MN ii

X030153734

fiaioae eeeWe Orbe i (Gift)

‘Chis book is one of the nee |
a the library of the fale

|

ST EY TAT YL NS
OOPS zap, \)
YY GY), \d,
YY Z j
y 9 |
Yy f
()
(
5
2: vs
3S oy
E =

 

 

 
    
      
       

  

 

areegee an Sande aie |
University of Virginia
op esented to the Un niver iy

 

 

 
 

7 fi ope

William Gordon M:Cabe
ERWamer Ms Cabe, Wa

REEDS TL AA AOE AM LA LALA DAA EAA AA AM DMA
WY YY Wy 7 yy Wy ) a
Y/777
oy
ally
lyre( On -tpatt. JL0 Oa Ce,

Jy.
Ye Ee

/257,mrterepeemrers ten

ome s
on ee

Claigmearths ses

peer a

rf

i
La
5,BRITISH ELOQUENCE

OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

LITERARY ADDRESSES.

SECOND SERIES.In a Series of Foolscap 8vo Volumes, Price 3s. 6d. each.

BRITISH ELOQUENCE:

THE LITERARY, PO

LITICAL, AND SACRED ORATORY OF THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Published as far as possible under the superintendence of f

nner ees

he Authors.

fee stg ee A SEO ORATORY -

LITERARY ADDRESSES DEI

Str ARCHIBALD ALIson, LL.D.
DUKE OF ARGYLL.

HENRY GLASSFORD BELL, Esq.
Sir DAVID BREWSTER, F.R.S.
EARL OF CARLISLE.

BENJAMIN DiIsRAELI, M.P.

Sir J. F. W. HERSCHELL, F.R.S.

Lorp BROUGHAM.

THoMAS CAMPBELL.

RICHARD CoBDEN, M.P.

Sir E. BULWER LYTTON.

T, BABINGTON Macautay, M.P.
PROFESSOR MASSON.

IVERED AT VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS.

First Series.

Second

 

CHARLES KNIGHT, Es@.

Lorp Manon, M.P.

Lorp JoHN Manners, M.P.
Proressor NicHoL, LL.D.
>ROFESSOR PHILLIPS, M.A., F.R.S.
Sir THomas N. TaLFouRD, D.C.L.
ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

Series.

Srr RoBERT PEEL.

Lyon PuayFarr, C.B., F.R.S.
Lorp JoHN RussELL, M.P.
Sir JAMES STEPHEN, LL.D.
PRINCIPAL Scott, M.A.
PROFESSOR WILSON.

© reese Aas ORATORY -
First Series.
The Great Speeches of the Great Statesmen of the latter part of the Reign ot

GEORGE

Lorp BRoUGHAM.
LorpD CAMPBELL.
EARL OF DERBY.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
GEORGE CANNING.
Lorp DURHAM.
EARL GREY.

Lorp LIVERPOOL.

I11.—Jn preparation. ;

Second Series.
The Great Speeches of the Great Statesmen during the Thirty-nine Years’ Peace,
COMPRISING

|

Lorp LYNDHURST.

T. BABINGTON MACAULAY.
Srr JAMES MACINTOSH.
LorpD PALMERSTON.

Sir RoBERT PEEL.

Sir SAMUEL ROMILEY.
LorpD JOHN RUSSELL.
DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

SACRED ORATORY -
SERMONS BY THE MOST EMINENT LIVING DIVINES.

First Series.
Ministers of the Church of England.

Second Series.

Ministers of the Presbyterian Church of all Denominations.Wf rr-ttn O61 be,
/35F. Ueaginin.

LITERARY ADDRESSES,

DELIVERED AT

VARIOUS POPULAR INSTITUTIONS

SECOND SERIES.

Rebised and Corrected by the Authors.

LONDON AND G Lasiov: Se
RICHARD GHIF VIN ‘and:  GQNIBANN,

PUBLISHERS 70 THE UNIV ERSITY OF ‘GL ASGOW.

1855.GLASGOW: BELL AND BAIN, PRINTERS.CONT EN 'ES.

ADDRESSES
DELIVERED AT VARIOUS LITERARY INSTITUTIONS,

BY THE FOLLOWING GENTLEMEN :—

SIR JAMES STEPHEN, K.C.B., LL.D., ...
LYON PLAYFAIR, C.B., Pu.D., F.R.S., ...
Sin HOWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART., .........0.. 5.5. .-0--
PEO EP ACER GOB IBING Morocco. on wa teice ce caer ee oclne es wena rales
ORD: JOHN RUSSELL, M.P., 22... .0 cee cece ene seems e percents os

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, MP, .....-... 2s. 02-- eee:

 
   
  
 
 
 
   
  
  
  
  
  
 
   
  
  

PAGE

MEET 2.5 foci cs edcsc conn td ecuy en ccue ee eeege
BeROBERT PEEL, ...-.......-.0: i87
Be SCOTT, M.A., ......- 919
EE TE SON. ©0250 csi ov sa soda sdeccctnes func Qyenes Og
THOMAS CAMPBELL, .. 250
PROFESSOR GREENWOOD, B.A.,.-..+-..+ 262

PROFESSOR MASSON,,......+-seeee--‘
i
bie

eILECTURE ON THE RIGHT USE OF BOOKS,

DELIVERED BY

THE RIGHT HON, SIR JAMES STEPHEN, K.C.B. LID,

PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,

TO THE MEMBERS OF

THE SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND LITERARY AND
SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION.

15th September, 1853.

Our excellent friend the Archdeacon, whose invita-
tion has brought me hither, will, I trust, make the
requisite apology for such an intrusion of a total
stranger among you. But stranger as I am, there is
one fact concerning myself which I must already have
succeeded in communicating to all who see or hear me.
It is the fact that I have numbered many years. So
many indeed are they, that I have lived to witness all,
except the earliest scenes, of that dark tragedy of
which France has so long been the stage; and the
whole progress of the corresponding drama of which,
during the last twenty-five years, England has been
the theatre. Strange, indeed, have been the contrasts
between the two revolutions.

In France this part of the Divine counsels has been

carried into effect by the stretched-out arm of the
Bsae

 

2 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

Angel of desolation and of death. In England it has
been committed to the ministration of the Angel of
mercy. ‘There the overthrow of Dynasties and of In-
stitutions has again and again served only to conduct
the Insurgent people to some new forms of despotic
Here an unbroken series of bold ex-

Government.
ating all the popular elements of

periments for renov
our commonwealth, and for reconstruct’ng almost every
branch of our National Polity, has left us still in the
undisturbed possession of the solemn trust, and high
responsibilities, of freedom. It is a trust to be exe-
cuted in the spirit of gratitude, of vigilance, of humility,
and of self-control.
For if the contrasts between the two histories be
marvellous, they have also some admonitory coicl-
dences. In France, in the reign of Louis XV. the
Present was at war with the Past. New dogmas con-
fronted the old traditions. Zealots for the one were in
hostile array against Zealots for the other. But the
sword was still unsheathed, and the guillotine had
not as yet been erected. It was the day for calm de-
bate and peaceful arbitrament; and the controversial-
ists on either side accordingly invoked public opmion
as the legitimate umpire between them. They by
whom this appeal was chiefly made, were the master
spirits of that age: Montesquieu, Voltaire, D’ Alem-
bert, Diderot, Helvitius, and Rousseau. They to
whom the appeal was chiefly addressed were the
majority (the effective, that is, not the numerical ma-
jority) of the French people—the men of active minds,

of ardent tempers, and of persuasive discourse—theSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 3

men each of whom in his own city, canton, or village,
ruled over his neighbours in right of his superior force
of intellect, or of his greater energy of will. But this
natural Aristocracy, aspiring and audacious as it was,
could hardly undertake to pronounce any oracular
decision in favour of any doctrines whatever. Public
opinion could not express itself through such lips as
theirs, because they were at that time almost univer-
sally labouring under a profound, and, as it might
have seemed, an incurable ignorance of all the ques-
tions in dispute. To qualify them for such an adjudi-
eation, it was necessary that some royal road to learn-
ing should be hewn out for them.

That arduous task was undertaken by the Propa-
gandists of the new Doctrines. Those eminent writers

(to use the language of Bacon) * took all knowledge for
r)

their province,” and the astonished world had to gaze
on a strange revolution in the literature of Europe,
before it was alarmed by revolution in the Huropean
Governments. Every subject of human inquiry, how-
ever abstruse, was daily interpreted by some Author,
either already known, or till then unknown, to fame.
Laying aside her ancient, austere, and venerable garb,
learning appeared in dresses as light, as gay, and as
ephemeral as those which fluttered in the drawing-
rooms of Paris. The Pocket Duodecimo usurped the
place of the ponderous Folio. Reading became a
fayourite recreation, instead ofan arduousand self-deny-
ing duty. very science and every art was converted
from a severe study into an exhilarating entertainment.

Grammar, Logic, Metaphysics, History, Philosophy,4 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

 

and even Religion were rendered familiar, easy, epi-

ic, and amusing. With many books in their

y words in their mouths, the men of that

w facts in their memories, few con-

tandings, and few, if any, high
purposes in their souls. Between sucha literature, and
whatever was arrogant, disloyal, impious, and impure,
the alliance was immediate and complete. It gave
pirth to a talk like that of Babel, and prepared the
way for a ruin like that of Babylon. The “ Gipsy
jargon ” of the Convention was but a new edition of
those ready-made substitutes for real knowledge, of
which the authors of the French Encyclopedia had
been the inventors. Never did presumptuous ignorance
assume the tone, imitate the gait, and

grammat
hands, and man
generation had fe
clusions in their unders

so completely
usurp the authority of wisdom.
For this mass of falsely pretended knowledge we

shall happily find no parallel amongst ourselves, so
long as we look only to our legitimate intellectual
rulers; to our men of genius and philosophy, to our
Hallams, and Grotes, and Macaulays, to our Hamiltons,
and Whewells, and Farradays. No writers were ever
more sternly opposed to whatever is plausible, spe-
cious, and superficial merely, or more implacable an-
tagonists of all that is either profane, or anarchical, or
impure. A passing smile may perhaps now and then
be provoked by those rapid circumnayigators of the
whole world of learning upon which some of them will
occasionally embark; but we feel that this is but an
amiable weakness, a sort of elephantine gambol, the
mere riot of gigantic strength, perfectly harmless toSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 95

themselves and others, and always associated in their
own minds with the most unaffected humility. But Iam
not sure that the fashion of literary omniscience, when
it descends lower down in the scale of intellect and of
learning, is equally inoffensive. I doubt whether our pre-
valent habit of reading, of speculating, and of talking
about every conceivable subject of investigation, can
adjust itself more safely in England than it adjusted
itself in France, to the augmented responsibilities at-
tendant on the vast and sudden increase which has
been made in our political franchises, and in our eol-
lective and individual authority in the State. It is a
habit which has made no shght advance amongst us.

