Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 28:111 (Jul 1871)
Article: The Position And Methods Of The American Scholar
Author: E. H. Byington

BSac 28:111 (July 1871) p. 444

The Position And Methods Of The American Scholar1

Rev. E. H. Byington

The progress of society depends upon men of intellectual strength and culture. The chiefs of the savage tribe are the strong men, like Red Cloud; but the wise man must take the place of the strong man before civilization is possible. These intellectual leaders need a special discipline. Hence the college and the university, not for the many, but for the few who have been endowed by nature with abilities for leadership. As the wants of society are various, there are a number of distinct departments of action for these educated leaders. Each department rests upon some permanent want of society. There has always been a necessity for a class of public men, in distinction from private — the leaders and teachers of men, physicians, lawyers, ministers, and interpreters of nature; men of poetic abilities, which are of power, as Milton says, “to imbreed and cherish in a great

BSac 28:111 (July 1871) p. 445

people the seeds of virtue and public civility”;2 the founders and preservers of states; and last, but not least, the ministers of religion. The men who fill these various offices constitute the scholars of the nation.

But the question is a fair one, whether there is any need of a permanent class of learned men. The system which has produced them aims at the advancement of society in general intelligence and culture. Its results are cumulative. Each generation is advanced a little beyond that which preceded it. The extension of knowledge among the people of this country has raised the standard of the common mind. Private men now read scientific works, which used to be found only in the libraries of scholars. Everybody reads, and everybody discusses, the highest questions in science, philosophy, and divinity. Is it necessary, in such an age, to have a class of professional men, who are elevated above the masses of the people by superior knowledge? Is this quite in accordance with the principles of our institutions? Is it not better to expend for popular education the funds which are used to sustain the higher institutions of learning? Are not the people outgrowing the need of professional men? Is not the time coming when every man will be his own doctor and his own lawyer and his own religious guide?

There is an apparent force in such views; but there are certain permanent facts which check the inference. For, will not children always need teachers? Will any advance in general intelligence cause reading and writing to come by nature? And if we are still to need teachers, who shall teach the teachers? Do not the lower schools depend upon...