Some one else has done all the work for
us, and we only need to absorb. It is pleasing to see how this theory is
getting to be universally applied. All knowledge can be put into a kind
of pemican, so that we can have it condensed. Everything must be chopped
up, epitomized, put in short sentences, and italicized. And we have
primers for science, for history, so that we can acquire all the
information we need in this world in a few hasty bites. It is an
admirable saving of time-saving of time being more important in this
generation than the saving of ourselves.
And the age is so intellectually active, so eager to know! If we wish to
know anything, instead of digging for it ourselves, it is much easier to
flock all together to some lecturer who has put all the results into an
hour, and perhaps can throw them all upon a screen, so that we can
acquire all we want by merely using the eyes, and bothering ourselves
little about what is said. Reading itself is almost too much of an
effort. We hire people to read for us--to interpret, as we call it
--Browning and Ibsen, even Wagner. Every one is familiar with the
pleasure and profit of "recitations," of "conversations" which are
monologues.
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