With such of us as can afford the money and the
leisure, it is an almost daily practice (I confess it to
be my own) to animate our breakfast tables by a
canter in the T%mes over all the topics of the day—
that is, over all the public affairs of all nations, of all
trades, of all literary and scientific associations, of all
the litigants in our causes celebres, and of all other
noticeable people amongst us. Nor do we conclude
that morning exercise without at least a glance at the
crowded columns in which the great journalist an-
nounces the birth of new books, conceived in every form
and embracing every subject, the best adapted at once
to stimulate the appetite for reading, and to abridge the
toil of patient inquiry. This pleasant morning office
over, the Londoner (I find that I am placing myself
in the Confessional) may walk down to his club, there
to contemplate, and to marvel at the pyramids of re-
views, of magazines, and of such like aids to literary6 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

digestion which rise, from table to table, along the
entire length of those spacious saloons. If his stroll
all at the reading-room of the

is completed by ac
that among the books

British Museum, he observes
carried by the Mercury of the place to the students
1 indeed is the number calculated to put
y thinking powers. Our eritic
on for some other part

there, smal
any strain upon thei
then, perchance leaving Lond
of these islands, admires on each successive railway
platform the bookstalls of one and another Mr. Smith,
(for the book trade is running into a Smithery among
us,) rich m what are called Works for the Million, rich
that is in Travellers’ Libraries, in the Miscellanies of
Constable, in the Journals of Chambers, in Penny Ma-
gazines, in Pocket Cyclopeedias, in Readmgs for the
Rail, in Hand-books and Romances, in the Beauties
of this writer, in the Wit of that, in the Wisdom of
another, and in some one or more of the hundred and
odd volumes in which the History of France may now
be read in the shape of so many consecutive Novels.
Descending at length from his train, our imagimary
traveller finds in whatever town he reaches (as indeed
he might have found in London) notices of Lectures
to be delivered on every art or science of which Francis
Bacon ascertained the state or anticipated the progress
—nay! is perhaps engaged to deliver such a lecture
himself. At the commencement of it may he venture
(cautiously and respectfully) to inquire whether this
confederacy of the Newspapers, the Magazines, the
Clubs, the Reading-rooms, the Railways, and the Lec-
tures, to render all of us knowing and wise at theSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 7

smallest possible expenditure of mental labour, will
really qualify us for any of the serious duties of life,
and especially for the vigilant, the humble, and the
self-denying exercise of the new powers which we
have derived from the English Revolution of the nine-
teenth century ?

You will not, I am sure, do me the injustice to sup-
pose that these doubts are suggested by any failure of
respect for the persons, or of interest in the studies
of those whom I have the honour to address. They
are prompted by my jealousy of whatever seems to me
injurious to the intellectual growth and stature of my
fellow-countrymen; in whom I revere not merely those
excellent gifts of reason and of conscience which are,
more or less, the common patrimony of all the chil-
dren of our Heavenly Father, but those special oifts
also of political power, and of the intellectual dominion
inseparable from such power, of which Englishmen,
and the descendants of Englishmen, are the sole heirs,
with no Copartners on earth. They, and they alone,
have inherited, and defended, and matured constitu-
tional liberty. To them, and to them alone, it there-
fore belongs to give a free and authoritative utterance
to the voice of public opinion, and so to exercise that
mysterious influence which attests the contagion of
thought, and the dominion of thought, among man-
kind. To Englishmen collectively lies the final ap-
peal from every human authority in England, on every
question affecting our national welfare and our duties
as a people. Is it, then, unreasonable to desire, or
unwise to express the desire, that the vast apparatus8 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

of instruction now happily at our command may be so
contrived, and so employed, as to train us all for the
right discharge of this responsibility, by training each
of us in at least some one branch, not of superficial,
but of sound learning?

By sound, that is, solid learning, I mean such know-
ledge as relates to useful and substantial things, and
as in itself is compact, coherent, all of a piece, having
its several parts fitted into each other, and mutually
sustaining and illustrating one another. I mean that
kind of learning which is the opposite of loose, dis-
connected, unsystematic, gaseous information. I am
pointing to a distinction like that between the arts of
navigation and ballooning—the one steadily pursuing
a definite and useful end, the other aiming at nothing
but an idle and dangerous pastime—the one labori-
ously, though obscurely, tracking a distinct path
through the mighty deep, the other ostentatiously
soaring into the pathless firmament—the one a task
for men, the other a toy for children.

Thinking thus of the value of solid learning, | am
anxious that we should not be aspirants after the
fashionable accomplishment of literary omniscience.
It is a pretension as preposterous as it is pernicious.
Since the creation of our race three men only have
appeared on earth in whom it was not a shameless
effrontery to say that they “ took all knowledge for
their province.” First among them in time, as in
dignity, was that great king who won, by prayer such
wisdom, as to exceed all mankind both im natural and in
moral philosophy. Next came that Grecian sage, whoSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 9

acquired for himself in the realms of thought a
dominion far more universal and enduring than that
which he taught his pupil Alexander to acquire oyer the
kingdoms of the world. The throne of Aristotle had
continued vacant during long centuries, when it was
at length ascended by Francis Bacon. But with him
that imperial dynasty became extinct. Their boundless
dominion was thenceforward broken up into innumer-
able provinces, the complete possession of the least of
which is enough to exhaust the resources, as it ought
to be enough to satisfy the ambition, of any ordinary
man. How, then, shall every such man conquer any
one of those provinces for himself ?

I answer, place before an intelligent child an Eng-
lish, a French, and an American globe of the planet
on which we dwell. He will ask you why it is that,
in each of the three globes, the same points are touched
by all the circles whose planes are parallel to that of
the Equator ; while, in each of the three, the points
touched by the circles running from Pole to Pole are
different ? You tell him it is because England and
France and the United States have all placed their
national observations at or near their respective capi-
tals—that each of those nations has drawn its own
meridian line at its own chosen point of observation
—and that thus when a geographer of either looks at
his globe he ascertains the latitude and longitude of
each spot on the earth’s surface with reference, as it
may happen, either to Greenwich, or to Paris, or to
Washington. His own observatory is never out of
his mind, to whatever distance his eye may have wan-10 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

dered from it. His own national meridian line is the
basis of all his measurements, however remote they
may be from the capital of his nation. His map of
the world is still, in every part of it, a kind of
national map.

The lesson we thus give to our children we may
advantageously repeat to ourselves. Take the chart
of human knowledge; fix your own mental observa-
tory on any spot in it which is most convement to
yourself, and there draw your meridian. Whatever
other places on that chart you may have occasion to
inspect or to visit, let that meridian be the basis to
which you refer them, and the line by which you
measure them. Your chart of knowledge will then
have, at least for yourself, a certain unity and con-
sistency of plan, countless, and wide apart, and dis-
similar, as may be the various regions comprised with-
in its limits.

In what precise part of the great sphere of learn-
ing any man may choose to draw for himself this car-
dinal or initiatory line, is I think of little comparative
importance. Let it only be drawn with a firm hand,
and when once drawn let it thenceforward remain un-
altered, and the author of it will have the means of
grasping, and of binding indissolubly together into
one well cemented whole, all the literary or scientific
acquisitions of his future life. Wherever his Green-
wich may be, he will be able to ascertain, relatively
to it, the bearings, the latitudes, and the longitudes
of every other place in the world of letters, which at
any subsequent time he may see fit to visit.SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION, I]

For learning 7s a world, and is not a chaos. The
various accumulations of human knowledge are not so
many detached masses. They are all connected parts
of one great system of truth; and though that system
be infinitely too comprehensive for any one of us to
compass, yet each component member of it bears to
every other component member, relations which each
of us may, in his own department of study, search out
and discover for himself. . A man is really and sound-
ly learned in exact proportion to the number and to
the importance of those relations which he has thus
carefully examined, and accurately understood. A
well- judging man, therefore, will draw his meridian,
or, to change the figure, will open his trunk line of
study, in such a direction that, while habitually ad-
hering to it, he may enjoy a ready access to such other
fields of knowledge as are most nearly related to it,
and as, by means of it, he can most readily penetrate.

For this, amongst other reasons, I venture to re-
commend to those of my hearers who may hitherto
have been turning over books, reviews, magazines,
and newspapers with no definite purpose, and therefore
with little if any mental nutriment or mental growth,
that they betake themselves to the study of Modern
History. Modern History! you exclaim. ‘‘Nothing
like leather,” said the Tanner of old; and nothing
like the History of these later ages, says the Histori-
cal Professor of Cambridge. Well! I admit that my
advice does smell of the shop; but of all the smells
a man can bear about him, commend me to that.
When any one talks of his own trade, he at leastsé
teat

      
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

12 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

usually knows something of what he is talking about.

I hope it is so, in some little measure, with myself.

The trade which I now carry on, was not indeed my

original calling. I took it up im the evening of a life

of which the morning had been spent at the Bar, and
the noontide in the business of the State. But from

an early period I had acted on the counsels which I

now offer to you. I soon drew my meridian line. I

took the History of Europe, since the overthrow of the
Roman Empire, as the basis of my reading. To that
basis I more or less referred whatever else I read.

It was not without some tacit reference to it that I
perused many a Brief, and wrote still more Despatches ;
and therefore it was that when the time had come at
which it behoved me to quit my public employments,
I was judged by others not unworthy, however little
worthy in fact, to be associated with such men aS Whe-
well and Sedgwick, as Peacock and Willis, in their
high and honourable office (the highest and the most
honourable to which I have ever attained), of trainmg
up the youth of their and my University for the right
discharge of some of the most important functions to
which Englishmen are called. To my pupils there
I have said, as I now say to you, that History con-
sidered as a subject of study has this peculiar
excellence, that it may be readily grafted upon every
other branch of knowledge, and that every other branch
of knowledge may be readily grafted upon it. What-
ever may be the windings of a man’s path, literary,
scientific, professional, or mercantile, they can never
conduct him to any point on which his knowledge ofSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 13

the public occurrences of former times will not throw
some light, or which will not reflect back some light
on those occurrences.

One of the young men whom I see before me has,
I will suppose, anticipated this advice, and has resolved
to devote his leisure hours to the study of the His-
tory of England. A wise and a happy resolution !
He could choose no annals better adapted for his
purpose. Those of Greece may be more heroical,
those of France far more entertaining, those of Spain
more Romantic, those of the Papacy more full of
solemn warnings, those of Germany more replete with
events directly affecting the whole European Continent :
but the record of the deeds of our own forefathers,
teach above all other such records how the Church
and the State may be well governed, wisely reformed,
valiantly defended, and perseveringly maintained.
Let the student of our History digress into what
other fields he will (for I neither expect nor advise an
exclusive culture of that one field) he may still gather
in them all something relevant to that his main pursuit.
If, for example, he learns to read the language, and
becomes acquainted with the manners of Germany, it
will illustrate for him the characters of Edwin, and
Altred, and Athelstane, otherwise hardly to be under-
stood. If he acquires any knowledge of the story of
Pope Hildebrand and of his immediate successors,
he will the better comprehend the reigns of William
the Conqueror, of Henry the Second, and of John. If
he looks into the medizval Poetry, it will reveal to
him much of the true character of Richard Ceur de14 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

Lion. A summer ramble through this island may
render intelligible to him what he has read of the
fields of Hastings or of Bannockburn, of Flodden or of
Bosworth, of Edge- Hill or of Marston Moor. Should
he conceive a taste for Church Architecture, his mind’s
eye may be enlightened to see that glorious spectacle
which the English chroniclers have vainly attempted
to describe to him, but on which our ancestors once
gazed with a just, though it was a fond and super-
stitious enthusiasm. He will see the cities of our
land crowned with churches like those of Evesham,
and many of her quiet meadows embellished with
monasteries like that of Fountains Abbey. A visit
to Windsor, or Beauvoir, or Alton-Towers, or Hatfield,
will enable him to contemplate what was once the
living aspect of the great men with whose actions Hall,
or Hollingshed, or Clarendon, or Burnet, have already
made him familiar. An armoury will show him by
what weapons we conquered at Cressy and at Agincourt.
Geography will enable him to follow the conquests of
our Henrys and Edwards, or the discoveries of our
Raleighs and Drakes, of our Cooksand Ansons. Botany
will reveal to him the Flora of England, and much
of the agriculturalresources of England, as they existed
in each successive century. Political Economy will
explain to him many things otherwise inexplicable in
our annals, as, for example, the social effects of the
dissolution of the monasteries, and of the consequent
Poor Law; while his attentive perusal of Blackstone
will throw for him a flood of light over the whole course
of our domestic history. In short, let such a studentSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. }5

go where he will, read what he will, enjoy what ration-
al amusement he will, and let him only bring to bear
on the elucidation of his main subject all the collateral
lights which, in the course of such pursuits, may fall
in his way, and he has my full consent to his reading
all the pocket libraries which all the booksmiths of our
days have hammered out for the use of railway travel-
lers. Let him but carefully bind together into sheaves
whatever he may glean to his purpose from such de-
sultory readings (for some desultory reading must be
conceded to us all), and let him accumulate these
sheaves to his historical harvest, and he will become
as well entitled to the praise of sound learning, and
will, in his measure, as certainly enjoy the advantages
of it, as if, in the extent and value of his literary
wealth, he could emulate those eminent scholars whose
care has so long rendered the school of Shrewsbury
illustrious.

