WHO WOULD BE A SCHOLAR?

'A strange question!' says one: let such a reader turn to the next article. 'And a pretty foolish one,' mutters a second: let him do likewise. Who would be a scholar? 'Sure enough!' whispers one, in whom the question finds an echo, (and we know there are such;) him, and all of like sympathy, we invite to meditate a moment with us on the trials of the scholar.

Let it not be feared that we are about to disparage learning; although it should not be forgotten, that we have the highest authority on our side, when we venture to speak of evil and hardship in connection with that which is pronounced 'a weariness to the flesh;' and the classic muse is with us, when we claim it as a universal fact, that 'no one is satisfied with his lot, but each one sighs for change.' The tired soldier exclaims, 'happy tradesman!' and the tradesman, 'happy soldier!' The bard who vies with Homer, both in antiquity and honor, places the beggar and the poet in the same category; for it is the object of one of his noble hexameters to say, that

'Beggar envies beggar, and bard envies bard.'

Does not our question appear to some to border on profanity? There are those who are wont to feel that Mind and all its achievements are more sacred than the things of sense. And this is in some measure true. But why is not the toil and plodding of the scholar as earthly as any other? We must insist that it is; and we claim that an unfounded presumption in favor of mental effort, as such, be not suffered to face us on the threshold of our argument.

Go with us then—for our appeal shall be to actual examination—to the chamber of the philologist. A cadaverous being dwells there; his sepulchral voice bids us enter, and his sepulchral look—shall we say welcomes us? No! The heart, the social principle, has perished in this atmosphere of dusty lore. You enter. Before a table piled with books, sits the genius loci. On either side of him stands a chair, loaded with huge volumes, and others stand on end upon the floor around. As you place your hat upon a dust-covered volume which lies in the window, you catch the title, '—— on the Digamma.' As you take your seat, you have in view the worn titles of other venerable tomes; 'Scholia in Homerum,' 'De Metris Choricis,' 'De Dialecto Ionicâ,' 'Tenebræ Lycophrontis,' etc., etc. Shall we record a portion of the conversation? After the usual salutation, and the partial return of the student's mind to present realities, we begin:

'Well, Sir, we find you deeply engaged in study: are you laboring upon your edition of Æschylus?'

'I am; but for two or three days past, I have been more particularly occupied with the investigation of some collateral topics of considerable interest. I have been examining the accentuation of an obsolete form used by this poet, in order to determine whether the accent should be the acute or the circumflex. I have read the ancient grammarians on this point, and the invaluable discussion of Blomfield on the accent of this particular word, which occupies four pages in his elaborate commentary.'

'Are not the dramas of Æschylus quite obscure and difficult?'

'They are so regarded, but they are rich in the treasures of the Greek language, and open a wide and inviting field for investigation. I have often been richly repaid for spending a week upon a single sentence.'

'Do you suppose that the text is generally as Æschylus left it?'

'It had become much corrupted and interpolated; but the labors of our great critics have probably nearly restored it to its original purity. Many of the manuscript copies were evidently erroneous. The great German scholars have made many conjectural emendations, of unspeakable value. Indeed, hardly any department of philological criticism has been cultivated with more zeal, and more astonishing results, than that of conjectural emendation.'

'But do you not suppose that Æschylus would object to some of the improved readings, if he could see them?'

'Oh! you now call to mind a dream which I had last night. If I were a believer in dreams, it would make me quite discouraged; and as it is, my mind has been rather gloomy this morning. I dreamed that as I was studying the 'Prometheus,' all at once Æschylus himself made his appearance. How, or whence, I did not seem to inquire; but in some way, (for you know dreams are incoherent and unaccountable,) I knew it to be Æschylus. His appearance was noble and imposing. He was past the middle age; his hair was 'of a sable-silver,' about midway in its progress toward the whiteness of old age, and fell carelessly over his elevated and strongly-marked forehead. His features were strong and almost severe, and his complexion brown and hardy. His whole appearance was not that of the pale scholar, nor of the well-fed nobleman, but of the man of action and exposure—strongly constituted, and sternly disciplined in the world. I told him I was studying his dramas. He seemed astonished. 'I supposed,' said he, 'they had perished long ago, or had been laid aside as specimens of the early and untrained efforts of the mind. I wrote them with labor indeed, but I wrote them for my own age, and did not dream that they would occupy the attention of posterity. You certainly must have those which are much better.' I then told him of our labors in the perusal of his writings, and our delight in them. In order to convince him of the reality of such efforts, and of their success, I opened before him the commentaries of our first scholars. He seemed amazed. 'Can it be,' he replied, 'that so much explanation is necessary?' My hearers never complained of obscurity.' 'But,' replied I, 'we live in a distant age, and speak a different language; in order, therefore, to see and feel the beauties of your writings, much explanation is necessary.'

