ONE:Highly indignant, I claimed of course that that soldier should also be called; but I was told that I had better assume a more modest tone. I then asked to be taken to the commanding officer, whom I had seen that afternoon; but he was away on inspection or something, and would not return before the next morning.We now understand why Protagoras, in the Platonic dialogue bearing his name, should glance scornfully at the89 method of instruction pursued by Hippias, with his lectures on astronomy, and why he prefers to discuss obscure passages in the poets. The quarrel between a classical and a scientific education was just then beginning, and Protagoras, as a Humanist, sided with the classics. Again, he does not think much of the great and sane and noble race of brutes. He would not, like the Cynics, take them as examples of conduct. Man, he says, is naturally worse provided for than any animal; even the divine gift of wisdom would not save him from extinction without the priceless social virtues of justice and reverence, that is, the regard for public opinion which Mr. Darwin, too, has represented as the strongest moralising power in primitive society. And, as the possession of these qualities constituted the fundamental distinction between men and brutes, so also did the advantage of civilisation over barbarism rest on their superior development, a development due to the ethical instruction received by every citizen from his earliest infancy, reinforced through after-life by the sterner correction of legal punishments, and completed by the elimination of all individuals demonstrably unfitted for the social state. Protagoras had no sympathy with those who affect to prefer the simplicity of savages to the fancied corruption of civilisation. Hear how he answers the Rousseaus and Diderots of his time:
THREE:Applied to steam-engines, the same rule holds good. Steam, as a motive agent, should first be studied, then the operation of steam machinery, and finally the construction of steam-engines. This is a rule that may not apply in all cases, but the exceptions are few.As to the manner of cutting out or planing up the lumber for patterns, and the manner of framing them together, it is useless to devote space to the subject here; one hour's practical observation in a pattern-shop, and another hour spent in examining different kinds of patterns, is worth more to the apprentice than a whole volume written to explain how these last-named operations are performed. A pattern, unless finished with paint or opaque varnish, will show the manner in which the wood is disposed in framing the parts together.
