"Acquirement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... place where shipping anchored) possessed all the evils and allurements of a sea port of some standing, and from which, if once they got into huts, they would be with difficulty removed when wanted; they pleaded the acquirement of comforts, of which, in fact, it would be painful though absolutely necessary to deprive them. At once to do away therefore the possibility of any attachment to this part of the colony, the governor gave directions for their being immediately sent from the ship ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... man of vast acquirement, with a great flow of ideas, but tasteless, and void of all judgment. An anecdote may be recorded of him, which puts in a clear light the state of these literary men. Raynaud was one day pressing hard a reluctant bookseller to publish one of his works, who replied—"Write ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... diseases, with new vices, and with a varied assortment of illegitimate half-breed children to support. The Indian remains, usually in diminished numbers, with impaired character, with lowered physique, with the tag-ends of the white man's blackguardism as his chief acquirement in English—but ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... grandeur and beauty that this infinite may possess would fall to its portion; it would only be incoherent, inactive, and vague. Whereas by seeking it in ourselves, where it truly is; by observing it there, listening to it, marking how it profits by every acquirement of our mind, every joy and sorrow of our heart, we soon shall learn what we best had do ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... talks like poor Poll." Franklin was by no means a bungler in his speech, but he was not fluent. He hesitated, and was at a loss for words, but whatever he wrote had a wonderful flow of harmony. The right word was always in the right place. Doubtless had he devoted as much attention to the acquirement of conversational ease, as he did to skill in writing, he would have been as successful in the one art as in the other. From early life it was his great ambition to be not merely a fine but a forcible writer. He did not seek splendor of diction, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the sort, which might have been more appropriately called the "Pleasures of a Single Man," seeing that the work had more to do with the hero's hopeless love for a fair damsel, and his hours at clubs, cafes, and other places of amusement in which I had no special interest, than it did with the acquirement of literature. Thus, with the delusive idea that I was to be ushered into some of the secret enjoyments of the pleasing diversion of book-buying, I presently found myself more familiar with the habits, vices, and various unimportant matters of the ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... large upon the cultivation of the favor of great men; and concludes with a few words concerning the acquirement of peace of mind. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... situation requires the strictest application and on this account it is a valuable factor in the acquirement of ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... developed unless a man has acquired diction and come in contact with style, for all the arts rest on the imitation of accepted models. Many students in all schools of journalism come from immigrant families and are both inconceivably ignorant of English and inconceivably satisfied with their acquirement of English, as we all are with a strange tongue we have learned to speak. Even in families with two or more generations of American life, the vocabulary is limited, construction careless, and the daily ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... fine and far-spreading view so suddenly and so close to bricks and mortar. Alas! the latter are fast encroaching upon this delightful but somewhat neglected spot, and unless the Croydonians are wise enough to secure the acquirement of the summit of the hill as a public open space, this splendid view will be entirely ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... make that aim her first thought—for surely the satisfaction of the feeling that one has succeeded in training one's own children to high ideals and the attainment of happiness would be greater in old age than any gratification from the acquirement of social ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... Royal Society might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations of the schoolmen; not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy;" but though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed since the great fire, its effects were "writ in water," so far as our social ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... that of the Greek youth in being more practical. The Laws of the Twelve Tables were committed to memory; and rhetoric and oratory were given special attention, as a mastery of the art of public speaking was an almost indispensable acquirement for the Roman citizen who aspired to take a prominent part ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... development, or after the completion of the development any one of the inborn characters of an individual is modified by some occurrence, the change thus produced is known as an acquired character, or, shortly, as an acquirement. ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... by no means brilliant as a conversationist, where poetry, literature, or the fine arts were concerned, could talk freely, and with good sense, too, in her own family circle. She cannot justly be called a romantic person: nor were her literary acquirement great: she never opened a Shakspeare from the day she left the stage, nor, indeed, understood it during all the time she adorned the boards: but about a pudding, a piece of needle-work, or her own domestic affairs, she was as good a judge as ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Learning — N. learning; acquisition of knowledge &c 490, acquisition of skill &c 698; acquirement, attainment; edification, scholarship, erudition; acquired knowledge, lore, wide information; self- instruction; study, reading, perusal; inquiry &c 451. apprenticeship, prenticeship[obs3]; pupilage, pupilarity[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... this charming pastoral scene? This azure earth, this verdant sky, this lovely maid who combined in her person all the simpering charms of youth, and never, for one misguided moment, troubled her ochre head over the acquirement of that higher knowledge which, as we all know, is the proud prerogative of man! What price shall I say for 'The Maiden's Dream'? No bids! Put it down if you please, Joshua. We have no art collectors with us to- night. Let me have ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... For example, cinchonine and quinine both afford the basic quinoline under certain conditions, but on oxidation of cinchonine, an acid—cinchoninic acid (C{10}H{7}NO{2})—is the principal body formed, while in the case of quinine, quininic acid (C{10}H{9}NO{3}) is the principal product. The acquirement through experiment of such knowledge as that is, however, so much gained. We find, indeed, that obstacles are gradually being cleared away, and the actual synthetic formation of such alkaloids as piperidine and coniine is a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... The people coming to us from all the peasant classes of Europe and the East have many of them lacked also the chance to be drilled in the things that belong to private and personal habit demanded by our civilization. It may be that for such the public school is the only medium for the belated acquirement of such habits; but if publicity in drill and lack of reserve and modesty be the price paid for wholesale instruction it may injure those with good breeding at command in their own homes by lowering their standards, ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... right; and it would be a happy thing for girls in general, if somewhat of appearance, and of acquirement too, was sacrificed to what God has so liberally provided, and to the enjoyment of which a blessing is undoubtedly annexed. Where, among females, do we find the stamina of constitution and the elasticity of spirit ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... assistance of twelve men to put him in the saddle again whenever he fell from his horse. Yet slow fighter as he was, he was a most nimble intriguer. As for his private character, it was notoriously stained with every vice, nor was there enough of natural intelligence or superior acquirement to atone for his, crapulous; licentious, shameless life. His military efficiency at important emergencies was impaired and his life endangered by vile diseases. He was covetous and greedy beyond what was considered decent even in that cynical age. He received subsidies and alms with both ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that men who sacrificed their friends, their family, and their native land to a religious conviction were absorbed in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the acquirement of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as liberties of the world, is scarcely inferior to that with which ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... within the limits of our own land, the gulf made by education between the higher and the lower layers of our community—I speak not of higher and lower in regard to wealth or station, but in regard to intellectual acquirement and capacity—are greater than, perhaps, they ever were in the past. But yet over the gulf a bridge is thrown, and the gulf itself is being filled up. High above all the superficial distinctions which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... actual want of cultivation," said Mrs. Evelyn, warming;—"time taken up with other things, you know,—usefully and properly, but still taken up,—so as to make much intellectual acquirement and accomplishments impossible; it can't be otherwise, you know,—neither opportunity nor instructors; and I don't think anything can supply the want in after life—it isn't the mere things themselves which may be acquired—the mind should grow up in the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... He joined in the class excursions and found them delightful. But still more profitable to him were the long and almost daily walks which he enjoyed with his teacher, during the latter half of his time at Cambridge. Henslow's wide range of acquirement, modesty, unselfishness, courtesy, gentleness, and piety, fascinated him and exerted on him an influence which, more than anything else, tended to shape his whole future life. The love of travel which had been kindled by his boyish reading, now ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener's countenance. At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... which we carry on simply in order to achieve social perfection, but it is rather something which is necessary for the survival of large and complex groups. Otherwise, as we have pointed out, the conflicts in the acquirement of habit and character on the part of individuals would be so great that there would be no possibility of their working together harmoniously in a common social life. Just so far as the system of education is defective, is insufficient to meet social needs, in ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... species and varieties, and from the principle of general gradation, that species have been modified; and he attributes the modification to the change of circumstances. The author (1855) has also treated Psychology on the principle of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... much to Mrs. Clayton's delight and edification, for the benefit of my own lungs, which suffered from such confirmed silence, as I had at first indulged in. His exquisite ear—his prodigious memory—aided him in the acquirement of words, and even long and difficult sentences, of which he delivered himself oracularly when engaged with his ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... major-domo—he lost the contemptuous "Christaudins!" that hissed from a footboy's lips, and the "Southern dogs!" that died in the moustachios of a bully in the