THE PROJECTOR. No 33.

"Puto multos potuisse ad sapientiam pervenire, nisi

putassent se jam pervenisse."

SENECA de Tranq.

July 1804.

THE wisdom of man has been employed for several thousands of years in laying open the sources of knowledge, in pointing out its importance, and the fatal consequences of neglecting it; yet I know not that any writers have touched upon a subject which is very intimately connected with it, and which I have determined to handle in this paper: I mean the advantages of ignorance. We have so many encouraging treatises written to remove the difficulties which impede knowledge, that it would be impossible to enumerate them; but, as far as my acquaintance with literature extends, we have no book expressly calculated to point out the difficulty of being ignorant, and the inconveniences arising from it. Yet many emi

nent teachers of youth have assured me that they find this one of the greatest impediments in their progress, and that they could have sent out a much greater proportion of able young men from schools and colleges, if they could have persuaded them to remain ignorant a little longer.

Something like this I have so often observed in the young men of the present day, that I am convinced the complaint is well founded, and I know not whether it is not the peculiar characteristick of the clever fellows of our day, that, as Seneca says in my motto, they "fail in acquiring knowledge, merely because they think they have acquired it already." It is to this, I doubt not, we must impute the slow progress made in our public schools and seminaries, and, what I deem much worse, the little use that seems to be made of books and libraries for how can we expect that the one will be studiously attended, or the other carefully consulted by those who refuse to confess their ignorance?

In former days I can well remember that young men were not ashamed of being ignorant for a much longer period than would now be tolerated. A youth, for example, of fifteen knew scarcely anything, avowed his ignorance,

and sat in silence at the feet of his Gamaliel, that he might acquire knowledge as he acquired strength, in the course of nature. A young man of twenty was not less willing to be ignorant, and when introduced into the company of his elders and superiors, was attentive and submissive, retiring with some acquisition of knowledge, but still more and more convinced of his ignorance, and so little ashamed of it, that he often confessed it as a thing unavoidable at his age. I can remember too that even at the ages of twenty-five or more, it was not the fashion for men to suppose themselves universal scholars, or that nature and science had poured into their capacious minds the whole of their stores. They still did not blush to be unacquainted with what they had no means of knowing, and were content to wait the slow process of time and study, to remove their ignorance in a satisfactory and substantial manner. I can even recollect that some men very far advanced in life preserved the same wise principles, and to their last hour maintained the distinction between unavoidable and voluntary ignorance.

We now pursue a very different plan, with what success I shall not say, but it is certain that we can find very few in the early periods

of life who are content to be ignorant. The greater part seem to have overcome every difficulty when they have acquired the alphabet; and other kinds of knowledge pour in upon them so fast, that long before the period of manhood they have acquired all that this world can yield, and are old in every thing which can fit them for a speedy departure into

another.

Among other consequences of this plan, it has given rise to the breed of puppies, a description of the human species very different from that incidentally touched upon by my predecessors. Puppies in former days were ignorant, and contented to be so: knowledge was not in their way; and they contrived to fill up departments in society where it was not wanted. Our modern puppies, however, are distinguished by an uncommon affectation of knowledge, which is so much worse than downright ignorance as it is more difficult to The wise man has indeed long ago determined that there is more hope of a fool than of a young man "wise in his own conceit;" and I am happy to strengthen my poor opinions by so venerable an authority.

remove.

All knowledge is comparative; but although among wise men some are content to know one

thing, and some another, and although all are convinced that human life is insufficient for

universal science, yet the puppy of the present times is one who knows every thing, or says he does So, which with him is much the same thing. He holds this, indeed, as a point of honour, and is so tenacious of it, that the most respectful mode of setting him right is construed into a rude contradiction which he is bound to resent; and hence so many argumentative positions have lately been adjusted by means of a bet, or a case of pistols.

It were a most desirable thing to rectify the prevailing notions respecting shame, of which a spurious kind is soon likely to destroy the genuine. When we consider how many things a young man cannot be expected to know, and how many things, which he may think of some importance, he ought not to know; and when we consider how slowly all really valuable knowledge can be acquired, we may surely allow that every kind of ignorance is not, a disgrace. But unfortunately knowledge and courage have by some means been confounded, and a young man is unwilling to be thought deficient in a taste for literature, lest he should be thought to have no taste for fighting. Two young gentlemen, we were told some time ago,