"
Let any boy of even moderate abilities subject himself to such rigid
discipline for intellectual improvement as Benjamin did, and his
progress will be rapid, and his attainments remarkable. Such
application and persistent effort win always.
In a similar manner Benjamin acquired the Socratic method of
reasoning, which he found at the end of the English grammar that he
studied. Subsequently he purchased "Xenophon's Memorabilia" because it
would afford him assistance in acquiring the Socratic style. He
committed to memory, wrote, practised doing the same thing over and
over, persevering, overcoming, conquering. He acquired the method so
thoroughly as to be expert therein, and practised it with great
satisfaction to himself. Many years thereafter he spoke of the fact as
follows:
"While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English
grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), having at the end of it two
little sketches on the Arts of Rhetoric and Logic, the latter
finishing with a dispute in the Socratic method. And, soon after, I
procured Xenophon's 'Memorable Things of Socrates,' wherein there are
many examples of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it,
dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on
the humble inquirer. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and
Collins, made a doubter, as I already was in many points of our
religious doctrines, I found this method the safest for myself, and
very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took
delight in it, practised it continually, and grew very artful and
expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions
the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in
difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so
obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.
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