livery of the King's brother. He was engaged in finding the steward, and in aiding him to cloak his mistress; then with a ruffling air, a new acquirement, which he had picked up since he came to Paris, he made a way for her through the crowd. A moment, and the three, followed by half a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches, detached themselves from the throng, and crossing the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... now skillfully produced, especially in the food crops, which are more evidently their own. I let them go ahead very much as they choose; I make regulations for the good of all, as in the matter of carts, oxen, etc., but the minutiae I do not meddle with, except as a matter of curiosity and acquirement of knowledge. They work well, some of them harder than in the old time; the lazy ones are stimulated to exertion for their own benefit, the energetic ones ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... melting his hearers. His graceful attitudes, significant gestures, perfect intonation, and impressive pauses, when the lifted finger, and flashing eye told more than utterance, were the result of sleepless toil; while his high acquirement was the product of stern habitual thought, study of man, and ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... liquid is employed, the refrigerating action is produced by the change in physical state from the liquid to the vaporous form. It is, of course, well known that such a change can only be brought about by the acquirement of heat; and for the purpose of refrigeration (by which must be understood the abstraction of heat at temperatures below the normal) it is obvious that, other things being equal, that liquid is the best which has the highest ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... 'So necessary is the acquirement of this horizontal speed, even in commencing flight, that most heavy birds, when possible, rise against the wind, and even run at the top of their speed to make their wings available, as in the example of the eagle, mentioned at the commencement of this paper. It is stated that the Arabs, on horseback, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... must have originated from their common ancestor must be quite different from the mode of origin of the varieties. We have assumed that the first come into existence by the production of something new, by the acquirement of a character hitherto unnoticed in the line of their ancestors. On the contrary, varieties, in most cases, evidently owe their origin to the loss of an already existing character, or in other less frequent cases, to the re-assumption of a quality ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... FOX, as in after life, is here pre-eminent. Adjoining the upper end is another room, called "the library," in which there is not a book, but there is "the block," which speaks volumes; and as a library may, by a little forcing, be defined to be a chamber set apart for the acquirement of learning, this ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... be married!" he sighed, for his last wife had been dead long enough to have blotted out in his amiable mind the recollection of her tongue, and he was thinking over the acquirement of ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... born in London, in the year 1573. He sprung from a Catholic family, and his mother was related to Sir Thomas More and to Heywood the epigrammatist. He was very early distinguished as a prodigy of boyish acquirement, and was entered, when only eleven, of Harthall, now Hertford College. He was designed for the law, but relinquished the study when he reached nineteen. About the same time, having studied the controversies between the Papists and Protestants, he deliberately went over to the latter. He next ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... silent rumination—a few moments brought our Heroes to the Horse Guards; and as the acquirement "devoutly to be wished" was a general knowledge of metropolitan manners, they proceeded to the observance of Real Life ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... hunter;—thus spending only on the lower creatures and inanimate things his waste energy, his dullest thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving all his acuter intellect for researches into his own nature and that of the gods; all his strength of will for the acquirement of political or moral power; all his sense of beauty for things immediately connected with his own person and life; and all his deep affections ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... in praise of puzzles in the quaint letters of Fitzosborne. Here is an extract: "The ingenious study of making and solving puzzles is a science undoubtedly of most necessary acquirement, and deserves to make a part in the meditation of both sexes. It is an art, indeed, that I would recommend to the encouragement of both the Universities, as it affords the easiest and shortest method of conveying ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... thing is tolerably certain:—that the Jew merchant would, as a matter of precaution, keep all his accounts in some secret notation, or in cipher. Whether this should be a modified form of the Hebrew notation, or of the Latin, must in a great degree depend upon the amount of literary acquirement common amongst that people ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... lesser classificatory groups represent smaller sections of the one unique order of Nature. Note that Lamarck's Echelle is in no way a morphological one, and was not intended to be such. It is a scale of increasing physiological differentiation, and the stages of it are marked by the acquirement of this or that new organ (cf. Oken). "Observation of their state convinces one that in order to produce them successively Nature has proceeded gradually from the simpler to the more complex. Now Nature, having had in mind the realisation of a plan of organisation which would permit ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... Kitty began to realize what her education, as they called it, really meant. The lessons of those three years were