for further improvement.in knowledge by them is still far more contracted than what we may derive from reading. 3. When we read good authors we learn "the best, the "most laboured, and most refined sentiments even of those "wise and learned men;" for they have studied hard, and have committed to writing their maturest thoughts, and the result of their long study and experience: whereas by conversation, and in some lectures, we obtain many times only the present thoughts of our tutors or friends, which (though they may be bright and useful) yet, at first perhaps, may be sudden and indigested, and are mere hints, which have risen to no maturity. 66 re 4. It is another advantage of reading, that we may "view what we have read ;" we may consult the page again and again, and meditate on it at successive seasons in our serenest and retired hours, having the book always at hand: but what we obtain by conversation, and in lectures, is oftentimes lost again as soon as the company breaks up, or at least when the day vanishes; unless we happen to have the talent of a good memory, or quickly retire and note down what remarkables we have found in those discourses. And for the same reason, and for want of retiring and writing, many a learned man has lost several useful meditations of his own, and could never recall them again. III. THE advantages of verbal instructions by public or private lectures are these. 1. There is something more sprightly, more delightful and entertaining in the living discourse of a wise, a learned, and well qualified teacher, than there is in the silent and sedentary practice of reading. The very turn of voice, the good pronunciation, and the polite and alluring manner which some teachers have attained, will engage the attention, keep the soul fixed, and convey and insinuate into the mind the ideas of things in a more lively and forcible way, than the mere reading of books in the silence and retirement of the closet. 2. A tutor, or instructor, when he paraphrases and explain's plains other authors, can "mark out the precise point of "difficulty or controversy," and unfold it. He can shew you which paragraphs are of greatest importance, and which are of less moment. He can teach his hearers what authors, or what parts of an author, are best worth reading on any particular subject; and thus save his disciples much time and pains, by shortening the labours of their closet and private studies. He can shew you what were the doctrines of the ancients in a compendium, which perhaps would cost much labour, and the perusal of many books, to attain. He can inform you what new doctrines or sentiments are rising in the world, before they come to be public; as well as acquaint you with his own private thoughts, and his own experiments and observations, which never were, and perhaps never will be published to the world, and yet may be very valuable and useful. 3. A living instructor can convey to our senses those notions with which he would furnish our minds, when he teaches us natural philosophy, or most parts of mathemati cal learning. He can make the experiments before our eyes. He can describe figures and diagrams, point to the lines and angles, and make out the demonstration in a more intelli gible manner by sensible means, which cannot be done so well by mere reading, even though we should have the same figures lying in a book before our eyes. A living teacher, therefore, is a most necessary help in these studies. I might add also, that even where the subject of discourse is moral, logical, or rhetorical, &c. and which does not directly come under the notice of our senses, a tutor may explain his ideas by such familiar examples, and plain or simple similitudes, as seldom find place in books and wri tings. 4. When an instructor in his lectures delivers any matter or expresses himself in such a manner as seems of difficulty, obscure, so that you do not take up his ideas clearly or fully, you have opportunity, at least when the lecture is finished, or at other proper seasons, to inquire how such a sentence should should be understood, or how such a difficulty may be explained and removed. If there be permission given to free converse with the tutor, either in the midst of the lecture, or rather at the end of it, concerning any doubts or difficulties that occur to the hearer, this brings it very near to conversation or discourse. IV. CONVERSATION is the next method of improvement, and it is attended with the following advantages. 1. When we converse familiarly with a learned friend, we have his own help at hand to explain to us every word and sentiment that seems obscure in his discourse, and to inform us of his whole meaning, so that we are in much less danger of mistaking his sense; whereas in books, whatsoever is really obscure, may also abide always obscure without remedy, since the author is not at hand, that we may inquire his sense. If we mistake the meaning of our friend in conversation, we are quickly set right again; but in reading we many times go on in the same mistake, and are not capable of recovering ourselves from it. Thence it comes to pass that we have so many contests in all ages about the meaning of ancient authors, and especially the sacred writers. Happy should we be, could we but converse with Moses, Isaiah, and St Paul, and consult the prophets and apostles, when we meet with a difficult text! But that glorious conversation is reserved for the ages of future blessedness. 