"Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr. Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction"
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Babbage is doing what he does best: turning a moral complaint into an engineering problem, then indicting the system for wasting horsepower. The line flatters “knowledge” in the abstract, but its real target is institutional penny-pinching masquerading as virtue. England, “far wealthier than Tuscany,” has no excuse. If a comparatively modest Italian state can honor learning, what does it say when an industrial superpower parks a mind like John Dalton’s in “drudgery”?
The phrasing is calibrated. “Surely” isn’t politeness; it’s a trap door. You either agree that knowledge has value, or you admit your society doesn’t actually believe its own rhetoric about progress. Babbage’s policy language (“good policy,” “allow”) reframes cultural priorities as governance failures. This isn’t a romantic plea for the poet in the garret; it’s a cost-benefit argument from the man who helped invent modern computing. Dalton isn’t being exploited because he’s poor, but because the state lacks a mechanism to recognize and deploy intellectual capital.
“Elementary instruction” reads like a sneer, yet it’s also an uncomfortable admission: teaching is necessary work, just not the best use of rare talent in Babbage’s economy of minds. The subtext is classed and technocratic: genius should be liberated from routine so it can produce discoveries that compound into national power.
Context matters. Early 19th-century Britain was building railways, factories, and empire, while its scientific infrastructure remained patchy and reliant on private means. Babbage’s jab is a progress narrative with teeth: a rich country can still be culturally poor if it treats genius as cheap labor.
The phrasing is calibrated. “Surely” isn’t politeness; it’s a trap door. You either agree that knowledge has value, or you admit your society doesn’t actually believe its own rhetoric about progress. Babbage’s policy language (“good policy,” “allow”) reframes cultural priorities as governance failures. This isn’t a romantic plea for the poet in the garret; it’s a cost-benefit argument from the man who helped invent modern computing. Dalton isn’t being exploited because he’s poor, but because the state lacks a mechanism to recognize and deploy intellectual capital.
“Elementary instruction” reads like a sneer, yet it’s also an uncomfortable admission: teaching is necessary work, just not the best use of rare talent in Babbage’s economy of minds. The subtext is classed and technocratic: genius should be liberated from routine so it can produce discoveries that compound into national power.
Context matters. Early 19th-century Britain was building railways, factories, and empire, while its scientific infrastructure remained patchy and reliant on private means. Babbage’s jab is a progress narrative with teeth: a rich country can still be culturally poor if it treats genius as cheap labor.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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