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21 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Adventure Books Collection

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Chapter five, the authors permitted to see the Grand Academy of Legado. The
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academy largely described the arts wherein the professors employed themselves. This academy is not
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an entire single building, but a continuation of several houses on both sides of
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a street, which growing waste was purchased and applied to that use. I
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was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the
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academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors, and I believe
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it could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms. The first man I
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saw was of a meager aspect, with sooty hands and face. His hair
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and beard long ragged and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt,
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and skin were all of the same color. He had been eight years upon
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a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in
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vials hermatically sealed and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.
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He told me he did not doubt that in eight years more he should be
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able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate. But he
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complained that his stock was low and entreated me to give him something as an
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encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers.
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I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with
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money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go
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to see them. I went into another chamber, but was ready to hasten
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back, being almost overcome with a horrible stink. My conductor pressed me forward,
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conjuring me in a whisper to give no offense which would be highly resented.
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And therefore I durst, not so much as stop my nose. The
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projector of the cell was the most ancient student of the academy. His face
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and beard were of a pale yellow, his hands and clothes dubbed over with
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filth. When I was presented to him, he gave me a close embrace,
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a compliment I could well have excused. His employment from his first coming
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into the Academy was an operation to reduce human excrement to its original food by
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separating the several parts, removing the tinkerture which it received from the gaul,
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making the odor exhale, and scumming off the saliva. He had a weekly
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allowance from the society of a vessel filled with human ausia about the bigness of
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a Bristol barrel. I saw another at work to calcin ice into gunpowder,
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who likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malibility of fire,
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which he intended to publish. There was a most ingenious architect who had contrived
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a new method for building houses by beginning at the roof and working downwards to
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the foundation, which he justified to me by like the practice of those two
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prudent insects, the bee and the spider. There was a man born blind
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who had several apprentices in his own condition. Their employment was to mix colors
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for painters, which their master taught them to distinguish by feeling and smelling.
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It was indeed my misfortune to find them at that time not very perfect in
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their lessons, and the professor himself happened to be generally mistaken. This artist
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is much encouraged and esteemed by the whole fraternity. In another apartment, I
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was highly pleased with the projector who had found a device of plowing the ground
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with hogs to save the charges of plows, cattle, and labor. The
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method is this In an acre of ground uburiately least six inches distance in eight
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deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other masts or
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vegetables. Whereof these animals are fondest, then you drive six hundred or more
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of them into the field, where in a few days they will root up
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the whole ground in search of their food and make it fit for sewing,
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at the same time inneuring it with their dungue. It is true, upon
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experiment they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or
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no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention may be capable
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of great improvement. I went into another room, where the walls and ceiling
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were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artists to
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go in and out. At my entrance, he called to me not to
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disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake of the world had been so
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long in of using silk worms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects
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who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave as well as
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spin. And he reposed further that by employing spiders the charge of dyeing silk
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should be wholly saved. Whereof I was fully convinced when he showed me a
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vast number of flies, most beautifully covered, wherewith he fed his spiders,
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assuring us that the webs would take a tincerature from them. And as he
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had them of all hues, he hoped to fit everybody's fancy as soon as
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he could find proper food with the flies of certain gums, oils, and
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other glutenous matter to give a strength and consistence to the threads. There was
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an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sun dial upon the great weathercock on
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the town house, by adjusting the annual and daanyled motions of the Earth and
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Sun, so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.
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I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my
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conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous
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for curing that disease by contrary operations from the same instrument. He had a
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large pair of bellows with a long slender muzzle of ivory. This he conveyed
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eight inches up the anis, and drawing in the wind. He affirmed he
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could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder, but when the disease
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was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were
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full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the patient, then
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withdrew the instrument to replenish it, clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of
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then fundament, and this being repeated three or four times. The adventitious wind
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would rush out, bringing the noxious along with it, like water put into
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a pump, and the patient recovered. I saw him try both experiments upon
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a dog, but could not discern any effect from the former. After the
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latter, the animal was ready to burst and made so violent a discharge as
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was very offensive to me and my companion. The dog died on the spot,
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and we left the doctor, endeavoring to recover him by the same operation.
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I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader with all
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the curiosities I observed. Being studious of brevity, I had hitherto seen only
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one side of the academy, the other being appropriated to the advances of speculative
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learning, of whom I shall say something when I have mentioned one illustrious person
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more, who was called among them the Universal Artist. He told us he
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had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the improvement of human life. He
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had two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at work.
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Some were condensing air into a dry, tangible substance by extracting the nature and
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letting the acrius or fluid particles percolate. Others softening marble for pillows and pincushions,
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others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse to preserve them from foundering.