2. When we are discoursing upon any theme with a friend, we may propose our doubts and objections against his sentiments, and have them solved and answered at once. The difficulties that arise in our minds may be removed by one enlightening word of our correspondent; whereas in reading, if a difficulty or question arise in our thoughts which the author has not happened to mention, we must be content without a present answer or solution of it. Books cannot speak. 3. Not only the doubts which arise in the mind upon any subject of discourse are easily proposed and solved in con versation, versation, but the very difficulties we meet with in books and our private studies may find a relief by friendly conference. We may pore upon a knotty point in solitary meditation many months without a solution, because, perhaps, we have gotten into a wrong tract of thought; and our labour (while we are pursuing a false scent) is not only useless and unsuccessful, but it leads us perhaps into a long train of error, for want of being corrected in the first step. But if we note down this difficulty when we read it, we may propose it to an ingenious correspondent when we see him; we may be relieved in a moment, and find the difficulty vanish: he beholds the object perhaps in a different view, sets it before us in quite another light, leads us at once into evidence and truth, and that with a delightful surprise. 4. Conversation calls out into light what has been lodged in all the recesses and secret chambers of the soul: by occasional hints and incidents, it brings old useful notions into remembrance; it unfolds and displays the hidden treasures of knowledge with which reading, observation, and study, had before furnished the mind. By mutual discourse the soul is awakened and allured to bring forth its hoards of knowledge, and it learns how to render them most useful to mankind. A man of vast reading, without conversation, is like a miser who lives only to himself. 5. In free and friendly conversation, our intellectual powers are more animated, and our spirits act with a superior vigour in the quest and pursuit of unknown truths. There is a sharpness and sagacity of thought that attends conversation, beyond what we find whilst we are shut up reading and musing in our retirements. Our souls may be serene in solitude, but not sparkling, though perhaps we are employed in reading the works of the brightest writers. Often has it happened in free discourse that new thoughts are strangely struck out, and the seeds of truth sparkle and blaze through the company, which, in calm and silent reading, would never have been excited. By conversation you will both give and receive this benefit; as flints when put into motion and striking against each other, produce living fire on both sides, which would never have risen from the same hard materials in a state of rest. 6. In generous conversation amongst ingenious and learned men, we have a great advantage of proposing our private opinions, and of bringing our own sentiments to the test, and, learning in a more compendious and safer way, what the world will judge of them, how mankind will receive them, what objections may be raised against them, what defects there are in our scheme, and how to correct our own mistakes; which advantages are not so easy to be obtained by our own private meditations: for the pleasure we take in our own notions, and the passion of self-love, as well as the narrowness of our views, tempt us to pass too favourable an opinion on our own schemes; whereas the variety of genius, in our several associates, will give happy notices how our opinions will stand in the view of mankind. 7. It is also another considerable advantage of conversation that it furnishes the student with the knowledge of men, and the affairs of life, as reading furnishes him with booklearning. A man, who dwells all his days among books, may have amassed together a vast heap of notions, but he may be a mere scholar, which is a contemptible sort of character in the world. A hermit, who has been shut up in his cell in a college, has contracted a sort of mould and rust upon his soul, and all his airs of behaviour have a certain awkwardness in them; but these awkward airs are worn away by degrees in company: the rust and the mould are filed and brushed off by polite conversation. The scholar now becomes a citizen or a gentleman, a neighbour and a friend; he learns how to dress his sentiments in the fairest colours, as well as to set them in the strongest light. Thus he brings out his notions with honour, he makes some use of them in the world, and improves the theory by the practice. But before we proceed too far in finishing a bright character by conversation, we should consider that something else |