re must be a good deal of
general enlightenment and there must be a considerable number of
individuals who have enjoyed a high measure of enlightenment.

This becomes clear if we consider the part played in the life of the
state by the humblest tradesman. If he is to be successful, he must be
able to read, write, and keep his accounts, and make, let us say,
shoes. But when we have said this, we have summed him up as a workman,
but not as a man, and he is also a man. He may marry, and make a good
or a bad husband, and a good or a bad father. He stands in relations
to his neighborhood, to the school, and to the church; and he is not
without his influence. He may be temperate or intemperate, frugal or
extravagant, law-abiding or the reverse. He has his share, and no
small share, in the government of his city and of his state. His
influence is indeed far-reaching, and that it may be an influence for
good, he is in need of all the intellectual and moral enlightenment
that we can give him. It is of the utmost practical utility to the
state that he should know a vast number of things which have no direct
bearing upon the making and mending of shoes.

And if this is true in the case of the tradesman, it is scarcely
necessary to point out that the physician, the lawyer, the clergyman,
and the whole army of those whom we regard as the leaders of men and
the molders of public opinion have spheres of non-professional activity
of great importance to the state. They cannot be mere specialists if
they would. They must influence society for good or ill; and if they
are ignorant and unenlightened, their influence cannot be good.

When we consider the life of man in a broad way, we see how essential
it is that many men should be brought to have a share in what has been
gained by the long travail of the centuries past. It will not do to
ask at every step whether they can put to direct professional use every
bit of information gained. Literature and science, sweetness and
light, beauty and truth, these are the heritage of the modern world;
and unless these permeate its very being, society must undergo
degeneration. It is this conviction that has led to the high
appreciation accorded by intelligent men to courses of liberal study,
and among such courses those which we have recognized as philosophical
must take their place.

81. WHY PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES ARE USEFUL.--But let us ask a little more
specifically what is to be ga