On health and occupation / by Benjamin Ward Richardson.

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On health and occupation / by Benjamin Ward Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    eye into amaurosis, nor of subjecting a weak eye to intense sunlight; but when we have the brain to deal with, we commit follies equal to both these, and think we are performing an essentially good ser- vice. In our walks through life how differently consti- tuted do we find matured men ! Of one man we say ho has good common sense, but no accurate know- ledge; he is trained to argument, but he lacks in comparisons, and the shallowness of information leaves all his pretensions stranded. That man has been taught to reflect before he was taught to perceive. Another, man is all knowledge ; reason and com- parison in his case have lost their natural and de- veloping power ; he can remember endless things and facts, speak and read in various languages, make long calculations by strict rule, and astonish the world by his erudition. This man has been educated by the extremely forced artificial system, has laid no 'basis for comparison of natural things, but is proud in being replete with thoughts of other men,” and in having so much unassorted information buried deep in his intellectual arcanum. Now and then—but only nowand then, by accident as it were—we meet with the man who has learned on the natural plan, who has been pressed with no look- worship, and who has first acquired and then arranged his knowledge. Such a man, if his physical life has been equally well sustained, is the man of the dav a man who is sure to be pre-eminent, a keystone’in wisdom7**1 arCh that 13 mad® Up of knowiWe and Tor the reasons given I have always persistently opposed the special prize system in schools and cot leges. As a teacher with large experience, and as a student, I can recall no single instance in which noted