CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONTENTS
HINTS ON THE USEFUL-KNOWLEDGE MOVEMENT.
THE FALSE HAIR.
CLOUDS OF LIGHT.
THE SLEEPY LADY.
THE NEW CONVICT ESTABLISHMENT IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
THE TRIAL OF ELIZABETH CANNING.
THE ISLAND OF ISLAY.
THE APPLE OF THE DEAD SEA.
INVOCATION.
ART-EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'SINFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
| No. 450. New Series. | SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1852. | Price 1½d. |
HINTS ON THE USEFUL-KNOWLEDGE MOVEMENT.
The advocates of the diffusion of useful knowledge among the greatbody of the people, found one of their greatest difficulties to lie inan inability on the part of the people themselves to see what benefitthey were to derive from the knowledge proposed to be imparted. Thisknowledge consisted of such a huge mass of facts of all kinds, thatfew could overcome a sense of hopelessness as attending everyendeavour to acquire it. Take botany alone, it was said. You have ahundred thousand species of plants to become acquainted with—to learntheir names, and to what genera and orders they belong, besideseverything like a knowledge of their habitats, their properties, andtheir physiology. Seeing that this is but one of the sciences, theremight well be a pause before admitting that the moral and intellectualregeneration of our people was to be brought about by theuseful-knowledge movement.
There was here, however, a mistake on both hands, and one which we areonly now beginning to appreciate. It was not observed at first, thatthere is a great distinction to be drawn between the relations ofscience to its cultivators or investigators, and those which it bearsto the community at large. It is most important that a scientificzoologist like Mr Waterhouse, or a profound physiologist likeProfessor Owen, should determine and describe every species with theminutest care, even to the slightest peculiarities in the markings ofa shell or the arrangements of a joint, because that exactness ofdescription is necessary in the foundations of the science. But it isnot necessary that every member of the public should follow the man ofscience into all these minutiæ. It is not required of him,