not to be erased from her life as one would erase a mistake in a problem or a misspelled word. The tastes, habits of thought and standards of life, the acquirement of which constituted her culture, would not be denied. It was inevitable that there should be a clash between the claims of her home life and the claims of that life to which she now ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... appear to be limited by the development of statistical inquiry. Since the collection of accurate statistics, even on those matters which are most important, and which lend themselves most easily to statistical description, is a modern acquirement which has not yet widely spread over the whole world, while the capacity for classifying and making right use of statistics is still rarer, it is held by some that in a study where so much depends upon accurate statements of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... the manner of providing the capital, he had only a suggestion to offer. The five million dollars necessary for the acquirement of a controlling interest in the three short roads would be a fair investment. It could be covered immediately by a reissue—share for share—of the reorganization stock of the P. S-W., which would amply secure the investors, since ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... still higher degree called the "Forest of Pencils," which is open only to members of the Royal Academy, the Hanlin. The acquirement of this degree is the greatest honor to be attained; its possessor is highly esteemed, and may hold the highest offices in ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... take a long time to carry out; it is the work for willing women who have time and who perhaps spend that time in less desirable but more dramatic ways. It is education that is needed, and it is education that is willingly received, as all mothers are ready to devote their time in the acquirement of knowledge that will help them save their offspring. This is the eugenic opportunity and it is an opportunity that should devolve upon the women of ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... An eminent annotator observes on this passage:—"The praise of Lord Braxfield's capacity and acquirement is perhaps rather too slight. He was a very good lawyer, and a man of extraordinary sagacity, and in quickness and sureness of apprehension resembled Lord Kenyon, as well as in his ready use of his profound knowledge ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... October of that year, 1775, was the infant navy born. Mr. Carvel was occupied in the interval in the acquirement of practical seamanship and the theory of maritime warfare under the most competent of instructors, John Paul Jones. An interesting side light is thrown upon the character of that hero by the fact that, with all his supreme confidence in his ability, he applied to Congress only for a first ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... His natural abilities were above mediocrity, but having never had the advantages of an education, or the privileges of a society calculated to cultivate and refine his natural aspiring intellect, and to direct his indomitable will in the acquirement of the more imperishable graces of the human heart, he had come to manhood with a determined, selfish disposition, to accomplish whatever gratified his vanity or administered to the wants of ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... Public Schools the whole education of children is directed to the cultivation of their heads or intellectual faculties alone. The heart, with all its moral and mysterious emotions, is entirely neglected. Every mental power and acquirement is intended and directed to promote their prosperity, success, and happiness in this life; at least this is what is sought and promised as the reward of study and application. They are constantly presented with the bright side of the world. Scientific knowledge, they are taught, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... this extraordinary sentence. My mind was hopelessly lost in attempting to imagine the number of years of patient toil which must have preceded his first request for food, and I contemplated with astonishment the indefatigable perseverance which has borne him triumphant through the acquirement of such a language. If the simple request for something to eat presented such apparently insurmountable obstacles to pronunciation, what must the language be in its dealings with the more abstruse questions of theological and metaphysical science? Imagination ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... substituting principles for rules, as is exemplified in the abandonment of that intensely stupid custom, the teaching of grammar to children. But of all the changes taking place, the most significant is the growing desire to make the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than painful—a desire based on the more or less distinct perception that at each age the intellectual action which a child likes is a healthy one for it; and conversely. We are on ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... multiply, to cheapen, and to diffuse as universally as possible the comforts of life. We claim no credit for preferring these lines of investment. We make no sacrifices. These are the lines of largest and surest return. In this particular, namely, in cheapness, ease of acquirement, and universality of means of subsistence, our country easily surpasses that of any other in the world, though we are behind other countries, perhaps, in most of ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... neglected nothing. He gave his days and nights to the acquirement of various sciences. He understood anatomy better than any surgeon of his time; he knew history like a Benedictine, and the antiquities of Rome as a botanist does his favourite flora. But architecture was the art which he esteemed most essential to a painter; and accordingly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... was a rationalist and a residuum. Very much of him, too much perhaps, had gone into the acquirement and perfect performance of the caecal operation; the