Nevertheless there must of course be some limits
to these deviations from the more direct and habitual
course of any man’s intellectual pursuits. In order to
know anything, one must resolve to remain ignorant
of many things. From your occasional digressions
from the study of the History of England, many topics,
and many books, must be altogether excluded. But
there is one such digression which in my judgment,
is to be declined by no student of English history; on
the contrary, I think it is a digression to be frequently
and assiduously made, yet is the least rugged of all
the by-paths you can tread. I hold that no man can
have any just conception of the History of England16 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

not often read, and meditated, and learned to
love the great poets of England. Chaucer, Shakspeare,
Nassinger, George Herbert, Milton, Cowley, Dryden,
Pope, and Burns, often throw more rich and brilliant
colours, and sometimes even more clear and steady
lights, on the times and doings of our forefathers, than
are to be gathered from all the chroniclers put to-

nerable Bede to the philosophical

gether, from the ve
Hume. They are at least the greatest and the best
If this statement

commentators on those chroniclers.
sounds to you like an exaggeration, listen to the de-
fence I have to make of it.

So much has been said and written of late upon
the distinction between what is objective and what is
subjective literature, that we are sometimes tempted
to hand it over to the region of cant or of shams, or
it into that other and yet darker gulph of
o which we are so much accustomed to
ange to our own individual habits

who has

to pitch
oe humbug” int

plunge whatever is str
Yet it is a distinction which has a good

of thinking.
For it is one thing to

measure of sound sense Am wt.
e about the external objects and events around

me ; it is another thing to write about the thoughts
which those objects and events have suggested to me.
It is one thing to look abroad and another to look
within. The first of these employments of the mind
is the primary and chief office of the historian. The
other is the primary and chief office of the poet. No
historian or poet indeed is of the highest rank who
does not, to some extent, combine in himself each of
these mental habits; but every great historian or great

writSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION, 17

poet exercises himself chiefly in the one or the other
of them which it is his own appropriate duty to cul-
tivate. For the political, military, and social moye-
ments of each generation of men (that is, their history)
are the result of the influence exercised over them by
the spirit of the age in which they live; and the spirit
of the age is the aggregate of the thoughts, feelings,
and propensities which then happen to be dominant in
the minds of the people. Those movements are re-
corded by the historian. That spirit is expressed by
the poet. The one describes the effects of the impel-
ling power; the other seizes, analyzes, and depicts the
power itself. History is*the complement of poetry,
and -poetry is the complement of history. A divorce
between the two is fatal to the beauty and to the life
of both. ThiSmay sound a little abstruse, but a few
examples will render it clear. Thus, from the author
of the book of Judges, we learn the progress and the
result of the war between Jabin, King of Canaan, and
the Children of Israel; but it is from the Song of
Deborah we learn what was the devout confidence,
the holy indignation, and the fierce resentment by
which the conquerors were animated. The acts of
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, are they not
written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of
Judah? but the passions, ood or evil, of their subjects,
the exulting joy with which they foresaw the descent
of the King of Babylon into Hades, and the faith
which made the future advent of the Messiah a present
and a glorious reality to them, are they not depicted
in the prophecies of the inspired Isaiah? From the
C18 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

writer of the Second Book of Kings we learn how the
Jews were carried away captive in the days of Zede-
kiah; but it is the Psalmist alone who makes known
to us how they “sat down by the waters of Babylon
and wept, when they remembered thee, Oh Sion.”
Or to pass to less sacred instances. Homer ex-
hibits to us all the characteristics of his countrymen
__their antipathy to their Asiatic neighbours—their
love of war, of wisdom, of eloqu
of nautical adventure. The great
reveal to us their people’s exquisite se
and their faith in an awful, an almighty, but an im-
controlling the Olympic

ence, of intrigue, and
agedians of Greece
use of beauty,

personal power, called Fate,
Gods, whom they at once admired and despised, wor-
shipped and disbelieved. Virgil discovers to us the
rural habits, and the refined tastes of the later Ro-
mans, and their homage of the new or imperial Majesty
—(the supposed guardian of peace and of law)}—with
which they consoled themselves under their irreparable
loss of freedom. Dante gives utterance to the pas-
sionate desire of the Italian people to escape, or at
least to rebuke, the spiritual tyranny of Rome, and
to clothe even the most barbarous of her legends under
some forms of solemnity and of grace, beneath which
their inherent deformity might be hidden. Ariosto is
the interpreter of the spirit of a nation which, after
struggling ‘n vain for civil and intellectual freedom,
was seeking relief and self-forgetfulness in the wildest
dreams of a sportive imagination; and Goethe repre-
sents to us a race of men who, proudly conscious of
powers for which in the great arena of the politicalane ern ese negara

  

SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION, 19

world they had found no successful exer
striving to raise themselves above their
rivals, by an ostentatious familiarity wi
teries which overhang the daily Pp
or which connect us with the uns
modes of existence.

cise, were
more fortunate
th all the mys-
ath of common life,
een realities of other
Had, then, the great poets of
England no corresponding errand to express the
thoughts and the feelings which,

from age to age, had
the mastery over the minds of their fellow country -

men? My own judgment is, that they had such a
commission, and that they executed it w
parable skill and beauty.

ith incom-
To vindicate this opinion
will be the object of whatever else I have to offer to
your notice. Nor let it be supposed that, when enter-
ing upon that topic, I forget my main desion. I haye
insisted on the selection of some one branch of study
not only as the indispensable condition of acquiring any
real and useful learning, but also as the only method
by which we may safely and profitably indulge that
discursive spirit which belongs, I suppose, more or less
to all of us. Let me, then, now endeavour to show
how he who has selected English History (for ex-
ample) as his meridian line of knowledge, may adhere
to it even when he seems to be deviating from it; may
be culling fruits even when in pursuit of flowers 3 and
may render the delights of literature subservient to
the more severe of his literary labours. The illustra-
tion may be varied indefinitely by each student for
himself, if only the principle involved in it be borne in
mind. Take then the period which elapsed between
the years 1328 and 1400. They include the French

er ass torre20 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

and the Scotch Conquests of Edward the Third—his
improvement of the laws and constitution of the realm
the minority of Richard the Second—the insurrec-
tion of Wat Tyler—the deposition of the young King
—the usurpation of the house of Lancaster—and the
preaching and attempted reforms of Wicliffe. You
have, I will suppose, studied these events in Knygton
and Heming, and Walsingham, and Cotton, in the
slowing pages of Froissart; or in the abridgements of
Hume, of Sharon, Turner, and of Lingard, or in the
life of Wicliffe by my eloquent, indefatigable, and very
learned friend Doctor Vaughan. Excellent books in
their various kinds; but after reading them all, what
do you really know of the people of England of that
era, of their living spirit, of their inner life, of their
modes of thinking and acting, of their domestic, their
familiar, and daily habits? Yet to an historical student
this is a knowledge of far more value than any which
relates to the march of armies, to cabals of parliaments,
to the enactment of laws, or even to the disputes of
theologians. Has no one transmitted that knowledge
to us?

The seventy-two years to which I have referred
exactly coincide with the life-time of Geoffrey Chaucer

 

a man of liberal education, engaged in no particular
calling, possessed of an easy fortune, and connected
by marriage with John of Gaunt, the great friend and

 

patron of Wicliffe—a man therefore who had the
amplest means, as he had the keenest wit, and the most
restless curiosity, for studying the character of his

fellow-countrymen. Would you know what was theSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION, 2]
aspect in which the England of those days presented
utself to him? Read the prologue to his Canterbury
Tales. There you will find the poet at the Tabard
inn, in Southwark, seated at the landlord’s table, one
of a large company of Suests, some of high and some
of low degree. There were present priests, lawyers,
physicians, merchants, scholars, nuns, ladies, carpen-
ters, dyers, tapsters, cooks, and seamen. The jolly
host agreeing with his messmates that a pilgrimage
to the shrine of Saint Thomas 3 Becket would be
very healthful to the soul, offers to accompany and to
guide them thither; but he thinks that their penitence
will be none the less effective for a little merriment
by the way. So, at his suggestion, they agree that
each pilgrim shall tell some good story as they travel
along, and that on their return to London the best
story-teller shall be treated by the rest to a handsome
supper at the Tabard. The book is an imaginary
record of these pleasant Tales, of which however in
passing, I am bound to say that some of them must
be unfit for the perusal of any one who properly res-
pects and cherishes his own mental purity, since the
remembrance of their dissolute character haunted and
agonised the dying moments of their great author.
But the prologue is inoffensive. It contains a minute
description of his fellow-travellers. Let us see how
far they elucidate the history of Edward the Third,
and of Richard the Second.

First, let me introduce you to the Franklin or small
landowner, of those days, reminding you that the lan-
guage is that of our forefathers four hundred and fiftyae, RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
   

years ago, and therefore alittle rugged. I will, how-
ever, read it as it stands, with the change only of an
obsolete word or two:—

His bread, his ale, was always after one,

A better envied man was nowhere none,
Withouten bake meat never was his house,
Of fish and flesh; and that so pienteous,

It snowed, in his house, of meat and drink,
Of all the dainties that men could of think;
His table dormant, in his hall alway,

Stood ready coyered all the longe day.

Now for the Squire—

Embroidered was he as it were a mede,
All full of freshe flowers white and red,
Singing he was or flaunting all the day,
He was as fresh as is the month of May.

 

Take next the Oxford Clerk or Scholar

As Iean was his horse as is a rake,

And he was not right fat, i mmdertake;

For he had gotten him no benefice,

Nor was thought worthy to have an office,

For him was ever had at his bed’s head,

A twenty books clothed m black or red..

Of study took he moste care and heed,

Nor a word spake he more than what was need,
Sounding in moral virtue: was his speech,

And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.

 

 

The Physician next makes his appearance—

He knew the cause of every malady,

Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry;
And when engendered, and of what humour,
He was a very perfect practiser.

We now turn to the Hcelesiastics, and first (as befits
her dignity) to the prioress—

She was so charitable and so piteous,
She would weep if that she saw a mouse

Caught in a trap; if it were dead or bled.
Of smalle houndes had she that she fedSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 23

With roasted flesh, and milk and Wassail bread,
But sore wept she if one of them were dead,

Or if men smote it with a yarde smart;

And all was conscience and tender heart.

To the lady succeeds the Monk—

I saw his sleeves perfumed at the hand,
With grease, and that the finest in the land,
And for to fasten his hood neath his chin,
He had of gold y-wrought a curious pin.

A love-knot in the greater end there was,
His head was bald, and shone as any glass.

The Monk is followed by the Friar

Full swetely hearde he confession,

And pleasant was his absolution,

For many a man so hard is at his heart,

He cannot weep, though sorely he may smart,
Therefore, instead of weeping and prayers,
Men might give silver to the poor friers,

 

Last of all I introduce the Parson, or, as we should
say now-a-days the Parish Clereyman—

A good man there was of religion,

That was a poor parson of a town,

But rich he was of Holy thought and work,
He was also a lerned man, a Clerk

That Christe’s Gospel truely would preach,
His parishers deyoutly would he teach.
Benign he was, and wondrous diligent,
And in adversity full patient.

