liAS THE CHURCH, OR .THE STATE, THE POWER TO EDUCATE THE NATION? COURSE OF LECTURES. FllEDERICK DENISON |MAURICE, A.M. CHAPLAI^f TO GUy's HOSPITAL, AlUlinu Ot' " THE KINCIIOM OP CHRIST, OR HINTS ON TBK C\T1II^LIC CUUACH,'' " St'BSCUIPTIOK NO UOKVAQK/' BTC. LONDON : J. C;. AND 1-. RIVINGTON. ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD; AND DARTON AND CLARK, HOLBORN HILL. 1839. LOVDOV : miXTIK BT J. CREItN AM> TO., BARTl KTT'S BIII.DIXOS, HOI.BOBV. ADVERTISEMENT. These Lectures were delivered in the course of the last and the present months, to a few exceed- ingly kind and patient listeners. They are now published, in compliance with the wishes of some, whose good opinion I have reason to value very highly. The recapitulations which were neces- sary in oral lectures have been omitted, a few passages have been introduced, and some expla- natory and illustrative notes subjoined. More alterations might have been made if time had permitted ; but as I hud very slight claims to be heard upon this or any subject, I thought it would be well not to lose the advantage of a seasonable moment for speaking. London, July 24th, 1839. ERRATA. in Contents, Page vi, line 7 from top, /or State read Kducatioii. " " \\\, fur My. read Mrs. Page ]1, line 13 from top, yb/' degrading read denying. " IC, line 11 from toj), (/(^/e (Note a). " 21, line 7 from toj), /or it read tliis. " 38, line 2 from top, dde " " iil , line 7 from top, insert become. " 117, line 15 from bottom, for of read for. " 138, line IG from top, for you must supply it read it must be su])i)licd. " 193, line 3 from top, /or possessions read professions. " 2G.'), line 12 from top/or examiners read examinees. " 359, line 17 from bottom, (icZf as. " 364, /or clericy rt'flJ clerisy. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. Theories of Education — Why apparently so numerous — May be reduced to three — Two of these are an- cient notions reproduced of late years — The great practical Experiments of their worth in Sparta and Athens — What Common End the Legislators of these two nations professed to themselves — What Specific End the Spartan proposed to himself — This Specific End he completely attained — But failed in his Ulti- mate End — The Spartan principle ascertained to be an impoitant principle in Education — Ascertained to be an insufficient principle — The Specific End which the Athenian proposed to himself — This end he com- pletely attained — Extraordinary character of the Athenian people — Yet the nation perished not in spite of its Education, but through it — The Athenian principle found to be true — Found to be inefficient — Found to be incapable of coalescing with the Spartan principle — Modern principle of Education — Indicates C0NTKNT8. great advancement — Must be a true jjrinciple — But those who support it expect to form a nation by means of it — This end they have not attained — N ay their Education seems to have hindered the attain- ment of it — These principles must in some way be reconciled in some higher principle — Idea of Christian Education — Harmonises the Spartan, the Athenian, and the modern ideas. LECTURE II. In what sense is Education Universal — In what sense National — History of English Education — Tlie Spiri- tual Body and the State — Powers of the former how asserted — When they began to interfere with each other — The Spiritual Body finds that it has not pro- perly estimated its own dignit)- — Finds that its great office is to educate the nation — Finds that while it fulfils this office it does not interfere with the State, but co-operates with it — Tlie Reformation — English Education then assumed a definite form — Why it does not include any scheme of Female Instruction — Or of Infant Instruction — The Grammar Schools — Their main study — Why they teach Latin and Greek — Why they teach Poetry, History, Geography — Their discipline — Modern noveltj- introduced into it — How the system has been injured by this innovation — Re- ligious Instruction — Worship — The Universities — How they difter from the Grammar Schools — Tlieir Scientific Character — Chief Instrumental Science of CONTENTS. VI Oxford — Chief Instrumental Science of Cambridge — What real science is meant to be the central study in both — Life in Oxford and Cambridge — University and College System — How connected — Ecclesiastical cha- racter of the whole Education. LECTURE in. Two kinds of persons in England admire Continental State — Its worth to be ascertained by its effect upon the Universities, not upon the Lower Schools — The . Education of the different nations of Christendom of old committed to the Clergy — How the belief that it belonged to them affected the State Power — How the belief was weakened — Jesuitism — Scepticism — Influ- ence of French principles in Prussia — EstabUshment of a merely Military Power there — Progress of the same feelings in other nations — How arre?ted — Change since the Peace — The State Education in the different nations not desired by them now — But ine- vitable — Effects of it — German Universities — In- tended to fit men for professions — Their admirers ridicule our system — Their complaints of it examined , — Proofs from the Modern History of Germany that a human cultivation is necessary — Want of it felt there — Why the State cannot supply it — Ensrland would suffer more than Germany from State Inter- ference with the Universities — Why — Public Opinion — The changes it has undergone in the last fifty years — Effect of subjecting the Universities to these CONTENTS. changes — In what sense the Universities may assert a right to be free from State Controul — But the State wotiid 1)0 foolish as well as wrong to meddle with them — EcclesiasticiJ arrogance not checked but ex- cited by assumption on the part of the State — Case of Prussia — Inference as to the duty of both States- men and Clerg3'men. LECTURE IV. Those who plead for the continuance of Education in the hands of the Clergy are cliarged with a wish to perpetuate the notions and maxims of a former Age — Charge considered — Alleged Incapacit)' of the Clergy to educate, in consequence of the change which has tJiken place in our views respecting Physics — The sub- j ject considered — How Physical Science established it- i self — Dangers which now threaten it — The Clergycan arrest these Dangers — The State cannot — Alleged Incapacity of the Clergy to educate in consequence of a change in our notions respecting Moi"als — ! Locke — His influence admitted to be entirely Anti- ) ecclesiastical — But his Influence is at an end — Modern Notions on Morals and Metajihysic* connect them again with the Clerical oflice — Alleged inca- pacity of the Clergy to meet the demand for know- ledge resjjecting Political Economy — This question I examined — How Political Economy has suifered / from a mixture with crude notions of morality. ITie Clergy can separate the True Science from these CONTENTS. IX Spurious Additions — The State cannot — The rise of Sects another favourite Argument with those who contend for State, and against Clerical Education — This Argument examined — The State wishes to unite Sects, and yet seeks to destroy the only witness against Sectarianism — Way to real union — Com- pulsory union — Evidence of Professor Pillans — Cate- chisms — Truth and Charity inseparable — The change in the constitution of English Society' another Argument against Clerical Education— How far it is applicable — Attempt to unite the different classes by establishing a race of Schoolmasters — "Why this attempt must fail — The Clerical Class the real bond between the classes — How it may become a more effectual bond — Dissent — Methodism. LECTURE V. Distinction between Professions and Trades — Impor- tance of this distinction — Tradesmen interested in the Presers'ation of it — Consequent necessity of a separate Education for Tradesmen — But this Educa- tion must not be to fit them for their respective Trades — Circumstances of Yeomen and Tradesmen — What kind of Education the Middle Class wishes for itself — What it wants — A political position may be acquired tlirough Education — Peculiarly English Character of the Middle Class — Advis^ablcness of giving them a peculiarly English Education — This not impossible — Education in the English Language \ CONTENTS. — In English History — In English Poetry — Compo- sition — Arithmetic — Effect of such an Education — On what it must he hascd — How to connect the Mid- dle Class with the other classes — Ecclesiastical Feel- ings — How communicated — Need of Training Schools — Their relation to the Middle Schools — Character of the Instruction which should he given them — Cathedrals — General Conclusion. LECTURE VI. Fearful ignorance of the Lower Classes, the chief plea for at once caUing in the aid of the State — The sins of the Clergy not to be dissembled — But the acknow- ledgment of them does not excuse them from working now — The question is : Can they work ? — Question I considered — Physical circumstances of the Lower ] Class — These, it is said, the Clergy can do nothing j for, their functions being Spiritual — Popular use of / this Argument — Egregious fallacy involved in it — ; The State has recently confessed that its only dutj' is to save the People from starvation — Position of the Clergy enables them to supply the deficiency of the State in this respect — And to remove the painful impressions produced in the minds of the Lower Classes by the language of some who profess to sympathize with them — How the Poor learn to take an interest in the Education of their Children — The feelings of the Parents a guide to the wants of the ! Children — Political Feelin":s of the Poor — Combina- CONTENTS. XI tions — How these arc to be met — Moral Feelings of the Poor — Conscience — How to be met — Religious Feelings of the Poor — Cries for an actual Living and Divine Deliverer — How these must be met — Mo- dern Education of the Poor — Bell and Lancaster — Infant-school System — English passion for Machi- nery — The Continental Authors have discovered our Error — Consequent Improvements in their System — Its Popularity caused by the Consciousness of our own Deficiencies — These Deficiencies not attributable to our Ecclesiastical System ; but to a departure from it — Testimony of Cousin — Sketch of a really Ecclesiastical Education — Effects upon England — And upon the most remote Colonies — Extract from Wordsworth. NOTES. LECTURE I. Pestalozzi — Quotation from Aristotle's Politics — Aristo- phanes and Socrates — Useful Knowledge Society. LECTURE II, Church and State, (Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Wardlaw ; Edinburgh Review of Mr. Gladstone's Work) — Mathematics and Logic — University and College System, (Remarks on Articles in the Edinburgh Review and Extract from Cousin.) CONTENTS. LECTUKK III. Extract from Mr. Wyse on the Prussian System — From Cousin's Account of the Education in Saxony — From Cousin's Account of the University of Jena — From Cousin on the French Universities — From Cousin on the want of a Constitution in Prussia — From De Tocqucville on PubUc Opinion — An Oxford Latin Essay. LECTURE IV. Clerical Pretensions at the Reformation and now — Extract from Mrs. Austin on the power of the Clergy- and on the Sects — Extract from Mr. Wilberforct's Letter to the Marquis of Lansdowne — Extracts from Professor Long on the character of Modern Civih- zation. LECTURE V. Opinion of Cousin on Middle Schools — Mr. Hussey's opinion of Latin Instruction considered — Thoughts on reading the old Latin Historians of England. LECTURE VI. Extracts from Mr. Tuckfield's Book on the Education of the Poor — On the Question whether Teachers of Schools shall receive Ordination. LECTURES ON EDUCATION. LECTURE I. It might seenij that a person "who undertook to enumerate the different notions of Education which exist now, and have existed in the world, was imposing upon himself a hopeless and im- possible task. Almost every one we meet has some theory of his own upon the subject, and can give some reasons for thinking his neighbour's theory erroneous or imperfect ; and it is a very plausible supposition that a number of doctrines which were once maintained respecting it, have become obsolete for a time and may re-appear, so that even if we could reduce into any order those which each day brings forth, our work would still be veiy partially accomplished. But, possibly this multitude of opinions may not so entirely defy classification, as we are at first disposed to imagine. The authors of different systems and projects very often refuse to tell us, and very often do not know themselves, whethei B 2 MEANINGS OF THE they arc sug^^estin^ some new end of Education, or whether they are only devising some new means for attaining an end, which we, as well as they, confess to be the true one. If we can persuade them to make this distinction, or if, in default of help from them, we will be at the pains of making it for ourselves, one great obstacle to the study of this subject will be taken out of our way. We shall then be startled, not so much at the infinite variety of projects which our time has produced, as by the strange consent with which persons, otherwise most opposed, have assumed one object, as that after which we ought to be striving. I cannot find, and I do not think the most laborious student of different systems or the person who has most diligently examined his own thoughts upon them will be able to find, that more than three distinct doctrines respecting the object of Education are prevalent among us. One of these seems to me to be characteristic of the last centui^-, and by far the most common opinion in this ; the one which we all of us hold, unless we have been led out of it by reflection. It is the doctrine that Education is the giving of Information. The questions, What information should be given ? To whom it should be given ? By Avhom it should be given ? How it should be given ? call forth, of course, the most different answers. But you will find, I think, that a tacit assumption of this. WORD EDUCATION. 3 as the purpose which we are to keep in vicM' in our Education, is most general in the writers upon it since the time of Locke ; and, till a very late period, was all but universal. The second doctrine is that which was put forth with so much earnest faith, and illustrated with so much practical talent by M. Pestalozzi. It treats the development of the faculties as the end of Education. What these faculties are; whether they exist in the same, or in different degrees in dif- ferent individuals, or classes, or races ; who are the persons marked out for the work of calhng them forth in their brethren ; by Avhat instruments they are to be called forth, are the questions to which this opinion gives rise. The propounder of it never fancied that it could be in any wise amal- gamated with that of which we spoke first. You must either, he thought, make the giving of infor- mation or the development of the faculties your aim ; if you wish to have partly one object, partly the othei", you Mill be involved in endless confu- sion. Of late many persons have adopted the phrases of Pestalozzi, whose minds are evidently impregnated with the maxims of the older school; but I am not aware that they have ])roved by the clearness of their practical suggestions, that his warning was unnecessary. As this last doctrine has become popular in England, it has provoked a reaction, by means of B 2 4 MEANINGS OF THE ^liich a third doctrine has been brought out, with sufficient distinctness to show that there are some who strongly and intelligently maintain it. It is that, not development but restraint is the end of all sound Education. The questions. What is it that you have need to restrain f To whom must the task of restraining be committed ? What is the restraining power ? instantly suggest them- selves to those who are possessed by this opinion. It stands out in more direct and formal opposition to the second doctrine than to the first ; yet, ob- viously, so far as it assumes restraint to be the end of Education, it is at variance with any theory which affirms something else to be the end of it : and the practical machinery which a person would devise, who kept this object steadily in view, would j)robably be as different from that which a person would devise who made the giving of information his main object, as from the machinery of Pes- talozzi. Under these heads, we may, I believe, safely bring all the theories concerning Education which are so rife among us ; and therefore, before we trouble ourselves with any of these theories, it must be worth while to inquire whether any one of these principles be a sound and sufficient foun- dation to build upon. It must be waste of time to compare the means which different ingenious men are contriving, in order to compass certain WORD EDUCATION. 5 ends, until we have determined whether these are the ends which we desire to see compassed. With this inquiry, I think such a course of Lectures as that I have proposed to dehvcr, should commence. We should try to ascertain what each of these principles is good for; if each is good for some- thing, how it is that they seem incompatible ; if they can be reconciled, what is that higher prin- ciple which reconciles them. When we have con- cluded this inquiry, w'e may safely proceed to consider the different conditions of a sound Na- tional Education ; for if it should appear that any of those particular purposes which we shall exa- mine, is better than the others, and cannot be pursued along with them, then, omitting all con- sideration of the plans which have been suggested for accomplishing the other two, we shall com- pare those which have been suggested for accom- plishing this. If there be one general purpose which includes them all, w^e shall inquire how that may best be pursued, and steadfastly reject all con- trivances, how-ever well adapted for another end, which do not assist us in pursuing it. It must, then, I think, be very desirable, that we should see these different principles somewhere at work ; for while we look at them as dry, skele- ton opinions in books, we cannot appreciate them, we cannot even understand them. Illustrations of the first principle we have about us in abundance ; 6 MEANINGS OF TIIK the difficulty will be in the selection ; wc shall be emlftirrassed with our riches, not with our poverty. But it is not so with the other two. I do not think we have a fair experiment of them in this age. The defenders of them are often timid and inconsistent in the proclamation of them. The systems which have been established in confor- mity to them, are mixed with many heterogeneous elements : we must look elsewhere if we would see them brought to a decisive test. But when we begin to reflect, we find that the experiment of each has been made under the most advantageous circum- stances, and, that if we do not see it actually before our eyes, as in the other case, we have the records of it in the history of a country, witli which, from childhood, we are familiar. We find, that long before that notion of Education which we have so generally received had its birth, the notions of it, as identical with restraining discipline, and with the development of the faculties, were — not recog- nised by some single adventurous thinker, but adopted as the characteristic badges of the two greatest tribes of the most remarkable nation (ex- cept one), in the ancient world. The theatres of these experiments were not schools, but nations ; and their histories are the tests of the success or the failure of each. As the great interest of Roman history arises from the proof it gives us, that there is an order WORD EDUCATION'. 7 or constitution intended for each nation, which works itself out in despite of, and by means of individual caprice and self-will; so the great in- terest of Greek history seems to arise from the picture it gives us of men's efforts to understand their own position, and to create an order and dis- cipline for themselves. Hence the one presents itself to us as a most wonderful chapter in the his- tory of government ; and the other as a no less wonderful chapter in the history of Education. Roman Education seems to be only a part of its government ; the Greek governments seem sys- tems of education. This remark applies equally to both the tribes we have spoken of. Though it may be true that there were old forms of polity, out of which the systems of Sparta and Athens were fashioned, it seems to be equally true, that at some certain period they were fashioned, and that upon a model or design in the minds of certain architects. These were not such vain and ignorant men, as to fancy that they could rear up institutions upon a foundation of their own laying; but neither were they like those simple,unconscious builders of a great commonwealth, whose minds are inspired by principles of which they can give no account ; and who follow them out in their acts, when they seem to themselves and to others to be obeying some chance impulse or personal interest. The Greek legislators had cer- 8 SPARTAN EDUCATION. tainly a purpose present to them in all that they did. I do not mean that they had a theor}' of human nature before them, and that they reso- lutely Avorked out a system in accordance with it. If they had been pedants of this kind, we should have had no occasion to consider their works now ; twenty years would have destroyed all traces of them. The end which they proposed to them- selves was entirely practical — the accomplishment of something which experience showed to be neces- sary. Still they addressed themselves directly to the minds of their countrymen ; it was the regulation of their minds, which by one plan or another they aimed at ; and hence their projects become so im- portant to us in our present inquiry. After what I have said, it will be obvious in what sense, and to what extent I describe restraint, or the cultivation of the faculties as the end of their Education : I mean, that to this purpose all their practical schemes were directed. In this way they would have defined Education. They supposed it to mean this, and nothing else than this. But of course there was an end at which they supposed Education itself to aim. That end was the formation of a consistent, orderly, power- ful nation. The Spartan legislator found himself one of a race of conquerors, which had in former days subjected and enslaved a weaker tribe. He saw these conquerors, these whom he called his SPARTAN EDUCATIOX. 