Two Kinds of Knowledge.
By S. S. Times
KNOWLEDGE of what is, is one thing; and knowledge of what people think about that which is, is another and a very different thing. A true system of education will admit a due proportion of both kinds of knowledge—knowledge of the thing itself, and knowledge of the range of opinion concerning that thing. There is nothing mutually antagonistic in these two kinds of knowledge; and yet, as human methods go, they are often made to face each other from hostile camps. Here we have a good old minister—a scholar after the old fashion—who is thoroughly familiar with the text of the Pentateuch, and who neither knows, nor cares to know, what the modern critics think of the books of Moses. There, on the other side, is a young student who is weak in his knowledge of the original text, but who can tell you, roughly, the opinions of each of the modern critics concerning the Pentateuch, from Astruc to Kuenen. As a matter of real knowledge, the old minister's acquaintanceship with the Pentateuch must take a higher rank than that of the young student; yet in the practical world, the latter may pass for a brilliant scholar who has a right to have an opinion of his own in biblical criticism, while the former may be reckoned simply as an old fogy. This is not as it should be. Where a choice must be made, knowledge of the thing itself is to be preferred before knowledge of opinions concerning that thing. The first, without the second, is a real knowledge, though an incomplete knowledge; the second, without the first, is a mere parrot show of knowledge. And this affords a practical hint. When next you meet a loud-voiced young man who proclaims to all hearers his disbelief in the Mosaic writings, on account of his profound knowledge of modern criticism, just take him into a quiet corner of the room, and propound to him softly this question: "My dear young friend, when did you last read the Pentateuch in the original Hebrew?"—S. S. Times.