His parish wide, the houses far asunder,
But he ne’er left none, for no rain or thunder,
And tho’ he holy was and virtuous,

He was to sinful men not despitous.

To drawen folk to Heaven with fairenesse
By good example was his businesse.

For Christe’s love and his Apostles’ twelve,
He taught, but first he followed it himself

Now, all this is, of course, fiction. But what else

were the novels of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, a
hundred years ago, and what else are those of Mr.Fo
aes

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  

RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

 

24

Dickens now? But as surely as Squire All-worthy
and Partridge, and Matthew Bramble, and Winnitred
Jenkins, and Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, and
Mistress Nickleby and Mr. Squeers, are all portraits
drawn by those artists from originals of their own
times, so surely are the storytellers who travel with
mine host of the Tabard to Canterbury genume pie-
tures of the men.and women with whom Chaucer was
familiar.

Observe then what, in addition to the delight of

 

reading such passages of such poetry, is the histori-
cal instruction we gain from them. They show us
that four hundred and fifty years ago the different
ranks of society were drawn much more closely to-
gether than at present; since knights and prioresses,
squires and serjeants-at-law, are supposed, as a matter
of course, to sit down to supper, in all loving associ-
ation, with carpenters, tapsters, cooks, sailors, and
ploughmen. They show, therefore, that in that re-
mote age all Englishmen could respect each other as
Freemen, while France and Germany werepeopled with
Bondsmen (called by the French foturiers )—of not
much more account than the Serfs in Russia, or the
Ryots in Hindostan at this day. They show that
the middle classes of rural society, the Franklins and
Squires, were living in great and even excessive abun-
dance; though, as we may infer, with few other than
animal gratifications, as these alone are celebrated.

They show, however, that even then learning, real

2?
or supposed, was the object of respect to those who

had it not themselves; since what we now call the

  

 

Mean eee
nay et tit etSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 25

learned professions must haye been held in reverence
by those remote ancestors of ours to whom the poet
addressed himself; for the wits never select as the
victims of their flouting and jeering, persons not usu-
ally in high popular estimation. They show that
our forefathers laughed at the superstitions they were
practising; so that, even in Chaucer’s time, there
were not wanting some sure omens of their approach-
ing downfall. They show that the resentment against
friars, monks, abbesses, and pardoners, which a hun-
dred years later overthrew the monasteries, was eyen
then working deeply in the national mind : and they
further show that Englishmen in the fourteenth cen-
tury loved and honoured their parish priests, even as
we love and honour them now. Much beside this
they show; but tell me from what History of Eng-
land you can learn the same facts, I will not say as
vividly and impressively, but even as accurately, and
on evidence of as much inherent weight and solid
value?

As we are engaged with Poetry, you will allow me
the poetical license of overleaping at a bound the next
200 years, and placing you in England in the year
1600. They have been eventful centuries. They

have witnessed the loss of the English dominion in

 

France—the Civil Wars of the Roses—the destruction
in those wars of all the old nobility—the invention
of the art of printing—the revival of learning—the
union of all the European States in one great though
tacit international confederacy—the Reformation—

the establishment of it in Great Britain—and the ac-26 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

cession of the Tudor Dynasty to the English Crown.
Elizabeth was now reigning; though drawing near
to her end. You may have studied her reign in
Camden, Burnett, Heylin, Strype, Sir Simon D’Ewes,
and Knox; in Bacon’s letters ; in Birch’s Memoirs;
in M. Mignet’s beautiful life of Mary, Queen of Scots;
and in other works innumerable. In which of them
have you found a living, moving picture, of the Eng-
land of which they write? Have they made you ac-
quainted with the mind which agitated that busy
mass, with the cherished hopes and fears, with the
character, the purposes, the deep-seated energies, the
prevalent opinions, the active moral sentiments, the
true heart and soul of the English people? I think
not. But is there then no teacher of these vital
truths? Had Elizabeth no subject who would exhibit
to his own age, and to all future ages, the very shape
and body of the time, its form and pressure?

There was then living that man to whom the Eter-
nal Fountain of all wisdom had seen fit to impart a soul
in which, as in a mirror, were concentrated all the
lights radiating from every point of human observa-
tion, and from which, as from a mirror, those lights
were reflected back in every possible combination of
beauty and sublimity, of wisdom and of wit, of pathos
and of humour. Shakspeare, in the full maturity of
his genius, was then completing the noblest literary
monument which it has ever been permitted to any
uninspired man to erect for the illumination of his bre-
thren of mankind, and (I seruple not to add) for the
glory of the Giver of every good and perfect gift. ForSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 27

though it be true that his Plays are occasionally tar-
nished by some of the impurities of his age (the addition
not improbably of meaner hands than his own), yet it is
also true that these are but local blemishes which may
be readily swept away or passed over, and that he has
written nothing in any of his dramas, tending to con-
found or to impair the eternal distinctions between
good and evil, but that he has written much to render
virtue inimitably lovely, and crime unutterably hate-
ful. But the knowledge of his times, for which we
are indebted to him (to return to my immediate sub-
ject), far exceeds in real importance whatever else we
know respecting them. It is a theme hardly to be
approached without the risk of endless redundancy,
yet it is not a theme entirely to be passed over in
silence.

In that wondrous throng and succession of person-
ages whom his imagination called into existence, many
bear foreign names, and are made to act inremote ages,
or in distant lands. But there is not one of them
whose parentage may not be readily traced to the
mind of an Englishman of the Elizabethan Era. While
assigning to each, with exquisite felicity, the modes
of thought and action characteristic of the period and
of the place in which they are supposed to live, he
depicts them all with an insight into the heart of man
so profound, with a charity so universal, with a variety
of portraiture so boundless, and with such a prodigality
of mental resources, as to attest, not only that the
mighty artist was drawing from the living forms of
nature, but that those forms were noblest, the mostfaa

Hey

i

a

LP
4)

at
be

ct

28 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

picturesque, and the most varied, to which nature had
ever given birth in the land of his nativity. Not merely
Falstaff, and Falconbridge, and Richard the Third,
and Wolsey—our fellow-countrymen— but Hamlet
and Othello, the melancholy Jaques and Mercutio,
natives of lands and of ages

 

Brutus and Cleopatra
the most remote from ours—are evidently pictures
from the easel of one to whom such men and such
authors as Bacon, Raleigh, Sidney, and Spencer were
familiar—of one who numbered among his companions
such wits as Jonson, and Chapman, and Fletcher, and
Donne—and of one who, after growing up in central
England inthe days of her greatest originality, had be-
come aresident of London in the days of her greatest
intellectual vigour. While every one of his dramas,
and almost every one of his characters, exhibits what
is permanent and universal in our nature as men, It
also exhibits whatever was peculiar and distinctive in
the nature of the Englishmen of his own generation.
Read then in this light, and how do they illuminate
the whole series of the Elizabethan Chronicles ?

The English Ladies of those times present them-
selves to you under names of which the mere cata-
logue has an irresistible charm—Miranda, Isabella,
Beatrice, Jessico, Rosalind, Juliet, Ophelia, Desde-
mona—the very models of female grace and tender-
ness, and strength of heart, and purity. The English
Cavalier appears on the stage in the persons of Claudio,
of Benedict, of Orlando, and Mercutio, each of them,
in his own way, a Philip Sidney, doubly armed with

the sword and with the pen. The English statesmenSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 29

are shadowed forth in the forms of Vincentio and Bo-
lingbroke, and Hastings, and Stanley, and Polonius :
men of large experience, of wide foresight, and of deep
subtilty, but ceasing to be worshipful as soon as they
pass from their cabinets into the outer world. The
English Protestant Divines are not dramatised at all,
because the Poet could or would not descend to the
level of a Sir Martin Mar Prelate; but the monastic
Enelish Clergy of the Roman Catholic faith, (to which
assuredly he did not himself belong,) are frequently
and invariably personated as kind, gentle, and bene-
ficent ministers of religion, under the name of Bal-
thazzar, and Lawrence, and many others, to attest his
universal sympathy for whatever was praiseworthy
and lovely, however much it might be misrepresented
or derided, or even persecuted by others.

But passing from the noble and the great, Shak-
speare delighted above all things to paint the com-

monalty of his native land, those to whom we now

 

give the glorious title of the working classes—those,
that is, who earn their own living by the labour of
the mind or by the labour of the hand. His parents,
though rich enough to afford him the blessing of a
good education, were not of such rank as to detach
him in early life from the society of the petty chap-
men, mechanics, peasants, shepherds, and seryingmen
of his native town and its vicinity. He has depicted
them in almost all his tragic, no less than in all his
comic dramas. Would you enter a party of the small
gentry of a country town in England in those days?
there are Master Ford and Master Page of Windsor,30 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

with their saucy wives, to receive and entertain you.
Are you curious about the fireside amusements of the
common people of their times? you have but to listen
to Robin Goodfellow and Peasblossom, Snug the
Joiner, Bottom the Weaver, and Snout the Tinker.
Is it your fancy to witness the humours of a country
magistrate’s court under our great Queen? You have
but tolisten to Mr. Justice Shallow, and to supposethe
incomparable Dogberry and Verges to be acting as his
constables. Would you have a notion of the servants’
hall as it was then peopled? Launcelot Gobbo and
Grumio, and Fabyn, and Tranio, will do the honours
of it for you. Or do you prefer a talk with those who
handled the spade or tended the sheep of our ancestors?
What better companions could you desire than the
Gravediggers, or Touchstone, with his friends Wilham
and Pheebe, and Audrey? Or if you are inquisitive
about the tavern festivities of our forefathers, enter
the Boar in Hastcheap, or the hostel of Mistress Quickly.
Choose for yourself which of the many faces of Old
England, or as it was then called, Merry England,
you would have set before you, and Shakspeare will
present it to you, not in the shape of solemn disserta-
tion or wearisome statistics, but such as it really was
—a, scene crowded with living men and women, ply-
ing their several tasks, animated by their various
passions, wooing, merry-making, trafficking, sorrow-

o, scolding, and moralising, just as men

oO? oO?
and women really did two hundred and fifty years
ago. The perusal of his plays differs from the study

of the ordinary histories of our native land, as a visit

ing, laughinSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 31

to the now visible City of Pompeii differs from the
perusal of a treatise on Roman antiquities. Those
plays are not, however, to be considered only as the
most fascinating of spectacles. To those who know
how to search for it, they futher impart much and
most significant historical knowledge.

