LEARNING FOR ITS OWN SAKE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3215, 27 October 1915, Page 74

LEARNING FOR ITS OWN SAKE.

By Constance Clyde

If there is one love which more than any other is in abeyance in this age it is the love of learning for its own sake. Let me not bo supposed to hint that therefore this is a base age, and that learning is sought merely to gain wealth. There is often an interested motive in know-ledge-acquiring to-day that is not always the much-quoted desire for a mere income. The student to-day works for fame or with the hope of originating a new thought, or, at least, with the idea of imparting to others what he has learnt himself—in fact, to some minds the idea of learning anything except for the purpose of teaching someone else seems incredible. To learn for the mere pleasure of knowing would be considered almost bizarre to-day. A person who should profess to do so would risk being called a hypocrite. Yet this genuine love of learning was considered a feature of life in the Middle Ages, and even later. Learning, divorced from all utilitarian purpose, was an ideal held in reverence in that age, even as it is almost tin felt now. To be learned —that was sufficient. Even imparting that learning to others was not exacted. Learning was its own excuse. It did not need to apologise for itself, as it were, by doing something, even if that something consisted in spreading itself. The modern idea of education—“ a little for everyone and not enough for anyone ” (as was said of- Scotland later), —was quite foreign to the ideas of the time. The idea was to put one mind reverentially aside, fill it with all the learning there was, and then do homage to it. An “ignorant” nation is not necessarily a nation that despises learning. Very often it is a nation that deeply reveres it —in fact, one might say that reverence for learning may be shown by an inclination not to give it to all and sundry, as is the custom now. The homage in those days was less for the man than for the learning itself—this mystic mass of knowledge, some of which was incorporated in the human brain before them. It is a curious reverence, which we have really lost to a great, extent, though we do not realise it. Our view is to think of the would-be scholar. Is the knowledge worthy of him? We are losing the tendency to ask, Is he worthy of the knowledge ? They had not, however, lost it in days of old. So knowledge was revered for its own sake, and the wise man for the sake of his wisdom. That these hermits and sages, living in lonely huts or in cloisters, should do nothing at all with their lore did not disturb their admirers in the least. Lytton, in “ Eugene Aram,” alludes to this type, which survived up to the period of In's hero. “ From store to store, from treasure to treasure, they proceeded in exulting labour, and, having accumulated all, they bestowed nought; they were the arch-misers of the wealth of Tetters. Wrapped in obscurity, they passed a life at once unprofitable and glorious; the least part of what they ransacked would appal the industry of _ a modern student, yet the most superficial of modern students might effect more for mankind. They lived among oracles, but gave none forth.” Lytton sees something high and sublime in this very barrenness —‘adoring wisdom for her sole sake, a,ncl set apart in the universe like those remoter stars which interchange no light with earth —gild not our darkness and colour not our air.” lie puts the ideal well; but a learning that refuses even to shine is too remote from onr present ideals to be admired. To us it must seem only a kind of selfishness. It may he that in the simple times before us learning for its own sake will come hack into its own. Materialism has undoubtedly received a shock, and England will feel very like Pilas Marner after ha lost his gokh He did not, you remember, try to make another pile of gold; the new guineas, he felt, would never be like the old ones; so he put the former ambition aside and was absorbed in a new and finer idea,!. So also manv fortunes will he lost in England; but there may he few attempts to get hack the old wealth; it will seem too tedious, and energy will be directed into other channels. It might seem as if we were taking a step in the right direction by onr proposal to give scholarships to the' children of men at the front; but herein we are less lovers of learning than we seem. Is the child of a soldier necessarily of scholastic ability.' And what of those’whose talents lie in other directions? Mo; we want greater scholars than we have, but certainly not more. Far better is the old Homan way. Let something in the nature of Horatius's reward he onr soldiers— They gave him of the corn land That was cf public right. As much as two strong oxen Could plough from morn to night. Onr scholars have had to turn soldiers; hut it does not fallow that our soldiers ■want to turn scholars.