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seum, lectures, which we hope to see concentrated here, point to this as their issue-Intellectual Improvement. And this in order to our individual proficiency in our several callings, and, as a consequence of this, again, our general social advancement. In the light of this consideration, therefore, I have chosen the topic upon which I would offer a few remarks, it is this: the right way to make a good use of this Institution. Because it is well that we should remind ourselves how possible it is for a person to make great use of it, and yet not a good use, or at least not the best use, of it. He may be always taking out books and reading them, visiting the museum and surveying its contents, listening to lectures, and heaping up in his mind a large amount of facts-those facts, the cognisance of which, if properly disciplined, constitutes what we call useful knowledge; and yet, for lack of the secret how to digest his facts, he may fail of any solid benefit. It may be advantageous, therefore, to consider what is the way, or at all events one way, to make our knowledge useful,—that is to say, practically available to us. Now, may I venture on a familiar illustration. The other evening, our gallant friend, the Quartermaster General of the Army, was so good as to show me over a garden of considerable extent, which he has in hand at one extremity of this cantonment. There was a spacious central walk, and leading off from this a variety of side-walks, and beds of flowers, and flowering shrubs, and fruit trees, and a spot for the cultivation of vegetables-all admirably arranged, and set in due order and relation to each other; the whole promising ere long to form an addition to this station as ornamental as useful. But what if, instead of laying a plan, and adhering to it, he had taken his flowers, and shrubs, and trees, and vegetables, just as they came to hand, and deposited them one after another in succession, and without arrangement, until his ground was full? Instead of a garden, a jungle would have been the result. Now, it strikes me, that in our acquirement of knowledge we must follow very much the method of this garden. We must have a central walk, our one chief study, and

adjust our pursuit of other subjects in relation to that chosen one. Men who neglect to do this may go on gathering from this book and from that, from one source of information and another, an accumulated mass of materials; but their minds, I fear, will be apt to grow into something very like an intellectual jungle. Whereas, by selecting one main path of inquiry, and following that out, and collecting from all sides whatever may offer, but arranging all in the mind's eye, and planting it in the memory, in connection with the central subject of all, we set everything in place--and unity, and symmetry, and utility follow. It may be said, as an objection to this, that its tendency will be to make a man a man of one idea,-to give him a hobby, and to narrow his field of knowledge, instead of enlarging it. I must say that I do not think so, but rather the reverse. And this because the truth is, there will always be found such an affinity between the different departments of knowledge, you cannot intelligently handle one without more or less touching many more. Those different departments of knowledge are, in fact, like the several pieces of the dissected maps with which, when children, we used to amuse ourselves. They dove-tail in such a way, that you must gather round any single piece another and another, or you fail to get an intelligible whole. To give an instance of what I mean: suppose any one to say that he will make the history of his own country-the history of England-his choice. See how many subjects are so allied to this, that he must necessarily go to some extent into them also. He must begin with a review of the later Roman empire; the period of its dissolution into separate kingdoms-the rise, in fact, of European modern history. Then, as years pass on, and continental wars occur, or continental alliances, he must obtain some acquaintance with the political circumstances of other countries, such as France, and Germany, and Italy, and Spain. Then, too, he must learn a little about law, beginning with the laws of ancient Rome, the foundations of our own, and observing the modifications and additions made to our first statutes, to meet the requirements of

following ages. Then he must note, especially of later years, the develop ment of art, and the progress of science. Colonisation, too, and the history of our world-wide settlements, will come in at the same time. And how can

he omit poetry? Who can rightly know the history of his land, especially its social history, without the light which her poets shed upon it? And last, not least, he must enter on the sacred province of religion. How deeply interwoven is that subject with all history, in all time? And so, without becoming himself a theologian, or a poet, or a savan, or a statesman, or a lawyer, I mean without pretending to proficiency in any of these departments, -yet, how unavoidable it is, that, in his study of the English annals as his chief object, he should gain a certain measure of intelligence on all these other topics also. Instead of that one chief inquiry becoming a hobby, and making him a man of one idea, he finds himself compelled to take in a considerable circle of other, yet allied inquiries, with it, or he cannot follow it aright.