9 countrymen, \veak and disorganized, in no slight danger, perhaps, of sinking into the condition of those over whom they ruled, or of being mastered by them. The questions — What gave my brethren the power which they once exercised? What is the secret of their present degradation? — must have been the first that presented themselves to his mind, when he felt within himself a greater capacity for reflection than belonged to those about him. And the answer which offered itself was this, — We were one people, we had common traditions, we were marshalled under leaders, we were subjected to restraint and discipline. They were a poor, miscellaneous horde, having no com- mon soul, each of them gratifying certain tempers and instincts of his own. We, the conquerors, are falling into the condition of our vassals, be- cause we have lost this distinction. W^e fancy it is the privilege of us, the ruling class, to gratify all our individual propensities j we look upon it as the misery of the slaves, that they cannot gratify theirs. But if we would really be what we were, if we would really be a nation, must not exactly the opposite feeling to this be the one which possesses us ? Must we not be made to under- stand that the suppression of all such individual tastes and impulses is our characteristic, the secret of our strength, the security of our predo- minance ; that the indulgence of these with the b5 10 SPARTAN EDTCATIOV. disorganization and powerlessness ^vhich are the consequences of it, are to be the badges of the slaves ? To work this change in tlic minds of his countrymen ; to root this thought in them, ' power and self-gratification do not mean the same thing, but, on the contrary, are incompatible "■with each other;' to make it the principle upon which they acted in childhood and grew to manhood ; to crush in infancy all seeds which might here- after produce the fruits of individual peculiarities, habits, or tempers ; to remove from them every temptation which should lead them to feel them- selves anything, or to be anything but members of a compact, organized state, these were the Spartan's objects. He felt — it is possible to form a nation, moving by one impulse, determined to one end ; but it is only possible upon these con- ditions. It is only possible if, by Education, we can subdue those feelings in each man, which move him to assert a distinct, independent posi- tion for himself. Now the thought may occur to us : surely these were not, as you said just now they were, favour- able circumstances for making this experiment. Surely that body of slaves must have greatly in- terfered with the success of it. I answer, if you mean that the existence of such a body was in itself a monstrous anomaly and evil, I suppose there cannot be two opinions on the subject. But if you mean that it prevented the Spartan from SPARTAN EDUCATION. 11 submitting to that discipline which the legislator imposed upon him, you are supporting an opi- nion to Avhich reason gives no countenance, and which history directly negatives. The experi- ment Mas made, and was perfectly successful; and one great cause of its success was the exist- ence of this very body of Helots. Without that continual specimen of the effects of a loose, disor- derly manner of life ; without the continual terror which the presence of such a mass struck into their masters, I do not see what chance there would have been of persuading any body of men to adopt these self-degrading regulations, far less to maintain them for so many centuries. And the fact stands good against all cavilling; this was done ; a system of restraint, to which there has been no parallel, did establish itself in all the daily acts and proceedings of these Spartans ; they did give up their individual tastes, and judgments, and impulses ; they did submit themselves to a rigid, all-compelling law. The principle did work itself out into all the details of life. You cannot think of any occasion to which it could be applied to which it was not applied. You can point to a hundred regulations in the system, against which your feelings, and something higher than your feel- ings, may revolt. But can you })oint to one which was not directly and most admirably contrived for the accomplishment of this object ? Are we, then, to decide that the object was 12 SPARTAN EDUCATION. a wrong one ? I think wc shall have great difficulty in doing that ; 1 think our consciences •will hardly let ns do it. When we see a system getting such a footing as this did, not by appeal- ing to the lower feehngs and instincts of our nature, but by defying them; when we see it making its way, and holding its ground against all appearances and probabilities, I think it is very hard to say, *' There was no truth in this, it was based upon a falsehood." Granting that local circumstances, and those of a dishonour- able kind, may have helped to give this system a footing, and may have frightened those who had adopted it from abandoning it, yet can we believe that it derived more than such accidental support fi'om these circumstances, as would have been totally unequal to sustain a principle which had not some strength and vitality of its own. I think we must admit, that when this doc- trine was propounded to the Spartans — '• Indivi- dual feelings, dispositions, habits, must be sacri- ficed, that you may be a free and united nation," there was something in their inmost being which responded — " This is true." And if this be the case, I cannot see what is to determine the appli- cation of this principle to one age or one meri- dian ; there must be a meaning and a worth in it for us as there was for them ; twenty-five hundred vears cannot have made it obsolete or weak. SPARTAN EDUCATION. 13 That this principle then was tried most per- fectly, and that it proved itself to be good for something in Education, I think we have proof. And now the questions remain. Have we proof that it is the principle which we are to keep in sight in our Education ? Did it avail for that ulti- mate end which the legislator proposed to himself, the formation of a great nation? There is one glaring event in Greek history upon which we inevitably fix as the illustration of the Spartan mind, and of the effects of Spartan discipline. Undoubtedly it was a marvellous illustration of both, for the three hundred Spartans died not from any principle of ambition or glory, or from any theory about what it was graceful or becoming to do, but simply in obedience to the laws. Such a fact is sufficient, I think, to prove that there was a strength and steadfastness in this principle ; and therefore it should be spoken of; and the repetitions of so many centuries have not made the record of it less stirring or less pregnant ■with meaning. But I believe it must be allowed that nearly the whole interest of Spartan history is gathered up in the pass of Thermopylae. Take away that one fact, and all their proceedings during the Persian war are poor, selfish, and contemptible. Before that time, though their polity must have lasted for some centuries, they had certainly not produced one great man. The 14 SPAUTAX RDITCATfON. most conspicuous figure in their history, up to the Persian invasion, is Cleomenes, a madman, who, in all his conduct at home and abroad, seemed to show what a tremendous reaction the Spartan system must produce in any mind that was not wholly formed by it. A still more remarkable illustration of the same truth on another side is furnished by the history of the period immediately after the Persian war. During that time, when the other principal state of Greece was pouring forth remarkable men almost in multitudes, Sparta produced one of whom history has taken notice. This man, Pausanias, affords us an instance of a Spartan brought into contact with Oriental luxury. We find that it immediately turns his brain; he cannot the least resist the impression of splendid costume, and imperial dainties; he must attempt the most absurd and awkward imi- tation of them in his own Republic. But a period comes in the history of Greece, which would seem likely to call forth all the greatness that was latent in Laceda?mon. The Dorian is brought into contact with the Ionian ; every tribe feeling is alive ; the Spartan has an opportunity of displaying himself in his own proper occupation of war. We have the best opportunity of knowing what he did, for we have a most impartial, observant, considerate historian of the whole transaction ; he discovers one man SPARTAN EDUCATION'. 15 during the whole war, who exhibited the same kind of virtue and spirit, though on far less re- markable occasions, which distinguished the hero of Thermopylae. All the other actors on the Spartan side are men of no mark or worth at all ; mere generals, finding no occasion for the exhibi- tion even of military virtues. If there had been any bright traits in the latter part of this period, the author who brings the history of the war to a conclusion, would certainly have discovered them, for he had the strongest prejudice in favour of Sparta and her institutions : it is a black picture of pride and cruelty with scarcely one redeeming feature. Whatever there was best among Spartans was proljably called forth in the latest age of their commonwealth, when some men were stirred up, by the degeneracy of all around them, to strive and strive in vain for the recovery of the ancient discipline. These facts would seem to go a good way in proving that the res- training principle — if it be a grand element in Education, cannot be the governing law of it. And yet they are not all which show that the Lycurgan system, complete and circular as it was, failed to accomplish its own purpose of building up a nation. We have the testimony of the most acute observer of antiquity, a testimony which Mr. Mitford has endeavoured to special plead, by alleging that it referred only to a period 10 ATHEMAN EDICATION. after the old institutions had decayed, vhereas it is in fact a most elaborate criticism upon the j)rinciple of these institutions, and the natural result of them ; — we have this testimony that the Spartan state became, through the measures of Lycurgus, utterly without wealth, while its indi- vidual members became inordinate lovers of wealth ; so that the restraining system operated indeed to the extinction of individual character, but inflamed, instead of extinguishing, individual ambition and avarice. — (See Note xV,) We are in search then of some other Education containing this element within it, or capable of adopting this element into it, and we have now to inquire, whether the Athenian principle satis- fies this condition, and whether, in other respects, it justifies itself to us, as an instrument for forming a nation ? Before the idea, which gave all its peculiarity to the Athenian polity as well as to the Athenian Education, had put itself forth in a system, the Ionian tribe had already shown itself possessed of those wonderful powers which have made it illustrious in all generations since. The spirit of quick and subtle observation, of invention and contrivance, of earnest and patient inquir}^ was beginning to find various methods of exer- cising itself in the colonies on the coast of Asia ; there, no doubt, the Greek faculty was developed, and kept alive by the attempt to maintain a position ATHENIAN EDUCATION'. l7 on a foreign soil, and to find some power which should be a counterpoise to the physical power of the empire in which they dwelt and traded. When an Athenian compared what he saw or heard of in those colonies, with the condition of his own tribe, in its mother city, in a period of weakness and disorganization, as great probably as that in which Sparta was found by Lycurgus, his reflections would naturally take some such direction as this : He would say. Why cannot this great and ancient city be as orderly and powerful as those new cities which are rising into such consequence on the other side of the ^gean? We belong to the same race as they, we are not in any natural qualities inferior, and we have this immense superiority, that we ai'e upon our native soil. What can be the cause but this that our energies of thought and action are slumber- ing within us ? nothing has been done to make us understand by effort and exertion what they are. The condition of the body of slaves in Attica would suggest to him, as the condition of the Helots in Sparta did to Lycurgus, an argument in favour of the principle which was working itself out in his mind : How had these men become slaves originally, what kept them slaves now, but the absence of these faculties of insight and action which belonged to their conquerors ? They had been, they were still, a mere lifeless mass. IS ATHENIAN EDI'CATION. powerful as a mass, each element of itself insig- nificant and worthless. This was, no doubt, the proper condition for slaves ; but the condition for citizens must be that each one feels and knows himself to be something — that he is conscious of powers within him, and knows how to put them forth. This is a very different train of thoughts, indeed, from that which we attributed to the Spartan, a difference occasioned by the different characters of the two tribes, and probably by the different circumstances of the two periods. Nay, it is possible that the state of Sparta itself, carry- ing, as it must have done, to an Ionian, a con- demnation of the maxim upon which it was founded, may have had its effect in producing the change. Yet it will be observed that the oc- casion of these reflections was in some important particulars the same ; the object in both cases alike was to raise a disorganised society into a nation, in both cases alike the circumstances of the slaves helped to determine or strengthen the convictions of the legislator. And, therefore, the remark which I made before, applies also here. It must not be said that the existence of slavery in Attica renders the principle of cultivating the faculties inapplicable or impossible. On the con- trary, as the sight of the disorganised mass of Helots, given up to self-indulgence and brutality, was a stimulus to the self-restraint and obedience ATHENIAN EDUCATION. 19 of the Lacedemonian, so, the sight of a body of slaves, degraded and uncultivated, Avas a stimulus to all the acts of self-cultivation in the Athenian. Slavery, in each case, did not take from the success of the experiment, but was an important condition of its success. And we are bound to confess that this scheme for cultivating individual energies, like the Lace- demonian scheme for restraining them, was per- fectly successful. Both that part of the system which may technically be called political — the de- mocratic constitution of the state — the powers of voting and judging given to so large a portion of it, and that which is technically called its Education — the scheme for developing the bodily powers by gymnastics ^ the faculty of calculation and distinction by arithmetic — the faculty of arrange- ment and composition by grammar — the faculty of imagination by the fine arts, were devised with the most exquisite skill for this end, and they worked towards it with the most exquisite harmony. The most vigorous employment for the facul- ties was provided by the one, the most direct means of eliciting them by the other. The result has surely proved that it was so. If ever a peo- ple really deserved to be called intellectu-il, thia was that people. We must be convinced, when we look at what they have done, and at what 20 ATHENIAN EDUCATION. they were, that no additional machinery which we possess — no new store of facts or opinions with which twenty-five centuries may have endowed us, can accompli.sh this work, simply and nakedly considered, of educating the powers or faculties of man better than it was accomplished among them. If it be not so, show us in what single power or faculty the Athenians, as a people, were deficient ; in what single faculty or power they did not excel any nation that has ever been upon the earth. Now, I think we must admit in this, as in the case of Lacedaamon, that the end which was thus so signally achieved is a worthy end. If it was impossible for our conscience not to recognise a truth in the idea of Lycurgus, which prescribed a violent restraint upon all those tempers and dis- positions in us, which hinder us from acting together as members of society, I think the same conscience also finds it quite as impossible to say, there is not truth in this Athenian idea, that we are bound to give — not a partial expan- sion, but the very greatest expansion possible to every power and faculty which has been bestowed upon us. How these two witnesses of our con- science are to be reconciled, is another question ; but I am sure that it does give them both. I am sure when we read of what Athens did, the feel- ing which we shall have at the best moments of our life will not be this : " It would have been ATHENIAN EDUCATION. 21 more right, that the powers which were in the mind of this people, should not have been called forth," — or even this, "It would have been better that they should have been called into less active exercise." Such thoughts will probably have oc- curred to all of us ; at times we shall have yielded to them entirely. But I do not think it can be the conclusion, in which we at last rest, or the conclusion to which we have been led by the deepest sense of Avhat is honest and true. That sense, I think, must force us to say. Whatever pow-er God has given to a man, he ought to use it, and we should do all we can that he may be able to use it. And, yet, however strange and incompatible with this faith it may seem, the conviction is forced upon us by Athenian history, that the (jualities cultivated in this people, by their Educa- tion, did become a curse to them, and were the cause of their ruin. We are not permitted to sus- pect that possibly the want of Education in some, rather than the possession of it in others, may have caused Athens to decline. We are not per- mitted to attribute that decline to its slave system, or to any other cause, but to one which is directly connected with their intellectual discipline. It is the testimony not of one great Athenian writer of the age of Pericles, but of those whose opinions and feelings w'ere in all respects the most opposite 22 ATHENIAN EDTCATION. to each Other — that Sophists and Rhetoricians were the destroyers of the Athenian nation, and that thoy destroyed it by appcalinfr to those powers, and that sense of power, which the Julu- cation of the nation had imparted to it. The grreat comedian of Athens saw this : he saw that the fcelins: of their own insight and profundity made his countrj'men a prey to the vulgarest delusions. The great philosopher of Athens, whom that comedian ridiculed, saw still deeper into the meaning of the same fact — saw that the most clever and enlightened of the youth of Athens knew about all manner of things — could talk about all manner of things — but knew nothing whatever of themselves. He saw how the feeling of their own powers had made them believe the Sophists' lie, from whicli every other lie flows by necessary in- ference, that a man is his own standard — that no- thing is but what he creates : he saw how by this means truth was confounded with opinion — how law became self-will, and morality, accident. He saw how all the crimes which his nation was committing in its public transactions, had their root in this want of faith in right and ■wTong ; in this belief that nothing is, but all things seem — in this denial of what is immutable and eternal. All this he traced home to the Education of their youth, which had brought forth the faculties, indeed, into most wonderful activity, but had left the great ATHENIAN EDUCATION. 