“A LITTLE LEARNING IS A DANGEROUS THING”?

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1930, Page 3

“A LITTLE LEARNING IS A DANGEROUS THING”?

‘Comparisons are odious” says the old adage, but some people find a constant gratification in repeating Pope’sline tiiat ‘‘A little'learning is a dangerous thing.” With Macaulay we confess that' the danger which alarms these gentlemen never seems to ns very serious. For this reason. No" •'standard O'; profundity can he- fixed ; the learned men of a century ago would be bewildered if confronted with the'results of modern science and history rs we know them to-day. Tlie claim that all knowledge must be left in the hands of specialists—ror that is what it amounts to—is most inept and foolish. Are we to forget that over and over again, the professional classes.have had their ideas cliang td by movements conducted by selfconducted men who have triqd in the I urnace of open discussion, reading and controversy. To take just three names, each supreme in his respective wav, Dickens, Faraday and Burns, we should as a nation be immeasuraly the poorer if, when young, they, had taken this an-cient-saying to : heart. Toghiv the question of knowing about any .thing, is.,riot for a class .but for the whole people. Anyone who doubts ,it cannot believe in progress and evolution but places himself on the -side of reaction and stagnation. England expects every man to do his duty now as in Nelson’s day, and he can do that best by using Ills mind and cultivating his brain power. People are not required who are content" to dodder along moss-green tracks made two hundred, years ago—about which time Pope wrote the thoughtlessly, applauded sentiment here discussed. When we hear similar obscruantists sentiments about shallow, thought, we know that yve, are, in . the presence of people.iwho jSecretly. dread, knowledge.