'As to beauties,' said he, 'I wrote as well as I could, and aimed at securing the attention and gratification of my auditors, and at nothing more. But allow me to see what you regard as 'my beauties.' I then read to him one of those rich and masterly notes, in which B—— has so finely brought out the hidden sense of the poet. He thought a moment, and then, with a smile, replied: 'Well, that is helping me out finely! I am sure I never thought of such a construction as possible, but it is very good.' To my utter astonishment, he treated several of those ingenious elucidations in the same manner. I then pointed him to one of the important conjectural emendations of the text, as a specimen of modern scholarship. 'What!' said the wondering dramatist, 'you have mistaken: surely, this is not in my writings; whose is it? I hardly see what the passage itself can mean.' I then showed him that it was a part of 'Prometheus Vinctus.' 'Oh!' he exclaimed, 'I now understand; you have copied it wrong.'

'My astonishment interrupted my dream, and awoke me. Dreams are nothing, to be sure; but how could my mind run into such a fiction?'

'You are right in saying that dreams are not to guide our conduct: but may it not be, that some of your nocturnal suppositions come close upon the truth?'

'Oh no! I should as soon expect to catch Wolf tripping in Homer, as to find any such suppositions correct. I can easily account for my discouraging dream. I had been laboring the whole day upon a passage, of which the original was not indeed controverted, but the sense is given by two learned commentators in direct opposition to each other. One of them, after giving his rendering, says: 'Sensus cuique obvius est.' The other says of this interpretation: 'A genio linguæ Græcæ prorsus abhorret.' But this difference between scholars shows only how wide is the field for investigation.'

Let us now leave the philologist to his studies; to pore over difficulties which time has created, and scholar-like blunders magnified; to extort sense from passages which never contained it; to perplex himself with the attempt to form an opinion where the greatest differ, and where evidence is wanting to the human mind; to solve questions which are of no conceivable importance to human knowledge, and to labor life away upon that which can at best only serve as a monument of patient effort, like the achievement of the monk with his scissors or pen-knife, which represents only the expenditure of years. We would clearly recognise the value of the study of ancient languages in youth, when mind is in its forming state; when discipline is secured by close attention, and systematic action of the faculties by the study of system; but we deem it quite another thing to make the means the end; to pursue the lessons of boyhood, when the time of them is past, and all their benefits secured; to narrow the mind down to the perpetual investigation of minutiæ which have no bearing on human happiness, except as they may create a fictitious fame; to live among trifles, and for them.

Shall we be pronounced traitors to the cause of learning? Is it the object of learning to be learned? Is it not rather to make man a being of higher resources, and nobler action? We confess we are giving utterance to thoughts which have forced themselves upon us, when called to take a survey of the field of learning, to examine its divisions, to become acquainted with its laborers, and to labor ourselves upon its margin. If these thoughts should be derided as proceeding from an indolent or even an ignorant view of the case, we would reply, by asking two questions: First, Is there a limit to study, of the members pursuing it, and the extent of its pursuit? and, second, Where is that limit? Let it not be replied: 'We should fix no limit to the cultivation of the mind.' We are speaking of study, in its common acceptation, and in this acceptation we offer these questions. If this be a strange course of inquiry, is it an unreasonable one?

But let us not be too serious. The mistakes of men may sometimes be laughed at; and if any are found to spend their lives in seeking unprofitable knowledge—if any one delves all his days over learned trifles,

Such men might certainly be worse employed, and if time is wasted, it is not mischievously abused.

A young friend came lately, in great dejection and discouragement, to ask some advice respecting the obstacles which he had encountered in reading the Iliad. 'I am now studying,' said he, 'the catalogue of the Grecian fleet; and I am exceedingly puzzled to find out the exact situation of all the places which Homer mentions, and to trace all the nations and tribes to which the Grecian army is referred. I have studied carefully all the notes of Heyne and Clarke, but these are not full enough.'

'And why do you wish to trace them?'

The young student was mute with surprise: 'This is a strange question,' muttered he to himself, 'to come from a teacher, and an admirer of Homer!' 'What, Sir, must I not study out all the proper names? I supposed I could not be a good scholar without it.'

'Why should you? If you will think of this question, and give me a satisfactory answer, I will set myself at once to helping you.'

