less essential parts of the machinery play into the other parts, and have little notion of the use of fly-wheels and connecting-rods and regulators. . . . In the early stages of national life, the masses are usually as well content to leave governing to a small class, as passengers are to trust the captain and the engineers. But when the masses obtain, and feel that they have obtained, the sovereignty of the country, this acquiescence can no longer be counted on. Men without the requisite knowledge or training; men who, to revert to our illustration, know no more than that steam acts by expansion, and that a motion in straight lines has to be converted into a rotary one; men who are not even aware of the need for knowledge and training; men with little respect for precedents, and little capacity for understanding their bearing may take command of engines and ship, and the representative assembly may be filled by those who have no sense of the dangers to which an abuse of the vast powers of the assembly may lead. Macaulay, in order to explain the somewhat puzzling statement that freedom is the only cure for the evils of freedom, uses the familiar idea of the prisoner newly released from his cell: When a There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces; and that cure is freedom. prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of day; he is unable to discriminate colors or recognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. 116. Assignments in Comparison or Analogy. A. What comparison, contrast, or analogy is used to explain the main idea of the following? 1. Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I can successfully lack and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing, nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures that are not worth while! The farther I run the more I feel like casting aside all such impedimenta - lest I fail to arrive at the far goal of my endeavor. I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about who ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it, absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs, and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions! GRAYSON: A Day of Pleasant Bread. 2. In England athletics are ruled by the spirit of sport; in the United States, by the spirit of competition. The sweeping popularity of American football is the most conspicuous feature of a national awakening to the importance of a hardy, outdoor play as a vital part of modern education. It is true, however, that the young American is not genuinely fond of organized athletic sports unless they carry the chance of "whipping" somebody else, which is why he makes of them a "problem" instead of a pastime. through his campus years.- PAINE: The Spirit of School and College Sports, Century, 71: 99. B. Think of some good comparison, example, specific instance, or analogy that can be used to explain one of the following. Then write the explanation. 1. Why we dislike certain persons. 2. The musical scale. 3. Telepathy. 4. Taking an examination. 5. Reading. 6. How a bank makes money. 7. Laziness. 8. Business methods. 9. Making a speech. 10. Hard work. 11. Learning a trade. 12. Manual training. 13. Domestic science. 14. A system of ventilation. 15. The U. S. postal system. Reconciling Contradictory Ideas. 117. A subject, as was stated above, may be obscure not only because our ideas about it are in a state of confusion, but because it apparently contains ideas that are inconsistent or contradictory, or that do not seem to belong together. When this is the case, it is the business of exposition to find some principle or notion that will reconcile the contradictory ideas and reduce them to unity. A homely illustration of such a contra diction and the solution of it is seen in the old story of the milkmaid who, having spilled a pailful of milk on the ashes of the hearth, instantly gathered it up again and put it back in the pail without losing a drop. The story at first hearing seems untrue because of the seeming contradiction between the known results of spilling milk on ashes and the reported action of the milkmaid. All becomes clear, however, as soon as we learn that the milk was frozen solid. The new idea reconciles the two contradictory terms and reduces them to consistency and unity. An interesting example of this method of explanation is presented in the following: Every one who has collated early books generally, more especially English books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, must have been puzzled by the minute differences between one copy and another which are often to be found on every sheet. Mr. Aldis Wright has proved that in a few cases, always of books for which there was a sudden and large demand, these differences prove that the text was set up simultaneously from the same copy on two or more different presses. But an explanation of this kind does not apply to such a book as the first quarto of King Lear, of which no two of the extant copies agree, nor to Paradise Lost, of which we know that only 1500 copies were printed. Bibliographers are in the habit of saying that " corrections were introduced during the process of printing off, but this would imply that the author stood over the pressmen while they were at work, which in the case of the blind Milton is absurd. ences are not of the nature of real concerned chiefly with punctuation. Moreover, the differcorrections; they are When they extend to letters, the number of letters is mostly the same, and it is impossible so to marshal the differences as to show that any one set of them is a distinct improvement on any other. Mr. Wynne Baxter, addressing the Bibliographical Society of London on "Early Editions of Milton," offered the true explanation of these minor irregularities in old books. A bit of family history came to Mr. Baxter's help. His grandfather was a printer, and precisely because he observed that the leather balls used for more than three centuries to ink the type had a tendency to pull the letters out of the form, he invented the first inking roller. From the time of Shakespeare to that of Milton is the worst and most careless period of English printing. The more carelessly the forms were locked, the more often would the balls pull out the letters from them, and the more opportunities would the pressman have for replacing any he found lying about in the wrong places. The theory was justly greeted by the society by a round of applause. It may not explain all the differences, and the more it is tested the better; but it will be surprising if it is not found to explain a great deal. 118. Assignments on Reconciling Contradictory Ideas. Explain one of the following passages to a student in the grade below yours. Find if possible a principle which will reconcile the seeming contradiction. 1. Laziness is the great motive power of civilization. 2. Verbosity is cured by a wide vocabulary. 3. And peradventure had he seen her first She might have made this and that other world Another world for the sick man; but now And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. |