For example, these dramas show in what high
reverence the Royal person and authority were held
amongst us in the reign of Elizabeth. They show
that the great civil franchises which had, even then
been won and transmitted through centuries, to the
people at‘large, were not then among the common-
places of popular thought and discourse, and writing.
They show that the distinctions of social rank were
in those days deeply drawn, and scrupulously main-
tamed. They show that the usurpations of the Papacy
were vehemently denounced even by those who re-
garded with the largest charity the ministers of the
ancient faith. They show that our forefathers had not
learned our modern affectation of a liberalism so cos-
mopolitan as to shrink from celebrating in the loftiest
strains the greatness, the glory, and the happiness
of England. Theyshow that the stage had assumed
that public censorship which had once belonged to the
pulpit, and which in our days belongs to the press—a
cautious, indeed a general and an indirect censorship
even in the hands of Shakspeare, though never ex-
ercised by him except to pronounce sentences not of
ephemeral but of eternal efficacy. They show above
all things that the great principle of self-covernment
had already full possession of the public mind, and32 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

was already in active operation amongst us—that the
whole body of the English people, though saying
nothing about Magna Charta, and anticipating no Bill
of Rights, were animated by the genume spirit of
freedom, pursuing their own chosen paths, indulging
their own humours, feeling but little pressure from
their government, ignorant of all the continental de-
gradations of caste, and living with each other on
terms becoming men who felt that they were all free,
and that in the eye of the law they were all equal. In
short, no man can read Shakspeare’s Plays attentively,
without perceiving that the dramatist has brought

 

him into a company of persons nearly allied to that
extraordinary race of men who acted on the theatre
of public life in the very next generation ;—that the
Shakspearian dramatis persone: might well have given
birth to the Cavaliers and Roundheads of the seven-
teenth century ;—that the courtiers and churchmen of
the stage are near of kin to the Falklands and the
Kydes, to the Wentworths and the Lauds, of the Court
and Cabinet of Charles the First;—that his dramatic
soldiers, and gentlemen, and philosophers, are of the
same blood and lineage as the Cromwells and the
Hutchinsons, the Hampdens and the Vanes, the
Prynnes and the Bastwicks, of the Civil Wars;—and
that the tragic or comic heroes, drawn by Shakspeare
from the middle ranks of life, are the legitimate
fathers of the men and women who founded the Eng-
lish settlements on the North American Continent.
I make no especial reference to the Plays which
dramatise the wars of York and Lancaster, becauseSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 33
the latest of the events to which they refer was more
than a hundred years earlier than the birth of S
speare, and because he is therefore not
ness to the spirit of those times.

hak-
a personal wit-
Yet in passing |
would observe that even if readas histories, these Plays
are of the highest value utterly, as the writer of them
sets at nought every date and every fact which stands
in the way of the dramatic effect which they intended to
produce. The peculiar value of them is, that the

y exhi-
bit the romance of history in its most attrac

tive forms,
saturated with the philosophy of history
principles. “The Great Duke of Marlborough might
have made without a blush his celebrated avowal that
those plays were the only History of England of which
he knew anything, if he could as truly have said (would
he could have said!) that he ha

in its deepest

d imbibed the lessons
of magnanimity and of wisdom which they were so
evidently designed, and are so admirably
to convey.

calculated

Much as Shakspeare abounds in illustr
the general aspects of English

ations of
society in his own days,
and largely as he contributes to render intelligible to
us the general basis or ground-work on which all our
historians or chroniclers erected their narratives of
particular events, he is however not a frequent com-
mentator on the passing occurrences of his own times.
Some passages indeed there are, familiar to us all, in
which he gave utterance to the emotions with which
the bosoms of his contemporaries were heaying. Such

is the vehement denunciation of the tyranny and super-
stitions of Papal Rome drawn from him by the ex-

D34 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

communication which the Pope had fulminated against
Elizabeth. Such also is the noble burst of patriotic
enthusiasm in which, like a true-spirited Englishman
as he was, he celebrated the defeat of the Armada;
and such (as I believe with Warburton) his superb
compliment to Elizabeth (the Crowned Vestal), qua-
lified by an allusion to her rival Mary (the Mermaid),
and to the ruin in which her fascinations had involved
the Duke of Norfolk and the Harls of Northumberland
and Westmoreland. Will you forgive my repeating
to you the exquisite language in which Oberon, the
Fairy King, is made to say all this to Puck his fol-

 

lower ?—

My gentle Puck come hither, thou remember’ st
Since once I sat upon a Promontory,
And heard a Mermaid, on a Dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude Sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the Sea Maid’s music?

Puck. J remember.

Oberon. That very time I saw (but thou could’st not}
Flying between the cold Moon and the Earth,
Cupid, allarm’d. A certain aim he took
At a fair Vestal throned by the west,
And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,

. And the imperial votaress passed on
\ In maiden meditation, fancy free.

But though Shakspeare might thus for a moment
stoop from his high career to offer his Sovereign the
homage due to her real greatness as a Queen, and to
her imaginary loveliness as a woman, his was too large
a soul to contract itselfinto the dimensions of a Journal-SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF

 

ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 35

ist, even if Journalism had been a craft with which
the state would, in his days, have been permitted to
intermeddle. His commentators, however, dispute
whether there are not at least two other memorable
exceptions to his habitual silence on the events of his
times; and whether we may not read in “ King John,”
and in “‘ As you like it,” the judgments he had formed
on the execution of Mary and on the fall of Essex.
The inquiry may perhaps merit and reward your pass-
ing attention.

It was on the 7th of February, 1587, that Mary
laid her head on the block in the hall of Fotheringay
Castle: The writers of those times describe, in the
strongest terms, the apparent surprise and resentment
of Elizabeth on receiving that intelligence. Her grief
exhibited itself first in mute astonishment, and then
in lamentable wailings. She chased her Ministers
from her presence. She accused them of having put
her dear kinswoman to death contrary to her fixed
purpose. She prosecuted Secretary Davyeson for hay-
ing despatched to Fotheringay, without her consent,
the death warrant which he had prevailed on her to
sign. She obtained a judgment condemning him to
pay to herself a fine of £10,000, and to be imprisoned
during her pleasure; and she actually caused that sen-
tence to be executed to the letter. I suppose that no
one now doubts that all this was but base hypocrisy
and cruel injustice. But what was the popular opinion
of those days? The Pulpit and the Press were silent,
or subservient to the Queen. Did the stage give ut-
terance to the public feelings?RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

Warburton thinks that, in the Play of King John,
Shakspeare endeavoured to ingratiate himself with
Blizabeth by adopting and echoing her charge against
Daveson. That Play first appeared in 1598; that is,
about eleven years after Mary’s death. In the third
act, the King darkly intimates to Hubert his desire
for the assassination of his nephew and rival, Arthur.
In the fourth act, Hubert apprises the King of the uni-
yersal horror and discontent which had been produced
by the execution of his fatal orders; and John in the
following terms throws on his too ready instrument
the responsibility for the murder:—

Tt is the curse of Kings to be attended
By slaves, that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life;
And, on the winking of Authority,
To understand a Law; to know the meaning
Of dangerous Majesty; when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humour, than advised respect.
Hubert answers—
Here is your hand and seal for what I did.
The King. Oh! when the last account ’twixt heaven and earth
Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
Witness against us to damnation.
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done. Had’st not thou been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature marked,
Quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind.
But taking note of thy abhorred aspect,
Finding thee fit for bloody villany,
Apt, liable to be employed in danger,
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur’s death,
And thou, to be endeared to a King,
Made it no conscience to destroy a Prince.
Had’st thou but shook thine head, or made a pause
When I spake darkly what I purposed;
Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face;SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION.

Or bid me tell my tale in express words,

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off.
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.
But thou didst understand me by my signs,

And did’st, in signs again parley with sin.

Yea, without stop, did’st let thy heart consent,

And consequently thy rude hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.
Out of my sight, and never see me more!

Now, observe that the whole of this scene is a pure
ivention, and that there is no authority in the his-
torians of King John’s reign for the participation of
such a person as Hubert in Arthur’s murder, if indeed
Arthur was really murdered at all, or even for Hubert’s
existence. Is it possible that Shakspeare invented
such an incident and such a personage without. per-
ceiving the correspondence of both with the case of
Daveson? Or could the obvious application of the
parable to Elizabeth be overlooked by the audience
at the distance of only eleven years from the death
of Mary? I do not, therefore, see how we can rea-
sonably depart from Warburton’s opinion that the
similitude was not accidental but designed. But
neither do I see how we can agree with him in think-
ing that this speech was written to suggest an apology
for Elizabeth. It rather intimates that the real guilt
of Mary’s execution was hers, and that Daveson was
comparatively, if not wholly, blameless. It seems to
me, therefore, that the evident allusions of this passage
of the play to the analogous passage of their recent
history, attest at once the courage of the great drama-
tist by whom they were hazarded, and the discretion
of the great monarch by whom they were disregarded.38 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

Mr. Charles Knight, however (to whom, by the way,
the literature of his generation owes many high obli-
gations, and especially for his History of England,
the best of all compilations of that kind which has
ever appeared among us), Mr. Knight, I say, rejects
Warburton’s commentary on this scene as altogether
extravagant, because, as he observes, both the poet
and the players who had presumed so to comment on
so high a measure of state policy would have promptly
found themselves in the stock or in the jail.

And yet Mr. Knight himself has discovered in “As
you like it” a similar act of audacity, though doubt-
less much more skilfully veiled. In September, 1599,
Essex arrived in England, a fugitive from his army
in Ireland, and under the heavy displeasure of the
Court for his treaty with the Irish rebels. His friends
and kinsmen, Rutland and Southampton, shared his
disgrace. The while he was committed to the custody
of the Lord Keeper Bacon, they remained at large,
passing their time and soothing their mortifications
(as we learn from the Sydney papers).by “‘ going daily
to the plays.”’ In the following spring, when the fall
of these three eminent courtiers must have been the
common topic of discourse, “As you like it” was first
brought on the stage. Read over that incomparable
description of the safety and quietness of a life passed
in rural scenes and engagements, when contrasted
with the calamities to which courtiers and statesmen
are exposed, and you will perhaps agree with Mr.
Knight that Shakspeare intended to direct the thoughts
of his audience to the then recent degradation of Hssex,SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 39

Rutland, and Southampton, if not to suggest to the
sufferers themselves the possibility of being happy in
despite of fortune. With this view of the probable,
or at least of the possible, meaning of that most fas-
cinating of all Pastorals, listen to the language of the
exiled Duke:

Now my co-mates and brothers in eile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious Court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The season's difference; as, the icy fang,

And churlish chiding, of the winter’s wind ;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
E’en till I shrink with cold, I smile and say—
This is no flattery ; these are councillors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous,

 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

And this our life, exempt from public haunts,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Or hear the moralising of the melancholy Jaques
over the poor sequestered stag, that from the hunter’s
“aim had ta’en a hurt,’ when “the careless herd,
full of the pasture, jumps along by him, and never
stays to greet him:”

Ay, quoth Jaques, sweep on you fat and greasy citizens ;
Tis just the fashion! wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?

If Essex read, and if Rutland and Southampton
really heard all this, assuredly they did not read and
hear it unmoved. Nor perhaps (as Mr. Knight sug-
gests) did the shaft from the sounding bow of the Poet
leave unwounded the heart of Francis Bacon himself.

Lassen a gt40 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

When writing, as we know from his own letters, that
he did writhe under universal reproach for his conduct
to his benefactor Essex (a reproach the justice of which
we must not too readily admit, high as are the recent
authorities which repeat and echo it), what censure
could sting so keenly as the song of Amiens in this
drama ?—
Blow, blow thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude:
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot ;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.

Now let it be supposed that these constructions of
Shakspeare’s latent meaning are erroneous, and that
he had no real design to comment in these passages
on the memorable occurrences of hisown times. Even
on that supposition, they may sufficiently answer my
mmediate purpose. They may illustrate to him who
has taken the history of England for his meridian line,
or trunk line, or study, how his deviations into Eng-
lish poetry may be made subservient to that, his main
design; how he may make the chronicles and the
drama reflect light on each other;’ how even while en-
trancing himself with these glorious creatures of the
imagination, he may gather hints and suggestions
numberless, which, while they enhance and justify his
delight in the mighty dramatist, may conduct him toSHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 4]

a more close and critical inquiry into the annals of
our land, to a more distinct understanding, and a
firmer remembrance of them.

