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 \l^f^!^^K L. I. I 
 
 LECTUEE ON THEIMT Uyjh Ui BUU-KS, 
 
 DELIVEBED BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN, K.C.B. LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, 
 TO THE MEMBERS OP 
 
 THE SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND LITERARY AND 
 SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 
 
 15th September, 1853. 
 
 Our excellent friend the Ai'clideacon, whose invita- 
 tion has brought me hither, will, I trust, make the 
 requisite apology for such an intrusion of a total 
 stranger among you. But stranger as I am, there is 
 one fact concerning myself which I must already have 
 succeeded in communicating to all who see or hear me. 
 It is the fact that I have numbered many years. So' 
 many indeed are they, that I have hved to witness all, 
 except the earliest scenes, of that dark tragedy of 
 which France has so long been the stage; and the 
 whole progress of the corresponding drama of which, 
 during the last twenty-five years, England has been 
 the theatre. Strange, indeed, have been the contrasts 
 between the two revolutions. 
 
 In France this part of the Divine counsels has been 
 carried into effect by the stretched-out arm of the 
 
Z RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 Angel of desolation and of death. In England it has 
 been committed to the ministration of the Angel of 
 mercy. There the overthroi^ijQif iXj^asties and of In- 
 stitutions has again and again served only to conduct 
 the Insurgent people to some new forms of despotic 
 Government. Here an unbroken series of bold ex- 
 periments for renovating all the popular elements of 
 pur commonwealth, and for reconstructing almost every 
 branch of our National Polity, has left us still in the 
 undistm'bed possession of the solemn trust, and high 
 responsibihties, of freedom. It is a trust to be exe- 
 cuted in the spirit of gratitude, of vigilance, of humihty, 
 and of self-control. 
 
 For if the contrasts between the two histories be 
 marvellous, they have also some admonitory coinci- 
 dences. In France, in the reign of Louis XV. the 
 Present was at war with the Past. New dogmas con- 
 fronted the old traditions. Zealots for the one were in 
 hostile array against Zealots for the other. But the 
 sword was stiU unsheathed, and the guillotine had 
 not as yet been erected. It was the day for calm de- 
 bate and peaceful arbitrament; and the controversial- 
 ists on either side accordingly invoked pubhc opinion 
 as the legitimate umpire between them. They by 
 whom this appeal was chiefly made, were the master 
 spirits of that age: Montesquieu, Voltaire, D'Alem- 
 bert, Diderot, Helvitius, and Rousseau. They to 
 whom the appeal was chiefly addressed were the 
 majority (the effective, that is, not the numerical ma- 
 jority) of the French people — the men of active minds, 
 of ardent tempers, and of persuasive discourse — the 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 3 
 
 men each of whom in his own city, canton, or village, 
 ruled over his neighbours in right of his superior force 
 of intellect, or of his greater energy of will. But this 
 natural Aristocracy, aspiring and audacious as it was, 
 could hardly undertake to pronounce any oracular 
 decision in favour of any doctrines whatever. Public 
 opinion could not express itself through such lips as 
 theirs, because they were at that time almost univer- 
 sally labouring under a profound, and, as it might 
 have seemed, an incurable ignorance of all the ques- 
 tions in dispute. To quahfy them for such an adjudi- 
 cation, it was necessary that some royal road to learn- 
 ing should be hewn out for them. 
 
 That arduous task was undertaken by the Propa- 
 gandists of the new Doctrines. Those eminent writers 
 (to use the language of Bacon) " took all knowledge for 
 their province," and the astonished world had to gaze 
 on a strange revolution in the literature of Europe, 
 before it was alarmed by revolution in the European 
 Governments. Every subject of human inquiry, how- 
 ever abstruse, was daily interpreted by some Author, 
 either already known, or till then unknown, to fame. 
 Laying aside her ancient, austere, and venerable garb, 
 learning appeared in dresses as hght, as gay, and as 
 ephemeral as those which fluttered in the drawing- 
 rooms of Paris. The Pocket Duodecimo usurped the 
 place of the ponderous Folio. Reading became a 
 favourite recreation, instead of an arduous and self-deny- 
 ing duty. Every science and every art was converted 
 from a severe study into an exhilarating entertainment. 
 Grammar, Logic, Metaphysics, History, Philosophy^ 
 
4 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 and even Religion were rendered familiar, easy, epi- 
 grammatic, and amusing. With many books in their 
 hands, and many words in their mouths, the men of that 
 generation had few facts in their memories, few con- 
 clusions in their understandings, and few, if any, high 
 purposes in their soids. Between such a hterature, and 
 whatever was arrogant, disloyal, impious, and impure, 
 the aUiance was immediate and complete. It gave 
 birth to a talk like that of Babel, and prepared the 
 way for a ruin hke that of Babylon. The " Gipsy 
 jargon " of the Convention was but a new edition of 
 those ready-made substitutes for real knowledge, of 
 which the authors of the French Encyclopaedia had 
 been the inventors. Never did presumptuous ignorance 
 so completely assume the tone, imitate the gait, and 
 usurp the authority of wisdom. 
 
 For this mass of falsely pretended knowledge we 
 shall happily find no parallel amongst ourselves, so 
 long as we look only to our legitimate intellectual 
 rulers; to our men of genius and philosophy, to our 
 Hallams, and Grotes, and Macaulays, to our Hamiltons, 
 and Whe wells, and FaiTadays. No writers were ever 
 more sternly opposed to whatever is plausible, spe- 
 cious, and superficial merely, or more implacable an- 
 tagonists of all that is either profane, or anarchical, or 
 impure. A passing smile may perhaps now and then 
 be provoked by those rapid circumnavigators of the 
 whole world of learning upon which some of them will 
 occasionally embark; but we feel that this is but an 
 amiable weakness, a sort of elephantine gambol, the 
 mere riot of gigantic strength, perfectly harmless to 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 
 
 themselves and others, and always associated in their 
 own minds with the most unaffected humility. But I am 
 not sure that the fashion of literary omniscience, when 
 it descends lower down in the scale of intellect and of 
 learning, is equally inoffensive. I douht whether our pre- 
 valent hahit of reading, of speculating, and of talking 
 ahout every conceivahle suhject of investigation, can 
 adjust itself more safely in England than it adjusted 
 itself in France, to the augmented responsihihties sl\- 
 tendant on the vast and sudden increase which has 
 been made in our poHtical franchises, and in our col- 
 lective and individual authority in the State, It is a 
 habit which has made no shght advance amongst us. 
 With such of us as can afford the money and the 
 leisure, it is an almost daily practice (I confess it to 
 be my own) to animate our breakfast tables by a 
 canter in the Times over all the topics of the day — 
 that is, over all the pubhc affairs of all nations, of all 
 trades, of all literary and scientific associations, of all 
 the Htigants in our causes celebreSy and of all other 
 noticeable people amongst us. Nor do we conclude 
 that morning exercise without at least a glance at the 
 crowded columns in which the great journalist an- 
 nounces the birth of new books, conceived in every form 
 and embracing every subject, the best adapted at once 
 to stimulate the appetite for reading, and to abridge the 
 toil of patient inquiry. This pleasant morning office 
 over, the Londoner (I find that I am placing myself 
 in the Confessional) may walk down to his club, there 
 to contemplate, and to marvel at the pyramids of re- 
 views, of magazines, and of such like aids to literary 
 
b RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 digestion wliicli rise, from table to taWe, along the 
 entire length of those spacious saloons. If his stroll 
 is completed hy a call at the reading-room of the 
 British Musemn, he observes that among the hooks 
 carried by the Mercmy of the place to the students 
 there, small indeed is the number calculated to put 
 any strain upon theii' thinking powers. Om- critic 
 then, perchance leaving London for some other part 
 of these islands, admires on each successive railway 
 platform the bookstalls of one and another Mr. Smith, 
 (for the book trade is running into a Smithery among 
 us,) rich in what are called Works for the Million, rich 
 that is in Travellers' Libraries, in the Miscellanies of 
 Constable, in the Journals of Chambers, in Penny Ma- 
 gazines, in Pocket Cyclopaedias, in Readings for the 
 Rail, in Hand-books and Romances, in the Beauties 
 of this writer, in the Wit of that, in the Wisdom of 
 another, and in some one or more of the hundred and 
 odd volumes in which the Histoiy of France may now 
 be read in the shape of so many consecutive Novels. 
 Descending at length from his train, our imaginary 
 traveller finds in whatever town he reaches (as indeed 
 he might have found in London) notices of Lectui'es 
 to be dehvered on every art or science of which Francis 
 Bacon ascertained the state or anticipated the progress 
 — ^nay ! is perhaps engaged to dehver such a lecture 
 himself. At the commencement of it may he ventui-e 
 (cautiously and respectfully) to inquire whether this 
 confederacy of the Newspapers, the Magazines, the 
 Clubs, the Reading-rooms, the Railways, and the Lec- 
 tures, to render all of us knowing and wise at the 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 7 
 
 smallest possible expenditure of mental labour, will 
 really qualify us for any of tlie serious duties of life, 
 and especially for tbe vigilant, tbe humble, and the 
 self-denying exercise of the new powers wliich we 
 have derived from the English Revolution of the nine- 
 teenth century? 
 
 You will not, I am sure, do me the injustice to sup- 
 pose that these doubts are suggested by any failure of 
 respect for the persons, or of interest in the studies 
 of those whom I have the honour to address. They 
 are prompted by my jealousy of whatever seems to me 
 injurious to the intellectual growth and stature of my 
 fellow-countrymen 3 in whom I revere not merely those 
 excellent gifts of reason and of conscience which are, 
 more or less, the common patrimony of all the chil- 
 di-en of our Heavenly Father, but those special gifts 
 also of political power, and of the intellectual dominion 
 inseparable from such power, of which Englishmen, 
 and the descendants of EngHshmen, are the sole heirs, 
 with no Copartners on earth. They, and they alone, 
 have inherited, and defended, and matured constitu- 
 tional Hberty. To them, and to them alone, it there- 
 fore belongs to give a free and authoritative utterance 
 to the voice of public opinion, and so to exercise that 
 mysterious influence which attests the contagion of 
 thought, and the dominion of thought, among man- 
 kind. To Englishmen collectively lies the final ap- 
 peal from every human authority in England, on every 
 question affecting our national welfare and our duties 
 as a people. Is it, then, unreasonable to desire, or 
 unwise to express the desire, that the vast apparatus 
 
8 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 of instruction now liappily at our command maybe so 
 contrived, and so employed, as to train us all for the 
 right discharge of this responsihility, by training each 
 of us in at least some one branch, not of superficial, 
 but of sound learning ? 
 
 By sound, that is, solid learning, I mean such know- 
 ledge as relates to useful and substantial things, and 
 as in itself is compact, coherent, all of a piece, having 
 its several parts fitted into each other, and mutually 
 sustaining and illustrating one another. I mean that 
 kind of learning which is the opposite of loose, dis- 
 connected, unsystematic, gaseous information. I am 
 pointing to a distinction like that between the arts of 
 navigation and ballooning — ^the one steadily pursuing 
 a definite and useful end, the other aiming at nothing 
 but an idle and dangerous pastime — ^the one labori- 
 ously, though obscurely, tracking a distinct path 
 through the mighty deep, the other ostentatiously 
 soaring into the pathless firmament — the one a task 
 for men, the other a toy for children. 
 
 Thinking thus of the value of soHd learning, I am 
 anxious that we should not be aspirants after the 
 fashionable accomphshment of literary omniscience. 
 It is a pretension as preposterous as it is pernicious. 
 Since the creation of our race three men only have 
 appeared on earth in whom it was not a shameless 
 effi'ontery to say that they " took all knowledge for 
 their province." First among them in time, as in 
 dignity, was that great king who won, by prayer such 
 wisdom, as to exceed all mankind both in natural and in 
 moral philosophy. Next came that Grecian sage, who 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. \J 
 
 acquired for liimself in the realms of thouglit a 
 dominion far more universal and enduring than that 
 which he taught his pupil Alexander to acquire over the 
 kingdoms of the world. The throne of Aiistotle had 
 continued vacant during long centuries, when it was 
 at length ascended hy Francis Bacon. But with him 
 that imperial dynasty hecame extinct. Their boundless 
 dominion was thenceforward broken up into innumer- 
 able provinces, the complete possession of the least of 
 which is enough to exhaust the resources, as it ought 
 to be enough to satisfy the ambition, of any ordinary 
 man. How, then, shall every such man conquer any 
 one of those provinces for himself ? 
 
 I answer, place before an intelligent child an Eng- 
 lish, a French, and an American globe of the planet 
 on which we dwell. He will ask you why it is that, 
 in each of the three globes, the same points are touched 
 by all the circles whose planes are parallel to that of 
 the Equator ; while, in each of the three, the points 
 touched by the circles running from Pole to Pole are 
 different ? You tell him it is because England and 
 France and the United States have all placed their 
 national observations at or near theii' respective capi- 
 tals — ^that each of those nations has drawn its ovm 
 meridian line at its own chosen point of observation 
 — and that thus when a geographer of either looks at 
 his globe he ascertains the latitude and longitude of 
 each spot on the earth's surface with reference, as it 
 may happen, either to Greenwich, or to Paris, or to 
 Washington. His own observatory is never out of 
 his mind, to whatever distance his eye may have wan- 
 
10 EIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 dered fi'om it. His own national meridian line is the 
 basis of all his measurements, however remote they 
 may be from the capital of his nation. His map of 
 the world is still, in every part of it, a kind of 
 national map. 
 
 The lesson we thus give to our children we may 
 advantageously repeat to ourselves. Take the chart 
 of human knowledge; fix your own mental observa- 
 tory on any spot in it which is most convenient to 
 yom'self, and there draw your meridian. Whatever 
 other places on that chart you may have occasion to 
 inspect or to visit, let that meridian be the basis to 
 which you refer them, and the Hue by which you 
 measure them. Your chart of knowledge will thfen 
 have, at least for yourself, a certain unity and con- 
 sistency of plan, countless, and wide apart, and dis- 
 similar, as may be the various regions comprised with- 
 in its Hmits. 
 
 In what precise part of the great sphere of learn- 
 ing any man may choose to draw for himself this car- 
 dinal or initiatory hue, is I think of little comparative 
 importance. Let it only be drawn with a firm hand, 
 and when once drawn let it thenceforward remain un- 
 altered, and the author of it will have the means of 
 grasping, and of binding indissolubly together into 
 one well cemented whole, all the literary or scientific 
 acquisitions of his future life. Wherever his Green- 
 wich may be, he will be able to ascertain, relatively 
 to it, the bearings, the latitudes, and the longitudes 
 of every other place in the world of letters, which at 
 any subsequent time he may see fit to visit. 
 
SHRETVSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 11 
 
 For learning is a world, and is not a chaos. The 
 various accumulations of human knowledge are not so 
 many detached masses. They are all connected parts 
 of one great system of truth; and though that system 
 be infinitely too comprehensive for any one of us to 
 compass, yet each component member of it bears to 
 every other component member, relations which each 
 of us may, in his own department of study, search out 
 and discover for himself. A man is really and sound- 
 ly learned in exact proportion to the number and to 
 the importance of those relations which he has thus 
 carefully examined, and accurately understood. A 
 well- judging man, therefore, will di-aw his meridian, 
 or, to change the figure, will open his tnink line of 
 study, in such a direction that, while habitually ad- 
 hering to it, he may enjoy a ready access to such other 
 fields of knowledge as are most nearly related to it, 
 and as, by means of it, he can most readily penetrate. 
 
 For this, amongst other reasons, I venture to re- 
 commend to those of my hearers who may hitherto 
 have been turning over books, reviews, magazines, 
 and newspapers with no definite purpose, and therefore 
 with Httle if any mental nutriment or mental growth, 
 that they betake themselves to the study of Modern 
 History. Modern History ! you exclaim. "Nothing 
 like leather," said the Tanner of old; and nothing 
 hke the History of these later ages, says the Histori- 
 cal Professor of Cambridge. Well ! I admit that my 
 advice does smell of the shop ; but of all the smells 
 a man can bear about him, commend me to that. 
 When any one talks of his own trade, he at least 
 
12 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 usually knows something of what lie is talking about. 
 I hope it is so, in some little measure, with myself. 
 The trade which I now carry on, was not indeed my 
 original calling. I took it up in the evening of a life 
 of which the morning had been spent at the Bar, and 
 the noontide in the business of the State. But from 
 an early period I had acted on the counsels which I 
 now offer to you. I soon drew my meridian line. I 
 took the History of Em-ope, since the overthrow of the 
 Roman Empire, as the basis of my reading. To that 
 basis I more or less referred whatever else I read. 
 It was not without some tacit reference to it that I 
 perused many a Brief, and wrote still more Despatches; 
 and therefore it was that when the time had come at 
 which it behoved me to quit my pubHc employm^ts, 
 I was judged by others not unworthy, however httle 
 worthy in fact, to be associated with such men as Whe- 
 well and Sedgwick, as Peacock and WiUis, in their 
 high and honourable office (the highest and the most 
 honourable to which I have ever attained), of training 
 up the youth of their and my University for the right 
 discharge of some of the most important functions to 
 which Enghshmen are called. To my pupils there 
 I have said, as I now say to you, that History con- 
 sidered as a subject of study has this peculiar 
 excellence, that it may be readily grafted upon every 
 other branch of knowledge, and that every other branch 
 of knowledge may be readily grafted upon it. What- 
 ever may be the windings of a man's path, literary, 
 scientific, professional, or mercantile, they can never 
 conduct him to any point on which his knowledge of 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 13 
 
 the public occurrences of former times will not tlirow 
 some liglit, or wliicli will not reflect back some light 
 on those occurrences. 
 
 One of the young men whom I see before me has, 
 I will suppose, anticipated this advice, and has resolved 
 to devote his leisure hours to the study of the His- 
 tory of England. A wise and a happy resolution ! 
 He could choose no annals better adapted for his 
 purpose. Those of Greece may be more heroical, 
 those of France far more entertaining, those of Spain 
 more Romantic, those of the Papacy more full of 
 solemn warnings, those of Germany more replete with 
 events directly afi'ecting the whole European Continent; 
 but the record of the deeds of our own forefathers, 
 teach above all other such records how the Church 
 and the State may be well governed, wisely reformed, 
 valiantly defended, and perseveringly maintained. 
 Let the student of our History digress into what 
 other fields he will (for I neither expect nor advise an 
 exclusive culture of that one field) he may still gather 
 in them all something relevant to that his main pursuit. 
 If, for example, he learns to read the language, and 
 becomes acquainted with the manners of Germany, it 
 will illustrate for him the characters of Edwin, and 
 Alfi-ed, and Athelstane, otherwise hardly to be under- 
 stood. If he acquires any knowledge of the story of 
 Pope Hildebrand and of his immediate successors, 
 he wiU the better comprehend the reigns of WiUiam 
 the Conqueror, of Henry the Second, and of John. If 
 he looks into the mediaeval Poetry, it will reveal to 
 him much of the true character of Richard Coe'ur de 
 
14 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 Lion. A summer ramble tlirough tliis island may 
 render intelligible to bim wbat he bas read of the 
 fields of Hastings or of Bannockbmn, of Flodden or of 
 Boswortb, of Edge-Hill or of Marston Moor. Should 
 he conceive a taste for Church Arcliitecture,his mind's 
 eye may be enlightened to see that glorious spectacle 
 which the English chroniclers have vainly attempted 
 to describe to him, but on which our ancestors once 
 gazed with a just, though it was a fond and super- 
 stitious enthusiasm. He will see the cities of our 
 land crowned with churches Hke those of Evesham, 
 and many of her quiet meadows embellished with 
 monasteries like that of Fountains Abbey. A visit 
 to Windsor, or Beauvoir, or Alton-Towers, or Hatfield, 
 will enable him to contemplate what was once the 
 living aspect of the great men with whose actions HaU, 
 or Hollingshed, or Clarendon, or Burnet, have already 
 made him famihar. An armoury will show him by 
 what weapons we conquered at Cressy and at Agincourt. 
 Geography wiU enable him to follow the conquests of 
 our Henrys and Edwards, or the discoveries of our 
 Raleighs and Drakes, of our Cooks and Ansons. Botany 
 wiU reveal to him the Flora of England, and much 
 of the agricultm'alresom'ces of England, as they existed 
 in each successive century. Political Economy will 
 explain to him many things otherwise inexphcable in 
 om' annals, as, for example, the social efibcts of the 
 dissolution of the monasteries, and of the consequent 
 Poor Law ; while his attentive perusal of Blackstone 
 wiU throw for him a flood of Hght over the whole course 
 of our domestic history. In short, let such a student 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 15 
 
 go wliere he will, read what he will, enjoy what ration- 
 al amusement he will, and let him only bring to hear 
 on the elucidation of his main subject all the collateral 
 lights which, in the course of such pursuits, may fall 
 in his way, and he has my full consent to his reading 
 all the pocket libraries which all the booksmiths of our 
 days have hammered out for the use of railway travel- 
 lers. Let him but carefully bind together into sheaves 
 whatever he may glean to his purpose from such de- 
 sultory readings (for some desultory reading must be 
 conceded to us all), and let him accumulate these 
 sheaves to his historical harvest, and he will become 
 as well entitled to the praise of sound learning, and 
 wiU, in his measure, as certainly enjoy the advantages 
 of it, as if, in the extent and value of his literary 
 wealth, he could emulate those eminent scholars whose 
 care has so long rendered the school of Shrewsbury 
 illustrious. 
 
 Nevertheless there must of course be some limits 
 to these deviations fi-om the more direct and habitual 
 course of any man's intellectual pursuits. In order to 
 know anything, one must resolve to remain ignorant 
 of many things. From your occasional digressions 
 from the study of the History of England, many topics, 
 and many books, must be altogether excluded. But 
 there is one such digression which in my judgment, 
 is to be declined by no student of Enghsh history; on 
 the contrary, I think it is a digression to be frequently 
 and assiduously made, yet is the least rugged of all 
 the by-paths you can tread. I hold that no man can 
 have any just conception of the History of England 
 
16 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 who has not often read, and meditated, and learned to 
 love the great poets of England. Chaucer, Shakspeare, 
 Nassinger, George Herbert, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, 
 Pope, and Burns, often throw more rich and hrilHant 
 colours, and sometimes even more clear and steady 
 lights, on the times and doings of our forefathers, than 
 are to he gathered from all the chroniclers put to- 
 gether, from the venerable Bede to the philosophical 
 Hume. They are at least the greatest and the best 
 commentators on those chroniclers. If this statement 
 sounds to you hke an exaggeration, hsten to the de- 
 fence I have to make of it. 
 
 So much has been said and written of late upon 
 the distinction between what is objective and what is 
 subjective Hterature, that we are sometimes tempted 
 to hand it over to the region of cant or of shams, or 
 to pitch it into that other and yet darker gulph of 
 "humbug" into which we are so much accustomed to 
 plunge whatever is strange to our own individual habits 
 of thinking. Yet it is a distinction which has a good 
 measure of sound sense in it. Por it is one thing to 
 write about the external objects and events aroimd 
 me ; it is another thing to write about the thoughts 
 wliich those objects and events have suggested to me. 
 It is one thing to look abroad and another to look 
 within. The first of these employments of the mind 
 is the primary and chief office of the historian. The 
 other is the primary and chief office of the poet. No 
 historian or poet indeed is of the highest rank who 
 does not, to some extent, combine in himself each of 
 these mental habits; but every great historian or great ^ 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 1 7 
 
 poet exercises himself chiefly in the one or the other 
 of them which it is his own appropriate duty to cul- 
 tivate. For the political, military, and social move- 
 ments of each generation of men (that is, their history) 
 are the result of the influence exercised over them by 
 the spirit of the age in which they live; and the spirit 
 of the age is the aggregate of the i,houghts, feelings, 
 and propensities which then happen to he dominant in 
 the minds of the people. Those movements are re- 
 corded by the historian. That spirit is expressed by 
 the poet. The one describes the effects of the impel- 
 ling power; the other seizes, analyzes, and depicts the 
 power itself. History is the complement of poetry, 
 and -poetry is the complement of history. A divorce 
 between the two is fatal to the beauty and to the life 
 of both. This may sound a little abstruse, but a few 
 examples will render it clear. Thus, from the author 
 of the book of Judges, we learn the progress and the 
 result of the war between Jabin, King of Canaan, and 
 the Children of Israel ; but it is from the Song of 
 Deborah we learn what was the devout confidence, 
 the holy indignation, and the fierce resentment by 
 which the conquerors were animated. The acts of 
 Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, are they not 
 written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of 
 Judah ? but the passions, good or evil, of their subjects, 
 the exulting joy with which they foresaw the descent 
 of the King of Babylon into Hades, and the faith 
 which made the future advent of the Messiah a present 
 and a glorious reahty to them, are they not depicted 
 in the prophecies of the inspired Isaiah? From the 
 c 
 
18 EIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 wi'iter of the Second Book of Kings we learn how the 
 Jews were carried away captive in the days of Zede- 
 kiahj but it is the Psalmist alone who makes known 
 to us how they " sat down by the waters of Babylon 
 and wept, when they remembered thee, Oh Sion." 
 
 Or to pass to less sacred instances. Homer ex- 
 hibits to us all the characteristics of his countrymen 
 —their antipathy to their Asiatic neighbours — their 
 love of war, of wisdom, of eloquence, of intrigue, and 
 of nautical adventure. The great tragedians of Greece 
 reveal to us their people's exquisite sense of beauty, 
 and their faith in an awful, an almighty, but an im- 
 personal power, called Fate, controlling the Olympic 
 Gods, whom they at once admired and despised, ijror- 
 shipped and disbeheved. Virgil discovers to us the 
 rural habits, and the refined tastes of the later Ro- 
 mans, and their homage of the new or imperial Majesty 
 —(the supposed guardian of peace and of law) — with 
 wliich they consoled themselves under their irreparable 
 loss of freedom. Dante gives utterance to the pas- 
 sionate desire of the ItaUan people to escape, or at 
 least to rebuke, the sphitual tyranny of Rome, and 
 to clothe even the most barbarous of her legends under 
 some forms of solemnity and of grace, beneath which 
 their inherent deformity might be hidden. Aiiosto is 
 the interpreter of the spmt of a nation which, after 
 struofo'hno; in vain for civil and intellectual freedom, 
 was seeking rehef and self-forgetfulness in the wildest 
 dreams of a sportive imagination; and Goethe repre- 
 sents to us a race of men who, proudly conscious of 
 powers for which in the great arena of the pohtical 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTTON. 19 
 
 world they had found no successful exercise, were 
 striving to raise themselves above their more fortunate 
 rivals, by an ostentatious familiarity with all the mys- 
 teries which overhang the daily path of common life, 
 or which connect us with the unseen realities of other 
 modes of existence. Had, then, the great poets of 
 England no corresponding errand to express the 
 thoughts and the feelings which, from age to age, had 
 the mastery over the minds of their fellow country- 
 men ? My own judgment is, that they had such a 
 commission, and that they executed it with incom- 
 parable skill and beauty. To vindicate this opinion 
 will be the object of whatever else I have to offer to 
 your notice. Nor let it be supposed that, when enter- 
 ing upon that topic, I forget my main design. I have 
 insisted on the selection of some one branch of study 
 not only as the indispensable condition of acquiring any 
 real and useful learning, but also as the only method 
 by which we may safely and profitably indulge that 
 discursive spirit which belongs, I suppose, more or less 
 to all of us. Let me, then, now endeavour to show 
 liow he who has selected English History (for ex- 
 ample) as his meridian line of knowledge, may adhere 
 to it even when he seems to be deviating from it; may 
 be culling fruits even when in pursuit of flowers; and 
 may render the delights of literature subservient to 
 the more severe of his literary labours. The illustra- 
 tion may be varied indefinitely by each student for 
 himself, if only the principle involved in it be borne in 
 mind. Take then the period which elapsed between 
 the years 1328 and 1400. They include the French 
 
20 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN", 
 
 and the Scotch Conquests of Edward the Third — his 
 improvement of the laws and constitution of the reahn 
 — ^the minority of Richard the Second — ^the insurrec- 
 tion of Wat Tyler — the deposition of the young King 
 — ^the usurpation of the house of Lancaster — and the 
 preaching and attempted reforms of Wicliffe. You 
 have, I wiU suppose, studied these events in Knygton 
 and Heming, and Walsingham, and Cotton, in the 
 glowing pages of Froissart; or in the abridgements of 
 Hume, of Sharon, Turner, and of Lingard, or in the 
 life of Wichffe by my eloquent, indefatigable, and very 
 learned friend Doctor Vaughan. Excellent books in 
 their various kinds; but after reading them all, what 
 do you reaUy know of the people of England of that 
 era, of their living spuit, of their inner hfe, of their 
 modes of thinking and acting, of their domestic, their 
 familiar, and daily habits? Yet to an historical student 
 this is a knowledge of far more value than any which 
 relates to the march of armies, to cabals of parhaments, 
 to the enactment of laws, or even to the disputes of 
 theologians. Has no one transmitted that knowledge 
 to us? 
 
 The seventy-two years to which I have referred 
 exactly coincide with the life-time of Geoffrey Chaucer 
 — a man of liberal education, engaged in no particular 
 calling, possessed of an easy fortune, and connected 
 by marriage with John of Gaunt, the great friend and 
 patron of Wicliffe — a man therefore who had the 
 amplest means, as he had the keenest wit, and the most 
 restless curiosity, for studying the character of liis 
 fellow-countrymen. Would you know what was the 
 
SHREWSBrRY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 21 
 
 aspect in wliicli tlie England of tliose days presented 
 itself to him? Read the prologue to his Canterhury 
 Tales. There you will find the poet at the Tabard 
 Inn, in South wark, seated sA the landlord's table, one 
 of a large company of guests, some of high and some 
 of low degree. There were present priests, lawyers, 
 physicians, merchants, scholars, nuns, ladies, cai*pen- 
 ters, dyers, tapsters, cooks, and seamen. The jolly 
 host agreeing with his messmates that a pilgrimage 
 to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket would be 
 very healtliful to the soul, offers to accompany and to 
 guide them thither; but he thinks that their penitence 
 will be none the less effective for a little merriment 
 by the way. So, at his suggestion, they agree that 
 «aeh pilgrim shall teU some good story as they travel 
 along, and that on their return to London the best 
 story-teUer shaU be treated by the rest to a handsome 
 supper at the Tabard. The book is an imaginary 
 recoi-d of these pleasant Tales, of which however in 
 passing, I am bound to say that some of them must 
 be unfit for the perusal of any one who properly res- 
 pects and cherishes his own mental purity, since the 
 remembrance of their dissolute character haunted and 
 agonised the dying moments of their great author. 
 But the prologue is inoffensive. It contains a minute 
 description of his feUow-travellers. Let us see how 
 far they elucidate the history of Edward the Third, 
 and of Richard the Second. 
 
 First, let me introduce you to the Franklin or small 
 landowner, of those days, reminding you that the lan- 
 guage is that of our forefathers four hundred and fifty 
 
22 EIGHT HON. SIR JAMj:S STEPHEN. 
 
 years ago, and therefore a little rugged. I will, how- 
 ever, read it as it stands, with the change only of an 
 obsolete word or two: — 
 
 His bread, his ale, was always after one, 
 A better envied man wasnowhere none, 
 Withouten bake meat never was his house, 
 Of fish and flesh ; and that so plenteous, 
 It snowed, in his house, of meat and drink, 
 Of all the dainties that men could of think ; 
 His table dormant, in his hall alway, 
 Stood ready covered aU the longe day. 
 
 Now for the Squire — 
 
 Embroidered was he as it were a mede, 
 All full of freshe flowers white and red. 
 Singing he was or flaunting all the day, 
 He was as fresh as is the month of May. 
 
 Take next the Oxford Clerk or Scholar — 
 
 As lean was his horse as is a rake, 
 
 And he was not right fat, I imdertake; 
 
 For he had gotten him no benefice, 
 
 Nor was thought worthy to have an oflfice, 
 
 For him was ever had at his bed's head, 
 
 A twenty books clothed in black or red. 
 
 Of study took he moste care and heed. 
 
 Nor a word spake he more than what was need. 
 
 Sounding in moral virtue was his speech, 
 
 And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach. 
 
 The Physician next makes his appearance — 
 
 He knew the cause of every malady, 
 Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry; 
 And when engendered, and of what humour, 
 He was a very perfect practiser. 
 
 We now turn to the Ecclesiastics, and first (as befits 
 
 her dignity) to the prioress — 
 
 She was so charitable and so piteous, 
 She would weep if that she saw a mouse 
 Caught in a trap; if it were dead or bled. 
 Of smalle houndes had she that she fed 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 23 
 
 With roasted flesh, and milk and Wassail bread, 
 But sore wept she if one of them were dead, 
 Or if men smote it with a yarde smart; 
 And all was conscience and tender heait. 
 
 To the lady succeeds the Monk — 
 
 I saw his sleeves perfumed at the hand, 
 With grease, and that the finest in the land, 
 And for to fasten his hood neath his chin. 
 He had of gold y-wrought a curious pin. 
 A love-knot in the greater end there was, 
 His head was bald, and shone as any glass. 
 
 The Monk is followed by the Friar — 
 
 Full swetely hearde he confession, 
 
 And pleasant was his absolution, 
 
 For many a man so hard is at his heart, 
 
 He cannot weep, though sorely he may smart, 
 
 Therefore, instead of weeping and prayers, 
 
 Men might give silver to the poor friers. 
 
 Last of all I introduce the Parson, or, as we should 
 say now-a-days the Parish Clergyman — 
 
 A good man there was of religion. 
 
 That was a poor parson of a town, 
 
 But rich lie was of Holy thought and work, 
 
 He was also a lerned man, a Clerk 
 
 That Christe's Gospel truely would preach. 
 
 His parishers devoutly would he teach. 
 
 Benign he was, and wondrous diligent, 
 
 And in adversity full patient 
 
 His parish wide, the houses far asunder, 
 
 But he ne'er left none, for no rain or thunder, 
 
 And tho' he hol}^ was and virtuous. 
 
 He was to sinful men not despitous. 
 
 To drawen folk to Heaven with fairenesse 
 
 By good example was his businesse. 
 
 For Christe's love and his Apostles' twelve. 
 
 He taught, hut first he followed it himseK 
 
 Now, all this is, of course, fiction. But what else 
 were the novels of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, a 
 hundred years ago, and what else are those of Mr. 
 
24 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 Dickens now? But as surely as Squire All-worthy 
 and Partridge, and Matthew Bramble, and Winnifred 
 Jenkins, and Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, and 
 Mistress Nickleby and Mr. Squeers, are all portraits 
 drawn by those artists from originals of their own 
 times, so surely are the storytellers who travel with 
 mine host of the Tabard to Canterbury genuine pic- 
 tures of the men and women with whom Chaucer was 
 familiar. 
 
 Observe then what, in addition to the dehght of 
 reading such passages of such poetry, is the histori- 
 cal instruction we gain from them. They show us 
 that four hundred and fifty years ago the different 
 ranks of society were drawn much more closely to- 
 gether than at present; since knights and prioresses, 
 squires and serjeants-at-law, are supposed, as a matter 
 of course, to sit down to supper, in all loving associ- 
 ation, with carpenters, tapsters, cooks, sailors, and 
 ploughmen. They show, therefore, that in that re- 
 mote age all EngHshmen could respect each other as 
 Freemen, while France and Germany were peopled with 
 Bondsmen (called by the French Eoturiers) — of not 
 much more account than the Serfs in Russia, or the 
 Ryots in Hindostan at tliis day. They show that 
 the middle classes of rural society^ the Franklins and 
 Squires, were living in great and even excessive abun- 
 dance ; though, as we may infer, with few other than 
 animal gratifications, as these alone are celebrated. 
 They show, however, that even then learning, real 
 or supposed, was the object of respect to those who 
 had it not themselves; since what we now call the 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 25 
 
 learned professions must have been held in reverence 
 by those remote ancestors of ours to whom the poet 
 addressed himself; for the wits never select as the 
 victims of then* flouting and jeering, persons not usu- 
 ally in high popular estimation. They show that 
 our forefathers laughed at the superstitions they were 
 practising; so that, even in Chaucer's time, there 
 were not wanting some sure omens of their approach- 
 ing downfall. They show that the resentment against 
 friars, monks, abbesses, and pardoners, which a hun- 
 dred years later overthrew the monasteries, was even 
 then working deeply in the national mind : and they 
 further show that EngUshmen in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury loved and honoured their parish priests, even as 
 we love and honoiu' them now. Much beside this 
 they show; but tell me from what History of Eng- 
 land you can learn the same facts, I will not say as 
 vividly and impressively, but even as accm*ately, and 
 on evidence of as much inherent weight and solid 
 value ? 
 
 As we are engaged with Poetry, you will allow me 
 the poetical Hcense of overleaping at a bound the next 
 200 years, and placing you in England in the year 
 1600. They have been eventful centuries. They 
 have witnessed the loss of the Enghsh dominion in 
 France — the Civil Wars of the Roses — the destruction 
 in those wars of all the old nobihty — ^the invention 
 of the art of printing — ^the revival of learning — the 
 union of all the European States in one great though 
 tacit international confederacy — the Reformation — 
 the establishment of it in Great Britain — and the ac- 
 
26 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 cession of the Tudor Dynasty to the English Crown. 
 EHzabeth was now reigning; though drawing near 
 to her end. You may have studied her reign in 
 Camden, Burnett, HeyHn, Strype, Sir Simon D'Ewes, 
 and Knox; in Bacon's letters ; in Birch's Memoirs; 
 in M. Mignet's beautiful life of Mary, Queen of Scots; 
 and in other works innumerable. In which of them 
 have you found a living, moving picture, of the Eng- 
 land of which they write ? Have they made you ac- 
 quainted with the mind which agitated that busy 
 mass, with the cherished hopes and fears, with the 
 character, the purposes, the deep-seated energies, the 
 prevalent opinions, the active moral sentiments, the 
 true heart and soul of the English people? I think 
 not. But is there then no teacher of these vital 
 truths? Had Elizabeth no subject who would exliibit 
 to his own age, and to all future ages, the very shape 
 and body of the time, its form and pressure ? 
 
 There was then living that man to whom the Eter- 
 nal Fountain of all wisdom had seen fit to impart a soul 
 in which, as in a mirror, were concentrated all the 
 lights radiating from every point of human observa- 
 tion, and from which, as from a mirror, those lights 
 were reflected back in every possible combination of 
 beauty and sublimity, of wisdom and of wit, of pathos 
 and of humour. Shakspeare, in the full matm-ity of 
 his genius, was then completing the noblest hterary 
 monument which it has ever been permitted to any 
 uninspired man to erect for the illumination of his bre- 
 thren of mankind, and (I scruple not to add) for the 
 glory of the Giver of every good and perfect gift. For 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 27 
 
 tlioiigli it be true that his Plays are occasionally tar- 
 nished by some of the impurities of his age (the addition 
 not improbably of meaner hands than his own), yet it is 
 also true that these are but local blemishes which may 
 be readily swept away or passed over, and that he has 
 written nothing in any of his dramas, tending to con- 
 found or to impair the eternal distinctions between 
 good and evil, but that he has written much to render 
 virtue inimitably lovely, and crime unutterably hate- 
 ful. But the knowledge of his times, for which we 
 are indebted to him (to return to my immediate sub- 
 ject), far exceeds in real importance whatever else we 
 know respecting them. It is a theme hardly to be 
 approached without the risk of endless redundancy, 
 yet it is not a theme entirely to be passed over in 
 silence. 
 
 In that wondrous throng and succession of person- 
 ages whom his imagination called into existence, many 
 bear foreign names, and are made to act in remote ages, 
 or in distant lands. But there is not one of them 
 whose parentage may not be readily traced to the 
 mind of an Englishman of the Elizabethan Era. While 
 assigning to each, with exquisite fehcity, the modes 
 of thought and action characteristic of the period and 
 of the place in which they are supposed to live, he 
 depicts them all with an insight into the heart of man 
 so profound, with a charity so universal, with a variety 
 of portraiture so boundless, and with such a prodigality 
 of mental resources, as to attest, not only that the 
 mighty artist was drawing from the living forms of 
 nature, but that those forms were noblest, the most 
 
28 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 picturesque, and the most varied, to wliicli nature had 
 ever given hirth in the land of his nativity. Not merely 
 Falstaff, and Falconhridge, and Richard the Third, 
 and Wolsey — our fellow-countrymen — but Hamlet 
 and Othello, the melancholy Jaques and Mercutio, 
 Brutus and Cleopatra — natives of lands and of ages 
 the most remote from ours — are evidently pictures 
 from the easel of one to whom such men and such 
 authors as Bacon, Raleigh, Sidney, and Spencer were 
 familiar — of one who numhered among his companions 
 such wits as Jonson, and Chapman, and Fletcher, and 
 Donne — and of one who, after growing up in central 
 England in the days of her greatest originahty, had he- 
 come a resident of London in the days of her greatest 
 intellectual vigour. While every one of his dramas, 
 and almost every one of his characters, exhibits what 
 is permanent and universal in our nature as men, it 
 also exhibits whatever was pecuhar and distinctive in 
 the nature of the EngHshmen of his own generation. 
 Read then in this light, and how do they illuminate 
 the whole series of the Ehzabethan Chronicles ? 
 
 The EngHsh Ladies of those times present them- 
 selves to you under names of which the mere cata- 
 logue has an irresistible charm — Miranda, Isabella, 
 Beatrice, Jessico, Rosahnd, Juliet, Opheha, Desde- 
 mona — ^the very models of female grace and tender- 
 ness, and strength of heart, and purity. The Enghsh 
 Cavaher appears on the stage in the persons of Claudio, 
 of Benedict, of Orlando, and Mercutio, each of them, 
 in his own way, a Phihp Sidney, doubly armed, with 
 the sword and with the pen. The Enghsh statesmen 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 29 
 
 are shadowed forth in the forms of Vincentio and Bo- 
 hngbroke, and Hastings, and Stanley, and Polonius; 
 men of large experience, of wide foresight, and of deep 
 suhtHty, hut ceasing to he worshipful as soon as they 
 pass from then- cahinets into the outer world. The 
 English Protestant Divines are not dramatised at all, 
 hecause the Poet could or would not descend to the 
 level of a Sir Martin Mar Prelate; hut the monastic 
 Enghsh Clergy of the Roman Catholic faith, (to which 
 assuredly he did not himself helong,) are frequently 
 and invariably personated as kind, gentle, and hene- 
 iicent ministers of religion, under the name of Bal- 
 thazzar, and Lawrence, and many others, to attest his 
 universal s^nnpathy for whatever was praiseworthy 
 and lovely, however much it might he misrepresented 
 or derided, or even persecuted hy others. 
 
 But passing from the noble and the great, Shak- 
 speare delighted above all things to paint the com- 
 monalty of his native land, those to whom we now 
 give the glorious title of the working classes — those, 
 that is, who earn their own living by the labour of 
 the mind or by the labour of the hand. His parents, 
 though rich enough to afford him the blessing of a 
 good education, were not of such rank as to detach 
 him in early life from the society of the petty chap- 
 men, mechanics, peasants, shepherds, and servingmen 
 of his native town and its vicinity. He has depicted 
 them in almost all his tragic, no less than in all his 
 comic di'amas. Would you enter a party of the small 
 gentry of a country town in England in those days ? 
 there are Master Ford and Master Page of Windsor, 
 
30 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 with their saucy wives, to receive and entertain you. 
 Are you curious about the fireside amusements of the 
 common people of their times ? you have but to listen 
 to Robin Goodfellow and Peasblossom, Snug the 
 Joiner, Bottom the Weaver, and Snout the Tinker. 
 Is it your fancy to witness the humours of a country 
 magistrate's court under our great Queen ? You have 
 but to listen to Mr. Justice Shallow, and to suppose the 
 incomparable Dogberry and Verges to be acting as his 
 constables. Would you have a notion of the servants' 
 hall as it was then peopled? Launcelot Gobbo and 
 Grumio, and Fabyn, and Tranio, will do the honours 
 of it for you. Or do you prefer a talk with those who 
 handled the spade or tended the sheep of our ancestors? 
 What better companions could you desire than the 
 Gravediggers, or Touchstone, with his friends Wilham 
 and Phoebe, and Audrey? Or if you are inquisitive 
 about the tavern festi^dties of our forefathers, enter 
 the Boar in Eastcheap, or the hostel of Mistress Quickly^ 
 Choose for yourself which of the many faces of Old 
 England, or as it was then called, Merry England, 
 you would have set before you, and Shakspeare will 
 present it to you, not in the shape of solemn disserta- 
 tion or wearisome statistics, biit such as it really was 
 — a scene crowded with hving men and women, ply- 
 ing their several tasks, animated by their various 
 passions, wooing, merry-making, trafficking, sorrow- 
 ing, laughing, scolding, and morahsing, just as men 
 and women really did two hundred and fifty years 
 ago. The perusal of his plays difi'ers from the study 
 of the ordinary histories of our native land, as a visit 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 31 
 
 to the now visible City of Pompeii differs from the 
 perusal of a treatise on Roman antiquities. Those 
 plays are not, however, to be considered only as the 
 most fascinating of spectacles. To those who know 
 how to search for it, they futher impart much and 
 most significant historical knowledge. 
 
 For example, these dramas show in what high 
 reverence the Royal person and authority were held 
 amongst us in the reign of Elizabeth. They show 
 that the great civil franchises which had, even then 
 been won and transmitted through centuries, to the 
 people at large, were not then among the common- 
 places of popular thought and discourse, and wi'iting. 
 They show that the distinctions of social rank were 
 in those days deeply drawn, and scrupulously main- 
 tained. They show that the usurpations of the Papacy 
 were vehemently denounced even by those who re- 
 garded with the largest charity the ministers of the 
 ancient faith. They show that our forefat];iers had not 
 learned our modern affectation of a liberalism so cos- 
 mopolitan as to shrink from celebrating in the loftiest 
 strains the greatness, the glory, and the happiness 
 of England. They show that the stage had assumed 
 that public censorship which had once belonged to the 
 pulpit, and which in our days belongs to the press — a 
 cautious, indeed a general and an indirect censorship 
 even in the hands of Shakspeare, though never ex- 
 ercised by him except to pronounce sentences not of 
 ephemeral but of eternal efficacy. They show above 
 all things that the great principle of self-government 
 had already fuU possession of the pubhc mind, and 
 
1 
 
 32 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 was akeady in active operation amongst us — that the 
 whole body of the English people, though saying 
 nothing about Magna Charta, and anticipating no BUI 
 of Rights, were animated by the genuine spirit of 
 freedom, pm'suing their own chosen paths, indulging 
 their own humours, feehng but little pressure from 
 their government, ignorant of all the continental de- 
 gradations of caste, and hving with each other on 
 terms becoming men who felt that they were all free, 
 and that in the eye of the law they were all equal. In 
 short, no man can read Shakspeare's Plays attentively, 
 without perceiving that the dramatist has brought 
 him into a company of persons nearly allied to that 
 extraordinary race of men who acted on the theatre 
 of public life in the very next generation ; — that the 
 Shakspearian dramatis personce might well have given 
 birth to the Cavaliers and Roundheads of the seven- 
 teenth century J — that the courtiers and churchmen of 
 the stage are»near of kin to the Falklands and the 
 Hydes, to the Wentworths and t^ie Lauds, of the Court 
 and Cabinet of Charles the First j — ^that his dramatic 
 soldiers, and gentlemen, and philosophers, are of the 
 same blood and lineage as the Cromwells and the 
 Hutchinsons, the Hampdens and the Yanes, the 
 Prynnes and the Bastwicks, of the Civil Wars 3 — and 
 that the tragic or comic heroes, drawn by Shakspeare 
 from the middle ranks of life, are the legitimate 
 fathers of the men and women who founded the Eng- 
 lish settlements on the North American Continent. 
 I make no especial reference to the Plays which 
 dramatise the wars of York and Lancaster, because 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 33 
 
 the latest of the events to which they refer was more 
 than a hundred years earher than the birth of Shak- 
 speare, and because he is therefore not a personal wit- 
 ness to the spirit of those times. Yet in passing I 
 would observe that even if read as histories, these Plays 
 are of the highest value utterly, as the writer of them 
 sets at nought every date and every fact which stands 
 in the way of the dramatic effect which they intended to 
 produce. The peculiar value of them is, that they exhi- 
 bit the romance of history in its most attractive forms, 
 saturated with the philosophy of history in its deepest 
 principles. The Great Duke of Marlborough might 
 have made without a blush his celebrated avowal that 
 those plays were the only History of England of which 
 he knew anything, if he could as truly have said (would 
 he could have said!) that he had imbibed the lessons 
 of magnanimity and of wisdom which they were so 
 evidently designed, and are so admirably calculated 
 to convey. 
 
 Much as Shakspeare abounds in illustrations of 
 the general aspects of Enghsh society in his own days, 
 and largely as he contributes to render intelligible to 
 us the general basis or ground-work on which all our 
 historians or chroniclers erected their narratives of 
 particular events, he is however not a frequent com- 
 mentator on the passing occurrences of his own times. 
 Some passages indeed there are, famihar to us all, in 
 which he gave utterance to the emotions with which 
 the bosoms of his contemporaries were heaving. Such 
 is the vehement denunciation of the tyranny and super- 
 stitions of Papal Rome drawn from him by the ex- 
 
 D 
 
34 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 communication wliich tlie Pope had fulminated against 
 Elizabeth. Such also is the noble burst of patriotic 
 enthusiasm in which, hke a true-spirited Englishman 
 as he was, he celebrated the defeat of the Armada; 
 and such (as I believe with Warburton) his superb 
 comj)liment to Ehzabeth (the Crowned Vestal), qua- 
 Hfied by an allusion to her rival Mary (the Mermaid), 
 and to the ruin in which her fascinations had involved 
 the Duke of Norfolk and the Earls of Northumberland 
 and Westmoreland. Will you forgive my repeating 
 to you the exquisite language in which Oberon, the 
 Fairy King, is made to say all this to Puck his fol- 
 lower? — 
 
 My gentle Puck come hither, thou remember'st 
 
 Since once I sat upon a Promontory, 
 
 And heard a Mermaid, on a Dolphin's back, 
 
 Uttering such dulcet and harmonious hreath. 
 
 That the rade Sea grew civil at her song; 
 
 And certain stars shot madly from their spheres 
 
 To hear the Sea Maid's music? 
 
 Puclc. 1 remember. 
 
 Oberon. That very time I saw (but thou could'st not) 
 Flying between the cold Moon and the Earth, 
 Cupid, all ai-m'd. A certain aim he took 
 At a fair Vestal throned by the west, 
 And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, 
 As it should pierce a hundi-ed thousand hearts. 
 But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 
 Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, 
 And the imperial votaress passed on 
 In maiden meditation, fancy free. 
 
 But though Shakspeare might thus for a moment 
 stoop from his high career to offer his Sovereign the 
 homage due to her real greatness as a Queen, and to 
 her imaginary loveliness as a woman, his was too large 
 a soul to contract itself into the dimensions of a Jom-nal- 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 35 
 
 ist, even if Journalism had been a craft witli which 
 the state would, in his days, have been permitted to 
 intermeddle. His commentators, however, dispute 
 whether there are not at least two other memorable 
 exceptions to his habitual silence on the events of his 
 times; and whether we may not read in " King John," 
 and in "As you hke it," the judgments he had formed 
 on the execution of Mary and on the fall of Essex. 
 The inquiry may perhaps merit and reward your pass- 
 ing attention. 
 
 It was on the 7th of February, 1587, that Mary 
 laid her head on the block in the hall of Fotheringay 
 Castle. The writers of those times describe, in the 
 strongest terms, the apparent surprise and resentment 
 of Elizabeth on receiving that intelligence. Her grief 
 exhibited itself first in mute astonishment, and then 
 in lamentable wailings. She chased her Ministers 
 from her presence. She accused them of having put 
 her dear kinswoman to death contrary to her fixed 
 purpose. She prosecuted Secretary Daveson for hav- 
 ing despatched to Fotheringay, without her consent, 
 the death warrant which he had prevailed on her to 
 sign. She obtained a judgment condemning him to 
 pay to herself a fine of £10,000, and to be imprisoned 
 during her pleasure ', and she actually caused that sen- 
 tence to be executed to the letter. I suppose that no 
 one now doubts that all this was but base hypocrisy 
 and cruel injustice. But what was the popular opinion 
 of those days ? The Pulpit and the Press were silent, 
 or subservient to the Queen. Did the stage give ut- 
 terance to the pubhc feelings ? 
 
36 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 Warburton thinks that, in the Play of King John, 
 Shakspeare endeavoured to ingratiate himself with 
 Elizabeth by adopting and echoing her charge against 
 Daveson. That Play first appeared in 1598; that is, 
 about eleven years after Mary's death. In the third 
 act, the King darkly intimates to Hubert his desire 
 for the assassination of his nephew and rival, Arthur. 
 In the fourth act, Hubert apprises the King of the uni- 
 versal horror and discontent which had been produced 
 by the execution of his fatal orders ; and John in the 
 following terms throws on his too ready instrument 
 the responsibility for the murder: — 
 
 It is the curse of Kings to te attended 
 
 By slaves, that take their humours for a warrant 
 
 To hreak -within the Woody house of life; 
 
 And, on the w-inking of Authority, 
 
 To understand a Law; to know the meaning 
 
 Of dangerous Majesty; when, perchance, it frowns 
 
 More upon humour, than advised respect. 
 
 Hubert answers — 
 
 Here is your hand and seal for what I did. 
 The, King. Oh ! when the last account 'twist heaven and earth 
 Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal 
 Witness against us to damnation. 
 How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds, 
 Makes deeds ill done. Had'st not thou been by^ 
 A fellow by the hand of nature marked. 
 Quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame, 
 This murder had not come into my miad. 
 But taking note of thy abhorred aspect, 
 Finding thee fit for bloody vUlany, 
 Apt, liable to be employed in danger, 
 I faintly broke with thee of Aithurs death. 
 And thou, to be endeared to a King, 
 Made it no conscience to destroy a Piince. 
 Had'st thou but shook thine head, or made a pause 
 When I spake darkly what I purposed; 
 Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face; 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 37 
 
 Or bid me tell my tale in express words, 
 
 Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off, 
 
 And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me. 
 
 But thou didst understand me by my signs, 
 
 And did'st, in signs again parley with sin. 
 
 Yea, wthout stop, did'st let thy heart consent, 
 
 And consequently thy rude hand to act 
 
 The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name. 
 
 Out of my sight, and never see me more! 
 
 Now, observe that the whole of this scene is a pure 
 invention, and that there is no authority in the his- 
 torians of King John's reign for the participation of 
 such a person as Hubert in Arthur's murder, if indeed 
 Aiiihur was really murdered at all, or even for Hubert's 
 existence. Is it possible that Shakspeare invented 
 such an incident and such a personage without per- 
 ceiving the correspondence of both with the case of 
 Daveson? Or could the obvious appHcation of the 
 parable to Elizabeth be overlooked by the audience 
 at the distance of only eleven years from the death 
 of Mary ? I do not, therefore, see how we can rea- 
 sonably depart from Warburton's opinion that the 
 similitude was not accidental but designed. But 
 neither do I see how we can agree with him in think- 
 ing that this speech was written to suggest an apology 
 for Elizabeth. It rather intimates that the real guilt 
 of Mary's execution was hers, and that Daveson was 
 comparatively, if not wholly, blameless. It seems to 
 me, therefore, that the evident allusions of this passage 
 of the play to the analogous passage of their recent 
 history, attest at once the courage of the great drama- 
 tist by whom they were hazarded, and the discretion 
 of the great monarch by whom they were disregarded. 
 
