Book Description

Title:

An Essay of the Evils of Popular Ignorance: and A Discourse on the Communication of Christianity to the People of Hindoostan

Author:

John Foster [1770-1843]

Publication Year:

1834

Location:

London

Publisher:

Holdsworth and Ball

Pages:

510

Subjects:

Christian Mission, India

Copyright Holder:

Public domain

Contents

1. Defect of sensibility in the view of the unhappiness of mankind—Ignorance one grand cause of thnt unhappiness—lgnorance prevalent among the ancient Jewish people—Its injnrious operationnnd ultimately destructive consequence—More extended consideration of ignorance as the cause of misery among the ancient heathens
2. Brief review of the ignorance prevailing—through the ages subsequent to those of ancient history—State of the popular mind in Christendom during the complete reign of Popery—Supposed reflections of a Protestant in one of our ancient splendid structures for ecclesiastical use—Slow progress of the Reformation, in its effects on the understandings of the people—Their barborous ignorance even in the time of Elizabeth, notwithstanding the intellectual and literary glories of this country in that period—Sunk in ignorance still in the boasted age of Addison, Pope, &c.—Strange insensibility of the cultivated part of the nation with regard to the mental and moral condition of the rest—Almost heathen ignorance of Religion at the time when Whitefield and Wesley began to excite the attention of the multitude to that subject—Signs and means of a change for the better in recent times
3. Great ignorance and debasement still manifest in various features of the popular character—Entire want, in early life, of any idea of general and comprehensive purpose to be pursued—Gratification of the senses the chief good—Cruelty a subsidiary resource—Disposition to cruelty displayed and confirmed by common practices—Confirmed especially by the manner of slaughtering animals destined for food—Displayed in the abuse of the labouring aoimals—General characteristic of the people an indistinct and faint sense of right and wrong—Various exemplifications—Dishonour to our country that the people should have remained in such a condition—Effects of their ignorance as appearing in several parts of the economy of life; in their ordinary occupations; in their manner of spending their leisure time, including the Sunday; in the state of domestic society; consequences of this last as seen in the old age of parents—The lower classes placed by their want of education out of amicable communication with the higher—Unhappy and dangerous consequences of tbis—Great decline of the respect which in former times the people felt toward the higher classes and the existing order of the community—Progress of a contrary spirit
4. Objection, that a material increase of knowledge and intelligence among the people would render them unfit for their station, and discontented with it; would excite them to insubordination and arrogance toward their superiors; and make them the more liable to be seduced by the wild notions and pernicious machinations of declaimers, schemers, and innovators—Observations in answer—Special and striking absurdity of this objection in one important particular—Evidence from matter of fact that the improvement of the popular understanding has not the tendency alleged—The special regard meant to be had to religious instruction in the education desired for the lower classes, a security against their increased knowledge being perverted into an excitement lo insubordination and disorder—Absurdity of the notion that an improved education of the common people ought to consist of instruction specifically and almost solely religious—The diminutive quantity of religious as well as other knowledge, to which the people would be limited by some zealous advocates of order and subordination, utterly inadequate to secure those objects—But, question what is to be understood by order and subordination—Increased knowledge and sense in the people certainly not favourable to a credulous confidence and a passive unconditional aubmission, on their part, toward the presiding classes in the community—Advantage, to a wise and upright government, of having intelligent subjects—Great effect which a general improvement among the people would necessarily have on the manner of their being govemed—The people arrived, in this age, at a state which renders it impracticable to preserve national tranquillity without improving their minds end making some concessions to their claims—Folly and probable calamity of an obstinate resolution to maintain subordination in the nations of Europe in the arbitrary and despotic manner of former times—Facility and certain success of a better system
5. Extreme poverty of Religious Knowledge among the uneducated people: Their notions respecting God, Providence, Jesus Christ, the invisible world—Fatal effect of their went of mental discipline as causing an inaptitude to receive religious information—Exemplifications—in a supposed experiment of religious instruction in a friendly visit to a numerous uneducated family; in the stupidity and thoughtlessness often betrayed in attendance on public religious services; in the impossibility of imparting religious truths, with any degree of clearness, to ignorant persons when alarmed into some serious concern by sickness; in the insensibility and invincible delusion sometimes retained in the near approach to death—Rare instances of the admirable efficacy of religion to animate and enlarge the faculties, even in the old age of an ignorant man—Excuses for the intellectual ineptitude end perversion of uncultivated religious minds—Animadversions on religious teachers
6. Supposed method of verifying the preceding representation of the ignorance of the people—Renewed expressions of wonder and mortification that this should be the true description of the English nation—Prodigious exertions of this nation for the accomplishment of objects foreign to the improvement of the people—Effects which might have resulted from far less exertion and resource applied to that object—The contrast between what has been done and what might have been done, by the exertion of the national strength, exrosed in a series of parallel representations—Total unconcern, till a recent period, of the generality of persons in the higher classes, respecting the mental state of the populace—Indications of an important change in the manner of estimating them—Measures attempted and projected for their improvement—Sorne of these measures and methods insignificant in the esteem of projectors of merely political schemes for the amendment of the popular condition—But questions to those projectors on the efficacy of such schemes—Most desirable, nevertheless, that the political systems and the governing powers of states could be converted to promote so grand a purpose—But expostulations addressed to those who, desponding of this aid, despond therefore of the object itself—Incitement to individual exertion—Reference to the sublimest Example—Imputation of extravagant hope—Repelled; first, by a full acknowledgment how much the hopes of sober-minded projectors of improvement are limited by what they see of the disorder in the essential constitution of our nature; and next, by a plain statement, in a aeries of particulars, of what they nevertheless judge it rational to expect from a general extension of good education.Answer to the question, whether it be presumed that any merely human discipline can reduce its subjects under the predominance of religion—Answer to the inquiry, what is the extent of the knowledge of which it is desired to put the common people in posession—Observations on supposed degrees of possible advancement of the knowledge and welfare of the community; with reflections of astonishment and regret at the actual state of ignorance, degradation, and wretchedness, after so many thousand years have passed away—Congratulatory notice of those worthy individuals who have been rescued from the consequences of a neglected education by their own resolute mental exertions

• A Discourse, &c.

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