23 problems, Who is to rule these faculties? For what end are they given ? On what objects are they to be exercised ? utterly unsolved. He saw, as others, with not half his clearness of vision, could see, that Athens was full of energies, but had little life — abounded with intellect, but was w ith- out wisdom — possessed great power, but w as not a nation. And, therefore, strange as it may seem, some of his disciples, though themselves profiting in the most eminent degree by Athenian cultivation, actually sighed after that Lacedemonian discipline which excluded it altogether. The thought of men who were not always talking, who uttered now and then a pregnant sentence, but for the most part did their work in silence ; the thought of men who did know how to restrain themselves in the gratification of their tastes and instincts, who were able to practise self-government, and were not the victims of every wretch who had a new theory to hawk about, or a new scheme to try ; the contemplation of such men as these w as so delightful to these disciples of Socrates, wearied as they were with the infinite variety and endless chatter of the clever Athenians, with their conceit of their own sagacity, their readiness to receive every impostor w ho came provided with fine phrases, and a system of philosophy, that they would have been willing to exchange all they had heard and learned, for the rugged ignorance of the 24 ATHENIAN EDUCATION. Spartan. Some of the less wise among them, seem even to have fancied that it was possible to combine the Lacedemonian system with the Athe- nian character. But this appears to have been the idlest of dreams. The Athenian statesman who best understood the character of his country- men, and who framed all his policy in accordance with it, perceived the utter impossibility of ever amalgamating the two nations or their institutions together." In a speech, which developes his views, if it were not actually spoken by him, we have the clearest and liveliest picture of the utter and irre- concileable difference between the principles upon which their politics and their Educations were founded. The one, Pericles represents as doing everything by the force of law, the other by the influence of opinion ; the one as austerely deny- ing every indulgence, the other giving the freest scope for all ; the one cultivating a mere habit of acting and suffering, the other looking upon de- liberation and discourse as the best preparation for both. No one, I think, can carefully read this speech of Pericles, or study the history, which is a comment upon it, without believing that he was right; and if so, we have found an answer to another of our questions : It still remained a doubt whether if there was something good in the Athenian principle, and something good in the Spartan principle, the good wliich we seek after MODERN EDUCATION. 25 might not be obtained by combining them ; but from all we have learned at present, it seems as if they could not be combined, as if they were natu- rally antipathic. We are still, therefore, some way off our principle, though we must not des- pair, in due time, of reaching it. And now I must ask for a far greater licence than that which is demanded by the Chorus in the " Winter's Tale," and carry you over, not twenty years, but twenty centuries, that I may place you at once among the opinions and contro- versies of modern Europe. I hope I shall be able to show you, before the end of this lecture, that I do not consider all that was transacted in the in- termediate time quite unimportant, or believe that we can understand very thoroughly the changes of which I am about to speak, without some knowledge of it. But just at present I wish merely to compare the feelings which gave birth to the two systems we have been examining, with those W'hich have most prevailed among ourselves, from the latter end of the seventeeth century till the present time. The difference which strikes us as most conspicuous, when we enter upon this new region, is that every one is speaking of things to be taught, or things to be learned, not of mental activities to be awakened or repressed. I am speaking, it must be remembered, especially of the last century. I have already intimated, that c 2G MODKUX KDCCATION. another considerable change has of late taken place in our fcelinj^s and language, a change which I shall presently have occasion to account for : yet it was characteristic, and it has not ceased to be characteristic of modern times, that a notion of teaching, or telling certain things as in them- selves good or advantageous to be known, has in a great measure superseded the Greek notion of teaching a man to use or control his own powers. Now, I think, if we consider this change well and earnestly. Me shall feel that it is very significant. The world, one would think, must have got a new standing-ground, before it could be possible to think or speak in this new manner. That we should feel we have something to tell, which it is important for this child, or this man to learn, something good and true in itself, and not some- thing good or true, merely for the influence it exerts — this is altogether novel and surprising. The Greek learns music, or geometr}-, or gram- mar, lor these he perceives have certain relations with his own mind; they are connected by cer- tain strange and mysterious links with the exer- cise of his own powers ; there is a response to them in his afiections and understanding. But that a man should believe — I have something to an- nounce to you, I have facts and laws which I come V. ith authority to apprize you of knowing them to be such as I say they are and no otherwise — this is MODERN EDUCATION. 27 another kind of ground altogether for men to oc- cupy. And yet men have felt that they occupied this ground. Strange as it may appear ^ — in the present age, and in the age immediately preceding it — in these ages, which have been called the ages of scepticism, men have asserted for themselves the right to do this. They have said, "Thus and thus stands the case with the constitution of this world : 1 affirm, in perfect contempt of all sensi- ble notions to the contrary, that the earth on which you are standing is in motion, and that the sun which you see moving is stationary. I affirm this to you as a fact, of which you shall hereafter understand the principle and the law — but cavil as you may, it is so. It is not the common opinion ; the Emperor of China, and all his millions say 'not content^ to it, nearly all Asia, quite all Africa — the largest portion of America — the most considerable portion of Europe (if it adheres to its own principles) goes along with him, and as we said before, your own senses all witness the same way, and in defiance of them all, I say it is a fact, and I expect you to believe me." It is quite obvious that no Greek ever had, or dreamed of having the right to take such a tone as this. It is a new position to have won, and certainly it looks like a noble position. One would feel very sorry to abandon it, if it is in any way tenable. One would be sorry not to say, Here also is a c 9 28 MODERN EDICATION. principle in Education which is most true and necessary, not less so than that Lacedemonian, and that Athenian principle, with neither of which we found that we could dispense. But then as we adopted our former conclusions upon some evidence, it becomes necessary to in- quire whether this principle has proved itself to be the suthcient principle of Education, and whether it is reconcilable with those others which we also admitted to be sound. There is somewhat more dithculty in determining how far this doctrine has succeeded or failed than there was in the former instances : for the Spartans and Athenians made us understand clearly what they were aiming at. There could be no doubt at all that they were en- deavouring to build up a nation by means of their Education. It is not at once clear that this is the purpose of those who have talked and written of Education within the last century and a half; it would seem as if some of them at least, and pos- sibly the majority, had another theon*' about the objects of Education than this. They have spoken of this or that portion of knowledge being useful, and this or that portion being ornamental, or entertaining : the question of course presents itself immediately — Useful, for what ? If the answer were, useful for the education of the facul- ties, that would take the question out of our pre- sent inquiry, and make all that we have said of MODERN EDUCATION. 29 the Athenians applicable to these moderns. But that this cannot be the meaning of at least the more profound and philosophical persons who make this distinction, 1 gather from a series of books lately put forth by a learned society in which it is adopted. Among the books to which that society has given the name "Entertaining," I find such a title as this, " A History of the Pursuit of Know- ledge under Difficulties :" now as a means to the Education of the faculties or energies of the class for whom it is written, one would think that a book having this object, must be as useful as any which falls within the other more honoured series. I conceive, therefore, that we are obliged to reject this, as the sense given to the word useful, by such persons as these, and by those whose opinions they represent. Again, it would be doing them great injustice to suppose, that by "useful" they meant that which tended to secure for men some tangible, pecuniary advan- tages. They have repeatedly described the facts which they had to communicate as being valuable in, and for themselves, and they could obviously have no clear justification for any of their scientific writings, upon any ground but this. Neither do I believe that such men as these can have any purpose of perplexing the minds of their readers with the notion, that a certain abstraction called General Utility, is itself the object of their labours. 30 MODERN EDUCATION. They are perfectly aware that the custom of every language under heaven, demands that the word useful, should point to some end out of, and be- yond itself; that it is a contradiction to speak of anything being useful, and not useful for some end. To suppose that they look upon their books as useful for utility, is to offer them such an in- sult, as no man should ever offer to another. Equally impossible it is to fancy, that the end which they seek after can be expressed by such a phrase as this, "The greatest happiness of the greatest number." Being anxious to clear the minds of their readers, and not to confound them, to give them not phrases, but the change for phrases, they must of course regard with deadly animosity any such weak imposture as this ; they know well that happiness is a word, which has at least a thousand different significations, to the minds of different men ; they know that the ques- tion, " What does happiness mean ? What is it ?" is precisely the question in which men feel most interested; and they know, therefore, that who- ever uses such a phrase as this, secretly assumes his own notion of happiness, and resorts to one of those fallacies for which Mr. Bentham has pro- vided the excellent name of " Question-begging appellatives." Seeing then that none of these can be the meaning attached to the word useful know- ledge, we ought, I think, to believe that it means MODERN EDUCATION. 31 the same thing to the persons who now employ it, which it would have meant to a Spartan or an Athenian ; it means knowledge which is useful to the end of building up a nation. The knowledge is supposed to be good for its own sake, the com- munication of it to be the purpose of Education ; but the end of Education itself, is as it has always been considered, to form a nation of living, or- derly, men. This being assumed, the question remains. Has this teaching or giving of information made out its title to be such an instrument of national edi- fication? We have had the experiment of its worth made in all the classes of which this country is composed. It has been contended that the Edu- cation which the higher classes received in the old grammar schools of the country was most imperfect on this ground ; that they were taught two ancient languages, and that a great quantity of informa- tion not contained in these languages, or to be at- tained through them, was thus withheld from the most influential part of the youth of our land. Hence an attempt has been made in many modern schools to substitute an Education for this, and possibly, many attempts also to accommodate the old schools to the new opinion. Still more zea- lously has the system been acted upon with re- ference to the middle class. In the commercial schools which they have set up for themselves, the 32 MODERN EDUCATION. object of communicating this or that morsel of information about a number of subjects, has been the prevailing, T might say the exclusive one. Lastly, in the efforts that have been made during the last thirty years to educate the lower classes — the labours of most benevolent men have been directed to the work of contriving a machinery, by meansof which the poor may learn to read and write, and so get whatever other information their cir- cumstances admit of their receiving. What has been the effect ? I think you must perceive, that the more this system is carried out, the more hopelessly divided these classes become. When our knowledge is parcelled out into a multi- tude of subjects, when it is the supposed busi- ness of our lives to acquire information about mathematcis, and information about astronomy, and about geology and mineralogy and all the rest — when this becomes the seme that you put upon the word Education, you raise a barrier between one class of society and another, which all the talk in the world about respects for the rights of the poor, does not in the slightest degree diminish ; for there must be a portion of the information which the higher class has leisure to receive, which the middle class has not leisure to receive, and a portion, which the middle class has leisure to receive, which the lower class has not leisure to receive ; and that which is communicated to all. MODERN EDUCATION. 33 the higher class will have leisure to receive well, the middle class indifferently, the poor class very ill. Here then, Education, which we want as the great bond to connect the classes together ; which we want as the means of building up a nation, becomes the very instrument of dividing us — ot making one feel that his great possession is that of which those beneath him, have only the most miserable shadow and counterfeit. And what if all this distinction of classes were abolished ; what, if you secure the same amount of leisure to all — then, would come in the difference in powers of acquisition : A distinction not recognized any longer as part of an order of society, would soon establish itself again by the force of individual skill and prowess — intellectual powers would be worshipped, intellectual tyranny established, and as it was in the case of Athens, and as it will be in the like case all over the world, there will be needed a set of slaves, ignorant, disorganized, de- graded — as a foil to the wisdom of their masters, and as a witness for the necessity of preserving it. But this doctrine that the giving of information is the same thing with education, was rapidly lead- ing to another result still more deplorable, still more fatal to the consistency and being of a na- tion, and would have led us straight to it if there had not been other powers at work to counteract the influence. As this principle requires men to c 5 34 MODERN EDUCATION. assume the authority of teachers, to feel they have ji right, and to claim the right of announcing cer- tain facts and laws — of announcing them before they demonstrate them — the question naturally arose : What kind of facts, what kind of laws are those which we shall in this peremptory man- ner pronounce to be ascertained? Owing to what circumstances T shall not now inquire, but the result towards which men's minds were hastening was this : The only facts and laws which we may dare thus to teach, are those which respect the physical universe — these are proved — these do not depend upon opinion : of these the teacher may speak boldly ; on all others his voice must be so timid and tremulous that perhaps it might almost as well be silent altogether. That we were threatened with such a calamity as this, I think few will dispute. A writer in " The West- minster Review," about seven years ago, roundly charged " The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" with a wish to confine their tracts for the people within these limits. They had ne- glected, he said, to instruct their readers in the doctrine of wages, and in the principles of politi- cal economy generally. He argued that in these the middle and lower classes were more interested than in all dogmas about the constitution of the miiverse. These, he said, would come home to their business and bosoms. And he exhibited MODERN EDUCATION. 35 most righteous scorn of the notion that a society should be withheld from speaking out that m hich it believes to be true upon subjects aifecting the life of men, from the fear of offending persons who did not agree with them. Yet in spite of the re- viewer's most clear and honest judgment upon this matter, I believe that not perhaps this So- ciety, yet a great number of those who en- deavour to guide the feelings of the country res- pecting Education, would have acted upon the principle which he denounced, and would gra- dually have found themselves obliged to reduce all Education to a mere teaching of physics, because on these they suppose men, in this country, are in tolerable accordance, — if a strong and earnest protest against such a design had not been raised by persons who felt that there were other ques- tions even more nearly concerning themselves and their country, than that respecting the rela- tion between wages and population, to which it was fit that his rule should be applied. A feeling has been for some time at work in our land which may be interpreted thus — " all ages and nations have been wanting to be in- formed concerning the mysteries of their own being, wanting to have the riddle of this world solved to them, wanting to know Avhat they are, and whence they came, and whither they are going." The cry has gone forth, If you can give 36 MODERN EDUCATION. US this information you have no right to cheat us of it, if you cannot give it, wc will seek it of those who can. We will not be put off with news about the stars, when there are thoughts chafing and tormenting our inmost being which we need to have explained to us." A cry has been raised. Give this information to us and to our children — refuse it to us if you dare. Refuse it to us if you are willing to try the might which there is in human nature^ blind and ignorant of all the con- ditions under which it exists, ignorant of its mi- sery, ignorant of its glory, yet possessed with a wild, strange consciousness of both, and ready to try if it cannot work out one through the most intolerable experience of the other. Such a voice as this, uttered from the depths of a nation's being, and carrying with it the most fearful auguries for the future, may perhaps help us more in finding out that principle of which we have been so long in search, than many sugges- tions from ingenious and learned men. A mere education of restraint will not satisfy it, and yet it seems to indicate feelings which may well need much restraint ; a mere Education of the faculties will not satisfy it, yet it seems to indicate the presence of faculties which must need to be called out ; a mere Education of information about facts and opinions will not satisfy it, yet it seems to crave for information about the deepest facts. CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 37 This, I think, and nothing short of this, would satisfy it : if at any time during those years which we just now passed over, those years which we said had wrought a great change in men's feehngs respecting the right they had to tell truths to their brethren — if, dui'ing these years a pro- claimation should have gone forth, that the De- liverer was come, whose office it is not to unpinion the arms of Prometheus, or to stifle his com- plaints, but to take him from his rock and to destroy the vulture that was feeding upon him — if it should have been declared, not that the faculties of men were loosed from their bondage, but that man himself was set free from it, that bondage being to an evil nature which Avas holding him down ; and if this proclamation, in spite of all difficulties and oppositions from within and from without, should have been lis- tened to and received, and society re-established upon the faith of it, then I think we might per- ceive that Education had a new ground to stand upon ; that the meaning of it, the comprehensive, satisfactory meaning of it, was discovered. For then we should understand that information given to men about this great fact of his own position, was the true way of developing that humanity in him, which underlies, as Socrates saw, all our particular faculties and endowments, and the cultivation of which, he saw, must precede 38 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. their cultivation, if they were to be blessings instead of curses." And this development, instead of being hindered by the severest restraint upon the animal nature and proj)ensities, would neces- sarily imply it ; the Spartan system would be as true and practical as the Athenian, not apart from it but in conjunction with it. Possessed of this idea, that God himself is the great cultivator of this humanity in men, and that he has a|j- pointed men to co-operate with Him in the work, the idea of an order for carrying on this cultivation — of all peculiar faculties being given for promoting it — of all nature — of all the influences of society — above all, of that great bond of society, language, being instruments ordained by Providence to help us in it, would inevitably dawn upon us. It would be felt, that the sense of a common huma- nity, thus awakened in men, could in nowise be sustained but by the sense of a common object, to whom they might all look up, from whom they should own that all their powder and life to think, and act, and feel, were derived — in the knowledge of whom they should realize the end of all their knowledge, and the perfection of their being. Now such an Education as this, of which I have faintly sketched the outline, I say, is in the highest sense of the word a National Education. It is not an Education which makes self-restraint the privilege of one class, for it makes the thing to CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 39 be restrained the same in all. It is not an Educa- tion which makes development the privilege of one class, for it makes the great thing to be de- veloped the same in all. It is not an Education which limits all high information to one class, and gives to other classes only a poor parody of that information ; for it makes the stupendous information Avhich is the foundation of it, the same to all. And therefore we may confidently expect that we only want earnest reflection, to show us how the subordinate parts of it may also be accommodated to all, how we may give to each class that peculiar information which enables it best to fulfil its own peculiar po- sition, and in that position to be the servant of the other classes, without making any one feel that we are giving him an unreal thing, a shadow instead of a substance. One difficulty remains. If this be indeed the idea of Education which Christianity has brought to light, can we suppose that it has lain for so many ages a fruit- less seed in a barren soil ? Can we suppose, that up to this time no scheme of Education should have been grounded upon it? This is the ques- tion which I am to consider in mv next lecture. 