38 EIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 Mr. Charles Knight, however (to whom, by the way, 
 the literature of his generation owes many high obh- 
 gations, and especially for his History of England, 
 the best of all compilations of that kind which has 
 ever appeared among us), Mr. Knight, I say, rejects 
 Warhurton's commentary on this scene as altogether 
 extravagant, because, as he observes, both the poet 
 and the players who had presumed so to comment on 
 so high a measure of state pohcy would have promptly 
 found themselves in the stock or in the jail. 
 
 And yet Mr. Knight himself has discovered in "As 
 you hke it" a similar act of audacity, though doubt- 
 less much more skilfully veiled. In September, 1 599, 
 Essex arrived in England, a fugitive fi-om his army 
 in Ireland, and under the heavy displeasure of the 
 Court for his treaty with the Irish rebels. His friends 
 and kinsmen, Rutland and Southampton, shared his 
 disgrace. The while he was committed to the custody 
 of the Lord Keeper Bacon, they remained at large, 
 passing their time and soothing their mortifications 
 (as we learn from the Sydney papers) by "going daUy 
 to the plays." In the following spring, when the fall 
 of these three eminent courtiers must have been the 
 common topic of discom'se, "As you hke it" was first 
 brought on the stage. Read over that incomparable 
 description of the safety and quietness of a life passed 
 in rm'al scenes and engagements, when contrasted 
 with the calamities to which com*tiers and statesmen 
 are exposed, and you will perhaps agree with Mr. 
 Knight that Shakspeare intended to direct the thoughts 
 of his audience to the then recent degradation of Essex, 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 39 
 
 Rutland, and Soutliampton, if not to suggest to the 
 sufferers themselves the possibility of being happy in 
 despite of fortune. With this view of the probable, 
 or at least of the possible, meaning of that most fas- 
 cinating of all Pastorals, listen to the language of the 
 exiled Duke: — 
 
 Now my co-mates and brothers in exile, 
 
 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
 
 Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 
 
 More free from peril than the envious Court ? 
 
 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
 
 The season's difference ; as, the icy fang, 
 
 And churlish chiding, of the winter's wind ; 
 
 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 
 
 E'en till I shrink with cold, I smile and say — 
 
 This is no flatteiy ; these are councillors 
 
 That feelingly persuade me what I am. 
 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 
 Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous, 
 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 And this our life, exempt from pubUc haunts, 
 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 
 Sermons in stones, and good in ever3rthing. 
 
 Or hear the moralising of the melancholy Jaques 
 over the poor sequestered stag, that from the hunter's 
 " aim had ta'en a hurt," when " the careless herd, 
 full of the pasture, jumps along by him, and never 
 stays to greet him:" 
 
 Ay, quoth Jaques, sweep on you fat and greasy citizens ; 
 Tis just the fashion ! wherefore do you look 
 Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there? 
 
 If Essex read, and if Rutland and Southampton 
 really heard all this, assuredly they did not read and 
 hear it unmoved. Nor perhaps (as Mr. Knight sug- 
 gests) did the shaft from the sounding bow of the Poet 
 leave unwounded the heart of Francis Bacon himself. 
 
40 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 I 
 
 When writing, as we know from his own letters, that 
 he did writhe under universal reproach for his conduct 
 to his benefactor Essex (a reproach the justice of which 
 we must not too readily admit, high as are the recent 
 authorities which repeat and echo it), what censure 
 could sting so keenly as the song of Amiens in this 
 drama? — 
 
 Blow, blovr thou Trinter wind, 
 Thou art not so unkind 
 
 As man's ingi-atitude : 
 Thy tooth is not so keen, 
 Because thou art not seen, 
 
 Although thy breath be rude. 
 Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, 
 Thou dost not bite so nigh 
 
 As benefits forgot ; 
 Though thou the waters warp, 
 Thy sting is not so sharp 
 
 As friend remembered not. 
 
 Now let it he supposed that these constructions of 
 Shakspeare's latent meaning are erroneous, and that 
 he had no real design to comment in these passages 
 on the memorahle occurrences of his own times. Even 
 on that supposition, they may sufficiently answer my 
 immediate purpose. They may illustrate to him who 
 has taken the history of England for his meridian line, 
 or trunk line, or study, how his deviations into Eng- 
 lish poetry may he made suhser^dent to that, his main 
 design; how he may make the chronicles and the 
 drama reflect Hght on each other; how even while en- 
 trancing himself with these glorious creatures of the 
 imagination, he may gather hints and suggestions 
 numberless, which, while they enhance and justify his 
 dehght in the mighty dramatist, may conduct him to 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 41 
 
 a more close and critical inquiry into the annals of 
 our land, to a more distinct understanding, and a 
 firmer remembrance of them. 
 
 My time is rapidly waning ; yet before I conclude 
 I could wish to give you still another instance of the 
 manner in which our poets may be made the most ef- 
 fective auxiliaries to the readers of our historians. We 
 Avill overleap the civil wars of the 17th century, the 
 Government of Cromwell, and the Restoration, and 
 Avill place ourselves in the reign of Charles XL in the 
 centre of that society with which Mr. Macaulay has 
 made us all so familiar. If any historical writer could 
 supersede the function of the poets of the age he cele- 
 brates, and render their aid superfluous, it is assur- 
 edly to Mr. Macaulay that this power must belong. For 
 the boundless affluence of his mind, and the restless ac- 
 tivity of his imagination, have thrown over his pages 
 a poetical wannth and glow of colouring, and a dra- 
 matic rapidity of movement, which deny even a tran- 
 sient repose to the faculties of delight and wonder. 
 What, for example, more brilliant, more interesting, 
 more picturesque, and as it might seem more complete, 
 and more defying competition, than his account of the 
 Cabals, the invasion, and the death of Monmouth? 
 Yet, after reading it once again, turn to the Absalom 
 and Achitophel of Dryden, which is in effect a poem 
 on the same subject, and you will find that even the 
 bold relief in which the historian has chiselled out Mon- 
 mouth and his associates, becomes tame and inani- 
 mate in the presence of the living sculpture in which 
 the poet brings them before you. At the risk of re- 
 
42 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 peating passages whicli many of us have by heart, I 
 must vindicate this statement hy quoting the follow- 
 ing dehneation of the Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, 
 the Achitophel of the poet: — 
 
 Of these the false Achitophel was worst, 
 
 A name to all succeeding ages curst; 
 
 For close designs, and crooked counsels fit, 
 
 Sagacious, hold, and turhulent of wit. 
 
 Restless, unfixed in principles and place. 
 
 In power unpleased ; familiar with disgrace. 
 
 A fleiy soul which, working out its way, 
 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay. 
 
 And o'er roform'd the tenement of clay. 
 
 A daring pilot in extremity. 
 
 Pleased with the danger when the waves went high, 
 
 He sought the storms ; but, for a calm xmfit, 
 
 "Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 
 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide, 
 
 Else why should he, with wealth and honours blest, 
 
 Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ; 
 
 Punish a body which he could not please ; 
 
 Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease. 
 
 And all to leave what with his toil he won 
 
 To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son? 
 
 In Mendship false ; implacable in hate. 
 
 Resolved to ruin or to rule the State. 
 
 ******** 
 Then seized with fear, yet stili affecting fame 
 Usm-ped a patriot's all-atoning name. 
 So easy still it proves, in factious times. 
 With public zeal to cancel private crimes ! 
 Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge, 
 The statesman we abhor, but praise the Judga 
 In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin 
 With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean; 
 Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress. 
 Swift of despatch and easy of access. 
 Oh ! had he been content to serve the Crown 
 With virtue only proper to the gown, 
 David for him his tuneful harp had strung. 
 And Heaven had wanted one immortal song. 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 43 
 
 With this unparalleled satire, contrast Dry den's 
 eulogy on Sir Edward Seymour, once the Speaker of 
 the House of Commons, and afterwards one of the 
 earliest adherents of the revolution of 1688, of whom 
 also Mr. Macaulay has given us so vivid a delineation. 
 In Absalom and Achitophel he hears the name of 
 Amiel: 
 
 Indulge one labour more, my weary muse, 
 For Amiel ; who can Amiel's praise refuse ? 
 Of ancient race by birth ; but nobler yet 
 In his own worth, and, without title, great. 
 The Sanhedrim long time as chief he ruled, 
 Their reason guided, and their passions cooled. 
 So dexterous was he in the Crown's defence. 
 So formed to speak a loyal nation's sense, 
 That as their band was Israel's tribes in small, 
 So fit was he to represent them aU. 
 Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend. 
 Whose loose careers his ready skill commend. 
 They, like the unequal ruler of the day. 
 Misguide the seasons, and mistake the way; 
 While he, withdrawn, at their mad labours smiles, 
 And safe enjoys the Sabbath of his toUs. 
 
 The comparison of these two passages will probably 
 have suggested to you the fact of the immense supe- 
 riority of the satirical over the laudatory powers of 
 Dryden. In this respect he was the very opposite of 
 his illustrious pupil and imitator. Parsimonious of 
 his applause. Pope has bestowed no praise which has 
 not passed into a proverb. Dryden's eulogies are al- 
 most universally forgotten, but his censures are im- 
 mortal. 
 
 But for any reference to Pope, the time would fail 
 me, or I could gladly, however feebly, emulate Lord 
 Carlisle's recent and admirable tribute to his genius. 
 I must not, however, add another to the many devi- 
 
44 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 ations from mj proper theme into whicli I may seem 
 to liave wandered. Yet wliat I have been addressing 
 to you has not (in my own apprehension at least) been 
 without a certain singleness of design and continuity 
 of purpose. 
 
 It has been my endeavour to remind you of the 
 high social and moral responsibilities which the recent 
 changes in the government of this country have east 
 upon us all. I have attempted to show that, as in 
 the commencement of the French revolution, the at- 
 tempt to render all knowledge accessible to all read- 
 ers, disquahfied the great body of the people of France 
 for the grateful, vigilant, humble, and self-denying use 
 of their new powers ; so a similar attempt in England 
 may perhaps be productive here of a not dissimilar 
 result. I have sought to convince you that the se- 
 lection of some one particular branch of study, and 
 the steadfast adherence to it, is the only method by 
 which any ordinary man can attain to any such sohd 
 and useful learning as will quahfy him for the right 
 discharge of his pubHc and his private duties. I have 
 insisted however, that his observance of that method 
 is compatible with the accumulation of very much 
 collateral and subordinate knowledge, which may be 
 rendered by each man conducive to the illustration 
 of his main and chosen topic. I have added that of 
 all topics which could so be chosen by those among 
 you who have their choice yet to make, and who have 
 no particular propensity to determine it, the History 
 of England seems to me the most convenient ; and 
 it has been my aim to illustrate that general remark by 
 
SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 45 
 
 showing in various instances liow a digression to the 
 poetry of England (for example) would render her 
 history at once more interesting, more intelligible, 
 and more fruitful in true wisdom. 
 
 I can anticipate many objections to these counsels, 
 and of all such objections few perhaps will more im- 
 mediately present themselves to many of you, than 
 that I am suggesting a plan of intellectual culture 
 for the steadfast pursuit of which nature has not given 
 you the indispensable talents, nor fortune the requisite 
 facihties. I answer, that my own observation of hfe 
 has taught me that, much and frequently as the faults 
 of self-confidence and self-conceit are denounced by 
 our teachers, they are faults far less widely diffused 
 and far less dangerous in their tendency than a timid 
 self-distrust, and a craven self-depreciation. Think 
 as meanly as you will of your use of your powers, 
 but of the powers intrusted to you think reverently 
 and highly. Of nature and of fortune as the giver of 
 them I know nothing. These are mere ideal abstrac- 
 tions — figures of speech inherited from the ojd Pagan 
 mythology. But I well know that God has given to 
 every one of us far greater talents than any one of us 
 has employed stenuously and to the uttermost, and 
 far greater opportunities than the best of us has al- 
 ways bravely seized, and conscientiously improved. 
 If in virtue of my melancholy advantage over you, to 
 which I adverted in the onset, of having numbered so 
 many years, I might presume to speak as the moni- 
 tor of those whom I address, my whole exhortation to 
 them might be comprised in a single word, and that 
 
^ 
 
 46 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 one word would be ^'Aspire.''' But I spare you any 
 further counsels of my own, because I can expand and 
 clotbe tbat single word in tbe language of one of tbe 
 wittiest, the wisest, and the holiest of the poets of whom 
 England has to boast. In the words of George Her- 
 bert, therefore, let me say, and I will conclude with 
 saying:— 
 
 Pitcli thy behaviour low, thy projects high ; 
 
 So Shalt thou humhle and magnanimous he ; 
 Sink not in spirit ; who aimeth at the sky 
 
 Shoots higher much than he that means a tree. 
 A grain of glory mixed with humhleness 
 Cures hoth a fever and lethargicness. 
 
THE STUDY OF ABSTEACT SCIENCE 
 
 ESSENTIAL TO 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF INDUSTRY, 
 
 BEING THE INTKODUCTORT LECTUKE TO 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES, IN 1851, 
 
 BY LYON PLAYFAIE, G.B., F.E.S. 
 
 The raw material used by Industry in tlie production 
 of useful objects doubtless forms the starting point 
 for manufactui-es, altbough it possesses a fluctuating 
 value in relation to that of the object into which it is 
 converted. In the successful prosecution of manu- 
 factures, apart from the influence of capital and mere 
 brute labour, two elements are involved, each form- 
 ing a factor which in a competition of Industry may 
 be made to assume very different values. The first 
 element is the raw material; the second, the skill 
 and knowledge, or, in other words, the intellectual 
 labour used in adapting it to the purposes for which 
 it is designed. In America, cotton being indigenous, 
 is cheap ; and fuel, the other raw material employed 
 in its conversion to a textile fabric, is not costly. In 
 England, the same cotton is much dearer, while the 
 
48 LYON PLAYFAIR ESQ., C.B., F.R.S. 
 
 fuel may be assumed to be equal in price. The com- 
 petition between the two countries, in respect to 
 cahco, resolves itself into the necessity that England, 
 to overcome the disadvantage of the increased cost of 
 the raw material, must infuse a greater amount of 
 skilled labour into the processes employed to adapt it 
 to useful purposes. England has succeeded in doing 
 this ; and, consequently, the mills of Manchester may 
 render unproductive the mills of Lowell. But reverse 
 the conditions of the two coimtries, and a similar 
 result attests the truth of the same principle. Shef- 
 field produces steel, which is exported in large quan- 
 tity as a raw material to America. The history of 
 that country has created a knowledge of the condi- 
 tions required for the manufacture of edge-tools. The 
 forests were not cleared, or the prairies converted 
 into arable land, without that observing nation under- 
 standing the quaHties and the requirements of the 
 axe, the adze, and the spade. The knowledge thus 
 attained was applied to the manufacture of edge-tools ; 
 and America returns to England its own steel, but 
 under a new form, and endowed with an excellence, 
 a temper, and a cheapness yet unattained by our 
 artisans. Without this apphcation of greater skill it 
 would have been impossible for America to have com- 
 peted with the country producing the raw material. 
 
 A nation, if it combine ordinary intelligence with 
 its local advantages of cheap raw material, may long 
 preserve almost a monopoly in special manufactures, 
 and will continue to do bo, either until the competin 
 nation has risen so high above her in inteUigence as 
 
GOYEENMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 49 
 
 to make this more than an equivalent for the local 
 advantage of the other, or until a greater equalization 
 in the price of the raw material renders a small 
 amount of superiority in the intellectual element of 
 sufficient importance to secure successful competi- 
 tion. 
 
 But should any great transition of the world take 
 place, by which local advantages were levelled, and 
 the raw material confined to one country became 
 readily attainable by all at a sHght diiference in its 
 cost, then competition in industry must become a 
 competition in intellect ; and the nation which most 
 quickly promotes the intellectual development of its 
 artizans must, by an inevitable law of nature, advance ; 
 whilst the country which neglects this industrial 
 training must as inevitably recede. 
 
 It is apparent that we are rapidly approaching to, 
 if we have not yet arrived at, that period of wonder- 
 ful transition, when nations must speedily acquii-e 
 the levels due to their different amounts of intellec- 
 tual development, or in other words, to the relative 
 proportion of skilled and brute labour available to 
 their industries. 
 
 It is quite true that a superabundance of capital 
 may for a time preserve a country from a quick de- 
 pression, even should it neglect its intellectual train- 
 ing ; but the support thus given can only be tempo- 
 rary and illusory, for though the purchase of foreign 
 talent may infuse the necessary knowledge into home 
 manufactm'cs, this must have the ultimate effect of 
 raising the intellectual element in the foreign country, 
 
50 LYOK PLAYFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 and thus finally accelerate its success as a competing 
 nation. 
 
 There never was a time when it was so necessary 
 as now that science should be united with capital 
 and labour for the promotion of the industrial arts. 
 At former periods of human history, local advantages 
 or accidental combinations were the foundations of a 
 nation's prosperity. The time is not distant when 
 it was thought that the possession of mineral fuel 
 indicated a country as the natural manufactory of 
 the necessaries of life employing machinery for their 
 production ; while the existence of large tracts of 
 land, warmed by a genial sun, stamped another nation 
 as essentially agricultural, and employed its popula- 
 tion in the labours of the field. Each country fell 
 into a routine of manufacture ; and Italy and France 
 produced their silks and shawls, with as Httle thought 
 of competition as England in the case of its machiner}" 
 and calicoes. 
 
 The progress of science has not only created re- 
 sources unthought of before, but has also removed 
 the local barriers opposed to the progress of Industry. 
 Countries are no longer confined in their aspu'ations 
 by smallness of territory, for even this by the aid of 
 science is capable of great extension. A country 
 able in its agricultural poverty to support only a 
 scanty and miserable population, expands itself for 
 the reception of increased numbers as the produce of 
 its land augments, and thus knowledge, in improv- 
 ing agriculture, wins by a bloodless victory vast 
 additional territory to aid in the industrial re- 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 51 
 
 sources of the nation ; for a land, with a twofold 
 increase in agricultural production, has, for all prac- 
 tical purposes, unfolded itself to twice its size. 
 Science in its progress improves and simplifies pro- 
 cesses of manufacture, while it opens at the same 
 time a communication hetween the nations of the 
 earth. The amazing faciHties of transport afforded 
 by the introduction of steam enables a ready inter- 
 change of their natural riches ; and mere adventitious 
 local advantages, apart from skill and science in their 
 adaptation, become of much less moment than they 
 formerly were. The proof of this is in the fact, that 
 the staple manufactures are now carried on in all 
 parts of Europe, and that there is a constantly in- 
 creasing and active competition of most of the great 
 nations in all the markets of the world. If England 
 stiR continue in advance, it will not be from the abun- 
 dance of her coal and iron, but because, uniting science 
 with practice, she enables her discoveries in philosophy 
 to keep pace with her aptitude in applying them. 
 
 But is it true that England does act thus wisely ; 
 and is it true that science does hold in this country 
 its just position in pubhc esteem, or that it is fostered 
 sufficiently to make that progress which it is now 
 doing in other lands ? To all such questions a negative 
 reply must be given ; for beyond a theoretical recog- 
 nition of the importance of science in its relations to 
 practice, the state and the public only look to the em- 
 pirical result, and have not deemed it necessary to fos- 
 ter the knowledge producing it.* Now England is the 
 
 * Since this lecture was given the government have made some advances 
 
52 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S. 
 
 only European state thus blind to its own interests, 
 and not yet thoroughly awakened to the importance of 
 giving an intellectual training to those intrusted with 
 its manufactures. This is shown by the large en- 
 dowments given by foreign governments for the sup- 
 port of institutions connected with Industrial Science, 
 and it finds expression in the writings of their think- 
 ing men. "An equal appreciation of all parts of 
 knowledge," says Humboldt, " is an especial require- 
 ment of the present epoch, in which the material 
 wealth and the increasing prosperity of nations are 
 in a great measure based on a more enhghtened em- 
 ployment of natural products and forces. The most 
 superficial glance at the present condition of Euro- 
 pean states shows, that those which linger in the race 
 cannot hope to escape the partial diminution and 
 perhaps the final annihilation of their resources. It 
 is with nations as with nature, which, according to a 
 happy expression of Groethe, knows no pause in ever- 
 increasing movement, development, and production — 
 a curse still cleaving to standing still. 
 
 " Nothing but serious occupation with chemistry 
 and natural and physical science can defend a state 
 from the consequences of competition. Man can pro- 
 duce no effect upon nature, or appropriate her powers, 
 unless he is conversant with her laws, and with their 
 relations to material objects according to measure 
 and numbers. And in this hes the power of popular 
 inteUigence, which rises or falls as it encourages or 
 
 in infusing science into general education, and a Department of the 
 Board of Trade is specially charged to diffuse scientific instruction through 
 the country. 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OY MINES. 53 
 
 neglects this study. Science and information are the 
 joy and justification of mankind. They form the 
 springs of a nation's wealth, being often, indeed, sub- 
 stitutes for those material riches which nature has in 
 many cases distributed with so partial a hand. 
 Those nations which remain behind in manufacturing 
 activity, by neglecting the practical apphcations of 
 the mechanical arts and of industrial chemistry, to 
 the transmission, growth, or manufacture of raw 
 materials — those nations among whom respect for 
 such activity does not pervade all classes— must 
 inevitably fall from any prosperity they may have 
 attained ; and this by so much the more certainly 
 and speedily as neighbouring states, instinct with 
 the power of youthful renovation, in which science 
 and the arts of industry operate or lend each other 
 mutual assistance, are seen pressing forward in the 
 race." 
 
 It is but the overflowings of science that thus 
 enter into and animate industry. In its study we 
 are never sure that the morrow may not gladden the 
 world with an application of a principle to-day 
 abstract, and apparently remote from practice This 
 is a truth above all things necessary to convert into 
 a hving faith in the minds of those who devote their 
 lives to its practical apphcations. Nothmg is more 
 erroneous in their case than to neglect the acquisition 
 of abstract scientific truths because they appear 
 remote from practice. I do not admit that it is 
 even wise to address to oneself the question cui bono f 
 Science is too lofty for measurement by the yard of 
 
54 LTON PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 utility ; — too inestimable for expression by a money 
 standard. These grovelling ideas of the objects of 
 science, which constantly jar it in its intercourse with 
 the world, ought to find no response in the breast of 
 any devotee who would draw inspiration from its 
 shrine. But whilst I protest against the indulgence 
 of a mere utiHtarian appetite for science, I think it 
 infinitely advantageous to examine it in its practical 
 relations to life ; yet, it must never be forgotten, 
 that though the object of industrial study is to view 
 science in its beneficent overflowings of kindness to 
 man, these material benefits arise fi'om the very ftd- 
 ness of its measure. If we revert to the intellectual 
 wanderings of science in its search for truth, it be- 
 comes surprising how soon it shook off the trammels 
 of ignorance, and sprang into a glorious hbei*ty. Let 
 us recollect how much science has advanced within 
 the last three centuries, and even her past history 
 becomes more remarkable in its progress than the 
 present. It is no mean task for intellect to leap 
 over the baniers of prejudice and ignorance raised by 
 an assumed knowledge ; it is even more easy to go 
 onward in new and untrodden paths. It was only 
 at the end of the sixteenth century that the Council 
 of Sages at Salamanca negatived the idea of a western 
 continent, by the writings of Lactantius. " Is there 
 any one so fooHsh," says he, " as to beheve that there 
 are antipodes with their feet opposite to ours ; people 
 who walk with their heels upwards and their heads 
 hanging down ? That there is a part of the world 
 in which all things are topsy-turvy ; where the trees 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 55 
 
 grow with their branches downwards, and where it 
 rains, hails, and snows upwards ?" Do we not know 
 that Columbus was told b)'- the Sages, that were he 
 to succeed in saihng down the rotundity of the earth, 
 its bulging out would prevent him ever saihng 
 up again ; and do we not remember with what a 
 steadfast faith in abstract truth he saw beyond " the 
 region of the torrid zone, scorched by a blazing sun, 
 a region of fire, where the very waves which beat 
 upon the shores boiled under the intolerable fervour 
 of the heavens ?" Eecollect that these were the 
 opinions of a time when the utmost national en- 
 couragement was given to intellectual progress, and 
 that it was not very many years after the death of 
 Prince Henry of Portugal, who gave that glorious 
 motto to princes, " the talent to do good." Recollect 
 that this ignorance was manifested in the brightest 
 time of the reign of the enhghtened Isabella of Castile, 
 and you will be surprised with me that science has 
 since that time achieved what it has. Had Columbus 
 not investigated the abstract truths of cosmography, 
 the western continent, even with the advantasre of 
 the "astrolabe," would perhaps for a century have 
 remained unknown. It is easy to make an egg 
 stand on its end when the way is shown how to do 
 it. The apphcations of science are not difficult, 
 but without the science there are no apphcations. 
 The philosophy of our times does not expend itself 
 as it did in the middle ages, in furious discussions 
 on mere scholastic triviahties, or unmeaning ques- 
 tions in theology. The scholastic learning of the 
 
5G LYON PLATFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S. 
 
 middle ages was much confmed to ecclesiastics, and 
 it is not sui'prising to find both classical and theo- 
 logical literature engrafting itself upon the science of 
 the time, and forcing it into the discussion of ques- 
 tions very foreign to its nature. It was a curious 
 mixture of theology and science when the most 
 learned men agitated themselves on subjects such as 
 — the manner in which angels are nourished ? — 
 whether they usually speak Hebrew or Greek ? — 
 who are the spirits entrusted vdih the distribution 
 of hghtning and hail, and to whom are confided the 
 digestive powers of animals ? — whether Adam, before 
 the fall, was acquainted with the Liber Senteniianrm 
 of Petrus Lombardus ? The polemics of a past age 
 do but faintly represent the search after absti*act 
 truth of the present. Yet you are in no position 
 even now to treat with derision the past errors of 
 philosophy. The man who is on the mountain com- 
 plains of the fog obstructing his view, while the 
 inhabitant of the plain speaks of it as a cloud capping 
 the mountain. Both are right, but read the pheno- 
 menon in a different sense. Yet only he that was in 
 the fog could rightl}'' appreciate its dai'kness, or fully 
 understand the force of the rising sun that dissipated 
 it* obscurity. The progress of knowledge, — the 
 search after truth, — can scarcely be recognized in its 
 subUmity by those who do not understand the errors 
 which had to be swept away before it could advance 
 in an uninterrupted path. 
 
 There are very few instances in the history of 
 science of a sudden development of great discoveries, 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 5/ 
 
 either by being illumined from darkness in a flood 
 of light from genius, or betrayed through some acci- 
 dental and straggling ray. The growth of scientific 
 discovery is slow ; nor does it, Hke the prophet's 
 gourd, spring into full fruit in a single night. The 
 great discoveries of science leave behind them no 
 boundary hne of demarcation from those which have 
 preceded, but, like the full day succeeding the dawn 
 of the sun, follow that which fully foretold their 
 approach. The telescope and microscope did not 
 open their wonders to an unexpected and startled 
 world, but crept into being with steps so slow that 
 their impression is not sufficient to trace out the 
 history of their progress. The improvements in the 
 steam-engine were so gradual that a court of law, only 
 half a century since, gave a solemn judgment that 
 Watt had done nothing essential towards them. The 
 compass cannot point to us the period when it offered 
 its inestimable services to man, nor has paper left a 
 record of its discoverer. In fact, all great practical 
 discoveries are the result of much study, the exponent 
 of a long series of observations, and often arise out of 
 those truths of science which appeared least promis- 
 ing on theu' first announcement. Boyle knew that 
 he wrote an imperishable truth when he titled his 
 Essay " Man's great ignorance of the uses of Natural 
 Things ; or, that there is no one thing in Nature 
 whereof the uses to Human Life are yet thoroughly 
 undersiood." This truth of the seventeenth centurj" 
 is no less true in the nineteenth, the history of the 
 intermediate time having been, as Sir John HersChel 
 
58 LTOIS- PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S. 
 
 justly remarks, but one commentary on the text. 
 The everyday progress of the arts abounds in new 
 appHcations of objects the most familiar. 
 
 Practical, Hke abstract science, has no hmits. The 
 Romans thought themselves at the culmmating point 
 of civilization ; and the Grreeks, pluming themselves 
 in their inventiveness, could not conceive that the 
 world would ever take a higher flight. Even in our 
 times, like opinions are entertained ; because igno- 
 rance cannot see over the heights raised by modern 
 science in taking its wide view of creation. These 
 conceited ideas of a nation or of an age have no 
 foundation. Science may see an horizon bounding 
 her view ; but as she proceeds onward the horizon 
 constantly recedes, and shows the limit to be alto- 
 gether illusory. In one time and generation a nation 
 may, Hke Newton, pick up a few pebbles on the 
 seashore, while the boundless ocean of science lies 
 beyond, with aU its vast and unexplored treasures. 
 
 Empiricism has frequently been a substitute for 
 science ; a lame and sluggish substitute, it is true, 
 but nevertheless one that in the history of mind has 
 had much of influence.* Gunpowder was known be- 
 fore the condensed gases which it contains were 
 recognized or understood ; and it was used to kill 
 man, without a knowledge that man himself is httle 
 more than air similarly condensed. Man succeeded 
 in compressing air into the form of food, without 
 having the sHghtest conception of the character of 
 the atmosphere out of which this wondrous trans- 
 
 * Vide Liebig's Letters on Chemistry. 
 
GOVEBNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 59 
 
 formation was effected. Without an acquaintance 
 with the laws of atmospheric pressure, mills and 
 pumps were formed. Glass was made from the ashes 
 of the fern, and china from kaohn, without even their 
 ingredients being known. The length of the year 
 was determined, and the duration of the seasons ex- 
 plained, before the law of gravitation was suspected. 
 All this, it is true, arose without science, but required 
 ages to grow into a stunted and feeble childhood; 
 while no sooner did science infuse new health than a 
 few short years produced a vigorous manhood. Igno- 
 rance may gi'ope in darkness on the confines of an 
 unexplored region, but to proceed steadily and se- 
 curely onwards she must borrow the lamp of science 
 to guide her. Newton, "that glory to his species," 
 as Chalmers calls him, did, by the exposition of the 
 law of gravitation, produce more real practical bene- 
 fits to industry than all the preceding ages of empi- 
 ricism. Navigation and commerce sprang from his 
 time into a state of development formerly impossible ; 
 and every nation and every human being enjoys from 
 him, and to the end of time will enjoy, actual mate- 
 rial benefits which an eternity of empiricism could 
 not have produced. The hard-won experience of two 
 thousand years of the Chinese in regard to porcelain 
 was given to the European by a few years' applications 
 of science. The progressive improvements in com- 
 munication, which allowed our kings to transmit a 
 message to Edinburgh in five days, now enable us to 
 send it in less time than their " post-haste messen- 
 ger" could have saddled his horse. But these, and 
 
60 LYON PLAYFAIE, ESQ., C.B., T.E.S. 
 
 other triumplis of mind over mere empirical experi- 
 ence, arose in a steady progress of abstract science, 
 the practical appHcations appearing merely as oft- 
 shoots. It is my chief object to show that abstract 
 science is necessary to the development of practice, 
 and that it is above all things required as a part of 
 the education of a man who is to devote his life to 
 productive industry. There is no vein of science too 
 abstract for futm-e industrial apphcation — none yet 
 thoroughly mined out and exhausted. Volumes might 
 be filled with illustrations of the practical benefits 
 produced by the apphcation of discoveries apparently 
 the most unpromising in theu' origin ; but a few only 
 can be selected in support of the text of my argument. 
 The most "practical" man — a title too often used 
 by the Enghsh manufacturer to envelope his igno- 
 rance — could not have objected to the marvellous 
 development of truth arising from the study of hght, 
 that messenger from the sun sent at the rate of 
 180,000 miles in a second, to illumine our earth with 
 the glory of its parent. It was wondrous to be told 
 that the hght of yonder far-distant fixed star, travel- 
 ling without cessation at the same incredible speed, 
 and which has this night struck our wondering eyes, 
 started in its long and weary course a nulhon of 
 years since, and has now for the first time shed its 
 pale Hght on such points in time and space as oiu*- 
 selves. It is even with awe that he reads of that hidden 
 but tremendous power, situated in a point in space 
 between the two stars ^ and ^ in the constellation 
 Hercules, which drags our sun and all its planets at 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. Gl 
 
 the rate of 154 millions of miles in a year, or nearly 
 tifty-seven miles in a second. The sublimity of these 
 truths awes the utihtarian, and hushes his half-uttered 
 question of cui bono ? But show him a young officer 
 of artillery looking through a prism at the windows 
 of the palace of the Luxembourg, and noticing that, 
 in a particular position, the light of these windows 
 disappeared from his view — show him, further, the 
 startled wonder with which the philosophers of 
 Europe heard of this phenomenon, and the eagerness 
 with which they threw themselves into the track of 
 an observation apparently so insignificant, — and your 
 utilitarian sneers at science and its followers, and 
 buries himself again in the darkness of his empiricism. 
 The Hght reflected from the palace of the Luxem- 
 bourg had suffered a change similar to that expe- 
 rienced by ordinary hght in passing through doubly 
 refracting Iceland spai'. When a ray of this changed 
 or 2^olarized light is passed through plates of crystal- 
 lized substances, briUiant colours and a pecuhar struc- 
 tm-e are observed. These remarkable phenomena 
 were indeed well worthy of the attention of scientific 
 observers. Nothing, however, could appear more 
 remote from practice than the study of an altered 
 beam of hght. It was most intei^sting that, as in 
 the case of sound, where two sounds reaching the ear 
 either exalt or destroy the effect, so, in hght, two 
 rays interfering with each other may produce dark- 
 ness. Much of the Hght from reflecting surfaces was 
 found to possess this changed condition. The light, 
 coming from the surface of water, being thus altered, 
 
62 LTON PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 refuses to pass through a " Meolls' prism " in a 
 particular direction. If, therefore, you look at the 
 shadow of a man on a smooth lake, on turning round 
 the prism the shadow disappears, while the man, seen 
 by common light, remains visible. The story of 
 Peter Schhmmel is thus realized. But who, from 
 these curious observations, would have dreamt that 
 out of them would come useful apphcations ? 
 
 In a short time, however, this property of the 
 polarizing prism was applied to the important pm*- 
 pose of detecting rocks and shoals at sea. It had 
 long been the practice of mariners, when they sus- 
 pected the existence of shoals, to look out for them 
 from the masthead, because the outlook in his ver- 
 tical position shut out much of the Hght that dazzled 
 and obstructed his view when on deck. But as much 
 of this dazzling reflected light is polarized, it is ob- 
 vious that the polarizing prism enables the observer 
 to scan the depths of the ocean, uninterrupted by 
 its glare. Behold then the light which struck the 
 student's eye when gazing on the Luxembourg used 
 to preserve man from the hazards of the sea. It was 
 easy to apply it in new directions ; and the sahnon- 
 fisher speared fish at depths inaccessible to his unaided 
 vision ; while the engineer used its searching powers 
 to discover the laws of tension in beams. Mechanics 
 and chemistry both pressed it to further their re- 
 sources. Under the hands of a Biot, a ray of polar- 
 ized light performed with magical quickness the 
 most refined but tedious operations of the analytical 
 chemist, and enabled him to tell the amount of sugar 
 
GOYEENMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 63 
 
 in the cane or beet juice, or in specimens of sugar 
 offered for sale. Even the custom-house officers on 
 the continent now determine the value of samples of 
 sugar by polarized hght. Biot by aid of his instru- 
 ment foUowed the increasing richness of sugar in the 
 juices of various plants at different stages of their 
 growth, and was enabled to suggest a more economi- 
 cal adaptation of the labour applied to their cultiva- 
 tion. By the same ray of Hght the size of distant 
 objects may be measured, and even time may record 
 its passage. This latter apphcation, made by Wheat- 
 stone, is especially remarkable, and gives a means 
 more accurate and useful than the sun-dial of deter- 
 mining the apparent solar time by the diurnal 
 changes of the plane of polarization at the north 
 pole of the sky. By availing himself of the fact, 
 that the planes of polarization in the north pole of 
 the sky change exactly as the position of the hour 
 circle alters, he has adapted a simple and ingenious 
 apparatus, by which the true time may be told within 
 three minutes. Some of these apphcations are as 
 yet more suggestive than extensively carried out in 
 industry ; yet, however viewed, it wiU be admitted 
 that they are strange paths to practice, opened up by 
 a ray accidentally caught in its passage from a window 
 of the Luxembourg. Leave, however, its utilitarian- 
 ism to view its unfolding of nature's laws, and follow 
 the same straggling ray, as it silently displays its 
 gorgeous colours while passing through a transparent 
 mineral substance, until it enables man to resolve 
 such questions as to whether the light of the sun 
 
64 LYON PLATFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S. 
 
 proceeds from its solid mass or from its gaseous can- 
 opy, or whether comets enjoy light of their own, or 
 borrow it by reflection from other bodies. 
 
 I now pass to light in its ordinary form, and ask 
 you to examine the importance of studying its ab- 
 stract phenomena. The world had long known that 
 salts of silver were blackened by exposure to light ; 
 and the fact became famihar by then- use as cauteries, 
 or as indehble inks for linen. Wedgwood proposed to 
 apply this means to fix the fleeting pictures of the ca- 
 mera obscura ; but the results of his experiments being 
 imperfect, the suggestion itself was almost forgotten. 
 In the meantime chemists pursued their abstract 
 discoveries, and without relation to this want inves- 
 tigated the properties of gallic acid, and of the iodide 
 of bromine, and found a class of salts termed the 
 hyposulphites. Some of these bodies possessed pro- 
 perties accelerating the blackening of silver salts by 
 hght ; the others prevent the further blackening 
 when apphed. Philosophers began now to revert to 
 the old idea, for truth is never lost, though its reaHty 
 may be incapable of proof at a given time ; and thus 
 various unconnected discoveries began to react one 
 upon the other, mitil man was able to use the sun 
 as the painter of the pictures exhibited and enhvened 
 by his glory. So perfect became the art, by new 
 adaptations of other discoveries, that the most fleet- 
 ing objects can be depicted. The flash of hghtniug 
 exhibits its fiery streak on these sun-painted pictures. 
 The tossing out of lavas, the vomiting forth of smoke, 
 and the bellowing of flame from craters in their wild- 
 
GOTEEIsMEirr SCHOOL OF MINES. 65 
 
 est moods, are pourtraj^ed with unerring fidelity ; the 
 tumultuous dashing of the cataract, and the slight 
 rippHng of the stream, the cm'ling of the wave, the 
 changing forms of the clouds, the sparkhng of the 
 rain-drop, and the passing expressions of the soul as 
 displaj^ed in the human countenance, are all capable 
 of being preserved in these paintings by natm'e. 
 Nay, the truthfulness of the sun-painted landscape is 
 so great that from the very shadows of the picture 
 the altitude of the sun may be determined ; and the 
 time at which it was taken being known, the latitude 
 of the locality may be eHcited. Artists now use this 
 appHcation of hght to acquire models for study ; and 
 the engineer employs it to obtain proofs of the exact 
 state and progress of the works superintended by him. 
 Doubtless the sun will be hereafter compelled to fix 
 those transitory coloured glories which it now imparts 
 to natural objects ; and not till then should man cease 
 to question that lominary as to the means of accom- 
 pHshing this end. I need not say that this art is 
 but disclosing its future appHcations. Ah-eady can 
 we use the sun to record observations too delicate for 
 man's perception. The constant and momentary 
 excm'sions of the magnet, the ever-recurring varia- 
 tions of the thermometer and barometer, are now 
 recorded by Hght with a fidelity and precision un- 
 attainable by the most conscientious and unremitting 
 observers. 
 
 In fact no subject is so fertile in illustration of my 
 position as that of light. The practical man can even 
 admii'e Euler in his closet working out his idea, as 
 r 
 
66 LYON PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.B..S. 
 
 Brewster remarks, of an achromatic telescope, even 
 should he love Dollond the more for making it. But 
 however tempting to urge such interesting examples, 
 I must conclude the subject with two more cases. 
 Colours in bodies may either be due to the fact that 
 all their particles are endowed with the properties of 
 absorbing certain of the coloured rays and rejecting 
 others, which reaching the eye give to them their 
 pecular colours ; or the colours may be owing to a par- 
 ticular mechanical arrangement of certain of their 
 parts. Thus mother of pearl is found to have a pecu- 
 liarly grooved structure, like the skin of an infant on 
 the top of its finger, or hke the section of the rings 
 on a plank of fir. These grooves cause an interference 
 of the light as it plays on the surface of mother of 
 pearl, and the pecuhar colom*s are observed in pro- 
 portion to their frequency, the number of grooves 
 varying from 2,000 to 5,000 in an inch . This fact 
 is apphed to the manufacture of Birmingham but- 
 tons, by rulmg 4,000 hues to an inch on a steel die, 
 and striking with this brass buttons, which then, 
 especially in candlehght, sparkle in iridiscence with 
 the brilliancy of the diamond. Insect and beetle 
 wings, the scales of fishes, and the feathers of birds, 
 owe their gorgeous colours to their substance being 
 composed of plates of unequal thickness^. When hght 
 is transmitted through a transparent body with pai'- 
 allel surfaces it passes through white. But if thin 
 plates of unequal thickness be exposed to light, certain 
 of the coloured rays of the latter are stifled or ar- 
 rested, while others are more readily reflected, and 
 
GOVERNMEIfT SCHOOL OF MINES. 67 
 
 the most various coloured results may be thus ob- 
 tained. By a simple process, De La Eue places 
 thin plates of vamish or of collodion on paper, and 
 obtains wedding stationery of gayest character, or 
 paper hangings sparkling hke mother of pearl. 
 
 These instances will suflRce to show that the study 
 of abstract laws, so far as regards Hght, produces as 
 offshoots important practical applications ; and in 
 each department of science, like lessons may be 
 taught. There never was an age so rich m practical 
 applications as that in which we live, and it is m- 
 teresting to see them drawn from truths long familiar 
 to man, and apparently beyond the range of utili- 
 tarian appHcation. When Madame Gralvani, for the 
 cure of a cold, was dressing some frogs and observed 
 that convulsions were produced in their legs from 
 their proximity to an electric machine, who could 
 have prophesied that this observation would entirely 
 alter the character of a future century ? and yet it is 
 but an appHcation of this discovery, itself but the 
 supplement to observations made since the time of 
 Thales of Miletus, and extended, by many subsequent 
 researches, that annihilates space and time, — that 
 empowers our thought to travel with the speed and 
 with the power of Hghtning to the most distant land, 
 and enables minds to be reciprocated without being 
 aiTcsted by distance in space. Who could have 
 dreamt that the same discovery of Gralvani would in 
 future join continents, in spite of intervening seas, 
 and give more security to nations than cordons of 
 soldiers and fleets at sea, by rendering sudden inva- 
 
68 LYON PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., T.E.S. 
 
 sioii all but impossible ? At the late Exhibition 
 you had a singular proof of this quick interchange of 
 inteUigence, for every morning you could buy at a 
 trifling cost a map showing the state of the wind, of 
 the barometer and thermometer, in all the principal 
 towns in Great Britain dm'ing the previous day. You 
 have already seen how useful may be made this dis- 
 covery ; for a transit of a star at Greenwich and at 
 Paris may be instantaneously recorded, and their 
 respective longitudes verified. As a means of com- 
 municating intelligence, its powers are not yet nearly 
 developed ; for in its mercantile communications it 
 produces consequences no less individually important 
 than its general results, such as when it leaves the 
 hurrying tempest a laggard in its path by sending 
 information to distant provinces of the approach of 
 a tornado, time being thus given to provide against 
 the fury of the storm. It is rare indeed that briUiant 
 discoveries, such as the electric telegraph,* flash 
 matured across a human intellect, and in a generation 
 produce such mighty results. It is true that some 
 of the most wonderful discoveries have been sha- 
 dowed forth by a sudden inspiration ; but in few 
 cases has this shadow appeared as a picture with all 
 its Hghts and shades. Before steam had been subju- 
 gated to the service of man, in accelerating his transit 
 on land or water, Darwin had said, 
 
 " Soon shall thine ann, unconquered steam, afar 
 Drag the slow barge, or move the rapid car." 
 
 * The electric telegraph, as now used, is a discovery in science, ajid not 
 a mere application or invention; for it was a most important discovery 
 that the earth itself could be used as part of the circuit 
 
GOTEENME^s'T SCHOOL OF MINES. 69 
 
 By a similar prophetic spirit, resulting, however, pai'tly 
 from induction, Goethe saw that the parts of flowers 
 are metamorphosed leaves, and Oken, when stumbhng 
 over a bleached skull, perceived that the osseous 
 system was constructed on the vertebral type. But 
 it was only by patient and long-contmued study that 
 these thoughts became substantive reahties. This is 
 essentially the case with electricity, which is but now 
 beginning to reward mankind at large for all the 
 patient investigations of the philosopher. Already 
 has the fierce lightning allowed itself to be dragged 
 from its course, and conducted tranquilly to places 
 where its fury is dissipated without injury to man. 
 Even in its fiery flashings in the wide expanse of the 
 ocean, it submits to the intellect of a Franklin, leav- 
 ing unscathed the ship as it rolls on the stormy 
 waves. Providence, in His beneficence to man, has 
 allowed him to find " a way for the Hghtning of 
 thunder." Artificially formed, it allows itself to be 
 conducted through land and sea, himably serving the 
 purpose of man,, by blowing up mines, or enabling 
 him to rescue treasures from sunken vessels. 
 
 This immaterial power produces material results at 
 places fixed on by the will of man ; and London may 
 now fire a friendly salute at the InvaHdes, while Paris 
 returns the compHment with the guns of the Tower. 
 Although electricity is not yet used with economy 
 as a motive power, the obstacle is only in the cost ; 
 and even this may be resolved as discoveries pro- 
 gress. 
 
 The passage of electricity is so rapid that its 
 
70 LTO:S^ PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 journey to Paris can scarcely be expressed in time, 
 yet it may be controlled, and used to record time's 
 own progress ; for nothing is more accurate than 
 clocks worked by its power. It would not be diffi- 
 cult to have all the clocks in a town worked with 
 perfect uniformity by the aid of electricity. 
 
 Electricity now plates with gold and silver the 
 baser metals ; copies in metal from more perishable 
 materials the most exquisite designs and forms ; 
 perpetuates the skiU of the engraver, by multiplying, 
 at a tiifling cost, his elaborately engraved plates ; and 
 separates and purifies the metals, formerly only ob- 
 tainable by tedious and complex chemical operations. 
 
 Electiicity offers for your hghthouses light of a 
 brilliancy the most intense, and asks you to substitute 
 the light gas which streams through the streets by 
 a still more ethereal existence, running along simple 
 wires. 
 
 Even in the smallest offices of good-will to man 
 it refuses not aid, and offers to teU the perfumer 
 whether his essential oils are adulterated with cheaper 
 fatty substances, as willingly as it lends aid to the 
 chemist in the minute operations of his laboratory 
 practice, or kindly ministers with the physician to 
 allay human suffering and restore wasted strength. 
 Recollect, that aU these are but the beginning of its 
 applications, and that we know not to what extent 
 they may be carried out ; and rejoice with me that 
 philosophers studied its abstract laws, from the know- 
 ledge of which these applications have arisen. 
 
 I have no time to extract further examples from 
 
GOYEEKMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 71 
 
 physics or meteorology, but I cannot refrain from 
 directing a passing glance at the beautiful discoveries 
 of Colonel Sir William Eeid. Studying the pheno- 
 mena of a hurricane at Barbadoes, he was led to ex- 
 amine the courses of all recorded hurricanes, and thus 
 elicited the simple law that hurricanes and many 
 gales are progressive whirlwinds, revolving in the 
 direction of the hands of a watch in the southern, 
 and in the reverse direction in the northern hemis- 
 phere, but moving along in their mass at the same 
 time. The variable winds in a hurricane now be- 
 come intelligible, and a mariner may use them to 
 steer out of its course, and prevent himself from 
 being overwhelmed in its vortex. To be wrecked in 
 a hurricane, wdth an open sea, can now only result 
 from a lamentable ignorance of scientific laws ; for 
 knowledge has triumphed over the terrors of the storm. 
 The domain of meteorology is becoming fruitful in 
 apphcations, for science begins to encircle the ap- 
 parently capricious phenomena of weather by laws 
 which will become more and more defined. But 
 time will not permit me to refer even to a few of the 
 applications arising from the study of this subject by 
 American savans, nor dare I do more than allude to 
 the bold project of a simultaneous burning of forests 
 and prairies in their annual clearings so as to procure 
 artificial winds from moist districts to fertilize with 
 rain the arid plains. 
 
 Turn your attention to chemistry proper, and see 
 how this science supports the text of the argument. 
 It is an old science, and from the time of Tubal-cain 
 
72 LYOI^ PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., r.K.3. 
 
 to that of Liebig has been progressing steadily on- 
 wards, though not always with similar aims and aspi- 
 rations. The alchemist erred, as England now errs, 
 by valuing and studying only practical apphcations, 
 instead of searching for abstract laws. Health, 
 wealth, and longevity comprised their aspirations, in 
 the place of eternal truth. But these objects were 
 sufficiently important to produce in their search " a 
 zeal allied to madness," and facts became accumulated 
 of infinite importance to the science when it attained 
 self-consciousness, and learned to value itself for its 
 nobler ends. No later than the time of Henry IV., 
 a royal edict reconmD ended that " the clergy should 
 search for the philosopher's stone, for since they can 
 change bread and wine into the body and blood of 
 Christ, they must also, by the help of God, succeed 
 in transmuting the baser metals into gold." 
 
 As soon as chemistry began to be studied for the 
 mere sake of abstract truth, then she deigned to 
 reward man for his unselfishness by numerous colla- 
 teral results having a direct material benefit. 
 
 He who supposes that chemistry is the result of 
 practical knowledge derived in its contact with in- 
 dustry knows httle of the progress of the human 
 mind, or is httle grateful for the infinite develop- 
 ment which it has given to human resources and 
 human enjoyment. Let us select a few examples of 
 absti'act chemical truths bearing on practical appH- 
 ances. The miners' safety lamp is a most important 
 example of an industrial result depending upon pure 
 induction from abstract science. An element of de- 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 73 
 
 struetion, appai*ently uncontrollable by human power, 
 had to be subjugated so completely as to be put 
 under the management of the most uneducated miner. 
 More dreadful in its effects than those of the light- 
 ning and the earthquake, firedamp, the scourge of the 
 miner, seemed to defy investigation even as a scien- 
 tific phenomenon. By a pure inductive method, such 
 as a Bacon would have loved to witness, Davy 
 traced its history, step by step, until he fully made 
 out all its characters. He discovered that it in reality 
 requires a very high heat for ignition, the tempera- 
 tm'e of red-hot iron or charcoal being insufficient to 
 inflame it. The gas was found not to explode in 
 narrow tubes, as these cool it below the point of igni- 
 tion ; and a netw^ork of iron wire is only a series of 
 sectional tubes. A lamp surrounded by wire gauze is 
 now constructed, and this allows a Hght to be carried 
 into the most dangerous mine with perfect safety. 
 What a wonderful discovery is this ! The destruc- 
 tive gnome of the mine is imprisonec^ within a cage 
 of mere wire gauze, and, vainly, struggling to escape, 
 heats to redness the bars of its prison. Science, to 
 its ^lory, has destroyed those scenes of death and 
 heart-sickening misery which haunted the miner in 
 his most peaceful hours, and has rendered safe an 
 occupation formerly one of dread and danger. Not- 
 withstanding that we have still too frequently to 
 lament the most deplorable catastrophes in mines, it 
 may be safely averred that they only occur because 
 the discoveries of science have been neglected. 
 
 When Dumas, in investigating the laws of subtitu- 
 
74 LTON PLAYTAIE, ESQ., C.B,, F.E.S. 
 
 tion, discovered a new body iii the distillation of 
 alcohol and bleaching powder, interesting indeed in its 
 chemical formula, but capable of being sneered at by 
 those who see science at a distance, through the 
 wrong end telescopic view of its commercial produc- 
 tiveness, who could have dreamt that this chloroform 
 was destined to remove many of the woes which man 
 is heir to, by mitigatmg pain, and preventing its 
 occurrence even in the most severe surgical operations ? 
 In 1842, I had the pleasure of travelling with the 
 Dean of Westminster and Liebig over different parts 
 of England. Among other places visited was a lime- 
 stone region in the neighbom-hood of Clifton, where 
 in former times saurian reptiles had been the pirates 
 of the sea. There, along with the relics of the fishes 
 on which they had preyed, were their own animal 
 remains. Coprohtes, as these are termed, existed in 
 great abundance, and proved the extraordinary num- 
 ber of the reptiles which must have existed dur- 
 ing the deposition of the limestone. The interest- 
 ing question arose as to whether these excretions 
 of extinct animals contained the mineral ingre- 
 dients of so much value in animal manure. The 
 question in fact not yet being solved by the chemist, 
 specimens were taken, in order to confirm by chemical 
 analysis the views of the geologist. After Liebig 
 had completed his analysis, he saw that they might 
 be made applicable to practical pm*poses. " What a 
 curious and interesting subject for contemplation ! 
 In the remains of an extinct animal world England 
 is to find the means of increasing her wealth in agri- 
 
goyeenme:nt school of mines. 75 
 
 cultural produce, as she lias already found the great 
 support of her manufacturing industry in fossil fuel — 
 the preserved matter of primeval forests — the remains 
 of a vegetable world ! May this expectation be 
 realized 1 and may her excellent population be thus 
 redeemed from poverty and misery !" I well recollect 
 the storm of ridicule raised by these expressions of 
 the German philosopher, and yet truth has triumphed 
 over scepticism, and thousands of tons of similar ani- 
 mal remains are now used in promoting the fertihty 
 of our fields. The geological observer, in his search 
 after evidences of ancient life, aided by the chemist, 
 excavated extinct remains which produced new hfe to 
 fixture generations. 
 
 Two years before this, the same German philo- 
 sopher, in his researches into the food of plants, had 
 drawn attention to the importance of guano as a 
 manm'e, and by his intellect wafted fleets to the 
 Ichaboes and to the Incas. 
 