man one met in the social world was what was left over. It had the effect of being quiet, but in its unobtrusive way knobby. He had a knobby brow, with an air about it of having recently been intent, and his conversation ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... I will tell you how. The great Conde, you will allow, was no fool; and the Duchesse de Longueville is cited as one of the wittiest women that ever lived. The Regent was a man who had few equals, in every kind of talent and acquirement. The Prince de Conti, who was elected King of Poland, was celebrated for his intelligence, and, in poetry, was the successful rival of La Fare and St. Aulaire. The Duke of Burgundy was learned and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... might have arisen. George understood his host's mood and respected it. Lucas drove rapidly and fiercely, with appropriate frowns and settings of cruel teeth; his mien indeed had the arrogance of the performer who, having given only a fraction of his time to the acquirement of skill, reckons that he can beat the professional who has given the whole of his time. Lucas's glances at chauffeurs who hindered his swiftness were masterpieces of high disdain, and he would accelerate, after circumventing them, with ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... is to be valued chiefly as a means of self-expression. Fourth, The senses are to be trained to accuracy as well as the hand. The child must learn how to observe what is placed before him, and to observe it truly, an acquirement which any teacher of science or art will appreciate. To work out these principles, Froebel devised his practical method of infant education, and the very name he gave to the place where his play lessons were to be used marks his purpose. No books are to be seen in a ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... in your style and manner of writing. A little more pains and a little more reading, and you will exceed Lady Mary W. Montague. Practice, however, is indispensable. The art of writing is an acquirement, as much as music ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... from Him, as garments laid away in a drawer with some preservative perfume absorb fragrance from that beside which they lie. Therefore the surest way for Christian people to become what God would have them to be, is to direct the greater part of their effort, not so much to the acquirement of individual characteristics and excellences, as to the keeping up of continuity of communion with the Master. Then the excellences will come. Astronomers, for instance, have found out that if they take a sensitive plate and lay it so as to receive the light ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Hurwitz's Grammar and Bernhard's Guide to Hebrew Students, books familiar to Cambridge men, he was soon able to read the Psalms in the original. I remember the admiration and despair I felt in witnessing Patteson's progress, and the wonder expressed by his teacher in his pupil's gift of rapid acquirement. We had some excellent introductions; amongst others, to Dr. ——, a famous theologian, with whom Patteson was fond of discussing the system and organisation of the Church in Saxony. Up to the time ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reputation, he had the opportunity of watching the whole operation of the machinery of the Company's service. His quick eye soon detected the deficiencies of the greater number of the Company's servants in command of the native language, an acquirement so valuable in possessions such as ours. He determined to acquire a knowledge of the dialects of India, not doubting that a sphere of larger utility and greater emolument would open before his efforts. The Mahratta war breaking out in 1803, Mr Hume ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... avoid working positive harm, it must be restricted within due limits of age, capacity, and subject; that it is not, therefore, the real and total present desideratum of our schools; and that, subsequently to the completion of the more purely sensuous and percipient phase of the mind, and to the acquirement of the store of simpler ideas and information, and the degree of capacity, that ought to be secured during that period—hence, from an age not later than eleven, or according as circumstances may determine, thirteen years—all ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... discriminating observer to look forward (in the majority of instances) to a disheartening result from his investigation! We are convinced that the net product of our immensely expansive, patient, and ardently sought schooling will, in a large proportion of all the cases, be found to consist in the imperfect acquirement and uncertain tenure of knowledge, upon a few rudimentary branches, often without definite understanding or habit of applying even so much to its uses, and usually without the conception or desire to make it the point of departure for life-long acquisition; and all this accompanied, too ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... us with other phenomena, which can not be fully comprehended in all their vastness without a previous acquirement of general views regarding the forces that govern the universe. Such, for instance, are the innumerable double stars, or rather suns, which revolve round one common center of gravity, and thus reveal in distant worlds the existence ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... characteristics of tone and treatment hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his first "Etudes," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen) had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of liberty was breeding projects ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... obvious evil. One could well pardon his unpleasant features, his strange voice, even his very foppery and grimace, if one found these disadvantages connected with living talent and any spark of genuine goodness. If there is nothing more than acquirement, smartness, and the affectation of philanthropy, Chorley is ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... selling I could realize a net gain of ten thousand dollars. I was doing well. I was putting by from two to three thousand dollars every year, and was in a fair way to get rich. But, as money began to accumulate, I grew more and more eager in its acquirement, and less concerned about the principles underlying every action, until I passed into a temporary state of moral blindness. I was less scrupulous about securing large advantages in trade, and would take ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... passions are strongest, and youthful temptations most powerful, we cannot but entertain painful apprehensions. Many a parent would deem it his duty to leave his son without the advantages of a liberal education, rather than thus expose him to the danger of moral shipwreck in its acquirement. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... simply as a formulation of principles, giving to action preciseness and steadiness of direction. The destruction of the enemy's fleet is the means to obtain naval control; but naval control in itself is only a means, not an object. The object of the campaign, set by the Government, was the acquirement of mastery upon the Niagara peninsula, to the accomplishment of which Brown's army was destined. Naval control would minister thereto, partly by facilitating the re-enforcement and supply of the American army, and, conversely, by impeding ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... training to do tricks. The worker does not take over what can be called experience from one task to another. He forms certain motor habits, called skill. But under the efficient methods of scientific management the acquirement of this skill is robbed even of the educational value that it had under the unscientific method of factory work, which within its limited field, left the worker to discover by trial and error what were the best methods of getting ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... which never gave a wound; that exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading; that goodness of heart which appeared in every look and accent, and gave additional value to every talent and acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... intelligence or knowledge. If it ever overcomes the strong feeling which exists against it, this will only be after the establishment of a systematic National Education by which the various grades of politically valuable acquirement may be accurately defined and authenticated. Without this it will always remain liable to strong, possibly conclusive, objections; and with this, it would perhaps ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... spoken by the intelligent people. Education is more general, and culture is of a higher grade in Sweden than is common with the people of Southern Europe, while music is nearly as universal an acquirement here as it is in Italy. The population is frugal, honest, self-helping, and in many respects ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Dark Wood dwelt for a time a Wizard, whose life had been spent in the acquirement of many wonderful arts. As a young man he had wandered over Europe from university to university, until one day he became aware of the true secret of education and ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... view again. Psychologically it is to repeat the processes of mind which were called into operation the first time the stimulus in question started a mental reaction. The nervous system of man is so constituted that in the acquirement of knowledge, each time the nerve centers react to the same stimulus, the tendency so to react becomes stronger, under the mere presence of the stimulus, starts up an automatic sort of reaction, and we say that the ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... children of the concierge! But beneath these conventional fictions the truth was that the concierge held the whip. At last he was using it. And he had given himself a half-holiday in order to celebrate his second acquirement of the ostentatious furniture and the crimson lampshades. This was one of the dramatic crises in his career as a man of substance. The national thrill of victory had not penetrated into the flat with the concierge and the law. The emotions of the concierge ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Berthe Louison and Captain Anstruther lingered au cabinet particulier, over their Chablis and Ostend oysters, the recouped gambler extended his store of mental acquirement, by tender converse with the two sprightly belles of the Windy City. In fact, the whistle of the steamer was heard long before Alan Hawke could extricate himself from the clinging tentacles of the audacious ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... than ordinarily dull, you are sure to find them on opposite sides of the question. This is the sickening part of it. People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking. We meet neither with modest ignorance nor studious acquirement. Their knowledge has been taken in too much by snatches to digest properly. There is neither sincerity nor system in what they say. They hazard the first crude notion that comes to hand, and then defend it how they can; which is for the most part but ill. 'Don't you think,' ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... amongst the unruly children of Mr. Burke; but this lesson was not to be learned only by his ears and eyes; it would not have been enough for him to have seen Tom soused in the mire, or William with his bloody nose; his very bones were to suffer in the acquirement of it, and he was to get such a fright as he ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... affairs of life is a thing which has to be learned. Some girls have a far greater aptitude for learning it than others; but, with one exception, no girls have it in them from the outset. It is a not less complicated thing than is the art of acting, or of nursing the sick, and needs for the acquirement of it a not less ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... even here Margaret's dissatisfaction found her out. Every talent, every feeling, every acquirement; nay, even every tendency towards virtue