40 LECTURE II. Before I enter upon the subject of my present lecture, I will notice an objection which may be made to my preliminary statement. It may seem strange that I should have described the highest Education as national, and yet that I should have defined the purpose of Education to be the de- velopment of that which is universal in man. Here it will be said there is a contradiction ; your great wish is to form a body of Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or of Spaniards, then surely it should be your endeavour to cultivate the specific quali- ties which appear to you to constitute the spe- cific character of that nation. If, on the other hand, you recognize something in man which is above all distinctions of class, and country, and race ; and if the awakening of this be the aim of your Education, you have already proposed to yourself the highest possible object, and it is a folly to talk of this as a means to a further and much less noble end. Were this a merely meta- physical difficulty, I should scarcely take the pains ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION. 41 to remove it by a formal explanation. But as it may for a moment confuse the minds of some persons who are really desirous of studying this subject for a practical purpose, I will answer at once : The faith that there is something in man which is above all national distinctions is as remote from the notion that it is possible to construct a man who shall have no national distinction, as the most demonstrable principle of chemistry is from the wildest dream of alchemy. No two persons in the world can be such direct antipodes of each other, as he who has striven to cultivate in him- self that which belongs to him as a man, and lie who has aimed to turn himself into an abstraction. The first is the very best person to fulfil all par- ticular duties as a citizen or a neighbour, a husband or a father ; the other has no duties at all, he does nothing at all, he is merely a universal man ; that is to say, he is no man at all. I own that it is no purjjose of our Education to form such a monster as this, and that it is our object to induce a man to be just what God meant him to be, a Dutch- man, a Frenchman, or Italian, and for that end to be primarily and chiefly a man. In this sense, then, the ultimate object of developing that whicli is universal in us is to make us members of a nation ; we are to be men, in order that we may be that particular class or kind of men which our position and circumstances show that we were 42 ECCI.KSIASTICAL EDUCATION — intended to ho.. You may say that this is a lower end, if you j)lease; only admit that without it the other is not accomplished, and you have granted all that is necessary for our purpose. But our clearest light respecting the relation between what is universal and what is national, is derived from the History of English Education itself. I am not laying down any theory of what is best ; I am merely asserting a notorious fact when I say, that at the time when that history commences, we find two bodies existing in the country, one properly and formally national, re- presented in the person of the King; the other acknowledging a fellowship with men in other lands, in name and in character a universal so- ciety. Those who preside over this society admit, by degrees, all the members of the nation into it ; they teach each man to look upon himself as something more than the subject of a particular king or the inhabitant of a particular country. This is a curious state of things, but this is not all ; to these men belong a number of strange secret influences. The very groundwork of their existence and of their fellowship they affirm to be a revelation of the invisible world and of a union which had been established between it and this. And speedily men see growing up around them on their common earth a number of visible indications of something unseen and infinite. They see ENGLAND. 4.3 buildings of curious art and workmanship which they can explain upon no ordinary notions of what is useful or necessary. Some of these are dedi- cated to solemn acts of worship in which the poorest of them are invited to realize their posi- tion as members of a family to which princes have thought it a glory to be admitted. Another por- tion of them is assigned to uses even less intel- ligible ; there men are said to meet for the purpose of studying the secret meanings of things, of acquainting themselves with what has been done in past days, of looking at what shall be in the future. Hence they come forth, armed, no doubt, with faculties and a power of which humble men can take no measure — a mystery waits upon all that they do and utter. That such thoughts should have been in the minds of poorer men, could not surprise the kings of the land, for they felt them in their own. The sense of a wisdom which is different from all outward power, a feeling of awe at that which swords could not deal with, would often take possession of their minds, though as they became conscious of their own brute strength it would again desert them. . But by degrees, a new sense arose in the minds of these rulers, a sense which had been fostered by the very persons to whom it became dangerous. They began to feel " We have a position of our own to maintain, we are the appointed lords of this 44 ECCLESIASTIC \L EDUCATION — nation, we hiive received the consecrating oil from the holy man; no one has a right to interfere with this authority. But this coqjoration with its universal pretensions does interfere with it ; in many cases it defies us and resists us/' What fruits this feeling produced, in our own country especially, during the middle ages, and how it was resisted by a feeling as strong not in the minds of the most vulgar and ambitious, but of the most true and honest ecclesiastics, that they too had a position to maintain, and that all high wisdom and even all common enlightenment would perish out of the land if they failed to maintain it, I have no need to tell, for I am only noticing the political question so far as it is neces- sary to illustrate the history of our Education. With that, all the most important issues of the conflict, even in a political point of view, are connected; for it never would have terminated, or have terminated in a way that is most fearful to contemplate, if a new hght had not broken in upon the minds of certain ecclesiastics who were studying in the halls which their fathers had consecrated to learning and devotion. As these men meditated upon the great powers with which they and their brethren had been entrusted, they began to lament not that these powers had been conferred, not that they had been asserted, but that they had been used to such low and ignoble ENGLAND. 45 purposes. With all those mighty endowments, those vast spiritual influences for cultivating the mind of a nation, they had not cultivated it. They had begotten an impression of their own powers, they had not shown what those powers were ; they had not proved that they were come into the world to emancij)ate the imprisoned spirit of humanity : on the contrary they had turned their spiritual powers to the account of keeping it in bondage to visible and sensual things. And because they had not educated the minds of men, igno- rance was overtaking themselves — because they had not wrought deliverance for men, they had themselves sunk into bondage, — because they had not told men how they might shake off their cor- ruptions, they had become corrupt. And now that a new class were starting into existence, that the old bonds of feudal society were becoming relaxed — that with the intercourse of towns and trading communities, new questions were springing up in the hearts of men, there were none to solve these questions, none to tell them what the doubts and difficulties which they felt in their consciences meant, or to call forth that humanity which was in them, as w ell as in the lords of the soil. When these discoveries had been made, another followed very quickly, that the notion of a universal society, which had been growing up within the last three or four hundred years, was a gross departure from 46 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION the old and genuine principle of it, that the bond which united them to the men in other nations and lands, was their common relation to an invisi- ble and not to a visible person — that there was nothing in it, consequently, which interfered with their distinct and unqualified allegiance to the head of their own country, but everything which bound them to that allegiance — that in making each man understand his place in the universal society, they were adopting the best means for making each man fulfil his position as the member of a nation ; and that on the other hand in keeping before them the belief, that they were appointed instruments for forming a great and orderly nation, they Avere laying themselves under the strongest obligations to claim their own powers and fulfil their own responsibilities as ecclesiastics. Such thoughts as these went forth from Oxford and from Wittenberg, and they produced the Re- formation. Those who say that this event gave us all the Education Avhich we possess, speak no doubt very loosely and wildly. The Reformation was itself owing to the ecclesiastical Education which existed in the country previously. The principal of our colleges, the most important of our grammar-schools, had their origin in an earlier period. But there is a sense in which such an assertion is true. At the Reformation, the use and purpose of those institutions, which the piety ENGLAND. 4% of an older time had bequeathed, and which the piety of that time would certainly not have been able to create, began to be understood. Then it was felt, (in England, I mean), that the majesty of churches and collegiate buildings was not valu- able, because it created in men generally a blind impression of fear for what was transacted there, or for the persons who ministered there, and so kept them at a cowardly and dishonourable distance from all invisible realities, doing homage only to that which is apparent or tangible ; but because it inspired a quiet, habitual faith in those invisible realities ; because it told those who were conversing day by day with a world of shows, pictures, and images, in a language which they could understand, that there is a substantial Morld about them, in m hich they may dwell. Then it was felt, that learning is indeed a mystery ; that every art and science which brings men into the contemplation of principles and laws, is a mys- tery ; that the mystery of man's being is deeper than all these ; and that there is a mystery upon which man's being rests, which is deeper than that ; but that these mysteries are degraded and profaned when the profession or knowledge of them is used to advance the reputation or glory of those who are admitted to them, Avhen they do not lead to humility, and to a desire tliat others should share the same initiation. Then it was 48 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — felt, that all orders of men being entrusted \vith some function for the good of their brethren, no one order has a right to shrink from the assertion of its own peculiar powers, for those powers are not gifts but trusts, not for rule but for ministry. This being the case as to the whole intention of our system, it was natural that the particular parts of it should also become about this time better distinguished, and that without anv formal alteration in the subjects taught, or in the method of teaching, the principles of both should become more precise and intelligible. For reasons which we shall perhaps understand better as we proceed, the Universities in earlier times seem to have too much usurped the whole Education of the country ; the distinct object of the grammar-schools was not ascertained. Now their respective purposes became gradually more and more apparent. The two Universities of the country, through the ope- ration of various circumstances, found out for themselves different provinces of thought. The relation between the general body of the Univer- sity, and the particular colleges into which it was divided, became also more accurately defined. Other changes took place of scarcely less import- ance ; but these are enough to prove that the Re- formation gave, (not so much by sudden acts, as by its general influence upon the mind of the country), that form and consistency to our scheme FEMALES — INFANTS. 49 of Education, \vhich enables us to understand it as a whole, and to see how the different portions of it are related. It will assist us, perhaps, in understanding both, if we first take notice of two conspicuous omissions in this system. As the universities and grammar- schools make up what I have called our National Education, it is obvious that there is no provision for the instruction of females or of infants. Modern commentators will have no difficulty in explaining this deficiency; they will say, of course, that it arose from the low opinion which our barbarous ancestors formed of the female intellect, and from their believing that children, who were not yet able to study school-logic, or take part in martial exercises, had no souls which it was possible to cultivate. This solution is very easy and plausi- ble; but I am afraid that facts show it to be un- tenable. It may be said, and with a certain truth, that the reverence for women which Chivalry fos- tered, had nothing whatever to do with respect for their understandings. Undoubtedly these were not the main objects of loyalty and devotion, though I should find it hard to believe that the old knights made such accurate and scientific dis- tinctions between moral, intellectual, and external qualities, that no homage to wit and wisdom ever mingled with their admiration for goodness and beauty. But how does the remark apply to the D 50 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — time of \vliich we have just been speaking, the time immediately preceding and following the Reformation ? Are there any indications of the alleged feeling in the history either of the Latin or the Teutonic countries of that period? Is the exquisite portrait of a princess of the house of D'Este, the friend and inspirer of Tasso, which a modern poet has drawn, solely the creation of his genius? Were not tlie materials for it supplied by authentic records of herself, and her mother, her sisters, and of many other ladies of the courts of Italy ? And who will say that such instances were confined to the south ? Did not the brave and humble-minded daughter of Sir Thomas More, who met her father in his way to the scaf- fold, assist Erasmus Mith her criticisms ? And was not the noble lady, Avho herself died on the scaf- fold not many years after, a student of Plato? Surely at that time the Unas and Glorianas had become the mistresses of fairy tales — the highest intellectual accomplishments Avere believed to be compatible with the finest moral graces. Equally unfortunate is the suggestion that either in the middle ages or in the period which followed them, infancy could have been regarded with con- tempt as only the shell of a substance hereafter to come into being. Every thing that we know about the opinions of those times, would lead to directly the opposite conclusion, that a more awful FEMALES INFANTS. 