'But why did the commentators study so much upon these things?'

'That is another question for you to think of; and instead of answering it myself, I will wait for you to give me your best conjecture on the subject.'

The poor fellow was amazed. Never had he been more entirely confounded: 'My teacher asks me, why should I learn it! How strange!' Such were his thoughts, as he returned to his studies. In a few days he called again. He seemed not to know how to begin the conversation.

'Well, have you made out an answer to the questions which startled you so much?'

'Why, Sir; I cannot say that I am able to give any satisfactory answer.'

'Well then, my young friend, I charge you not to spend time and strength in searching for the situation of Homer's Nisyrus, Crapathus, and Casus, until you give some valid reason for so doing. As to the commentators, what will not men do for fame? How many labors have men performed with this motive, which were not only useless, but pernicious?'

Such a reply was indeed unexpected. The young pupil seemed at once bewildered, and relieved from anxiety, by such a paradoxical sentiment. His mind had imbibed the common feeling that, mental labor never constitutes an abuse of time. The maxim, 'No item of knowledge is contemptible,' had misled his mind, and he had been accustomed to feel that learning must be great and good.

There is a sense, in which it may be truly said that nothing in the universe of God is despicable, except moral evil. The most minute portion of matter—the slightest organization—the obscurest fact in nature—is worthy of the notice of Mind. But are there not choices to be made? Is EVERY man justified in spending his life in the comparing of the blades of grass, or the pebbles of the sand? No work of human skill is to be despised; and yet who may sit down to cut paper, or tie knots, as the business of his life?

We once called at the study of a fine young man, who had set out to do his best, and to make a scholar. He was pale with long and severe study, and seemed to labor under some special dejection. On inquiring into his course of study, he made the following statement.

'I have lately begun to read Cicero de Oratore. I have always been accustomed to hear Cicero spoken of as the prince of Latin writers, and I resolved to make myself master of one at least of his treatises, and to realize the whole benefit of a thorough and scholar-like acquaintance with this author. I commenced with the commentaries of Ernesti, Pearce, Proust, Harlessius, etc., etc., and resolved to know the whole. I soon came upon a passage which was obscure. I resorted to the Notes. Here I found six different readings proposed, and long comments on each. I read all the remarks of my commentators, which occupied me an hour. The conclusion to be derived from them was, that the original language of the sentence was not to be decided upon, and that the meaning of the author was left to conjecture. I then undertook to investigate the meaning of a legal term used by Cicero. After reading several pages of notes, and consulting half a dozen books of reference, I made myself master of the suppositions of the learned on the subject. I next took up the name of a Roman orator whom Cicero mentions. I read at great length, and discovered that his name had been found in several instances in the Latin writers, and that critics supposed that two persons of the same name had been alluded to in these instances. I had commenced the study with resolution, and had determined not to come short of the advantages of the thorough scholar. But, for an hour before you come in, I had been thinking, 'What am I doing, and what end am I securing? What if I should know a thousand things of this kind? Cui Bono? I do not intend to be indolent or fickle, but these thoughts have, I confess, made me dejected.'

The young man's honest and heart-felt account of himself was calculated to make one pause. Here was a high-toned and vigorous mind wearing away its energies, and narrowing its scope of vision, under the bondage of that public opinion respecting true learning, which took its rise and its form in the cells of the monastery, where the mind will seize upon any aliment rather than prey upon itself, and expend itself upon trifles, because it is shut away from the great realities of life. A mind which was made to display its energies in the highest track of thought, and on the widest field of action, is imprisoned to count its beads, and mutter its task, in the temple of monastic lore. Public opinion must be subjected to frequent revision—let us not be pronounced radical—or errors will cling to the community, with the tendency of a mill-stone about the neck. An error, hallowed by strong and widely-connected associations, is not easily exterminated. It passes on unharmed by those agitations which overwhelm the errors of a lower grade and humbler origin; and while the generation living in its shadow have never known the light which it intercepts, they regard it as a part of the system of things, and one of the conditions of their being. Thus has the high regard which mankind accord to mental efforts, as distinguished from physical, had the effect to hallow even the follies of intellect, and to prolong the existence of those errors respecting the cultivation of the mind, which lead us to regard it rather as a receptacle of hoarded knowledge, than as a thing of active powers; to seek the acquisitions of the scholar as valuable in themselves, rather than as giving scope and expansion to the energies of a noble existence, and in the high estimation which Education has properly imparted to the means of education, to make that mistake which comprehends so many others; to make the means the end.