!

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by

JACOB BIGELOW, M.D.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

LC 1003

E59

CAMBRIDGE:

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

Educ. Gilman 7-17-30

22279

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Remarks were intended as a more complete expression of some of the leading ideas advanced in an address on the "Limits of Education," given last year before the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It may seem presumptuous to question a belief which has prevailed in the learned world for many centuries, and on which both labor and erudition have been lavishly bestowed. But the transitional state of opinion in regard to prominent intellectual pursuits, and especially the requirements of our own progressive and original people, may justify any attempt to indicate the channel in which the tide of human energy and progress is henceforth apparently destined to flow.

BOSTON, Feb. 1, 1867.

ON CLASSICAL AND UTILITARIAN

STUDIES.

DURING a few centuries past, the opinions of those who seek as well as of those who distribute knowledge have been divided between the relative claims of ancient and modern studies; by which are commonly meant those intellectual pursuits which preceded, and those which followed, the vacant period of the Middle Ages. As there is no good reason for believing that the bodily or mental vigor of the Caucasian race is different now from what it was two thousand years ago, our estimate of the relative inducements to study the productions of times so remote from each other must depend, not so much upon our deference to the especial genius that produced them, as upon the power of these works to contribute to our present pleasure and advantage.

There are two points of view, in which the learning of past and present ages are usually contrasted by those who would estimate their comparative fitness as objects and vehicles of education.

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