51 recognition of a mysterious presence in the child than is at all common in these days, characterized them. But they had learned from the discipline of old Rome, which was surel}' not disposed to underv alue the authority of the state, or the hold which it had upon its citizens, that it is much safer for the interest of this very State that it should, in the first place, maintain the parental authority, and should not, for some years, claim any rights of its own distinct from that. It seemed to the wise men of this old republic, that great as was the risk of leaving children to the chance prudence of particular parents, it was a far greater and more terrible risk not to recognize the family principle, not to assert the parental responsibility. Now, whatever arguments deter- mined them in favour of this course, must have seemed to our ancestors infinitely more strong in favour of the adoption of it by themselves ; for their children could not be looked upon as merely left to parental authority; they had already been taken into another and a higher guardianship, not in the least interfering with that, but protecting and guiding it. The children were already adopted into that larger society from which all the Educa- tion of the country proceeded, and wire already subjected to its general moral influences. Was it not well for awhile to be content with this, and to reckon it a better preparation for their becoming D 2 ;>2 IXCLESIASTICAL EDICATION — afterwards members of a nation, than if they were assumed to be already in that capacity ? They had a similar precedent and a similar argument in the other case. Rome felt herself more indebted, and was more indebted to her women for the firm and manly character of her citizens, than to any other cause whatsoever ; but this tone they were able to impart to their f^ons, and husbands, and brothers, because, not their qualities, but others which cor- responded to them, and were the reflection of them, a])peared in their own lives. It seemed to the Romans that a nation, in order to be perfect, supposes something besides itself, and that in the domestic character of woman, continually brought into contact with those who, properly speaking, form the nation, it possesses this blessing. Here again our ancestors were able to try a principle, hazardously but successfully, attempted by this Pagan nation, under far happier circumstances. Their women grew up as the members of the great and universal society, under the influence of those principles which asserted the dignity of women, by asserting their distinctness, which made it treason against high mysteries to confound their duties or their powers with those of the other sex : while therefore there was nothing whatever to ex- clude their faculties from the very highest cultiva- tion which their circumstances enabled them to obtain, while there was everything in the atmos- GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS. 53 phere of wonder and of study around them to tempt them to this cultivation, the condition of it was, (a condition perfectly realized in the cases I have named,) that their life should be domestic, that they should sustain the nation by standing in a manner apart from it, and therefore that they should not be included in the provisions for a National Education. It thus becomes evident that the object of these schools and universities was to raise up citizens for the commonwealth, and now we are to consider the means by which this work is effected. The first distinction which is likely to strike us in the grammar-school, is that which is indicated by its name. Language has assumed a place in this Edu- cation, which it certainly did not hold in eitlier of the ancient schemes which I spoke of in the last Lecture, and from which it has been deposed in all modern schemes. I am very far from saying that it ought to be invested with such importance by any systems pursuing the ends at which they aimed. The Athenian saw that grammar was an excellent instrument for cultivating certain faculties, but he was quite right that in that point of view it is only one of several instruments, all equally to be prized. To the person Avho aims at communicat- ing information on a variety of subjects, language can be, of course, but one of those subjects, or at best the study of any particular language, a means of 54 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — attaining the particular information which ia stored in the books that have been written in it. But suppose we were really and heartily to believe that there is something universal in man, and that to awaken this into power and life, is that end of Education to which every other is secondary, it seems to me that the thought at once presents itself, " there must be some one study more than any other which is destined to effect this end; some one way of appealing directly to the man within us, and of leading him to acknowledge himself." And after we have cast about far and wide in search of such a power as this, after we have sought for it in the heights above and in the depths beneath, does it not seem likely that we shall at last be brought to this conclusion — ^ The words Avhich I speak and which I hear, those utterances by which I understand my fellow-crea- tures, and which enable them to understand me, surely there is a marvel and a mystery in these which must more assure me and assure the pea- sant that there is a bond between us than all the common sights and sounds of nature, or than light, or than whatever else in the world about us belongs not to one man, but to all. For all these stand aloof from us, this belongs to ourselves ; it comes both from vis and to us with the same witness of fellowship and sympathy.' Now, though we may GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS. 55 be long in working our way back to the opinion that the meditation of words, of their powers and their structure, their dependencies and connexions must be the most direct means of making the mind intelligently recognise that truth, which, by all other means and ways, we are seeking to put it in possession of, yet, I believe this is also a very simple opinion, and the one most likely to com- mend itself to simple men, and which being once received, would establish itself by daily experience. Nevertheless if you can find any mere acci- dents which determined our ancestors to this course, or which led them gradually into it after trials and failures in another, I shall not care. I am not the least anxious to prove that all which is done is the fruit of human foresight and deli- beration ; I leave that doctrine to modern philoso- phers to maintain as they can ; and if in their pro- digal generosity they will supply me with facts to overset their own conclusion to prove that *' There's a Divinity which shapes men's ends, rough them how they will," I shall accept such presents with all thankfulness. This one fact will remain after all ; the principle of making language the centre of all intellectual studies has by some means or other established itself. It has been laughed at by all manner of wits, great and small, for the last century and a half. It remains a 56 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — principle still, not damaged in the least degree by all that laughter ; and now, in this year 1 ^M), it is a question which can be boldly put with far less fear of contumely and contempt than ever before, whether the grand comprehensive practical truth be not contained in the old system, and certain partial, poor, shrivelled substitutes for it in the new. If lanjT-uao-e be once admitted to the rank which I have claimed for it, we cannot recjuire much proof that the principles of it should be learnt in some particular language, or languages. The fancy that general theories or notions about lan- guage are the ways to make any man feel what its purposes are, or to attain a deep practical sense of his own humanity, is one which scarce!}' any reasonable person will entertain for a moment. The gradual discovery and assurance of principles and laws through facts, is the course which mo- dern as well as ancient wisdom would point out as the only safe and true one. But what is the reason for selecting those two languages which form the staple of Education in our grammar- schools ? I am quite willing to allow that the choice of these languages is an accident of the system, and that it would be possible to teach the principles of language in an orderly and scien- tific manner, by means of our own or any other. AVhen I come to speak of the Education of the middle class, I shall probably have occasion to GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS. 57 show how this may be done, without sacrificing the principle of our system, and why, from the particular circumstances of that class, it is more expedient that it should be done in their case than that the practice of our grammar-schools should be literally copied. But, at the same time, it seems to me equally certain that the most com- plete way of teaching language is, and must always be, through these particular languages ; that the circumstances of the higher class, in this cotmtry, do now, more than ever, imperatively demand the continuance of this method ; and that unless it be retained as the type and model of what the purely English Education should be, that will be conducted in a most unsatisfactory man- ner. I attribute no sagacity to our ancestors in the selection which they made ; it was a matter of course that Latin should be the staple of teaching in the middle ages, and scarcely less natural that Greek should take its place by the side of it after the revival of letters. Nevertheless, the first of these languages does seem to be the one which sets forth most clearly all the formal arrangements and conditions of grammar, and the other all the living powers and properties of words, and that these should be offered to the study of boys m ho are hereafter to mix much in society, to see the phrases of their own language defaced by the fashions and usages of their time, and to converse D 5 58 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATIOX with foreigners in other languages, which also re- flect present feelings and notions ; this, it should seem, must be a most fortunate circumstance, if it be important to plant a sense of that which is permanent and universal deeply in the mind. I should scarcely think it needful to mention that as the principles of language are communicated through a particular language, so that language is made intelligible to the student through a parti- cular literature, if it were not important to observ'e in what May information is communicated on this system. Here are no courses of history, no lec- tures on the principles of poetry, no physical or mathematical geography : but books of history, and books of poetry, are read, and the locahties described in these books are examined. Evidently this part of the system is consistent with the rest ; if it is an error it is a wilful error. The facts of a particular history are those which awaken the his- torical feeling, are those which make a boy feel that he is connected with acts and events which passed hundreds of years ago, thousands of miles away. The spirit of a particular poem, is that which awakens the poetical spirit in answer to it, and makes him feel that the thoughts and feelings of men who lived hundreds of years ago, and thousands of miles away are his thoughts and feelings. If vou would desire him ever to enter into the laws and principles of history, ever to GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS. 59 understand the meaning and nature of poetry, you must first give him this living interest in both ; this is the preparation, and, if he never goes further, he has something which will stay by him, some- thing which has become part of his own being. In like manner if you want him to know anything about the laws of space and time, you must begin by connecting them with living facts ; he must care about places and periods for what was done in them. It may be a humble process ; the question which each man should ask himself, is, whether he does not know inwardly that it is the true one. These are two or three hints about our system of instruction, which I believe have only need to be followed out that we may thoroughly understand all its peculiarities and its purpose. I pass over one or two points to which I should wish to refer, such as the omission of gjTunastics in our course of Education, because it is found by experience that these are pursued in a practical way, without any formal instruction, and because it is not our object to teach things professionally, but livingly, and because the free choice of sjjorts seems an important element in an Education which is especially intended to call forth social feelings and sympathies ; I pass over these, and such like subjects, that I may come to the disci- pline. On this point it seems to me that some mistakes are prevailing respecting the intention GO ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — and character of our system, Avhich have, I fear, (lone very much to degrade it. I sj)oke of a se- vere Spartan kind of discipUne as being an ele- ment in Education which it was most necessary, if it were possible, to connect with that free deve- lopment at which we mainly aim ; and I said that in the christian idea of Education, the j)ossibility of such a union was manifested ; there was some- thing in us to be crushed, not by dainty, gentle, civil methods, but by plain, homely, straightfor- ward severity, and this, that what was higher and nobler, what was truly human, might be the better awakened and called forth. That such was the idea of our ancestors, and that they expressed it in their Education, I think there can be no doubt. But now a new theorj' is come into vogue, and has wonderfully diffused itself through society. It is what is commonly called the theoiy of rewards and punishments. This doctrine entirely sets aside that idea of a higher and nobler humanity, and of an evil nature crushing and stilling it, entirely sets aside this idea which seems to lie at the roots of all Education, and substitutes for it the vague notion, "here is a creature who will not work without some excitement and stimulants." Some- times it may be a prize for good conduct, some- times it may be a chastisement for evil conduct, each acting upon the same low and grovelling feelings ; the punishment not recognized as right GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS. 61 by the conscience, while the flesh quails at it, the reward not panted for by the nobler and Ijetter spirit, but sought for and received by that very selfish and evil temper which needs most to be corrected and subdued within us. Of course this novel system puts on the pretence of being prac- tical, and if the end of Education be to get certain things done, or certain things omitted, it is just possible, though I think not probable, that it may approve itself to experience. But we ought to know that though other persons may justify their sj'stems, upon such grounds as these, we cannot justify ours ; we must either defend it upon the highest principles, or abandon it at once. It is an absurd attempt, which has been made again and again, and which has failed again and again, to defend it upon the maxims of the age, for it is not built upon those maxims, and if they are true, it is false. Supposing, then, that this novelty has been admitted into our grammar-schools, in con- formity with these maxims, we are bound to say it has nothing to do with the principle of the sys- tem. It is one of those anomalies which strike us most glaringly in institutions having a principle ; in modern institutions they would not strike us at all, because they would be themselves the prin- ciple. The confusion arising from this adoption of modern maxims into our ancient system is, I 02 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — believe, the main cause wliy another leading pecu- liarity of these institutions has become unintelli- gible. If this theory of rewards and punish- ments be true, if man is not a s])iritual being with a nature struggling to degrade and destroy him, it becomes a strange absurdity to connect worship with Education. As a matter of course it will be represented one moment as a penal infliction, and the next (very consistently) as a cunning scheme for begetting an early prejudice in favour of a particular form of faith. If, on the other hand it be not a branch of Education, but the whole intent of Education to bring forth that in man which looks upward and to crush his downward tendencies ; if no man ever believed that he had a humanity, however he might talk about it, who did not realize the conviction by looking out of himself and above himself; if every higher thought and aspiration has its ground in the belief of an actual established connexion between himself and his Creator, it would seem the most extravagant inconsistency to disconnect human cultivation with acts of habitual and united worship. On the other hand, and it woidd seem most accordant with the whole scheme, that all great and human- izing influences, the influences of music and ar- chitecture especially, which formed a separate head of culture among the Greeks, should be all connected with this and made dependent upon it : UNIVERSITIES. 63 that whatever acts most directly and powerfully upon the spirit within us, should from our earliest youth witness to us what we are and how we may attain the ends of our being, so that hereafter the world may not be a perplexed crowd of undis- tinguishable impressions, but that everything may be felt to proceed from one source and have one termination. Clearness of vision, to distin- guish shadows from substances, simplicity of heart, to embrace the true and hate the false, strength of will to bear up against infinite complications of passions within and influences without, depend far more than we can conceive upon our being early imbued Avith the feelings of a unity in things and with our being taught to refer them all to one centre. I have reser^'cd for the last place a few words respecting the direct religious instruction that I suppose to be in keeping with the rest of this system, because this will be a good preparation for what I shall have afterwards to say respecting the Universities. It seems to me that according to the idea of this Education, such instruction Avill neither be general about that in which all people are agreed, nor special about that in which all people differ. Our old English Education is not occupied with inquiries either about agree- ments or differences. There are facts which it supposes a child wants to be acquainted \\ith. C}4 KCCLESIASTICAL KniTATIOV facts about its own position, what it is, and what it has to trust in, what it has to know, and what it is to do, and whence it is to get its power of trusting, and knowing, and doing. Believing that we know these facts, we announce them : then the living records in the books of Divine Revela- tioa acquire a meaning, then the acts of the boy himself acquire a meaning, and one becomes the safe interpreter of the other. Here, then, as in all our previous studies, we seek for a living method ; our object is not to give systematic indoctrination upon one subject or upon another, neither is it to give loose, irregular, unprincipled instruction ; it is instruction adapted to the creature on whom we bestow it, intended to awaken him to the con- sciousness of what he is, and to prepare him for doing a work in the world. The characteristic difference between the school and the university seems to be this : In the first, we are learning our own position, in the second we are learning how to act upon others ; the first is intended to form men, the second is intended to form teachers. This distinction is tolerably well understood, and in the main is acted upon : Those who are intended for all active professions fi'equent the grammar-school; those who are meant for professions, which directly inform the mind of the coimtry, frequent the university. But there is another distinction, consequent upon UNIVERSITIES. 65 this, which I think is often overlooked ; it is that the studies of the school are, as I have describad them, purely living studies, in Avhich the student is the main object ; the studies of the university are scientific, in which the study is the main object. What we said was not done at the grammar-school, the looking at history as his- tory, at poetry as poetry, at language as language, it is intended to do here. But since our prelimi- nary Education has been remarkable for the imity of its purpose, and since the teachers of the land, in all their different departments, are to make the one end of cultivating humanity their end, it would seem necessary to seek for some central study in these universities also, lest we should become confused in the multitudes of subjects, and not feel their common connexion, or to what point they are all bearing. Now we found, in the grammar-schools, that the highest direct instruction was that concerning our state and position as spiritual beings, that the great instru- ment of cultivation was language. That which answers in the scientific course to those general practical lessons respecting our position and duties, which form the Christian teaching of the school, is the science of Theology. This, therefore, is contemplated as the centre of direct instruction in our universities, as that which gives laws to the other studies and explains their connexion. fiG ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION But what answers to lanf^age as the instrument of cultivation ? It might be asked, why should not the study of the laws of language be to the university what the study of particular languages is to the school? Possil)ly, this is not far from being the case. But when we come to look into the laws of language, we find that they indicate two methods of thought, both of them appointed for us, each, for its own purpose, most necessary ; we find that there is a certain method of thought W'hich is determined by the conditions of our own understandings, and a certain method which is determined by the laws of Nature ; one of these is the method with which we become acquainted through the study of logic, the other is that with which we become acquainted through the study of mathematics. Now these two studies are, I believe, meant to be respectively the central studies at our two universities. I know this is not the common opinion ; it is a prevalent notion that classical studies are characteristic of one university, and mathematical of the other. But this notion is founded upon the way in which certain prizes and honours are distributed in these bodies, which prizes and honours are of modern invention, and afford no sort of help in investi- gating their principle. It is a notorious fact, that the most illustrious scholars of the last century, and certainly some of the most illus- UNIVERSITIES. G/ trious in the present century, have proceeded from that university which is supposed to have neglected scholarship. On the other hand, though Oxford for the last thirty years, (till very recently indeed), has done scarcely anything for the advancement of logical science, yet so deeply has the logical habit of mind rooted in those who have partaken of her Education, (chiefly perhaps through the influence of the ancient author whose works are on some most important subjects her text books) that it is found to pervade all their writings, and to constitute the great point of dis- similarity between them and those which issue from the mathematical university. I make this remark, partly that you may see how the princi- ple which is intended to govern the movements of a body, makes itself manifest in s})ite of many laborious efforts to set it aside, and how impor- tant it is, therefore, to understand what the ])rinci- ples are upon which our National Education is constructed, that we may not frustrate all our best intentions by running counter to them — partly