My time is rapidly waning; yet before I conclude
I could wish to give you still another instance of the
manner in which our poets may be made the most ef-
fective auxiliaries to the readers of our historians. We
will overleap the civil wars of the Lith: century, the
Government of Cromwell, and the Restoration, and
will place ourselves in the reign of Charles If. in the
centre of that society with which Mr. Macaulay has
made us all so familiar. If any historical writer could
supersede the function of the poets of the age he cele-
brates, and render their aid superfluous, it is assur-
edly to Mr. Macaulay that this power must belong. For
the boundlessafiluence of his mind, and the restless ac-
tivity of his imagination, have thrown over his pages
a poetical warmth and glow of colouring, and a dra-
matic rapidity of movement, which deny even a tran-
sient repose to the faculties of delight and wonder.
What, for example, more brilliant, more interesting,
more picturesque, and as it might seem more complete,
and more defying competition, than his account of the
Cabals, the invasion, and the death of Monmouth?
Yet, after reading it once again, turn to the Absalom
and Achitophel of Dryden, which is in effect a poem
on the same subject, and you will find that even the
bold relief in which the historian has chiselled out Mon-
mouth and his associates, becomes tame and inani-
mate in the presence of the living sculpture in which

the poet brings them before you. At the risk of re-RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

peating passages which many of us have by heart, [
must vindicate this statement by quoting the follow-
ing delineation of the Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury,
the Achitophel of the poet:—

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
        
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Of these the false Achitophel was worst,

A name to all succeeding ages curst;

For close designs, and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,

Restless, unfixed in principles and place,

In power unpleased; familiar with disgrace.

A fiery soul which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,

And o’er inform’d the tenement of clay.

A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide,

Else why should he, with wealth and honours blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest;
Punish a body which he could not please ;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease.

And all to leave what with his toil he won

To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son?
tn friendship false; implacable in hate,
sesolved to ruin or to rule the State.

ws w a v ale ees ae *
* * * * ac 1c ac *

Then seized with fear, yet still affecting fame
Usurped a patriot’s all-atoning name.

So easy still it proves, in factious times,

With public zeal to cancel private crimes!

Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge,

The statesman we abhor, but praise the Judge.
In Israel’s courts ne’er sat an Abethdin

With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean;
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of despatch and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown
With virtue only proper to the gown,

David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.SHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 43

With this unparalleled satire, contrast Dryden’s
eulogy on Sir Edward Seymour, once the Speaker of
the House of Commons, and afterwards one of the
earliest adherents of the revolution of 1688, of whom
also Mr. Macaulay has given us so vivid a delineation.
In Absalom and Achitophel he bears the name of
Amiel:

Indulge one labour more, my weary muse,
For Amiel; who can Amiel’s praise refuse?
Of ancient race by birth; but nobler yet

In his own worth, and, without title, great.
The Sanhedrim long time as chief he ruled,
Their reason guided, and their passions cooled.
So dexterous was he in the Crown’s defence,
So formed to speak a loyal nation’s sense,
That as their band was Israel’s tribes in small,
So fit was he to represent them all.

Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend,
Whose loose careers his ready skill commend.
They, like the unequal ruler of the day,
Misguide the seasons, and mistake the way;
While he, withdrawn, at their mad labours smiles,
And safe enjoys the Sabbath of his toils.

The comparison of these two passages will probably
have suggested to you the fact of the immense supe-
riority of the satirical over the laudatory powers of
Dryden. In this respect he was the very opposite of
his illustrious pupil and imitator. Parsimonious of
his applause, Pope has bestowed no praise which has

not passed into a proverb. Dryden’s eulogies are al-

 

most universally forgotten, but his censures are im-
mortal.

But for any reference to Pope, the time would fail
me, or I could gladly, however feebly, emulate Lord
Carlisle’s recent and admirable tribute to his genius.
I must not, however, add another to the many devi-MBL os Oh ye ge

44 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN,

ations from my proper theme into which I may seem
tohave wandered. Yet what I have been addressing
to you has not (mn my own appreliension at least) been
without a certain singleness of design and continuity
of purpose.

It has been my endeavour to remind you of the
high social and moral responsibilities which the recent
changes in the government of this country have cast
upon us all. I have attempted to show that, as in
the commencement of the French revolution, the at-
tempt to render all knowledge accessible to all read-
ers, disqualified the great body of the people of France
for the grateful, vigilant, humble, and self-denying use
of their new powers ; so a similar attempt in England
may perhaps be productive here of a not dissimilar
result. I have sought to convince you that the se-
lection of some one particular branch of study, and
the steadfast adherence to it, is the only method by
which any ordinary man can attain to any such solid
and useful learning as will qualify him for the right
discharge of his public and his private duties. I have
insisted however, that his observance of that method
is compatible with the accumulation of very much
collateral and subordinate knowledge, which may be
rendered by each man conducive to the illustration
of his main and chosen topic. I have added that of
all topies which could so be chosen by those among
you who have their choice yet to make, and who have
no particular propensity to determine it, the History
of England seems to me the most convenient ; and
it has been my aim to illustrate that general remark bySHREWSBURY CHURCH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTION. 45

showing in various instances how a digression to the
poetry of England (for example) would render her
history at once more interesting, more intelligible,
and more fruitful in true wisdom.

I can anticipate many objections to these counsels,
and of all such objections few perhaps will more im-
mediately present themselves to many of you, than
that I am suggesting a plan of intellectual culture
for the steadfast pursuit of which nature has not given
you the indispensable talents, nor fortune the requisite
facilities. I answer, that my own observation of life
has taught me that, much and frequently as the faults
of self-confidence and self-conceit are denounced by
our teachers, they are faults far less widely diffused
and far less dangerous in their tendency than a timid
self-distrust, and a craven self-depreciation. Think
as meanly as you will of your use of your powers,
but of the powers intrusted to you think reverently
and highly. Of nature and of fortune as the giver of
them I know nothing. These are mere ideal abstrac-
tions—figures of speech inherited from the old Pagan
mythology. But I well know that God has given to
every one of us far greater talents than any one of us
has employed stenuously and to the uttermost, and
far greater opportunities than the best ofus has al-
ways bravely seized, and conscientiously improved.
If in virtue of my melancholy advantage over you, to
which | adverted in,the ouset, of haying numbered so
many years, | might presume to speak as the moni-
tor of those whom I address, my whole exhortation to
them. might be comprised in a single word, and that46 RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

one word would be “Aspire.” But I spare you any
further counsels of my own, because I can expand and
clothe that single word in the language of one of the
wittiest, the wisest, and the holiest of the poets of whom
England has to boast. In the words of George Her-
bert, therefore, let me say, and I will conclude with

sayin <—
Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high;
So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be;
Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky
Shoots higher much than he that means a tree.
A grain of glory mixed with humbleness
Cures both a fever and lethargicness.THE STUDY OF ABSTRACT SCIENCE
ESSENTIAL TO
Pie PROGRESS OF INDUSTRY
BEING THE INTRODUCTORY LECTURE To
THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES, IN 1851,

BY LYON PLAYFAIR, 6.B., F.RS.

 

THE raw material used by Industry in the production
of useful objects doubtless forms the starting point
for manufactures, although it possesses a fluctuating
value in relation to that of the object into which it is
converted. In the successful prosecution of manu-
factures, apart from the influence of capital and mere
brute labour, two elements are involved, each form-
ing a factor which in a competition of Industry may
be made to assume very different values. The first
element is the raw material; the second, the skill
and knowledge, or, in other words, the intellectual
labour used in adapting it to the purposes for which
it is designed. In America, cotton being indigenous,
is cheap; and fuel, the other raw material employed
in its conversion to a textile fabric, is not costly. In
England, the same cotton is much dearer, while the48 LYON PLAYFAIR ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

fuel may be assumed to be equal in price. ‘The com-
petition between the two countries, in respect to
calico, resolves itself into the necessity that England,
to overcome the disadvantage of the increased cost of
the raw material, must infuse a greater amount of
skilled labour into the processes employed to adapt it
to useful purposes. England has succeeded in doing
this ; and, consequently, the mills of Manchester may
render unproductive the mills of Lowell. But reverse
the conditions of the two countries, and a similar
result attests the truth of the same principle. Shef-
field produces steel, which is exported in large quan-
tity as a raw material to America. The history of
that country has created a knowledge of the condi-
tions required for the manufacture of edge-tools. The
forests were not cleared, or the prairies converted
into arable land, without that observing nation under-
standing the qualities and the requirements of the
axe, the adze, and the spade. The knowledge thus
attained was applied to the manufacture of edge-tools;
and America returns to England its own steel, but
under a new form, and endowed with an excellence,
a temper, and a cheapness yet unattained by our
artisans. Without this application of greater skill it
would have been impossible for America to have com-
peted with the country producing the raw material.
A nation, if it combine ordinary intelligence with
its local advantages of cheap raw material, may long
preserve almost a monopoly in special manufactures,
and will continue to do so, either until the competing
nation has risen so high above her in intelligence asGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 49
to make this more than an equivalent for the local
advantage of the other, or until a greater equalization
in the price of the raw material renders a small
amount of superiority in the intellectual element of
suilicient importance to secure successful competi-
tion.

But should any great transition of the world take
place, by which local advantages were levelled, and
the raw material confined to one country became
readily attainable by all at a slight difference in its
cost, then competition in industry must become a
competition in intellect; and the nation which most
quickly promotes the intellectual development of its
artizans must, by an inevitable law of nature, advance ;
whilst the country which neglects this industrial
training must as inevitably recede.

It is apparent that we are rapidly approaching to,
if we have not yet arrived at, that period of wonder-
ful transition, when nations must speedily acquire
the levels due to their different amounts of intellec-
tual development, or in other words, to the relative
proportion of skilled and brute labour available to
their industries.

It is quite true that a superabundance of capital
may for a time preserve a country from a quick de-
pression, even should it neglect its intellectual train-
ing; but the support thus given can only be tempo-
rary and illusory, for though the purchase of foreign
talent may infuse the necessary knowledge into home
manufactures, this must have the ultimate effect of
raising the intellectual element in the foreign country,
Ea0 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

and thus finally accelerate its success as a competing
nation.

There never was a time when it was so necessary
es now that science should be united with capital
and labour for the promotion of the industrial arts.
At former periods of human history, local advantages
or accidental combinations were the foundations of a
nation’s prosperity. The time is not distant when
it was thought that the possession of mineral fuel
indicated a country as the natural manufactory of
the necessaries of life employing machinery for their
production ; while the existence of large tracts of
land, warmed by a genial sun, stamped another nation
as essentially agricultural, and eniployed its popula-
tion in the labours of the field. Hach country fell
into a routine of manufacture; and Italy and France
produced their silks and shawls, with as little thought
of competition as England in the case of its machmery
and calicoes.

The progress of science has not only created re-
sources unthought of before, but has also removed
the local barriers opposed to the progress of Industry.
Countries are no longer confined in their aspirations
by smallness of territory, for even this by the aid of
science is capable of great extension. A country
able in its agricultural poverty to support only a
scanty and miserable population, expands itself for
the reception of increased numbers as the produce of
its land augments, and thus knowledge, in improv-
ing agriculture, wins by a bloodless victory vast
additional territory to aid in the industrial re-GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 5k

sources of the nation; for a land, with a twofold
increase in agricultural production, has, for all prac-
tical purposes, unfolded itself to twice its size.
Science in its progress improves and simplifies pro-
cesses of manufacture, while it opens at the same
time a communication between the nations of the
earth. The amazing facilities of transport afforded
by the introduction of steam enables a ready inter-
change of their natural riches ; and mere adventitious
local advantages, apart from skill and science in their
adaptation, become of much less moment than they
formerly were. The proof of this is in the fact, that
the staple manufactures are now carried on in all
parts of Kurope, and that there is a constantly in-
creasing and active competition of most of the great
nations in all the markets of the world. If England
still continue in advance, it will not be from the abun-
dance of her coal and iron, but because, uniting science
with practice, she enables her discoveries in philosophy
to keep pace with her aptitude in applying them.
But is it true that England does act thus wisely ;
and is it true that science does hold in this country
its just position in public esteem, or that it is fostered
sufficiently to make that progress which it is now
doing in other lands? To all such questions a negative
reply must be given ; for beyond a theoretical recog-
nition,of the importance of science in its relations to
practice, the state and the public only look to the em-
pirical result, and have not deemed it necessary to fos-
ter the knowledge producing it.* Now England is the

* Since this lecture was given the government have made some advances2 LYON PLAYFAIR, ES8Q., C.B., F.R.S.

