy learning Rhetoric upon six authors taken together!