The dictum in question is generally quoted as an educational formula in favour of giving every one what is called a sound general education.  And it is probably one of the contributory causes which account for the present chaos of curricula.  All subjects are held to be so important, and each subject is thought by its professors to be so peculiarly adapted for educational stimulus, that a resolute selection of subjects, which is the only remedy, is not attempted; and accordingly the victim of educational theories is in the predicament of the man described by Dr. Johnson who could not make up his mind which leg of his breeches he would put his foot into first.  Meanwhile, said the Doctor, with a directness of speech which requires to be palliated, the process of investiture is suspended.

But the practical result of the dilemma is the rise of specialism.  The savant is dead and the specialist rules.  It is interesting to try to trace the effect of this revolution upon our national culture.

Now, I have no desire whatever to take up the cudgels against the specialists:  they are a harmless and necessary race, so long as they are aware of their limitations.  But the tyranny of an oligarchy is the worst kind of tyranny, because it means the triumph of an average over individuals, whereas the worst that can be said of a despotism is that it is the triumph of an individual over an average.  The tyranny of the specialistic oligarchy is making itself felt to-day, and I should like to fortify the revolutionary spirit of liberty, whose boast it is to detest tyranny in all its forms, whether it is the tyranny of an enlightened despot, or the tyranny of a virtuous oligarchy, or the tyranny of an intelligent democracy.

The first evil which results from the rule of the specialist is the destruction of the amateur.  So real a fact is the tyranny of the specialist that the very word “amateur,” which means a leisurely lover of fine things, is beginning to be distorted into meaning an inefficient performer.  As an instance of its correct and idiomatic use, I often think of the delightful landlord whom Stevenson encountered somewhere, and upon whom he pressed some Burgundy which he had with him.  The generous host courteously refused a second glass, saying, “You see I am an amateur of these things, and I am capable of leaving you not sufficient.”  Now, I shall concern myself here principally with literature, because, in England at all events, literature plays the largest part in general culture.  It may be said that we owe some of the best literature we have to amateurs.  To contrast a few names, taken at random, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Dr. Johnson, De Quincey, Tennyson, and Carlyle were professionals, it is true; but, on the other hand, Milton, Gray, Boswell, Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, Shelley, Browning, and Ruskin were amateurs.  It is not a question of how much a man writes or publishes, it is a question of the spirit in which a man writes.