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The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great designs, the first
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to so land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true seminal virtue to be
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contained, as he demonstrated by several experiments which I was not skillful enough to
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comprehend. The other was by a certain composition of gums, minerals, and
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vegetables outwardly applied to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs, and
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he hoped in a reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked sheep all over
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the kingdom. We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy,
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where as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided. The
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first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty pupils about
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him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a frame which took
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up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he
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said, perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving
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speculative knowledge by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible
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of its usefulness. And he flattered himself that a more noble, exalted thought
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never sprang in any other man's head. Everyone knew how laborious the usual method
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is of attaining to arts and sciences, whereas by his contrivance, the most
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ignorant person, at a reasonable charge and with a little bodily labor, might
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write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology
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without the least a distance from genius or study. He then led me to
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the frame about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It
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was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficiiies
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was composed of several bits of wood about the bigness of a dye, but
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some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These
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bits of wood were covered on every square with paper pasted on them, and
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on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several
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moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then
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desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work.
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The pupils, at his command took each of them hold of an iron
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handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame, and
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giving them a sudden turn, the wholder's position of the words was in highly
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changed. He then commanded six and thirty of the lads to read the several
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lines softly as they appeared on the frame, and where they found three or
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four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the
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four remaining boys who ascribes. This work was repeated three or four times,
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and at every turn the engine was so contrived that the word shifted into new
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places as the square bits of wood moved upside down. Six hours a day,
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the young students were employed in this labor, and the professor showed me
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several volumes in large folio already collected of broken sentences, which he intended to
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piece together and out of those rich materials, to give the world a complete
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body of all arts and sciences, which, however, might be still improved
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and much expediated, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing
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five hundred such frames in Laggado, and obliged the managers to contribute in common
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their several collections. He assured me that this invention had employed all his thoughts
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from his youth, and that he emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame,
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and made the strictest computation of the general proportion there is in books between the
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numbers of particles, nouns and verbs, and other parts of speech. I
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made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person for his great communicativeness, and promised,
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if ever I had the good fortune to return to my native country,
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that I would do him justice as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine,
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the form and contrivance of which I desired to delineate on paper, as in
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the figure here annexed. I told him, although it were the custom of
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our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at
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least this advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right owner.
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Yet I would take such caution that he should have the honor entire without arrival,
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we next went to the school of Languages, where three professors sat in
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consultation upon improving that in their own country. The first project was to shorten
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discourse by cutting polysyllables into one and leaving out verbs and participles, because in
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reality, all things imaginable are but norms. The other project was a scheme
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for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever, and was urged as a great advantage in
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point of health as well as brevity, for it is plain that every word
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we speak is in some degree a diminution of our lunge by corrosion, and
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consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered that,
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since words are only no aims for things, it would be more convenient
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for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express a
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particular business they are to discourse on, And this invention would certainly have taken
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place to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the
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women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate had not threatened to raise a
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rebellion unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues after the
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manner of their forefathers. Such constant, irreconcilable enemies to science are the common
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people. However, many of the most learned and wise adhere to the new
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scheme of expressing themselves by things, which is only this inconvenience, attending it
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that if a man's business be very great and of various kinds, he must
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be obliged in proportion to carry a greater bundle of things upon his back,
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unless he can afford one or two strong servants to attend him. I have
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often beheld two of those sages almost sinking under the weight of their packs,
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like peddlers among us, who, when they meet in the street, would
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lay down their loaths, open their sacks, and hold conversation for an hour
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together, then put up their implements, help each other to resume their burdens,
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and take their leave. But for short conversations a man may carry implements
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in his pockets and under his arms enough to supply him, and in his
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house he cannot be at a loss. Therefore, the room where company meet
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who practice this art is full of all things ready at hand requisite to furnish
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matter for this kind of artificial converse. Another great advantage proposed by this invention
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was that it would serve as a universal language, to be understood in all
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civilized nations whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind or nearly resembling,
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so that their uses might easily be comprehended, and thus ambassadors would be
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qualified to treat with foreign princes or ministers of state to whose tongues they were
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utter strangers. I was at the mathematical school where the master taught his pupils
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after the method scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The proposition and demonstration were
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fairly written on a thin wafer, within composed of a cephalic tincature. This
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the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days following,
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eat nothing but bread and water. As the wafer digested, the tincature
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mounted to his brain, bearing the proposition along with it. But the success
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has not hithero been answerable partly by some error in the quantum or composition,
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and partly by the perverseness of lads to whom this bolus is so nauseous that
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they generally steal aside and discharge it upwards before it can operate. Neither have
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they yet been persuaded to use so long an abstinence as the prescription requires.
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End Apart Three, Chapter five.