 Man gets so accustomed to luxuriqus apphcations 
 of science, that he often forgets the searcher of 
 abstract truth whose discoveries led to them. No- 
 thing is more useful than has been the discovery of the 
 lucifer match. Some of us recollect the time when 
 the tinder-box was the only artificial means of procur- 
 ing hght, and a hvely remembrance of the often un- 
 successful efforts, always tedious and lengthy, is re- 
 quired fally to appreciate the value of the lucifer 
 match. What an improvement it was when a Httle 
 bottle containing asbestos moistened with oil of 
 vitriol could be carried about, and by dipping matches 
 
76 LTOX PLAYFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 into this, Kght was obtained ! And yet this elegant 
 method is now considered clumsy, and is entirely 
 superseded in less than ten years. The properties of 
 chlorate of potash and of phosphorus became by study 
 better understood, and their applica'tion to the pro- 
 duction of artificial hght was apparently perfected. 
 But the lucifer match maker is dangerous to society, 
 and a curse to himself. The transparent waxy phospho- 
 rus with which he works must always be kept under 
 water, and even then is so hazardous that insurance 
 offices decline to insure the premises in which it is 
 contained. The heat of the hand causes it to inflame, 
 and the worker, even avoiding this, becomes diseased 
 and hable to ulcers. The practical man now help- 
 lessly lays his wants before the seai'cher of abstract 
 truth. Chemists had for some time noticed that 
 various bodies assume different forms, as, for example, 
 carbon, in the states of diamond, graphite, and char- 
 coal. An Austrain chemist. Professor Schrotter, in- 
 vestigating the abstract laws of allatropism, inquires 
 whether phosphorus has more" than one form, and by 
 heat changes the transparent wax into a scarlet body. 
 This scarlet substance is the same phosphorus, and 
 when thoroughly well prepared, is in a state in which 
 it may be kept in the open air, or packed up and 
 transported in casks, and is not readily inflamed by 
 a gentle heat or by firiction. Physiologically it has 
 little action on the body, and yet by proper admix- 
 tures makes as good lucifer matches as the ordinary 
 dangerous phosphorus. By these discoveries the 
 means of giving artificial light may be rendered a safe 
 
GOVEIiNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 77 
 
 and healthy manufacture, when the practical difficul- 
 ties to its preparation on the large scale have been 
 overcome by the manufacturers, who have hitherto, 
 however, found them to be very serious, 
 
 A French chemist discovers that paper immersed 
 in nitric acid unites with that body, and becomes 
 highly combustible. Any woody fibre is subsequently 
 found to do the same. This observation hes dor- 
 mant for years, noticed only as an interesting fact 
 under a long and scientific term, in the books of 
 chemists. But one day a Swiss chemist annoimces the 
 starthng fact, that the peaceful cotton bales of Man- 
 chester may be converted into dangerous ammunition 
 of war, and that cotton unchanged in its physical 
 appearance has been made more destructive than gun- 
 powder. There was something appalling in the fact 
 of this peaceful representative of industry being made 
 to assume such destructive properties, under the 
 magic wand of the chemist. The chemist now ex- 
 amines cotton in a new form, and trying to purify it, 
 finds that it is soluble in ether. "When left exposed, 
 the ether quickly evaporates, and the gun-cotton 
 retains a skin-like appearance. Surgeons seize the dis- 
 covery of the chemist, and gun-cotton dissolved can 
 heal the wounds it makes in its dry state. Numerous 
 appHcations follow, and man, forgetting his fear, uses 
 the gun-cotton to silver mirrors, and to produce the 
 portraits of his friends on glass, by a process speedy 
 as the Daguerreotype, or to decorate wedding sta- 
 tionery which he sends fearlessly to his friends. 
 Another chemist, seeing how readily cotton unites 
 
78 LYON PLATFAIK, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 with acids, investigates its power of combining with 
 alkahes. He discovers that it does so, but notices 
 that a contraction ensues in its fibres. Looms are 
 not now required to make coarse calico fine, for im- 
 mersion in soda makes it take a closer texture. The 
 alkaline calico washed in water loses its soda, but 
 unites with water, and this in turn is displaced by 
 colours when the calico is dyed, so that the calico 
 assumes dyes of much greater intensity and brilhancy. 
 
 These various discoveries of Schonbein, Mercer, 
 and others, did not in any case arise fi'om a direct 
 practical search, but as offshoots of abstract investi- 
 gation. 
 
 Antioch, in the beginning of the fourth century, 
 discovered the importance, as a matter of pohce, of 
 lighting its streets. But the discovery lapsed, and 
 it was only in the middle of the sixteenth century 
 that Paris hghted up its streets by fires made of pitch 
 and rosiu. Slowly did this matter of primary pohce 
 creep on till the end of the last century, when it 
 stai'ted forward mth extraordinary vigour. Chemists 
 had long observed that coal on being distilled pro- 
 duced a combustible gas, and the means of collecting 
 and distributing various kinds of gas were among the 
 common experiments of a lecture table. But it was 
 not till 1792 that Murdoch employed coal gas to 
 light up his offices at Eedruth. Now gas has entirely 
 substituted oil in the fighting of streets, but simply as 
 a question of cost, the coals from which it is produced 
 being cheaper than the corn necessary to form tallow. 
 It by no means follows that gas is always the most 
 
GOYERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 79 
 
 convenient form of using a combustible. " It would 
 certainly," says Liebig, "be considered one of the 
 greatest discoveries of the age if any one could suc- 
 ceed in condensing coal gas into a white, dry, soHd, 
 odourless substance, portable and capable of being 
 placed upon a candlestick or burned in a lamp." A 
 want is rarely clearly expressed by man that science 
 does not administer to it ; and already is the desire 
 of Liebig accomphshed. A mineral oil flowed out 
 of coal in Derbyshire, and was obviously produced by 
 a slow process of distillation from the coal. It con- 
 tained sohd paraffine dissolved in a liquid oil. Mr. 
 Young, of Manchester, in examining the mode of its 
 formation, found that paraffine, a solid waxy substance 
 hitherto never produced from coal, could in reality 
 be readily formed in commercial quantities by a slow 
 and regulai' distillation. This, in fact, is " condensed 
 coal gas," or, rather, it might be considered as a 
 sohd form of olefiant gas. It is, therefore, reaUy the 
 want of Liebig supphed. In forming coke, this pro- 
 duct, dissolved in an oil of a similar composition, may 
 readily be obtained ; and useful products are made 
 instead of those waste gases now thrown uselessly 
 into the atmosphere. It might appear chimerical to 
 you if I were to state many of the consequences 
 which must follow if this discovery in its maturity 
 be found as successful as it promises to be in its dawn ; 
 but it is not difficult to see that a cheaper and less 
 carbonized coke could be burned in our domestic fires ; 
 and thus we might see a sim which now refuses to 
 penetrate the sooty canopy of our cities. 
 
80 LYON PLAYFAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 Hour after hour might be employed in recording 
 the triumphs of chemistry in its investigations into 
 the play of the organic elements. Looking back no 
 farther than the last few years, you see how it has 
 thrown open the most hidden processes of animal and 
 vegetable life ; how it has taught us to increase and 
 economize the food of man. It is even yet the prac- 
 tice of those who have not followed its discoveries 
 into the wondrous affinities of the few simple organic 
 elements to depreciate the importance of following 
 their infinite creations. If, however, there were no 
 other result from doing so than the one great achieve- 
 ment of having distinguished the ingredients in food 
 used to bmld up the muscular frame, and those em- 
 ployed ill the support of animal heat, the importance 
 of that discovery would have repaid all the labom' of 
 the past century. 
 
 Almost all the staple manufactures of this country 
 are founded on chemical principles , a knowledge of 
 which is absolutely indispensable for their economical 
 application. In a few educational estabhshments and 
 in some of our universities the alphabet of chemical 
 science is taught ; but it requires an institution such 
 as this, devoted to a special object, to teach how to 
 use that alphabet in reading manufactures. The ex- 
 tension of scientific and technical education is a want 
 of the age. The old and yet widely-existing schol- 
 astic system of education, introduced by the revival 
 of learning in the fom'teenth and fifteenth centuries, 
 is iU adapted to the necessities of the times. Eras- 
 mus would not now aid Cambridge in advancing the 
 
GOYEENMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 81 
 
 progress of England, nor would Vitelli make Oxford 
 useful to the mass of its population. It would be 
 of little use to the lagging progress of Italy even if 
 Chrysoloras were again to teach Greek in its univer- 
 sities. Euripides and Thucydides cannot make power 
 looms and spinning-jennies ; for these Watts and 
 Arkvvrights are required. A Poggio may discover 
 copies of Lucretius and Quintihan, without thereby 
 producing a result equal to that of the smallest in- 
 ventions of a Stephenson or a Wheat stone. When 
 wlU our schools learn that dead hterature cannot be 
 the parent of Kving science or of active industry ? 
 Do not suppose that in arguing against the limitation 
 of education to ancient Hteratm'e in our classical 
 schools that I either undervalue classics as a means 
 of education, or that I depreciate the wisdom deriv- 
 able from the study of the authors of antiquity. 
 Human natm'e and human passions are the same now 
 as they were in the days of Eome and of Greece, and 
 the study of their glorious literature may be made of 
 the highest educational value. It is because I desire 
 to retain this in our system of education, that I pro- 
 test against its exclusiveness, as being unfitted to the 
 wants of the age. It is because, in this country of 
 production, I cannot understand why our sons of in- 
 dustry, destined to reap its harvests, should be placed 
 in its fields of com, having only been taught how to 
 cull the poppies which adorn them. " The great 
 desideratum of the present age," says Liebig, "is 
 practically manifested in the establishment of schools 
 in which the natural sciences occupy the most pro- 
 
82 LYON PLATPAIR, ESQ., C.B., P.E.S. 
 
 minent places in the course of instruction. From 
 these schools a more vigorous generation wiU come 
 forth, powerful in understanding, qualified to appre- 
 ciate and to accomplish all that is truly great, and 
 to bring forth fruits of universal usefulness. Through 
 them the resources, the wealth, and the strength of 
 empires will be incalculably increased." 
 
 Institutions, such as this, are not substitutes for, 
 but supplements to, the universities. It is the in- 
 dustrial training which we profess, and everything 
 else is made subsidiary to that object, l^ot that we 
 do or should forget abstract science, as such, because 
 the discoveries in abstract laws are of more real 
 benefit to industry than their immediate apphca- 
 tions. The technical man is, perhaps, of more use 
 to himself and to his time and generation than he 
 who discovers the abstract laws apphed by the former 
 to the purposes of industry ; but it is the abstract 
 philosopher who benefits all time, and confers uni- 
 versal and eternal benefit to society. 
 
 If I have convinced you that it is of infinite im- 
 portance to a nation, not only to study science as 
 constituting the foundation on which industry rests, 
 but to promote the advancement of abstract science, 
 the soul and life of industry, you will readily under- 
 stand the importance of institutions the object of 
 which is to infuse this life into special departments 
 of technology. England has too long rested on the 
 position which it has acquired as a manufacturing 
 nation. This position was gained when local advan- 
 tages gave an impulse to our practical national mind. 
 
 » 
 
GOTEENMEIN'T SCHOOL OF MINES. 83 
 
 But now that the progress of human events has eon- 
 verted the competition of industry into a competition of 
 intellect, it will no longer do to plume oui'selves 
 in om' power of mere practical adaptations. It is 
 miserable to see om- industrial population gloryuig 
 in their ignorance of the principles on which their 
 manufactures depend, and vaunting their empiricism, 
 or, as they term it, their "practice." Let us waken 
 from this delusion, unless we prefer to — 
 
 •' Sit like spent and patient fools, 
 StUl puffing in the dark at one poor coal, 
 Held on by hope till the last spark is out" 
 
 If England keep pace with other comitries as a 
 manufacturing nation, it must be by her sons of in- 
 dustiy becoming humble disciples of science. At 
 present her rehance in the " practical " or " common 
 sense " of her population is the simken rock directly 
 in the com-se both of her agriculture and manufac- 
 tures. On this subject Ai'chbishop Whately has 
 some excellent remai'ks. " By common, sense," says 
 he, " is meant, I apprehend (when the term is used 
 with any distinct meaning), an exercise of judgment, 
 unaided by any art or system of rules ; such an ex- 
 ercise as we must necessai'ily employ in numberless 
 cases of daily occiuTence, in which, having no estab- 
 lished principles to guide us, no line of procedm-e, as 
 it were, distinctly chalked out, we must needs act on 
 the best extemporaneous conjectures we can form. 
 He who is emmently successful in doing this is said 
 to possess a superior degree of common sense. But 
 that common sense is only oiu* second best guide,-— 
 
84 LYON PLATFAIE, ESQ., C.B., T.E.S. 
 
 that the rules of art, if judiciously framed, are always 
 desirable when they can be had, — ^is an assertion for 
 which I may appeal to the testimony of mankind in 
 general, which is so much the more valuable, inasmuch 
 as it may be accounted the testimony of adversaries ; 
 for the generality have a strong predilection in favour 
 of common sense, except in those points in which they 
 respectively possess the knowledge of a system of 
 rules, but in these points they deride any one who 
 trusts to unaided common sense. A sailor, e. g., will 
 perhaps despise the pretensions of medical men, and 
 prefer treating a disease by common sense ; but he 
 would ridicule the proposal of navigating a ship by 
 common sense, without regard to the maxims of 
 nautical art. A physician again will perhaps con- 
 temn systems of political economy, of logic, or meta- 
 physics, and insist on the superior wisdom of trusting 
 to common sense on such matters; but he would 
 never approve of trusting to common sense in the 
 treatment of diseases, Neither, again, would the 
 architect recommend a reliance on common sense 
 alone in building, nor the musician in music, to the 
 neglect of those systems of rules, which, in their 
 respective arts, have been deduced from scientific 
 reasoning, aided by experience; and the induction 
 might be extended to every department of practice. 
 Since, therefore, each gives the preference to unas- 
 sisted common sense only in those cases where he 
 himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably 
 resorts to the rules of art wherever he possesses the 
 knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind bear 
 
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 85 
 
 their testimony, though unconsciously, and often 
 unwillingly, to the preference of systematic knowledge 
 to conjectural judgments." Practice and science 
 must now join together in close alliance, or the 
 former will soon emigrate to other lands. The time 
 is past when practice can go on in the blind and 
 vain confidence of a shallow empiricism, severed 
 from science, hke a tree from its roots. The rudest 
 sailor may steer his ship in the direction of a land- 
 mark, but without compass and sextant he dare not 
 traverse the expanse of ocean. Ignorance may walk 
 in the path dimly lighted by advancing knowledge, 
 but she stands in dismay when science passes her ; 
 and she is unable to follow, like the foolish virgin 
 having no oil in her lamp. Depend upon it, an em- 
 pirical knowledge of practice is not the way now to 
 succeed in the struggle of individuals, or in the 
 struggle of nations. Intellect is on the stretch to 
 get forward, and that nation which holds not by it 
 will soon be left behind. For a long time, practice, 
 standing still in the pride of empiricism, and in the 
 ungrateful forgetfulness of what science has done in 
 its development, reared upon its portal the old and 
 vulgar adage, that " an ounce of practice is worth a 
 ton of theory." This wretched inscription acted like 
 a Grorgon's head, and turned to stone the aspirations 
 of science. Believe it not ! for a grain of theory, if 
 that be an expression for science, will, when planted, 
 like the mustard seed of Scripture, grow and wax 
 into the gi-eatest of trees. The pressure and diffi- 
 culties of the age, and the rapid advancement of 
 
86 LTON PLATPAIE, ESQ., C.B., F.E.S. 
 
 intellect in continental nations, have been the Per- 
 seus to cut off this Medusa's head from the industry 
 of England, and to fix it on the shield of Minerva, 
 who turns to stone those that beheve that science 
 should be ignored by practice ; but, reversing her 
 shield, wisely conducts such as are willing to go far- 
 ther under her guidance. It is now rare to find men 
 who openly avow, although they actually entertain, 
 a behef in a necessary antagonism between theory 
 and practice. Theory is in fact the rule, and practice 
 its example. Theory is but the attempt to furnish 
 an intelligent explanation of what is empirically as- 
 certained to be true, and is always useful,, even when 
 wrong. Theories are the leaves of the tree of science, 
 drawing nutriment to the parent stem while they 
 last, and by their fall and decay affording the mate- 
 rials for the new leaves which are to succeed. 
 
 I have now said enough to show you that it is 
 indispensable for this country to have a scientific 
 education in connection with manufactures, if we 
 wish to outstrip the intellectual competition which 
 now, happily for the world, prevails in aU departments 
 of industry. As surely as darkness follows the set- 
 ting of the sun, so surely wiU England recede as a 
 manufacturing nation, unless her industrial popula- 
 tion become much more conversant with science than 
 they now are. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR EDWARD BULWER LITTON, DART., M.P., D.C.L. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ASSOCIATED SOCIETIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OP HIS INSTALLATION AS THEIR HONOHARY PRESIDENT. 
 
 Delivered in the Queen Street Hall. Jan. 18, 1854. 
 
 GrENTLEMEif, — I may well feel overcome by the 
 kindness with which you receive me, for I cannot 
 disentangle my earliest recollections from my sense of 
 intellectual obligations to the genius of Scotland. 
 The first poets who charmed me from play in the 
 half-holidays of school, were Campbell and Scott — 
 the first historians who clothed, for me, with hfe, the 
 shadows of the past, were Robertson and Hume — 
 the first philosopher who, by the grace of his attrac- 
 tive style, lured me on to the analysis of the human 
 .mind, was Dtigald Stewart — and the first novel that 
 I bought with my own money, and hid under my 
 pillow, was the Eoderick Random of Smollett.. So, 
 when later, in a long vacation fi.'om my studies at 
 Cambridge, I learned the love for active adventui-e, 
 and contracted the habit of self-reHance by soHtary 
 
88 SIR EDWARD BULWER LTTTOIf, BART. 
 
 excursions on foot, my staff in my hand and my knap- 
 sack on my shoulders, it was towards Scotland that 
 I instinctively bent my way, as if to the nursery- 
 ground from which had been wafted to my mind the 
 first germs of those fertile and fair ideas which, after 
 they have come to flower upon their native soil, return 
 to seed, and are carried by the winds we know not 
 whither, calling up endless diversities of the same 
 plant, according to the chmate and the grornid to 
 which they are borne by chance. 
 
 Gentlemen, this day I visited, with Professor 
 Aytoun, the spot on which, a mere lad, obscure and 
 alone, I remember to have stood one starhght night 
 in the streets of Edinburgh, gazing across what was 
 then a deep ravine, upon the pictm'esque outlines of 
 the Old Town, all the associations which make Scot- 
 land so dear to romance, and so sacred to learning, 
 rushing over me in tumultuous pleasure ; her stormy 
 history, her enchanting legends — wild tales of witch- 
 craft and fairyland — of headlong chivalry and tragic 
 love — all contrasting, yet aU uniting, with the renown 
 of schools famous for patient erudition and tranquil 
 science, — I remember how I then wished that I 
 could have found some tie in parentage or blood to 
 connect me with the great people in whose capital I 
 stood a stranger. That tie which birth denied to me, 
 my humble labours, and your generous kindness, have 
 at last bestowed ; and the stranger in your streets 
 stands to-day in this crowded haU, proud to identify 
 his own career with the hopes and aspirations of the 
 youth of Scotland. 
 
UNIVEESITY OF EDINBURGH. 89 
 
 Gentlemen, when I turn to what the analogous 
 custom of other universities renders my duty upon 
 this occasion, and offer some suggestions that may 
 serve as hmts in your various studies, I feel Hterally 
 overshadowed by the awe of the great names, all your 
 own, which rise high around me in every department 
 of human progress. It is not only the illustrious 
 dead before whom I have to bow — your wonted fires 
 do not Hve only in their ashes. The men of to-day 
 are worthy the men of yesterday. A thousand rays 
 of intellectual hght are gathered and fused together 
 in the varied leai*ning of your distinguished Principal. 
 The chivalry of your glorious annals finds its new 
 Tjrrtseus in the vigorous and rushing verse of Pro- 
 fessor Aytoun. Your medical schools, in all their 
 branches — pathology, medical jurisprudence, surgery, 
 anatomy, chemistry — advance more and more to fresh 
 honours under the presiding names of Simpson — 
 AHson — Christison — Goodsir — TraiU — Syme and 
 Gregory. The general cause of education itself is 
 identified with the wide repute of Professor Pillans. 
 Nature has added the name of Forbes to the list of 
 those who have not only examined her laws but 
 discovered her secrets — while the comprehensive 
 science of Sir WilHam Hamilton stiU corrects and 
 extends the sublime chart that defines the immaterial 
 universe of ideas. And how can I forget the name 
 of one man, whose character and works must have 
 produced the most healthful influence over the youth 
 of Scotland — combining, as they do, in the rarest 
 union, all that is tender and graceful with aU that is 
 
90 SIR EDWAED BFLWEE LTTTON, BAET. 
 
 hardy and masculine— the exquisite poet, the vigo- 
 rous critic, the eloquent discourser, the joyous com- 
 rade — the minstrel of the Isle of Palms — the Christo- 
 pher North of Maga ? How I wish that the plaudits 
 with which you receive this inadequate reference to 
 one so loved and honoured might be carried to his 
 ears, and assure him that, like those statues of the 
 great Roman fathers in the weU-known passage of 
 Tacitus — if he be absent from the procession he is 
 still more I'emembered by the assembly. And since 
 I see around me many who, though not connected 
 with your college, are yet interested in the learned 
 fame of your capital, permit me on this neutral 
 ground to suspend aU differences of party, and do 
 homage to the great orator and author, whose lumi- 
 nous genius, whose scholastic attainments, whose 
 independence of spiiit, whose integrity of life, so 
 worthily represent not only the capital, but the 
 character of the people who claim their countryman 
 by descent in Macaulay. When I think of those 
 names, and of many more which I might cite, if time 
 would allow me to make the catalogue of your hving 
 title-deeds to fame, I might well shrink from the 
 task before me ; but as every man assists to a general 
 illumination by placing a single hght at his own 
 window, so, perhaps, my individual experience may 
 contribute its humble ray to the atmosphere which 
 genius and learning have kindled into famihar splen- 
 dour. 
 
 Gentlemen, I shall first offer some remai'ks upon 
 those fundamental requisites which, no matter what 
 
TJNIYEESITY OF EDINBUEGH. 91 
 
 be our peculiar studies, are essential to excellence in 
 all of them. Nature indicates to the infant the two 
 main elements of wisdom — nature herself teaches the 
 infant to observe and to inquire. You will have 
 noticed how every new object catches the eye of a 
 young child — how mtuitively he begins to question 
 you upon all that he surveys — what it is ? what it is 
 for ? how it came there ? how it is made ? who made 
 it ? Gradually, as he becomes older, his observation 
 is less vigilant, his cmiosity less eager. In fact, both 
 faculties are often troublesome and puzzling to those 
 about him. He is told to attend to his lessons, and 
 not ask questions to which he cannot jei understand 
 the rephes. Thus his restless vivacity is drilled into 
 mechanical forms, so that often when we leave school 
 we observe less and inquire less than when we stood 
 at the knees of our mother in the nursery. But our 
 first object on entering upon youth, and surveying 
 the great world that spreads before us, should be to 
 regain the earhest attributes of the child. What 
 were the instincts of the infant are the primary duties 
 of the student. His ideas become rich and various 
 in proportion as he observes — accurate and practical 
 in proportion as he inquires. The old story of New- 
 ton observing the fall of the apple, and so arriving, 
 by inquiry, at the laws of gravity, will occur to you 
 all. But this is the ordinary process in every depart- 
 ment of intelhgence. A man observes more atten- 
 tively than others had done something in itself very 
 simple. He reflects, tests his observation by inquiry, 
 and becomes the discoverer, the inventor ; enriches a 
 
92 SIR ED^AED BULWER LTTTOK, BART. 
 
 science, improves a manufacture, adds a new beauty 
 to the arts, or, if engaged in professional active life, 
 detects, as a physician, the secret cause of disease — 
 extracts truth, as a lawyer, from contradictory 
 evidence — or grapples, as a statesman, with the com- 
 plicated principles by which nations flourish or decay. 
 In short, take with you into all your studies this 
 leading proposition, that, whither in active hfe or in 
 letters and research, a man wiH always be eminent 
 according to the vigilance with which he observes, 
 and the acuteness with which he inquires. But this 
 is not enough — something more is wanted— it is that 
 resolute effort of the wiU which we call perseverance. 
 I am no behever in genius without labour ; but I do 
 believe that labour, judiciously and continuously 
 applied, becomes genius in itself. Success in removing 
 obstacles as in conquering armies, depends on this law 
 of mechanics — the greatest amount of force at your 
 command concentrated on a given point. If your 
 constitutional force be less than another man's, you 
 equal him if you continue it longer and concentrate 
 it more. The old saying of the Spartan parent to 
 the son who complained that his sword was too short, 
 is appHcable to everything in life — " If your weapon 
 is too short, add a step to it." Dr. Arnold, the famous 
 Rugby schoolmaster, said, the difference between one 
 boy and another was not so much in talent as in 
 energy. It is with boys as with men ; and perseve- 
 rance is energy made habitual. But I forget that I 
 am talking to Scotchmen ; no need to preach energy 
 and perseverance to them. Those are their national 
 
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBUEGH. 93 
 
 characteristics. Is there a soil upon earth from 
 which the Scotchman cannot ring some harvest for 
 fortune ; or one field of honourable contest on which 
 he has not left some trophy of renown ? 
 
 We must now talk a httle upon books. Grentle- 
 men, the objects and utihties of reading are so various, 
 that to suggest any formal joules whereby to dictate 
 its subjects and confine its scope, would be to re- 
 semble the man in a Greek anecdote, who, in order to 
 improve his honey, cut off the wings of his bees, and 
 placed before them the flowers his own sense found 
 the sweetest. No doubt, the flowers were the best 
 he could find on Hymettus ; but, somehow or other, 
 when the bees had lost their wings, they made no 
 honey at all. Still, while the ordinary inducement 
 to reading is towards general dehght and general 
 instruction, it is well in youth to acquire the habit 
 of reading with conscientious toil for a special pur- 
 pose. Whatever costs us labour, braces all the sinews 
 of the mind in the effort ; and whatever we study 
 with a definite object, fixes a much more tenacious 
 hold on the memory than do the lessons of mere 
 desultory reading. If, for instance, you read the 
 history of the latter half of the last century, simply 
 because some works on the subject are thrown in your 
 way; unless your memory be unusually good, you 
 will retain but a vague recollection, that rather serves 
 to diminish ignorance than bestow knowledge. But 
 suppose, in a debating society, that the subject of 
 debate be the character of Charles Fox, or the admin- 
 istration of Mr. Pitt, and some j^oung man gets up 
 
94 SIE EDWAED BTJLWEE LTTTOX, BAET. 
 
 the facts of the time for the special pui'pose of making 
 an ample and elaborate speech on the principles and 
 career of either of those statesmen, the definite pur- 
 pose for which he reads, and the animated object to 
 which it is to be apphed, will, in all probabilitY, fix 
 what he reads indelibly in his mind ; and to the dry 
 materials of knowledge will be added the virida vis of 
 argument and reasoning. You see now, then, how 
 wisely the fii'st founders of learning estabhshed insti- 
 tutions for youth on the collegiate principle ; fixing 
 the vague desire for knowledge into distinct bounds, 
 by lectures on chosen subjects, and placing before the 
 ambition of the student the practical object of 
 honourable distinction — a distinction, indeed, that 
 connects itself with our gentlest affections, and om* 
 most lasting interests : for honours gained in youth 
 pay back to our parents, while they are yet living, 
 some part of what we owe to their anxiety and 
 care. And whatever renown a University can confer, 
 abridges the road to subsequent success, interests our 
 contemporaries in our career, and raises up a crowd 
 eager to cheer on our first maturer efforts to make a 
 name. The friendships we form at College die away 
 as life divides us, but the honours we gain there 
 remain and constitute a portion of oiirselves. Who, 
 for instance, can separate the fame of a Brougham or 
 a Mackintosh from the reputation they established at 
 the University at Edinbm-gh ? The vai-iety of know- 
 ledge embraced in the four divisions, which are here 
 called faculties, allows to every one an ample choice, 
 according to the bias of each several mind, or the 
 
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBITEGH. 95 
 
 profession for which the student is destined. But 
 there is one twofold branch of humane letters in which 
 the Universities of Scotland are so renowned that I 
 must refer to it specially, though the reference must 
 be brief — I mean moral and metaphysical philosophy, 
 which, in Edinburgh especially, has been allied to the 
 Graces by the silver style of Dugald Stewart, and 
 taken the lovehness which Plato ascribes to virtue 
 from the beautiful intellect of Brown. Now, it would 
 be idle to ask the general student to make himself a 
 profound metaphysician. You might as well ask him 
 to make himself a great poet. Both the one and the 
 other are bom for their calling ; not made by our 
 advice, but their own uTcsistible impulse. But a 
 liberal view of the principal theories as to the forma- 
 tion of the human mind, and the latent motives of 
 human conduct, is of essential service to all about to 
 enter upon busy practical hfe. Such studies quicken 
 our perceptions of error and virtue, enlarge our general 
 knowledge of mankind, and enable our later experience 
 to apply with order and method the facts it accumu- 
 lates. I need not remind those who boast the great 
 name of Chalmers, or who heard the lectures of your 
 Principal two years ago, that Moral Philosophy is the 
 handmaid of Divinity. She is also the sister of Juris- 
 prudence, and the presiding genius of that art in 
 which you are so famous ; and which, in order to 
 heal the body, must often prescribe alteratives to the 
 mind — more especially in these days, when half our 
 diseases come from the neglect of the body in the 
 overwork of the brain. In this railway age the wear 
 
96 SIE EDWAED BrLWEE LYTTO^T, BAET. 
 
 and tear of labour and intellect go on without pause 
 or self-pity. We live longer than our forefathers, 
 but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties 
 and cares. They fatigued only the muscles ; we 
 exhaust the finer strength of the nerves ; and, when 
 we send impatiently to the doctor, it is ten to one 
 but what he finds the acute complaint, which is all 
 that we perceive, connected with some chronic mental 
 irritation, or some unwholesome inveteracy of habit. 
 Here, then, the physician, accustomed to consider 
 how mind acts upon body, will exercise with discre- 
 tion the skill that moral philosophy'- has taught him. 
 Every one knows the difference between two medical 
 attendants, perhaps equally learned in pharmacy and 
 the routine of the schools ; the one writes in haste 
 the prescription we may as well " throw to the dogs ; " 
 the other, by his soothing admonitions, his agreeable 
 converse, cheers up the gloomy spirits, regulates the 
 defective habits, and often, unconsciously to ourselves, 
 " ministers to the mind diseased, and plucks from the 
 memory a rooted sorrow." And the difference 
 between them is, that one has studied our moral 
 anatomy, and the other has only looked on us as 
 mere machines of matter, to be inspected by a peep 
 at the tongue, and regulated by a touch of the pulse. 
 And in order to prove my sense of the connection 
 between moral and metaphysical philosophy and 
 practical pathology, and to pay a joint compliment 
 to the two sciences for which your college is so pre- 
 eminent, I here, as a personal favour to myself, crave 
 permission of the heads and authorities of the Uni- 
 
UNIYEESITT OF EDINBUEGH. 97 
 
 versity to offer the prize of a gold medal, for the 
 current year, for the best essay by any student on 
 some special subject implying the connection I speak 
 of, which may be selected in concert with the various 
 Professors of your medical schools, and the Professors 
 of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy. 
 
 Gentlemen — allow me to preface the topic to which 
 I now turn by congratulating you on the acquisition 
 your scholarship has recently made in the accom- 
 pHshed translator of ^schylus, Professor Blackie — 
 who appears to have thrown so much light on the 
 ancient language of the Greeks by shovdng its sub- 
 stantial identity with the modern. I now proceed 
 to impress on you the importance of Classical studies. 
 I shall endeavour to avoid the set phrases of decla- 
 matory panegyric which the subject too commonly 
 provokes. But if those studies appear to you cold 
 and tedious, the fault is in the languor with which 
 they are approached. Do you think that the statue 
 of ancient art is but a lifeless marble ? Animate it 
 with your own young breath, and instantly it lives 
 and glows. Greek Hterature, if it served jou with 
 nothing else, should excite your cmiosity as the 
 picture of a wondrous state of civihzation which, in 
 its peculiar phases, the world can never see again, and 
 yet from which every succeeding state of civilization 
 has borrowed its hvehest touches. If you take it 
 first as a mere record of events — if you examine only 
 the contest between the Spartans and the Athenians 
 — the one as the representative of duration and order, 
 the other of change and progress, both pushed to the 
 H 
 
98 SIR EDWAKD BULWER LTTTOX, BART. 
 
 extreme — ^there instantly rise before you, in the 
 noblest forms — through the grandest illustrations of 
 history — through the collision of characters at once 
 human and heroic — there instantly, I say, rise before 
 you lessons which may instruct every age, and which 
 may especially guide the present. For so closely does 
 Grecian history bear on the more prominent disputes 
 in our own day, that it is not only full of wise saws, 
 but still more of modern instances. I pass by this 
 view of the political value of Grecian hterature, on 
 which I could not well enlarge without, perhaps, 
 provoking party differences, to offer some remarks, 
 purely critical, and for which I bespeak your indul- 
 gence if I draw too largely on your time. Every 
 Professor who encourages the young to the study of 
 the Classics wiQ tell them how these ancient master- 
 pieces have served modem Europe with models to 
 guide the taste and excite the emulation. But here 
 let us distinguish what we should mean when we 
 speak of them as models — we mean no check to origi- 
 nality — no cold and sterile imitation, more especially 
 of form and diction. The pith and substance of a 
 good Enghsh style — be it simple and severe, be it 
 copious and adorned — must still be found in the 
 nervous strength of om* native tongue. We need not 
 borrow from Greek or Roman the art that renders a 
 noble thought transparent to the humblest under- 
 standing, or charms the fastidious eai' with the varying 
 music of elaborate cadence. The classic authors are 
 models in a more comprehensive sense. They teach 
 us less how to handle words than how to view things ; 
 
rXTYERSITY OF EDIlJvBURGH. 99 
 
 — and first, let us recognize the main chai'acteristic 
 of the Hteratm-e of Greece. The genius of G-reek 
 letters is essentiall}'- social and humane. Far from 
 presenting us \vith a frigid and austere ideal, it deals 
 with the most vivid passions, the largest interests 
 common to the mass of mankind. In this sense of 
 the word it is practical — that is, it connects itself with 
 the natural feehngs, the practical life of man under 
 aU forms of civilization. That is the reason why it is 
 so dm'able — it fastens hold of sympath}'- and interest 
 in every nation and every age. Thus Homer is im- 
 measm'ably the most popular poet the world ever 
 knew. The Iliad is constructed from materials with 
 which the natural human heart has the most affinity. 
 Om* social instincts interest us on both sides, whether 
 in the war of the Greeks avenging the desecration of 
 the marriage hearth, or the doom of the Trojans, 
 wliich takes aU its pathos from the moment we see 
 Hector parting from Andromache, and unbinding his 
 helmet that it may not terrify his child. Homer 
 makes no attempt at abstract subtle feelings with 
 which few can sympathize. He takes terror and pity 
 from the most popular springs of emotion — valour, 
 love, patriotism, domestic affections — the stmggle of 
 Man with fate — the contrast, as in AchiUes, between 
 glorious youth and early death — between headlong 
 daidng and passionate sorrow ; the contrast, as in 
 Priam, between all that gives reverence to the king 
 and all that moves compassion for the man. Homer 
 knows no conventional dignity ; his heroes weep. — 
 his godesses scold — Mai's roars with pain when he is 
 
100 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTO]!?, BART. 
 
 wounded — Hector himself knows fear, and we do not 
 respect him the less, though we love him more, when 
 his heart sinks and his feet fly before Achilles. So 
 essentially human is Homer, that it is said that he 
 first created the Grreek gods — that is, he clothed what 
 before were vague phantoms with attributes famihar 
 to humanity, and gave them the power of divinities, 
 with the forms and the hearts of men. 
 
 Civilization advances, but the Greek hterature still 
 preserves this special character of humanity, and each 
 succeeding writer still incorporates his genius with 
 the actual existence and warm emotions of the crowd, 
 ^schylus strides forth from the field of Marathon, 
 to give voice to the grand practical ideas that 
 influenced his land and times. He represents the 
 apotheosis of freedom, and the dawn of philosophv 
 through the mists of fable. Thus, in the victory 
 hymn of " the Persse, " he chaunts the defeat of 
 Xerxes ; thus, in the " Seven before Thebes," he 
 addi-esses an audience still hot from the memories of 
 war, in words that rekindle its passions and re-echo 
 its clang ; thus, again, in the wondrous myth of the 
 " Prometheus Bound," he piles up the fragments of 
 primeval legend with a Titan's hand, storming the 
 very throne of Zeus with assertions of the liberty of 
 intellectual will, as opposed to the authority of force. 
 In ^schylus there is always the very form and pres- 
 sure of an age characterized by fierce emotions, and 
 the tumult of new ideas struggling for definite expres- 
 sion. Sophocles no less commands an everlasting 
 audience by genial sympathy with the minds that 
 
UITIYERSITY OF EDINBUEGH. 101 
 
 thought, and the hearts that beat, in his own day. 
 The stormy revolution of thought that succeeded the 
 Persian wai' had given way to a milder, but not less 
 manly, period of serene intelligence. The time had 
 come in which what we call " The Beautiful " deve- 
 loped its ripe proportions. A sentiment of order, of 
 submission to the gods — a desire to embellish the 
 social existence secured by victorious war — pervaded 
 the manners, and inspired the gentle emulation. All 
 this is reflected in the calm splendour of Sophocles. 
 It seems a type of the difference between the two 
 that -^schylus — a bearded man — had fought at 
 Marathon, and Sophocles — in the bloom of youth — 
 had tuned his harp to the pagans that circled round 
 the trophies of Salamis. The Prometheus of 
 TEschylus is a vindication of human wisdom, made 
 with the sublime arrogance of a Titan's pride. The 
 (Edipus of Sophocles teaches its nothingness to 
 Wisdom, and inflicts its blind punishment upon 
 Pride. But observe how both these great poets 
 inculcate the sentiment of Mercy as an element of 
 tragic grandeur, and how they both seek to connect 
 that attribute of humanity with the fame of their 
 native land. Thus it is to Athens that the Orestes 
 of ^schylus comes to expiate his parricide — it is the 
 tutelary goddess of the Athenians that pleads in his 
 cause, and reconciles the Fm'ies to the release of their 
 hunted victim. But still more impressively does 
 Sophocles inculcate and adorn this lesson of beautiful 
 humanity. It is not only amidst the very grove of 
 the Fm'ies that (Edipus finds the peaceful goal of his 
 
102 SIE EDWAED BULWEE LTTTOy, BAET. 
 
 wanderings — but round that grove itself the poet has 
 lavished aU the loveliest images of his fancy. There, 
 in the awful ground of the ghastly sisters, the Night- 
 ingales sing under the ivy — there blooms the jSTar- 
 cissus — there smiles the ohve- — there spring the 
 fountains that feed Cephisus. Thus terror itself he 
 surrounds with beauty, and the nameless grave of the 
 outlawed (Edipus becomes the guardian of the benig- 
 nant state, which gave the last refuge to his woes. 
 
 A few years more, and a new phase of civihzation 
 develops itself in Athens. To that sentiment for the 
 beautiful which in itself discovers the good, succeeds 
 the desire to moralize and speculate. The influence 
 of women on social life is more admitted — statesmen 
 and sages gather round Aspasia — love occupies a 
 larger space in the thoughts of men, and pity is 
 derived from gentler, perhaps from more effeminate, 
 sources. This change Euripides — ^no less practical 
 than his predecessors in representing the popular 
 temper of his age — this change, I say, Euripides 
 comes to depict in sententious aphorisms, in scholastic 
 casuistry, accompanied, however, with the tenderest 
 pathos, and enhsting that interest for which he is 
 ridiculed by Aristophanes — the interest derived from 
 conjugal relations and household life — the domestic 
 interest, — it is this which has made him of all the 
 G-reek di-amatists the most du-ectly influential in the 
 modern stage. And it is Euripides who has sug- 
 gested to the classic tragedy of Italy and France 
 two-thirds of whatever it possesses of genuine tender- 
 ness and passion. In a word, the Greek drama is not 
 
UNIYEESITY OF EDINBURGH. 103 
 
 that marble perfection of artistic symmetry which it 
 has too often been represented to be, but a flesh and 
 blood creation, identifying itself with the emotions 
 most prevalent in the multitudes it addressed, and 
 artificial rather by conventions derived from its 
 rehgious origin than by any very deep study of other 
 principles of art than those which sympathy with 
 human nature teaches instinctively to the poet. The 
 rules prescribed to the Greek dramatist, such as the 
 unities, were indeed few, and elementary, belonging 
 rather to the commencement of art than to its full 
 development. There are few critics nowadays, for 
 instance, who will not recognize a higher degree of 
 art in Shakspeare, when he transports his willing 
 audience over space and time, and concentrates in 
 Macbeth the whole career of guilty ambition, from 
 its first dire temptation to its troubled rise and' its 
 bloody doom, than there can be in any formal rule 
 which would have sacrificed for dry recital the vivacity 
 of action, and crowded into a day what Shakspeare 
 expands throughout a life. 
 
 In fine, then, these Greek poets became our models 
 — not as authorities for pedantic laws, not to chill 
 our invention by unsubstantial ideals or attempts to 
 restore to life the mere mummies of antiquity — but 
 rather, on the contrarj^ to instruct us that the writer 
 who most faithfully represents the highest and fairest 
 attributes of his own age has the best chance of an 
 audience in posterity ; and that whatever care we 
 take as to the grace or sublimity of diction, still the 
 diction itself can only be the instrument by which 
 
104 SIE EDWAED BULWER LTTTO^, BAET. 
 
 the true poet woiild refine or exalt what ? — why, the 
 feehngs most common to the greatest number of 
 mankind. We have heard too much about the cahn 
 and repose of classic art. It is the distance from 
 which we take our survey that does not allow us to 
 distinguish its force and its passion. Thus the 
 rivulet, when near, seems more disturbed than the 
 ocean beheld afar off. At the distance of two thou- 
 sand years, if we do not see all the play of the waves, 
 it is because we do not stand on the beach. The 
 same practical identification with the intellectual at- 
 tributes of their age which distinguished the poetry, 
 no less animates the prose of the ancient Grreeks. 
 The narratives of Herodotus, so simple yet so glowing, 
 were read to immense multitudes — now exciting their 
 wonder by tale and legend — now gratifying their 
 curiosity by accounts of barbarian customs — now 
 inflaming their patriotism by minute details of the 
 Persian myriads that exhausted rivers on their march, 
 and graphic anecdotes of the Grecian men, whom the 
 Medes at Marathon saw rushing into the midst of 
 their spears, or whom the scout of Xerxes found 
 dressing their hair for the festival of battle in the 
 glorious pass of Thermopylae. No less does the 
 graver mind of Thucydides represent the intense 
 interest with which the Grecian intellect was accus- 
 tomed to view the action and strife, the sorrow and 
 triumph, of the human beings, from whom it never 
 stood supercihously aloof. Though the father of 
 philosophical history, Thucydides knows nothing of 
 that cynical irony which is common to the modern 
 
UNIVEESITT OF EDINBURGH. 105 
 
 spirit of historical philosophy in its cold survey of the 
 follies and errors of mankind. He never neglects to 
 place full before you whatever ennobles our species, 
 whether it be the lofty sentiment of Pericles or the 
 hardy valour of Brasidas. It is his candid sympathy 
 with whatever in itself is good and great which 
 vivifies his sombre chronicle, and renders him at once 
 earnest yet impartial. Each httle bay or creek, each 
 defile or pass, where gallant deeds have been done, 
 he describes with the conviction that the deeds have 
 haUowed the place to all posterity, and have become 
 a part of that >cTVificc ig dsi which he proposed to be- 
 queath. This is the spirit which returns to Hfe in 
 your own day, and in your own historians, which 
 gives a classic charm to the mihtary details of Napier, 
 and lights with a patriot's fire the large intelligence 
 and profound research that immortalize the page of 
 Alison. 
 
 Pass from history to oratory. All men in modern 
 times, famous for their eloquence, have recognized 
 Demosthenes as their model. Many speakers in our 
 own country have literally translated passages from 
 his orations, and produced electrical efiects upon sober 
 EngHsh senators by thoughts first uttered to passion- 
 ate Athenian crowds. Why is this ? Not from the 
 style — the style vanishes in translation — it is because 
 thoughts the noblest appeal to emotions the most 
 masculine and popular. You see in Demosthenes the 
 man accustomed to deal with the practical business 
 of men — to generahze details, to render complicated 
 affairs clear to the ordinary understanding — and, at 
 
106 SIR EDWAED BULWEE LTTTON, BAET. 
 
 the same time, to connect the material interests of 
 life with the sentiments that warm the breast and 
 exalt the soul. It is the brain of an accomphshed 
 statesman in unison with a generous heart, thoroughly 
 in earnest, beating loud and high — ^with the passion- 
 ate desire to convince breathless thousands how to 
 balSle a danger, and to save their country, 
 
 A httle time longer, and Athens is free no more. 
 The u'on force of Macedon has banished hberty from 
 the silenced Agora. But hberty had already secured 
 to herself a gentle refuge in the groves of the Academy 
 — there, still to the last, the Grecian intellect main- 
 tains the same social, humanizing, practical aspect. 
 The immense mind of Aristotle gathers together, as 
 in a treasure-house for future ages, all that was valu- 
 able in the knowledge that informs us of the earth 
 on which we dwell — the pohtical constitutions of 
 States, and then- results on the character of nations, 
 the science of ethics, the analysis of ideas, natural 
 history, physical science, critical investigation, omne 
 immensum 2^eragravit; and all that he collects from 
 wisdom he apphes to the earthly uses of man. Yet 
 it is not by the tutor of Alexander, but by the pupil 
 of Socrates, that our vast debt to the Grecian mind 
 is completed. When we remount from Aristotle to 
 his great master, Plato — it is as if we looked from 
 nature up to nature's god. There, amidst the decline 
 of freedom, the corruption of manners — just before 
 the date when, with the fall of Athens, the beautiful 
 ideal of sensuous life faded mournfully away — there, 
 on that verge of time stands the consoling Plato, 
 
TJNITEESITT OF EDINBUEGH. 107 
 
 preparing philosopliy to receive the Christian dispen- 
 sation, by opemng the gates of the Infinite, and pro- 
 claiming the immortality of the soul. Thus the 
 Grecian genius, ever kindly and benignant, first 
 appears to awaken man from the sloth of the senses, 
 to enlarge the boundaries of self, to connect the desire 
 of glory with the sanctity of household ties, to raise 
 up in luminous contrast with the inert despotism of 
 the old Eastern world — the energies of freemen, the 
 duties of citizens; and, finally, accompHshing its 
 mission as the visible Iris to States and heroes, melts 
 into the rainbow, announcing a more sacred covenant, 
 and spans the streams of the Heathen Orcus with an 
 arch lost in the Christian's Heaven. 
 
 I have so exhausted your patience in what I have 
 thus said of the Grecian Hterature, that I must limit 
 closely my remarks upon the Eoman. And here, 
 indeed, the subject does not require the same space. 
 In the Greek hterature all is fresh and original ; its 
 very art is but the happiest selection from natural 
 objects, knit together with the zone of the careless 
 Graces. But the Latin hterature is borrowed and 
 adopted ; and, like all imitations, we perceive at once 
 that it is artificial — but in this imitation it has such 
 exquisite taste, in this artificiahty there is so much 
 refinement of pohsh, so much statehness of pomp — 
 that it assumes an originality of its own. It has not 
 found its jewels in native mines, but it takes them 
 with a conqueror's hand, and weaves them into regal 
 diadems. Dignity and pohsh are the especial attri- 
 butes of Latin hterature in its happiest age; it 
 
108 SIR EDWAED BULWER LTTTOIN', BAST. 
 
 betrays the habitual influence of an aristocracy, 
 wealthy, magnificent, and learned. To borrow a 
 phrase from Persius — its words sweep along as if 
 clothed with the toga. Whether we take the sono- 
 rous lines of Yirgil or the swelling periods of Cicero, 
 the easier dignity of Sallust, or the patrician simpH- 
 city of Ceesar, we are sensible that we are with a race 
 accustomed to a measured decorum, a majestic self- 
 control, unfamiliar to the more lively impulse of small 
 Greek communities. There is a greater demarcation 
 between the intellect of the writer and the homely 
 sense of the multitude. The Latin writers seek to 
 hnk themselves to posterity rather through a succes- 
 sion of select and well-bred admu'ers than by cordial 
 identification with the passions and interests of the 
 profane vulgai'. Even Horace himself, so briUiant 
 and easy, and so conscious of his monumentum cere 
 perennius, affects disdain of popular applause, and 
 informs us, with a kind of pride, that his satires had 
 no vogue in the haunts of the common people. 
 Every bold schoolboy takes at once to Homer, but it 
 is only the fine taste of the scholar that thoroughly 
 appreciates Virgil ; and only the experienced man of 
 the world who discovers all the dehcate wit, aU the 
 exquisite urbanity of sentiment, that win our affection 
 to Horace in proportion as we advance in life. In 
 short, the Grreek writers warm and elevate our 
 emotions as men — the Latiu writers temper emotions 
 to the stately reserve of high-bdrn gentlemen. The 
 Greeks fire us more to the inspirations of poetry, or 
 (as in Plato and parts of Demosthenes) to that sub- 
 
UNIYEESITY OF EDINBURGH. 109 
 
 limer prose to which poetry is akin ; but the Latin 
 writers are, perhaps, on the whole, though I say it 
 with hesitation, safer models for that accui*ate con- 
 struction and decorous elegance by which classical 
 prose attains critical perfection. Nor is this elegance 
 effeminate, but, on the contraiy, nervous and robust, 
 though, like the statue of Apollo, the strength of 
 the muscle is concealed by the undulation of the 
 curv^es. But there is this, as a general result from 
 the study of ancient letters, whether Greek or Roman, 
 — both are the literature of grand races, of free men 
 and brave hearts ; both abound in generous thoughts 
 and high examples ; both, whatever their occasional 
 license, inculcate, upon the whole, the habitual 
 practice of manly vu'tues ; both glow with the love 
 of country ; both are animated by the desire of fame 
 and honour. Therefore, whatever be our future pro- 
 fession and pursuit, however they may take us from 
 the scholastic closet, and forbid any frequent return 
 to the classic studies of our youth, still he whose 
 early steps have been led into that land of demi-gods 
 and heroes will find that its very air has enriched 
 through hfe the blood of his thoughts, that he quits 
 the soil with a front which the Greek has directed 
 towards the stars, and a step which imperial Rome 
 has disciplined to the march that carried her eagles 
 round the world. 
 
 Not in vain do these lessons appeal to the j'-outh 
 of Scotland. From this capital, still as from the 
 elder Athens, stream the hghts of philosophy and 
 learning. But yom* countrymen are not less renowned 
 
110 SIE EDWAED BULWEE LTTTOS", BAET. 
 
 for the qualities of action than for those of thought. 
 And you whom I address wiU carry with you, in your 
 several paths to fortune, your national attributes of 
 reflective judgment and dauntless courage. I see 
 an eventful and stirring age expand before the rising 
 generation. In that grand contest between new 
 ideas and ancient forms, which may be still more 
 keenly urged before this century expires, whatever 
 your differences of political opinion, I adjure you to 
 hold fast to the vital principle of civilization. What 
 is that principle ? It is the union of liberty with 
 order. The art to preserve this imion has often 
 baffled the wisest statesmen in stormy times ; but 
 the task becomes easy at once, if the people whom 
 they seek to guide wiH but carry into pubhc affairs 
 the same prudent consideration which commands 
 prosperity in private business. Tou have already 
 derived from yom* ancestors an immense capital of 
 pohtical freedom ; increase it if you wiU — but by 
 sohd investments, not by hazardous speculations. 
 You will hear much of the necessity of progress, and 
 truly : for where progress ends decHne invariably 
 begins ; but remember that the healthful progress of 
 society is like the natural life of man — ^it consists in 
 the gradual and harmonious development of aU its 
 constitutional powers, all its component parts, and 
 you introduce weakness and disease into the whole 
 system, whither you attempt to stiut or to force the 
 growth. The old homely rule you prescribe to the 
 individual is apphcable to a State — " Keep the Hmbs 
 warm by exercise, and keep the head cool by temper- 
 
UNIYEESITT OF EDINBURGH. Ill 
 
 ance." But new ideas do not invade only our poli- 
 tical systems ; you will find them wherever you turn. 
 Philosophy has altered the directions it favoured in 
 the last century — it enters less into metaphysical 
 inquiiy ; it questions less the relationships between 
 man and his Maker ; it assumes its practical character 
 as the investigator of external nature, and seeks to 
 adapt agencies before partially concealed to the 
 positive uses of man. Here I leave you to your own 
 bold researches ; you cannot be much misled, if you 
 remember the maxim, to observe with vigilance, and 
 inquire with conscientious care. Nor is it necessary 
 that I should admonish the sons of religious Scotland 
 that the most daring speculations as to Nature may 
 be accompanied with the humblest faith in those 
 subhme doctrines that open heaven alike to the wisest 
 philosopher and the simplest peasant. I do not 
 presume to arrogate the office of the preacher ; but, 
 believe me, as a man of books, and a man of the world, 
 that you inherit a religion which, in its most 
 famihar form, in the lowly prayer that you have 
 learned from your mother's hps, will save you from 
 the temptations to which life is exposed more surely 
 than all which the pride of philosophy can teach. 
 Nor can I believe that the man will ever go very far 
 or very obstinately wrong who, by the mere habit of 
 thanksgiving and prayer, will be forced to examine 
 his conscience even but once a day, and remember 
 that the eye of the Almighty is upon him. 
 
 One word further. Nothing, to my mind, preserves 
 a brave people true and firm to its hereditary virtues, 
 
112 SIR EDWARD BtLWER LTTTON, BART. 
 
 more than a devout though hberal spirit of nation- 
 ahty. And it is not because Scotland is united with 
 England that the Scotchman should forget the glories 
 of his annals, the tombs of his ancestors, or relax one 
 jot of his love for his native soil. I say not this to 
 flatter you — I say it not for Scotland alone. I say 
 it for the sake of the empire. For sure I am that, if 
 ever the step of the invader should land upon these 
 kindred shores — there, wherever the national spirit is 
 the most strongly felt — there, where the local affec- 
 tions most animate the breast — there will our defend- 
 ers be the bravest. It would ill become me to enter 
 into the special grounds of debate now at issue ; but 
 permit me to remind you that, while pressing with 
 your accustomed spirit for whatever you may deem 
 to be equal rights, you would be unjust to your own 
 fame if you did not feel that the true majesty of 
 Scotland needs neither the pomp of courts nor the 
 blazonry of heralds. What though Holy rood be 
 desolate — what though no king holds revels in its 
 halls ? — the empire of Scotland has but extended its 
 range ; and, blended with England, under the daughter 
 of your ancient kings, peoples the Australian wilds 
 that lay beyond the chai-t of Columbus, and rules 
 over the Indian realms that eluded the grasp of 
 Alexander. That empire does not suffice for you. 
 It may decay — it may perish. More grand is the 
 domain you have won over human thought, and iden- 
 tified with the eternal progress of intellect and free- 
 dom. From the charter of that domain no cere- 
 monial can displace the impression of your seal. In 
 
UNIVEESITT OF EDINBTTEGH. 113 
 
 the van of that progress no blazon can flaunt before 
 that old Lion of Scotland (pointmg to the flag sus- 
 pended opposite) . This is the empire that you will 
 adorn in peace ; this is the empire that, if need be, 
 you will defend in war. It is not here that I would 
 provoke one difference in political opinion — but surely 
 you, the sons of Scotland, who hold both fame and 
 power upon the same tenure as that which secures 
 civilization from lawless force — surely you are not the 
 men who could contemplate with folded arms the 
 return of the dark ages, and quietly render up the 
 haven that commands Asia on the one side and 
 threatens Europe on the other, to the barbaric ambi- 
 tion of some new Alaric of the north. But, whether 
 in reluctant war or in happier peace, I can but bid 
 you to be mindful of your fathers — learn from them 
 how duties fulfilled in the world become honours after 
 death; and in your various callings continue to 
 maintain for Scotland her subhme alliance with every 
 power of mind that can defend or instruct, soothe or 
 exalt humanity. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 RICHARD OOBDEN, M.P. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MECHANICS' INSTITUTION AT BARNSLEY, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 
 RE-OPENING OF THE NEW LECTURE HALL 
 
 CONNECTED WITH THE ABOVE INSTITUTION. 
 
 Delivered October 25, 1853. 
 