was used up as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire, exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle. They talked about art in a merely sensuous way, dwelling on outside effects, instead of allowing themselves to learn what ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... next is called Swayamvara (selection of husband by Panchali), in which Arjuna by the exercise of Kshatriya virtues, won Draupadi for wife. Then comes Vaivahika (marriage). Then comes Viduragamana (advent of Vidura), Rajyalabha (acquirement of kingdom), Arjuna-banavasa (exile of Arjuna) and Subhadra-harana (the carrying away of Subhadra). After these come Harana-harika, Khandava-daha (the burning of the Khandava forest) and Maya-darsana (meeting with Maya the Asura architect). Then come Sabha, Mantra, Jarasandha, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... drift into intellectual pursuit voluntarily, but is forced into it in connection with the urgency of practical activities. The women who are obliged to work are of the poorer classes, and have not that leisure and opportunity preliminary to any specialized acquirement; while those who have leisure are supported in that position both by money and by precedent and habit, and have no immediate stimulation to lift them out of it. They sometimes entertain ideas of freedom and plan occupational interests, but they have usually become thoroughly habituated to their unfreedom, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... a steady and even step. It is not to a want of taste or of desire or of disposition to learn that we have to ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much as to the want of patient perseverance. Grammar is a branch of knowledge; like all other things of high value, it is of difficult acquirement: the study is dry; the subject is intricate; it engages not the passions; and, if the great end be not kept constantly in view; if you lose, for a moment, sight of the ample reward, indifference begins, that ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... before they have broken through the ground, as well as their buried radicles, circumnutate, as far as the pressure of the surrounding earth permits. In this universally present movement we have the basis or groundwork for the acquirement, according to the requirements of the plant, of the most diversified movements. Thus the great sweeps made by the stems of the twining plants, and by the tendrils of other climbers, result from a mere increase in the amplitude of the ordinary movement of circumnutation."—The ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... to attract a class of candidates superior to the common average, it is possible to select for the general management, and for all the skilled employments of a subordinate kind, persons of a degree of acquirement and cultivated intelligence which more than compensates for their inferior interest in the result. It must be further remarked that it is not a necessary consequence of joint-stock management that the persons employed, whether in superior or in subordinate offices, should be paid wholly by fixed ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... the mind of an immigrant that there is a stake in the land for him, and his confidence that in the acquirement of his stake he gets a square deal from all concerned, are more important from the viewpoint of Americanization than the actual acquirement of any settlement on land; for not all immigrants desire to own a piece ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... clear and easy apprehension enabled him to amass knowledge with a rapidity which few have ever rivalled, and a constitutional orderliness of mind rendered him perpetual master of all his acquisitions; and, like most millionaires in the world of knowledge, his avidity of acquirement was accompanied by an equal delight in imparting his treasures. When the essential ingredients of his course were completed, he relieved his memory of its redundant stores, by giving lectures on rhetoric and belles-lettres, on the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... translation of Sallust, he had obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, he travelled abroad, whether at his own charges, or in the company of a son of one of his patrons is not recorded, principally in Germany, Italy, and France, where he applied himself, with an unusual assiduity and success, to the acquirement of the languages spoken in those countries and to the study of their best authors. In the chapter "Of unprofytable Stody," above mentioned, which contains proof how well he at least had profited by study, he cites certain continental seats ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... regret, and are the objects which I would entreat my countrymen to contemplate, as the most eligible to attain a knowledge of this important quarter of the globe, and to introduce civilization among its numerous inhabitants; by which means, our enemies will be excluded from that emolument and acquirement, which we supinely ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... And it is in the criticism of painting that this truth most needs enforcing, for it is in popular judgments on pictures that that false generalisation of all art into forms of poetry is most prevalent. To suppose that all is mere technical acquirement in delineation or touch, working through and addressing itself to the intelligence, on the one side, or a merely poetical, or what may be called literary interest, addressed also to the pure intelligence, on the other;—this ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... he accepted the Professorship in our University, which we should have offered him in form. Mr. Bowditch, too, refuses us; so fascinating is the vinculum of the dulce natale solum. Our wish is to procure natives, where they can be found, like these gentlemen, of the first order of acquirement in their respective lines; but preferring foreigners of the first order to natives of the second, we shall certainly have to go, for several of our Professors, to countries more advanced in ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... called