because foreigners, througli mistaken infor- mation respecting its leading studies, are often unable to understand our system, and to compare it with their own, and sometimes fuicy that our universities are mere grammar-schools for an older class — and partly because it seems to me very im- portant that the difference between the two uni- GS ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — versities, of which I have spoken, phould he ))re- sent to tlic miiuls of those who Ix ! Tif^ to either. Each will then better know what w.);k it is ap- pointed to do, and we shall understand what we have to expect from each. In ])ast times, certainly, we perceive that the investigation of laws and principles has ])roceeded most successfully, and the creative powei's been exercised most freely at Cambridge. This we should expect from a uni- versity whose main study brings it into contact with the permanent laws of nature. On the other hand in moral and intellectual discipline, in the cultivation of habits, in the exercise of the practical faculties, I think there is no doubt that Oxford has always been foremost. This is what we should expect from a body primarily oc- cupied with the contemplation of the limitations and conditions to which our minds are subject. And since neither of these tendencies can really flourish, when the other is checked or is idle ; and since both may work most harmoniously together, it seems advisable that each university should feel, which it is its own especial vocation to foster and direct. Any excess or assumption in either of these habits of mind will then be repressed, not by the habit itself being weakened, but by another equally strong and necessary being brought out to sustain it. Having one of these two formal sciences for the UNIVERSITIES. C9 moving spring of its intellectual discipline, and having that great practical and real science of Theology, for the centre of its positive instruction the university is then able to look upon all sul^- jects which are interesting to man as part of a course of humanity studies. Those which belong to all men, such as history, poetry, ethics, belong to the first course ; those which belong to parti- cular or professional men, as jurisprudence, medi- cal science, divinity, (for it must be remembered, that in this point of view, there is a specific and a general theology ; the one intended for the professed theologian, the other for every student as a student,) are supposed to form part of ano- ther course ; besides these there is a free scope for the admission of any of those studies, which are as yet rather collections of important facts than organized sciences ; such I mean as botany, geology, or political economy. For a university, having recognized methods and rules of investiga- tion, is bound to lend its aid in applying these to the consideration of all the observations which in- dustrious, working men submit to it. Thus far I have spoken of university studies. , University life forms another, and (piite as impor- tant a subject for reflection. It is obvious that this ought to be something different from school life. There must come a time when it is not safe to treat external controul as sufficient; when we /() ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — must be taught by experience the value and the methods of self-coritroul. This truth has been universally recoi^niscd; our system certainly does not set it at nought ; we have even been accused of admitting too sudden a transition from the state of the boy to the state of the youth. There is, however, as you know, one circumstance in which we are peculiar, nay, which may be said to be the most characteristic feature in our Education. The youth at the university is not, any more than the boy at the school, a solitary independent crea- ture, attending the lectures of certain professors, paying them certain fees, in all other respects providing for himself. He finds when he goes to Oxford or Cambridge, that he is related to two bodies ; he is the member of a university, bound by its general laws and statutes, and entitled to attend its different lectures. He is also the mem- ber of a particular college, constituting a society within itself; requiring his attendance at a common table and a common worship, providing him not merely with instruction, but with a dwelling; appointing for him a scheme of life. The history of the origin and growth of this college system would throw wonderful light upon English history gene- rally, and espe»Mally upon the way in which parti- cular neighbourhoods have become integral parts of the nation. Benevolent men felt that they could not better discharae themselves of the obli- UNIVERSITIES. 7l gation which wealth, inherited from their fathers, or obtained by their own hands imposed upon them, than by providing an Education for the places from whence that wealth Avas derived. Sometimes a local school might be the fruit of this- impulse ; but just as often they desired to incor- porate the particular gift with the general instruc- tion of the country. Our ancestors did not hold themselves bound to reject such donations and bequests. They permitted the streams of charity to flow in their own channels, trusting that they would all fall into the common ocean. Their faith w'as, I think, a right one. Particular cities, vil- lages, and schools, felt that they had a share in the learned corporations of the land. Youths whom they had seen growing up among them became naturalized in the university, and contri- buted to its fame ; others came among them with the new wisdom Avhich they had gotten. I cannot conceive how any scheme, devised by the wit of man, could have so furthered the cultivation of the land, as this, which was the result of what would be called a series of accidents. By what steps, or through what confusions these different colleges came to understand then* position in refer- ence to each other and to the university, I leave antiquarians to explain ; but it seems as if this harmony could never have been produced, and as if the whole Education would have turned to /2 ECCLESIASTICAL EDICATHjN — nothing, if, through the wisdom of some man, or the gradual working of events, that scheme of college Vii'e, to which I have alluded, had not heen gra'dually adopted. That there may have been a time when no such scheme existed — that after it had been established it may ft*equently have been lost again, I can easily believe ; but that the per- son who introduced it was not a benefactor to his country, and that those who restored it had not a very clear perception of the only kind of disci- pline which is suited to our character, I cannot believe. For hereby the idea which I have shown pervades our other Education, that the cultivation of humanity, is the great end of scholastic discipline, was wonderfully asserted ; even in those bodies which have, as I said, the study, and not the student, for their end, it was declared that no study could proceed successfully where the student's spirit is not in harmony with it and with itself. It is a painful fact, but one which every day^s experience establishes, that a student may go through a series of lectures upon the most momentous subjects, without realizing the conviction that his own being is connected with any of them. We are bound by all that is pure, and honest, and sacred, to see that this is not the case with the citizens of our land. I know that the college system cannot prevent it; but I know that it can do this — it can make the student UNIVERSITIES. 'J3 feel that there is a strife and contradiction within him, Avhen his understanding is going one way and his heart another. It chafes and frets him, and makes him restless, and this is one great cause of the obloquy which the discipline, and espe- cially the worship, has incurred. Can it be well, we are often asked, that the service of God should cause vexation and irritation ? I believe it is well. I believe the conscience of every man who has had experience, if he lets it speak fairly, will say that it was well for him. There is something more necessary for a man than being comfortable. If he has not formed a habit of doing right, by all means let him have a continued witness that he is wrong. I allude to the worship, because it is in- timately connected with the college life of which I am speaking. If we are merely to pursue a certain number of studies, and not to be a society of students, this provision is inexplicable ; if we are, it is inevitable. The man who shall bring a set of youths together, and shall form them into a body, without teaching them, wliether they like it or no, what the bond of their fcUowshii) is, and in what way they are to feel that they are a fellow- ship, is little better than a madman. This is a mere doctrine of common-sense, it has nothing to do with one belief or another. The followers of Mr. Owen are associated, it is presumed, upon some urinciple; whatever that principle is nuisl be E 74 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — declared by certain intelligible acts done by them in common. We are associated on the principle of com- mon relationshij) to a Divine Being ; our society expires the moment we refuse to unite in acts which embody it. Now the question, whether it would be better that the colleges should be less of societies, and more merely places for reading, is one which I may safely leave to the experience of those who have frequented them. I believe they will say, almost without exception, that the free interchange of thoughts and feelings among persons differently circumstanced in many respects, but living in the same age, and subject to the same general impres- sions with themselves, did more at the time to teach them what their studies really meant, and how they belonged to themselves, and has done more since to preserve their interest in those studies, and to bring them acquainted with their own ignorance and their own wants, than almost all other influences together. I do not say that the university should be nothing else than a collec- tion of colleges. I think it is most important that there should be a set of professors, with consider- able leisure, and incomes suflficient to give them the opportunity of marrying, who should advance the scientific knowledge of the university, and should exhibit it as a learned body to the rest of Europe. If our system is weaker in this respect than it ought to be, it is not the fault of our ori- UNIVERSITIES. "5 ginal constitution ; it is the fault, I believe, of the modem attempts to make prizes and distinctions the great end of study. Owing to this novelty, the halls of the professors, which do not directly prepare the student for that which he considers the object of his course, have become deserted. But I question whether the same cause has not affected the college system quite as injuriously, by leading the tutor to take more pains in preparing the undcr-graduates of his society for certain occa- sions of display, than in cultivating the deeper feel- ings, and in satisfying the deeper wants of their minds. It seemsto me just as needful, thatwe should carry out the college system more perfectly, by introducing greater cordiality, and a more cheer- ful, hearty sympathy between the elders and the juniors, as that we should carry out the university system by giving greater weight to the professors. In that way we shall save our older men from being mere book-worms, while we double their interest in books ; our young men from being mere gossips, while we make their social life ten- fold more precious and interesting to them. I have one word more to say respecting these universities. It is not a new thing in their history, that they should be looked upon as the abodes of every thing dull, morose, and antiquated. The wits of every age have given them that character. Now as these wits had such clear perceptions of things. 76 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — as old abuses were to them so ridiculous, as they represented so admirably the intellect and the advancement of their time, we want to express our g'ratitude to them, for the achievements which they wrought, for the evils and corruptions which they drove out of the earth. We wish to find their names, that we might enrol them among the benefactors of the universe. But alas ! their names are gone ! Not a vestige of all that they did remains. They laughed at other men, boasted of their own understandings, and died. This is all that can be said of them. But- there have been some abuses in the world corrected, there have been some great movements in the depths of the national mind. How happened this ? His- tory makes answer and says, there were certain poor, toiling, suffering men living in those cloisters, from which nothing but ignorance and superstition ever came forth : in their hearts, as they mused upon the past, and we])t over the present, were bred those thoughts which Avent forth scattering darkness before them, awakening hopes that had slumbered for ages, renewing the face of the earth, and after centuries of barrenness causing it to bud and blossom again. If you ask were such men popular in their day ? Did the bodies, from which they came, cheer them on in their work ? Perhaps I should be obliged to answer, No 1 — and what then ? Do you expect us to maintain that the UNIVERSITIES. 77 spirit of the age, wherever it may be concentrated, is a spirit which patronizes great and noble under- takings, that it does not lazily worship the present, that it is not hateful of the past and indiiferent to the future? Our complaint of you is that you would make that spirit omnipotent, that you would throw down ever}' thing which resists and com- pels it to be something better than it would natu- rally be, that you would destroy everj-" witness to that which is abiding and imperishable ; and that thus under the names of advancement and im- provement you arc securing yourself against all improvement, you are determining that the modes and fashions, and opinions of this time shall be everlasting, you are declaring that you will only nourish and educate men who will bow down and worship every idol which it pleases folly and vanity to set up. The system, which I have brought under your notice in this lecture, is, you perceive, essentially ecclesiastical; it was introduced into the country by ecclesiastics ; it has been always conducted by ecclesiastics ; it must be altered in all its princijjal characteristics, if it ceased to be under the controul of ecclesiastics. On these points there is no difference of opinion between the parties who are now contending respecting the right conditions of a National Education. No one pretends that our Universities directly, and our Grammar 78 ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION — schools implicitly, liiul not an ecclesiastical origin. Three-fourths, at least, of all those who complain of them, assume that position as the most advan- tageous one for their attack. No one says that they would have been, in any one of the points which I have described, what they are, if they had been under other than clerical superintendence. To this unhappy cause, their respect for the dead languages, their determination to have one central science, their preference cf general to particular studies, above all, their syotem of collegiate disci- phne and life, are invariably traced. No one beUeves that they would be the same in their principles, and only different in their details, if they were placed under lay-government ; the grand popular argument for that alteration is, that it would involve an entire subversion of the useless and absurd doctrines and practices which have been hitherto sanctioned amongst them. I am not acting unfairly, then, though some of you may think, rashly, when I say : This is Ecclesi- astical Education ; by this we are content to he judged ; this we w ish to be compared with any other which you like to produce. We say : Here is something in practice, corresponding to that idea of Education, which we obtained in our last lecture ; here is information not of a limited, specific quality, but that which belongs to men ; here is development, not of some particular UNIVERSITIES. /" faculties, but of that which is universal in men ; here is a discipline, not for that which interferes with the power and happiness of some men, but with the power and happiness of all ; here is not a Spartan, not an Athenian, not a modern Educa- tion, but a Christian Education, which compre- hends them and reconciles them all. If there has been such an Education in the country for a thousand years, Christianity has not been a fruit- less seed in a barren soil : if its principles have been forgotten ; if they have been acknowledged in terms, but violated in practice ; if the application of them has been limited to one class, now is the time for understanding them, for acting upon them, for adapting and extending them to all. 80 LECTURE III. I CONSIDERED, in my last lecture, what manner of thing Ecclesiastical Education is ; I am now to inquire what manner of thing State Education is. I followed the course, which those who differ from me would have prescribed, by taking our English Education as a specimen of the first. I shall equally conform myself to their maxims, by taking Continental, and especially Prussian Edu- cation as a specimen of the second. But I must distinguish my opponents into two classes. Some of them are struck with the vast superiority of the German Universities to ours ; this they trace to the existence of a freer, more modern spirit in them, and that spirit they hope to see communi- cated to ours by state interference. With these persons I shall at once join issue. But there is another, and, I believe, a far more numerous party which will attend somewhat listlessly to any dis- cussion of this kind. They have occupied them- selves almost exclusively with the question. How STATE EDUCATION. 81 are the poorer classes in this country to be edu- cated? A most true feeKn<^, that this question is important beyond almost all others, or else a most natural feeling that we ought to arrive at our notion of a good National Education, by considering what is good for the majority of the people, has led them to think, that the truth of our doctrine, and of the continental doctrine is to be ascer- tained, simply, by comparing our respective methods of primary instruction. I shall explain, hereafter, why this is an unfair test ; at present I must request of these opponents a little patience. If I fail to show, that the state system is wrong in principle, and, therefore, is not to be applied in one case more than another — if I fail to show, further, that its error in principle is precisely this, that it is not universal enough — that it cannot address itself to that which is equally in the poor man and the rich man — if I fail to show that the ecclesiastical system may be adapted to all ranks and conditions, I give up my cause — nothing that I can say in favour of the Education which is given to our upper classes will be a hinderance to their calling for state help on behalf of the lower. Were they to look only at Prussia, they would at once acquiesce in my method ; tor they must be aware that in that country the pri- mary instruction is administered through many subordinate agents, whereas upon the universities 82 STATE EDUCATION. the government acts directly. Surely, therefore, this must be the best experiment of what it can do. But they look at England, they see popular igno- rance manifesting itself in most fearful forms ; and they exclaim. Anything must be better than this — let us, at once, resort to any remedy rather than endure this evil. I honour the feeling, though I know that it is very likely to make them the vic- tims of rhetoricians and quacks, who have nothing answering to it in themselves. I would, therefore, remind them how they themselves have talked, or how they have heard others talk in two ana- logous cases. Is there anything which more di- rectly appeals to our sympathies than actual living pauperism? Yet are we not constantly reminded, that it is a sin to take what seems the obvious and natural means of relieving pauperism, be- cause thereby we do in fact increase it ? Surely if we are not to make our feelings the judges in one case, we are not to make them the judges in the other. AVe are not to make the enormity of popu- lar ignorance a plea for running headlong into schemes, which may, for ought we know, augment it a hundredfold. The second instance is one still more in point, for it is an instance not of in- dividual, but of government interference. Govern- ments have perceived that a number of ditferent religious opinions existed about them, and that the dissensions which these opinions produced THE CONTINENTAL NATIONS. 