 Ladies and G-entlemen, — The details we have 
 heard of the early difficulties and infant struggles of 
 this association are only just those trials which we 
 are all Kable to encounter in every good and great 
 work which we undertake ; and I should not consider 
 a good worth possessing, unless it were deserving of 
 those efforts which are required to make such an in- 
 stitution as this prosper. Now, our excellent friends 
 have given you some details as to the character 
 and workings of this institution. I remember the 
 time when the first mechanics' institutions were 
 launched under the auspices of Dr. Birkbeek — a 
 man whose name can never be held in too high 
 reverence for disinterestedness and truly Christian 
 patriotism, and his honoured colleagues, Lord 
 
BAEXSLET mechanics' INSTITUTION. 115 
 
 Brougham and others. I rememher when they 
 launched the first mechanics' institutions. They 
 were intended not so much as schools in themselves, 
 but as something to supply the defects of early edu- 
 cation to that class who in former times had not had 
 an opportunity of receiving such education, for you 
 must remember that Dr. Birkbeck and others were 
 the strenuous advocates of a better system of educa- 
 tion for the young, and the mechanics' institutions 
 were, to a large extent, something devised as a resource 
 for those who had not had any opportunities for early 
 education. Such being the case, in order to carry 
 out the object of the founders of these institutions, 
 it is not enough for you to draw together a large 
 number of members in your lecture-room -or your 
 library, or to collect books in your library; these 
 things could have been obtained, probably, in a less 
 convenient way before mechanics' institutions were 
 created ; but one of the primary objects of mechan- 
 ics' institutions was to enable young men, feeling 
 themselves deficient in some particular branch of 
 knowledge, to join a society where they could have 
 an opportunity of repairing such deficiency. For 
 this purpose it has been customary, in all good me- 
 chanics' institutions, to estabhsh classes — classes for 
 different branches of study, which young men, or men 
 of middle age, or even old men, could join, and find 
 that particular knowledge they were in quest of. 
 Now, I beheve your institution has not such classes. 
 I don't mean to mention it as a reproach, because 
 you have had so many difficulties to fight against 
 
116 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 
 
 that I did not expect you could get over all these 
 things at once ; but, having surmounted so many 
 difficulties, and placed yom* institution, as I cannot 
 but hope, on a firm basis, — for an institution which 
 has grown into so many difficulties must have a fiim 
 basis, — you must determine that it shaU be — what 
 all mechanics' institutions were intended to be — a 
 means of instruction to the neglected adult popula- 
 tion. I think, too, you must have classes — classes for 
 teaching arithmetic, geography, drawing ; and even 
 chemistry is not too much to aspire to. You must 
 have, also — and I hope you will — a class for French. 
 Now, there has been an allusion to one branch of 
 study which particularly interests the manufacturers 
 of this district — I mean drawing and designing. I 
 think I have heard the gentleman who last spoke 
 say that there was no drawing master in Bamsley ; 
 that you must have an itinerant drawing master, 
 who, located at Sheffield, must have his circuit, radi- 
 atiQg from that town, and who must pay occasional 
 visits to Bamsley. If I were a Barnsley manufac- 
 turer, and dealt in figured damask linens, I should 
 beg and entreat the reporter not to let that fact get 
 out ; don't let the world know that Dunfermline has 
 got all the designs. Now, I am told, for I am very 
 curious in inquiring anything about the art of design, 
 inasmuch as my own business was very much con- 
 nected with that art, — I have been told, I say, 
 in consequence of inquiries I have made since 1 
 arrived here, that your damask hnens — the patterns 
 of those damask hnens which we all so much admire, 
 
BAEIfSLEY mechanics' INSTITUTION. 117 
 
 are made by the weavers themselves ; that the pat- 
 terns are designed by the labourer who weaves the 
 cloth, and that he, so far from having had any in- 
 struction in the art of designing, has been Hving in 
 a town where there is no drawing master. Now, I 
 take it as a proof that you have a talent for drawing 
 among you, that you have had a body of men 
 brought up as weavers, who have been able to make 
 patterns for you ; but I say to the capitalists, " You 
 are not doing justice to that mechanic, if you are 
 only going to give him a ninth or a tenth part of a 
 drawing master." You must let it go forth from this 
 moment — and I hope my Mend on the left, who is 
 interested in the matter, will rise before the conclu- 
 sion of these proceedings and declare it — that 
 another month shall not elapse before steps are taken 
 to insure the presence of a drawing master in Barns- 
 ley ; and that all those ingenious young weavers who 
 are able to put together a damask pattern shall be so 
 circumstanced as to be able to learn something of 
 the art of design from a practical teacher before we 
 meet here again. I say, then, that one of your 
 classes must be a drawing class, and in this respect 
 you will be aided by the Government in a way which 
 I think it is perfectly legitimate for a government to 
 aid — I mean this, you will be suppHed by the Board 
 of Trade with the best possible models, both of 
 sculpture and drawing. I say I am an advocate so 
 far for centrahzation, that I will at all times sanc- 
 tion and applaud a government which draws to one 
 centre the best designs and models for di-awing and 
 
118 EICHAED COBDEN, M.P. 
 
 sculpture, and tlien multiplies those designs and models 
 in tlie cheapest possible way, with a view to their 
 diffusion among the general pubhc. It involves no 
 imdue expense or the imposition of any unnecessary 
 tax or interference with the powers of self-govern- 
 ment, while the pubhc benefits and profits by the 
 opportunity thus afforded of procuring such designs 
 and models as the superior inteUigence and know- 
 ledge of the gentlemen at the head of such a depart- 
 ment, say in London, can give you in Bamsley or 
 elsewhere of the best specimens of sculpture and 
 forms of art which are to be found in London, Paris, 
 or Eome. 
 
 But I rather think you have already been to the 
 Board of Trade, and got something in the way of 
 models, or something of that kind ; and, if you have, 
 I suppose you are going to make some use of them ; 
 but you can't make any use of them unless you have 
 got classes ; and I ^vill undertake, on behalf of this 
 meeting and the inteUigent manufacturers of Bamsley, 
 to say that it is intended to connect with this institu- 
 tion a drawing class, and that a drawing master shall 
 be appointed capable of giving ef&cient instruction. 
 
 With regard to other branches — take, for instance, 
 a class for arithmetic — I would ask, how many young 
 men are there who may be sitting at their looms 
 with the best of heads upon their shoulders — phre- 
 nologically speaking — but who, from some circum- 
 stances not under their control, had no opportunity 
 of cultivating that head when a child? And yet 
 such a young man feels within him a capacity to fill 
 
BAENSLET MECHAITECS' INSTITUTION. 119 
 
 any Station of life, if he had only had the necessary 
 education to enable him to rise in society. The first 
 thing such a young man required, if he was to do 
 anything in the way of business, was to learn some- 
 thing of arithmetic ; but in your institution how is a 
 young man to learn the rule of three or obtain any 
 knowledge of arithmetic ? It is necessary, therefore, 
 you should have a master. I don't mean a stipen- 
 diary master, for I hope you will find independent 
 pubhc-spirited men enough in Bamsley who will 
 begin and initiate the necessary classes in connection 
 with your institution, and that you will not only 
 have drawing and arithmetic classes, but also a 
 French class, for, now that French is very generally 
 spoken, a knowledge of it is necessary to enable you 
 to enter into communication with a large portion of 
 the pubHc, and there is no reason why you in Barns- 
 ley should not be able to do this as well as others. 
 
 It is the object of mechanics' institutions to bring 
 those branches. of knowledge within the reach of 
 adult mechanics and labouring men in all the towns 
 of the kingdom. Now, Bamsley is of such a size 
 that it ought to be able to maintain a mechanics' in- 
 stitution of such a magnitude as to support all these 
 classes. I am aware it is difiicult in a small town 
 to do this, but liere you have a population of from 
 14,000 to 15,000 in Bamsley and the neighbourhood, 
 and I must say that 250 members are not enough 
 for a population of such magnitude. You must 
 double that before we have another anniversary. 
 Let every member try to find another member. 
 
120 RICHAED COBDEIN', M.P. 
 
 and then tlie thing is done. Your terms are 10s. 
 a-year. How in the world can anybody buy amuse- 
 ment, or gratification, or enlightenment cheaper than 
 at 10s. a-year ? And I would say to the members 
 who already belong to the institution, you have a 
 particular motive in trying to add to your numbers. 
 You have already a large lecture theatre here, most 
 admirably ai'ranged — rather too hot, I think. If you 
 could contrive to arrange those hghts so as not to be 
 so hot, it would be better. You have, I say, a large 
 lecture theatre, a reading-room, and library, and I 
 venture to say, if you double your numbers, you may 
 still comfortably accommodate yourselves in your 
 lectm'e-hall, reading-room, and library, while your 
 fixed expenses remain the same. If your income at 
 the present is 130/- a-year, your fixed charges will 
 be from 701. to 80/., leaving you not more than 50/. 
 for the purposes of lectures, purchasing newspapers, 
 and such Hke things. Your cm-rent expenses must 
 be going on, whether you have few or many mem- 
 bers, and therefore, by increasing your numbers, the 
 additional subscriptions you get will be so much gain 
 in the way of providing education, and increased at- 
 traction in your institution. If all the members 
 were thus to act you would have a surplus fund, 
 which would enable you to engage masters for your 
 classes, and to enter into all those studies I have 
 pointed out. Besides, having a double number, you 
 would have a sufiicient number for each class to make 
 it worth while for a teacher to give the necessary 
 tuition in those classes ; therefore, those belong- 
 
BARNSLEY MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 121 
 
 ing to the institution have every motive for increasing 
 the number of members. 
 
 I think you ought also to try to estabhsh a school 
 in connection with this institution. That is one of 
 the most useful of the adjuncts of the Huddersfield 
 and other mechanics' institutions. I would recom- 
 mend you to endeavour to connect a school with this 
 institution, as a feeder to it, for it is by means of 
 schools that you areto get members. If, in consequence 
 of the advices given by our friend Mr. Wilderspin, 
 20 yeai's ago, there had been an infant school estab- 
 lished in every village, you would not have wanted 
 customers for your mechanics' institutions ; they 
 would have grown up around you. And this brings 
 me to the question — leaving for a moment this insti- 
 tution — what were these institutions estabhshed 
 for ? Not as a system of education, but to supple- 
 ment the want of education, and we want the 
 education still which we wanted when these institu- 
 tions were founded. I know that it is made a vexed 
 question, and to some extent a party question. I 
 never regarded it as a party question. I don't care 
 through what it comes. Give me voluntary edu- 
 cation, or State education — but education I want. 
 I cannot accept statistics to prove the number of 
 people who attend schools — to prove that the people 
 are educated, because I cannot shut my eyes to what 
 is evident to my senses, — that the people are not 
 educated, — that they are not being educated. I was 
 talking only yesterday with a merchant in Manches- 
 ter, who told me that he had attended at the swearing 
 
122 EICHAED COBDEir, M.P. 
 
 in of the militia in one of the largest manufacturing 
 towns of England, and that not one-half of those 
 sworn in could read, and not one-third could sign 
 their names. Now, without wishing to utter any 
 fanatical opinion with regard to the peace question, I 
 must say, with all sincerity, I think it would have been 
 much better to hand these young men over to the 
 schoolmaster rather than to the drill-sergeant. For 
 I think the safety of this country would be more 
 promoted by teaching them to read and write than 
 by teaching them to face about right rightly. I was 
 talking this subject over to an old friend of mine at 
 Preston, and he said, " I attended the coroner one 
 day last week at an inquest. There were 13 jury- 
 men ; five signed their names, and eight made their 
 mark." Can I shut my eyes to what is going on 
 around us ? I cannot, and therefore I say we are 
 not an educated people ; and I say it is our duty, 
 and our safety calls upon us, to see that the people 
 are educated ; and I know of no place more fitting to 
 discuss this subject than in such a meeting as this, 
 because I take it for granted you are all interested in 
 it. You all admit the deficiency of juvenile instruc- 
 tion, or you would not have attended to the defective 
 adult education. We are not an educated people, 
 and I have no hesitation in asserting that, in point 
 of school learning, the mass of the EngHsh people 
 are the least instructed of any protestant community 
 in the world. I say that deliberately. I remember 
 quite well at the time of the Hungarian emigration 
 into this country, after the revolution, a very distin- 
 
BAENSLET MECHANICS' DfSTITTJTION. 123 
 
 guished minister or religious teacher of Hungary, was 
 talking to me on the subject of our education, and I 
 told him a large portion of our people could neither 
 read nor vmte. He could not beheve it, and said, 
 " If it is true a large proportion of your people can 
 neither read nor write, how do you maintain your 
 constitutional franchises and your pohtical liberties ? 
 Why, it is evident to me that your institutions are 
 rather ahead of your people, and that this self-govern- 
 ment is only a bad habit with you.' ' It is a habit, and 
 we will cling to it and hold it ; but I want a safer 
 foundation. I want to have our self-government a 
 habit of appreciation — something our people will be 
 proud of, and not simply a habit ; and there is no 
 security unless it is based upon a wider intelhgence 
 of the people than we meet with at the present 
 moment. It meets us at every turn — you can't 
 do anything in social reform but you are met with 
 the question of education. Take the question of 
 sanitary reform. Why do people hve in bad cellars, 
 surrounded by filth and disease ? You may say it is 
 their poverty, but their poverty comes as much 
 from their ignorance as their vices; and their 
 vices often spring from their ignorance. The great 
 mass of the people don't know what the sanitary 
 laws are ; they don't know that ventilation is good 
 for health ; they don't know that the miasma of an 
 unscavenged street or impure alley is productive 
 of cholera and disease. If they did know these 
 things people would take care they inhabited better 
 houses ; and if people were only more careful in their 
 
124 EICHAED COBDEN, M.P. 
 
 habits than they are, and husbanded their means, 
 they might get into better houses. And when I hear 
 persons advocate temperance, which I, as one of the 
 most temperate men in the world, always hke to hear 
 advocated, I say the best way is to afford them some 
 other occupation or recreation than that which is 
 derived only through their senses — the best way is 
 to give them education. If the working man is de- 
 prived of those recreations which consist of the in- 
 tellectual and moral enjoyments that education and 
 good training give, he naturally falls into the excite- 
 ment of sensual indulgence, because excitement all 
 human beings must have. Therefore, when you wish 
 to make them more temperate, and secure moral and 
 sanitary and social improvements among the working 
 classes, education, depend upon it, must be at the 
 bottom of it all. 
 
 Grentlemen, I see in different parts of the country 
 a great social movement going on between different 
 classes of the community. For instance, in the town 
 of Preston you have 20,000 to 30,000 persons out of 
 work, and there is in that place not a chimney but 
 is cold and cheerless — neither smoke nor steam cheer- 
 ing your eyes. Look at the destitution and misery 
 caused by leaving a town in this state for a month 
 or six weeks. Why is this ? I answer, it springs 
 from ignorance. Not ignorance confined to one 
 party in the dispute. It is ignorance on both sides, 
 and deplorable in its result. But do you suppose 
 that when the world becomes more enhghtened you 
 will have such a scene as this, of a whole community 
 
BAENSLEY MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 125 
 
 stopping its labours for a month or six weeks, and 
 creating misery, immorality, and destitution, that 
 may not be removed for five or six years to come ? 
 When masters and men understand the principles 
 upon which the rate of wages and profits depend, 
 they will settle their matters and arrange their dif- 
 ferences in a less bungling way than that which now 
 brings so much misery upon all parties to the quarrel. 
 Even now, however, we see great progress in this 
 respect. I remember the time when the cessation of 
 labour by 25,000 persons would have led to riot and 
 disturbance, and the callrug out of the mihtary. 
 This is not to be seen now. We see passive resist- 
 ance and firmness to an extent which, if they had 
 pohcy and propriety at their back, would be highly 
 desirable and most commendable. 
 
 But, gentlemen, we shall probably hve to see the 
 time when another step will be taken onward. You 
 will hve to see the time when men will settle these 
 matters, not by resorting to blind passion, by vitu- 
 peration, and counter-vituperation — when the ques- 
 tion of wages will be left to the master and man to 
 arrange according to then* own interest — when the 
 whole question of wages and the rate of wages will 
 be settled just as quietly as you now see the price of 
 any article fixed in the pubHc market. They did 
 not fiind that people who went to market with cattle, 
 potatoes, or anything else, struck against the buyers 
 of those cattle or potatoes. They did not find that 
 the seller of the cattle struck against the seller of the 
 potatoes, and that the buyers and the eaters of the 
 
126 EICHAED COBDEir, M.P. 
 
 potatoes stood quietly by and starved while the 
 potatoes rotted. They did not find men doing such 
 things ; but they found that it was by the higgling 
 of the market that they tranquilly decided its price ; 
 they thus fixed the price of the day, and the whole 
 thing was quietly settled without that irritation and 
 waste of property, without that misery and suffering, 
 which I consider most painftd, and, as a sign of the 
 intelligence of the day, the most discreditable — that 
 struggle between master and workpeople which is 
 passing in our time. I am not saying one word of 
 the merits of either side upon this question. Both 
 parties think themselves right, and both are, no 
 doubt, right in attempting to get the best price they 
 can, the one for his labour, and the other for his 
 capital ; but if there were more intelligence upon this 
 question — if the laws were better understood which 
 decide finally and inexorably the relative value of 
 laboiu' as well as everything else, these matters would 
 be settled without that hideous amount of suffering 
 which I deplore to see accompanying these strikes 
 and troubles in the manufacturing districts. And 
 when I say, gentlemen, that inteUigence will put an 
 end to these things, I am only saying that will be 
 done here which has already been done in America. 
 You cannot point to an instance in America, where 
 people have more education than they have here, of 
 the total cessation from labour of a whole community, 
 of an entire town given over as a prey to destitution. 
 You cannot point out such an instance in America : 
 neither will you see it in England when that intelli- 
 
127 
 
 gence and enlightenment which these institutions 
 are intended to promote shall he spread throughout 
 our country. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, this brings me back again to the 
 point that we want schools — schools to teach people 
 these principles — schools to teach people from their 
 youth to take a calm and reasoning view of the 
 things which affect their interest, and so to educate 
 them that they shall not allow others to lead them 
 away by appeals to their passions. We shall never 
 be safe as a manufacturing and mining community 
 until a school invariably grows up along with every 
 manufactory and at the mouth of every pit and mine 
 in the kingdom. Now, gentlemen, I must here 
 again allude to America. When I came through 
 Manchester the other day I found many of the most 
 influential manufacturing capitahsts talking very 
 gravely upon a report which had reached them from 
 a gentleman who was selected by the Government to 
 go out to America, to make a report upon the Great 
 Exhibition in New York. That gentleman was one 
 of the most eminent of the mechanicians and machine- 
 makers of Manchester, employing a very large num- 
 ber of workpeople, renowned for the quahty of his 
 productions, and known in the scientific world, and 
 whose scientific attainments were appreciated from 
 the Astronomer Eoyal downwards. He has been 
 over to New York to report upon the progress of 
 mechanics and mechanical arts in the United States. 
 WeU, he has returned. No report from him to the 
 Government has, as yet, been pubhshed, and what he 
 
128 EICHAED COBDE>', M.P. 
 
 has to say specifically upon the subject will not be 
 known until that report has been so made and pub- 
 Hshed to the country. But it has oozed out in 
 Manchester among his neighbours, that he has found 
 in America a degree of intelhgence among the manu- 
 facturing operatives and a state of things in the 
 mechanical arts which have convinced him that, if 
 we are to hold our own — if we are not to fall back 
 in the rear of the race of nations — ^we must educate 
 our people so as to put them upon a level with the 
 more educated artizans of the United States. We 
 shall all have an opportunity of judging of this 
 matter when that report is issued ; but sufficient has 
 already oozed out among his neighbours to excite a 
 great interest, and, I may say, some alarm. Well, I 
 am dehghted to find an intelligent man has been 
 selected for this duty, for all the world wiU approve 
 of the selection made, because the gentleman alluded 
 to was fully competent to the task ; and he has come 
 to teU us it is necessary to educate the people. I 
 went to that country 20 years ago, and I published 
 a record of my opinions. That was written in 1835, 
 and I stated that England would be brought to the 
 consciousness that it was to that country she would 
 have to look with apprehension as to manufacturing 
 rivalry ; and now I am dehghted that it should turn 
 out as I have stated, that it has come from a quarter 
 — from a person so well quahfied to procure correct 
 information that no one wiU question the truth of 
 his report when it comes out. I say I am dehghted, 
 because I want England to know her danger, if there 
 
BARNSLET MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 129 
 
 is one. Napoleon used to say to those in communi- 
 cation with him, " If you have any bad news to tell 
 me, awake me at any hour of the night, for good 
 news will keep, but bad news I cannot know too 
 soon." I say, then, I am delighted with this, for 
 let but Englishmen know of a danger to face, and of 
 a difficulty to surmount, and there is nothing within 
 the compass of human capacity which they will not 
 accomphsh ; but the great misfortune is, that Eng- 
 lishmen are too much given up to and incrusted with 
 their insulai' pride and prejudice, — a sort of Chinese 
 notion of superiority, — that they will not awaken up 
 and use their eyes as to what is going on in other 
 countries, until it is too late. I am glad, therefore, 
 that this question is to be brought forward ; but why 
 should America be better educated than England ? 
 Do you think that a new country, which has the 
 wilderness to cultivate, primeval forests to level, 
 roads to make, and every bridge and church to erect, 
 — do you think that such a country is in a position 
 to rival an old country, if that country will only do 
 its duty to its people ? No ; an old country has 
 greater advantages and facihties at command than a 
 new one ; and if you find a new country beating 
 an old one in this matter, depend upon it, it is be- 
 cause of some fault in the old one. We don't read 
 in ancient Greece, when she sent forth her colonies, 
 that they became the teachers of the mother country. 
 No ; Athens always remained the teacher of the 
 whole world. And it is a shame if a new people, 
 sent out from us only yesterday, is to be held up for 
 
 K 
 
130 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 
 
 our admiration and example, and this too in the mat- 
 ter of education. 
 
 Now, I hope that it wont be said that there is 
 anything in these remarks which is out of place in 
 an assembly such as this. It appears to me that if 
 there can be a meeting at which such a subject as 
 this should be discussed, it is just such a meeting as 
 this. We are all here, at all events, presumed to feel 
 a great interest in the subject of education, and 
 therefore anxious to promote it. And I don't de- 
 spair even now. I should not despair of this country, 
 if the people of this country would only resolve to 
 do it, surpassing all the world in education in a gen- 
 eration or two. But we must not refuse to adopt 
 the improved machinery of other countries. We 
 must not be Hke the Chinese with their junks, who 
 refuse to build their ships after our improved model ; 
 we must not refuse to adopt what we see in other 
 countries if better than our own. If we see the 
 Americans beating us in their spinning-jennies and 
 in their saihng-boats, we adopt their improvements ; 
 if they send over a yacht which beats ours, we send 
 over and build one which will beat them ; if a man 
 comes over and picks our locks, we may wonder how 
 it is he makes better locks than we do, but we buy 
 them ; and so it is in other matters of this kind. 
 But, on the question of education, they have in 
 the United States adopted a system which we in 
 this country have not adopted, except in Scotland to 
 some extent ; and what is so natural as that we 
 should follow the same rule in this matter as we do 
 
BARNSLEY MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 131 
 
 in the manufacture of our machines for spinning 
 cotton, and in the construction of our ships ? I take 
 it that, the result being in favour of American edu- 
 cation, it proves that they have adopted better means 
 than we have, and, if we would rival them, we must 
 not be ashamed to adopt their plan, if better than 
 our own. There is not any party, I beheve, now 
 opposed to education, none who do not think that 
 there is more danger from ignorance in our present 
 artificial state than in education. Whatever our 
 political predilections, there is not one who will not 
 say — whatever we are doomed to imdergo, whether 
 proceeding from a straitening of circumstances, from 
 a decline of our commerce, or from difficulties of a 
 strictly poHtical character — whatever there may be 
 in store for us of troubles and distresses — there is 
 nobody but wiU say we had better have an educated 
 people to meet them than have to encounter them 
 with masses of ignorance and untrained passion ; for, 
 after all, the masses of the people do govern in this 
 coimtry — they are called on in the last resort. 
 Every one must admit it is better to have an arbi- 
 trator who is trained to discuss reasons and to deduce 
 facts from evidence — it is better to have minds of 
 this sort to settle great national questions than to 
 refer such mighty interests to the arbitrament of 
 ignorance and passion. 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I have said too 
 much on this subject to you and to those elsewhere 
 who may read what we are now saying, I must tell 
 you, that I feel so strongly upon it, that when aniong 
 
132 EICHAED COBDEN, M.P. 
 
 a body of men met together in favour of education, 
 I cannot be responsible for withholding my opinions 
 in reference to the want of juvenile education, for it 
 is not possible to compensate for the want of juvenile 
 education by means of such institutions as this. We 
 may by such means improve the education of the 
 people, but we can't have a really educated and safe 
 community imless we begin at the beginning, by 
 training the young. I can only say, whether you 
 look at this question of education in the interest of 
 morahty or rehgion, as affecting the happiness, in- 
 terest, or the welfare of society — in whatever way 
 you regard this question, you may depend upon it 
 the very highest interests, the dignity, honour, and 
 happiness of the people, are bound up with it. 
 
ADDBESS 
 
 OF IHB 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P. 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OP 
 
 THE LEEDS MECHANICS' INSTITUTION 
 AND LITERARY SOCIETY. 
 
 Delivered in the Music Hall, Albion Steeet, Z>ece»i6er 8, 1852. 
 
 Ladies and GtENTLemek, — Your excellent presi- 
 dent having conveyed to me a wish that I should 
 preside at this meeting of the Leeds Mechanics' 
 Institution, I had great pleasure in complying with 
 his request; for, since the first establishment of 
 mechanics' institutes, I have had the greatest 
 satisfaction in seemg how much they have con- 
 tributed to the instruction of those who belong to 
 them, and to the general knowledge and to the 
 general welfai-e of the country. I had the pleasure 
 of assisting Dr. Birkbeck in the beginning of these 
 institutions. I wish now, as far as I am able, to 
 address you upon some points of general concern. 
 My ignorance of the particulars and details relating 
 to these institutions would make it an impertinence 
 on my part if I were to attempt to go into those 
 
134 LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 
 
 matters to which your president has referred. I am 
 glad to say that from the last report of the institution 
 it appears that the various objects to which it is 
 intended to minister — the schools, the classes, the 
 instructions of various kinds, and the Hhraries, have 
 all been well supported, and that there are not less 
 than 2,000 members belonging to your association. 
 It occurs to me, however, that if I can address any- 
 thing to you worthy of observation, it should be 
 rather upon the general state of knowledge at this 
 time, and the prospect of what is before us, than 
 upon any particulars relating to the institution over 
 which I am now presiding. Let us observe how very 
 different the present state of affairs is from the time 
 when great foundations were made for the purposes 
 of education and instruction. Before the Reforma- 
 tion, and immediately afterwards, great sums of 
 money and broad lands were given for the purpose of 
 endowing academies, colleges, and schools, for educa- 
 tion. Om' ancestors thought, and I believe wisety 
 thought, that the best plan they could adopt was to 
 teach, or to provide means for teaching, the science 
 and the hteratm'e which had been derived from 
 ancient nations, for in those days that science and 
 that literature contained aU that was known, that 
 was really worthy of study, the most profound works 
 upon subjects of geometry and science, and the best 
 models of hterary writing. I am far from thinking 
 that our ancestors committed an error, either when 
 they directed the education of youth almost ex- 
 clusively to these objects, or when they decided that a 
 
LEEDS MECHAJTICS' INSTITUTION. 135 
 
 great length of time should be given to that know- 
 ledge ; but we have to consider that in the present 
 day we stand in a totally different position. Not 
 that we ought to forget what great advantages we 
 have derived from the science and the Hterature of 
 ancient nations ; because upon the geometry delivered 
 to us from the ancients has been founded all that in- 
 crease of knowledge which ended in the discoveries of 
 Newton, — from the writings of the poets of antiquity 
 the great poets of modern times have derived the 
 best models they could imitate, — from the jurispru- 
 dence of the Romans were derived the laws by which 
 most of the nations of the continent have been ruled. 
 But, while this tribute must be paid, it is a paramount 
 object of attention that we, in the com'se of the three 
 centuries and a half that have elapsed from what is 
 called "the revival of letters," have added to the 
 stores that we have received immense stores of our 
 own, — that by the side of that rich mine we have 
 opened other mines, which, if not of richer ore, are 
 more easily worked, and are more abundant in their 
 produce. It was Lord Bacon who first pointed out 
 that the mode of the pursuit of science for modem 
 nations ought to be different from that mode for the 
 discovery of truth which had been pointed out by 
 some of the great philosophers. It has been much 
 questioned whether Lord Bacon was in fact the guide 
 by whom other discoverers have been enabled to 
 pursue the track of knowledge and of invention, and 
 upon that point I think it is certainly clear that it 
 was not Lord Bacon who enabled Galileo and Torri- 
 
136 LORD JOHJf eussi:ll. 
 
 celli, Pascal, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and Kepler, 
 to make the great discoveries which have immortalized 
 their names. But what is true is, that Lord Bacon 
 at a very early period laid down the rules by which 
 all modern men of science have guided themselves. 
 He pointed out the road they have followed, and laid 
 down more clearly, more broadly, more ably than any 
 one else, the great method by which modem discovery 
 should be pursued. You will find, I think, if you 
 pursue this subject — ^if those who belong to me- 
 chanics' institutes will study the two works of Lord 
 Bacon, the one called the New Organ, and the other 
 on the Instauration of the Sciences, — you will find that 
 the latest discoveries, the latest inventions, have been 
 made according to that mode which he pointed out. 
 A work was published but a year ago by Mr. Fair- 
 baim, giving an account of the experiments which he 
 adopted under the direction of Mr. Stephenson, and 
 by which that gentleman was enabled to construct 
 the tubular bridges at Conway and over the Menai 
 Straits. You will find that all those experiments 
 were according to the rules which Lord Bacon has 
 laid down. Take another work on geology, and a 
 most interesting work it is, called the Old Red Sand- 
 stone, by Mr. Hugh Miller, and you will find in that 
 interesting work, which is as remarkable for the 
 beauty of its style as for the importance of its matter, 
 that Mr. Hugh Miller, being at first a mason working 
 in a stone quarry, pursued, in his method of investi- 
 gation, the same rules which Lord Bacon, more than 
 three centuries ago, laid down, and which have thus 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
LEEDS mechanics' INSTITUTION. 137 
 
 become the foundation of the law, as it were, of 
 modern science. And now, ladies and gentlemen, 
 having said thus much with regard to the original 
 method, let me venture to say that, interested as no 
 doubt the members of the Mechanics' Institute may 
 be in the vaiious sciences which of late have made so 
 great a progress,— that, interesting to you as are 
 those discoveries which have given us the power of 
 rapid locomotion, and the electric telegraph, — wonder- 
 ful and extraordinary as aU those discoveries are, and 
 the study of the means and methods by which they 
 were made, I would earnestly press upon you that 
 there is one science which, though its practical use is 
 rather upon the sea than upon the land, is yet worthy 
 of the deepest study, on account of the magnificent 
 results which it unfolds. The science to which I 
 allude is the science of astronomy. Whether those 
 who, having begun the mathematical studies with the 
 simplest problems of geometry, wish to pursue them 
 to the end, and follow the works of Newton himself 
 — and no more interesting works can be studied by 
 a mathematician — with the view of seeing how it 
 was that he discovered that great law of gravitation 
 by which his name will be for ever known, or whether, 
 contenting yourselves with the popular accounts of 
 astronomy in many of the works of the day, written 
 by Sir Jolfti Herschell and other eminent men — 
 whether you pursue one branch or the other — you 
 cannot fail to be struck with the dread magnificence 
 of heaven which is unfolded to you in astronomical 
 speculations. That course of discovery, be it re- 
 
138 LORD JOH]N" RUSSELL. 
 
 marked, is still open — it is still pursued ; and it is 
 but lately that it has been found that those parts of 
 the heavens which seem to be mere collections of 
 luminous clouds, and not to contain anything like 
 form of world or form of suns, are in fact full of stars, 
 small in appearance to us, but really of very great 
 magnitude, though at an immensely remote distance ; 
 so that, as it were, a new heaven is opened to us, and 
 it appears that to Him to whom " a thousand years 
 are but a day" a thousand worlds are but a speck. 
 I certainly shall not attempt to detain you, and to 
 occupy your time by spealdng of any of those other 
 sciences which all have their delight and their utihty. 
 Let me only say that there cannot be a greater 
 mistake than that which prevailed a number of years 
 ago, when I first visited this district — and I am sorry 
 to say it is now 40 years since I came into the district, 
 and in company with a learned and eminent man, 
 the late Professor Playfair, visited your factories and 
 workshops, I was struck — I could not fail to be struck 
 — by the ingenuity displayed, by the wealth that was 
 obtained ; but I own that I left the manufacturing 
 districts with somewhat of a paiuful feeling that no 
 greater means were used to spread and obtain know- 
 ledge, and that a theory seemed to prevail — a false 
 and unfounded theory I am sure it was — that those 
 who are continually occupied in toihng "and in spin- 
 ning, in hammering and in forging, could not obtain 
 time to have the means of penetrating the recesses 
 of science and of literature. I beheve that no doc- 
 trine ever was more false ; and experience indeed has 
 
LEEDS mechanics' INSTITUTION. 139 
 
 proved that, while science and literature add to the 
 skill and to the ability by which the artizan conducts 
 his trade, on the other hand his toil is sweetened by 
 the comfort of thinking that he can read and instruct 
 himself when his hour of leisure shall arrive. G-entle- 
 men, I noted in a journal I kept at that time the 
 various manufactm-es I had visited and the inventions 
 I had seen, and I ended with a few observations on 
 the moral and intellectual state of the manufacturing 
 districts, expressing, with the sanguine hope of youth, 
 a confident expectation that great improvement 
 would be made in these respects ; and I come now, 
 after this long period, to rejoice in the prospect that 
 that hope is being fulfilled. 
 
 I will now tm-n for a short time to the subject of 
 literature. That subject again is so vast that if I 
 were to attempt to go over any one of its numerous 
 fields I should not find the time sufficient to enable 
 me to do so ; but there is one leading remark which 
 I will venture to make, and which, I think, it is worth 
 while for any person who studies literature to keep 
 in view. There are various kinds of productions of 
 literature, of very different forms and of very different 
 tastes — some grave and some gay, some of extreme 
 fancy, some rigorously logical, but all, as I think, 
 demanding this as their quality, — that truth shall 
 prevail in them. A French author has said that 
 nothing is beautiful but truth, that truth alone is 
 lovely, but that truth ought to prevail even in fable. 
 I believe that remark is perfectly correct; and I 
 beUeve you cannot use a better test even of works of 
 
140 LORD JOH^f RUSSELL. 
 
 imagination than to see whether they are true to 
 nature. Now, perhaps I can better explain what I 
 mean in this respect by giving you one or two in- 
 stances than I should be able to do by precept and 
 explanation. A poet of very great celebrity in the 
 last century, and who certainly was a poet distin- 
 guished for much fancy and great power of pathos, 
 but who had not the merit of being always as true 
 as he is pointed in the poetry he has written — I 
 mean Young — has said, at the commencement, I 
 think, of one of his " Nights " : — 
 
 " Sleep, like the world, his ready \isit pays 
 Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he forsakes. 
 And lights on lids unsullied with a tear." 
 
 Now, if you will study that sentence you will see 
 there are two things which the poet has confounded 
 together. He has confounded together those who 
 are fortunate in their peace of mind, those who are 
 fortunate in the possession of health, and those who 
 are fortunate in worldly advantages. Now, it fre- 
 quently happens that the man who is the worst off 
 in his worldly circumstances — to whom the world 
 wiU pay no homage — on whom it would not be said 
 that fortune smiled, enjoys sweeter and more regular 
 sleep than those who are in the possession of the 
 highest advantages of rank and wealth. You will all 
 remember, no doubt, that in a passage I need not 
 quote, another poet — one always true to nature— 
 Shakspeare, has described the shipboy amidst the 
 storm, notwithstanding all the perils of his position 
 on the mast, as enjoying a quiet sleep, while he 
 
LEEDS mechanics' INSTITUTION. 141 
 
 describes the king as unable te enjoy any rest. That 
 is the poet true to nature; and you will thus, by 
 following observations of this kind, by applying that 
 test to poetry as well as to history and to reasoning, 
 obtain a correct judgment as to whether what you 
 are reading is really worth your attention and worth 
 your admiration, or whether it is faulty and is not so 
 deserving. I may give another instance, and I could 
 hardly venture to do so if my friend and your friend, 
 Lord CarHsle, were here, because the want of truth I 
 am going to point out is in the writings of Pope. 
 There is a very beautiful ode of Horace, in which, 
 exalting the merits of poetry, he says that many 
 brave men lived before Agamemnoh ; that there were 
 many great sieges before the siege of Troy ; that 
 before Achilles and Hector existed there were brave 
 men and great battles; but that, as they had no 
 poet, they died, and that it required the genius of 
 poetry to give immortal existence to the bravery of 
 armies and of chiefs. Pope has copied this ode of 
 Horace, and in some respects has well copied and 
 imitated it in some lines which certainly are worthy 
 of admiration, beginning — 
 
 " Lest you should think that verse shall die, 
 Which sounds the silver Thames along." 
 
 But in the instances which he gives he mentions 
 Newton, and says that not only brave men had Hved 
 and fought, but that other Newtons "systems fram'd." 
 Now, here he has not kept to the merit and truth of 
 his original, for, though it may be quite true that 
 there were distinguished armies and wonderful sieges. 
 
142 LOED JOHN EUSSELL. 
 
 and that their memory has passed into oblivion, it is 
 not at all probable that any man lilie Newton followed 
 by mathematical roads the line of discovery, and that 
 those great truths which he discovered should have 
 perished and fallen into obhvion. I give you these 
 two instances of want of truth even in celebrated 
 poets, and I think it is a matter you will do well 
 always to keep in view, because there is a remarkable 
 difference between the history of science and the 
 history of hterature. In the history of science the 
 progress of discovery is gradual. Those who make 
 these discoveries sometimes commit great errors. 
 They fall into many absurd mistakes, of which I 
 could give you numerous instances ; but these blun- 
 ders and these errors disappear — the discoveries alone 
 remain ; other men afterwards make these discoveries 
 the elements and the groundwork of new investiga- 
 tions, and thus the progress of science is continual : 
 but truth remains, the methods of investigation even 
 are shortened, and the progress continually goes on. 
 But it is not so with regard to hterature. It has 
 indeed happened often in the history of the world, 
 among nations that have excelled in hterature, after 
 great works had been produced which brought down 
 the admiration of aU who could read them, that others, 
 attempting to go farther — attempting to do something 
 still better — have produced works written in the most 
 affected and unnatm-al style, and, instead of promoting 
 Hterature, have corrupted the taste of the nation in 
 which they Hved. Now, this is a thing against which 
 I think we should always be upon our guard, and, 
 
LEEDS MECHAIflCS' INSTITUTION. 143 
 
 having those great models of literature which we 
 possess before us, — having Shakspeare, and Milton, 
 and Pope, and a long line of illustrious poets and 
 authors, — we should always study to see that the 
 literature of the day is, if not on a par with, at least 
 as pui*e in point of taste as that which has gone before 
 it, and to take care that we do not, instead of advanc- 
 ing in letters, fall back and decay in the productions 
 of the time. I will now mention to you another 
 instance. It is apparently but a trifling one, but 
 still it is one in which I think nature and truth are 
 so well observed that it may be worth your while to 
 listen to it. One of our writers, who the most 
 blended amusement with instruction, and ease of style 
 with solidity of matter, as you all know, was Addison. 
 Pie describes a ride he had along with a country 
 squire, whom he fell in with in travelling from London 
 to a distant town. They came to an inn, and Addi- 
 son says that they ordered a bowl of punch for their 
 entertainment. The country squire began, as was 
 perhaps a mode with country squires, which may 
 have continued even to the present day, to depreciate 
 trade, and to say that foreign trade was the ruin of 
 the country, and that it was too bad that the foreigner 
 should have so much the advantage of our English 
 money. Upon which, says Addison, " I just caUed 
 his attention to the punch that we were going to 
 drink, and I said, ' If it were not for foreign trade, 
 where would be the rum, and the lemons, and the 
 sugar, which we are about to consume?'" The 
 squire was considerably embarrassed with this remark 
 
144 LOED JOHN EUSSELL. 
 
 but the landlord, who was standing by, came to his 
 assistance, and said, " There is no better drink than a 
 cup of English water, if it has but plenty of malt in 
 it." Now, although that appears a shght and trifling 
 story, and told in a very common way, yet it is per- 
 fectly true to nature, and it conveys in a very hvely 
 manner a rebuke to the ignorance and prejudice of 
 the person with whom Addison represents himself to 
 be conversing. 
 
 Having made these observations, you will, perhaps, 
 permit me, ladies and gentlemen, to say that the 
 cause of my venturing to come here is, that I might 
 both see the progress that you are making in instruc- 
 tion of all kinds, and also that I might express my 
 hopes and my wishes for your welfare in the time 
 that is to come. It has been my fortune, since the 
 active part of my hfe began, to hve in times of peace, 
 and to see great discoveries and great improvements. 
 I think you will feel that we who have had the direc- 
 tion of affairs dming that time — I speak not now of 
 any difference of pohtical parties or of rehgious sects, 
 but taking us altogether, all pohtical parties, and 
 men of all rehgious denominations, — I think we have 
 not done ill for the country during that period in 
 which we have borne an active share in its affairs. If 
 you look back to 1815, when a bloody and costly 
 struggle terminated, I think you will see that since 
 that period, whether by the judgment of Parhament 
 — whether by the action of great bodies and great 
 societies — or whether by the skiU and invention of 
 individuals, the condition of the people of this land 
 
LEEDS mechanics' INSTITUTION. 145 
 
 has very much improved. While the means of sus- 
 tenance have become cheaper — while the public bur- 
 dens have become less — while the means of education 
 have been improved — there has been, with these cir- 
 cumstances, and partly owing to these circumstances, 
 a general progress in society. I think that we who 
 have belonged to that time, — and, as I tell you again, 
 I wish to make no political allusion, or to claim for 
 one party over another any advantage — but I say 
 generally that we who have lived in this time have, 
 upon the whole, not ill performed our duty. It will 
 be for you, when we retire from the more active 
 business of this scene, to endeavour to carry on to 
 still greater knowledge, to still more comfort, to still 
 greater wellbeing, the country in which you live. 
 There is a great charge imposed upon you, and 1 
 trust you will properly perform it. Let no insane 
 passion carry you without reason into contests with 
 foreign countries. Let no unworthy prejudices induce 
 you to withhold from any part of 3^om* countrymen 
 that which is their due. Let no previous convictions 
 prevent you from examining every subject with im- 
 partial eyes, and from placing before you the light 
 of truth, which ought to guide you in your investi- 
 gations. "With these convictions I am persuaded you 
 will abide by the institutions which you have, by the 
 faith which you hold, and that you will adorn the 
 country to which you belong. 
 
INAUGUEAL ADDEESS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS BABTNGTON MACAFLAT, 
 
 ON HIS INSTALLATION AS 
 
 LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 
 
 Delivered Wednesday, March 21, 1849. 
 
 Mt first duty, gentlemen, is to return you my 
 thanks for the honour which you have conferred on 
 me. You well know that it was wholly unsolicited ; 
 and I can assure you that it was wholly unexpected. 
 I may add that if I had been invited to become a 
 candidate for your sufirages, I should respectfully 
 have declined the invitation. My predecessor, whom 
 I am so happy as to be able to call my friend, de- 
 clared from this place last year, in language which 
 well became him, that he would not have come for- 
 ward to displace so eminent a statesman as Lord John 
 Russell. I can with equal truth affirm that I would 
 not have come forward to displace so estimable a 
 gentleman and so accomphshed a scholar as Colonel 
 Mure. But Colonel M\ire felt last year that it was 
 not for him, and I now feel that it is not for me, 
 to question the propriety of your decision on a point 
 
UNIVEKSITT OF GLASGOW. 147 
 
 of which, by the constitution of your body, you are 
 the judges. I therefore gratefully accept the office 
 to which I have been called, Mly purposing to use 
 whatever powers belong to it with a single view to 
 the welfare and credit of your society. 
 
 I am not using a mere phrase of course, when I 
 say that the feelings with which I bear a part in the 
 ceremony of this day are such as I find it difficult to 
 utter in words. I do not think it strange that when 
 that great master of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood 
 where I now stand, he faltered and remained mute. 
 Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which rushed 
 into his mind was such as he could not easily arrange 
 or express. In truth, there are few spectacles more 
 striking or affecting than that which a great historical 
 place of education presents on a solemn public day. 
 There is something strangely interesting in the con- 
 trast between the venerable antiquity of the body 
 and the fresh and ardent youth of the great majority 
 of the members. Recollections and hopes crowd 
 upon us together. The past and the future are at 
 once brought close to us. Our thoughts wander back 
 to the time when the foundations of this ancient 
 building were laid, and forward to the time when 
 those whom it is our office to guide and to teach will 
 be the guides and teachers of our posterity. On the 
 present occasion we may, with peculiar propriety, give 
 such thoughts their course. For it has chanced that 
 my magistracy has fallen on a great secular epoch. 
 This is the four hundredth year of the existence of 
 your University. At such jubilees as these, jubilees 
 
1-18 THOMAS BABIXGTOTs' MACATJLAY. 
 
 of which no individual sees more than one, it is natu- 
 ral, and it is good, that a society like this, a society 
 which survives all the transitory parts of which it is 
 composed, a society which has a corporate existence 
 and a perpetual succession, should review its annals, 
 should retrace the stages of its growth from infancy 
 to maturity, and should try to find, in the experience 
 of generations which have passed away, lessons which 
 may he profitable to generations yet unborn. 
 
 The retrospect is full of interest and instruction. 
 Perhaps it may be doubted whether, since the Chris- 
 tian era, there has been, any point of time more im- 
 portant to the highest interests of mankind than that 
 at which the existence of yom^ University commenced. 
 It was at the moment of a great destruction and of 
 a great creation. Your society was instituted just 
 before the empire of the East perished ; that strange 
 empire, which, dragging on a languid life through 
 the great age of darkness, connected together the 
 two great ages of Hght ; that empire which, adding 
 nothing to our stores of knowledge, and producing 
 not one man great in letters, in science, or in art, yet 
 preserved, in the midst of barbarism, those master- 
 pieces of Attic genius which the liighest minds still 
 contemplate, and long wiU contemplate, with admii'- 
 ing despair. And at that very time, while the fana- 
 tical Moslem were plundering the churches and 
 palaces of Constantinople, breaking in pieces Grecian 
 sculpture, and giving to the flames piles of Grrecian 
 eloquence, a few humble German artizans, who httle 
 knew that they were calling into existence a power 
 
UNIVERSITY or GLASGOW. 149 
 
 far mightier than that of the victorious Sultan, were 
 busied in cutting and setting the first types. The 
 University came into existence just in time to see 
 the last trace of the Eoman empire disappear, and to 
 see the earliest printed book. 
 
 At this conjuncture, a conjuncture of unrivalled 
 interest in the history of letters, a man, never to be 
 mentioned without reverence by every lover of letters, 
 held the highest place in Europe. Our just attach- 
 ment to that Protestant faith to which our country 
 owes so much, must not prevent us from paying the 
 tribute which, on this occasion, and in this place, 
 justice and gratitude demand, to the founder of the 
 University of Griasgow, the greatest of the restorers 
 of learning. Pope Nicholas the Fifth. He had sprung 
 from common people ; but his abilities and his erudi- 
 tion early attracted the notice of the great. He had 
 studied much and travelled far. He had visited 
 Britain, which, in wealth and refinement, was to his 
 native Tuscany what the back settlements of America 
 now are to Britain. He had lived with the merchant 
 princes of Florence, those men who first ennobled 
 trade by making trade the ally of philosophy, of 
 eloquence, and of taste. It was he who, under the 
 protection of the munificent and discerning Cosmo, 
 arranged the first public library that modern Europe 
 possessed. From privacy your founder rose to a 
 throne ; but on the throne he never forgot the studies 
 which had been his dehght in privacy. He was the 
 centre of an illustrious group composed partly of the 
 last great scholars of Greece, and partly of the first) 
 
150 THOMAS BABIXGTOIS^ MACAULAT. 
 
 great scholars of Italy, Theodore Gaza and George 
 of Trebisond, Bessarion and Filelfo, Marsilio Ficino 
 and Poggio Bracciolini. Bj him was founded the 
 Vatican library, then and long after the most precious 
 and most extensive collection of books in the world. 
 By him were carefully preserved the most valuable 
 intellectual treasures which had been snatched from 
 the wreck of the Byzantine empire. His agents were 
 to be found everywhere, in the bazaars of the farthest 
 East, in the monasteries of the farthest West, pm*- 
 chasing or copying worm-eaten parchments, on which 
 were traced words worthy of immortahty. Under 
 his patronage were prepared accurate Latin versions 
 of many precious remains of Greek poets and philo- 
 sophers. But no department of hterature owes so 
 much to him as history. By him were introduced 
 to the knowledge of Western Europe two great and 
 unrivalled models of historical composition, the work 
 of Herodotus and the work of Thucydides. By him, 
 too, our ancestors were first made acquainted with 
 the gracefid and lucid simpHcity of Xenophon and 
 with the manly good sense of Polybius. 
 
 It was while he was occupied with cares like these 
 that his attention was called to the intellectual wants 
 of this region, a region now swarming with popula- 
 tion, rich with culture, and resounding with the clang 
 of machinery, a region which now sends forth fleets 
 laden with its adnurable fabrics, to lands of which, in 
 his days, no geographer had ever heard, then a wild, 
 a poor, a half barbarous tract, lying on the utmost 
 verge of the known world. He gave his sanction to 
 
UKIYEESITY OF GLASGOW. 151 
 
 the plan of establishing a University at Grlasgow, and 
 bestowed on the new seat of learning all the privileges 
 which belonged to the University of Bologna. I can 
 conceive that a pitying smile passed over his face as 
 he named Bologna and Glasgow together. At Bo- 
 logna he had long studied. No spot in the world 
 had been more favoured by nature or by art. The 
 stirrounding country was a fruitful and sunny country, 
 a country of corn fields and vineyards. In the city, 
 the house of Bentivoglio bore rule, a house which 
 vied with the house of Medici in taste and magnifi- 
 cence, which has left to posterity noble palaces and 
 temples, and which gave a splendid patronage to arts 
 and letters. Grlasgow he just knew to be a poor, 
 a small, a rude town, a town, as he would have 
 thought, not likely ever to be great and opulent ; for 
 the soil, compared with the rich countr}^ at the foot 
 of the Apennines, was barren, and the climate was 
 such that an Italian shuddered at the thought of it. 
 But it is not on the fertility of the soil, it is not on 
 the mildness of the atmosphere, that the prosperity 
 of nations chiefly depends. Slavery and superstition 
 can make Campania a land of beggars, and can change 
 the plain of Enna into a desert. Nor is it beyond 
 the power of human intelligence and energy, deve- 
 loped by civil and spiritual freedom, to turn sterile 
 rocks and pestilential marshes into cities and gardens. 
 Enlightened as your founder was, he little knew that 
 he was himself a chief agent in a great revolution, 
 physical and moral, pohtical and religious, in a revo- 
 lution destined to make the last first, and the first 
 
152 THOMAS EABINGTON MACAULAT. 
 
 last, in a revolution destined to invei-t the relative 
 positions of Glasgow and Bologna. We cannot, I 
 think, better employ a few minutes than in reviewing 
 the stages of this great change in human affairs. 
 
 The review shall be short. Indeed I cannot do 
 better than pass rapidly from century to century. 
 Look at the world, then, a hundred years after the 
 seal of Nicholas had been affixed to the instrument 
 which called your College into existence. We find 
 Europe, we find Scotland especially, in the agonies 
 of that great revolution which we emphatically call 
 the Reformation. The liberal patronage which 
 Nicholas, and men like Nicholas, had given to learn- 
 ing, and of which the establishment of this seat of 
 learning is not the least remarkable instance, had 
 produced an effect which they had never contem- 
 plated. Ignorance was the talisman on which their 
 power depended, and that tahsman they had them- 
 selves broken. They had called in knowledge as a 
 handmaid to decorate superstition, and their error 
 produced its natural effect. I need not tell you what 
 a part the votaries of classical learning, and especially 
 the Greek learning, the Humanists, as they were 
 then called, bore in the great movement against 
 spiiitual tyranny. They formed, in fact, the vanguard 
 of that movement. Every one of the chief Reformers 
 — I do not at this moment remember a single excep- 
 tion — was a Humanist. Almost every eminent 
 Humanist in the north of Europe was, according to 
 the measm'e of his uprightness and courage, a Re- 
 former. In a Scottish University I need hardly 
 
UNIVEESITY OF GLASGOW. 153 
 
 mention the names of Knox, of Buchanan, of Mel- 
 ville, of Secretary Maitland. In truth, minds daily- 
 nourished with the best hterature of Greece and 
 Rome necessarily grew too strong to be trammelled 
 by the cobwebs of the scholastic divinity ; and the 
 influence of such minds was now rapidly felt by the 
 whole community ; for the invention of printing had 
 brought books within the reach even of yeomen and 
 of artizans. From the Mediterranean to the Frozen 
 Sea, therefore, the pubHc mind was everywhere in a 
 ferment ; and nowhere was the ferment greater than 
 in Scotland. It was in the midst of martyrdoms and 
 proscriptions, in the midst of a war between power 
 and truth, that the first century of the existence of 
 yom' University closed. 
 
 Pass another hundred years, and we are in the 
 midst of another revolution. The war between 
 Popery and Protestantism had, in this island, been 
 terminated by the victory of Protestantism. But 
 from that war another war had sprung, the war be- 
 tween Prelacy and Puritanism. The hostile rehgious 
 sects were allied, intermingled, confounded with 
 hostile political parties. The monarchical element 
 of the constitution was an object of almost exclusive 
 devotion to the Prelatist. The popular element of 
 the constitution was especially deai* to the Puritan. 
 At length an appeal was made to the sword. Puri- 
 tanism triumphed ; but Puritanism was abeady 
 divided against itself: Independency and Republi- 
 canism were on one side, Presbyterianism and Hmited 
 Monarchy on the other. It was in the very darkest 
 
154 THOMAS BABINGTON MACATILAT. 
 
 part of that dark time, it was in the midst of battles, 
 sieges, and executions, it was when the whole world 
 was stni aghast at the awful spectacle of a British 
 king standing before a judgment seat, and laying his 
 neck on a block, it was when the mangled remains 
 of the Duke of Hamilton had just been laid in the 
 tomb of his house, it was when the head of the 
 Marquis of Montrose had just been fixed on the 
 Tolbooth of Edinburgh, that your University com- 
 pleted her second century. 
 
 A hundred years more, and we have at length 
 reached the beginning of a happier period. Our 
 civil and religious hberties had indeed been bought 
 with a fearful price. But they had been bought. 
 The price had been paid. The last battle had been 
 fought on British ground. The last black scaffold 
 had been set up on Tower Hill. The evil days were 
 over. A bright and tranquil century, a century of 
 religious toleration, of domestic peace, of temperate 
 freedom, of equal justice, was beginning. That cen- 
 tury is now closing. When we compare it with any 
 equally long period in the history of any other great 
 society, we shall find abundant cause for thankfiilness 
 to the Giver of all good. Nor is there any place in 
 the whole kingdom better fitted to excite this feeling 
 than the place where we are now assembled. For in 
 the whole kingdom we shall find no district in which 
 the progress of trade, of manufactm-es, of wealth, and 
 of the arts of life, has been more rapid than in 
 Clydesdale. Your University has partaken largely 
 of the prosperity of this city and of the surrounding 
 
UNIVEESITT OF GLASGOW. 155 
 
 region. The security, the tranquilHty, the hberty, 
 which have been propitious to the industry of the 
 merchant, and of the manufacturer, have been also 
 propitious to the industry of the scholar. To the 
 last century belong most of the names of which you 
 justly boast. The time would fail me if I attempted 
 to do justice to the memory of all the illustrious 
 men who, during that period, taught or learned wis- 
 dom within these ancient walls ; geometricians, ana- 
 tomists, jurists, philologists, metaphysicians, poets ; 
 Simson and Hunter, Millar and Young, Reid and 
 Stewart ; Campbell, whose coffin was lately borne to 
 a grave in that renowned transept which contains 
 the dust of Chaucer, of Spenser, and of Dryden ; 
 Black, whose discoveries form an era in the history 
 of chemical science ; Adam Smith, the greatest of all 
 the masters of political science ; James Watt, who 
 perhaps did more than any single man has done, 
 since the New Atlantis of Bacon was written, to 
 aceomphsh that glorious prophecy. We now speak 
 the language of humility when we say that the 
 University of Glasgow need not fear a comparison 
 with the University of Bologna. 
 
 Another secular period is now about to commence. 
 There is no lack of alarmists, who will teU you that 
 it is about to commence under evil auspices. But 
 from me you must expect no such gloomy prognosti- 
 cations. I have heard them too long and too con- 
 stantly to be scared by them. Ever since I began 
 to make observations on the state of my country, I 
 have been seeing nothing but growth, and hearing 
 
156 THOMAS BABINGTO]!^ MACAULAT. 
 
 of nothing but decay. The more I contemplate our 
 noble mstitutions, the more convinced I am that 
 they are sound at heart, that they have nothing of 
 age but its dignity, and that their strength is still 
 the strength of youth. The hurricane which has 
 recently overthrown so much that was great, and 
 that seemed durable, has only proved their solidity. 
 They still stand, august and immovable, while dynas- 
 ties and churches are lying in heaps of ruin all around 
 us, I see no reason to doubt that, by the blessing 
 of God on a wise and temperate poHcy, on a poHcy 
 of which the principle is to preserve what is good by 
 reforming in time what is evil, our civil institutions 
 may be preserved unimpaired to a late posterity, and 
 that, under the shade of our civil institutions, our 
 academical institutions may long continue to flom*ish. 
 I trust, therefore, that, when a hundred years 
 more have run out, this ancient College wiU still 
 continue to deserve well of our country and of man- 
 kind. I trust that the installation of 1949 will be 
 attended by a still greater assemblage of students 
 than I have the happiness now to see before me. 
 That assemblage indeed may not meet in the place 
 where we have met. These venerable halls may have 
 disappeared. My successor may speak to your suc- 
 cessors in a more stately edifice, in an edifice which, 
 even among the magnificent buildings of the future 
 Grlasgow, will still be admired as a fine specimen of 
 the architecture which flourished in the days of the 
 good Queen Victoria. But though the site and the 
 walls may be new, the spirit of the institution Avdll, 
 
ITTIYEESITT or GLASGOW. 157 
 
 I hope, be still the same. My successor will, I hope, 
 be able to boast that the fifth century of the Uni- 
 versity has been even more glorious than the fourth. 
 He will be able to vindicate that boast by citing a 
 long Hst of eminent men, great masters of experi- 
 mental science, of ancient learning, of our native 
 eloquence, ornaments of the senate, the pulpit, and 
 the bar. He will, I hope, mention with high honour 
 some of my young friends who now hear me ; and he 
 will, I also hope, be able to add that their talents 
 and learning were not wasted on selfish or ignoble 
 objects, but were employed to promote the physical 
 and moral good of their species, to extend the empire 
 of man over the material world, to defend the cause 
 of civil and religious liberty against tjTants and 
 bigots, and to defend the cause of virtue and order 
 against the enemies of all divine and human laws. 
 
 I have now given utterance to a part, and a part 
 only, of the recollections and anticipations of which, 
 on this solemn occasion, my mind is full. I again 
 thank you for the honom' which you have bestowed 
 on me ; and I assure you that, while I live, I shall 
 never cease to take a deep interest in the welfare and 
 fame of the body with which, by your kindness, I 
 have this day become connected. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE 
 
 MANCHESTER MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 
 
 Delivered July 21, 1835. 
 
 I AM sure there never were thanks worse earned, 
 or, I may say, more superfluously bestowed, than 
 those which your most worthy president and my 
 respected friend, Mr. Heywood, has just been pleased 
 to return to me for coming here this evening ; when 
 I ought really to render my thanks to you for the 
 very high gratification I have received since I came 
 within these walls. 1 need hardly tell you that I 
 have taken an active, a very humble part certainly, 
 but still a warm interest in the estabhshment of 
 institutions of this and a similar description, — for 
 this differs from many, in some respects exceeds them, 
 in others, perhaps, falls short, — and I do assure you 
 that in some particulars this very greatly, or I will 
 say considerably, for one ought not to exaggerate at 
 all, even upon occasions hke the present of mutual 
 congratulation, but I will say it very considerably 
 
MA5fOHESTEE MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 159 
 
 exceeds any other in the country, and I beheve I 
 know the whole of them which have bfeen created 
 from the year 1824, when they were first estabhshed 
 in England, down to the present time. I think that 
 in many important particulars this institution does 
 very considerably excel any other with which I am 
 acquainted, and therefore I may venture to say, any 
 now estabhshed. In the first place, it has a greater 
 number of constant subscribers and regular attend- 
 ants ; in the next place it is fully as well lodged as 
 any, and better than any other with one exception, I 
 mean the institution in London, of which it does not 
 fall short in any material respect. The lecture 
 theatre is somewhat less ; but still, as the present 
 assembly shows, it is capable of accommodating with- 
 out inconvenience a very large number. From a 
 rough estimate I have made in casting my eye 
 around (and I dare say some of those boys we have 
 just heai'd, are better able to make one than I am), 
 I should say that there are not less present than 
 from 1,100 to 1,200 persons altogether, — I should 
 guess, from my habit of seeing large numbers of 
 people, that there are from 1,150 to 1,180 persons 
 present, and yet nobody really feels any inconveni- 
 ence from so large a body of persons within this 
 space, I have not yet had an opportunity of seeing 
 the Hbrary ; but I have run my eye over the cata- 
 logue : it seems well chosen, and not inconsiderable 
 in extent and in variety. I beheve also that there 
 is apparatus for carrying on difierent lectures with 
 scientific experiments. But in one particular, and 
 
160 HEKHT LORD 13E0L'GHAM. 
 
 that a most important one, it excels every other in- 
 stitution, with the exception of that in London, and 
 with that it comes on a level, — I mean in the regular 
 attendance of the classes and schools ; and with the 
 exception of that one shortcoming which I am about 
 to mention presently, the attendance of the schools 
 appears to be excellent, and if the specimen we have 
 had to-night may be taken, I should say it is, as re- 
 gards the youngest portion of the boys, undoubtedly 
 very superior in point of proficiency. Now, the arith- 
 metic is most perfect ; I cannot conceive anything 
 better than the proficiency of the boys generally. I 
 take it for granted that they are selected ; I assume 
 them to be the best in the school, — if they were an 
 average it would indeed be very marvellous, — but 
 there were two of those boys than whom none could 
 be more ready calculators ; and the bulk of them went 
 through, in a longer or shorter time, the different 
 sums with great abihty. I may gather this from 
 my own short experience ; for of the many sums 
 there were not above two which I did myself in my 
 own mind as quickly as the bulk : and only one which 
 I did as suddenly as those two boys. They had the 
 benefit of the slates, it is true ; but I had greater 
 experience and longer practice. With the exception 
 of one instance, I never knew boys so quick, — and I 
 compare them with exhibitions of a similar nature in 
 our central Borough Road School, and imdoubtedly 
 there they do these questions without slates ; but I 
 don't say this as a disparagement ; for if taught the 
 knack, a boy will learn just as easily to do them 
 
MAI7CHESTEE MECHANICS INSTITUTIOIS". 161 
 
 without as with the slate, and therefore I lay that 
 out of view. Doing sums as quickly as these boys 
 do with the slate, imphes as great an effort of the 
 mind, and must be done as much by a mental pro- 
 cess, as if the boys had no slates in their hands. 
 These boys certainly are equal to those very ex- 
 traordinary exhibitions which every one has lately 
 witnessed in the London Borough Road School. 
 Whether they have gone on equally well in geography 
 I have not had an opportunity of learning. If the 
 time had permitted, I should have liked to see what 
 progress they had made in that important study, which 
 is as entertaining as it is useful. As to the reading, 
 it was very good. I can only say that I detected 
 but one error ; the boy read " that which " instead of 
 " that which ;" but there was no error in pronuncia- 
 tion, or anything that could indicate that he had fallen 
 into the plan of reading by rote, or did not under- 
 stand w^hat he was reading. My great satisfaction 
 is to perceive that these boys are taught to reflect 
 and reason to a certain degree upon what they pass 
 over with their eye, or on what passes through the 
 ear as another reads. That was remarkable in the 
 examination which Mr. M'DougaU made after the 
 boy had finished reading the page. There are two 
 systems which ought always to be set in view in 
 teaching ; shunning the one, setting it up as a beacon 
 to be avoided, and placing the other before you as a 
 light to du'ect your course into the harbom* of know- 
 ledge ; the parrot system to be avoided as the rock, 
 the beacon, and the shoal ; and the intellectual sys- 
 
 M 
 
162 HENET LOHD BEOTJGHAM. 
 
 tern, the reasonable, rational system, to be steadily 
 pursued and substituted for the former. And there 
 is no greater error committed than that of those 
 teachers who make a great display of boys' memories, 
 exercising that faculty only, by means of which they 
 may make very aecomphshed parrots with a great deal , 
 
 of trouble and waste of time ; but " quickly come, hghtly ' 
 
 go ;" that which they learn so easily they lose shortly, | 
 
 and even while they retain it, find it of no use what- 
 ever ; for it does not imbue their muid or penetrate 
 their faculties. I have some reason to beheve that 
 it is a shoal which lies pecuHarly on the course of 
 teachers by the new, or Lancasterian, or Bell, or 
 national system, called by some the British, and some 
 the Madras system ; but whether invented b^^ Bell 
 or Lancaster I stop not to inquire. Both were very | 
 
 great benefactoi's to mankind; and which invented j 
 
 it, is not very material to our present purpose, as ' 
 
 neither is here to take out a patent ; but I will call i 
 
 it the New and Cheap system of instruction ; and I ! 
 
 often find that, as the scholars learn very quickly by [ 
 
 it, they are apt to forget as swiftly — nay, that they i 
 
 often learn merely by rote ; the consequence of which j 
 
 is, that those at the head of such estabhshments I 
 
 have of late taken great pains, and I am glad to find , 
 
 most successfully, to avoid that rock. Accordingly, | 
 
 they who go to the Borough Eoad School, instead of ■ 
 
 learning by rote, learn by thoroughly understanding 
 the subject ; they learn notliing for which they can- , 
 
 not give a reason, of which they cannot render an 
 account, and explain the foundation and principles. 
 
MANCHESTEK MECHANICS' INSTITUTIOJf. 1G8 
 
 as well as execute on the spot and at a call. The 
 consequence of this plan is a true mstruction of the 
 right sort ; and I mention with pleasure, that these 
 boys appear to be educated by Mr. M'Dougall in 
 that coui'se, than which nothing can be more satis- 
 factory. Having said this, I shall trespass a little 
 further on your patience ; and, in consequence of my 
 always dealing with this subject as often as I have 
 an opportunity, I shall offer a few remarks on the 
 shortcoming in this institution to which I have 
 alluded, and which I really think might, in the course 
 of a short time, be supphed. It is far more profitable, 
 on occasions like this, to point out defects than merits. 
 This converts such meetings into the means of im- 
 provement, instead of mere ceremonies or excuses for 
 idle speech-making. Now, nothing can be more gra- 
 tifying than the number of your members, nearly 
 1,400 individuals actually subscribing and placing at 
 the disposal of the directors a fund quite sufficient to 
 bear the current expenses without involving the in- 
 stitution in debt and difficulty; and also to obtain 
 not only an increase from time to time in the library 
 and other parts of the estabhshment, but the aid of 
 various skilful lecturers. But the next question that 
 arose with me was, of course, — to what class of the 
 community those 1,300 or 1,400 members belonged ; 
 and no doubt I was a httle disappointed to find that, 
 — though nothing can be more useM or more im- 
 portant than that those respectable classes, of which 
 the bulk of the community consists, should belong 
 to such an institution, and should gain therefrom the 
 
164 HENET LOED BEOrGHAM. 
 
 inestimable benefits of knowledge in letters and in 
 science, and should also reap the pleasure of social 
 intercourse of the most harmless, nav, of the most 
 beneficial chai*acter, and thus be kept out of evil 
 habits, and have their intellectual faculties whetted, 
 their industry excited, and their exertions stimulated, 
 by mutual intercourse and social study, — though 
 nothing can be more important than this, and though 
 this w^ill in the end provide a remedy for the defect 
 which I am about to take notice of, — I still cannot 
 avoid feehng that if there was an addition to, — I 
 won't say a body placed instead of, but one added to 
 — the 1,400 members of the institution, for I would 
 not have one single individual less of those ; but if, 
 in addition to those, there were 200 or 300 to begin 
 with those of another class, of which but a small pro- 
 portion belongs at present to this institution — I mean 
 artizans and common mechanics of the ingenious and 
 working classes of this town, — I would not have them 
 displace any of those who are now members — there 
 is room enough for all, — but onl}' if they should be 
 added to those superior classes which now belong to 
 the institution, I am sm'e that the improvement 
 would be prodigious. I hold it to be perfectly cer- 
 tain, that it is the common interest of both masters 
 and men, of both you and me, — of you who belong 
 to the higher industrious class to which I belong, 
 and not to that of common artizans, every one of 
 whom may in this country, by knowledge and skill, 
 rise to the situations which we are in, who are in the 
 same country with them, and runninsf the same race 
 
MANCHESTER MECHATflCS' IlfSTITUTION. 165 
 
 of competition, each in our several branches, and only 
 for the present removed a little in circumstances into 
 an easier station than theirs, they being as capable 
 of obtaining that station themselves, — I say nothing 
 can be more important for them and for us, than 
 that they should learn the knowledge which we have 
 learned, and are still learning and extending. This 
 is of the utmost importance to be impressed upon 
 their minds and yours ; it is a lesson which ought 
 never to be erased from their recollection. I have 
 been told — and in saying this, I seek to pay no com- 
 pliment to Manchester because I happen to be in it 
 — for I would rather speak truths unpalatable than 
 pleasing phrases, things fine to hear but useless to 
 know — but I hear, and I indeed know it of my own 
 knowledge, that in Manchester the artizans, the 
 mechanics, though as honest men, of as independent 
 habits, of as excellent understanding, of as great in- 
 dustry, and in their own arts of as consummate skill, 
 as any human beings in any manufacturing town, or 
 in any other place, be that place what or where it 
 may — yet that they are not sufficiently penetrated 
 and imbued in their minds, dispositions, and tastes, 
 with the love of scientific knowledge and useful learn- 
 ing, to seek opportunities of learning the principles 
 even of those arts in which they are engaged. There 
 are, doubtless, exceptions ; great and creditable ex- 
 ceptions this institution itself affords ; but they are 
 few in number compared with the great bulk of the 
 industry, intelligence, and skill which exists in Man- 
 chester ; the others do not flock to this Hall, when 
 
166 HE5fRT LOED BEOTJGHAM. 
 
 its doors ai-e open to receive tliem all ; when, at a 
 very moderate cost, they might reap the benefits of 
 it, and obtain the dehghts and the advantages of in- 
 struction and of social intercourse within its walls. 
 And when I say the advantages of instruction, I 
 am speaking a plain practical proposition. I am 
 not merely talking of the accomphshment of learn- 
 ing and its pleasures, great though they be, but of 
 the positive utility of it, to each of them in his 
 own separate case. Who, for instance, can doubt 
 that it would be of the greatest use to a common 
 mechanic, engaged in the manufacture of tools and 
 engines, at one of those magnificent estabhshments 
 with which, at my last visit here, I was so delighted, 
 through the kindness of then' excellent owners — who 
 can doubt that it would be of the greatest benefit to 
 the workmen there, and still more to those employed 
 in the manufacture of steam-engiues, and various 
 other useful and comphcated machinery, in this town 
 — who can doubt that it would be of the utmost 
 possible practical use to them in their several trades, 
 to know the principles upon which those engines are 
 constructed, by becoming acquainted with so much 
 chemistry, for example, as may teach them the natm'e 
 and properties of steam, of refrigeration and expansion, 
 of the manner in which heat works and cold operates, 
 and learning as much mechanical science as may ex- 
 plain the grounds of the various mechanical contriv- 
 ances which that engine exhibits ? I say it is of 
 positive use and actual profit to them to know these 
 things. At present they put up the cylinder, they 
 
MANCHESTER MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 167 
 
 fit the piston into its place, and adjust that exquisite 
 contrivance of Watt, the parallel motion ; but they 
 do these things mechanically, by rote, and according 
 to the parrot system, which I have lately said a word 
 about in reference to boys. The boys here, indeed, 
 can tell the steps by which they arrive at the answers 
 to the questions given them, and upon that page of 
 reading they could give you reasons and illustrations 
 connected with the various parts which formed the 
 passage which their young neighbour and friend read. 
 But these mechanics know that the rod cannot work 
 sweet and smooth in the cylinder miless perfect per- 
 pendicularity be always preserved, and that this per- 
 pendicularity is gained and kept by means of a certain 
 combination of iron rods and hinges, which they have 
 learned to call the " parallel motion," without even 
 knowing why it is so called ; and how it operates, 
 and upon what principles that perpendicularity is 
 secured, they have never yet learned ; and yet that 
 branch of mechanics, though connected with some 
 refinement certamly, may be brought to the level of 
 the student's capacity, with little or no mathematical 
 learning. One should think they would be all the 
 better workmen if they knew not only that they 
 were to go on in a certain line, but why they were 
 to do so ; that they were not only not to deviate to 
 the one hand or to the other, but why there would 
 be danger if they did. At all events, I say, these 
 things are very just objects of curiosity, and that 
 men might naturally feel desirous to know about the 
 things which they are every day practising. Just 
 
168 HENRY LOED BEOUGHAM. 
 
 in the same way they might naturally desire to know- 
 why, upon a certain jet of water being admitted into 
 the cyhnder, down comes the piston ; how it happens 
 that a vacuum makes it descend, and how the steam 
 pressure from above accelerates the descent. They 
 would surely make it all the better for knowing the 
 principles upon which it acts. And is it not a natural 
 object of curiosity to men whose whole lives are passed 
 in causing this operation, to inquire upon what prin- 
 ciples of science it is that it was invented by one of 
 the most profoundlj^ scientific men that ever lived to 
 adorn this country ? I should think that such in- 
 formation would be a pleasant relaxation to the mind 
 in the intervals of labour. Can any one doubt that a 
 dyer would lind himself more comfortable if he studied 
 a little of the nature of mordants — if he knew why 
 dyed cloth in certain case# took the colour, and in 
 other cases rejected it — if he knew, for example, upon 
 what principles that ingenious invention of scarlet 
 dyes operated, which was imported into this country 
 by my friend Mr. Thompson, who obtained a patent 
 for it, the invention of an able French chemist? 
 But it is very odd, the operative dyer goes on dyeing 
 all his life, — making his arms light blue and his 
 clothes dark blue, without knowing, any more than 
 the hog that feeds in the trough by his side, the 
 principles upon which his ingenious and useful art is 
 founded. I might run through a variety of instances 
 of the like sort. I take it for granted that no per- 
 son tries to make optical instruments, even an ap- 
 prentice, who does not know something of optics ; 
 
MANCTIESTEK MECHA]!fICS' INSTITUTION, 169 
 
 and yet I should be apt to say that those who do 
 not come here do not know much more than enables 
 them to grind glasses mto the convex or plano-convex 
 shape that the instrument in hand may happen to 
 require. But would it not be much better if they 
 knew the laws which regulate the dispersion as well 
 as the refraction of hght — (of refraction, perhaps, 
 they do know a little) — of the laws which regulate 
 the making of achromatic glasses, so called because 
 they give no colour ; of the way m which crown and 
 flint glasses being of several dispersive powers, the 
 action of the one corrects that of the other ? And 
 if they also rose a little higher in their views, there 
 would be no harm done — if they ascended so as to 
 discover that the most perfect of all optical instru- 
 ments, the eye, is formed precisely upon the same 
 principle on which Mr. Dollond formed his first 
 achromatic glasses, and upon which Dr. Blair after- 
 wards suggested an improvement, which, I beheve, 
 has never yet been much used in practice. It would 
 be a solace to him, it would strengthen his religious 
 belief, it would make him a better and a happier, as 
 well as a wiser man, if he soared a little into those 
 regions of purer science where happily neither doubt 
 can cloud, nor passion ruffle our serene path. These 
 things are all so obvious that one really ought to 
 apologize for reminding you of them ; but it is not 
 you, it is rather others who are not here, that I 
 would remind through you of these things. They 
 know that I can have no interest but their good, in 
 wishing them to consider what pure and elevated 
 
170 HENRY LOED BEOTJGHAM. 
 
 pleasure might be enjoyed by them, if they would 
 come and drink at the fountain of science open to 
 every one here, and seek instruction under its great- 
 est masters. When I say that such knowledge is of 
 practical use, I might go a step farther. Those men 
 who are daily employed in handluig tools, working 
 amongst the very elements of mechanical science, or 
 always using mixtures of chemical drugs in a me- 
 chanical way (I here use the word " mechanical " in 
 its bad sense, — meaning without knowledge, by rote) 
 — those who, making and using pulleys, see that one 
 pulley being fixed gives no increase of power, but 
 only changes the direction of the force, while another 
 unfixed pulley greatly multiplies the power ; but who 
 only see and don't know why it is so, and have their 
 information only by rote, — those men are amongst 
 the very persons whose situation is the best adapted 
 in the whole world for actually making discoveries 
 and inventing improvements. They are in the way 
 of good luck ; for there is great luck in even scientific 
 discoveries, and there is more in mechanical inven- 
 tions ; and these men are always in the way of it. 
 They are continually using agents applied to practical 
 purposes ; and they have opportunities of striking 
 out new ideas which, for aught they know, may lead j 
 
 to the discoveries of the philosopher, or the improve- | 
 
 ments and inventions of the mechanician. What did 
 Mr. Watt do more ? — that man to whom we owe 
 the greatest revolution, morally speaking, of modem 
 times, — I mean that which subdued steam to the 
 use of man, by his improvements upon the old en- 
 
MANCHESTER MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 171 
 
 gines of Worcester and Newcomen. Far be it from 
 me to undervalue the great step of the vacuum, made 
 by Newcomen ; but all was in vain for practical use, 
 till the discoveries of Watt gave a new aspect to the 
 machine. He is therefore the real inventor, and may 
 be said to be the second father, of the steam engine ; 
 and it is to him we owe all the wealth, the increased 
 power, and the extended comfort, which we now 
 have from the great engine, which actually annihi- 
 lates distance between place and place, and, as I yes- 
 terday told my friends at • Liverpool, brings Man- 
 chester, though thirty miles inland, close to its great 
 seaport and outlet, Liverpool. Watt himself was 
 one of that class of workmen which I am now ad- 
 dressing ; and if he had gone on making mathema- 
 tical instruments without ever studying the principles 
 of science upon which they are constructed, he never 
 would have achieved any one of those splendid in- 
 ventions which gave such celebrity to his name, such 
 fortune to his family (though far from equal to his 
 prodigious deserts), and such an increase to the 
 power and the happiness of mankind. He would 
 have gone on to his grave working at the rate of 
 30s. or 40s. a-week, without ever having raised his 
 own name, or adorned his species, or improved the 
 condition of mankind, in the marvellous manner, and 
 to the boundless extent, w^hich he was enabled to do, 
 solely by his scientific education and philosophic 
 studies. Why, then, I place Watt as a model before 
 all working mechanics. They may not have his 
 genius, but they may all have as much industry as 
 
172 HEI7EY LORD BEOTJGH.UJ:. 
 
 he had, and gain as much learnmg. It is their own 
 fault, therefore, if they don't rise out of their level, 
 and obtain the chances of making discoveries which 
 would secm'e them the gifts of affluence, and bestow 
 on them a share in the greatest glory at which man 
 can arrive, the renown of extending the boundaries 
 of science and art. Totally independent of that, 
 they might be much happier men, much more useful 
 men, and much more profitable workmen, both for 
 themselves and others. And, after all, what sacrifice 
 would they make for it ?• Why, men receiving 30s., 
 35s., or 40s. a-week, would have to sacrifice how 
 much ? Not 6d. a-week, for the subscription is only 
 20s. a-year, to obtain all the benefits, and reap all 
 the enjoyments, of this excellent institution. Sup- 
 pose it were even 26s. a-year, or 6d. a-week, why it 
 is only that they should consume so much less beer 
 or meat, and the diminution is so httle in amount, 
 that they would hardly feel at the week's end that 
 they had made the sacrifice. I know they ought to 
 do a great deal more than that ; and unless they do 
 it, I also know they can never be the happy men 
 which their talents and skill, and the prosperous and 
 flourishing situation of this great city, entitle them 
 to be. If they, with large wages, have not learned 
 another lesson, beside saving sixpence a-week for 
 learning, they have but learned half their duties. 
 They ought to do as we lawyers, physicians, and 
 others have always to do ; they ought to lay by for 
 a bad day. I know that this is not a very popular 
 doctiine ; but if they do not hear it and practise it. 
 
MAIfCHESTEE MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 173 
 
 they won't be Yerj respectable men. Eveiy man is 
 bound to do so as a bare act of justice to himself, 
 and to make him an independent man, without which 
 he does not deserve to be called a man at all, much 
 less the citizen of a free state. He ought to look to 
 himself and his savings, and not trust to that most 
 odious, mean, and despicable of resources, the parish 
 fund, in case of a bad day. Suppose when I was at 
 the bar, toiling my way up, as you are doing now, to 
 independence, that I had hved up to every farthing 
 of my income, as these men spend their 40s. a- week, 
 — I speak of some of them only who spend the whole 
 of the 40s, they earn every week, and never have 
 anything in case of a fall of wages, or being thrown 
 out of employment, or sickness, — if I, or those 
 whom I used to associate with at the bar, had done 
 that, — then there comes a broken limb or a bad 
 season for business, when people are wiser than they 
 generally are, and therefore don't go to law — or when 
 they are poorer, and cannot afford that very expen- 
 sive luxmy, — supposing a person is ill for six months ; 
 what is he to do ? All men of business know that 
 it is their bounden duty to lay by for such accidents, 
 from which the ablest, best, and strongest men are 
 not at all exempt. And why should these workmen 
 not do the same thing ? But I have been drawn 
 from my course by this important subject. From 
 the nature of this place, one is apt to get lecturing a 
 little, and I was lecturing on the propriety of laying 
 by only 4d. or 6d. a-week, for the purpose of possess- 
 ing the benefits of this admirable, useful, and most 
 
174 HEiq^ET LORD BBOU&HAM. 
 
 gratifying institution. I can conceive people having 
 some excuse elsewhere for not coming to lectures 
 and enjopng them ; but when I hear so admirable a 
 report as was made to-night by your worthy and 
 able secretary, when it appears that you have not 
 only those able men by whose advice the workmen 
 flocking hither might benefit, but when you have 
 such lecturers as those whose names we have heard 
 to-night, — when, above all, there is in this very town, 
 at this moment, happily preserved to us, — and I hope 
 to Grod he long may be, — the very greatest chemical 
 philosopher of the present day, — known all over 
 Europe and all over the world, — I mean Dr. Dalton, 
 — why, what a proof is here how people neglect 
 things within their power, and which they would be 
 grasping at and panting after, if they were but re- 
 moved beyond their reach ! I met an old and worthy 
 friend of mine, a man of great abihty and learning 
 also, your townsman. Dr. Henry, to-day. We were 
 fellow-collegians, and learned chemistry together, — 
 though God wot he leai-ned a great deal more than 
 I did ; and we both agreed, while conversing at Mr. 
 Hey wood's, that nothing had given each of us so 
 much pleasure (both had often thought of the same 
 thing, and we communicated om' sentiments upon 
 meeting), as the happy cii'cumstance of having hved 
 in time to attend the course of lectures given by the 
 greatest improver of chemistry in his day, I mean 
 Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, of fixed air, 
 of the natm'e of the mild and the caustic earths, as 
 connected with that air's absorption, and who may 
 
ilANCHESTEE MECHANICS' ISTSTITUTIOX. 175 
 
 literally be said to be the father of modem pneumatic 
 chemistry. We had the happiness of di'inking in 
 om- knowledge of chemistry at that pm-e and exalted 
 som-ce, by attending the last lectures of that great 
 man. Now, suppose anybody had told us when we 
 got to Edinbm-gh (I Hved there, but Dr. Henry 
 came from a distance), " Oh, you are a year too late. 
 If you had only come the year before, you would have 
 been in time to hear the last course of lectures, im- 
 pressively and gracefully dehvered, by that great 
 man." We should have wrung our hands and declared 
 that we could not tell that ; that we did not know 
 he was so old ; that we would have given up any 
 engagement, made any sacrifice, to have heard him. 
 But suppose that we had lived in the same town to 
 the age of thirty, and had never thought of going to 
 Dr. Black ; suppose that he in the com'se of nature 
 had paid its debt and died, and that we had then 
 read the hfe of Dr. Black, as the great ornament of 
 the city of Edinbm'gh, as the most illustrious che- 
 mical philosopher of his day, as the founder of the 
 new system of chemistry, as a man whose discoveries 
 had altered the face of the scientific world in that 
 great department of knowledge ; we should have said, 
 " Bless us, is it possible that we should have Hved 
 ten or fifteen years here since we reached the age of 
 discretion, and never have thought of going to that 
 man's class — never have thought of paying our two 
 or three guineas for the benefit, nay the glory of 
 learning under that most illustrious of all chemists?" 
 We should certainly have been extremely to blame. 
 
176 HENET LOED BEOUGHAM. 
 
 very much to be pitied, not a little to be despised, 
 for having allowed so many years to pass, with the 
 doors of the lecture-room open to us, and yet never 
 hearing this celebrated philosophical teacher. There 
 is now Hving in this town, and, from his love of 
 science, volunteering to give five or six lectures in 
 the course of the season, a chemical philosopher who 
 has made the greatest discover}^ since the decomposi- 
 tion of the fixed alkalies, and which in all hkehhood 
 will be the root of still greater discoveries in chemical 
 science, enabhng us, as I firmly believe, to trace the 
 connecting links in that chain which separates the 
 mechanical from the chemical kingdom of science, 
 and supplying that long wanted desideratum of the 
 step which unites the two, — we have that very indi- 
 vidual existing, lecturing, in this place ; and in the 
 course of time — (distant may the change be!) — he 
 must cease to lecture and to exist. I don't beheve 
 there will be one man who has failed to avail himself 
 of the opportunity of hearing the lectures of that 
 eminent philosopher and discoverer, who will not then 
 upbraid and despise himself, and feel a kind of remorse 
 at the sin of omission he ^vill have been guilty of. 
 G-racious me ! to have lived in this town, and never 
 gone to hear the principles of chemistry explained 
 by the great discoverer of Definite Proportions ! 
 That is the sort of feehng which a person will excite 
 in others ; and, if he is worthy of being compassion- 
 ated, it is the sort of feeling that will arise in his own 
 breast, upon making the humbling reflection when it 
 is too late. In this matter I at least wash mv hands 
 
MANCHESTER MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 177 
 
 of all blame ; and no one will have any ground for 
 saying 1 did not give him timely warning. Now, 
 my observations are addressed not merely to the 
 mechanics who don't come and learn these things, 
 and who might by their coming extend our numbers 
 — (I call it " our," for we are all engaged in the 
 same common cause) — who do not avail themselves 
 of such precious opportunities ; but I would remind 
 you also, and others through you, that those things 
 which I have mentioned, because they appear to be 
 suited to the present occasion, ought to sink deep 
 into the minds of the considerate and right-thinking 
 of all classes. I am sure I should do a very useless 
 thing, if I were here to enlarge upon the benefits of 
 education. They are admitted by all, even by those 
 who formerly sneered at them. Some people tell us 
 that " education won't fill people's bellies," and trash 
 of that sort. Why, they might just as well complain 
 of the baker or the butcher, because with their beef 
 or bread they don't fill people's minds. But every 
 one knows that " man lives not by bread alone," — 
 that knowledge leads to skill, that skill leads to use- 
 ful and lucrative occupation, and that the gain derived 
 from lucrative occupation enables men to get the 
 staff of this mortal life, after getting the staff of that 
 immortal life which improves and strengthens his 
 better part — his mind. Therefore it is not true to 
 say that learning does not fill people's bellies, as some 
 grossly and stupidly say ; for it puts the staff of 
 common animal life within our reach ; so the bread 
 and beef got through its means ultimately tend to 
 
 N 
 
178 HENET LOED BEOITGHAM. 
 
 support the mind, inasmuch as, without the support 
 of the animal part, the incoi*poreal portion of our 
 nature would have but a smaU chance of surviving. 
 But now, whatever improves men's minds tends to 
 give them sober and virtuous habits ; and with the 
 knowledge of the community, clear I am that virtue 
 is assuredly certain to be promoted ; and I am quite 
 confident that, with the knowledge of men, the rights i 
 
 of men — I mean their indefeasible rights of every , 
 
 kind, the rights which they have to civil liberty and 
 to rehgious hberty, the greatest of earthly and social 
 blessings, — are sure to be infinitely promoted; nor 
 do I know of any more certain mode of reforming a 
 country, any better way of redressing her grievances, i 
 
 than giving education to her people. I know that I 
 
 I am now addressing myself to those who hold various 
 opinions on these matters, to some who difier from j 
 
 me in opinion. I have my own opinions ; they have 
 theirs ; I shall certainly not give up mine ; they may i 
 
 keep theh's ; perhaps they may come round in time ] 
 
 to mine ; unless I am favom^ed with some new hght ! 
 
 I assuredly won't go to them ; but I say that all j 
 
 poHtical, or, to avoid the use of the word pohtics, aU 
 social reforms, are never so sure to be obtained, and 
 never so safely obtained, as when the people amongst 
 whom they are in vogue, and bear a high price, with I 
 
 whom they are in great estimation and much pursuit, 
 — as when that people is well educated ; because the 
 better educated a people are in all their branches, so 
 much the more tranquO, peaceful, and orderly, in 
 their poHtical conduct wiU they be. But I am not 
 
MAKCHESTEE MECHAIHCS' INSTITUTION. 179 
 
 one of those who preach in favour of people being 
 contented when they ought not to be contented. 
 When they have grievances they ought to be discon- 
 tented, and their discontent ought to boil as high as 
 the law will allow, — not to explosive heat (to speak 
 the language of the engineer), but higher than tem- 
 perate heat, in order to make their grievances attended 
 to, and so get them redressed. That is my doctrine. 
 And when not redressed, the heat should increase, 
 but always keeping under the regulation of the 
 governor, if I may so speak — always under the control 
 of the law, which is the governor, — and the governor 
 being affected in the engine, as you know, by the heat 
 below, even so the law is apt to be affected and made 
 to give way and yield to the pressure of just demands 
 acting upon it ; and as the heat in the engine, acting 
 through the steam on the governor, communicates to 
 it a centrifugal force, which again, when much aug- 
 mented, compresses the vapour below, so hj the 
 moral law does the governor affect the people, while 
 he is in his turn very much affected by the people. 
 Therefore, when I preach up contentment, it is onlj^ 
 where the people ought to be contented, by being 
 ruled as cheap as possible, and as well as possible ; 
 but this I always shall hold, that their discontent 
 should never exceed the bounds allowed by law. 
 They should be firm, persevering, temperate, for theii- 
 own sakes rather than for the sake of others, and 
 should go on toward? their own purpose, neither 
 looking to the right, neither to the left, till that 
 legitimate purpose be accompHshed. But the more 
 
180 HETfET LOED BEOTJGHAM. 
 
 knowing they are, the more peaceable they will be ; 
 and, in my judgment, the more clear-sighted they 
 are upon the subject of their rights, the more steadily 
 will they perform their duties. One word more be- 
 fore I release you from what I have called this lecture 
 of mine, — one word upon the manner in which learn- 
 ing and improvement make their way in society. I 
 think it must be admitted that it is always in one 
 way, and that downwards. You begin by making 
 the upper classes aware of the value of certain kinds 
 of knowledge ; and though it constantly happens that 
 the middle classes know a great deal more than their 
 superiors, yet it is by the upper part of the middle 
 class becoming aware of the exquisite pleasures of 
 learning, and, above all, of scientific information, that 
 the other parts of this class become impregnated with 
 the same divine influence. Well, then, we teach, we 
 impregnate this stratum, if I may so call it, — for 
 society is something like a pyramid, having an ex- 
 tensive base and tapering upwards, — the middle parts 
 of the middle class get well acquainted with the sub- 
 ject and feel its importance ; every now and then 
 there springs up an enhghtened individual who says, 
 " 1 have a good mind to endeavour to make this 
 knowledge spread among the people below me who 
 know less than I do," and by degrees he succeeds in 
 this truly benevolent and philanthropic design. For I 
 stop to observe that a man is not a philanthropist 
 who throws away his money upon useless charity 
 to multiply idlers in the land : he is truly a philan- 
 thropist, he is truly charitable, who gives his money 
 
MJJS'CHESTEE MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 181 
 
 in such a way as to prevent his feUow-ereatures from 
 wanting charity, from being reduced to the pitiable 
 necessity of asking alms. A man who makes war 
 upon the poor-house by keeping people out of it, he 
 is a charitable man ; a man who makes war upon the 
 gin-shop by teaching people that sobriety and know- 
 ledge ai*e better than intoxication and ignorance, — a 
 man who makes war upon the "rabble rout" of sedi- 
 tious, immoral, and Hcentious persons, by reclaiming 
 them from their evil habits, and improving them bv 
 early education, especially by planting infants' schools, 
 — he is a truly charitable man. And above all. a 
 man who has bestowed his money, his time, and his 
 exertions so as to make wai* upon the gaol, the gib- 
 bet, the transport-ship and the tread-mill, by lessen- 
 ing through instruction the number of victims sent 
 for their crimes to these places, — that man is indeed 
 charitable ; and the more he teaches his fellow-crea- 
 tures, and refines their appetites, and removes them 
 from low, sensual gratifications, the more charitable 
 is that man. Therefore have I stopped to say what 
 man is charitable, — not he who gives alms, or who 
 subscribes to charities for the purpose of seeing his 
 name enrolled among their benefactors, but such a 
 man as I have depicted, one who not only is bene- 
 volent, but beneficent, — one who both means well, 
 and does good. Of such, then, there are many in the 
 second order or stratum of the middle classes ; and 
 they try, by then' exertions and their money, kindly 
 apphed and judiciously bestowed, to spread. to the 
 class below them, a little of the same feelmg, the 
 
182 HENET LOED BEOUGHAM. 
 
 same love of learning, which they possess themselves ; 
 and so that lower class gets by degrees impregnated 
 itself. Thus it goes to the class immediately below 
 it, to the artizans, the skilful workmen, the class as 
 respectable as any in the community from the duke 
 down to the peasant. They might know a great deal 
 more than they do ; they soon will know a great deal 
 more than they now do. Well, they get the sugges- 
 tions of those immediately above them. We, for 
 instance, in this institution, can operate upon them ; 
 and upon them it is our bounden duty, in my opinion, 
 to operate till we carry them on in the course of 
 knowledge, and impregnate them with that love of 
 knowledge which is germain to this stratum and class 
 above all others, and through this class, I hope, it 
 will spread downwards till it reaches the very lowest 
 description of the community. Then those veiy 
 men, the artizans, we shall see endeavouring to in- 
 struct the common daily field labourers, a class a 
 thousand times lower in mental rank than skilful 
 artizans, as for instance optical instrument makers, — 
 infinitely inferior in all respects as to station and 
 everything else, — much more the inferiors of the 
 artizan than that artizan is of the proudest peer in 
 the land. Those artizans having slaked their thirst 
 at the fountain of knowledge, opened here by the 
 lectures, by the Hbrary, and by social intercourse 
 amongst the members, — having tasted the pleasures 
 and gained the advantages of science, will endeavour 
 even to become in their turn teachers, and to cany 
 those benefits and hghts and enjoyments into the 
 
MANCHESTER MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 183 
 
 humblest class of the community, which now sits in 
 the thickest darkness. 
 
 I ought to apologize for having detained you so 
 long ; but as you all know my motives, I can only 
 express my great desire and readiness in any way to 
 promote the interest of this admirable and now most 
 flourishing institution. I have just cast my eye upon 
 a page of the report which reminds me that there 
 was a course of lectures upon Political Economy, 
 which I was the means of procuring for you last 
 season, and though in the report it is not stated that 
 they were my lectures, it is mentioned so ambigu- 
 ously, that you may very likely think I had written 
 them and given you a copy. The real fact is I did 
 no such thing, I did not write one lecture of the 
 whole number. They were written by a friend, whose 
 name I am not at Hberty to mention. What I did 
 was to go eai'efully over them, to alter some parts, 
 and here and there to add a sentence where I thought 
 the meaning was not sufficiently brought out ; and I 
 beheve all I wrote of them would go into less than 
 five pages. The lectures were prepared at a time 
 when I held the Great Seal, and therefore I could 
 not give more attention than what was required 
 slightly to correct them. It is no doubt true that I 
 formerly recommended the plan of what I called 
 anonymous lecturing. In 1824, the year the Me- 
 chanics' Institution was established in London, I was 
 awai'e of the difficulty of obtaining lecturers, and also 
 aware how much lectures might be made available, 
 provided we had them of a perfectly simple, intelli- 
 
184 HEl^ET LOED BEOTJGHAM. 
 
 gible, and plain description, containing the elements of 
 science laid down in a way that would readily be com- 
 prehended by imeducated men. All that then was 
 wanted was a good and distinct reader ; and the plan 
 I proposed at the time was this : — That lectures 
 should be prepared, and that the first should be read 
 on one day, and on the next meeting of the class the 
 same lecture should be read a second time, together 
 with half the second lecture, and then the following 
 meeting that half a second time, with the latter half 
 of the same lecture ; so that every lecture was read 
 twice, giving the artizans time for discussion during 
 the interval ; and when their minds were whetted by 
 such discussion, it was repeated, and they also learned 
 another bit. In those days we wanted lecturers ; so 
 that it was necessary the lectures should be made 
 plain enough to be given to any one who could merely 
 read. !N^ow we have a better supply, for these insti- 
 tutions have created not only a demand for lectures, 
 but have also created lecturers, because many of those 
 who have been taught in these institutions are now 
 ready to become teachers. And no fruit which they 
 have borne is more satisfactory to my mind than this. 
 When I disclaim the authorship of those able lectures 
 on Pohtical Economy, I do so only to renounce the 
 credit which is not mine, and with no wish to under- 
 value the useful labours of those who prepare lectures 
 for the people. I have worked at this myself. In 
 1825, I devoted the summer to preparing a course of 
 lectures, which have been dehvered, ever since, many 
 times over, in different parts of the kingdom, more in 
 
MANCHESTER MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 185 
 
 the south than in the north ; and no person I dare 
 say knew who was the author ; nor do I intend to 
 make it known. I don't think I have ever mentioned 
 the circumstance before, and I do it now as a proof 
 of the advantage of " anonymous lecturing." It has 
 this great recommendation, that several persons may 
 join in preparing a course, at a small trouble to each, 
 every person contributing a lecture or two, if he 
 cannot write a whole course. We are now going on 
 in the same plan with various courses. I am taking 
 part myself by preparing one course of twenty-four 
 lectures : and I suppose that some of these courses 
 will be ready for dehvery in three months. I don't 
 mention who are the writers, nor what are the sub- 
 jects, because it is my intention the authors should 
 not be known ; but they will be ready for delivery 
 under the patronage some of one useful society and 
 some of another, in order to give them greater cur- 
 rency. I have explained this for the purpose of 
 adding, that if it should be your pleasure to benefit 
 by this arrangement, in consequence of any want of 
 lectures here, upon any of those subjects which are 
 now in preparation, I hope and indeed think I shall 
 have it in my power to help this institution to those 
 particular courses. 
 
 I beg leave once more to return you my best ac- 
 knowledgments for the very kind reception I have 
 met with amongst my fellow-citizens in this great 
 town, and in this institution particularly ; and I shall 
 have great pleasure in reporting to my coadjutors the 
 prosperity of this institution, especially to Dr. Birk- 
 
186 HENET LOED BEOUGHAM. 
 
 beck — to whom more is due thau to all the rest of 
 us together — who first devised the plan of giving 
 lectures to artizans in the year 1800, at Grlasgow — 
 (I have the prospectus in my possession of his first 
 course) — a plan which was afterwards carried into 
 execution in various parts of the kingdom ; he was 
 also, I think, the originator of the London Institu- 
 tion, though he had most able coadjutors, and I 
 know his priority in this has been disputed ; but at 
 any rate he advanced in its aid £4,000 or £5,000, 
 which I am sorry to say he is not nearly repaid at 
 this moment. — I shall have the utmost satisfaction 
 in teUing him how this institution beats our London 
 one in many important particulars, and that there 
 are only one or two points in which it falls short. I 
 know that nothing wiU give him greater satisfaction 
 than to hear from me that the child has outstripped 
 the parent. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDEESS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 
 
 ox HIS INSTALLATION AS 
 
 LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 
 
 Delivered Wednesday, January 11, 1837. 
 
 PRIIfCIPAL MaCFAELAJ!?" AJM) GeNTLEMEX, 1 
 
 gladly avail myself of this opportunity of personally 
 and publicly expressing the gratification which I de- 
 rive from my appointment to the office on the duties 
 of which I have just entered. I might have hesi- 
 tated voluntarily to present myself as a candidate for 
 that office, not from unbecoming indifference to the 
 distinction which it confers, but partly from disin- 
 clination to interfere with the pretensions of others, 
 and partly from reluctance to add to the pressm'e of 
 those duties, which in pubhc and private hfe I am 
 called upon to perform. But when I received the 
 imexpected intelligence that my election had actually 
 taken place — had taken place under circumstances 
 which had spared me the paLofulness of voluntary 
 competition, and relieved me altogether from the 
 anxieties and the asperities that are incident to con- 
 
188 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 
 
 test — I required no advice — I asked for no time to 
 consider — I acted upon the impulse of feelings that 
 were better counsellors than doubts and deliberation ; 
 and I resolved at once to justify the generous confi- 
 dence which had tendered me this high trust, and 
 which must have anticipated my acceptance of it. I 
 do accept it, grateful for the kindness which has 
 conferred it, proud of the relation in which I stand 
 to this venerable seat of learning, anxious to dis- 
 charge with fidelity and zeal the duties which that 
 relation may involve. And not merely those duties. 
 If I can extend the sphere of usefulness beyond the 
 proper functions of this office, if there be any other 
 capacity in which my services can be made available, 
 they shall be freely tendered for the protection of 
 every just and useful privilege to which the Univer- 
 sity can lay claim, and for the maintenance of its 
 true and permanent interests. 
 
 The state of this University, and of the other 
 Universities of Scotland, has recently undergone 
 visitation and inquiry by a commission, which owed 
 its appointment to advice humbly tendered by me 
 to the crown. 
 
 Various suggestions have been offered in the report 
 of that commission, concerning the revenues, the 
 government, and the discipline of this Universit}^ ; 
 and the intervention of Parliament will, I presume, 
 be requisite in order to give effect to such of those 
 suggestions as it shall be ultimately thought fitting 
 to adopt. 
 
 You wiU not expect from me at the very outset of 
 
tTNIYEESITT OF GLASGOW. 189 
 
 my connection with the University, the declaration 
 of a formed and positive opinion upon matters so 
 intimately affecting its welfare. I should not mark 
 my respect for you, — I should not justify the confi- 
 dence you have reposed in me, were I to content 
 myself with merely ascertaining the popular or pre- 
 vailing opinion here, and promising a blind subscrip- 
 tion to it, or were I to regard solely temporary in- 
 terests, and pledge myself to their exclusive protec- 
 tion. I shall better maintain the dignity of this 
 office, I shall better consult your true interest, I 
 shall more certainly secure your lasting favour, by 
 exercising an impartial and independent judgment, 
 by weighing maturely each suggestion of improve- 
 ment, and the evidence or reasoning by which it is 
 supported ; not merely regarding the abstract merits 
 of the isolated proposal, but viewing it in reference 
 to the whole scheme of academical education in 
 Scotland, bearing in mind the connection of that 
 scheme with the means of preHminary instruction, 
 its adaptation to the state of manners and society in 
 Scotland, its capacity for supplying those acquii'e- 
 ments and that description of knowledge, which shall 
 best insure the success and eminence of those for 
 whom academical instruction is intended. Be as- 
 sured, however, that I shall enter upon the consider- 
 ation of these important matters with a strong pre- 
 possession that, speaking generally, the system of 
 academical education adopted in the Universities of 
 Scotland, modified, as it gradually has been, according 
 to the changes in the state of society, and the new 
 
190 SIR EGBERT PEEL, BART. 
 
 demands for knowledge, is admii'ably adapted to the 
 great ends for which it is designed. I see in it a 
 system planned in conformity with the suggestion 
 of Lord Bacon, that learning should be made sub- 
 servient to action — a system that does not partake 
 of a professional character — that embraces all dis- 
 tinctions and classes of society — that quahfies those 
 of the highest rank for the pubhc duties they will 
 have to perform — that provides for men engaged in 
 business, and even advanced in Ufe, the opportunity 
 of ascei-taining the progressive discoveries in science, 
 and the apphcability of those discoveries to their re- 
 spective pursuits — that offers also to those whose 
 pecuniary means are the most restricted, the benefits 
 of an enhghtened education and the rewards of hter- 
 ary distinction. Be assured, also, that I shall enter 
 upon the consideration of such matters with a fiirm 
 conviction that the relation iti which the Universities 
 stand towards the Estabhshed Church of Scotland 
 ought to be maintained with scrupulous fidehty. 
 
 I should not be acting m conformity with the 
 estabhshed usage of this University, I should still less 
 be acting in unison with my own feelings, if I did not 
 on this occasion address myself immediately to those 
 who are pursuing their studies within these walls. 
 
 Yes, let me who have not survived my sympathies 
 with the feelings and aspirations of academic youth, 
 who have drunk from the same pure spring from 
 which you are allaying the thirst for knowledge, who 
 have felt the glow of your emulation, and have 
 panted like you for academic distinction — let me, 
 
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 191 
 
 after being engaged in the active scenes of public 
 life, and buffeted by the storms and contentions of 
 party, — let me bring the living testimony of practical 
 experience to confirm the truth of those precepts, to 
 enforce those exhortations which you hear from the 
 higher authority of the distinguished men of whom 
 your instruction is the immediate and pecuhar pro- 
 vince. 
 
 Let me assure you, with all the earnestness of the 
 deepest conviction, founded on the opportunities of 
 observation which pubhc life and intercourse with 
 the world have afforded, that your success, your 
 emmence, your happiness, are much more independent 
 of the accidents and caprices of fortune, infinitely 
 more within your own control, than they appear to 
 be to superficial observers. 
 
 There Hes before you a boundless field of exertion. 
 Whatever be your pursuit, whatever be the profession 
 which you may choose, the avenues to honourable 
 fame are widely open to you, or at least are obstructed 
 by no barriers of which you may not command the 
 key. 
 
 Does the study of theology engage yom* attention ? 
 Is the office of the sacred ministry to be your desti- 
 nation ? To what nobler aim can you dedicate your 
 faculties and acquirements than to vindicate the 
 great principles of om- common faith, to defend them 
 fi-om the assaults of infidehty, to establish them on 
 the only foundation on which the spirit of free in- 
 quiry will allow them to rest — the authority of 
 scriptural truth ? But be not content with medio- 
 
192 SIR EOBEBT PEEL, BART. 
 
 crity. Aspire to that eminence which has been 
 attained by the great preachers of other ages, the 
 honoui'ed champions of the Protestant rehgion. 
 Why should you despaii' of attaining it ? Bring to 
 your sacred functions the spirit by which they were 
 animated, treasure up the same stores of professional 
 learning, make them available by the command of 
 the same simphcity of style and energy of expression ; 
 above all, enforce the precepts you inculcate by that 
 highest argument, the pure example of your own 
 lives, and despair not of exercising a moral influence 
 hke that which they exercised, and founding a repu- 
 tation lasting as theirs. In the commanding autho- 
 rity of your station — in the frequent opportunities 
 for the pubhc exertion of your powers — in the eager- 
 ness with which men will listen to truths that con- 
 cern their eternal interests, if they be but enforced 
 (and they too frequently are not) with the same 
 measure of earnestness, of abihty, and of eloquence 
 with which their worldly interests are defended, in 
 these things you will find all that can satisfy the 
 highest ambition for honourable fame. 
 
 Is science your pursuit? "The great ocean of 
 truth," to quote the expression of Newton, "the 
 great ocean of truth " lies expanded before you. " I 
 do not know," said he, at the close of his illustrious 
 career, "what I may appear to the world, but to 
 myself I seem to have been only hke a boy playing 
 on the sea-shore, finding sometimes a brighter pebble 
 or a smoother shell than ordinary, while the great 
 ocean of truth lay aU undiscovered before me." 
 
UNIYEESITT OF GLASGOW. 193 
 
 Each subsequent advance in science has served not 
 to contract the field of inquiry, but to extend it on 
 every side. It has served, hke the telescope, to make 
 us familiar with objects before imperfectly compre- 
 hended ; but at the same time, by the obscure vision 
 of things unknown, of relations and dependencies of 
 which we had no conception, it has shown us the 
 comparative nothingness of human knowledge. 
 
 Are you destined for the legal profession, or are 
 you ambitious of distinction in the pubhc service of 
 your country ? 
 
 Surely the recent competition for this office, which 
 now entitles me to address you, is pregnant with 
 signal proof that whatever be the place of your 
 nativity, whatever be the accidents of yom' birth, 
 the highest distinctions are accessible to all, and that 
 no national jealousies remain to obstruct yom* 
 advancement, or to envy you the possession of them 
 when obtained. 
 
 There were two competitors presented for jour 
 choice. You will readily beheve, that on this occa- 
 sion I shall make no remark on any circumstance 
 connected with the recent contest, which can by 
 possibihty revive or excite an angry feeling, or which 
 can even provoke an expression of dissent. But 
 there are reflections suggested by that contest which 
 can offend none, and may serve as an encouragement 
 and stimulus to all. 
 
 Your choice lay between two competitors : the one 
 the son of a minister of the Church of Scotland ;* 
 
 * Sir John Campbell, M.P. 
 O 
 
194 SIE EOBEET PEEL, BAET. 
 
 the other the son of an Enghshman, the founder of 
 his own fortunes by dint of honest and laborious 
 exertions in the very same pursuits of active industry 
 which, within this great city, are elevating so many 
 to affluence and to honourable station. The one at- 
 tains the highest eminence in the profession of the 
 law ; the other was called by the favour and the con- 
 fidence of his Sovereign, to the highest trust which 
 a subject can execute, that of administering the 
 government of this great country. And mark the 
 gratifying proof of the obhteration of every prejudice 
 connected with national distinctions or jealousies. 
 The Scotsman is preferred to every Enghsh competi- 
 tor, and receives his honours at the bar of England, 
 without a murmur that they are conferred upon 
 a Scotsman. But although a Scotsman, educated at 
 a Scottish University, he is not equally successful in 
 a contest for academical distinction in his own 
 country. That is reserved for an Enghshman, edu- 
 cated at an English University, with no other con- 
 nection with Scotland than that of respect for her 
 name and national character, and a cordial interest 
 in her welfare. And let me express a hope that 
 whatever other objections might apply to the choice, 
 there was no grudging feeling on account of this 
 reciprocation of honourable appointments between 
 the natives of the two countries, and that the cir- 
 cumstance of my being an Englishman does not 
 operate to my prejudice, even in the eyes of those 
 who would have preferred on general grounds a 
 different result of the election. 
 
TJNIYEESITY OF GLASGOW. 195 
 
 I have said that the field for exertion is boundless ; 
 I have said the avenues to distinction are free ; and 
 that it is within your power to command an entrance 
 to them. I repeat, with the earnestness of the deep- 
 est conviction, that there is a presumption, amount- 
 ing almost to certainty, that if any one of you will 
 determine to be eminent, in whatever profession you 
 may choose, and wiU act with unvarying steadiness 
 in pursuance of that determination, you will, if health 
 and strength be given to you, infalhbly succeed. Yes, 
 even if what is called genius shall have been denied 
 to you, you have faculties of the mind, which may 
 be so improved by constant exercise and vigilance, 
 that they shall supply the place of genius, and open 
 to you brighter prospects of ultimate success than 
 genius, unaided by the same discipline, can hope to 
 attain. There may be, there are, no doubt, original 
 differences in different persons, in the depth and in 
 the quality of the intellectual mine ; but, in all ordi- 
 nary cases, the practical success of the working of that 
 mine depends, in by far the greatest degree, upon the 
 care, the labour, the perfection of the machinery 
 which is applied to it. 
 
 Do I say that you can command success without 
 difficulty? No: difficulty is the condition of success. 
 " Difficulty is a severe instructor set over us by the 
 supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legis- 
 lator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, 
 as he loves us better too. ' Pater ipse colendi, baud 
 facilem esse viam voluit.' He that wrestles with us 
 strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skiU. Our 
 
196 SIR EOBEET PEEL, BAET. 
 
 antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with 
 difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with 
 our object, and compels us to consider it in all its 
 relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial." 
 These are the memorable words of the first of philo- 
 sophic statesmen, of the greatest orator of modern 
 ages at least, if it were allowed to judge of oratory 
 by the compositions it has bequeathed to posterity, 
 without reference to the aid it has derived from the 
 authoritative position or the physical qualifications 
 of the speaker. They are words, which if this office 
 hath authority in yom' eyes, should have especial 
 weight with you; for their illustrious author, Mr. 
 Burke, from this place, and on an occasion similar 
 to the present, might have exhorted the youth of 
 this University, by the example of his own life, as 
 well as by the eloquence of his precepts, to seek the 
 antagonist which is also our helper. Enter, then, 
 into the amiable conflict with difficulty. Whenever 
 you encounter it, turn not aside : say not " there is 
 a lion in the path ;" resolve upon mastering it ; and 
 every successive triumph will inspire you with that 
 confidence in yourselves, that habit of victory that 
 will make futm'e conquests easy. 
 
 On by far the greater part of you it is incumbent 
 to acquire those intellectual quahties which shall fit 
 you for action rather than speculation. It is not 
 therefore by mere study, by the mere accumulation 
 of knowledge, that you can hope for eminence. 
 Mental discipline, the exercise of the faculties of the 
 mind, the quickening of your apprehension, the 
 
UNIVEESITY OF GLASGOW. 197 
 
 strengthening of your memory, the forming of a 
 sound, rapid, and discriminating judgment, are of 
 even more importance than the store of learning. 
 
 If you will consider these faculties as the gifts of 
 nature, by far the first in value — if you will be per- 
 suaded, as you ought to be, that they are capable of 
 constant, progressive, and therefore almost indefinite 
 improvement, that by arts similar to those by which 
 magic feats of dexterity and bodily strength are per- 
 formed, a capacity for the nobler feats of the mind 
 may be acquired, — the first, the especial object of 
 yom' youth, will be to estabhsh that control over 
 your own minds, and your own habits, that shall 
 ensure the proper cultivation of this precious inheri- 
 tance. 
 
 Try, even for a short period, the experiment of ex- 
 ercising such control. If in the course of your study 
 you meet with a difficulty, resolve on overcoming it 
 — if you cannot, by your own unaided eiforts, be not 
 ashamed to admit your inability, and seek for assis- 
 tance. 
 
 Practise the economy of time ; consider time, Hke 
 the faculties of your mind, a precious estate, — that 
 every moment of it well appHed is put out to an ex- 
 orbitant interest. I do not say, devote yourselves 
 to um'emitting labom*, and forego aU amusement ; 
 but I do say, that the zest of amusement itself, as 
 well as the successful result of apphcation, depend in 
 a great measure upon the economy of time. When 
 you have Hved half a century you will have seen 
 many instances in which he who finds time for every- 
 
198 SIE EOBEET PEEL, BAET. 
 
 thing — for punctuality in all the relations of life, for 
 the pleasures of society, for the cultivation of Htera- 
 ture, for every rational amusement — is the same man 
 who is the most assiduous and the most successftd 
 in the active pursuits of his profession. 
 
 Estimate also properly the force of habit. Exer- 
 cise a constant, an um'emitting vigilance over the 
 acquirement of habit, in matters that are apparently 
 of entire indifference, that perhaps are really so, inde- 
 pendently of the habits which they engender. It is by 
 the neglect of such trifles that bad habits are acquired, 
 and that the mind, by tolerating negligence and pro- 
 crastination in matters of small account, but frequent 
 recurrence, — matters of which the world takes no 
 notice, becomes accustomed to the same defects in 
 matters of higher importance. 
 
 If you will make the experiment of which I have 
 spoken, if for a given time you will resolve that there 
 shall be a complete understanding of everything you 
 read, or the honest admission that you do not under- 
 stand it ; that there shall be a strict regard to the 
 distribution of time ; that there shall be a constant 
 struggle against the bondage of bad habits ; a con- 
 stant effort, which can only be made from within, to 
 master the mind, to subject its various processes to 
 healthftd action, the early fruits of this experiment, 
 the feeling of self-satisfaction, the consciousness of 
 growing strength, the force of good habit, will be in- 
 ducements to its continuance more powerful than any 
 exhortations. 
 
 These are the arts, this is the patient and laborious 
 
UNITEESITT or GLASGOW. 199 
 
 process by which in all times and in all professions 
 the foundations of excellence and of fame have been 
 laid. 
 
 Is it possible to consult the works of any man of 
 real eminence who has lefb a record of the discipHne 
 by which his own mind was trained, without finding 
 abundant proofs that it was not by trusting to the 
 inspirations of genius, but by constant perseverance, 
 and vigilance, and care, that success was obtained ? 
 Take as an eminent example of this, the account 
 which Cicero gives of his own early education. Mark 
 the intentness on one object — mark how every occu- 
 pation, amusement, foreign travel, society, the con- 
 versation of the lightest hour, all were made ancillary 
 to the one great pm*pose of improving the mind, and 
 fitting it for the high functions to which its faculties 
 were to be appHed. Speaking of himself he says, — 
 " At vero ego hoc tempore omni noctes et dies in 
 omnium doctrinarum meditatione versabai'." "Huic 
 ego doctori (Diodoto), et ejus artibus variis, atque 
 multis ita eram deditus, ut ab exercitationibus ora- 
 
 toriis nullus dies vacuus esset. Cum me et amici 
 
 et medici hortarentur, ut causus agere desisterem, 
 quodvis potius periculum mihi adeimdum, quam a 
 
 sperata dieendi gloria discedendum putavi. Cum 
 
 venissem Athenas" — Observe, I beseech you, when 
 Cicero was engaged in foreign travel, how different 
 were his occupations from those of many who trust 
 to the inspiration of genius, — and who complain of 
 the want of success without having resorted to any 
 one of the means by which success is to be attained ! 
 
200 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 
 
 — " Cum venissem Athenas, sex menses cum Anti- 
 ocho, veteris academise nobilissimo et prudentissimo 
 philosoplio, ftii, studiumque philosophise numquam 
 iiitermissum, a primaque adolescentia cultum, et 
 semper auctum, hoc rursus summo auctore et doctore 
 
 renovavi." "Post a me Asia tota peragrata est, 
 
 cum summis quidem oratoribus, quibuscum exercebar 
 ipsis lubentibus. Quibus non contentus, Ehodum 
 veni, me que ad eundem, quern. Eomse audiveram, 
 
 Molonem, apphcavi. Nimis multa videor de me, 
 
 ipse prsesertim ; sed omni huic sermoni propositum est, 
 non ut ingenium, et eloquentiam meam, unde longe 
 absum, sed ut laborem, et industriam admireris." 
 
 When such records of perseverance in study and 
 in mental discipline are presented to us, they abate, 
 in some degree, our wonder at the accomphshments 
 and acquirements which were the legitimate result. 
 
 "It is veiy natural," says Sir Joshua Eeynolds, 
 " for those who are unacquainted with the cause of 
 anything extraordinary, to be astonished at the 
 effect, and to consider it as a kind of magic." 
 
 " The travellers into the East teU us, that when 
 the ignorant inhabitants of those countries are asked 
 concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining 
 among them, the melancholy monuments of their 
 former grandeur and long-lost science, they always 
 answer that they were built by magicians. The un- 
 taught mind finds a vast gulf between its own powers 
 and those works of compHcated art which it is utterly 
 unable to fathom, and it supposes that such a void 
 can be passed only by supernatural powers." 
 
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, 201 
 
 We have in the instance of Cicero, the stately 
 edifice, the monument of intellectual grandeur ; but 
 we have also the evidence of the illustrious architect 
 to prove to us by what careful process the founda- 
 tions were securely laid, and the scaffolding was 
 gradually erected. Our wonder at the perfection of 
 the work may be abated, but what can abate our 
 admiration and respect for the elevated views — the 
 burning thirst for knowledge and for fame — the noble 
 ambition which " scorned deHghts, and lived labo- 
 rious days," — which had engraven on the memory 
 the paternal exhoi'tation to the hero in Homer, the 
 noblest, says Dr. Johnson, that can be found in any 
 heathen writer : — 
 
 " Aiiu x^iarwuu x.ott vTruQOxov ifAf/^tvui ocXKav.^^ 
 
 The name, the authority, the example of Cicero, 
 conduct me naturally to a topic which I should be 
 unwilhng to pass in silence. 1 allude to the immense 
 importance to all who aspire to conspicuous stations 
 in any department of public or learned professional 
 life — the immense importance of classical acquire- 
 ments, of imbuing your minds with a knowledge of 
 the pure models of antiquity, and a taste for their 
 constant study and cultivation. Do not disregard 
 this admonition from the impression that it proceeds 
 from the natural prejudice in favour of classical learn- 
 ing, which education at an English University may 
 have unconsciously instilled, or that it is offered pre- 
 sumptuously by one who is ignorant of that descrip- 
 
202 SIR EOBEET PEEL, BAET. 
 
 tion of knowledge which is best adapted to the habits 
 and occupations of society in Scotland. 
 
 Oh let us take higher and more extensive views ! 
 Feel assured that a wider horizon than that of Scot- 
 land is opening upon you — that you are candidates 
 starting with equal advantage for every prize of profit 
 or distinction which the wide circle of an empire 
 extended through every quarter of the globe can 
 include. 
 
 Bear in mind, too, that every improvement in the 
 means of communication between distant parts of 
 that empire is pointing out a new avenue to fame, 
 particularly to those who are remote from the seat 
 of government. This is not the place where injustice 
 should be done to that mighty discovery, which is 
 effecting a daily change in the pre-existing relations 
 of society. It is not within the College of Grlasgow 
 that a false and injurious estimate should be made of 
 the results of the speculations of Black, and of the 
 inventive genius of Watt. The steam engine and the 
 railroad are not merely facihtating the transport of 
 merchandise, they are not merely shortening the 
 duration of journies, or administering to the supply 
 of physical wants. They are speeding the intercourse 
 between mind and mind — they are creating new 
 demands for knowledge — they are fertilizing the in- 
 tellectual as well as the material waste : — they are 
 removing the impediments which obscurity or re- 
 moteness, or poverty may have heretofore opposed to 
 the emerging of real merit. 
 
 They are supplying you, in the mere facihty of 
 
L'NIYEESITY OF GLASGOW. 203 
 
 locomotion, with a new motive for classical study. 
 They are enabling you with comparative ease to 
 enjoy that pure and refined pleasure which makes the 
 past predominate over the present, when we stand 
 upon the spots where the illustrious deeds of ancient 
 times have been performed, and meditate on monu- 
 ments that are associated with names and actions 
 that can never perish. They are oflPering to your 
 lips the intoxicating draught that is described with 
 such noble enthusiasm by Gibbon : — " At the distance 
 of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express 
 the strong emotions which agitated my mind, as I 
 first approached and entered the eternal city. After 
 a sleepless night I trod with a lofty step the ruins 
 of the Forum ; each memorable spot where Romulus 
 stood, or Tully spoke, or Csesar fell, was at once 
 present to my eye, and several days of intoxication 
 were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool 
 or minute investigation." 
 
 I need not recall to your recollection the earnest 
 and eloquent exhortations to the study of ancient, 
 and particularly of Attic composition, which have 
 been dehvered from this seat. I need not remind 
 you of the manifold facilities which that study 
 affords you towards the comprehension of the struc- 
 ture of modern languages, and towards the formation 
 of style on the purest models ; nor need I tell you 
 how indispensable it is to the understanding of a 
 thousand allusions to the usages and expressions and 
 annals of classical antiquity, which are scattered 
 with happy prodigality through some of the finest 
 
204 SIE EOBEET PEEL, EAET. 
 
 of modern compositions — allusions tliat have a voice 
 for the wise — (puuxuru. awsroiatv — that are intelligible 
 to those, but to those alone, who have been initiated 
 in these delightful mysteries. 
 
 Let me, however, attempt to bring from the 
 examples of public hfe a practical confirmation of the 
 truth of these maxims, and the wisdom of these 
 exhortations. 1 ask you simply to pass in succession 
 the names of those who have stood most conspicuous 
 in the great arena of pubhc competition, and to 
 remark the proportion borne to the total number by 
 those who have been eminent for classical acquire- 
 ments. I purposely exclude the remoter periods of 
 our. history, pregnant as they are with examples in 
 favour of the position I maintain, because, when 
 education was in a great degree confined to classical 
 learning, the possession of it would almost necessarily 
 accompany other superior quahfications for high 
 public trusts. But take recent periods of our history, 
 take the most recent preceding our own, when the 
 means of acqumng various knowledge have been so 
 extensive, that there is the opportunity for fair com- 
 parison between the several attainments which may 
 have assisted the competitor for public honours. 
 
 What are the chief names (I am speaking of 
 pubhc hfe) that have floated down, and are likely to 
 remain buoyant on the stream of time. Of the whole 
 number, how large is the proportion of men eminent 
 for classical acquirements and classical tastes ! In 
 the judicial station there are Lord Mansfield, Lord 
 Stowell, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Tenterden. In 
 
UNIVEESITT OF GLASGOW. 205 
 
 political life, Lord North, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. 
 Burke, Lord Grenville, Mr. Windham, Mr. Canning, 
 all pre-eminent for classical attainments. This, at 
 least, is demonstrated, that the time devoted by them 
 to classical studies had not obstructed their elevation. 
 But surely there is a very strong presumption, from 
 the proportion which they bear to the total number 
 of distinguished men of their time, that classical 
 learning, and the accompHshments derived from the 
 study of it, must have given them great advantages 
 in the competition for distinction. 
 
 No doubt high, perhaps equal, eminence has been 
 attained in some few instances by men who have not 
 cultivated, or at least have not been remarkable, for 
 classical acquirements ; but is there not strong reason 
 to believe, that in their case success would have been 
 more easy, and more complete, had such acquirements 
 been superadded to their other quahfications ? 
 
 Do not, however, contemplate the men whom I 
 have named merely amid the excitement of poHtical 
 or forensic contention ; do not consider their classical 
 knowledge merely as an usefid instrument for the 
 improvement of their style, and for gilding with the 
 charms of happy allusion or learned illustration the 
 pubhc displays of their eloquence. FoUow them 
 into the retirement of private life, witness the refined 
 taste with which classical studies have inspired them, 
 and learn to estimate the compensation they have 
 ofl'ered for the loss of power, or for the interruption 
 of active employment. Take as examples the men 
 the most prominent in recent pohtical history, the 
 
206 SIE EOBEET PEEL, BAET. 
 
 great rivals, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox. In the case of 
 each you have the most unexceptionable evidence, as 
 to the pursuits and studies in which they found 
 relaxation and amusement, whenever the contentions 
 and occupations of pubhc life were intermitted. 
 
 Lord Holland thus speaks of Mr. Fox, in the pre- 
 face to the " History of the Eeign of James II." — 
 " During his retirement the love of hterature and 
 fondness for poetry, which neither pleasure nor busi- 
 ness had ever extinguished, revived with an ardour, 
 such as few in the eagerness of youth, or in pursuit 
 of fame or advantage, are capable of feeling. Hence 
 it was that in the interval between his active attend- 
 ance in Parhament, and the undertaking of his 
 history, he never felt the tedium of a vacant day. 
 
 " It was more difficult to fortify himself against 
 the seductions of his own inclination, which was con- 
 tinually drawing him off from historical researches, 
 to critical inqmries, to the study of the classics, and 
 to works of imagination and poetiy. Abundant proof 
 exists of the effects of these interruptions both on 
 his labours and on his mind. His letters are filled 
 with complaints of such as arose from politics, while 
 he speaks vdth dehght and complacency of whole 
 days devoted to Euripides and Yii-gil." 
 
 Still more recent testimony has been borne to the 
 acquirements, the tastes, the studies of Mr. Pitt, by 
 one who, combining the character of a statesman with 
 the highest acquirements of a scholar, is an authority 
 inferior to none, as to the importance and value of 
 classical accomphshments. 
 
TJKITEESITT OF GLASGOW. 207 
 
 In a letter of the Marquis Wellesley, which has 
 been made pubHc within a few weeks, he says of Mr. 
 Pitt,— 
 
 '• He was perfectly accomplished in classical Htera- 
 tnre, both Latin and Greek. The accuracy and 
 strength of his memory surpassed every example 
 which I have obseiwed, but the intrinsic vigour of 
 his understanding carried him far beyond the mere 
 recollection of the great models of antiquity in ora- 
 tory, poetry, history, and philosophy ; he had drawn 
 their essence into his own thoughts and language, 
 and with astonishing facihty he apphed the whole 
 spirit of ancient learning to his daily use." 
 
 "Those studies were his constant delight and 
 resort. At Holwood, in Kent, and at Walmer 
 Castle, his apartments were strewed with Latin and 
 Greek classics ; and his conversation with those 
 friends who delighted in similar studies frequently 
 tmTied on that most attractive branch of learning. 
 In these pursuits his constant and congenial com- 
 panion was Lord Grenville, who has often declared 
 to me that Mr. Pitt was the best Greek scholar he 
 ever conversed with." 
 
 " I have dwelt on this branch of Mr. Pitt's accom- 
 plishments because I know not any source from 
 which more salutary assistance can be derived, to 
 chase from the spirits those clouds and vapours which 
 infest vacant minds, and, by self-weariness, render 
 retirement melancholy and intolerable." 
 
 How striking is the contrast between the retire- 
 ment of these men and that of others, scarcely less 
 
208 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 
 
 eminent in public life, who had not congenial tastes 
 for literary and classical studies. 
 
 " Though he had not forgotten his classical attain- 
 ments," says the biographer of Walpole, "he had 
 Httle taste for literary occupations. He once ex- 
 pressed his regret on this subject to a friend who was 
 reading in the library at Houghton. ' I wish,' he 
 said, ' I took as much delight in reading as you do, 
 it would be the means of alleviating many tedious 
 hours in my present retirement ; but, to my mis- 
 fortune, I derive no pleasure from such pm-suits.' " 
 
 Surely these testimonies, and these contrasts, are 
 pregnant with lessons of instruction. Surely they 
 encourage us to acquire those habits, and to cultivate 
 those studies, which, at the same time that they are 
 the highest solace and the most grateful relaxation 
 fi'om the cares of busmess and the world, are furnish- 
 ing to him who takes delight in them new capacity 
 for intellectual exertion, new stores of precious 
 knowledge. 
 
 " An tu existimas," said the kindred spirit of anti- 
 quity, "an tu existimas aut suppetere nobis posse, 
 quod quotidie dicamus in tanta, varietate rerum, nisi 
 animos nostros doctrina excolamus, aut ferre animos 
 tantam posse contentionem, nisi eos eadem doctrina 
 relaxemus?" 
 
 Noble relaxation! which, while it unbends, invi- 
 gorates the mind — while it is reheving aud refi'eshing 
 it from the exhaustion of present contention, is brac- 
 ing and fortifying it for that which is to come. 
 I have detained you at too great length. I am 
 
r^nTEBSiTT or Glasgow. 209 
 
 well aware tliat the observations I have addressed to 
 you have nothing of novelty to recommend them ; 
 that the truths to which I have adverted are so 
 obvious that they scarcely require the aid of reasoning 
 to enforce them. But they are truths of vital im- 
 portance, and it too frequently happens that the 
 ready assent which the understanding yields to them 
 has not the practical influence on our conduct which 
 it ought to have. If it had, how many of us would 
 have been spared the painful reti'ospect, that retros- 
 pect which you may avert, but which we cannot, of 
 opportunities lost, of time misspent, of habits of in- 
 dolence or negligence become inveterate. 
 
 Hitherto I have referred exclusively to the con- 
 siderations of worldly advantage and worldly fame, as 
 ncouragements to early and continued exertion. 
 We have seen how powerful they were in animating 
 the ambitious spirit of the Eoman orator. And yet 
 not one of the motives by which he was stimulated 
 is wanting to you. His field for competition was 
 not more ample, his reward of success was not more 
 -plendid. You have a country as much endeared to 
 . ou by proud recollections — you have institutions, 
 ivil and religious, standing in equal need of yom* 
 solicitude, and infinitely more worthy of your defence. 
 But for you there are incitements to labour, to 
 zeal in the cause of knowledge and of virtue, infinitely 
 eyond any which could have animated the exertions 
 jf Cicero. The love of praise, the hope of posthu- 
 mous glory, were with him the chief springs of action 
 — the great, the only reward of anxiety and labour, 
 p 
 
210 SIE EOBEET PEEL, BAET. 
 
 "Nullum enim virtus aliam mereedem laborum, 
 periculorumque desiderat, praeter banc laudis et glorise, 
 qua quidem detracta, judices, quid est, quod in hoc 
 tarn exiguo vitse curriculo et tarn brevi, tantis nos in 
 laboribus exerceamus ?" You can give an answer to 
 that appeal which he could not anticipate. To you 
 there wiU remain encouragements to exertion — com- 
 pensations for toil and danger — should the hope of 
 worldly praise and glory be obscured. You have the 
 express command of Grod to improve the faculties 
 which distinguish you from the beasts that perish. 
 You have the awful Imowledge, that of the use or 
 neglect of those faculties a solemn account must be 
 rendered. You have the assurance of an immortality 
 far different from that of worldly fame. 
 
 By every motive which can influence a reflecting 
 and responsible being, " a being of a large discourse, 
 looking before and after," — by the memory of the 
 distinguished men who have shed a lustre on these 
 walls, — by regard for yom' own success and happiness 
 in this hfe — by the fear of future discredit — by the 
 hope of lasting fame, — by all these considerations do 
 I conjure you, while you have yet time, while your 
 minds are yet flexible, to form them on the models 
 which approach the nearest to perfection. — Sursum 
 corda! By motives yet more urgent, — by higher 
 and purer aspirations — by the duty of obedience to 
 the will of God — by the awful account you will have 
 to render, not merely of moral actions, but of faculties 
 entrusted to you for improvement, — ^by these high 
 arguments do I conjure you, so "to number your 
 
UNIYERSITY OF GLASGOW. 211 
 
 days that you may apply your hearts unto wisdom" 
 — unto that wisdom which, directing your ambition 
 to the noble end of benefiting mankind, and teaching 
 you humble rehance on the merits and on the mercy 
 of your Eedeemer, may support you " in the time of 
 your tribulation," may admonish you " in the time of 
 your wealth," and "in the hour of death, and in the 
 day of judgment," may comfort you with the hope 
 of deliverance. 
 
LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION, 
 
 BT 
 
 A. J. SCOTT, M.A., 
 
 PRINCIPAL OP OWENS COLLEGK, MANCEESTEE. 
 
 Delivered October 3, 1851. 
 
 It has been thought proper, by the governing body 
 of Owens College, that its opening should be marked 
 m some more pubhc and emphatic manner than its 
 position has yet allowed. The duty is imposed on 
 me of endeavoming to give some elevating and useful 
 aim to the interest awakened by such a celebration. 
 In delivering what must still be, in its essential 
 character, an inaugural lecture on commencing the 
 discharge of an academical office, I shall yield to the 
 modification of that character suggested by the cir- 
 cumstances in which we meet, and by the relation in 
 which our institution stands towards a community 
 like that of Manchester. The occasion which brings 
 us together is the establishment of a coUege ; of an 
 institution for carrying on, in connection with a great 
 and growing university, the work of university edu- 
 
OS TJI^IVERSITT EDUCATION. 213 
 
 cation. We cannot advert to this without being led 
 to consider the character and the worth of such an 
 education : and on this subject, chiefly, I am about 
 to address you. 
 
 The foundation in itself of the college, the zealous 
 discharge, by some of those who best know Manches- 
 ter, of the preliminary duties of its administration, 
 the eager discussion in pubhc of questions relating 
 to the system to be pm-sued in it, in short, all the 
 indications of interest excited by this new effort to 
 introduce into the city the means of acquiring 
 academic scholai'ship, are proofs that a want is ac- 
 knowledged for which a university education is felt 
 to be the appropriate supply. I may, therefore, hope 
 to find among you a predisposition to weigh what 
 may be offered as aid towards a definite conception 
 of the cultm'e which such an education is designed 
 to besto'^7, and of the grounds on which it is worthy 
 to be sought ; while, on the other hand, I am stimu- 
 lated to the undertaking by contemplating the pro- 
 digious antagonist forces, with which the serene and 
 ideal atti'actions of the intellectual Hfe have to struggle 
 in this metropolis of the world's industrial activity ; 
 forces, some of them essentially hostile, destined, we 
 trust, to be weakened or crushed in the conflict, but 
 for the most part intrinsically noble or needful, and 
 capable, therefore, of being harmonized with the 
 influences which we have now especially to advocate, 
 and of co-operating with them in a friendly oppo- 
 sition and healthful counterpoise, like that which 
 maintains order among the powers of the material 
 
214 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 world, and which a due social organization strives to 
 resemble. 
 
 The most obvious conception of the culture in- 
 tended to be given by a university, is derived from such 
 establishments having been originally employed in 
 preparing men for the duties of a particular profession . 
 There can be no doubt that this is to a great extent 
 historically true, though not quite so absolutely as is 
 generally supposed. At a very early stage in the 
 history of modern civilization, — previously to the 
 twelfth century, that is, — the schools of the great 
 churches, then most nearly corresponding to univer- 
 sities, offered scholastic education to any one who 
 would accept it ; though few, no doubt, perceived in 
 it any value except in preparing for the priesthood. 
 The schools of the more learned monasteries, such as 
 that of Bee, in Normandy, which furnished England 
 with two archbishops in the eleventh century, received, 
 even at that remote period, future counts and dukes 
 among the students as well as clergymen. But it is 
 on the whole true, that those great schools, and the 
 universities which from the twelfth century succeeded 
 them, educated few who were not designed to officiate 
 in the church. It does not follow that the education 
 there bestowed was exclusively professional, according 
 to the standard of knowledge at the time. Were 
 this the proper occasion, it would not he hard to show 
 that the case was decidedly the reverse. According 
 to their means, it was characteristically a Hberal edu- 
 cation that those teachers purposed to communicate. 
 G-rammar, arithmetic, music, rhetoric, are studies 
 
ON UNIVEESITT EDUCATION. 215 
 
 well selected to form the basis of a general develop- 
 ment of the humanity. If they were wretchedly 
 taught, often wretchedly comprehended by those 
 who had to teach, this is a defect of quite a different 
 sort from priestly exclusiveness. A more just view 
 of the fact, in regard to the universities at this early 
 stage, is, that they attracted towards them the mass 
 of such as aspired after the full exercise of their men- 
 tal faculties, and an application of them to high and 
 worthy objects ; and that, in the existing condition 
 of society, there was also but one profession towards 
 which such men generally were drawn. 
 
 We are not, therefore, helped to solve the problem 
 of what a university education is, so far as the origin 
 of these institutions can help us, by this reference to 
 professional pm'poses. As they aimed simply to give 
 the highest education they could, we have still to 
 inquire after the characteristics or essentials of this 
 highest education. No doubt, this predominance of 
 a professional interest gradually affected the process 
 of instruction. StiU, so much secular knowledge and 
 free command of the intellect was imparted as to be 
 found, without some counter check, even dangerous 
 to theological behef. It was this, indicated by the 
 notorious fact that the great schoolmen, after the 
 universities had existed for a century, were the 
 champions of investigation rather than of orthodoxy, 
 which led to the memorable enterprise of the Domi- 
 nican order in the thirteenth century, to give a 
 directly rehgious aim to all the prevaihng studies ; 
 that is, in other words, to use every particle of the 
 
216 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 existing knowledge as a weapon on the side of the 
 estabhshed religious system. The intellectual culture 
 of the laity had already greatly advanced. The pro- 
 fessional or theological character which it was now 
 sought to impress on general learning was in every 
 sense a reaction against secular predominance, against 
 independent inquiry, against studies which had attrac- 
 ted even the clergy from those of their profession. 
 Then, indeed, an ecclesiastical character was impressed 
 on the liighest education. But it was quite too 
 late to attempt to repress what may be called the 
 secular spirit in its pursuit of acquirement. The 
 manifestations of its reaction in its turn were mani- 
 fold throughout lettered Europe. There were abeady 
 universities mainly for secular studies, as Bologna for 
 civil law, Salerno for medicine. But in England 
 took place the most vigorous display of educational 
 enterprise on the part of the laity. The importance 
 of the higher studies in preparing for pohtical hfe ; 
 and the eligibility, for laymen of a certain rank, of 
 professional pursuits hitherto abandoned to the 
 clergy, led, in the fourteenth century, to the establish- 
 ment of the Inns of Coui't. Then were the days of 
 that laborious learning, whose very effluvium or 
 aroma, after centuries, hangs about certain localities 
 like an infection, sufficiently vigorous to make men 
 catch lawyership as the endemic of the place. But 
 the process was not at once so very refined as now. 
 The Inns of. Court constituted as yet a true lay uni- 
 versity, where a systematic and comprehensive know- 
 ledge was aimed at, of whatever entered into the 
 
ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 217 
 
 education of a gentleman, according to the standard 
 of the time. 
 
 It is not needful to pursue farther this historical 
 illustration. Whatever formalities, predilections, or 
 restrictions may remain to attest the former prepon- 
 derance of the clergy in European universities, they 
 are still conceived of as professing to give the most 
 thorough and the most finished intellectual prepar- 
 ation for the secular hfe also ; with this noticeable 
 distinction, that in the universities of the continent, 
 the idea of fitting men for their special functions and 
 vocations has the greater influence, and in England, 
 the idea of that training which should distinguish the 
 man of mental cultivation in general, — what we 
 mean, in short, by the characteristically EngHsh 
 phrase to which I before had recourse, the education 
 of a gentleman. 
 
 Admitting, then, that at one time the members of 
 a particular profession mainly received their educa- 
 tion at the universities of Europe, and that now there 
 are certain vocations for which a university education 
 is considered as especially necessaiy, or is even abso- 
 lutely requii'ed by authority, we find, in these facts, 
 not the essential character of such an education, but 
 merely an extrinsic result of it. Universities are not 
 to be defined as the means of preparing men for 
 certain vocations, although there be certain vocations 
 for which a university education is pecuharly needful 
 or useful. In the middle ages, a prior or a parish 
 priest was not expected to make direct use, in his 
 official duties, of his acquaintance with the scientific 
 
218 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 principles of arithmetic, dialectics, or astronomy, as a 
 knight was of his training in the use of arms and ui 
 the management of his horse ; but it was expected 
 that the whole mind and character of the scholar 
 should have received a discipline, nutriment, and ex- 
 pansion from his academic pursuits, fitting him the 
 better for humane, large, and lofty functions. This 
 is plainly what was meant, however it was performed. 
 In hke manner, an English judge now may never in 
 his whole legal existence have to refer to the Princi- 
 pia of Newton, or to the Mecanique Celeste of La 
 Place ; and yet the knowledge of those works, which 
 a university^ has placed within his reach, may truly 
 indicate a certain culture of the man, contributing to 
 the dignity, and depth, and exactness with which his 
 ofiice is discharged. A French engineer has attended 
 the course of Cousin, a Grerman diplomatist those of 
 Schelling or Hegel, an Edinbm-gh physician those of 
 Hamilton, and the more they have learned, the less 
 Hkely will they be to obtrude the methods or propo- 
 sitions of metaphysical or dialectical science into their 
 respective business ; but, the more they have learned, 
 the more comprehensiveness, resource, and mental 
 finish will they display there. Evidently, at least, 
 this was the object of their academic instruction. 
 Where in practice it is missed, or imperfectly realized, 
 the practice requires improvement, but ever in accor- 
 dance with the fundamental principle. 
 
 How, then, are we to characterize that learning of 
 which universities are to be the special seat ? which 
 has evidently, at first sight, the aii- of somewhat 
 
ON U5IVEESITY EDUCATION. 219 
 
 more profound, radical, and speculative than is else- 
 where cultivated; insomuch that wherever isolated 
 individuals dedicate themselves to the like researches 
 or contemplations, we feel that a substantial identity 
 subsists between their pursuits and those for which 
 colleges are erected. Instead of an immediately- 
 tangible or saleable utihty forming their essence, 
 they seem to be distinguished by its absence. What 
 can any man do, or produce, corresponding to, or co- 
 extensive with, his knowledge of the higher geometry, 
 of the comparative anatomy of Cuvier and Owen, or 
 or the comparative glossology of Grimm and Bopp ? 
 What may seem an answer to this confirms and illus- 
 trates our position. 'No doubt improvements in 
 theoretic mathematics, for example, are followed by 
 improvements in the arts of life, but from minds 
 fixed and limited by any practical ends, mathematical 
 system could never have come forth. Again, the 
 practical results of great discoveries of truth are, to 
 a great extent, necessarily unforeseen, their very 
 dii'ection unthought of, not only during the investi- 
 gation, but even after the discovery is made, and by 
 the discoverer himself. They cannot constitute his 
 guidance or his inducement. It is truth for her own 
 sake he has sought. Men gather fruit from his 
 knowledge, because truth is prolific. But the pro- 
 gressive apphcations of a great discovery dm'ing 
 centuries, or to the end of time, are an incomplete 
 measure of the pregnancy of the original truth, 
 which, by its piinciple of active life, is greater, and 
 more precious than all of them. We have here. 
 
220 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 then, a sphere of mental activity, which is, indeed, 
 found to be fertile in most important uses, while 
 these uses cannot be anticipated during the process, 
 or proposed as its object. If far the larger share of 
 such fruits are not directly or distinctly contemplated 
 by the inquirer himself, how much less will the mass 
 of mankind associate them with his abstruse studies ? 
 Kepler may have been aware that an improved 
 knowledge of the planetary motions must improve 
 navigation ; he may even have definitely contemplated 
 the lunar method of finding longitude as a result of 
 his improvement of the lunar theory ; but were mer- 
 chants or seamen Hkely to consider their affairs as 
 influenced by his enormous and apparently abstract 
 calculations ? Had the passion with which he de- 
 voted himself to ascertain the law of proportion 
 between the distances of the planetary orbits from 
 the sun, and the periods of their revolutions, any- 
 thing to do, according to the apprehension of his 
 cotemporaries, with future fleets bringing home the 
 materials of English manufactures, and the produce 
 and manufactures of lands ionumerable, for English 
 use ? And yet, in the commerce of all our ports is 
 Kepler living, thinking, working, even now, daily 
 and hourly, with a ubiquity and effect against which 
 no services of individuals directly engaged in it are 
 for a moment to be measured ; discharging functions 
 for which the payment of annual thousands in per- 
 petuity would be a scanty recompense. Nay, not 
 Kepler only, but the old Alexandrian, the Athenian 
 of two thousand years ago, the Chaldean watching 
 
ON UNI\T1ESITT EDUCATION. 221 
 
 the heavenly motions another millennium away from 
 us, — those who laid to the hands of Copernicus and 
 Kepler the vast accumulation of materials for astro- 
 nomical system, — all these are yet working in the 
 midst of us, and for us. But astronomy itself is 
 nothing without geometry. How purely contempla- 
 tive, how utterly disconnected from the thought of 
 practical appHcation, were those studies of Euclid 
 and Archimedes, which to later ages have proved the 
 basis of practice in innumerable departments! In 
 the Pythagorean and Platonic schools were laid the 
 foundations of the Grreek geometry ; and there the 
 superiority to practical considerations was matter of 
 principle and of system : yet there were the Conic 
 Sections studied, so as to enable Kepler and his 
 successors, a thousand years after, to apply to the 
 planetary orbits a complete doctrine of the properties 
 of the ellipse, which had waited all that time for the 
 manifestation of its utility. Look, then, at those 
 abstracted and theoretic ancients ; and then show me 
 the practical man, the scale and the result of whose 
 operations is, for mere usefulness, to be named with 
 theirs. But it was a benefit they conferred unawares, 
 or knowing only that truth is fruitful, that knowledge 
 is ultimately power ; and if they knew not of that 
 benefit, how could it be foreseen, or commissioned, 
 paid for beforehand, by any generation from theirs to 
 ours ? There is no apphcation of physical truth 
 which seems so like the multiplying the limbs 
 and extending prodigiously of an individual human 
 presence, as the great series of the inventions of 
 
222 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 James Watt. Your city, as it stands, is almost his 
 creation. To this there is no need to call youi- 
 thoughts. But observe the nature of his prehminary 
 inquiries. Who was likely to have considered as 
 practical^ the employments of a poor maker of mathe- 
 matical instruments, devoting his too much leisure 
 to mastering, testing, and extending Black's para- 
 doxical theory of latent heat ? It is the pulse of his 
 brain that now throbs in all your engines ; it is a 
 great assemblage of speculative spirits which wields 
 as its instrument the myriads of arms, and tools, and 
 machines that stir around us. The men who in the 
 very nature of things can never be appreciated, can 
 never be hired, are the men that do the most even of 
 that work which the world is readiest to value and 
 remunerate. 
 
 In these remarks, I would not be understood as 
 seeking to illustrate the practical utihty of investiga- 
 tions in physical science. That topic is abundantly 
 trite, and uncontested amongst us ; so much so, 
 indeed, that physical science itself is popularly iden- 
 tified with its economic apphcations. But I would 
 take physical science as an illustration of the trans- 
 cendent part which soKtary and abstract study, not 
 immediately directed to any outwai'd result, bears in 
 the history of the most practical improvement. So 
 that human society is, for its own good, bound to 
 afford for such study, opportunity and encouragement, 
 since it cannot adequately recompense ; to take care 
 lest all its members become mainly practical men ; to 
 store up, and continue from age to age, the results 
 
ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 223 
 
 of the more profound inquiry and speculation; to 
 supply to the hand of the workers the stock of 
 principles and facts, on which the truth of their 
 working may be found, in varying and expanding 
 circumstances, to depend. For such ends, among 
 other instruments, has been instituted among every 
 highly civihzed people, something equivalent to a 
 university education. 
 
 The men by whom achievements of such lasting 
 worth are to be done, being comparatively regardless 
 of results immediately estimable by others, must 
 needs be comparatively elevated above considerations 
 of self-interest. In children we see from the first a 
 beautiful inquisitiveness, rendering it a reward in 
 itself to know and understand more of that world of 
 life and matter which Hes around them. By and 
 by, they have learned enough of the objects, to have 
 a certain mastery over them, to be able to do some- 
 thing with them, if but in play, or in mimicry of 
 earnest processes. They discover what pleasure or 
 profit men can command from nature ; and at this 
 point a great division takes place among minds, 
 affecting the course of the after life. Some foUow in 
 the beaten track of profit and advantage ; with some 
 few remains the fresh eagerness to know, and sym- 
 pathy, so to speak, with the hfe of the universe, 
 which made the happiness of the child. These are 
 the men to the highest of whom the world owes its 
 great accessions of quickening knowledge, while others, 
 in subordinate place, are well pleased to receive, com- 
 municate, perpetuate it, and hold it ready for the 
 
224 A. J, SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 applications of those engaged in action. Disinter- 
 estedness is but another name for a disposition to find 
 their interest and their recompense in the seeking 
 and finding of the knowledge itself; a disposition 
 belonging, as we have seen, to the very essence of 
 their function. It would be idle to claim for this 
 class an exemption from the ordinary necessities and 
 appetites of humanity, or from the pursuit of their 
 gratification, or to deny that in some instances, among 
 which Watt is perhaps the most conspicuous, the 
 practical apphcation has been so rapid and so gainful, 
 as to procure a large reward to the discoverer ; but 
 it would be just as idle to overlook the fact, that an 
 amount of labour, a putting forth of superior power, 
 is contributed by them to the joint capital of national 
 and human efficiency, altogether impossible to be 
 accounted for by the inducements which society holds 
 out to their sense of personal interest. I say not 
 merely look to the pittance of men like John Dalton, 
 or the voluntary starvation of men like the late Graff, 
 the Grerman lexicographer ; but compare what is con- 
 sidered as competency or affluence by your Faradays, 
 Liebigs, and Herschells, with the expected results of 
 a successful hfe of commercial enterprise : then com- 
 pare the amount of mind put forth, the work done 
 for society in either case ; and you will be constrained 
 to allow that the former belong to a sort of workers, 
 who, properly speaking, are not paid, and cannot be 
 paid, for their work ; as indeed it is of a sort to 
 which no payment could stimulate. 
 
 As, then, we have seen exemplified in this class of 
 
ON UNITEESITT EDUCATION. 225 
 
 labourers the paradox, that while their work is that 
 in which immediate utihty is the least considered, it 
 is also that which is ultimately most useful ; in them, 
 too, we find exhibited another paradox, that, the nature 
 of their duties disqualifying them for the care of 
 their own interest, and their products being indeed 
 without any immediate marketable value, the care 
 of their interest, to the extent at least of an ade- 
 quate provision for the continuance of their labours, 
 becomes the concern of the community. Your pro- 
 vision, then, for the highest investigations of pm-e 
 mathematics, is your provision for actual and future 
 engineering, sm'veying, statistics, timekeeping, navi- 
 gation, — the list you can extend at your pleasure ; 
 your provision for philosophical chemistry is your 
 provision for dyeing, agriculture, the pubhc and private 
 care of health, and indeed, what not, among the 
 economic arts ; your provision for a large and exact 
 literature and philology, is your provision for that 
 commerce with past ages and remote peoples, whose 
 imports are so essential to all the uses of life, and 
 make a nation truly a member of the great com- 
 munity of mankind ; without which, indeed, it is 
 stranded and islanded in time, shut up to a narrowness 
 of resources which it is happily impossible for us to 
 conceive. For these, and the like ends, a university 
 education among a people is provided. 
 
 But again, we have seen that the vocation of the 
 
 scholar in hterature and in science implies a specific 
 
 disposition, what in its highest examples is called a 
 
 genius, but must, in a measure, exist in the humblest, 
 
 Q 
 
226 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 even in those who co-operate only as depositories and 
 distributors. Every specific inward impulse is defined 
 by its congenial good. The congenial good of the 
 scholar lies in the truth, beauty, and excellence of 
 ideas ; in plainer words, it is enjoyed by knowing and 
 contemplating. If others cannot sympathize with 
 this, that were no reason for its not being sought 
 after. The name of usefulness is much apt to beguile 
 men here. We have shown how useful is this call- 
 ing, even for such things as no man doubts to be ser- 
 viceable. But were it not so, were one to ask of 
 what use is your knowledge of the starry heavens ? 
 Of what use is your Sanscrit, your poetry, yom' dia- 
 lectics ? Ask again, of what use is your champagne, 
 yom' silken hangings, your account at your bankers ? 
 It is answered, I like them, or like others to admire 
 them. But, I like them, is as good and as honest an 
 answer for the tastes and requu*ements of the intel- 
 lect, as for those of the palate. One is no more 
 obhged, as a prehminary to satisfying these appetites, 
 fii'st to prove to others the reahty of their objects, 
 than to forbear enjoying music till he has made it 
 demonstrable to a deaf man ; or to suppress his 
 dehghted exclamations at the beauty of the prismatic 
 colom's, till he has made impossible the increduhty 
 of the blind. But, alas, there is one great difference. 
 The deaf man verily knows that he is deaf ; the bhnd 
 man that he is bhnd ; or rather, the humiliation of 
 confessing our defect is unavoidable as to the physical 
 perceptions, whereas men can and wiU brave it out 
 in regard to the higher senses of the intelligence. 
 
ON UNIYEESITT EDUCATION. 227 
 
 Still it may be asked, are not certain things, as for 
 example a convenient equipage, and above all, a good 
 account at one's bankers, of use, distinguishable from 
 mere immediate enjoyment ? No doubt, of great and 
 manifold use, especially the latter. But these things, 
 or anything else, can be good in but two ways, as 
 means or as an end ; good for something else, or good 
 for itself. The account at the bankers is, I suppose , 
 chiefly good for something else ; for what it com- 
 mands. So far, then, its value to any man is the 
 pleasure or the intrinsic advantage to him of what 
 this enables him to have, or be, or do ; and nothing 
 farther. In like manner, if we set aside the pleasm^e 
 of being driven in a handsome carriage, and the com- 
 placency of calhng it ours, the good of it is m the 
 facility and saving of strength, with which it conveys 
 us from place to place ; and in this case, too, its worth 
 as means, is precisely the worth of the ends which it 
 brings within reach ; and not a hair-breadth more. 
 It is tiresome, perhaps, to insist on so plain a point ; 
 but it is needful to remind men that usefulness is the 
 attribute of means, not of ends ; and that there must 
 be a value above usefulness, as ends are above means. 
 This is the goodness of a thing in itself. The rehsh 
 of food, the smell of a rose, the sweetness of music, 
 the contemplation of truth, aye, the peace of a man's 
 conscience ; these are instances, higher and lower, of 
 that which is good, apart altogether from its being 
 useful. But a thing is useful which procures me any 
 one of these. And this establishes, too, that there 
 could be no usefulness, if there were no other good 
 
228 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 than usefulness ; that means would have no value, 
 were there no ends worth seeking for their own single 
 sake ; and, to come home to our immediate object, 
 that useful knowledge is not necessarily the highest 
 kind of knowledge, nor usefulness its highest quahty. 
 A man may show no deficiency of judgment, who, 
 while he reads the newspaper as a means to ends, 
 some of them small enough, regards as an end in 
 itself, and not of the smallest, the communion of his 
 spirit with that of a great ancient, and of a great 
 people ; even were it that of the Athenians, and of 
 Thucydides. 
 
 Once more, the man is measm'ed by his congenial 
 good. He is higher or lower in the scale of humanity, 
 not at all according to his command of the means of 
 pleasm'e, nor the keenness of his rehsh and uninter- 
 ruptedness of his enjoyment, but according to its 
 source. The dustman, or coalheaver, whose wages 
 give him food and clothes, and extend also to the 
 congenial good of tobacco and potent beer, stands in 
 his actual condition in another region from that of 
 Howard or of Newton, inasmuch as the end he is 
 content and qualified to pursue is a lower one. He 
 commands it as amply, pursues it as steadily, dehghts 
 in it as absolutely ; but by laws immutable and eter- 
 nal as humanity, it is lower in itself, and he is lower 
 along with it. 
 
 Indeed, a distribution, not practically useless, of 
 men's pursuits might be made, according to the very 
 different degree in which the possession of the end 
 accompanies the production or employment of the 
 
OS TJNIYEESITY EDUCATION. 229 
 
 means. The toolmaker, for example, the man who 
 lays down a railway, the manufacturer, the stock- 
 broker and banker above all, are, in the exercise of 
 their business, conversant with the production or 
 accumulation of means, and means alone. Usefulness 
 is the proper attribute of such employments, precisely 
 because they can aspire no higher, because their 
 objects do not, and cannot pretend to the distinction 
 of being good in themselves, but are only good for 
 something. The artist belongs to another class. The 
 musician, for example, is not, like the maker of flutes 
 or piano-fortes, conversant with the means only of 
 musical enjoyment, but with the enjoyment of music 
 itself. For himself and for others, that attracts and 
 occupies him. He finds his end in the means. If 
 he ceased to do so, no practice, no miracles of execu- 
 tion, will save him from ranking with artizans, not 
 with artists. But if otherwise, it is this direct occu- 
 pation with the end which gives him a higher place, 
 within his own department, than the mere producer 
 of means. This places the player or singer above the 
 musical mechanic ; but these, again, are but as in- 
 struments, relatively to the composer or musical poet. 
 With the end, with the life and spirit of music, he is 
 directly engaged. His place is, therefore, not onlj^ 
 highest in his art, but among those who have a simi- 
 larly central position in reference to all the great arts. 
 He sits with Phidias and the poets of form, with 
 Titian and the poets of colour, with Dante and 
 Shakspeare and the poets of speech — every man 
 after his measure. And so the man of science, of 
 
230 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 literature, of philosophy, stands not upon the useful- 
 ness of his pursuit, as do their subordinates, who are 
 occupied with the means towards these several ends, 
 or with their applicability'' to other ends, but upon 
 its intrinsic worth and nobleness. His main business 
 is with the good that is in it, not with the good that 
 it is for. 
 
 With knowledge, then, and especially with the 
 higher and deeper knowledge, it is as in the case of 
 the bodily senses. What has more obvious, large 
 and important vses, than the eye ? But when sight 
 is lost, these are not the benefits most regretted. 
 Milton, describing the Hebrew champion, — 
 
 Blind among enemies, worse than chains, 
 Dungeon, or beggarj-, or decrepit age : 
 
 while he represents him as lamenting bitterly the 
 other evils to which he is thus subjected, 
 
 Dark in liglit, exposed 
 To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong. 
 Within doors or without, stHl as a fool 
 In power of others, never in my own : 
 
 yet makes all this secondary to the privation of the 
 blessedness of seeing for the mere sight's sake. 
 
 dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, 
 
 Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse, 
 
 Without aU hope of day ! 
 
 first created beam, and thou great word 
 
 " Let there be light," and light was over aU ; 
 
 Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree ? 
 
 The Sim to me is dark 
 
 And silent as the moon. 
 
 When she deserts the night, 
 
 Hid in her vacant interhmar care. 
 
 And when the great blind man, in strains that recur 
 
ON UNIVEESITT EDUCATION. 231 
 
 SO often, not too often, to our ears and lips, laments 
 in his own person the same calamity, it is not that 
 another must take him by the hand to cross the 
 street, that another must carve his food, or even that 
 he can read only by the eyes of others, hardships and 
 sore obstructions as these are, but he mourns that 
 
 Not to him returns 
 Day, the sweet approach of even or morn, 
 Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
 Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine. 
 
 Finding thus — Wisdom at one entrance quite shut 
 out, to him no consolation is adequate but the hope 
 of the light that shines inward, and the mind through 
 all her powers irradiates. So were it with all of us. 
 It is good to have the guidance of our sight ; but yet 
 more exquisitely " Light is good, and it is a pleasant 
 thing for the eye to behold the sun." 
 
 Because, then, scholarship nourishes all the arts 
 of life, to which it is as the hidden moisture of the 
 ground is to the produce of our fields, because it 
 brings the mind in free contact with one of its higher 
 appropriate goods, because it is the imtrition and 
 development of faculties in man, without whose 
 exercise he is less and lower than he ought to be ; 
 therefore it is well that countenance and encourage- 
 ment should be given by society to that higher 
 scholarship, which is the object of university educa- 
 tion. The presence of some who are dedicated to it 
 cannot fail to tell on an entire national hfe. I have 
 all along supposed that their chief aim professionally 
 is study itself. On this I am disposed to lay not a 
 
232 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 little stress. The highest teaching can never he that 
 of him whose chief business is to teach. Socrates, 
 Plato, and Aristotle were resorted to, not because 
 they had made teaching their business, but because 
 they were believed to make philosophy their business. 
 Look at the eagerness with which men in om^ own 
 time run to be taught by any one who has dedicated 
 himself to know and understand that of which he is 
 to speak ; Scheiling or Liebig, De Candolle or Guizot, 
 LyaU or Faraday. It may happen that he is defec- 
 tive in the mechanism of the instructor. I have 
 Ivnown it so ; though it be rarer than is commonly 
 supposed. Even then, from the master in any know- 
 ledge, something is to be caught that no other can 
 impart. And if he have also in any measure the 
 special gifts of a teacher, all will come forth from 
 him with a hfe and love, with a power, a fulness and 
 freshness, which you will look for in vain from the 
 man whose main business you make it to communi- 
 cate, and not to possess something worth communi- 
 cating. Accordingly, a college is originally a pro- 
 vision for study and contemplation. In all the older 
 colleges of Europe the endowment is for a life of 
 study, whether in its commencement or in its matu- 
 rity : the teaching is secondary. Xot that communi- 
 ties are to be regardless of the impartation ; but the 
 chief portion of such care must be exercised over that 
 which is to be imparted. He who learns from one 
 occupied in learning, drinks of a running stream. 
 He who learns from one who has learned all he is to 
 teach, drinks " the green mantle of the stagnant 
 
ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 233 
 
 pool." To catch information is something ; to catch 
 the Hfe and spirit of the pursuit and contemplation 
 of truth, is infinitely more. The one you may get 
 from him whose own studies are a hortus siccus; the 
 other from him only whose knowledge is a garden of 
 living plants, putting forth fruits in their seasons, 
 changing their aspect as they grow. The existence 
 of such men is communicative. Their manner of 
 heing leavens that which is around them, even an 
 entire people. The more of free animated scholar- 
 ship there exists anywhere, the more will it assuredly 
 diffuse itself, by conversation and books, in its pure 
 and systematic forms, and in the aids of theoretic in- 
 sight ajfforded to those engaged in practice. But 
 where the highest style of formal instruction is to be 
 regularly provided for, it follows from our principles 
 that it should be confided to those who are to dedicate 
 themselves to the mastery and advancement of their 
 several branches of knowledge. This seems to be the 
 definition of the professor, as distinguished from the 
 minister of the earlier education. 
 
 The special recipients of university teaching will 
 naturally be those, firstly, who devote themselves to 
 that search after truth which furnishes the first idea 
 of university education ; then, those whose vocation 
 requires for its due discharge the general culture of 
 mind and character, which demands such education 
 for its completeness, — that is, the learned professions, 
 emphatically so called ; those whose future vocation 
 requires the applying of principles belonging to science 
 and the higher hterature ; along with all who are to 
 
234 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 possess leisure and ample means, without imagining 
 that these things exempt from responsihility, or that 
 they are in themselves all-sufficient to the well-being 
 of a human mind and soul. Such are, in a country 
 like ours, among the most important pubHc fimction- 
 aries, whether formally appointed or not. They ex- 
 ercise a social influence, which is limited or extended, 
 and in all ways affected, for good or evil, by the man- 
 ner and measure of their education in its highest stage. 
 But if such men think only of the dignified enjoyment 
 of their wealth, they will remember how much this 
 depends on the same conditions. Books and pictures 
 the rich man has ; stores of dehght they would be to 
 the poor scholar or artist ; to him insipid and empty, 
 unless his mind be opened. The best things which 
 money and station can command are, I suppose, con- 
 versation and travelling ; and these are to every one 
 in exact proportion to the mind he brings to them. 
 One meets with worthy people heartily glad to escape 
 from Eome, for example, because that great monu- 
 ment of the world is to them a book all in an unknown 
 tongue ; because it appeals to sympathies which theii- 
 education has left dormant. Half the cost of some 
 great journeys, expended on mental preparation, in- 
 stead of couriers and equipages, might have made 
 their pleasure and their profit tenfold. I shall never 
 forget one whom I met many years ago at Zug, in 
 Switzerland ; a man mild and refined, as if by nature, 
 who greatly dehghted in the natural beauty and sub- 
 limity around us, but seemed to feel it quite an escape 
 from the cities of the Rhine, of which he was weary. 
 
ON UNIYEESITY EDUCATION. 235 
 
 "But the Rhine," said my companion, "is so full 
 of historical interest." The stranger's countenance 
 clouded as he said, " To you it may be : to me all 
 that is a blank." 
 
 But it is time to remember that you may, not un- 
 reasonably, think I have said too much, while I am 
 painfully conscious of having said too little. I have 
 tried to set forth to you the inestimable services of 
 that higher knowledge of which colleges are the des- 
 tined conservators ; the dependence of those services 
 on the free pm'suit of knowledge, mifettered by con- 
 siderations of immediate application to use : the in- 
 trinsic worth of study, apart from all its utility. I 
 have sought to show that it belongs to the region 
 above that of demand and supply in the market, and 
 that certain of its essential qualities are recognized, 
 and that a due homage is done to them, by perma- 
 nent provision for its maintenance irrespectively of 
 that law. Where these qualities are so far ignored 
 that this knowledge is put to the test of the counter, 
 and held to be good so far and no farther than it will 
 sell, you may do as is done in America, where senates 
 of universities are gravely deliberating whether the 
 lore of scientific method and primeval learning is not 
 to be abandoned, and dii-ectly profitable instructions 
 as in agriculture or commerce, substituted in its 
 place : that is, whether university education shall 
 not cease. America can afford to do this, not with- 
 out loss, but she can afford to do it, and why ? Seas 
 and revolutions are between us, but speech, and books, 
 and remembrances make us one people. Oxford and 
 
236 A. J. SCOTT, M.A. 
 
 Cambridge are felt there, as they are in Manchester. 
 But, in time, perhaps, America will feel that for her 
 is needed a new diffusion, nay, to meet her special 
 wants, a new modification, of that mental culture 
 which the older universities, here, supply under Hmits 
 of number and of form. May I be allowed to sup- 
 pose that Manchester akeady feels this ? 
 
INTEODTJCTOEY LECTUEE 
 
 BT 
 
 PROFESSOR WILSON 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 
 
 Delivered m tM Queen Street Hall, November 1, ISoO. 
 
 With reference to two of the course of lectures 
 which are to be dehvered on this occasion, those 
 by Professor Nichol and Principal Scott, namely, 
 on the astronomy and the geology of the period, 
 and on its mental philosophy and Hterature, I 
 wish to make some observations. In highest 
 favour now are the mathematical sciences — pure 
 mathematics — the intellectual faculties abstracting 
 themselves from everything without, and proceeding 
 upon the pui-est notions of space and time, they 
 exhibit those phenomena, extraordinary it wiU be 
 thought, in a finite creature — that they are founded 
 on infaUible evidence — that they are perfectly and 
 entu'ely true. While, therefore, the metaphysician 
 regai'ds those sciences with admiration and with 
 reverence, as exhibiting the variety of the human 
 faculties, which, without them it could not have been 
 
238 PEOFESSOE WILSON. 
 
 supposed these faculties possessed, and the more if 
 the metaphysician himself be, which has sometimes 
 happened, a proficient in those sciences, feeling that 
 he stands a boundless, shadowless, and wide horizon 
 upon the sphere of truth. It was held by some of 
 the ancient philosophers — by Pythagoras — that 
 numerical quantities constituted the harmony of 
 the universe ; and unquestionably the apphcation of 
 those pure sciences does penetrate and reveal to us 
 the mysteries, so far as they may be revealed, of 
 God's universe. We had at first an illumination, I 
 may say a sea, of light. We have now a substantial 
 and an illuminated creation from other wisdom than 
 that of Pythagoras, when it was said — " In number, 
 height, and measure. Thou hast made them all." 
 We have, therefore, as the glory of this age, pure 
 mathematics mainly unfolded ; and we have the 
 physical sciences, of which they are the quickening 
 soul. What may be greater than this ? This is 
 greater — that we know that all this is but a part of 
 our knowledge, and we know what part it is. If the 
 external world is but the occasion of men's knowing 
 their own souls, and of knowing the Maker of the 
 world ; and if he knows not that — if he sees not the 
 order and the harmony prevalent throughout the 
 whole creation ; he may know all else — all that 
 science can ever reach — and yet be ignorant in com- 
 parison with the poor Indian who 
 
 "Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind," 
 
 proving that he is a greater proficient in the laws of 
 truth than the greatest philosopher. We are to know, 
 
EDIKBUEGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITITTION. 239 
 
 then, that the external world is but an occasion of 
 the mind for unveiling its faculties — we are to know 
 that it is but an accident for the mind, and that the 
 mind is not an accident for it. We are to know, 
 that our first intuitions are realities — as real as the 
 objects of the external world, and we ai-e never to 
 forget that it is by such investigations we acquire a 
 knowledge of ourselves — that is, of our own souls. 
 It was sublimely said by Kant, the great German 
 philosopher, that there are two infinitudes open to 
 every human being — the starry heavens above our 
 head, and another infinitude within our souls. Into 
 the former it is the business of science to go ; and 
 into that other infinitude within om' own bosoms it 
 is also the business of another science to go, and the 
 farther we go, the more we are assured that it is the 
 more magnificent and sublime. The telescope of the 
 elder, not the greater Herschel — solved, I may say, 
 those stellar clouds which, before his time, were to 
 the naked eye confused groups of which nothing was 
 known : and the more powerful telescope of Lord 
 Rosse, which soared far higher into those abysses, 
 had resolved those nebulae which now are known to 
 be suns and systems : and if there be another instru- 
 ment with double the powers of his, then again will 
 those nebulsB, those dim nebulae, be dim nebulae no 
 more ; but they will be suns and systems, revealing 
 to our astonished and worshipping gaze the further 
 power of the Creator. But we may be well assured 
 of this — that go as far as we may, still are we . but 
 entering upon infinitude — we should feel that we are 
 
240 PEOFESSOE WILSOK. 
 
 as yet but upon the very borders of creation, and 
 that we must veil our faces and bow down still in 
 devotion to the Almighty maker. Now, the question 
 is, can we — can those who are altogether unable to 
 pursue those investigations by which such grand 
 discoveries are made, be put in possession of those 
 results which are apprehensible, and at the same time 
 are calculated to exalt and raise the mind ? We 
 maintain that they are, and that aU that can exalt 
 the imagination, or exalt the reason, may, by those 
 who are able to expound in adequate language those 
 wonderful sights, be raised to their nature as intellec- 
 tual beings, and also to their nature as moral beings. 
 For let us only consider for a moment what each of 
 ourselves has experienced upon our gradual progress 
 in science, even although that science may, perhaps, 
 in the eyes of philosophers, scarcely be entitled to 
 the name. We have all of us in our youth been in- 
 terested by the appearances of order — for that is 
 visible to the uninstructed eye — among all the 
 heavenly bodies. But although those impressions 
 have constituted a great part of our happiness, they 
 have been felt as expanding our intellects, and also as 
 ennobling our nature ; but when the astronomer has 
 taught us, he only has known a language more gram- 
 matically and more profoundly than we have done. 
 He enables us to read some sections or some chapters 
 of that book — of that mighty scroU which is still ex- 
 panding before the eyes of men, and of which many 
 unsatisfactory glimpses must necessarily be thought 
 to awe our faculties. Now, I can appeal to one work 
 
EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 241 
 
 as corroborative of what I now say, and as in itself 
 removing any objection that may be urged against 
 what are called merely popular lectures on such a 
 subject — a work by a man of the highest intellectual 
 power, of the highest fame in the world — the hero, I 
 may say, of the sciences — Alexander Von Humboldt. 
 I may speak of the Cosmos, in which he endeavours 
 to show the harmony and the unity of creation — how 
 they all obey certain laws of affinity, and how there- 
 fore, it is entitled to be called the Cosmos. That 
 book is a handbook of science ; but, unHke other 
 manuals, which are addressed to the tyro, and which 
 may be studied upwards, his manual is addressed to 
 masters, and calls upon them, in order to comprehend 
 and to understand it with all the stores of their know- 
 ledge and all the powers of their science ; and yet, at 
 the same time, such is the hold which it has taken 
 upon the public mind, that translation after transla- 
 tion has been made in this country ; so that it seems, 
 if it is not comprehensible to much of the ordinary- 
 minds, as he himself declares to be his intention — ^it 
 is comprehensible to men of education, whatever 
 their profession may be — to men who retiring from 
 the duties of active life, may be enabled by his means 
 to comprehend something, and to comprehend more 
 and more of the constitution of the universe. The 
 learned Professor then passed a high eulogium upon 
 the character and qualifications of Humboldt^ and 
 upon the tendencies of his invaluable work, and pro- 
 ceded to remark — Now, perhaps, I am right in saying 
 that the very term scientific or science is apt to deter 
 
 B 
 
242 PEOFESSOE WTLSOK. 
 
 persons who are not scientific, or to prevent them 
 from daring to hope that they are able to compre- 
 hend the subject matter of the sciences. But what 
 nearer can there be to a human being than the subject 
 matter of the Cosmos ? It is our home. We may 
 feel, perhaps, as exiles from a foreign land ; that it is 
 but a transitory habitation. But here we hve ; we 
 are bound to it by our affections — we are bound to it 
 by our passions — we are bound to it by the myste- 
 rious associations of power and of greatness, of beauty 
 and of sublimity, and by aU that most elevates us, in 
 the ordinary relations of life. Here we are born, and 
 here do we expect that we shall be bmied. There- 
 fore the study is, has been from the earliest yeai-s, 
 more of a scientific study than we may imagine, and 
 we are better prepared at least, to foUow all who, 
 with adequate power of expression, and with adequate 
 knowledge, are able to illuminate our minds with 
 their power. But Kant says that there is another 
 infinitude within our own bosom. Of that we can all 
 ask ourselves what we have been able to discover 
 there — whether there, too, will be discovered a 
 Cosmos — or whether, while order and love pei'vade 
 the physical and outward creation, there is nothing 
 but disorder, confusion, and chaos within ? That is 
 not the answer of the philosophers. That there are 
 laws of mind as sure and immutable as there are laws 
 in the material world, we are all well assured ; but 
 we have not here instruments to use ; our knowledge 
 dees not depend upon the excellency of our insti'u- 
 ments — we have no telescopes here, and no way of 
 
EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL USTSTITUTION. 243 
 
 discovery either which was not in the possession of 
 the earhest of mankind. Can we hope, then, to 
 penetrate into that infinitude — can we hope to see 
 there, as in that other, the proofs of order and of the 
 law, not only of the omnipotence but of the goodness 
 and the mercy of our Maker f We can ; we are 
 assui'ed that there are laws of the conscience — that 
 there are laws of the affections and of the passions — 
 that there are laws of duty, of virtue, of happiness, 
 which if we know them and obey them, our own soul 
 shall be in itself as noble, as lovely, as magnificent a 
 cosmos as the starry heaven a,bove our heads. But 
 we meet with difficulties insufferable — difficulties 
 greater, I do not hesitate to say, than the astronomer 
 has to encounter in his journey through the starry 
 sphere. For what is it now that we have to con- 
 template ? Each discoverer, each contemplator, has 
 to contemplate himself, to contemplate mankind in 
 himself and through himself. What other means 
 has he to become acquainted with life ? But every 
 man has his own individuality — he has his own 
 specialities ; and thus, if he is to believe that he is 
 the representative of humanity at large, he would be 
 libelling his species, and be misunderstanding alto- 
 gether the intention of his creation and of the provi- 
 dence of God. But independently of that, supposing 
 that any man was to endeavom' to give a cosmos of 
 the human soul, how shall he be able to know all the 
 thoughts that pass through the mind of every other 
 individual — of all the different peoples in the earth — 
 as circumstanced by -climate, by government, and by 
 
244 PEOFESSOB WILSON. 
 
 the different conditions and aspects of society ? By 
 what insight into the soul of man as it is spread over 
 the universe, shall he be enabled to draw such a picture 
 as to show the constant, the steady, and the regular 
 operation of certain laws ? He may be a hero, and 
 may understand courage. He may be a patriot, and 
 understand patriotism. He may be a saint even, and 
 know to indulge in his prayers in his own cell as a 
 hermit or an ascetic — and he should vainly suppose 
 that that is a reflection of mankind at large, or that 
 he has advanced one inch, perhaps, in the investiga- 
 tion of the general laws of nature or the estabhshment 
 of cosmos in the providence of God. And how many 
 difficulties has he to encounter from the institutions 
 of men, and from the operation of those institutions ! 
 He has lived, perhaps, all his life, or a great part of 
 it, under the domination of imposed opinions, of im- 
 posed doctrines, or dogmas ; and if he was to be in- 
 spired with a desire to speak the truth, and yet if he 
 was running counter to what was most holy and 
 sacred in his soul, perplexed as he would be by the 
 dogmas and sectaries of religion, or by the sects 
 of philosophical schools, would these not make him 
 no longer master of his own soul ? But further, 
 it has been well remarked by Professor Brown, that 
 the idea of an emotion or passion partakes in some 
 measure of the emotion or passion's self, so that there 
 is something of trouble or disquiet in all our ideas of 
 the emotions of the mind ; and when, therefore, we 
 come to reconsider these emotions with the view of 
 putting them in philosophical order, or with the view 
 
EDINBTTEGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 245 
 
 of understanding exactly what they are, and the laws 
 which guide them, we are at once in a certain degree 
 and in some states of the soul, apt to receive false 
 and weak impressions, contrary to the truth. And 
 here allow me to remark, that the ancient philoso- 
 phers and mathematicians and men of science, res- 
 pecting the material universe, have often been the 
 cause of increasing those difficulties to which I have 
 alluded, by demanding of the mental philosopher the 
 method of treatment which they had found successful 
 in their own investigations, but which were altogether 
 inapplicable and totally misapplied when they are 
 made use of in this other region of nature. I allude 
 to such great men even as Liebnitz, Clarke, and many 
 other inferior names, who have endeavoured to carry 
 to the moral and mental investigation the same rule 
 and the same method which they themselves success- 
 fully applied to the material xmiverse. They have 
 formulas for the composition of water — for the more 
 illusive agencies of the voltaic battery ; they are able 
 to chain in the fetters of measure the storms that 
 march over the waves of the Atlantic, and that over- 
 whelm the forests on either side ; they are able even 
 to compute and weigh the lightning which destroys 
 the works of man — they are able to know all these, 
 and to put them down in their philosophy as accredited, 
 acknowledged, and assured truths ; but let them en- 
 deavour to apply the same method of investigation 
 to the emotions of the soul, and see what they are — 
 see how the}'" appear when they apply the measure, 
 see how they are able to find language to express 
 
246 PEOEESSOE WILSON. 
 
 that application, so that it shall be intelligible to the 
 ordinary sons of men ; let them so endeavour to 
 measure the affection of the mother, the passion of 
 the lover, the remorse of the murderer, the aspira- 
 tions of the martyr, and then they will feel that they 
 are entering a world that will not submit to it — 
 which is not susceptible of such treatment ; and, not- 
 withstanding theu' powerful agencies in any other 
 department, they will find that they are doing the 
 converse of what was done of old, when man endea- 
 voured to apply to matter the ideas of mind. Now, 
 it may be asked, how does speculation, how does 
 theory, supposing erroneous speculation, erroneous 
 theory — how can that affect man's happiness r I 
 believe that it may affect it — surely must affect it — 
 either most beneficially or most dis^trously. For 
 what domain of the soul is insensible to the influence 
 of good theory or of bad theory on the subject of 
 morals ? It is true that there is a power in nature 
 wliich, in the great majority of any civilized society, 
 protects itself. There are innate affections which are 
 not easily to be overcome, and there is that blessed 
 ordination of trial which protects the general mind 
 in a great measure against erroneous or deleterious 
 theories ; but unquestionably their operation comes 
 one day or other, and infects the public mind far 
 more than at first you may imagine. Now, if it was 
 asked whether the knowledge of the human mind — 
 of our moral and intellectual nature — had increased 
 or was increasing in any degree like the advance of 
 physical science, the answer must be that they are 
 
EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 247 
 
 not. But if one, writing to ascertain the progress 
 which the physical sciences have made, were to com- 
 pare them with what has been done in the kingdom 
 of mind, he must not compare all that has been done 
 in physical science, and their books in the hbraries, 
 with the works merely of the few great metaphy- 
 sicians that have existed. No, they must take a 
 wider view of the subject ; and when you speak of 
 the libraries of the physical sciences, you must place 
 against them the histories of all nations, and the 
 histories of all distinguished individuals. You must 
 set against them the works of the theologians, of the 
 jurists, of the enHghtened men who have written on 
 the economy of empires, and the works of philologists, 
 who have dealt with the signs and exponents of 
 thought ; you must also place along with them the 
 works of the poets, of the sculptors, the works of all 
 countries, and of men who have dealt with the arts of 
 imagination — no small province, surely, of the human 
 soul : and having collected aU these books with the 
 view of comparing them with the works that have 
 been produced on natural science, then, methinks, 
 that the hbrary of mind will show with somewhat 
 more dignity and more power than the Hbrary of the 
 material sciences. I say, all the works of the divine, 
 for have they not always, and in every country, passed 
 their lives in the investigation of most important 
 truth, and awfal truth, of the most awful mysteries 
 of our spiritual being ? Have they done nothing to 
 show the nature of the ordinary laws by which 
 happiness and holiness are inseparable ? They have ; 
 
248 PEOFESSOE WILSOH. 
 
 but it is too much the fashion now-a-days to restrict 
 all that has been written on the mind to those who 
 have assumed to themselves the name of mental 
 philosophers, and to exclude from that high appella- 
 tion others who are far better entitled to it, and who 
 have made far greater and more important additions 
 to the knowledge of our moral and intellectual being. 
 Many speak of the wonderful enhghtenment and 
 advancement of the human mind in this the nine- 
 teenth century, and to hear them speak you think 
 that aU wisdom and that all virtue were concentrated 
 not only in the middle of the nineteenth century, but 
 in them, the men, as they call themselves, of the 
 nineteenth century. Every thoughtful man, however, 
 must reverence the past. We must reverence the 
 past as we reverence our father and our mother. We 
 are descended from the generations before us, and we 
 may partake of their virtues as we may partake also 
 of their vices ; but as we honour our parents, in spite 
 of aU that may be wrong in them, so must we still 
 have a regard for the generations that have gone 
 before us because from it we are sprung. Let us, 
 then, cherish the memory of all who have laboured 
 well and successfully to elevate the more honourable 
 and generous faculties and qualities of the soul over 
 the meaner and more contemptible. Let us think of 
 great heroes — of martyrs for the truth — of those 
 who by their death, if death was necessary, founded 
 or helped to found or to secure our hberties, those 
 hberties which we now enjoy ; and let us apply it to 
 the history of our own country, and to the judgment 
 
EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 249 
 
 which we form of the qualities of our own country- 
 men. Let us think of the lovers of truth, of the 
 old reformers, and of the lovers of patriotism. Then, 
 let us remember the Bruce of Bannockbum, that the 
 Enghsh remember for ever as their own Runnymede. 
 Are we, then, lovers of knowledge ? Are we lovers 
 of personal independence ; do we possess them ; do 
 we possess liberty ? Are our soldiers brave — are our 
 sailors armed, not afraid to face the battle or the 
 storm ; ai'e our fields and our cities consecrated by 
 the sound of the church-going bell ? Whatever 
 virtues of old still survive among us, let us remember 
 that they were transmitted by our countrymen, that 
 they are our birthright ; and let us endeavour, by 
 generous aspirations and high thoughts, and, above 
 all, by the discharge of all the duties incumbent upon 
 us, to transmit them to another generation, and to 
 latest posterity. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL, ESQ., 
 
 ON HIS INSTALLATION AS 
 LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 
 
 Delivered Thursday, April 12, 1827. 
 
 Students, — I return you my best thanks for your 
 having done me the honour of electing me to the 
 situation in which I now address you — the greatest 
 honour that was ever conferred upon me. It may 
 easily be imagined that I cannot speak to you at this 
 moment without experiencing considerably strong 
 sensations. If but to revisit these courts, and to look 
 from the windows of this Hall, suffice to make its 
 surrounding objects teem to me with the recollection of 
 ancient friendships and of early associates — some of 
 them your fathers — how much more deeply must I 
 be touched to find myself surrounded by the coim- 
 tenances of a young and rising generation, by whose 
 favour I have been invited to the spot of my birth, 
 and to this our venerated University. I throw 
 myself on the candoar of aU around me, not to mis- 
 
UNIYEESITT OF GLASGOW. 251 
 
 construe this expression of my natural feelings into 
 the language of self-complacency. If, indeed, I could 
 come to this place with any such froward feeling, or 
 in any frame of mind but that of unfeigned diffidence, 
 the solemn associations which this bench inspires — 
 the images of revered instructors — and of great 
 departed men that hallow it to our memory — the 
 Genius of the Place itself would overawe and rebuke 
 me back into humihty. — No one is better aware than 
 myself of the accidental prejudices that mixed with 
 the partiality which called me hither ; at the same 
 time, is it not right that I should be grateful for the 
 kindly prejudices of young hearts, free in their 
 choice, disinterested in their motives, and ingenuous 
 from their years ? Your favour was such as I could 
 not have commanded with power, nor purchased with 
 wealth ; and, believe me, I value it accordingly. 
 Students, I am not barely entitled, I am bound, to 
 hail and to hold you as my friends. An alumnus of 
 your own Alma Mater, and one taught by experience 
 to sympathize with all the hopes, and objects, and 
 fears, and difficulties of a Student, I can speak to 
 you with the cordial interest of fellowship and fra- 
 ternity. 
 
 If I shall presume to express this interest, in the 
 shape of a few words of well-meant advice to you, on 
 the subject of your studies, believe me that I do so 
 from having no other mode of showing my regard for 
 you, than by following a custom which has now 
 become half official ; and that I am not unconscious 
 of tendering what may be called a service of superer- 
 
252 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 ogation, in giving you advice here, where you possess 
 the far abler counsel of the learned and respectable 
 men, your habitual instructors, at whose side I have 
 now the honour of addressing you. This University 
 has been clothed with respectability by the eminence 
 of its teachers, and attentiveness to their precepts is, 
 I take it for granted, an indelible part of your 
 academical character. 
 
 But if I should only repeat to you truths which 
 you have already heard from them, what I say cannot 
 efface those truths from your minds, and it may, by 
 some possibility, tend to aid your recollection of 
 them, owing to the casual novelty of the circumstan- 
 ces under which you hear them repeated : for an 
 accident of time or place will often influence our 
 associations, in the absence of more solid claims to 
 attention on the part of a speaker. 
 
 Students, I congratulate you on being the denizens 
 of an ancient, an honoured, and a useful University 
 — one of those institutions that have contributed to 
 the moralisation of modern man. It was mainly 
 through her Universities, that northern Europe, at 
 least, first learnt to distinguish between the blessed 
 light of religion, and the baleful gleams and false 
 fervours of bigotry. No doubt the benighted Euro- 
 pean ages had views of Heaven and Futurity, that 
 strongly rayed on the human imagination, and 
 kindled its zeal. But it was a light unblessed, and 
 portentous of crimes and cruelties that sullied the 
 face of the earth, and only aggravated the terrors 
 of mental darkness. 
 
TJNITEESITY OF GLASGOW. 253 
 
 Non secus ac liquida si quando nocte cometae 
 Sangtiinei lugubre rubent ; aut Sirius ardor; 
 Ille sitim morbosque ferens mcrtalibus segris, 
 Nascitur, et laevo contristat lumine coeluin. 
 
 It is well known that when Superstition had 
 walked abroad over Christendom, had forged the seal 
 of Religion, had stolen her vestments, and, though a 
 fiend, had counterfeited her sacred resemblance, 
 human learning was commissioned by Providence to 
 unmask the goblin imposter. Wickliff from Oxford 
 gave the signal of detection to Bohemia ; and from 
 Germany the spirit of reformation came back to our 
 own shores. Among Universities, it is true, our own 
 is far from being one of the most ancient ; yet it 
 preceded the Reformation, and, whatever might be the 
 fluctuating incidents in the chapter of history, it 
 contributed to the Reformation ; for wherever learn- 
 ing was — there also was a rallying point for the 
 emancipation of human thought. 
 
 The advantages of study which you possess in this 
 University, I should be sorry to bring into invidious 
 comparison with those of any other places of educa- 
 tion, least of all with those of the great Universities 
 that have educated the intellectual heroes of England's 
 majestic race of men. Yet, without invidiousness, 
 and without indelicacy, I may remark, that the 
 circumstance of aU your Professors lecturing daily 
 and regularly, is a feature of noble and inspiring 
 usefulness in your tuitionary system, which might be 
 imitated to their advantage, even by those grea'^ 
 INSTITUTIONS. Among our teachers, too, we can 
 look back to names in Literature and Science, that 
 
254 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 are above the need of praise, as they are above the 
 reach of detraction : and the dynasty of Professorial 
 talent, I make bold to predict, is not to degenerate. 
 It is for you, however, my young friends, to recollect 
 that neither the glory of dead men's names, nor the 
 efforts of the ablest hving instructors, can maintain 
 the honour of a University, unless the true spirit of 
 scholarship animate the character, and pervade the 
 habits of its students. 
 
 The value of time and of youth, and the bitter fruits 
 that result from mis-spendingthem, are truths so simple 
 and obvious, that I fear, like the great tree in St. Paul's 
 churchyard, about the existence of which so many 
 wagers have been lost and won, they are sometimes in 
 danger of being overlooked from their very famiharity. 
 It would be easy indeed to invest these topics with a 
 gloomy interest, by proving that the evils resulting 
 from the lost opportunities of youth more or less 
 cling to a man throughout his existence ; and that 
 they must be, from their nature, greater in reality 
 than they can be to the eye of common observation. 
 For men do their best to disguise the punishment of 
 a neglected education, or rather, to speak more tndy, 
 the punishment disguises them. It hurries them 
 away fi*om your sight, to be immolated in secret by 
 mortification, to die in the shade of neglect, and to 
 be buried in the shroud of oblivion. But it is not by 
 appeahng to the ignoble principle of fear that we 
 should teach the youthful bosom the value of its 
 golden opportunities. A feeling still more honourable 
 than even anxiety for reputation, namely, the desire 
 
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 255 
 
 of knowledge for its own sake, must enter into the 
 motives of every man who successfully devotes him- 
 self to mental improvement. For Learning is a 
 proud mistress that will not be courted for your 
 hopes of worldly profit by her dowry, nor for your 
 ambition to be allied to her family, nor for the pride 
 of showing her in pubHc, without the passion and 
 devotion which you must bear to her sacred self. 
 
 And the love of learning is natural to man. It 
 springs from om' interest in this magnificent and 
 mysterious creation, from our curiosity mth regard 
 to truth, and even from our fondness for the airy 
 colourings of fiction. Still, however natural the 
 desu'e of instruction may be, it cannot be expected to 
 attain all the strength and maturity of a passion, 
 whilst om' intellectual natures are yet themselves 
 immatm'e ; and, in the most ingenuous young minds, 
 the vohtion for study may faU far short of their 
 abstract conviction as to the value of knowledge. 
 Voltaire has somewhere spoken of an astonishingly 
 wise young hero, who seemed, he says, to have been 
 born with experience, but alas, how very few of our 
 heads come into the world furnished with that 
 valuable material! And, precocious indeed, and born, 
 we may say, with experience, must that juvenile 
 intellect be, which, amidst the new sensations of Hfe 
 and its early enjoyments, can antedate that day of 
 devotion to study, when a man shall wait for a new 
 book, or for new lights of information on any favour- 
 ite subject, as eagerly as Avarice watches the fate of 
 its lottery ticket, whilst the richest prizes yet remain 
 
256 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 in the wheel. But cherish the nascent principle of 
 curiosity, and that day will come to you in good 
 time, when study, instead of a duty, will become 
 an agreeable habit ; and when it wiU yield you 
 consolations and amusements beyond what it is 
 conceivable, in the nature of things, that a young 
 imagination can weU anticipate. Before those habits 
 have been acquired, however, I suspect that young 
 minds are sometimes beguiled into unwholesome 
 hesitation, by disputes about the particular path of 
 learning into which it is most advisable that they 
 should first strike, and push on most vigorously. 
 The general blessing of learning is no where disputed. 
 It is agreed on all hands that knowledge is power, 
 and that man is but what he knows. None but 
 maniacs would lay the axe to the root of the tree ; 
 and none but the most mischievous would propose 
 tearing down any of its branches, though they may 
 not bear fruits to their taste, or garlands to their 
 honour. Scaliger has incurred only the contempt of 
 posterity by his absurd diatribe against the useful- 
 ness of Mathematics ; and neither Swift nor Johnson 
 have much raised themselves in the estimation of wise 
 men by having undervalued the Natural Sciences. 
 For it is clear that those men were misled by over- 
 weening vanity in their own pursuits, and by shallow- 
 ness in those pursuits which they decried ; thus 
 bringing into monstrous conjunction the pride of 
 learning and the envy of ignorance. But although, 
 in the present day, there may be few or no direct 
 abohtionists as to any particular branch of knowledge, 
 
UNIVEESITT OF GLASGOW. 257 
 
 there is still a spirit of invidious comparison, and 
 a spirit too, for the most part, harshly biassed against 
 classical leai'ning, that may be frequently observed in 
 discussions on the subject of education. I exhort 
 you, my young friends^ not to trouble yourselves at 
 all about such disputes ; but always to consider that 
 branch of Science or Literature to be the most valu- 
 able, which you have the best opportunity of most 
 completely mastering. 
 
 Of all the dangers to which the juvenile student is 
 exposed, I hold those of over-confidence and temerity 
 to be incomparably smaller than those of doubt and 
 distrust. It is very true that a young mind, plung- 
 ing prematurely into the depths of metaphysical 
 research, before it has stored itself with a knowledge 
 of useful facts, may be compared to one exploring the 
 wheels of a watch, before he has learned to read the 
 hours on its dial-plate. It is true, also, that pre- 
 cocious attempts at fine writing, and at colouring 
 language, before we have learned to give shape to 
 our thoughts, have their disadvantages. Yet stiU, 
 altogether, I tremble at the idea of damping the fire 
 of youthful ambition ; for in the young student, as 
 in the young soldier, the dashing and daring spirit is 
 preferable to the listless. To the early aspirant at 
 original composition — to the boy-poet — I should, 
 therefore only say, Go on and prosper, but never 
 forget, that in spite of random exceptions, Buchanan 
 is right in the general principle, when in awarding 
 immortality to mighty poets, he designates them by 
 the epithet, leaeked. 
 
 s 
 
258 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 Sola doctorum monumenta Vatam 
 Nesciunt Fati iniperium severi, 
 Sola contemnunt Phlegethonta et Orel 
 Jura superbi. 
 
 The opposite feeling of the mind's distrust in its 
 own powers, ought not to be too harshly and hastily 
 set down as a token of mental debility in youth, 
 for it is often connected with considerable talent. 
 It is a faihng, however, that, if suffered to continue, 
 will create all the effects of debility, and will dupe 
 the mind to be the passive agent of its own degra- 
 dation ; — like a juggling soothsayer contriving to 
 make his prophecy fulfil itself, or a blundering 
 physician verifying his ignorant opinion by despatch- 
 ing the patient whom he has pronounced incurable. 
 But, if to look abroad over the vast expanse and 
 variety of learned pursuits, should appal and over- 
 whelm any young imagination, like the prospect of 
 a journey over Alps and Griaciers, let it dispel the 
 unworthy fear, to recollect what guides, and lights, 
 and facilities modern science and hterature afford, so 
 that a quantum of information is now of compara- 
 tively easy access, which would formerly have de- 
 manded Herculean labour. 
 
 As to those among you who may have the pros- 
 pect of being only a short time at College, I trust I 
 need not conjure you against the prejudice of hghtly 
 estimating the value of a little learning, because you 
 cannot acquire a great deal. If indeed we were to 
 compare the value of much with that of Httle 
 learning, there is no concession in favour of the 
 iruch th. ' " "■ "■ ^^nt '"illinGflv make. — But in 
 
UNTTEESITT OF GLASGOW. 259 
 
 comparing small learned acquisitions with none at all, 
 it appeal's to me to be equally absurd to consider a 
 little learning valueless, or even dangerous, as some 
 will have it, as to talk of a little virtue, a little 
 wealth, or health, or cheerfulness, or a little of any 
 other blessing under heaven, being worthless or 
 dangerous. 
 
 To abjure any degree of information, because we 
 cannot grasp the whole circle of the sciences, or 
 sound the depths of erudition, appears to be just 
 about as sensible as if we were to shut up our win- 
 dows, because they are too narrow, or because the 
 glass has not the magnifying power of a telescope. 
 
 For the smallest quantity of knowledge that a man 
 can acquire, he is bound to be contentedly thankful, 
 provided his fate shuts him out from the power of 
 acquiring a larger portion — but whilst the possibility 
 of farther advancement remains, be as proudly dis- 
 contented as ye will with a httle learning. For the 
 value of knowledge is like that of a diamond, it 
 increases according to its magnitude, even in much 
 more than a geometrical ratio. One science and 
 hterary pursuit throws Hght upon another, and there 
 is a connection, as Cicero remarks, among them all. 
 — "Omnes Artes, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, 
 habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cog- 
 natione quadam inter se continentur." 
 
 No doubt a man ought to devote himself, in the 
 main, to one department of Imowledge, but still he 
 will be all the better for making himself acquainted 
 with the studies which are kindred to and congenial 
 
260 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 with that pursuit. — The principle of the extreme 
 division of labour, so useful in a pin manufactory, if 
 introduced into learning, may produce, indeed, some 
 minute and particular improvements, but, on the 
 whole, it tends to cramp human intellect. 
 
 That the mind may, and especially in early youth, 
 be easily distracted by too many pursuits, must be 
 readily admitted. But I now beg leave to consider 
 myself addressing those among you, who are conscious 
 of great ambition, and of manly faculties ; and what 
 I say, may regard rather the studies of your future 
 than of your present years. 
 
 To embrace different pursuits, diametrically oppo- 
 site, in the wide circle of human knowledge, must be 
 pronounced to be almost universally impossible for a 
 single mind. But I cannot believe that any strong 
 mind weakens its strength, in any one branch of 
 learning, by diverting into cognate studies ; on the 
 contrary, I beheve that it will return home to the 
 main object, bringing back illustrative treasures from 
 all its excm'sions into collateral pursuits. 
 
 Let Science bear witness how many of her bright- 
 est discoveries have been struck out by the coUision 
 of analogy, and by original minds bringing one part 
 of their vast information to consult and co-operate 
 with another. — For a single study is apt to tinge 
 the spirit with a single colour; whilst expansive 
 knowledge irradiates it, from many studies, with the 
 many-coloured hues of thought, till they kindle by 
 their assemblage, and blend and melt into the white 
 light of inspii'ation. Newton made history and 
 
UNIYEESITT OP GLASGOW. 261 
 
 astronomy illustrate each other; and Ricliter and 
 Dalton brought mathematics to bear upon chemis- 
 try, tiU science may now be said to be able to weigh 
 at once an atom and a planet. I admit that this is 
 quoting only mighty names to illustrate the value of 
 general knowledge ; but all minds that are capable of 
 extensive application, more or less experience its 
 benefits, — for the strength of an active mind is not 
 exhausted by dividing the objects of its attention, 
 but refreshed and recruited, — it is not distracted by 
 a variety of hghts, but directed by them ; and the 
 stream of learned acquisition, instead of being in 
 danger of becoming shallower by expansion, is ren- 
 dered more profound. 
 
 In hterature, I might quote the excursive taste of 
 our Milton, our G-ray, our Warton, Hurd, and Sir 
 William Jones among poetry beyond the classical 
 field, to prove that the rule appHes to Hterature as 
 well as to Science : but I have detained you a consi- 
 derable time, and for the present must bid you adieu. 
 I do so with a warm heart : and I hold it to be no 
 profane illusion to the great and merciful Being who 
 has given us all knowledge, and all mercies, to wish 
 that His blessing may be with you. 
 
LECTUKE 
 
 BT 
 
 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A., 
 
 ON 
 
 THE STUDY OF THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE OF 
 GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 Delivered, Owens College, Manchestee, March 13, 185L 
 
 In considering the place which classical learning 
 ought to hold in a scheme of education, it may, I 
 suppose, be assumed that by education is meant, not 
 a mere preparation for some specific trade or profes- 
 sion, but rather a preparation for the whole business 
 of life, — a preparation which shall fit the student to 
 till well his part as a member of a family, of a com- 
 mercial or professional community, of society generally, 
 and of a state. To furnish a complete education in 
 all these senses is, of course, not within the range of 
 any single institution; some portions of it, for 
 instance, can only be supplied in the family circle to 
 which each belongs ; others must be gained fi'om im- 
 mediate intercourse with affairs, from the warehouse, 
 the factory, the courts of law, the hospital, or the 
 ship. To fit young men to enter at once on their 
 several professions is not the function of a coUege for 
 
OWENS COLLEGE, MAJlfCHESTEE. 263 
 
 general education ; but to develop, in their due pro- 
 portion, all the faculties of the man, that the student 
 may be fitted to perform well each of those duties 
 which belong to us all ; that he may be furnished, 
 indeed, with all the learning that is wanting to enable 
 him afterwards to acquire the knowledge specially 
 necessary for his own pursuits ; but yet that he may 
 be guarded against the danger of having his whole 
 mind absorbed by those pm'suits ; to effect that he 
 shall not be so mere a scholar as to look at every- 
 thing through the dusty spectacles of the antiquary, 
 or so ardent a manufacturer, or surgeon, or lawyer, as 
 to regard his fellow-men mainly as subjects for the 
 operation of the loom, the knife, or the statutes at 
 large. It is not meant that no help is furnished in a 
 collegiate education towards the various pursuits of 
 affcer-Hfe : much may be done towards this directly, 
 by lectures on statute and commercial law, on political 
 economy, or on the principles of commerce ; and 
 much more indirectly, by the knowledge acquired in 
 the study of Hterature, of history, of mathematics and 
 physics, of chemistry and the natural sciences. Still 
 the main end of a liberal education is, not to furnish 
 such special information, but so to discipline the reason, 
 the imderstanding, and the taste, and so to strengthen 
 the various powers of the mind, that when the student 
 proceeds, thus disciplined and strengthened, to learn 
 the use of the weapons needful for himself especially, 
 he may acquire them most readily, and ever after- 
 wards use them most worthily for himself, and most 
 beneficially for the entire community. 
 
26:1 PEOFESSOB J. G. GEEENWOOD, B.A. 
 
 If this be the true end of education, it will be seen 
 at once that the science of language must hold an 
 important place in it. Language is the medium of 
 intercourse between man and man ; the instrument, 
 and almost the very form, of thought ; and how better 
 can the young student be introduced to the study of 
 the intellectual processes than by a minute analysis 
 of some of the most elaborated languages that have 
 ever been spoken ? Or how better can he learn to 
 think accurately for himself than by the study of the 
 exact meaning of words and phrases ? Yet, it may 
 be asked, while the claims of language to form an 
 essential part of education must be granted, why 
 should the dead languages of G-reece and Eome be 
 chosen for this purpose ? Why cannot we take, 
 instead, some modern languages, which will be of 
 practical use themselves, as well as a valuable instru- 
 * ment for training ? To this question, so obvious, 
 and, at first sight, so forcible, a careftd answer must 
 be given : it should be shown that, while, on the one 
 hand, the study of modern languages would prove an 
 inferior discipline, so, on the other hand, it is not 
 true that the languages and Hterature of those ancient 
 nations are utterly ahen to us. These languages are 
 a better instrument for training, because they are 
 more elaborate in their processes of etymology and 
 syntax, expressing by copious and multiform inflexion 
 and composition what the languages of modem 
 Europe express by mere juxtaposition of independent 
 words. The permanence of theii' form, and the broad 
 difference between them and our own tongues, increase 
 
OWES^S COLIXeH, MATyCHHSTlTB. 265 
 
 their educational Tahie, as ikke attesttiiHi k more 
 readily fixed on the phenomeiia of langns^e, wlieii tiie 
 words embodying them are nnfaniKar to the eje and 
 ear. Again, they supply an acknonrk^ed standard 
 with which to compare the kngnages of modern 
 Europe ; a standard, be it obsored, not arLitiary but 
 real, since those languages are aetnaDif moddled, to 
 a great extent, after tlie classical tongues, and, some 
 of them, derived directly from them. Finally, thoi^^ 
 this is an incidental advantage, we have in the 
 classical tongues one foundatioii for the langmge^ 
 studies of educated men of all nations^ as in the 
 elements of Euclid for their mathematical studies. 
 
 But it is not merely as an instmment of intplV^^^faial 
 training that the classical studies are to be vafaied : 
 the positive and direct worl^ of the stores tiiejmi&ld 
 to the student is incalculable. We are hadfy less 
 closely connected with the races of Greece and Borne, 
 than with our own immediate ancestora. Kot mose 
 truly do we owe our most Tafaied civil i^^bts and 
 social institutions to our Saxon taa&i&eis, Hian we 
 are indebted to the Greeks and Bomans for a large 
 element of our Ixteratm^ and phiksophj. It is not 
 for us — 
 
 '' T&e beizB of an 1^ agn, ia Ite ftKOBiHt fin of ttne*— 
 
 to disown the bonds that mnte ns wi& tJie i»«ti«»a 
 
 of antiquity. We cannot ef^ee tlieae bonds; we 
 may ignore them, but it will be at oar own cost. It 
 is a rich inheritance that we have zeccsredy and if we 
 would hand it down not imporenshed but strengfli. 
 
266 PEOFESSOE J. G. QESEirW^OOD, B.A. 
 
 ened, it must be by duly appreciating tbe relations 
 that we bear to it. They who have no past can have 
 no ftiture. It is as wise for races as for individuals 
 to wish their " days to be bound each to each in 
 natural piety:" and an indispensable condition to 
 our contributing anything to other generations, either 
 in science, Hterature, or pohtics, is that we forbear 
 to look on what we have as the fruit of our own toil, 
 but reverently and gratefiiUy own our debt to other 
 and earlier nations. For themselves, also, are the 
 ancient authors most deserving of intimate acquain- 
 tance. Within a bulk of comparatively small extent 
 we have the works of poets, historians, and orators, 
 who have been, by common consent, treated as mo- 
 dels of successfiil composition. In the same works 
 we see completely unfolded to us the history of some 
 of the most momentous events the world has seen, — 
 events full of instruction for the statesman, of interest 
 for the student, and of warning and wisdom for us 
 all. For it must not be supposed that the passions 
 and struggles, the triumphs and failures, of Greece 
 and Eome have no significancy for us. The heart of 
 humanity is much the same in all times ; the wants 
 that call for national laws and institutions, the dan- 
 gers that threaten, and the obstacles that thwart, 
 them will not vary much. Some allowance must of 
 course be made for variations of race, climate, and 
 rehgion ; and this very necessity will introduce a new 
 and most valuable element into the study. It is 
 because this has often not been done, — because an 
 examination of the books and history has so often 
 
OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTEE. 267 
 
 been unaccompanied by a careful attempt to fix tbe 
 relations between the people and their literature, that 
 the study has so often been, not without reason, 
 charged with pedantry as an accomplishment, and 
 uselessness as a training. The history of the ancient 
 world is not only a hnk in a chain, of which our 
 own forms a continuation, but a whole in itself, an 
 historic cycle so complete and so concentrated as 
 to deserve our most careful study. It presents to 
 us a legendary age in which we must grope our way 
 with the most heedful caution, followed by a period 
 in which we can discern with more certainty, though 
 much obscurity still remains, the gradual rise of order 
 out of chaos, the growth of states and institutions, 
 and the consolidation of languages : then comes the 
 season of full national hfe and vigour, illustrated, 
 happily for us, by the clear Hght of authentic history ; 
 and next the season of decay. In the history of 
 Greece, for instance, a country not larger than some 
 of the smallest of our present European states, and 
 in the course of a few centuries, we see enacted all 
 the vicissitudes of modern Europe. Numerous inde- 
 pendent states are presented to us, of small extent of 
 course, and formed of citizens of the same race and 
 language, but exhibiting almost every variety of 
 government, and animated by the most Hvely nation- 
 ality: we see them torn to pieces by intestine 
 struggles from the want of sympathy in any common 
 pm-pose, and saved from premature decay only by 
 threatened destruction at the hands of the great 
 Eastern monarchy. Amidst this danger, we see 
 
268 PEOFESSOR J. G. GEEEKWOOD, B.A. 
 
 Greece so unconscious of her strength, that only by 
 the earnest persuasion and heroic self-devotion of 
 that one city, which was to Grreece what Grreece was 
 to the world besides, was she induced to face the 
 danger and overcome it. This was the period of 
 youth. It introduces the season of conscious great- 
 ness, marked by foreign supremacy, by the increase of 
 wealth and extension of commerce, and by the rapid 
 development of the arts and hterature, — a glorious 
 era, but cut short by those intestine divisions 
 which the Persian wars had only interrupted. Less 
 than a century passes, and we find Grreece humbling 
 herself before the very power which she had so 
 heroically defied; and then comes a long season of 
 national degradation and decay, terminated by the 
 virtual subjugation of all Grreece to the half-barbarian 
 power of Macedonia ; though for a time the same 
 city, which by her patriotic self-devotion saved her 
 country from the Persians, rallies the expiring energies 
 of the same Greece against the Macedonians, — by the 
 splendour of her fall, as of her rise, almost atoning 
 for the infatuated ambition of her middle course. 
 
 Instructive as such a history must be, — and it 
 would not be difficult to find many a momentous 
 parallel in the history of our modem world, — it might 
 be thought that its full meaning could be learned 
 from the great histories of Greece which our own 
 language possesses. But I wish to point out the 
 intimate connection between these events and the 
 contemporary histories which first narrate them. Of 
 the first period Herodotus, the historian of the 
 
OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTEB. 269 
 
 Persian wars, is the most perfect type ; the form and 
 contents of his work, his style and diction, his Ionic 
 speech, full and flexible, but loose and careless, his 
 inquiring wonder, his simple and unaffected piety, all 
 bear the most faithful impress of the times and 
 events themselves. To the second period belongs 
 Thucydides, himself an actor in the scenes he de- 
 scribes, a type of Athens in her prime, mature and 
 philosophic in judgment, using a style masculine and 
 stately, free, on the one hand from the exuberance 
 and almost child-like simphcity of Herodotus, and, 
 on the other, from the too exquisite polish of his suc- 
 cessors. In Hke manner Xenophon represents the 
 third period of approaching decay, describing events 
 in some of which he bore himself no mean part, but 
 showing, in his own character, how the excessive in- 
 tellectual cultivation of his countrymen was combin- 
 ing with other causes to undermine their patriotism. 
 But if these three historians thus typify the times in 
 which they lived, and which they describe, how much 
 more apt a representative of the last struggle of Grreece 
 do we find in him 
 
 Whose resistless eloquence 
 Wielded at will that fierce democratie, 
 Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 
 To Macedon. 
 
 Demosthenes does not merely -describe the most mo- 
 mentous events of that period ; his works are them- 
 selves such. Himself the soul of that glorious but 
 unavailing resistance, his speeches were the most 
 potent weapons used in it. A still closer relation 
 
270 PEOFESSOE J. G. GEEEJTWOOD, E.A. 
 
 would be found to exist between the poets of these 
 successive periods and their times. The Homeric 
 poems are almost the only record of the age to which 
 they belong, but we feel sure that they are the exact- 
 est transcript of that age. ^schylus, who fought 
 himself at Marathon, is the poet of youthful Grreece, 
 reverent and sublime. In Sophocles the drama is 
 perfected, and art becomes self-conscious, as in 
 Thucydides ; while Euripides, like Xenoj^hon, shows 
 that the climax had been reached, and that the seeds 
 of decay were already working. Never was a nation's 
 literature so true an exponent of its history, and 
 therefore never was a hterature so well worthy of the 
 most patient study. 
 
 Less need be said of the writers of E-ome : excellent 
 as their works are, they are not so closely bound up 
 with the history of the people. It is, of course, true 
 that the leading features of the Eoman character 
 may be read there ; but they are not so essential 
 towards an effort to understand the history. In fact, 
 as the Eomans themselves avow, their literature was 
 not home-sprung. Surrounded as Rome was from 
 her origin by fierce and active enemies, the poetical 
 element which appears in the legends of her early 
 history was soon stifled, nor was it renewed again till 
 she became mistress of the Grreek towns of southern 
 Italy and Sicily, when " captive Greece took captive 
 her savage conqueror, and introduced the arts to rude 
 Latium." But if Eome did not create a hterature of 
 her own, she adopted that of Grreece, and set upon 
 it the stamp o^ hev own vigour. However we may 
 
OWENS COLLEGE, MAJSTCHESTEE. 271 
 
 feel the unapproactiable superiority of Homer and 
 Thucydides, of Demosthenes and Plato, we could ill 
 spare the charm of " Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, 
 and Livy's pictured page." Besides, when Greek 
 Hberty was finally extinguished, we can hardly sup- 
 pose that the literature would have permanently sur- 
 vived, had not the hardier genius of Rome received 
 and transmitted it. Another debt, too, we owe to 
 Rome, which makes an acquaintance with her history 
 and her writers most needful: whithersoever her 
 arms penetrated, she brought her civil and municipal 
 institutions ; and, for good or for evil, she has im- 
 pressed her mark on the political life of Europe, as 
 strongly as Greece has impressed hers on our intel- 
 lectual life. 
 
 Another, and more incidental, advantage in classi- 
 cal studies, hes in their valae as illustrative of our 
 own literature and of that of modern Europe gene- 
 rally. Some knowledge of the literature of the 
 ancients is as essential to a student of our own writers, 
 as some knowledge of the history of science is to the 
 student of science. It is needless to enforce a truth 
 so obvious, as scarcely one of our great writers, our 
 poets especially, can be continuously read but we 
 meet with numerous allusions, both in matter and in 
 manner, to the literature of Greece and Rome. 
 
 It is readily conceded, however, that sometimes 
 the study has been pushed too far, and that thus a 
 natural reaction has been produced against it. Nor 
 is this the only way in which the classics have suf- 
 fered from such exclusive preference. If, as I have 
 
272 PEOFESSOE J. G. GEEENWOOD, B.A. 
 
 ventured to assert, our own writers cannot be duly 
 understood without some knowledge of the ancients, 
 it is still more true that the Hterature of the ancients 
 will be but feebly appreciated and enjoyed by a stu- 
 dent entirely ignorant of our own. If he does not 
 feel how our own hteratm'e is shaped by our manners, 
 our institutions, and our reHgion, he will be slow to 
 see how, conversely, we may use the Hterature of the 
 ancients to interpret the men themselves. If he has 
 never observed the close relation in which our great- 
 est writers have stood to the times they Hved in, he 
 will assuredly fail to read aright many of the best 
 authors among the ancients. The inevitable ten- 
 dency of such a one-sided cultivation was to lead the 
 young student to look on his text-books from a purely 
 technical point of view, as if they were lifeless ob- 
 jects, on which the grammarian might experiment at 
 pleasure, — nothing better then a dry museum of 
 moods and cases. It is no wonder that Greek and 
 Latin have been so generally stigmatized as the dead 
 languages, and that the complaint has been so often 
 brought against classical studies, that, at the cost of 
 the great labour of many years, but little knowledge 
 was imparted, useless when gained, and soon forgot- 
 ten. But it must not be supposed that the study of 
 an extinct language is necessarily a merely verbal 
 exercise. Of course it may be made so ; and so may 
 any study. It must be owned, indeed, that the acci- 
 dence of the Grreek and Latin, as once presented to 
 the learner in the ordinary school grammars, was 
 open to this charge. The dreary aiTay of declensions 
 
OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTEB. 273 
 
 and conjugations set before the beginner in Latin, 
 and haunting him for years, — at last, with an incal- 
 culable waste of power, overcome only to appear 
 again in another, and still more perplexing, shape in 
 the Greek, — this was enough to dismay the boldest, 
 and to justify the opinion that such an amount of toil 
 was utterly disproportioned to the advantage gained. 
 But now that, by a clearer insight into the principles 
 of speech, these endless varieties of inflexion are 
 reduced to two or three in each language, which 
 again are shown to be intimately related, the greater 
 part of all this toil is saved, and ample time is found 
 in the years usually given to these studies for a good 
 mastery of the languages, and no mean acquaintance 
 with the several literatui*es. It is not meant that 
 some new way is discovered of learning Grreek and 
 Latin, free from all difficulty ; — any such system 
 would be probably deceptive, and certainly bad ; — 
 but that the difficulty is not merely mechanical, and 
 that time is gained for more extended progress. The 
 first object, no doubt, must be to make the young 
 student a "good scholar," to give him a thorough 
 command of the ancient languages, to enable him to 
 transfer the Greek of Homer, of Herodotus, of 
 Demosthenes, the Latin of Livy, of Horace, of Yirgil, 
 or Tacitus, not into the uniform and inexpressive 
 dialect of the school-room, but into genuine English, 
 which shall, as nearly as may be, correspond to the 
 style and matter of the individual author. Such an 
 attempt daily to render the Greek and Latin into an 
 English equivalent, in the manner which has been so 
 
 T 
 
274 PEOFESSOE J. G. GEEENWOOD, B.A. 
 
 well set forth by Dr. Arnold, sets before the pupil 
 the idioms of three languages of a widely different 
 character ; to compare these languages, and to discern 
 how each contrives in its own way to convey the 
 same thought, how the genius of each people affects 
 the language, and how this again reacts upon their 
 mode of thinking, — aU this, it wUl be allowed, supplies 
 a mental training of a high order. Simultaneously 
 with this power of translation, the pupil wiU have 
 imparted to him an insight into the inner structure 
 of the languages ; and here a striking difference in 
 the phenomena which these languages present will 
 lead to a useful difference of treatment. The Grreek, 
 pliant as the people who spoke it, and open to so 
 many varying influences, was easily moulded into 
 several dialects, each mai'ked with the pecuhar features 
 of the corresponding tribe, and each devoted, for the 
 most part, to a distinct style of composition. " This," 
 observes the recent historian of Greek literature, 
 " is a peculiarity which distinguishes the Hterature of 
 Greece from that of all other nations. The division 
 into dialects is itself a feature common to the Greek, 
 with every other language spoken through an exten- 
 sive region. In all other cases, however, in the 
 annals at least of Eiu-opean literature, circumstances 
 have led to the estabhshment of a single dialect of 
 each tongue as the language of letters and polite 
 society, the remainder being restricted to vulgar or 
 provincial usage. In Greece the case was different : 
 each of the leading dialects there claimed and enjoyed 
 the same advantage of hterary culture ;" and " as the 
 
OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 275 
 
 different branches of composition were invented and 
 matured, such was the fertihty of native talent, that 
 in different districts authors arose pre-eminent in 
 some particidar style." Within the limits of the 
 Greek language, then, we have the materials for the 
 most minute study of the processes by which lan- 
 guages ai'e formed and modified. While in Homer 
 we have what may safely be regarded as the first 
 hterary phase of the language, in Herodotus, in 
 Thucydides, in Pindar, are found those dialectic 
 varieties of later times, which even in our own tongue 
 the philologer has to gather together with much toil 
 and the most incomplete results. The Latin does 
 not present the same phenomenon. The language, 
 like the people themselves, less pHant than the Greek, 
 does not exhibit the same variety of dialects. Com- 
 paratively hai'sh and rigid, it does not possess the 
 same exquisite adaptation of form and style to every 
 variety of subject, or the same sensibiHty to influences 
 from slight changes of soil and cHmate, of social and 
 poHtical circumstances. But this very feature, — its 
 defect as a merely hterary instrument, — is, in another 
 point of view, its chief merit. The very perfection 
 of the Greek language, — its harmony, the delicacy of 
 its structure, its close connection with the Greek 
 soil, and climate, and history, all unfitted it to spread 
 over foreign lands, and to impose itself on barbarous 
 tribes : so that, had the noble hteratm-e which it 
 contains been left to itself, it would almost inevitably 
 have been lost, never to be recovered. The Latin, 
 on the other hand, abrupt, but concise and vigorous. 
 
276 PEorESsoE j. g. geeekwood, b.a. 
 
 was the natural companion of the Roman genius. 
 Of the language we may truly say, as Virgil says of 
 the people, that its high function was, not to exhibit 
 the refinements of arts and science, but to impose its 
 yoke on surrounding nations. Hence it is that the 
 French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Itahan, 
 are little else than dialects of the old Latin ; while 
 the German, and still more the Enghsh, have felt its 
 influence extensively. The study of the Latin, there- 
 fore, presents to us a different but no less important 
 exercise. Less elaborate and curious in its internal 
 structure, it is the key of the chief languages of 
 modern Europe, without a knowledge of which they 
 can never be thoroughly understood in their history 
 and character. 
 
 The young student, then, should be taught to 
 examine the ancient languages in their individual 
 peculiarities, and in their relations with each other, 
 and with those of later times ; to trace out the deriva- 
 tion of word from word, to classify, and analyze, and 
 compound. This, of course, is to be done by a care- 
 ful study of the text of the authors themselves, and 
 by translation from English into Latin and Greek. 
 For a time he will be occupied with the easier books, 
 but even these will present much room for illustrative 
 instruction in geography, history, and antiquities. As 
 he proceeds to read books of a higher class, the great 
 models of poetry and history, oratory and philosophy, 
 he will be taught to appreciate their excellences of 
 style, to observe how they illustrate the character of 
 their times, and what influence they have exercised on 
 
OAVENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTEB. 277 
 
 the literature of modem days. It is true that from a 
 range so extensive selections only can be read ; but 
 it is quite possible, in a collegiate course, to read 
 enough to impart such a knowledge and appreciation 
 of them as will induce the student in after-life to take 
 them up again as an employment and relaxation in 
 leisure hours ; and " the business of the tutor," in 
 the words of Locke, " is not so much to teach his 
 pupil all that is knowable, as to raise in him a love 
 and esteem of knowledge ; and to put him in the 
 right way of knowing and improving himself when 
 he has a mind to it." 
 
 It may, however, be urged, and indeed is often 
 urged, that in a community so pre-eminently practi- 
 cal as this, so devoted to commerce and manufactures, 
 there can be no time for such studies, and that, if 
 there were, they would prove of little use to the 
 student in his after-life. The answer I would make, 
 paradoxical as it may sound, is, that it is precisely 
 because they will not be useful to him in the ordinary 
 sense, that they should be so sedulously cultivated. 
 The more absorbing these after pursuits are likely 
 to prove, and the stronger their tendency to shut 
 him up in the material and the present, the more 
 important is it that he should be familiar with 
 pursuits which wiU sometimes allm'e him to converse 
 with the great minds of other times and countries. 
 Other branches of knowledge will be taught in this 
 college which, in addition to their value as a mental 
 discipline, will prove of great use in their application 
 to manufactures and commerce. With such studies. 
 
278 PEOFESSOE J. G. GEEENWOOD, B.A. 
 
 therefore, it is important in many ways that our 
 students should be familiar ; and I am too sensible 
 of their value in counteracting the mischievous 
 effects of an exclusive devotion to classics, to under- 
 rate them as an independent pursuit. But there is 
 a danger on either side. As a too exclusive study of 
 literature, unbalanced by the sterner discipline of 
 the exact sciences, is apt to engender a vagueness of 
 thought, a slavish deference to authority, and a loose 
 and inconclusive style of reasoning, so the develop- 
 ment of the reason, or, more correctly, of the under- 
 standing, alone, is likely to lead to a one-sided and 
 disputatious frame of mind, a presumptuous and 
 over-weening self-reliance, which is as opposed to 
 true knowledge as it is to wisdom. The most ob- 
 vious corrective of this is a course of discipline, in 
 which the master works of the master minds of all 
 ages are set before the learner, — works which he is 
 not invited to discuss and criticise in the first in- 
 stance, but to study with reverence and submission 
 until he has gathered from the works themselves the 
 power to judge them aright. I find this phase of 
 the utility of literary study so well set forth by a 
 modem wiiter, though with another application, that 
 I cannot forbear the pleasure of quoting his words : 
 — " If we think," says this eloquent writer, "that in 
 reading Cicero or Shakspeare our proper position is that 
 of judges, I am quite certain that ... we shall not 
 understand them. The posture of children, or learn- 
 ers, is the true profitable posture in all cases. It is 
 not safe to propose to ourselves the end of being 
 
OWEXS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 279 
 
 judges in any case. It is not safe for our minds 
 generally; it is most unsafe for the judging faculty 
 itself. Therefore, we see the wisdom of the old 
 notion, that only the best books, only those which 
 carry a kind of authority with them, should be set 
 before boys ; when they have been drilled by them 
 into habits of deference and humility, then they 
 may ventm-e, if their calling requires it, on the study 
 of the worst, for then they will have acquired the 
 true discerning spirit, that spirit of which the judging 
 spirit is the counterfeit ; the one perceiving the real 
 quahty of the food which is offered, the other merely 
 setting up its own partial and immature tastes and 
 aversions as the standard of what is good and evil." 
 
 Before I finish I would address a few words to those 
 who are to form om* first classes in Owens College. 
 It is an old Greek saying, that " the beginning is 
 more than half the whole." If there is any truth in 
 this, there is some responsibility as well as honour in 
 being concerned with the opening of a new institu- 
 tion like this, and these must attach to you as well 
 as to us. I think I may promise for my colleagues 
 and myself, that zeal, at least, shall not be wanting in 
 lis to secure a good beginning, and I trust we may 
 reckon on finding the same in you. With whatever 
 care your studies are chosen for you, and however 
 they are directed, it must He mainly with yourselves 
 whether they are to be successful. I would remind 
 you that little can be gained by mere attention to 
 the class work within the walls of this college. The 
 subject of every lesson must be carefully prepared at 
 
280 PEOFESSOE J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A. 
 
 home, and afterwards revised at leisure. I have 
 abeady reminded you that education is not in itself 
 an end, but a means towards many ends; and it 
 depends very much on what end you set before your- 
 selves, whether the education you carry away will be 
 worth the carrying. Those who simply wish to spend 
 a few wearisome years with as Httle trouble as pos- 
 sible, will be sure to gain their object. Those whose 
 main ambition is to earn distinctions here, wiU also 
 be Hkely to succeed in that, but no further ; for 
 knowledge learned for a temporary purpose mostly 
 proves temporary. Those who aim at the true end 
 of education, — the discipline of the mind and the 
 strengthening of its faculties for after-use in the 
 noblest way, — they too will gain their end, for the 
 very effort, if honestly made, implies success. " Stu- 
 dies;" says Lord Bacon, " serve for dehght, for orna- 
 ment, and for abihty. Crafty men contemn studies, 
 simple men admire them, and wise men use them ; for 
 they teach not their own use, but that is a wasdom 
 without them, and above them." 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELE-EDTICATION, 
 
 A LECTURE, 
 
 BY DAVID MAS SON, 
 
 PEOFESSOR OP ENGLISH LlTEEATtTKE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 
 
 Deliveredin Universitt College, London, Octohsr 17, 1854, Introductory to 
 the Session of the Faculty of Arts and Laws^ 1854-55. 
 
 I MAT take ili. for granted that all here present 
 have thoroughly freed their minds from that narrow- 
 view of education which would make the word signify- 
 merely a customary com'se of training, during a 
 certain period of life, in schools, academies, and col- 
 leges. We all know that the business of education, 
 in its widest sense, is coextensive with a man's life — 
 that it begins with the first moment of life, and ends 
 with the last ; and that it goes on not alone in build- 
 ings like that in which we are now assembled, but in 
 every combination of place, company, and circum- 
 stance, in which a man may voluntarily station him- 
 self, or into which he may be casually thrust. I may 
 take it for granted, also, that we are all agreed that 
 education, to be complete, must involve not only the 
 process of the acquisition of knowledge or ideas, but 
 also that of the formation of habits. Thus secure 
 
282 DAVID MASSON OK 
 
 against misconception, I have the less hesitation in 
 asking you to let go, for the while, these more com- 
 prehensive notions of what is meant by education, 
 and to accept the word with me in a somewhat 
 restricted sense. With your leave, I wiU here imder- 
 stand education as a process extending only over that 
 preparatory period of life which, with young men, 
 may be supposed to close about the twentieth or 
 twenty-fifth year ; and I will also understand the 
 word as referring chiefly to those means, whether 
 organized or casual, by which, during that period of 
 life, knowledge is acquired and accumulated. 
 
 My question then, is, Can we classify those means ? 
 Can we enumerate and distingmsh the various influ- 
 ences or agencies to the operation of which, success- 
 fully or contemporaneously, during the first twenty 
 or twenty-five years of life, most of us owe the 
 acquirements with which at the end of that time we 
 find ourselves furnished, and to the varying power 
 and proportion of which in different lives are owing 
 the amazing differences, both in style and in strength 
 of intellect, which we observe among men of the same 
 age, and belonging, as it were, to the same wave ? I 
 think we can ; and, availing myself of some former 
 thoughts on the subject, which I have had occasion to 
 express in another place and form,* I wiU make the 
 attempt. 
 
 Fu'st of all, however, let us distinctly bargain that 
 it is not all education. Supposing that at this 
 
 * The reference here is to an article contributed to a recent numher of 
 the North British Review, Letween which and the present Lecture there 
 are occasional coincidences of thought. 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELE-EDUCATION. 283 
 
 moment I had before me, on these benches, three 
 hundred young men, collected from different parts of 
 the country and the world, all between the ages of 
 sixteen and twenty-five, it would require but a glance 
 round among them to convince me, that, however 
 accurately and completely I might classify the mis- 
 cellaneous educational influences to which they had 
 been subjected up to the moment of my seeing them 
 together, I should still have to fall back upon a solid 
 substratum of assumed original difference upon 
 which all subsequent differences had been built. I 
 should see, in such an assemblage, great varieties of 
 stature, form, physiognomy, complexion, and tempera- 
 ment. I should see some tall and strongly knit, 
 others more delicate and nervous ; some I should find 
 of the dark or swarthy type, others blue-eyed and 
 fair-haired, and others of intermediate shades of dark, 
 ruddy, and fair. If I attended to minute differences, 
 I should find no two in the assemblage at all alike. 
 Now all this, with every allowance for the factitious 
 nature of these differences, would be but a pictorial 
 representation of the fact that, of all those three 
 hundred youths, no two had come into the world 
 with precisely the same faculties, possibilities, and 
 tendencies. I might settle as I chose the question 
 of how much, but that so much of the mass of intel- 
 lectual difference before me was constitutional and 
 prior to all education, I should be obhged to admit. 
 In those three hundred youths I should have to 
 recognize, so to speak, three hundred distinct frag- 
 ments of a vanished and immeasurable past, deriving 
 
284 DAVID MASSON ON 
 
 their peculiarities of shape and colour from trains 
 of circumstances ascending inscrutably through the 
 depths of that past, and, in virtue of those derived 
 pecuHarities, pre-related in various ways to the present 
 and the future. In the swarthier visage and more 
 flashing eyes of one I might discern southern or 
 oriental birth and blood ; in the fairer features of 
 another I might be reminded of the colder north. 
 The large bone of one might mark him out as a 
 Scandinavian of the east coast ; the fuller and less 
 rugged outline of another might connect him, in my 
 fancy, with the rich and sylvan English inlands. 
 One might have more, another less, of natural force 
 and grasp of mind. The constitutional aptitude of 
 one might be for the harder exercises of the under- 
 standing ; another might be ardent, impassioned, and 
 imaginative. The disposition of one, born of a genial 
 and affluent hneage, might be joyous, mild, and 
 mirthful ; another, carrying in him the uncancelled 
 remains of ancestral crime or ancestral suffering:, 
 might be foredoomed to a life of irritabihty, gloom, 
 and pain. 
 
 Once, how^ever, having allowed for this substratum 
 of constitutional difference among the three hundred 
 objects of my curiosity, I should behold in them, with 
 all their diversities of character, power, and accom- 
 plishment, at the moment of my first acquaintance 
 with them, only the various results of certain pro- 
 cesses of schooling to which all of them had been 
 differently subjected from their infancy onwards, and 
 which, working upon the foundation supplied by 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 285 
 
 nature, had gradually formed them into what they 
 were. 
 
 I should know, for example, tha tall those youths 
 had, in the first place, received a certain portion of 
 their most effective education, whether for good or 
 evil, in what I will call the school of the family. 
 The first school in which a man is bound to learn, 
 and in which every man does, in spite of himself, 
 learn more or less, is the school of his own ancestry, 
 parentage, and kindred. There is no man, however 
 strong his character, and however migratory his life, 
 in whose mature manner of thought there are not 
 traces of impressions produced on him by the family 
 faces amid which he first opened his eyes, the family 
 joys or griefs with which his childhood laughed or 
 sobbed, the family stories and traditions to which his 
 childhood listened. Happy they to whom this has been 
 a kindly school — the homes of whose infancy have been 
 homes of peace, order, and courtesy ; over whose early 
 years just fatherly authority and careful motherly 
 gentleness have watched ; in whose experience there 
 has been no contradiction between the sense of right 
 and the ties of blood ; and who can look back upon 
 progenitors remembered for probity, courage, and 
 good citizenship, and round among Kving kinsmen 
 well placed and well respected in the world. This is 
 not the common notion of pedigree. That man were, 
 indeed, little better than a har, who, counting high 
 historic names among his ancestors, should pretend 
 to be careless of the fact ; but the kind of pedigree of 
 which we speak is to be found in the humblest lineage 
 
286 DAVID MASSON OK 
 
 of the land ; and at this hour, over broad Britain, 
 there are, as we all know, families neither rich nor 
 noble, to have sprung from which and to have been 
 nursed on their mii'ecorded fireside legends would for 
 the purposes of real outfit in fife, be better than to 
 have been born in a castle and had the blood of 
 all the Plantagenets. And yet, on the other hand, 
 even those — and they are many — to whom this school 
 of family and kindred has been a hard school, may there 
 also have received many a powerful and useful lesson. 
 Men do learn very variously, and there is an educa- 
 tion of revolt and reaction, as well as of acquiescence 
 and imitation. The training received in the school of 
 family and kindred m.Sij not have been a genial or pro- 
 mising one ; it may not be from the past in his own 
 lineage that one can derive any dbect stimulus or 
 inspiration; the home of the early education may have 
 been one of penury, chill, and contention — a veritable 
 picture of a household with its household gods broken; 
 and yet, even so, the culture may have been great and 
 varied — albeit, sometimes, a culture of strength at the 
 expense of symmetry. 
 
 From this school of family and kindred, all pass on 
 to another school, still more extensive and influential 
 — the school of what I will call native local cir- 
 cumstance. I have always felt disposed to attach a 
 pecuhar reverence and a pecuhai' sense of value to 
 that arrangement, institution, or whatever you choose 
 to call it, common to most societies, which we in Great 
 Britain designate by the term, neighbom-hood or 
 parish. That eveiy man should be related, and 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 287 
 
 should feel himself related, in a particular manner, 
 to that tract of earth which he is taught to regard 
 as his parish, the assigned local scene of his habita- 
 tion and activity on this side the grave, seems to me 
 a natural and beautiful arrangement, which our poli- 
 tical system would do well to respect, use, and con- 
 secrate. The limits of this smallest and most natural 
 of territorial divisions may be variously defined. You 
 may figure a parish as a tract of earth containing and 
 supporting 2000 inhabitants — the ideal of a rural 
 parish ; or you may figure it as a tract of earth imder- 
 lying the sound of a particular church-bell. That this 
 smallest of territorial divisions should merge and fit 
 into larger and still larger divisions — the district, the 
 county, and so on — is also necessary and natural ; 
 but that a man's closest relations ought to be with 
 his own parish and neighbourhood, that it is with 
 the natural and social phenomena lying around him 
 on this piece of earth that he is bound primarily to 
 make himself acquainted, and that all the elementary 
 requirements of his life ought to be provided for by 
 apparatus there set up, seems to me sound doctrine. 
 For a man not to be so locally related during at least 
 a portion of his hfe — for a man to be shifted about in 
 his youth from place to place, not remaining long 
 enough in any to root his affections among its objects 
 and details — seems to me a misfortmie. In point of 
 fact, however, few are in this predicament. Removal 
 from one's native place is common enough, and is be- 
 coming more common ; but almost all — ^including 
 even those exceptional persons who, having been born 
 
288 DAVID MASSON ON 
 
 at sea, are reputed to belong to the parish of Stepney 
 — are located, during some part of their lives, in some 
 one district, with the whole aspect and circumstance 
 of which they become famihar, and which they learn 
 to regard as native ground. Now, it is important to 
 remark that there is no district, no patch of the habi- 
 table earth, in which a man can be placed and bred 
 but there are within that spot the materials and in- 
 ducements towards a very considerable natural educa- 
 tion. Nay, more, there is, to all ordinary intents and 
 purposes, no one district in the natural and artificial 
 circumstance of which there is not a tolerable re- 
 presentation and epitome of all that is general and 
 fundamental in nature and life everywhere. Take 
 Great Britain itself. Every British parish has its 
 mineralogy ; every British parish has its geology ; 
 every British parish has its botany; every British parish 
 has its zoology ; every British parish has its rains, 
 its storms, its streams, and consequently its meteoro- 
 logy and hydi'ology ; every British parish has its 
 wonders of nature and art, impressive on the local 
 imagination, and, in some cases, actually exerting 
 a physical influence over the local nerve : and though 
 these objects and wonders vary inmiensely — though 
 in one parish geological circumstance may predomi- 
 nate, in another botanical, and in a third hydrological 
 or architectm'al — though in one the local wonder may 
 be a marsh, in another a rocky cavern, and in a third 
 an old fort or a bit of Roman wall — yet in each there 
 is a sufficient touch of what is generic in all. Over 
 every British parish, at least, when night comes, 
 
COLLEGE -EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 289 
 
 there hangs — splendid image of our identity at the 
 highest — the same nocturnal glory, a sapphire con- 
 cave of nearly the same stars. Descend to the life and 
 Hving circumstance of the community, and it is still 
 the same. There is no British parish in which all 
 the essential processes, passions, and social ongoings 
 of British humanity, from the chaffering of the market- 
 place up to madness and murderous revenge, are not 
 proportionately illustrated and epitomised. There is 
 no British parish that has not its gossip, its humours, 
 its customs, its oracular and remarkable individuals, 
 its oddities and whimsicalities, all of which can he 
 made objects of study. Finally, there is no British 
 parish that has not its traditions, its legends, and 
 histories, connecting the generation present upon it 
 with the world of the antique. And, with some modi- 
 fication, it is the same, if, passing the limits of Britain, 
 we extend our view to foreign lands and climes. The 
 circumstance, physical, artificial, social and historical, 
 of a district in Italy or in Spain, is largely different 
 from the corresponding circumstance of a district in 
 Britain ; much more so the circumstance of a district 
 in South America or Hindostan ; and yet, generically, 
 there is so much that is common, that, after all, a 
 person educated in the midst of Italian or Spanish 
 circumstance, has about the same stock of funda- 
 mental notions of things as an Englishman has, and 
 that a Hindoo jest will pass current in Middlesex. 
 Every man, then, learns a vast deal — a large propor- 
 tion of all our surest knowledge is derived — from this 
 education, which we all have, in spite of ourselves', in 
 u 
 
290 DAVID MASSON ON 
 
 the school of native local circumstance. It appears 
 to me that, in om* educational theories, we do not 
 sufficiently attend to this. It appears to me that, 
 among all our schemes of educational reform, perhaps 
 the most desirable would be one for the organization 
 and systematic development of this education of 
 local circumstance, which is, at any rate, everywhere 
 going on. This, I conceive, is the true theory of the 
 " teaching of common things." Every child bom in 
 a parish and resident in it ought to have, as his in- 
 tellectual outfit in life, a tolerably complete acquain- 
 tance with the concrete facts of nature and hfe presented 
 by that parish; and in every parish there ought to be 
 a systematic means for accomphshing this object. 
 Every child ought to carry with him into life, as a 
 little encyclopaedia, a stock of facts and pictures col- 
 lected from the scene of his earhest habitations and 
 associations ; ought to be familiar with that miscel- 
 lany of natm'al and artificial circumstance which first 
 sohcited his observation iu the locahtv where he was 
 brought up — from its minerals and wild plants, and 
 birds and moUuscs, up to its manufactures, its econo- 
 mics, its privileges and bye-laws, and its local mytho- 
 logy or legends. A reformed system of parochial 
 education ought to take this in charge, and to secure 
 to the young some instruction in local natural history, 
 local antiquities, local manufactures and economics, 
 and local institutions and customs. Meanwhile, in 
 the absence of any systematic means of accomphshing 
 the object, we see that everywhere healthy boys do, 
 by their own locomotion and inquisitiveness, contrive 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATfOK AKD SELE-EDUCATION. 291 
 
 to acquii'e a stock of concrete local fact and imager^^ 
 We see them roaming over the circle of their neigh- 
 bourhoods singly and in bands — ascending hills, 
 climbing trees and precipices, peeping into foundries, 
 workshops, and police offices — peering, in short, into 
 everything open or forbidden to them, and in the most 
 literal sense of the phrase, pursuing knowledge under 
 difficulties. And here, accordingly, in addition to 
 constitutional difference and the difference of familj^ 
 schooling, is another source of the intellectual diver- 
 sity we find among grown-up men. The education 
 of local circumstance, as we have said, is by no means 
 necessarily a narrow education ; all that is general and 
 essential everywhere, whether as respects the main 
 facts of nature or the habits and laws of the human 
 mind, is repeated in miniature in every spot. Kant 
 never slept out of Konigsberg ; and Socrates never 
 wished to go beyond the walls of Athens. Yet, on 
 the other hand, difference of local educating circum- 
 stance is one of the causes of difference of intellectual 
 taste and style in mature life. No two districts or 
 parishes are precisely alike in their suggestions and 
 intellectual inducements. Some localities, as we have 
 said, allui'e to geology, others to botany, others to 
 fondness for landscape and colour, others to mechanics 
 and engineering, others to archaeology and historical 
 lore. Of those supposed three hundred youths, for 
 example — even omitting such of them as had been 
 born and brought up abroad, amid scenes, and a vege- 
 tation, and costumes, and customs, ay, and under 
 constellations different from our own — hardly any 
 
292 DAYID MASSON ON 
 
 two of the Britisli-borii would be found trading intel- 
 lectually, so to speak, on the same stock of recollected 
 facts and images. Some might have been bom on 
 the sea-coast, and the images most famihar to their 
 memories would be those of rocks, and shingle, and a 
 breaking surf, and brown fishing boats, and gulls dip- 
 ping in the waves, and heavy clouds gathering for a 
 storm. 
 
 " I see a wretched isle that ghost-like stands, 
 Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wintry main ; 
 And now a cheerless gleam of red-ploughed lands, 
 O'er which a crow flies heavy in the rain." 
 
 Others might have been bom and bred in sweet pas- 
 toral districts, and the images most kindly to their 
 fancy would be those of still green vaUeys, and Httle 
 streams flowing through them, and flocks, led by 
 tinkhng sheep-bells, cropping the uplands. Others 
 might be natives of rich EngHsh wheat flats ; others 
 of baiTen tracts of hill and torrent. Some might 
 have been born in provincial towns, where the kinds 
 of circumstance pecuhar to street-hfe would prepon- 
 derate over the purely agricultm'al or rural ; others 
 might be denizens of the great metropoHs itself, with 
 its endless extent of shops, warehouses, wharves, 
 churches, and chimneys. In large towns, and, above 
 all, in London, it is needless to say, the fact to be 
 noted is the infinite preponderance of artificial and 
 social circumstance over that of natural landscape, 
 and its infinitely close intertexture. The spontane- 
 ous education there, accordingly, is chiefly in what is 
 socially various, curious, highly developed, comic, and 
 characteristic. So strong, however, is the instinct of 
 
COLLEGE-EDTTCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 293 
 
 local attachment, that natives of London do contract 
 an affection for their own parishes and neighbourhoods, 
 and an acquaintance with their details and humours, 
 over and above their general regard for those objects 
 which claim the common worship of all. In short, 
 however we turn the matter over, we still find that 
 a large proportion of the most substantial education 
 of every one, consists of this unconscious and inevi- 
 table education of local circumstance ; and that, in 
 fact, much of the original capital on which we all 
 trade intellectually during life, is that mass of miscel- 
 laneous fact and imagery which our senses have taken 
 in busily and imperceptibly amid the scenes of their 
 first exercise. In the lives of most men who have 
 become eminent, whether in speculative science or in 
 imaginative literature, a tinge of characteristic local 
 colour may be traced to the last. Adam Smith 
 meditated his " Wealth of Nations " on the sands of 
 a strip of Fifeshire sea-coast, and drew the instances 
 which suggested the doctrines of that work to his 
 own mind, and by which he expounded them to others, 
 from the petty circumstance of a small fishing and 
 weaving community close by. And in Shakspeare 
 himself, widely as his imagination ranged, it will be 
 found that, in his descriptions of natural scenery at 
 least, large use is made of the native circumstance of 
 his woody Warwickshire, with its elms, its willows, 
 its crow-flowers, daisies, and long-purples. However 
 migratory a man has been, and however thickly, by 
 his migrations, he may have covered the tablets of 
 his memory with successive coatings of imagery, there 
 
294 DAVID MASSOIf ON 
 
 are times when, as he shuts his eyes, all these seem 
 washed away, and the original photographs of his 
 early years — the hUl, the moor, the village-spire, the 
 very turn of the road where he met the sohtary 
 horseman — start out fresh as ever. Nay more, it will 
 be found (and this is a fact of which Hartley and his 
 laws of the association of ideas have never made any- 
 thing to the purpose) that perpetually, underneath 
 our formal processes of thinking, apparently indepen- 
 dent of these processes, and yet somehow playing into 
 them and qualifying them, there is passing through 
 our minds a series of such unbidden reappearing 
 photographs, a flow of such recollected imagery. 
 
 So much for this school, on which I have dwelt so 
 long simply because, in doing so, I have accomplished 
 half my exposition. I will now name together three 
 other schools, which come next in theoretical order, 
 though, in fact, they and the last are often attended 
 simultaneously. These are — the school of travel, the 
 school of books, and the school of friendship. Under 
 the head of the education of travel I include, as you 
 may guess, all that comes of migration or change of 
 residence ; and my remarks under the former head 
 will have enabled you to see that all this, important 
 and varied as it may seem, consists simply in the 
 extension of the field of observed fact and circum- 
 stance. AH the celebrated effects of travel, purely as 
 such, in enlarging the mind, breaking down preju- 
 dice, and what not, will be found to resolve them- 
 selves into this. If I pass now to the education of 
 hooks, here also I find that the same phrase — extension 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELE-EDUCATION. 295 
 
 of the field of circumstance — answers to a good deal 
 of what this education accomplishes. Books are 
 travel, so to speak, reversed — they bring supplies of 
 otherwise inaccessible fact and imagery to the feet of 
 the reader. Books, too, have this advantage over 
 travel, that they convey information from remote 
 times as well as from distant places. " If the inven- 
 tion of the ship," says Bacon, " was thought so noble, 
 which carrieth riches and commodities from place to 
 place, and consociateth the most remote regions in 
 participation of their fruits, how much more are 
 letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass the vast 
 seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate 
 of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one 
 of the other ! " In these words, however, there is a 
 suggestion that the education of books consists not 
 alone in the mere extension of the field of the con- 
 crete. Books admit us to the accumulated past 
 thought, as well as to the accumulated past fact and 
 incident of the human race ; and, though much of that 
 thought — as, for example, what comes to us in poetry 
 — consists but of a new form of concrete (the con- 
 crete of the fantastic or ideal), yet a large proportion 
 of it consists of something totally different — abstract 
 or generalized science. It is in the school of books, 
 more particularly, that that great step in education 
 takes place — the translation of the concrete into the 
 abstract ; the organization of mere fact and imagery - 
 into science. It is in conversation with books, more 
 paiiicularly, that one first sees unfolded one by one, 
 that splendid roll of the so-called sciences — mathe- 
 
296 DAVID MASSOK ON 
 
 maticSj astronomy, mechanics, chemistry, physiology, 
 moral science, and politics, with all their attached 
 sciences and subdivisions — in which the aggregate 
 thought of the human race on all subjects has been 
 systematized ; and that one first sees all knowledge 
 laid out into certain great orders of ideas, any one 
 of which will furnish occupation for a life. This 
 great function, we say, peculiarly belongs to books. 
 And what shall we say of the education o^ friendship ? 
 In what does this consist, and what does it peculiarly 
 achieve ? It consists, evidently, in all that can result, 
 in the way of culture, from a closer relation than 
 ordinary with certain selected individuals out of the 
 throng through which one passes in the course of 
 one's life. It is given to every one to form such 
 close sentimental relations with perhaps six or seven 
 individuals in the course of the early period of life : 
 and these relationships — far easier at this time of life 
 than afterwards — are among the most powerful edu- 
 cating influences to which youth can be subjected. 
 Friendship educates mainly in two ways. In the 
 first place, it educates by disposing and enabling one 
 to make certain individual specimens of human cha- 
 racter, and all that is connected with them, objects 
 of more serious and minute study than is bestowed on 
 men at large ; and, in the second place, it takes a 
 man out of his own personaht}'', and doubles, triples, 
 or quintuples his natural powers of insight, by com- 
 pelling him to look at nature and life through the 
 eyes of others, each of whom is, for the time being, 
 another self. This second function of friendship, as 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AlfD SELF-EDUCATION". 297 
 
 an influence of intellectual culture, is by far the most 
 important. There are, of course, various degrees of 
 friendship, and various exercises of it in the same 
 degree. There is friendship with equals, friendship 
 with inferiors, and friendship with superiors. Of all 
 forms of friendship in j^outh, by far the most effective, 
 as a means of education, is that species of enthusiastic 
 veneration which young men of loyal and well- 
 conditioned minds are apt to contract for men of 
 intellectual eminence within their own circles. The 
 educating effect of such an attachment is prodigious ; 
 and happy the youth who forms one. We all know 
 the advice given to young men to " think for them- 
 selves ; " and there is sense and soundness in that 
 advice ; but if I were to select what I account perhaps 
 the most fortunate thing that can befall a young man 
 during the early period of his life — the most fortunate 
 too, in the end, for his intellectual independence — it 
 would be his being voluntarily subjected, for a time, 
 to some powerful intellectual tyranny. 
 
 Having thus sufficiently illustrated the idea that 
 it is not in one school, but in a plurality of schools, 
 each having a characteristic effect, that a man receives 
 his education, and -having named some of these 
 schools, I am in a position to consider more particu- 
 larly the nature of that education which is supplied 
 by one of the schools mentioned — the school of books. 
 I have already said enough to show that, of all the 
 varieties of education capable of being separately 
 regarded, this education of books, in the matter of 
 intellectual cultivation at least, deserves to stand 
 
298 DAYID MASSON ON 
 
 paramount. As the depositories of tlie past thought 
 and experience of the human race, books do yield us 
 our largest supplies of knowledge. It is chiefly in 
 books, too, as we have said, that we find that immense 
 operation already performed to our hands — the distri- 
 bution of knowledge into certain grand orders or 
 progressions of ideas, called sciences. But, besides 
 this, it will be found, I think, that the school of 
 books performs a collateral function in regard to the 
 other schools, and that only those who have been 
 pupils in it can enjoy the higher education furnished 
 by the others. It will be found, I think, that it is 
 not the iUiterate but the instructed inhabitants of a 
 parish that have the fuU benefit of intimacy with its 
 physical, its social, or even its legendary circumstance. 
 An ilHterate native of Stratford-on-Avon is dead to 
 almost all that education which lies over and around 
 the town in virtue of its having been the birthplace 
 of Shakspeare ; a boor dwelling by Stonehenge 
 drinks no instruction from its mysterious monuments ; 
 and the human beings that nestle in the clefts of the 
 Alps themselves are among the most mean and soul- 
 less of their kind. So with the school of travel. 
 You know the hero of Wordsworth's tale, — 
 
 He, two and thirty years or more, 
 Had been a wild and woodland rover ; 
 Had heard the Atlantic surges roar 
 On farthest Cornwall's rocky shore, 
 And trod the cliffs of Dover. 
 
 He had travelled twenty times over all BritaiD, in 
 fact ; and what was the result r — 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 299 
 
 He roved among the vales and streams, 
 In the green wood and hollow dell ; 
 They were his dwellings night and day— 
 But Nature ne'er could find the way 
 Into the heart of Peter Bell. 
 
 So, also, with the school of friendship — here, too the 
 iUiterate are bad pupils. No wonder, then, that the 
 word education has come to be appHed, pecuharly, to 
 the education of books, and that what is called the edu- 
 cational apparatus in every modern society is, in the 
 main, an apparatus set up to facihtate and systematize 
 the study of books. As we have said, we are, perhaps, 
 wrong in this ; and it may well be made a question 
 in the highest view of education, whether in our 
 educational system, we do not attend too exclusively 
 to hterary and scientific accompHshment. Still we 
 see that our instinct, in this respect, has some defence 
 in reason. 
 
 Let me repeat what I have just said. In point of 
 fact, in this and every other civiHzed country at the 
 present moment, all our educational apparatus, re- 
 cognized as such, is an apparatus for systematizing 
 and facihtating the study of books. All our schools, 
 all our colleges, all our hbraries — almost everything, 
 in fact, that we recognize as an educational insti- 
 tution, with the partial exception of recently founded 
 industrial schools and schools of practical art — are 
 but a machinery for forwarding what may be called 
 book-education. Here, however, we must make a 
 distinction. This extensive machinery of book-educa- 
 tion, which is set up amongst us, consists of two 
 portions. One portion has for its object simply the 
 
300 DAVID MASSON ON 
 
 effective teaching of the art of reading, with its usual 
 adjuncts ; another has for its object the guidance of 
 the community in the use of that art when it has 
 been acquired. Let us say that the first function is 
 performed by the schools of the country, and that the 
 second is reserved for the colleges of the country. 
 This does not exactly accord with the fact — many of 
 our so-called schools going far beyond the mere teach- 
 ing of reading and writing, and undertaking part of 
 the duty we have assigned to colleges ; and many of 
 our so-called colleges, alas ! having devolved upon 
 them too much of the proper drudgery of schools. 
 For our piirposes, however, the distinction may very 
 well be so expressed. 
 
 It is the business of the schools of a country, then, 
 let us say, to impart to the youth of that country the 
 accomplislMnent of perfect and easy reading in the 
 vernacular, with the correlative of writing in the 
 same. This, if an elementary, is a grand function. 
 Teach a man to read and write perfectly, and the rest, 
 generally speaking, is in his own power. He is no 
 longer a Helot ; you have put him in possession of 
 the franchise of books. With this possession, and 
 with such access as he may have to libraries, 4ie may 
 be anything he pleases and has faculty for. By read- 
 ing in one direction he may make himself a mathe- 
 matician ; by reading in another he may become an 
 adept in political economy ; by reading in many he 
 may become a variously cultured man. The accom- 
 plishment of perfect and easy reading in one's own 
 language is, after all, the grand distinction between 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDTTCATION. 301 
 
 the educated and the non-educated. There are, indeed, 
 degrees and differences among those above tliis line ; 
 but between those above it and those below it, there 
 is a great gulf. And here we come in sight of a 
 notion which seems to me of immense importance in 
 connection with our schemes of national education. 
 If we will have no concern with a national scjhool 
 system which does not secure that all the young 
 members of a community shall be instructed in cer- 
 tain orders of ideas, then we may be engaged in a 
 very noble labour ; but, it seems to me, we are en- 
 gaged in a very vast and very long one. But if we 
 pitch our ideal lower, if we will be contented, in the 
 first instance, with a national school system pretend- 
 ing to be nothing more than an apparatus for 
 thoroughly accomplishing the one good object of 
 teaching all the boys and girls in the community to 
 read and write — then I see hope. I would proclaim it, 
 in fact, as the primary function of a national school 
 system — other things, of course, reserved — to impart 
 to all the children in a community the full franchise 
 of books. How far we are from even this moderate 
 attainment in our land, who does not know ? And 
 yet we« debate, and delay, and wrangle ; we will have 
 this, we will have that ; we will have so many things, 
 that we do nothing. It is our disgrace as a nation. 
 Again and again, and again, I think that, if but twelve 
 of our leading men were to give themselves up to this as 
 the work of their lives — the setting up in our parishes 
 of such an apparatus as would render it impossible for 
 any child born on British ground to grow up untaught 
 
302 DAYID MASSOIf OlS 
 
 to read and write — ^the thing would be done before 
 twelve years were over. ! is it come to this, that 
 a nation which, bj its cash and courage exported to 
 the ends of the earth, can blow up a colossal citadel, 
 and reorganize a foreign peninsula, cannot educate its 
 own httle ones ? 
 
 Once in possession of the franchise of books, a 
 man, as we have said, has, generally speaking, the 
 rest in his own power. There is no limit to what, 
 with talent and perseverance, he may attain. He 
 may become a classical scholar and a hnguist ; or he 
 may grow eminent in speculation and the sciences. 
 We have instances in abundance of such perseverance ; 
 and we have a name for those who so distinguish 
 themselves. A person who, avaihng himself of the 
 spontaneous means of education afforded by the other 
 great schools which we have enumerated — the school 
 of family, the school of native local circumstance, the 
 school of travel, and the school of friendship ; and 
 having, also, somehow or other, been put in possession 
 of the franchise of books — conducts the rest of his 
 book-education himself, and conducts it so success- 
 fully as to become eminent, is called a self-educated 
 man. Society often distinguishes between self-edu- 
 cated men and men who are college-bred — that is, 
 who have not only been taught to read and write in 
 plain schools, but have had the benefit, for a certain 
 period of their more advanced youth, of that higher 
 pedagogic apparatus, which directs and systematizes 
 reading, and, to some extent supersedes its use, by 
 imparting its results in an oral form. Now the ques- 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 303 
 
 tion has been raised, whether this higher pedagogic 
 apparatus — whether colleges, in fact — are really of so 
 much use as has been fancied ; and whether it would 
 not be enough if, in these days, pedagogy were to stop 
 at the first stage, that of thoroughly teaching the 
 mechanical art of reading, and were then to turn the 
 youth of a community so instructed loose upon the 
 Hbraries and the miscellaneous teaching of life. This 
 question is gaining ground, and not without apparent 
 reason. Of the men of our own day who are eminent 
 in station, influential in society, and distinguished in 
 art, science, and letters, there are many who have not 
 received what is generally called an academic educa- 
 tion. I have onty to glance roimd among those who 
 are at present conspicuous in the various departments 
 of British Kterature, and I find not a few who never 
 studied in any university. And so if I look back 
 upon the past. The very king, the unapproachable 
 monarch, of our literature, was a Warwickshii'e man, 
 who had little Latin, less Grreek, and, perhaps, no 
 mathematics. True, the larger number of those ex- 
 amples of intellectual eminence attained without aca- 
 demic education, would be found to be not properly 
 self-educated men, in the precise sense in which we 
 are now using the term, but, to some extent, college- 
 bred. Over Grreat Britain, and in England, in 
 particular, there are hundreds of public schools and 
 private seminaries which do, though not to the same 
 length as the great universities, perform the functions, 
 as we have defined them, of colleges ; and it is in 
 these that by far the largest proportion of young 
 
304 DAYID MASSON ON 
 
 men even of well-circumstanced families are educated. 
 Shakspeare was taught at the grammar-school of his 
 native town, where the boys at this day wear square 
 academic caps, whatever they did ,in his ; so that 
 the proper measure of Shakspeare' s education, even 
 scholastically, is that he was carried as far on by the 
 pedagogy of his time as at least ninety-nine per cent, 
 of his contemporaries. Perhaps the number of self- 
 educated prodigies, in the present restricted sense 
 of the term, is not so great as supposed. StiU, 
 there are examples of eminent men self-educated even 
 in this extreme sense of the term — that is, of men 
 who having received absolutely nothing from formal 
 pedagogy but the plain faculty of reading and writing, 
 if always that, have acquired all their subsequent 
 book-education privately for themselves. Seeing that 
 there are such men — seeing that, by simple perse- 
 verance in reading books, results seem to be arrived 
 at about equal in the main to what a regular coUege- 
 education would bring about, the question may again 
 be asked, whether, after aU, a coUege-education merits 
 the respect so long accorded to it ? Your presence 
 here presumes, I beheve, that you are convinced it 
 does ; I will conclude my lecture, however, with one 
 or two remarks which may, perhaps, express more 
 particularly your views on the subject. 
 
 Observe, the question is not whether certain more 
 prominent institutions of the country, stjled and 
 chartered as colleges — those included in the Universi- 
 ties of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, for example 
 — deserve the respect accorded to them. The ques- 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 305 
 
 tion does, indeed, refer to those great chartered msti- 
 tutions, but not exclusively. Observe, also, the ques- 
 tion is not as to the present system of these or any 
 cognate institutions — the nature and course of the 
 studies pursued in them, or the adaptation of these 
 studies to the wants of the age. The question simply 
 is whether, when a community has, by one set of 
 educational apparatus, called schools, put its young 
 men in possession of that faculty of reading and taste 
 for the same, which are the key to all the knowledge 
 contained in books, it may then leave them to their 
 own private perseverance, according to their inchna- 
 tions and opportunities ; or whether finer results may 
 not be attained by handing them over, at this point, 
 to another and a higher kind of educational apparatus, 
 called colleges, which will take charge of them a few 
 years longer, assist them in their first inroads upon the 
 vast mass of thought and knowledge accumulated in 
 books, and, in part, supersede and supplement that 
 method of acquiring knowledge by oral instruction. 
 
 In the first place, then, colleges fulfil this impor- 
 tant function — that they guarantee to society a cer- 
 tain amount of competency in certain professions in 
 which previously guaranteed competency is necessary. 
 The professions most ostensibly in this predicament 
 are those of law, theology, and medicine ; but there 
 are numberless other professions for the efficiency and 
 respectability of which a certain amount of attested 
 general acquirement, as well as of special professional 
 training, in those who engage in them, is absolutely 
 requisite. This function of insuring society against 
 
 X 
 
806 DAYID MASSOjJT 02f 
 
 the intrusion of quacks and ignorant pretenders into 
 important professions, is performed, as well as it ad- 
 mits of being performed, by colleges. Before a man 
 can legally practice medicine, for example, it is re- 
 quired that lie shall have attended courses of lectm'es, 
 not only in what appertains to medical science, but 
 also in those general subjects which enter into a 
 liberal education. And so, in various ways, and under 
 various forms of regulation, Tv^ith other professions. 
 Now, it is certainly possible that the same result 
 might be attained by other means. The professions 
 might be thrown open to all comers ; they might 
 cease, so far, to be corporations ; all men might be 
 admitted to practice medicine or any other profession, 
 provided they gave evidence of abihty for such prac- 
 tice, anyhow attained ; and this might be tested by 
 a system of examinations calculated to ascertain the 
 competency of candidates without inquiring by what 
 means they had become competent. I think I see a 
 tendency in this dii'ection ; I know not how far it wiU 
 go, but, as matters now are, I beheve no security for 
 professional qualification could be devised that could 
 wholly dispense with the plan of college certificates 
 — the principle of which is that they attest that can- 
 didates have been at least physically detained, for a 
 certain period of time, in places where the required 
 knowledge was to be had, so that they must have 
 been impervious indeed not to have imbibed some of it. 
 This suggests an extension of the same argument. 
 It is not only with a view to professional quahfiea- 
 tion that persons are the better for being detained, 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 307 
 
 whether they will or not, in places where knowledge 
 is systematically administered. Indolence, love of 
 amusement, preference for the pleasant, the trivial, 
 and the immediate, over what is important, substan- 
 tial, and lasting, are besetting sins even in manhood ; 
 but in youth they are especially natural. If a body 
 of young men, fresh from school, were turned loose 
 upon the huge library of printed literature to find 
 their way into it and through it, as they liked, many 
 of them, doubtless, would prove insatiable readers ; 
 but it is questionable whether many of them, of their 
 own accord, would choose the right directions, or 
 would pursue their reading beyond that point where 
 toil and patience began to be requisite. The spirit of 
 competition, the chance of those prizes which society 
 confers on attainment, might, indeed, spm* the ardent 
 to exertion, and make them exchange the pleasant for 
 the dijQBcult ; and the mere progressive search after 
 interesting books, would lead others, by a zig-zag 
 course, from the lower to the higher kinds of litera- 
 ture — from Kosa Matilda novels to the novels of Scott 
 and Kichardson ; from Anacreon and Peter Pindar to 
 Sophocles and Milton ; from jest books to Swift and 
 Addison; from the daily or weekly newspapers to 
 Gibbon or Macaulay. But what is clearly wanted is 
 a kind of intellectual generalship, if we may so speak, 
 that shall muster youth in front of the masses of lite- 
 rature which have to be pierced through and con- 
 quered ; drill them ; infuse a bold spirit into them ; 
 point out to them the proper points of attack, the.re- 
 doubts where glory is to be won ; and, while leaving 
 
308 DAVID MASSOT^^ O^ 
 
 them as much scope as possible for individual energy 
 and inclination, lead them on, according to a plan, in 
 regular order and column. This duty is undertaken 
 by colleges. There young men are assembled in 
 classes, the business of which has been arranged, how- 
 ever imperfectly, according to an idea of the best 
 manner in which knowledge may be partitioned ; they 
 are obhged to be present so many hours a-day in the 
 selected classes, and there to hear lectm-es on various 
 subjects dehbefately read to them, whether they will 
 or not : and thus, as well as by the discipline of ex- 
 aminations and the like, certain orders of ideas as well 
 as certain intellectual tendencies are worked into 
 them, which they could not otherwise have acquired, 
 and which place them at an advantage all tjie rest of 
 their hves. That I have not exaggerated this use of 
 colleges, I believe observation will prove. I believe 
 it will be found that many of our first speculative 
 and scientific minds have derived the special tenden- 
 cies which have made their hves famous from im- 
 pulses communicated in colleges. 1 think also it will 
 be found that strictly self-educated men — of course I 
 except the higher and more illustrious instances — do 
 not, as a body, exhibit the same tenacity'- and perse- 
 verance in pushing knowledge to its farthest limits as 
 academic men of equal power. Their disposition, in 
 most instances, is to be content with what I will call 
 proximate knowledge — that which hes about them 
 and can be turned to immediate account. It is in 
 current politics, in general Hterature, and in popular 
 matter of thought, that they move and have their 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 309 
 
 being ; upon the laborious tracks of abstract science, 
 or of difficult and extreme speculation, they do not so 
 often enter. Or, if occasionally, we do see a self- 
 taught geologist, a self-taught botanist, or a self- 
 taught mathematician — ^then, not unfrequently, there 
 is an egotistic exultation over the labour gone through, 
 and an exaggerated estimation of the particular science 
 overtaken in its relations to the whole field of know- 
 ledge. There is too much, so to speak, of the spirit 
 of the private soldier, whose idea of the field is but 
 the recollection of his own movements. There are, I 
 repeat, examples of self-educated men of so high an 
 order as to be free from these faults. Still I beheve 
 what I have said will be found, in the main, correct. 
 Nay, abroad in society generally there is, I beheve, 
 too much of that spirit of contempt for the high, the 
 profound, and the elaborate, in the way of speculation, 
 which the worldly success of half-taught men of good 
 natural abihties is calculated to foster. You will meet 
 in society many really clever and ingenious men, who 
 have a spruce way of talking of what is to them be- 
 hind the cm'tain. Formal Logic, High Art, Conic 
 Sections, Syllogisms, Aristotle's Categories, the Ob- 
 jective and the Subjective, the Theory of Hurricanes, 
 the Philosophy of the Unconditioned — these and 
 other such phrases they sneer at in the most decisive 
 manner. Why cannot men say what they have got 
 to say in plain Enghsh ? is their usual way of put- 
 ting the question. Now, from persons who under- 
 stand what they thus sneer at — who know a syllo- 
 gism when they see it, and could repeat Aristotle's 
 
310 DAVID MASSOK 01^ 
 
 Categories — all this is very well; but from those who 
 do not, it is intolerable. It is the mere conceit of 
 ignorance. Plain English! "The assymptote of a 
 hyperbola" — put that into plain English! "The 
 square of a semiordinate to any diameter is equal to 
 the rectangle under the parameter of that diameter 
 and the corresponding absciss" — express that in plain 
 Enghsh, if you can ! These are examples from one 
 science : but they teach the general lesson, that every 
 science must be allowed its own language, and it is 
 not for those who are outside the temple of Philosophy 
 to settle the terms on which its votaries shall be 
 initiated. To pedantry or mystification let there be 
 no mercy ; and whoever, in talking to a child, cannot 
 use words of one syllable, by all means let him pay 
 the penalty. But men do not always talk to children ; 
 and when they talk to each other at their highest 
 strain on great subjects, they will best settle their 
 own mode of procedure. This, accordingly, is one 
 use of colleges — that, by accustoming young men to 
 the forms of high science, they kill in them this 
 unseemly conceit in proximate knowledge, and foster 
 in its stead a reverence for the lofty, the difficult, and 
 the elaborate ; and that, by training them in various 
 courses of knowledge at the same time, they cultivate 
 in them also a spirit of intellectual generahty. And 
 so, irrespective of their effects on the professions, 
 colleges tend to keep up a high intellectual standard 
 in a community, and to increase the number of 
 strictly and variously cultivated men. 
 
 Again, even supposing that men could map out 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 311 
 
 the field of knowledge for themselves, determine at 
 a glance into what great orders of ideas the past 
 thought of the human race could be best distributed 
 for the purposes of study, and spontaneously go to 
 work upon these in the right spirit, still, in the de- 
 tailed prosecution of any study by means of books, 
 assistance would be necessary. Accordingly, one use 
 of colleges is that they du-ect and systematize reading. 
 The art of recommending good books, and of leading 
 on from one book to another, is one of the most use- 
 ful qualifications of a teacher, and it may be carried 
 to extraordinary perfection. Perhaps, indeed, we do 
 not sufficiently attend to this function of colleges; per- 
 haps we do not sufficiently attend to the fact that, since 
 colleges were first instituted, their place in the general 
 system of education has been greatly changed. When 
 colleges were first instituted, books were scarce and dif- 
 ficult of access ; men were then their own encyclo- 
 paedias ; and every Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, or 
 other ornament of a university, was bound to be a 
 walking incarnation of the totum scibile. Hence a 
 course of lectures in those days was expected to be — 
 whatever might be its other merits — a digest of all 
 accessible information on the subject treated. Now, 
 however, that there exist, on all subjects, books, which 
 it is impossible for even the best living thinker wholly 
 to supersede, such lectures of a mere digest and detail 
 are out of place ; and the business of teachers is 
 rather to direct the reading of the pupils, and to re- 
 serve their original disquisitions for those points where 
 they can hope to modify and extend what has been 
 previously advanced. I am not sure, as I have said, 
 
312 DAYID MASSOK OlS 
 
 that we take this fact of the changed function of oui* 
 colleges, consequent upon the enormous increase of 
 books, sufficiently along with us in our practice. 
 
 If, in this respect, however, colleges have under- 
 gone a change of position, there is another respect 
 in which they offer the same advantage as ever. 
 Quite as much now, as in those remote times when 
 colleges were first set up in Europe, they afford to 
 youth that highest of all educational privileges — the 
 chance of coming into personal contact with men either 
 of original speculative power in their several depart- 
 ments, or of unusual fervour and enthusiasm, kind- 
 ling into zeal all that come near them, and imparting 
 life and fire to all that they touch. I have spoken 
 of the wonderful efficacy of this influence casually 
 encountered in society ; but it is the very nature of 
 colleges to concentrate it and make it accessible. 
 Besides, the preceptorial relation is undoubtedly that 
 in which this influence acts most intensely. What a 
 privilege to have hstened to the disquisitions of Reid 
 or Adam Smith ! What a stream of men, notable in 
 the intellectual and pohtical world, some of them still 
 aUve, came forth from the class-room of Dugald 
 Stewart ! I speak feelingly on this matter ; for, in 
 my own experience, I have had occasion to know the 
 singular power of this element of education. I could 
 count up and name at this moment some four or five 
 men, to whose personal influence, experienced as a stu- 
 dent, I owe more than to any books, and of whom, 
 while life lasts, I will always think with gratitude. 
 The image of one silver-haired old man, in particular, 
 now rises before me — a man not unknown in the 
 
COLLEGE-EDUCATION AlH) SELF-EDTJCATION. 313 
 
 history of his country — to whose memory, amid 
 changing forms of fact and thought, I pay my poor 
 tribute of undying veneration. Never, never to be 
 forgotten, that face, that form, gazed on so long ! 
 Cold now he Hes in a northern grave ; and abroad over 
 the British earth, walk thousands who, with me, once 
 listened to his voice ; and who, when they too are old 
 and move heavily, willlook back,backthrough the mist 
 of years, fondly towards him, and the distant time. 
 
 Finally, I beheve there is something in the oral 
 method of conveying knowledge, whether afber the 
 tutorial or after the professorial fashion, but, perhaps, 
 most effective in the latter, which fits it to perform 
 certain offices of instruction far better than they 
 could be performed by private communion with books. 
 I win not enlarge on this topic. I will only say, 
 that it appears to me that the forms and circum- 
 stantials of oral teaching are such, that anything in 
 the shape of a general doctrine or principle is far more 
 expeditiously and impressively inculcated in this 
 mode, through the ear, than it can usually be taken 
 in through the eye; and that, consequently, any 
 science, such as pohtical economy, the proper teaching 
 of which consists in the slow infiltration into the 
 minds of the pupils of a series of such general doctrines, 
 one by one, as well as those parts of all sciences which 
 consist of massive single propositions, can be best 
 taught by lectiu'cs and examinations. Curiously 
 enough, this is precisely that function of colleges 
 which, after the revolution in our educational system 
 caused by the increase of books, would still, at any 
 rate, be reserved for them. 
 
314 DATID MASS02f. 
 
 It were wrong, however, to end on this key. One 
 of my colleagues, as many of you know, is in the habit 
 of inserting in the prospectus of his classes, a caution 
 that he cannot guarantee the proficiency of his stu- 
 dents, unless the work done in the classes is supple- 
 mented by dihgent and continuous reading at home. 
 I am sure we all endorse this caution. And what 
 does it mean but this, that, after all, self-education is 
 the main work, and college education but a help to it? 
 And so, Grentlemen-students, whatever advantages 
 your connection with this institution may give to 
 you, you are still cast back, with the rest of the 
 world, on your own energy and resources, your own 
 docihty and quickness in those great schools which 
 are open to all — the school of family, the school of 
 surrounding nature and life, the school of travel, the 
 school of friendship, and the school of books. Even 
 in direct connection with this college, you have some 
 special facilities for self-education, of which you will 
 do weU to avail yourselves. There is a hbrary, where 
 means and apphances for private study are not 
 wanting ; and in your literary and debating societies 
 you have opportunities for caUing forth an influence 
 of reciprocal action, to which I, for one, assign great 
 value — that of emulous, yet genial intellectual com- 
 panionship. Use these means in their degree and 
 place. Let us enter on the duties of this session 
 \vith zeal ; and may its results prove that, though 
 there never was a man of any intellectual worth who 
 was not, in the truest sense, self-educated, yet col- 
 leges are of some use ! 
 
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