Take another instance in illustration. Some persons, and especially young persons, are greatly attracted by books of travel; and a most engaging study this is, particularly in a day when our literature is so rich in contributions of this kind. But see to what it leads. If any one would read books of travel with advantage, of course he must be conversant with geography, both physical and political. Then, he will find that he must get some acquaintance with the history of the countries through which he is led prior to the period of his travellers' accounts. Without this, he will miss very much of the interest of his reading. Take, for example, this country. Who can enter into the narratives of travel in India, unless he knows a little, and may be not a little, of the past political changes of a land whose history stretches back into periods so remote? Ethnology, too, will force itself on his attention: the varied races of mankind-their origin, their differences, physical and mental, their habits, usages, and peculiarities; these must be known, in order to make the travellers' pictures, thoroughly intelligible and instructive. Languages, too,

will sometimes require to be looked into, to make the reader master of his subject. And thus it is, that if any one means to make books of travel his chosen study, he must, in order to benefit by them, be drawn on to these and other kindred subjects; and a wonderful and enticing attraction they will gain for him, as they mutually reflect upon each other.

Take one more instance. Some minds are captivated, and not without good cause, by natural history. Now this is a pursuit which of course binds up into itself numerous subdivisions of the animal, the mineral, and the vegetable worlds. But not only so; it carries its votary on to the confines, and over the confines, of other great fields of science. For example--chemistry, botany, geology, meet the naturalist at every turn ; he cannot overlook them.

And thus, then, I answer the objection, that to choose any one special subject, and to range all others in their relationship to it, tends to make a man narrow in his views. On the contrary, I contend, that to follow out his one subject well, he must, as a matter of necessity, give his attention to others also. Only, by having that one main study, what he gains is this-that, instead of crowding his garden with unassorted products, gathered here and there, and thrown together in a sort of chance-medley, he gets them all into order, keeps them in place, and derives a definite, instead of a generalised and undistinguishing, gratification from them.

But now, I can imagine some one of our younger friends-and I could wish to see more of them among us, as I trust we shall do on future occasions-ready to exclaim that I am dreaming! -that I am proposing to him what is altogether out of his power; that, when his proper duties have been attended to, he has no leisure left for these intellectual tasks which I would lay upon him. Again I must beg to differ. We know what may be done by men in India, and busy men too, by simply remembering what has been already done. Sir William Jones-had he not always enough of official duty on his hands? And yet, see, in the course of years, what acquisitions he made of well

digested lore, and brilliant accomplishment. And, to overleap I know not how many distinguished names between his time and ours, look at such a man as Sir Henry Rawlinson-a name, it may be thought, not to be ranked with that of Sir William Jones; but, if so, only the more suitable, perhaps, for our purpose was then not here a man whose hands were always full? And yet what stores of learning, ancient and modern, has he carried with him home? Yes, it will be rejoined, but all men are not such men. Well, we grant it. I remember the late Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, Sir James Stephen, remarking, in a lecture, that since the creation there have been only three men in whom it was not shameless effrontery to say that they "took all knowledge for their province." Those three men were Solomon, Aristotle, and Bacon. "But as to other men," the Professor went on to say, "they, if they would know one thing well, must be willing to remain ignorant of many things." Be it so, then

and let us be content to put ourselves into this class.

Still, I am sure of this, that if any young man will but earnestly begin such a course of intellectual improvement as has now been suggested,-if he will but give to it steadily one hour a day, he will find before long that his mental condition is changing. He will find that there is a work of accretion, if I may so call it, going on in his mind, with surprising rapidity. He will find that treasures of knowledge, one after another, are being added to him, he scarcely knows how. And before many years are past, he will gladly and thankfully call to remembrance the day which saw him enter on an endeavour from which he has reaped so much pleasure and advantage. Nor let him be deterred by the thought that studies such as we have spoken of have nothing to do with his particular profession, and can therefore be of no use to him. It is a fallacy. All knowledge must be of use. In every profession, in every calling, the best-informed man is invariably, cæteris paribus, the most efficient man. Whether with soldier or civilian, this maxim will constantly prove true-Knowledge is

always power; Ignorance is always incapacity. How many have found this out to their cost, when it has been too late for them to profit by the discovery! How many a one, who in his youth did nothing to improve his mind, in riper years has had the mortification to see himself distanced and outrun by others far his juniors, just because they were possessed of mental acquirements which he had not. Let no one of us, and especially no young person, expect that he can be negligent of mental culture, and not suffer for it at some future day. But this is a selfish motive to urge. We surely have higher considerations to animate us. Is it nothing to aid in the general improvement of the society in which we move, or of the profession to which we belong? What is a society ?-and what is a profession? Is it not a body of men who are, as a body, just what the individuals composing it make it to be? It rises, or it sinks, exactly in proportion to the number of its wellinformed or ill-informed members. And ought we not, then, to have some ambition to raise the tone and character of the community in which we live? I am quite aware that the mere bookworm will not do this; but I am equally sure that the non-reading man, or the trash-reading man, will not do it. But let only a few men in any given circle, with but an ordinary share of common sense, and persevering diligence, apply their own minds to a systematic selfimprovement, and we can all predict what the effect on others around them will be.