83 were most destructive of peace and order. What was a more obvious duty than to arrest the pro- gress of such a calamity? Upon whom did the duty so naturally devolve, as upon the State ? Ac- cordingly it did its best. It had arms in its hands, and it said, "these dissensions shall not be." You know the result — the dissensions multiplied, the attempt proved to be ridiculous, and none are 80 loud in their laughter at it, so furious in their condemnation of it, as those who would now urge the State not to use its proper earthly weapons in an improper direction ; but, as we say, to grasp at spiritual weapons, with which it has never been entrusted. I think these considerations may in- duce you to pause, at least till you have looked at the history of the question, and used some endea- vours impartially to consider the working of .the rival systems. It appears from the statement in my last lec- ture, that our ancestors did not give to a certain body what in modern vituperative phrase is called the monopoly of Education. In other words, they did not say to a body having certain functions, " In addition to these there shall be certain other functions which you alone shall have the privilege of discharging;" they did not say this, or any- thing like this. But they found by experience that there was a body exercising a power over the minds and spirits of men, just as real as that 84 STATE EDUCATION. which the ruler of the land exercised over their bodies and outward circumstances. And they said the function of these men is to educate the nation ; it is not this over and above something else, but it is expressly this ; just as much as it is the function of the bookseller to sell books, or of the linen-draper to sell linen. To this con- clusion, we have seen, they were brought gra- dually by experience. The spiritual body had tried to exercise other functions which greatly in- terfered with the rights of the State. The State in finding out the real direction of its own powers, at the same time found out the real direction of this power. But three centuries have passed away since the Reformation, and strange things have been transacted within that time. In the conti- nental nations, which remained subject to the Pope, the ecclesiastical power, and the state body, continued in most uncertain relations to each other. Even, however, in these, it is curious to observe how that portion of the ecclesiastical body which w^as directly connected with Educa- tion, comported itself in reference to the State. A w ell-informed writer, in the " Journal of Edu- cation," (a work published under the direction of the " Society for the Promotion of Useful Know- ledge," and of course strongly opposed to eccle- siastical Education, in ever}- form), speaking of the Spanish universities, has this remark : " Every THE CONTINENTAL NATIONS. 85 where, even in universities established in those towns where the Papal and monastic influence is most felt, the Canonists have always been found to resist the usurpation of the Court of Rome, in despite of the Inquisition, the hateful surveillance of which has been defeated by the strength of sound Catholic doctrine, understood according to reason, and sustained by courage and virtue. Will it be believed ? in no Catholic country have the power and arrogance of the Sovereign of the Tiber been more resolutely braved than in Spain. No where has more zeal been manifested in sup- port of the government and secular authority, when encroachments have been attempted by the Bishop of Rome, and we may assert, with confi- dence, that if the rulers of Spain had known how to apply the aid which has been lent them by the jurisconsults, the prelates, and the doctors of her universities, the ignominious joke had long been shaken off, and the sole obstacle removed, which opposes itself to the regeneration of the country." — Journal of Education, vol. 3rd, page 31. The writer of this passage, would, perhaps, be altoge- ther right in his remarks ; the ecclesiastical spirit in the universities would have been the means abroad, as well as here, of working out that deliverance for the State which it could not work out for itself, if a disastrous circumstance had not interfered. I mean the establishment of 86 STATE EDUCATION. that anomalous body of which Ignatius Loyola was the founder. When this body by virtue of its admirable concentration, and the learning and subtlety of its individual members, had succeeded in mixing itself up in the Education, as well as in the government of every Pa[)al country, there ceased to be any chance of distinction between these two great provinces ; the ideas of state power and ecclesiastical power became hopelessly intermingled ; the bodies in which the enlighten- ment of the countr}' dwelt, could no more be looked to, either as protectors of the State, or as asserters of the true ecclesiastical principle ; and last, and worst consequence of all, that enlighten- ment became utterly ineffective in cultivating the humanity of the people, among whom it dwelt. Stores of erudition were accrunulated by the Jesuit teachers, at which one gazes with amaze- ment and admiration ; but what one living in- fluence, what creative awakening energy ever went forth from any of their seminaries ? A dead materialism, an unbelief in any strength that is not visible, in any truth that could not be turned to a wordly account ; these were their character- istics. And, therefore, their true and lawful pro- geny were the French sceptics of the eighteenth century. In these schools were they nursed; here did they learn the unreality of everything that is not sensible and tangible ; here were the THE CONTINENTAL NATIONS. 8/ weapons forged and sharpened which were to exe- cute such righteous vengeance upon the heads of their inventors. Jesuitism and scepticism might well be addressed as two other personages of the same family were on another occasion by one mysteriously related to both, " O father, what intends thy hand Against thy only son ? What fury, O son. Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart Against thy father's head ? " And well might the same friendly voice join admonition to entreaty, and say " But thou, oh father, I forewarn thee shun His deadly arrow, neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright arms. Though tempered heavenly, for that mortal dint. Save who is clothed in truth, none may resist." But the new power which had thus started into existence, felt, that for the present, at least, it could do little against the ecclesiastical institutions of its own land. It could show that they had no ground to rest upon, it could teach the French population to laugh at that which they already disbelieved, it could make out with the greatest plausibility and the best evidence, that education and the people who conducted it were irrecon- cileable enemies ; it could demonstrate to the perfect satisfaction of a demoralized court and 88 STATE EDUCATION. metropolis that education Avhich had been sup- posed to mean a deliverance of the spirit from material letters, was, in fact, based upon mate- riahsm. But it could only look forward with hope and exultation to a future day, in which the blessed harvest of these seeds should be gathered in by other reapers. Meantime, the great sceptics of that period had a field ready for the more imme- diate exercise of their powers. In the Protestant states of Europe, in one especially, which had the most accomplished of mihtary chieftains for its head, they found things far riper for practical experiments than in France. There they had not to propose the abolition of great ecclesiastical establishments ; the greater part of them were already abolished, and their revenues confiscated ; the religious spirit, or at least the religious wars which that spirit had fomented, had done this work. The state had no occasion, in the common sense of the word, to be arbitrary ; at least it had been in^^ted to be so by the very influence that had resisted its former inva- sions. This influence indeed (and here was another most promising circumstance) was itself weak and all but expiring ; what there was of it had detached itself almost wholly from the learning which dwelt in schools and universities : that had become, for all practical purposes, as heart- less and lifeless as the Jesuit learning. Here, THE CONTINENTAL NATIONS. S9 then, was the best opportunity for the sugges- tion of those reforms which were conducted with so much sagacity by Frederick ; and which, v;hen the infection had been caught in the neighbouring popish country, were imitiated with such wild and tyrannical absurdity by Joseph. The principle, understood probably by the one, blindly acted upon by the other, of modelling all institutions according to the emergencies of the time without the slightest reference to the idea upon which they were founded, led directly to the denial of any other power than that which dwells in the civil government. For, if once you admit the fact, and feel it, that there is a national mind which expresses itself from generation to gene- ration in certain social forms, the dream of some power acting upon that mind from generation to generation and enabling it to express itself, will inevitably haunt you; you will feci that this power cannot be the mere governing decreeing power which you call the state ; what else it is you may not know, but you will feel that there must be such a power somewhere ; and I fancy you will not stop till you have made the facts answer what and where it is. But if all witness of a spirit living in institutions be taken away, if men see nothing around them which is not the reflection of their own tempers and habits, then indeed I do not know how, except in one way, the appro- 90 STATE EDUCATION. hension of a power beyond the state power is to reach them, I mean that way in which it was driven home to the minds of those who suc- ceeded Frederick and Joseph, and by which it was able to penetrate even the ice-bound heart which, in a female garb, ruled the destinies of Russia. When the monarchs of Europe saw a whole people undertaking to conduct those reforms which had seemed to them so fit to be managed by royal philosophers, when they saw this people over- turning, indeed, all institutions which had lasted for centuries, but not the least pausing when they came in contact with that which was called the state of the day ; when they saw governments succeeding each other which represented not the feelings of a single generation, but the feelings of a single hour; when they saw none so utterly incompetent to guide the whirlwind, none made so completely the sport of it as that race of philo- sophers whom their fathers had worshipped as their gods ; when they saw all military organi- zation mocked and set at nought by popular energy and fury, then, indeed, the conviction did come slowly home to them that there was some- thing more in heaven and earth than they had dreamt of, that what is invisible is not quite imaginary. But if they had learned this faith, it was not permitted them to show, except by the most abortive efforts, the influences of it upon THE CONTINENTAL NATION'S. 91 their actions. Itwas appointed that all the nations, Protestant or Romish, should behold the birth of that which the eighteenth century had conceived, should see national life extinguished, should feel what government without institutions means, should be taught by the most tremendous expe- rience that a state power, without a spiritual power to sustain it, must have its consummation in a military despotism. I make these remarks that we may be better able to judge of the position in which the inha- bitants of the continent are now placed in respect to education and its connection with the state, before we begin to compare their system with our own. Mr. Wyse has observed in an article on Prussian education in the third volume of the Transactions of the Central Society, that it is most unfair to speak of the modern state system of education as Prussian, for that, in fact, it is the European system, that established in England being a solitary instance of departure from the rule. This remark is very just, and I have en- deavoured to give effect to it by showing how we became possessed of our system, and by what steps the different nations of the continent have been led into theirs. If we look at their pro- ceedings since the peace, we shall find not that they have been introducing a new maxim of con- duct, but that they have been endeavouring with 92 STATE EDUCATION. more or less skill and success to make the only maxim upon which it has been possible for them to act, available. They found that which had been the ecclesiastical or Education ])owcr of the country crushed and stifled ; if it pleased them to raise it again, the state must do this, the state must create an influence which was to be superior to its own ; if it pleased them to keep this power in subjection, the state must undertake the func- tions which its rival had once fulfilled. The first attempt was made at the restoration of the Bour- bons in France — with what success we all know. The ecclesiastical power during that period is said to have resumed its ascendancy, and so far as success in making itself and the govern- ment together odious, constitutes ascendancy, no doubt this notion is correct ; but that it could do any thing else seems to be a mistake. " I can de- scribe in two words," says a French writer of the Ultramontane School, " the state of reUgion in France in the sixteen years which preceded the last revolution : it was oppressed by the government and hated by the majority of the nation. The royal government had confirmed all the laws of the empire relating to the church (including even the articles which were enacted in violation of the concordat made in ISOl), and consequently the slavery of the church was legally the same as under a man who had excelled in the art of op- THE CONTINENTAL NATIONS. 93 pressing all whom he took under his protection. No more provincial councils, no more diocesan synods, no more ecclesiastical tribunals, but the council of state the only judge of all disputes y- relating to religion and to conscience. Education was committed to a lay body to the exclusion of the clergy, the spiritual direction of the semi- naries was harassed and their instruction submitted, in all that was most essential, to the prescriptions of the civil authority." So that, in fact, the Education system was as much established upon a state basis in the time which is supposed to have been so fanatically ecclesiastical as it has ever been since. Most naturally, therefore, France herself has looked for her Education models since the revolution of 1830 to those countries in which the state doctrine had been honestly avowed and acted upon, with less obstruction from any body still fancying itself entitled to a distinct position. The Protestant countries of the continent were indeed in circumstances very different from theirs, and the rulers in some of them, at least, were exhibiting a disposition which might well create astonishment in French philoso- phers. So far from aiming, as the great Frederick aimed, to extinguish all the life and religion ot the country, and to invent a State apparatus, which should be a substitute for them, it would seem to be the great object of some Protestant govern- 94 STATE EDUCATION. ments, and especially of the government in that country which he ruled, to counteract the effect of his measures, and so far as in them lies, to create a body of real spiritual influences. Up to the year 1819, ecclesiastical affairs in Prussia were committed to the Minister of the Interior; they had a place, as M. Cousin ex- presses it, in the same department with manufac- tures and horse-breeding. Since that time they have been given up to a Minister of Instruction ; the principle has been recognised, that the power which acts upon the mind of the country is dis- tinct from that which directs its outward economy. Evidently this recognition involves the government in an inconsistency which will be felt more and more each day. The old method was the right one, according to the State doctrine — the new one is pregnant with this confession, that the State cannot exist safely, until it has found an adequate counterpoise to its own power — a concentrated moral force to prevent it from degenerating into a mere engine of material force. We cannot, then, feel the disposition of which Mr. Wyse accuses the admirers of English Education to disparage the Education system of Prussia, or indeed of any continental nation. We must re- gard them all as at a most interesting crisis of their history ; all as striving to work out a prob- lem, upon the practical solution of which, the THE CONTINENTAL NATIONS. 95 chance of their being firm and happy nations de- pends. We must look at them as now very much nearer in feehng and intention to the old English principle, than they have been for at least a cen- tury ; and we must desire by a fair and candid ex- hibition of the real difference between us and them to assist them, (so far as their national circum- stances will permit), in approximating still more closely to us. Our controversy is not with them, but with those who hold up the systems which they have adopted through the stress of circum- stances, as rules for our guidance, with those, who though they are always talking of the juvenility of our fathers, because they wanted experience, and of our antiquity because we possess it, wish us to throw away the experience of the last cen- tury and a half, and carefully to go over all those steps, which our continental neighbours are en- deavouring, with much painful effort, (but we trust with every hope of a good result) to retrace. If I were occupied with the question of pri- mary Education, it might be right to bring under review, all the principal systems which arc at jire- sent existing on the continent ; but as I am con- cerned at present, only with University Education, it would be a waste of time, and perhaps, an un- fairness to our opponents to do this. They migiit say with great reason. Who ever pretended that the French universities just escaped, (if escaped), from Ofi STATE EDUCATION. imperial and Jesuit thraldom — that the univer- sities of Holland, a country so exclusively com- mercial — that the universities of Switzerland, a country so limited in all its views, so given up to religious controversies — that the universities of Sweden, where there are still some of those old cathedral establishments, which we think so per- nicious, and which must so much interfere with the full operation of the state principle, would furnish the models that we seek for ? If you would be fair, they may rightly say, do not bring together a heap of feeble examples, but take some one — the best and strongest you can find, — and compare that with our system. I wish to comply with these demands. From no desire (as I think I have shown) to fix upon Prussia, the stigma of being emphatically the representative of this policy ; but, because I look upon her as the noblest and most enlightened nation which we can find on the continent ; and therefore the one which supplies the most complete test of any rtiaxims, which willingly or unwillingly it may have adopted ; I take her universities, and those of Germany generally, as my specimens. Surely I can give no better proof of confidence in my principle than this ; surely I cannot put it to greater hazard, than when I say, I am willing to receive the system in the Prussian universities, as a trial of what the State can do, by assuming a GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 97 dominion over Education ; and our own univer- sities, as a trial of the benefit -which it derives from })utting that Education out of its own controul. The following passage, from an article in the Journal of Education, written, as you will per- ceive, by an admirer of the German system, ex- presses very satisfactorily, the great point of dif- ference between our scheme and theirs : — " Beginning at the universities, we find them very different from those in England. In Prussia they are not looked upon as institutions in which general instruction only is given, which may be afterward applied by the student to Avhatever branch of business or knowledge he pleases. The principal object of the Prussian universities, is to teach those practical sciences, and to comrniuii- cate that knowledge, Avhich are necessary for the due performance of such functions as require a long and diligent study in order to be successfully fulfilled. Such knowledge is necessary for the future clergyman, forjudges and magistrates, and for physicians. Instruction, the most complete that is practicable for such persons, is the princi- pal object of the Prussian universities ; and each university may, with the greatest propriety, be considered, as comprising a school of theology, of jurisprudence, and of medicine. The profes- sors who teach the sciences and arts, which belong to these three great divisions or faculties, arc even F 98 STATE EDICATION now considered as constituting the university ; and the professors of the philosophical faculty, are only looked upon as an appendage. By far the greater number of young men %vho attend the Prussian universities, apply themselves almost ex- clusively to the study of theology, of the laws, or of practical medical science, and give only a very small portion of their time to the study of philo- sophy, or the acquisition of general knowledge. Were a German scholar to give his opinion on our universities, he would say that they constitute only a philosophical faculty, with a small inter- mixture of theology; nor would he even in this point of view be willing to allow, that, limited as the object of our institutions is, they are judici- ously arranged, because he would perceive a great difference between our course and that adopted in his country, which he would consider better or- ganized and more complete than ours.