softly. Sally thought she would not hear, but she did. Ferry's voice, even in its subdued tones, possessed that carrying quality which is the peculiar acquirement ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... of study would be: first, constant research in the physics of musical tone; second, several years' devotion to the acquirement of a thoroughly scientific GENERAL view of Mineralogy, Botany, and Comparative Anatomy; third, French and German Literature. I fear this may seem a nondescript and even flighty process; but it makes straight ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... which Mynie Boltwood could not understand. He was not ambitious in the acquirement of knowledge, however, and merely did as he was told—and ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... achieved in this way is immeasurable. Although, according to Dogberry, to write and read comes by nature, we must remember that a taste for good reading is not innate but acquired, and that it is not ordinarily acquired under unfavorable conditions. To ensure the acquirement of this taste by the child, good reading must be made as accessible as the bad, the librarian and the teacher must conspire to put good reading, interesting reading, elevating reading in his way. The well-read person is an educated person. The taste for good reading once acquired ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... lifetime fitting beef for the royal table, and a king of France slighted the business of an empire for the acquirement of this art, and a king of England knighted a roast; but they all died and were buried without tasting beef as it ought to go into a man's mouth. I write it first. A Polled-Angus heifer, fed and watered and cared for like ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... instrumental technique is being developed to an extraordinary degree, but everywhere, too, the question is being asked whether the quality of instrumental players is equal to their quantity, and whether the acquirement of extraordinary technique is likely to help musical progress when this technique is not joined to musical powers, if not of the first rank, at ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... three years, and was duly called to the Bar; but no evidence came home as to the acquirement of any considerable amount of law lore, or even as to much law study, on the part of the young aspirant. The learned pundit at whose feet he had been sitting was not especially loud in praise of his pupil's industry, though he did say a pleasant word or two as to his pupil's intelligence. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... said Cecilia, deeply blushing, "I must be content to forbear giving any counsel at all, if the qualifications for it are so difficult of acquirement." ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... both ancient and modern languages, Esperanto may render invaluable aid, and pave the way for surmounting the many difficulties confronting both student and teacher. Through Esperanto, the labor in the acquirement of these languages may be reduced in the same proportion in which the pleasure and thoroughness of such acquirement are increased. For this reason, the grammatical constructions of Esperanto are here explained as consistently as possible in accordance with the usage of national languages, ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... knowledge with illusions, and pay a high price for it, for the acquirement of quite a small degree of wisdom will deprive us of a large number of pleasant fancies. So it was with the author, who found his joy in novel-reading diminishing rapidly as his critical knowledge increased. He was no longer ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... that his lofty intelligence could, better than any one else, grasp the theories of the doctor; and the latter felt that if he could not prevail in making Byron a believer in his own orthodox views, at least he could prepare the way for the acquirement of every virtue, and he resolved, therefore, to profit by the permission given him ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... no means meant as an aid to the acquirement of heavenly bliss alone. Many of the great sacrifices are for the gaining of good things on earth. In one passage there is described a ceremony, the result of which is to be that the warrior, who is the sacrificer, may say to a man of the people "fetch out and ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the physical courage nor endurance necessary. Of mere rank he was not envious. He had lived among noble men, and familiarity had bred its usual consequence. But he did want money. He fully recognized that gold entered every earthly gate, and he felt within himself the capacity for its acquirement. He had also precedents for this determination which seemed to justify it. The Duke of Norham's younger son had a share in an immense brewery and wielded a power far beyond that of his elder brother, who was simply waiting for a dukedom. Lord ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... the souls of those fine old Pedagogues; the breed, long since extinct, of the Lilys, and the Linacres: who believing that all learning was contained in the languages which they taught, and despising every other acquirement as superficial and useless, came to their task as to a sport! Passing from infancy to age, they dreamed away all their days as in a grammar-school. Revolving in a perpetual cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies; renewing constantly the occupations which had ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... worshipping the Beautiful without giving sufficient thought to Him from Whom all beauty proceeds. Half a lifetime was to go by before I realised to what this habit was leading me—that it was the first step towards the acquirement of that most exquisite of all blessings—the gift of the Contemplation of God. Ah, if anyone knows in his heart the call of the Beautiful, let him use it towards this glorious end! Love, and the Beautiful—these are the twin golden paths that lead ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley |
