Local knowledge

“ Every province of life illustrates this necessity of adventure. In science, the established body of facts and laws is only the civilized community of knowledge from whose frontiers new guesses and intuitions start. ”

“ It is this combination which gives an enlightened public: a body of cultivated intellects, each taught by its attainments in its own province what real knowledge is, and knowing enough of other subjects to be able to discern who are those that know them better. ”

“ From the enterprising character of our countrymen, shown in the manner in which they carry forward any new project which promises private or public advantage, it is not visionary to suppose that it would not be long ere the whole surface of this country would be channelled for those nerves which are to diffuse, with the speed of thought, a knowledge of all that is occurring throughout the land, making, in fact, one neighborhood of the whole country. ”

“ They are all minutely informed in every thing that relates to their own calling. They are fond of conversation, discuss the merits of different modes of agriculture, the characters of their neighbours, and every thing that relates to the concerns of the community, and many of them are not without a tolerable knowledge of the leading events of the history of their country. ”

“ What are they more than objects for pleasant speculation and admiration unless, by comparison with objects found elsewhere, and in many far separated localities, they go to support or establish certain theories of value in the general summing up of human knowledge? ”

“ Never was a people so concerned, as within the last half century our own people have become, in searching out the local history and tracing the human associations of every spot of our settled territory. ”

“ I am satisfied that, if the educated gentry of the country would now and then extend their interest in the direction indicated, by communicating information on any common object which they may thoroughly understand—it should, however, be a condition that the information should be fundamentally sound—they would not only instruct the uneducated of the village, but they would impart knowledge to their own class, which would be eagerly seized and reciprocated. ”

“ For the child these two groups of the environmental activities cover the whole of adult science, philosophy, and religion, and both require a tremendous reconstructive functioning of the imagination.
(a) The first group is a new coming correlation which naturally must carry with it organized communication or the larger share of language and literature. The investigation of the local social environment is the basis of all “civics,” “geography,” and “history.” It expands as civics. ”

“ He who, although labouring in a limited province, has become a partaker of Knowledge as a whole, and accepts his own calling as but a part thereof, may perhaps have little even historical acquaintance with other provinces, but he has a general conception of the nature of all others, and will constantly exhibit an equal reverence for all. ”

“ THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY 477
a social group which contains within itself, as does the family and the rural community, all the elements necessary to exist- ence the urban community. Here again we find the three necessary factors for a particular branch of science the natural group, the body of experts, the materials of knowledge in the special sciences and in the maxims of experts. ”

“ In the study of the education of a people it is necessary first to become acquainted with their social, political, and religious life. To this end a knowledge of the geography and history of their country is often essential, because of the influence of climate, occupation, and environment, in shaping the character of a people. ”

“ Throughout this broad domain of ours, rock and herb, forest and prairie, lake and river, air and soil, with whatever life or whatever relic of life in past ages, they may severally contain,—afford to the diligent seeker of knowledge various and ample scope for research. Nor to the student of man at a social and political being, is there less of opportunity for acquiring fresh facts and themes for reflection in a young commonwealth like this. ”

“ Is there to be seen that knowledge of human nature, and especially that peculiar kind of science, most necessary in these affairs—an acquaintance with the character of foreign countries and of the chief actors in the scene? ”

“ Authors will certainly convey to you a geographical knowledge of this country; they will acquaint you with the eras of the several settlements, the foundations of our towns, the spirit of our different charters, etc., yet they do not sufficiently disclose the genius of the people, their various customs, their modes of agriculture, the innumerable resources which the industrious have of raising themselves to a comfortable and easy situation. ”

“ Their daily intercourse with the more educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their minds. The rapidity with which this species of practical education is acquired is remarkable, and also, how soon men with such limited opportunities of acquiring knowledge, learn to think and to express their views and opinions in appropriate language. ”

“ Well, I think it's amazing to find people who share some collective passions or, like, intersecting passions. You know, I think the most valuable aspect of this space is the fact that it's interdisciplinary and very diverse in terms of where people are coming from with their own knowledge bases, their own political analysis situations, geographically, linguistically, culturally, et cetera. ”

“ The great cosmopolitan idea of the human race and its unity of interests is born of geography, and even the smattering of it which the poorly taught pupil gets enwraps this great general idea, which is fertile and productive, a veritable knowledge of power from the start. ”

“ By sending these abroad duly qualified, or by exciting an emulation amongst men of parts and literature, it may give birth to other useful institutions of a similar nature, or occasional rise, by its example, to numerous societies of different kinds, calculated to spread the light of knowledge through the whole American continent, wherever inhabited. ”

“ I mervaile, I say, that at this day each man in his owne tract and countrey taketh more light and true knowledge of some things by their commentaries and bookes, who never set foot there, than they doe by the skill and information of home-borne inhabitants ”

“ Therefore these are the agencies for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, observation, acculturation, education, publication and research; for this diffusion it becomes necessary to teach and to learn; so research and instruction appear and become pursuits of life for wisdom. ”

“ Perhaps it would be best for the intelligent reader to imagine himself, or, more happily, herself, in our pleasant company, cousin and all. But [51] first a word of warning to the intelligent reader. After many sleepless days, the managers had decided to arrange the nations in geographical order, as far as possible—and to leave the rest to Providence. Therefore the intelligent readers will do well to follow the example of the intelligent authors, and forgetting any geographical knowledge they may happen to possess, leave their rest to Providence also. ”

“ Our cities are full of institutions where trade knowledge is well taught, but none of them are meant to fill the lack for which the Evening Home stands, and that is simply home influence for those who have never known it. ”

“ It is, of course, necessary for one who would understand modern social conditions or problems, to know of the past out of which our modern life has developed. It is also necessary for one who would understand the problems of one community, or of one nation, to know, in so far as it is possible, of the experiences of other peoples. History and geography furnish a background, without which our current problems could not be reasonably attacked. ”

“ That so many busy experts in different provinces should have been ready to give their knowledge for the instruction of their country is surely a signal proof of public spirit I wish especially to thank my friends Mr. ”

“ By some such method as this, local societies would become schools of thought and learning for the active members of the community in hundreds of our towns and cities. There might naturally follow a union of the societies of a State under a general society, for the publication of such papers as might be deemed suitable. ”

“ We must include the study of the habitations, the handicrafts, the dialects of the folk: we take in archæology and philology—subjects which we know are in themselves enough to occupy the whole attention of a man of science, and I may add, of many Societies. But if by folk-lore we mean "the folk's learning," the learning of the folk themselves, then we may define the science which deals with it as that which treats of all that the folk believe or practise on the authority of inherited tradition, and not on the authority of written records. ”

“ Knowledge associated with the various professions, occupations, and trades was no longer secret or guarded as a mystery, to be passed on only to a chosen few. The sharing of knowledge was to benefit the community at large. ”

“ They attract sojourners from widely separated localities and promote interchange of views, of valuable knowledge, of ideas, of sympathies, that form an interchange of the utmost significance in its influence and determining effect upon the general international life. ”

“ SO then it is our expression that Science relates to real knowledge no more than does the growth of a plant, or the organization of a department store, or the development of a nation: that all are assimilative, or organizing, or systematizing processes that represent different attempts to attain the positive state—the state commonly called heaven, I suppose I mean. ”

“ Book Societies, under local management, should do for the Country what Mechanics’ Libraries are doing for the Towns—building up those habits, and perfecting those healthful tastes, for which popular education is but the bare foundation. ”

“ Let us in preference study one of the most eminently progressive of all the communities that have existed. Let us take an example quite different from any that can be drawn from Oriental life, but almost equally contrasted with any that can be found among ourselves; and let us, with the aid of it, examine the respective effects of leisure and of hurry upon the culture of the community. ”

“ Once and again we have noted how from the everyday life of action—the Town proper of our terminology—there arises the corresponding subjective world—the Schools of thought, which may express itself sooner or later in schools of education. The types of people, their kinds and styles of work, their whole environment, all become represented in the mind of the community, and these react upon the individuals, their activities, their place itself. ”

“ The scope and method of the mores. In the present work the proposition to be maintained is that the folkways are the widest, most fundamental, and most important operation by which the interests of men in groups are served, and that the process by which folkways are made is the chief one to which elementary societal or group phenomena are due. The life of society consists in making folkways and applying them. The science of society might be construed as the study of them. ”

“ Now let us suppose that in each country a centre of communication were to be established, by means of which such persons could come into contact with each other, and that at each such centre a journal or newspaper were to be established, by means of which such persons could exchange their thoughts;—not a centre from which supreme wisdom was to be dispensed and from whence dogmas were to be doled out for the unthinking believers; but a centre through which the thought of the members of the society could freely flow ”

“ It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. ”

“ He is no doubt furnished with a few facts from observation. It is his province to interpret those facts, to inform them with life, and to infer the unknown from the known. It is thus discoveries are made which are the sublimest efforts of human genius. ”

“ When we pass out of this room, presently, and touch the great outside world once more, what shall we find? How soon will it be generally known that a section of the community—a larger section, maybe, than we conceive possible—has been silently, suddenly, secretly taken from our midst? ”

“ It has its distinctive intellectual life and displays considerable economic activity. This community, then, with its town and country population, its political, religious and social organisations, its own language, its own customs, its own life, has in fact `national' characteristics. ”

“ Thus the formation of society as well as the creation of state, organisation of education as well as the cultivation of letters, the institution of religious practices as well as the foundation of institutions, in fact, all aspects of human life, are influenced and modified by the social and physical atmosphere in which man is placed, and vary with the varying circumstances that diversify it. ”

“ It is unique in that so many lands have delegated their choicest intellects to carry on its work. They come from the country to which our republic is indebted for a third of its territory, including the ground on which we stand; from the land which has taught us that the most scholarly devotion to the languages and learning of the cloistered past is compatible with leadership in the practicable application of modern science to the arts of life ”

“ An acquaintance of the literature of a society or a country is of prime importance for the understanding of that society or country, because the consciousness of the soul of a society or country, because the consciousness of the soul of a society gets reflected in its literature also. ”