Rhetorical Science [pp. 660-678]

RHETORICAL SCIENCE.
colleges, it will be second to no other in the whole curriculum
either in intellectual profit or pleasure.
This leads us to remark, in conclusion, that we know of no
study within the compass of a liberal culture, that has deserved
so well and fared so badly as the study of Rhetoric, which is due
to an entire misunderstanding of the department. Defined as
the Art of Ornamentation, thousands have discarded it who rest
contented with the subject matter. Defined as a Formal
Science, and this only, thousands more have betaken themselves to the sciences called material, i. e. of actual being or
substance. Defined as the Art of Criticism, thousands still
have abandoned words for things, and this has all been done
under the supposition that rhetorical science had no relations
to subject-matter, the material sciences and ideas behind the
words. Even the teacher of literature often strangely dissevers it from his instructions as not included therein, and
many a master of the science gives plausibility to this monstrous error by his ignorance of literature and the consequent
severance of his teaching therefrom. If Rhetoric be a Science,
it is a science whose principles are based on all that is natural;
if a Formal Science, it is a science of the forms of nature; if
the Art of Expression at all, it is the art of the expression of
thought, and if it is not Literature itself, it is prerequisite to it,
inherent in it, and abides therein as its full expression. Thus
conceived, it will rise at once from the present status as suited
for juveniles only, to its proper position of dignity before the
professional and popular mind. "I hold it to be an error" says
Bacon "that scholars come too soon and too unripe to logic and
rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than novices. For these two
rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences, being the arts of arts.
They be the rules and directions how to set forth and dispose
miatter, and therefore for minds empty and unfraught with mat ter, and which have not gathered that which Cicero calls sylva
and supellex,-stuff and variety,-these arts are useless." We
wish we could succeed in ingrafting upon the national mind this
Baconian idea, that the basis of Rhetorical Science is "mental
stuff;" that there is, as we say of a sterling article in the mar kets, a body to it; that it has content and consistency as well
as outline. Here we find the point of confluence for allacad ernie,
collegiate, and professional culture, and all our personal capa 43
1874.]
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