Reality
A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully
about who complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in
his mind. He feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he
was called a fool for his pains. Not undeservedly--for his thoughts were
muddled, and if his heart was good it was far better than his head. He
argued badly or he merely affirmed, but he had strong allies (Ruskin was
one of them), and, like every man who is sincere, there was something in
what he said; like every type which is numerous, there was a human
feeling behind him: and he was very numerous.
Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what
he meant and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the
French Revolutionists was right--"After bread, the most crying need of
the populace is knowledge." But what knowledge?
The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from books
and from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions (that is,
impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, what is
always almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting voice of
the living man. For you must allow me the paradox that in some
mysterious way the voice and gesture of a living witness always convey
something of the real impression he has had, and sometimes convey more
than we should have received ourselves from our own sight and hearing of
the thing related.
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