On

only European state thus blind to its own interests,
and not yet thoroughly awakened to the importance of
giving an intellectual training to those intrusted with
its manufactures. This is shown by the large en-
dowments given by foreign governments for the sup-
port of institutions connected with Industrial Science,
and it finds expression in the writings of their think-
ing men. “An equal appreciation of all parts of
knowledge,’’ says Humboldt, “is an especial require-
ment of the present epoch, in which the material
wealth and the increasing prosperity of nations are
in a great measure based on a more enlightened em-
ployment of natural products and forces. ‘The most
superficial glance at the present condition of HKuro-
pean states shows, that those which linger in the race
cannot hope to escape the partial diminution and
perhaps the final annihilation of their resources. It
is with nations as with nature, which, according to a
happy expression of Goethe, knows no pause in ever-
increasing movement, development, and production—
a curse still cleaving to standing still.

“ Nothing but serious occupation with chemistry
and natural and physical science can defend a state
from the consequences of competition. Man can pro-
duce no effect upon nature, or appropriate her powers,
unless he is conversant with her laws, and with their
relations to material objects according to measure
and numbers. And in this les the power of popular
intelligence, which rises or falls as it encourages or
in infusing science into general education, and a Department of the

Board of Trade is specially charged to diffuse scientific instruction through
the country.GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES.

 

&o
oe

neglects this study. Science and information are the
joy and justification of mankind. They form the
springs of a nation’s wealth, being often, indeed, sub-
stitutes for those material riches which nature has in
many cases distributed with so partial a hand.
Those nations which remain behind in manufacturing
activity, by neglecting the practical applications of
the mechanical arts and of industrial chemistry, to
the transmission, growth, or manufacture of raw
materials—those nations among whom respect for
such activity does not pervade all classes—must
inevitably fall from any prosperity they may have
attained ; and this by so much the more certainly
and speedily as neighbouring states, instinct with
the power of youthful renovation, in which science
and the arts of industry operate or lend each other
mutual assistance, are seen pressing forward in the
race.”

it is but the overflowings of science that thus
enter into and animate industry. In its study we
are never sure that the morrow may not gladden the
world with an application of a principle to-day
abstract, and apparently remote from practice This
is a truth above all things necessary to convert into
a living faith in the minds of those who devote their
lives to its practical applications. Nothing is more
erroneous in their case than to neglect the a acquisition
of abstract scientifis truths because they, appear,”
remote from practice, T ‘do not’ admit that ib, is
even wise to address te oneself® the question ut? Boho?
Science is too lofty fof measurement by the yard’ of

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

 

»

>

>
>o4 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

utility ;—too inestimable for expression by a money
standard. These grovelling ideas of the objects of
science, which constantly jar it in its intercourse with
the world, ought to find no response in the breast of
any devotee who would draw inspiration from its
shrine. But whilst I protest against the indulgence
of a mere utilitarian appetite for science, I think 1t
infinitely advantageous to examine it in its practical
relations to life; yet, 16 must never be forgotten,
that though the object of industrial study is to. view
science in its beneficent overflowings of kindness to
man, these material benefits arise from the very ful-

 

 

 

ness of its measure. If we revert to the intellectual
wanderings of science in its search for truth, it be-
comes surprising how soon it shook off the trammels
of ignorance, and sprang into a glorious liberty. Let
us recollect how much science has advanced within
the last three centuries, and even her past history
becomes more remarkable in its progress than the
present. It is no mean task for intellect to leap
over the barriers of prejudice and ignorance raised by
an assumed knowledge; it is even more easy to go
onward in new and untrodden paths. It was only
at the end of the sixteenth century that the Council
of Sages at Salamanca negatived the idea of a western
continent, by the writings of Lactantius. “Is there
any. ONC SO foolish,” says he, “as to believe that there
« dvetantipades Seite their feet épposite to ours ; people
who walk with‘ their héeis upwards and their heads
« haiagiijes dovin:? : < Th 14s there ds‘a part of the world

€
Gace Re allt thike’s a are topsy- -tetvy ; where the trees

(a=
P

GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES.

OU

grow with their branches downwards, and where it
rains, hails, and snows upwards?’ Do we not know
that Columbus was told by the Sages, that were he
to succeed in sailing down the rotundity of the earth,
its bulging out would prevent him ever sailing
up again; and do we not remember with what a
steadfast faith in abstract truth he saw beyond “ the
region of the torrid zone, scorched by a blazing sun,
a region of fire, where the very waves which beat
upon the shores boiled under the intolerable fervour
of the heavens?’ Recollect that these were the
opinions of a time when the utmost national en-
couragement was given to intellectual progress, and
that it was not very many years after the death of
Prince Henry of Portugal, who gave that glorious
motto to princes, “the talent todo good.” Recollect
that this ignorance was manifested in the brightest
time of the reign of the enlightened Isabella of Castile,
and you will be surprised with me that science has
since that time achieved what it has. Had Columbus
not investigated the abstract truths of cosmography,
the western continent, even with the advantage of
the “astrolabe,’ would perhaps for a century have
remained unknown. It is easy to make an egg
stand on its end when the way is shown how to do
it. The applications of science are not difficult,
but without the science there are no applications.
The philosophy of our times does not expend itself
as it did in the middle ages, in furious discussions
on mere scholastic trivialities, or unmeaning ques-
tions in theology. The scholastic learning of theo6 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

middle ages was much confined to ecclesiastics, and
it is not surprising to find both classical and theo-
logical literature engrafting itself upon the science of
the time, and forcing it into the discussion of ques-
tions very foreign to its nature. It was a curious
mixture of theology and science when the most
learned men agitated themselves on subjects such as
—the manner in which angels are nourished ?—
whether they usually speak Hebrew or Greek P—
who are the spirits entrusted with the distribution
of hehtning and hail, and to whom are confided the
digestive powers of animals >—whether Adam, before
the fall, was acquainted with the Liber Sententiarum
of Petrus Lombardus ? The.polemics of a past age
do but faintly represent the search after abstract
truth of the present. Yet you are in no position
even now to treat with derision the past errors of
philosophy. The man who is on the mountain com-
plains of the fog obstructing his view, while the
inhabitant of the plain speaks of it as a cloud capping
the mountain. Both are right, but read the pheno-
menon in a different sense. Yet only he that was in
the fog could rightly appreciate its darkness, or fully
understand the force of the rising sun that dissipated
its obscurity. The progress of knowledge,—the
search after truth,—can scarcely be recognized in its
sublimity by those who do not understand the errors
which had to be swept away before it could advance
in an uninterrupted path.

 

There are very few instances in the history of
science of a sudden development of great discoveries,GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 57
either by being illumined from darkness in a flood
of light from genius, or betrayed through some acci-
dental and straggling ray. The growth of scientific
discovery is slow; nor does it, like the prophet’s
gourd, spring into full fruit in a single might. The
great discoveries of science leave behind them no
boundary line of demarcation from those which have
preceded, but, like the full day succeeding the dawn
of the sun, follow that which fully foretold their
approach. ‘The telescope and microscope did not
open their wonders to an unexpected and startled
world, but crept into being with steps so slow that
their impression is not sufficient to trace out the
history of their progress. The improvements in the
steam-engine were so gradual that a court of law, only
gave a solemn judgment that
Watt had done nothing essential towards them. The
compass cannot point to us the period when it offered

half a century since,

its inestimable services to man, nor has paper left a
record of its discoverer. In fact, all great practical
discoveries are the result of much study, the exponent
of a long series of observations, and often arise out of
those truths of science which appeared least promis-
ing on their first announcement. Boyle knew that
he wrote an imperishable truth when he titled his
Essay “ Man’s great ignorance of the uses of Natural
Things; or, that there is no one thing in Nature
whereof the uses to Human Life are yet thoroughly
understood.’ This truth of the seventeenth century
is no less true in the nineteenth, the history of the
intermediate time having been, as Sir John Herschel

9?a8 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.B.S.

justly remarks, but one commentary on the text.
The everyday progress of the arts abounds in new
applications of objects the most familar.

Practical, like abstract science, has no limits. The
Romans thought themselves at the culminating point
of civilization ; and the Greeks, pluming themselves
in their inventiveness, could not conceive that the
world would ever take a higher flight. Even in our
times, like opinicns are entertained ; because igno-
rance cannot see over the heights raised by modern
science in taking its wide view of creation. These
conceited ideas of a nation or of an age have no
foundation. Science may see an horizon bounding
her view ; but as she proceeds onward the horizon
constantly recedes, and shows the limit to be alto-
gether illusory. In one time and generation a nation
may, like Newton, pick up a few pebbles on the
seashore, while the boundless ocean of science hes
beyond, with all its vast and unexplored treasures.

Empiricism has frequently been a substitute for
science ; a lame and sluggish substitute, it is true,
but nevertheless one that in the history of mind has
had much of influence.* Gunpowder was known be-
fore the condensed gases which it contains were
recognized or understood; and it was used to kill
man, without a knowledge that man himself is little
more than air similarly condensed. Man succeeded
in compressing air into the form of food, without
haying the shghtest conception of the character of
the atmosphere out of which this wondrous trans-

* Vide Liebig’s Letters on Chemistry.GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 59

formation was effected. Without an acquaintance
with the laws of atmospheric pressure, mills and
pumps were formed. Glass was made from the ashes
of the fern, and china from kaolin, without even their
ingredients being known. The length of the year
was determined, and the duration of the seasons ex-
plained, before the law of gravitation was suspected.
All this, it is true, arose without science, but required
ages to grow into a stunted and feeble childhood;
while no sooner did science infuse new health than a
few short years produced a vigorous manhood. Igno-
rance may grope in darkness on the confines of an
unexplored region, but to proceed steadily and se-
curely onwards she must borrow the lamp of science
to guide her. Newton, “that glory to his species,”
as Chalmers calls him, did, by the exposition of the
law of gravitation, produce more real practical bene-
fits to industry than all the preceding ages of empi-
ricism. Navigation and commerce sprang from his
time’ into a state of development formerly impossible ;
and every nation and every human being enjoys from
him, and to the end of time will enjoy, actual mate-
rial benefits which an eternity of empiricism could
not have produced. The hard-won experience of two
thousand years of the Chinese in regard to porcelain
was given to the European by a few years’ applications
of science. The progressive improvements In com-
munication, which allowed our kings to transmit a
message to Edinburgh in five days, now enable us to
send it in less time than their “ post-haste messen-

99

ger’ could have saddled his horse. But these, and60 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

other triumphs of mind over mere empirical experi-
ence, arose in a steady progress of abstract science,
the practical applications appearing merely as off-
shoots. It is my chief object to show that abstract
sclence is necessary to the development of practice,
and that it is above all things required as a part of
the education of a man who is to devote his life to
productive industry. There is no vein of science too
abstract for future industrial application—none yet
thoroughly mined out and exhausted. Volumes might
be filled with illustrations of the practical benefits
produced by the application of discoveries apparently
the most unpromising in their origin ; but a few only
can be selected in support of the text of my argument.

