A Shout out to a 1909 Quote from William Stone Booth & Definition of Boteswaine or Boatswain

[Lawrence Gerald]

William Stone Booth, “Some Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon” 1909

Bacon was ahead, not only of his own time but also of the present, when he wrote {De Augmentis, book vi, Spedding's translation) of the methods of teaching and of the transmission of knowledge. He styles the first difference of method Magistral, or Initiative. ' The magistral method teaches; the initiative intimates. The magistral requires that what is told should be believed; the initiative that it should be examined. The one transmits knowledge to the crowd of learners; the other to the sons, as it were, of science. The end of the one is the use of knowledges, as they are now; of the other the continuation and further progression of them. Of these methods the latter seems to be like a road abandoned and stopped up; for as knowledges have hitherto been delivered, there is a kind of contract of error be- tween the deliverer and the receiver; for he who delivers knowledge desires to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as may be most conveniently examined; and he who receives know- ledge desires present satisfaction, without waiting for due enquiry and so rather not to doubt, than not to err; glory making the deliverer careful not to lay open his weakness, and sloth making the receiver unwilling to try his strength.'

Scientifically speaking, there can be no such thing as orthodox or unorthodox scholarship. Such phrases belong to the bygone age of the ecclesiastical pedagogue. The man who allows his inferences to crystallize  into an ' orthodox opinion ' is on the highroad to oblivion, or is courting the ridicule of posterity. Literary history is a science. It is a matter of facts, No lasting history can be built on opinion, and no scholarship which is afraid of enquiry can retain respect.

 

 

A Shout Out  that basically says : Master Boteswain ! (Bacon)

A boatswain, bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun, also known as a deck boss, or a qualified member of the deck department, is the most senior rate of the deck department and is responsible for the components of a ship's hull. The boatswain supervises the other members of the ship's deck department, and typically is not a watchstander, except on vessels with small crews. Additional duties vary depending upon ship, crew, and circumstances.Wikipedia

Thanks to the A. Phoenix team for The Tempest Graphics below