We

Surely, then, there is something like responsibility in this matter. Surely we all are answerable to society--answerable to one another-for the condition of our own minds, and its moral effect on other minds. owe it to our fellows, all of us, to set the example, not of being drones in the social hive, but working bees; aiding and stimulating our companions each to add his quota to the stock of honied intelligence which is to be the common property of all. May I not go a step further? Is there not a responsibility of a far higher description? To whom do we stand indebted for the mind, which makes the difference between us

and the brutes that perish? And are
we not accountable to that Almighty
Power for the use which we make of
the faculties with which He has endow-
ed us ? Consider what those faculties
can reach.
Where is the region in all
this universe to which they cannot
gain access? And, gaining access
there, to whom is it that they approach?
Converse with Nature-is it not con-
verse with Nature's GOD? Or where,
again, is the period of this world's past
history to which these minds of ours
may not carry their investigations ?
And what is history but the track of
that Providence, which, seated high
above the changes and chances, the
toils and strifes, of human existence,
orders all things after the counsel of its
own will? And is it nothing to have
been created admissible to a walk so
elevated ?-nothing, in one word, to be
capable of following where all nature,
and all history, rightly understood,
must lead-even to Him "in whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge"?

rested in the subject, I know not; certain it is, that the general public hear very little indeed of their researches, and, beyond the quartermaster general's office, care very little in these times of peace for the results. But it is surely wise to take any interest possible in the place one lives in. It is important to have an object sufficiently powerful to induce one to take a long ride in the jungle. It is something to get away among the hills; and surely it helps on work, when the mind is now and then lifted out of its wellworn rut, and made to run a while in a different direction. But, when the object of pursuit is one which combines more acquaintance with Mahratta history, with visits to all that is loveliest in Mahratta scenery, it is surely worth an effort in its attainment.

Besides, every man should have an object for his hours of recreation: those who do not hunt hogs or steeples, may be allowed to hunt forts.

Ever since I came to the Deccan, its forts have afforded me an object of

But I check myself; the lecture must interesting inquiry. The desire to unnot pass into the sermon.

I could wish that what I have offered you, Ladies and Gentlemen, had been more worthy of your acceptance; but I rejoice to think that I shall be followed by others far more competent to claim attention from you.

HILL-FORTS OF THE DECCAN.

A LECTURE, DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNITED

SERVICE INSTITUTION OF WESTERN INDIA,

POONA, BY THE REV. F. GELL.

derstand them has led me to take an interest in what is often felt to be rather a dreary study-Mahratta history, of which they are themselves the key. Oriental annals are most often dull or painful. A monotony of murder is their most permanent material, seldom relieved by heroism in the murdered or the murderers. But, amid the crowd of slaves and tyrants who tried in vain for so many centuries to rule this unhappy country, WESTERN INDIA, happy country, the strong individuality of the great Sivaji Maharaj stands out in sharp relief. Englishmen know but little of him, except as the perpetrator of two or three astounding treacheries. But there remain indications enough that Sivaji was a really great man. Nearer than any man of his day or his country, he approached the lofty character of a patriot. The history of his life- -a life led amid these scenes, and materially affected by them—is a romance, which only waits a Walter Scott to make it vie in interest with those of Bruce or Douglas. Sivaji was a man of forts. Born in a fort, dying in a fort, he was, mentally and physically, formed to make the most of them. Fancy a wiry little man, with an eagle

IN selecting, as the subject of a lecture in this preliminary course, the HillForts of the Deccan, I confess my object was rather to interest than to instruct. The only right by which I presume to address an audience chiefly military, on such a military topic, is simply the deep interest I have felt in it myself. There are gentlemen here, who, in the exercise of their professional duties, have visited more Deccan forts than I have, understand their fortifications better, and have observed them with more care. But, whether it is that they feel a natural objection to talking about their own duties, or a fear lest others would not feel inte

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