^' — Journal of Education, Vol. 10, page 69. This statement is clear and precise, and it saves me the trouble of deducing the general character of German University Education, from a series of particular instances. The concluding paragraph of the article shows how thoroughly the author is imbued Avith the spirit of the system which he is advocating : he looks upon our universities as containing only two faculties, or stxidies, that of philosophy, and that of theology ; the latter, and GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 99 of course the former also, most imperfectly taught. Now, supposing this were a true description of our Education, it seems quite impossible to un- derstand how our nation exists, or has ever ex- isted. If, for ten centuries this has been tlie fare upon which the principal men in the country have been nourished, how is it possible to account for our having produced one single eminent di- vine, or lawyer, or statesman ? Above all, how is it possible to understand the preservation of a certain mind in the country for so many ajres — a mind to which our German brethren have paid the most intelligent and graceful homage ? A little spice of philosophy, and that of an almost antedi- luvian quality ; a little theology, and that of the most meagre kind ; this, it seems, is all that we have to set against that immense body of pro- fessional knowledge M'hich is accumulated in these German store-houses. It is very well to say. You have had eminent statists, eminent poets, even eminent scholars, but these had nothing to do with your universities. I answer, the notion is ridiculous on the very face of it ; bodies such as these, acting for good or for evil upon the leading portion of the youth of the country, contempla- ted (however falsely) as the centres of its illumi- nation, connected by a thousand links, with every fibre of national society, must exercise an influ- ence, which cannot the least be measured by the F 2 100 STATE EDUCATIOX persons who liavo directly come forth from them. Supposing then you are able to find out half a dozen of our most remarkable countrymen, who did not owe their training to them — suppose you •should be able to say, Burke came from Ireland — Shakespcre had no school learning at all : you will still find it very hard indeed to show how these men could have been what they were, in a nation leavened by such an Education as that which you attribute to us. If this argument has no weight, if you are utterly unable to understand what I mean by these secret influences, circulating through the heart of a nation, and the necessary connection which they have with the acknow- ledged sources of its enlightenment, that is the very thing I want you to confess : I want to hear you say. We do not feel and understand, how- university discipline pervades and fashions the being of a nation — we look at it as intended to form a set of learned men — w'e look upon it as fitting men to act in certain distinct spheres, to adorn certain peculiar positions, — we look upon it, as collecting a body of information upon all possible subjects ; but what more than this you mean, we cannot tell ; it seems to us all mystical vagueness and nonsense. I say, I am anxious that you should say this boldly, because then I can meet you, and show you how these systems do really differ in their whole intent and idea ; be- GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 101 cause then, I think, I can make you perceive why you have thought this multitude of professorships so grand a thing ; and why our whole system has shrivelled in your eyes into two faculties of indifferent philosophy and weak theology. Every thing you see, necessarily presents itself to per- sons of your temper, as a faculty, or particular branch of Education. The idea of Education it- self ; the idea of a power directly addressing itself to something universal in men, of a power which is to produce, not professional men, but men, this has escaped you altogether: the habits of your system have made it impossible for you to pre- sent this idea clearly and strongly to yourselves. And yet if there is any country in Europe, which testifies to the truth of the principle, that a nation, in order to be really great, in order that it should make its power felt and known among other na- tions, must have its humanity in some way called forth, 1 fancy Germany is that country. For how long a time did it possess eminent scho- lars, eminent books, students of all kinds, and yet remained a cipher in Europe, deriving all its notions, and tastes, and habits of feeling from France? A strong impulse came, a strong poli- tical impulse ; the energies of the country were roused ; the living literature of England began to be studied, instead of the formal literature of France ; and there came forth a set of powerful 102 STATE EDUCATION — men, who were able to show that the language of their country was the same as when Luther used it to express the words of life. That race of men, we are told by persons who should know, is all but extinct ; for the impulse which produced them has ceased. They may have communicated a certain vitaUty to the scholars and philosophers of the country which they had not before — a vita- lity which the habit of regarding scholarship, lite- rature, and philosophy, as professional, will rapidly destroy ; but they have formed, and Avill form no national mind ; for something more steady and ha- bitual than the mere utterances of genius can ever be, is necessary to accomplish such a work as this. I submit, then, that when we are accused in the extract just made, of substituting the one faculty of philosophy for a great many faculties, the meaning is, that we have endeavoured to find out one instrumental science explaining the pro- cesses of thought, which, with whatever subject they are occupied, take place in the minds of all men, and which govern their particular exercises of thought ; that when we are accused of substitut- ing the faculty of theology for the other faculties, the true meaning is, that we have discovered one real science, round which the rest, each in its own orbit, are revolving. This is precisely what I affirmed in my last lecture. Our commentator GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 102 has only translated the same thought into the phraseology of his own school. Now the advan- tages from the first method, which I partly pointed out, are these — that hereby a student acquires the habit of understanding himself, and the laws of his own mind, so that, even if he should never pursue his studies far in any one direction, he is able to meet men in all the common affairs of life, and to deal sensibly and intelligently with them; the knowledge which he has received not rising to the surface, not expressing itself in out- ward pedantries, but giving a general tone to his understanding, and a coherency to his language. Or if, again, he is called to devote himself to a particular profession, he is obliged to feel that what is peculiar in that profession is not the whole of it ; that there are certain general laws and prin- ciples which connect it with other professions, and give it a meaning beyond itself. By the other method, that of habituating him to consider the- ology as the primary and central science, a dignity is commimicated to all the rest ; the painful sense of isolation in his own particular pursuits is taken away from him ; he sees a unity in all things, and his own mind acquires a iniity cor- responding to it ; he is able to teach men what- ever he is called to teach them, with the feeling that that peculiar knowledge or faculty which dis- tinguishes him from them, has certain close rela- 101 STATE EDUCATION — tioni and affinities with, and does homace to that in which all have a common interest. It is very possible, then, that particular studies may not have been pursued with the same devotion here as in Germany ; but there is no reason in our system, why they should not be pursued w ith just as much earnestness ; and I do not believe that, with our character, it is possible to pursue them earnestly, merely as studies, without reference to some direct commercial end, unless we do learn more and more to connect them one with another, and in that way to feel their real practical bearing upon the life of man. If we do not retain our system, if we do not endeavour to follow out the principle of it more zealously than we have ever done, I see no hope for any particular studies thriving long among us, but just so far as they can offer some prospects of tangible advantage. And if they could, we sacrifice all that unprofessional influence of which I spoke just now, all that power which we possess, so long, and so long only, as we do not let our thoughts run into separate, unconnected channels, of influencing the habits and character of the whole nation. We relinquish all hope of supplying a counteracting power to the dead-weight of commercial feel- ings, which are ever threatening to extinguish our national life ; nay, we actually put ourselves into a position in which we shall be compelled to minis- GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 105 tcr to those feelings, in which rehgion, learning, art, will all be contributing their aid to make them omnipotent, and of course to destroy them- selves. This is an evil of which I am glad to think that our German neighbours cannot have the present experience. Their poverty makes it far safer for them to be exclusively pro- fessional, than it can ever be for us. They can be scientific jurists, even though they do not connect jurisprudence with a general hu- manity ; if we try to be so, we shall soon sink into higglers and pettifoggers. They can look upon theology as a mere branch of study, to be taken up like any other, and yet retain a certain reverence for the pursuit. The moment we at- tempt such a course, we turn it into a trade, and a pernicious trade. They may indulge in all manner of political theories, not associating them Mith the actual position and real life of men. When we betake ourselves to that course, we end in becoming quacks and demagogues. The Latin schools in Prussia probably differ less from our grammar-schools than the universi- ties from our universities. But there is another class of higher schools to which Dr. Julius, in his examination before the House of Com- mons, gives the name of Real Hifjher Schools. lie describes the ditferencc in this way, "^ I would beg to direct the attention of the Committee to lOfi STATE EDUCATION one point. The Latin Higher Schools or Colleges are found in every countr\' where the classical languages are made the foundation of everything ; the sciences and arts are taught, as they are ne- cessary for preparing their pupils for the univer- sity. The Real Higher Schools are an invention of modern times, not introduced into the whole Prussian State, but are gradually forming ; so much of Latin is merely taught as is necessary to serve as a guide through the different sciences ; but the principal foundation is there laid by a deep knowledge of all the phenomena of nature, that of natural history, natural philosophy, che- mistry, and so on." — Minutes of Evidence before the select Committee of Education, 7th July, 1834, page 136. The same witness is asked (Question 1808) "Will you have the goodness to state to the Com- mittee any information you may have to commu- nicate respecting the Middle Schools ? " He answers, "The Middle Schools are formed en- tirely in towns, not in the country. The branches tauo-ht in the Middle Schools are the following : First, religion and morals. Secondly, the Ger- man language, reading, composition in style, and the German classics. Thirdly, foreign, modern languages. Fourthly, Latin, (as much as they want to exercise their faculties and judgment). Fifthly, the element of mathematics, and a com- GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 107 plete practical arithmetic. Sixthly, natural philo- sophy, to explain the phenomena of nature, che- mistry, and natural history. Seventhly, geogra- phy, the globes, and its position among the other luminaries, history, especially Prussian. Eighthly, drawing. Ninthly, handsome writing or caligra- phy. Tenthly, singing. Eleventhly, gymnastic exercises." He adds afterwards, "The law de- mands a Middle School already for a town of 1,500 inhabitants ; but there is shown indulgence for these small places where a good elementary school is thought sufficient." From these state- ments you will see that the schools formed by the State, for whatever class or age, carry out the principle which governs the University Education; the principle, T mean, of making the communica- tion of information the direct aim, and the fitting men for separate professions the highest aim. I think, therefore, I have a right to assume that this is the kind of Education which a State, sup- posing it to be the most wise and reasonable pos- sible, (and I believe the Prussian State to be as wise and reasonable a one as ever did, or is ever likely to exist) must of necessity communicate. A statesman feels that he wants men for certain works and occupations, that he wants lawyers and physicians, and divines, or booksellers, and linen- drapers, or labourers and aitizans. These are the articles which are needful for him ; these must be 108 STATE EDICATIOX by some means or other produced. The hirgest and deepest view he can possibly take of his own function, is this, that by some means or other it may enable him to produce them. He has a horror — a most reasonable horror — of that notion of a universal man, a man who is no particular thinfi;, but anything and everythinfr, whom I said in my last lecture, that some brainless visionaries had dreamed of creating; and if the thought strikes him — as strike him it will, supposing he has me- ditated upon history and upon himself — that there is something wanted to make each man rightly fulfil his own sphere, beyond just the possession of the knowledge which belongs to that sphere, it will hover about him as a confused apprehen- sion which he has no power to realize as he wishes, and which he can only realize in the faintest degree, by heaping all kinds of information toge- ther, and determining that his countr^•men shall get as much of it into them as their circumstances permit. Facts and reason alike prove that this is the case. You may meet statesmen with the deepest views, (I know not where you are more likely to meet with them than in Prussia) you may hear them confess " there is something wanted to form a nation besides all this ; nay, we see that all this never will form a nation.'' But the moment they try their hands at a practical measure, the moment thev trv to embodv their GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 109 conception in action, you feel at once that they cannot get out of the weary circle which their predecessors have marked out. They can do no- thing but add new elements of information ; they can but provide new facilities for professional training. The one power which they want is not given them ; they cannot get the standing-place from which to move the world ; they have no in- struments for calling forth that humanity without which, nevertheless, every day's experience con- vinces them that national life is impossible. It is painful that we should be driven by the necessities of any subject, and the duty of speak- ing the truth, to say anything which may even seem slighting of a people to whom we owe so much affection as the Germans, our own kinsmen, who, in many most important qualities of head and heart, surpass us. But the fact must be stated which these qualities only make the more wonderful, a fact not now proclaimed for the first time, but repeated with melancholy sympathy by those foreigners who respect them most, and with still more melancholy and earnest lamentations by themselves, that with all their gifts they have not the great gift of a national life. They know more about all the people of the earth, than those people know about themselves ; they have studied politi- cal science most diligently ; but they cannot be said to have a polity — they cannot be said to be a 110 STATE EDUCATION — nation. If State regulations could make them one ; if State Education, directed by State wis- dom, could make them one, those comj)laints could not be true — at any rate every hour would be diminishing their truth : but Germans do not feel that such a progress is making. Six univer- sities may have their twenty professors a-piece ; the schools may teach the difl'erent branches of reli- gion and morals, Latin, as much as is wanted for the faculties and judgment, together with hand- some writing or calligraphy, and the phenomena of nature generally ; but all these have not availed to create that living atmosphere which Germans feel around them Avhen they are in England — an atmosphere, of Mhich we are in a great measure unconscious, till it becomes impregnated with some deadly elements, or till we see desperate efforts making to exhaust it altogether. But you must not fancy that a State interfe- rence Mith the universities in England \yould merely involve the consequences which we see it has produced in Germany. A substitution of professional education for universal education would be the inevitable fruit of it ; but this would be very far from being the only fruit of it. In Germany there is no national life, therefore there is very little public opinion ; in Germany, there- fore, a wise statesman is able to act upon his own wisdom ; he is able to do the very utmost that a APPLICATION TO ENGLAND. Ill statesman can do. In England, because there is a national life, there is a public opinion ; a public opinion so much reverenced and idolized, that an ingenious speaker upon the conservative side in the House of Commons on June 21st, maintained that this is in fact the true coun- terpoise to the state power ; that to this the Education of the country may safely be in- trusted. Now, when I see smoke coming out of a chimney, it appears to me that there is a fire below. I am very glad that the smoke is able to to escape ; but I never could fancy for a moment that the smoke was a substitute for the fire, or that it was intended to do anything but to mingle with the general atmosphere and be lost. So far from looking upon this opinion as the effectual counter- poise to the State, it seems to me tliat the effect which this opinion produces upon the State, giv- ing to that Avhich should be fixed and rigid, a most unnatural flexibility, making that which should be stern and solemn, the sport of all tem- porary emotions and imj)ulscs, is that which we most want another free and living, yet permanent influence to counteract. What then would be the difference between the method in which the Prus- sian and English government would deal with University Education ? The first would adapt it to the circumstances of the age, viewed as com- prehensively as they can be viewed by any person 112 STATE EDUCATION living in the age ; they would deprive it of its human character ; but they would give it a sound, masculine, professional character. 'J'he latter would adapt it to the circumstances of the age as those circumstances are viewed by men who exercise the greatest temporary influence over it — by those who reflect and are able to express its own notions about itself, and about all that went before it. In the long and able, and in many ways highly interesting evidence of Mr. Simpson, which is given in the Appendix to the Report of the Edu- cation Committee, 1835, I find some remarks which bear upon this subject. Extract from page 129. — " Even in this en- lightened age it is extremely doubtful if the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer were to propose a grant of a sum of £200,000 for the support of Educa- tion in this realm, whether he would be able to carry the vote. Supposing the universities had been dependent upon annual votes, or such sources as you have observed, do you think it at all pro- bable that they would have subsisted for several centuries? I should think that, starting from the period in which we now live, they would have a much better chance of the support of Parliament than in the remote ages through which they have hitherto passed ; but their splendid endowments have rather subsisted as direct estates to the fortu- nate incumbents, than as the means of keeping APPLICATION TO ENGLAND. 113 alive and diffusing the best Education. They have had too much of a monastic character for this ; and it is well known that they have been the subject of reproach, a