The most “ practical’? man—a title too often used
by the English manufacturer to envelope his igno-
rance—could not have objected to the marvellous
development of truth arising from the study of light,
that messenger from the sun sent at the rate of
180,000 miles in a second, to illumine our earth with
the glory of its parent. It was wondrous to be told
that the light of yonder far-distant fixed star, travel-
‘ling without cessation at the same ineredible speed,
and which has this night struck our wondering eyes,
started in its long and weary course a million of
years since, and has now for the first time shed its
pale light on such points in time and space as our-
selves. Itis even with awe that he reads of that hidden
but tremendous power, situated in a point in space
between the two stars + and » in the constellation
Hercules, which drags our sun and all its planets atGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 51

toe

the rate of 154 millions of miles in a year, or nearly
fifty-seven miles ina second. The sublimity of these
truths awes the utilitarian, and hushes his half-uttered
question of cui bono? But show him a young officer
of artillery looking through a prism at the windows
of the palace of the Luxembourg, and noticing that,
in a particular position, the light of these windows
disappeared from his view—show him, further, the
startled wonder with which the philosophers of
Europe heard of this phenomenon, and the eagerness
with which they threw themselves into the track of
an observation apparently so insignificant,

 

nd your
utilitarian sneers at science and its followers, and
buries himself again in the darkness of his empiricism.
The light reflected from the palace of the Luxem-
bourg had suffered a change similar to that expe-
rienced by ordinary light in passing through doubly
refracting Iceland spar. When a ray of this changed
or polarized light is passed through plates of erystal-
lized-substances, brilliant colours and a peculiar struc-
ture are observed. These remarkable phenomena
were indeed well worthy of the attention of scientific
observers. Nothing, however, could appear more
remote from practice than the study of an altered
beam of light. It was most interesting that, as im
the case of sound, where two sounds reaching the ear
either exalt or destroy the effect, so, in light, two
rays interfering with each other may produce dark-
ness. Much of the light from reflecting surfaces was
found to possess this changed condition. The light,
coming from the surface of water, being thus altered,62 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

a

refuses to pass through a “ Nicolls’ prism” in a
particular direction. If, therefore, you look at the
‘shadow of a man on a smooth lake, on turning round
the prism the shadow disappears, while the man, seen
by common light, remains visible. The story of
Peter Schlimmel is thus realized. But who, from
these curious observations, would have dreamt that
out of them would come useful applications ?

In a short time, however, this property of the
polarizing prism was applied to the important pur-
pose of detecting rocks and shoals at sea. It had
long been the practice of marimers, when they sus-
pected the existence of shoals, to look out for them
from the masthead, because the outlook in his ver-
tical position shut out much of the light that dazzled
and obstructed his view when on deck. But as much
of this dazzling reflected light is polarized, it is ob-
vious that the polarizing prism enables the observer
to scan the depths of the ocean, uninterrupted by
its glare. Behold then the light which struck the
student’s eye when gazing on the Luxembourg used
to preserve man from the hazards of the sea. It was
easy to apply it mm new directions; and the salmon-
fisher speared fish at depths inaccessible to his unaided
vision ; while the engineer used its searching powers
to discover the laws of tension in beams. Mechanics
and chemistry both pressed it to further their re-
sources. Under the hands of a Biot, a ray of polar-
ized light performed with magical quickness the
most refined but tedious operations of the analytical
chemist, and enabled him to tell the amount of sugarGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 638

in the cane or beet juice, or in specimens of sugar
offered for sale. Even the custom-house officers on
the continent now determine the value of samples of
sugar by polarized hight. Biot by aid of his instru-
ment followed the increasing richness of sugar im the
juices of various plants at different stages of their
growth, and was enabled to suggest a more economi-
eal adaptation of the labour applied to their cultiva-
tion. By the same ray of light the size of distant
objects may be measured, and even time may record
its passage. This latter application, made by Wheat-
stone, is especially remarkable, and gives a means
more accurate and useful than the sun-dial of deter-
mining the apparent solar time by the diurnal
changes of the plane of polarization at the north
pole of the sky. By availing himself of the fact,
that the planes of polarization in the north pole of
the sky change exactly as the position of the hour
circle alters, he has adapted a simple and ingenious
apparatus, by which the true time may be told within
three minutes. Some of these applications are as
yet more suggestive than extensively carried out in
industry ; yet, however viewed, it will be admitted
that they are strange paths to practice, opened up by
aray accidentally caught in its passage from a window
of the Luxembourg. Leave, however, its utilitarian-
ism to view its unfolding of nature’s laws, and follow
the same straggling ray, as it silently displays its
gorgeous colours while passing through a transparent
mineral substance, until it enables man to resolve
such questions as to whether the light of the sun64: LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.RB.S.

proceeds from its solid mass or from its gaseous can-
opy, or whether comets enjoy hight of their own, or
borrow it by reflection from other bodies.

T now pass to light in its ordinary form, and ask
vou to examine the importance of studying its ab-
stract phenomena. ‘The world had long known that
salts of silver were blackened by exposure to light ;
and the fact became familiar by their use as cauteries,
or as indelible inks for linen. Wedgwood proposed to
apply this means to fix the fleeting pictures of the ca-
mera obscura; but the results of his experiments being
imperfect, the suggestion itself was almost forgotten.
In the meantime chemists pursued their abstract
discoveries, and without relation to this want mves-
tigated the properties of gallic acid, and of the iodide
of bromine, and found a class of salts termed the
hyposulphites. Some of these bodies possessed pro-
perties accelerating the blackening of silver salts by
light; the others prevent the further blackening
when applied. Philosophers began now to revert to
the old idea, for truth is never lost, though its reality
may be incapable of proof at a given time; and thus
various unconnected discoveries began to react one
upon the other, until man was able to use the sun
as the painter of the pictures exhibited and enlivened
by his glory. So perfect became the art, by new
adaptations of other discoveries, that the most fleet-
ing objects can be depicted. The flash of lghtning
exhibits its fiery streak on these sun-painted pictures.
The tossing out of lavas, the vomiting forth of smoke,
and the bellowing of flame from craters in their wild-GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 65

est moods, are pourtrayed with unerring fidelity ; the
tumultuous dashing of the cataract, and the shght
rippling of the stream, the curling of the wave, the
changing forms of the clouds, the sparkling of the
rain-drop, and the passing expressions of the soul as
displayed in the human countenance, are all capable
of being preserved in these paintings by nature.
Nay, the truthfulness of the sun-painted landscape is
so great that from the very shadows of the picture
the altitude of the sun may be determined ; and the
time at which it was taken bemg known, the latitude
of the locality may be elicited. Artists now use this
application of light to acquire models for study ; and
the engineer employs it to obtain proofs of the exact
state and progress of the works superintended by him.
Doubtless the sun will be hereafter compelled to fix
those transitory coloured glories which it now imparts
to natural objects; and not till then should man cease
to question that luminary as to the means of accom-
plishing this end. I need not say that this art is
but disclosing its future applications. Already can
we use the sun to record observations too delicate for
man’s perception. The constant and momentary
excursions of the magnet, the ever-recurring varia-
tions of the thermometer and barometer, are now
recorded by light with a fidelity and precision un-
attainable by the most conscientious and unremitting
observers.

In fact no subject is so fertile in illustration of my
position as that of light. The practical man can even
admire Huler in his closet working out his idea, as
Fr66 LYON PLAYEFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

Brewster remarks, of an achromatic telescope, even
should he love Dollond the more for making it. But
however tempting to urge such interesting examples,
T must conclude the subject with two more cases.
Colours in bodies may either be due to the fact that
all their particles are endowed with the properties of
absorbing certain of the coloured rays and rejecting
others, which reaching the eye give to them their
pecular colours ; or the colours may be owing to a pat-
ticular mechanical arrangement of certain of their
parts. Thus mother of pearl is found to have a pecu-
liarly grooved structure, like the skin of an infant on
the top of its finger, or like the section of the rings
on a plank of fir. These grooves cause an interference
of the light as it plays on the surface of mother of
pearl, and the peculiar colours are observed in pro-
portion to their frequency, the number of grooves
varying from 2,000 to 5,000 in aninch. This fact
is applied to the manufacture of Birmingham but-
tons, by ruling 4,000 lines to an inch on a steel die,
and striking with this brass buttons, which then,
especially in candlelight, sparkle in iridiscence with
the brilliancy of the diamond. Insect and beetle
wings, the scales of fishes, and the feathers of birds,
owe their gorgeous colours to their substance being
composed of plates of unequal thickness. When light
is transmitted through a transparent body with par-
allel surfaces it passes through white. But if thin
plates of unequal thickness be exposed to light, certain
of the coloured rays of the latter are stifled or ar-
rested, while others are more readily reflected, and

ee ese ctGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINEs. 67

the most various coloured results may be thus ob-
tamed. By a simple process, De La Rue places
thin plates of varnish or of collodion on paper, and
obtains wedding stationery of gayest character, or
paper hangings sparkling like mother of pearl.

These instances will suffice to show that the study
of abstract laws, so far as regards light, produces as
offshoots important practical applications ; and in
each department of science, like lessons may be
taught. There never was an age so rich in practical
applications as that in which we live, and it is in-
teresting to see them drawn from truths long familiar
to man, and apparently beyond the range of utili-
tarian application. When Madame Galvani, for the
cure of a cold, was dressing some frogs and observed
that convulsions were produced in their legs from
their proximity to an electric machine, who could
have prophesied that this observation would entirely
alter the character of a future century ? and yet it is
but an application of this discovery, itself but the
supplement to observations made since the time of
Thales of Miletus, and extended, by many subsequent
researches, that annihilates space and time,—that
empowers our thought to travel with the speed and
with the power of lightning to the most distant land,
and enables minds to be reciprocated without being
arrested by distance in space. Who could have
dreamt that the same discovery of Galvani would in
future join continents, in spite of intervening seas,
and give more security to nations than cordons of
soldiers and fleets at sea, by rendering sudden inva-68 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

sion all but impossible? At the late Exhibition
you had a singular proof of this quick interchange of
intelligenee, for every morning you could buy at a
trifling cost a map showing the state of the wind, of
the barometer and thermometer, in all the principal
towns in Great Britain during the previous day. You
have already seen how useful may be made this dis-
covery ; for a transit of a star at Greenwich and at
Paris may be instantaneously recorded, and their
respective longitudes verified. As a means of com-
municating intelligence, its powers are not yet nearly
developed ; for in its mercantile communications it
produces consequences no less individually important
than its general results, such as when it leaves the
hurrying tempest a laggard in its path by sending
information to distant provinces of the approach of
a tornado, time being thus given to provide against
the fury of the storm. It is rare indeed that brillant
discoveries, such as the electric telegraph,* flash
matured across a human intellect, and in a generation
produce such mighty results. It is true that some
of the most wonderful discoveries have been sha-
dowed forth by a sudden inspiration ; but im few
eases has this shadow appeared as a picture with all
its lights and shades. Before steam had been subju-
gated to the service of man, in accelerating his transit
on land or water, Darwin had said,

“ Soon shall thine arm, unconquered steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or move the rapid car.”’

* The electric telegraph, as now used, is a discovery in science, and not
a mere application or invention; for it was a most important discovery
that the earth itself could be used as part of the circuit.

eee

Ce ee ee teGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 69

By asimilar prophetic spirit, resulting, however, par tly
from induction, Goethe saw that ihe parts of flowers
are metamorphosed leaves, and Oken, when stumbling
over a bleached skull, perceived that the osseous
system was constructed on the vertebral type. But
it was only by patient and long-continued study that
these thoughts became Gibtantan realities. This i
essentially the case with electricity, which is but now
beginning to reward mankind at large for all the
patient investigations of the philosopher. Already
has the fierce lightning allowed itself to be dr: ageed
from its course, and conducted tranquilly to places
where its fury is dissipated without injury to man.
Even in its fiery flashings in the wide expanse of the
ocean, it submits to the intellect of a Franklin, leay-
ing unscathed the ship as it rolls on the stormy
waves. Providence, in His beneficence to man. has
allowed him to find “a way for the hghtning of
thunder.” Artificially formed, it allows itself to be
conducted through land and sea, humbly serving the
purpose of man, by blowing up mines, or enabling
him to rescue treasures from sunken vessels.

This immaterial power produces material results at
places fixed on by the will of man; and London may
now fire a friendly salute at the Invalides, while Paris
returns the compliment with the guns of the Tower.
Although electricity is not yet used with economy
as a motive power, the obstacle is only in the cost:
and even this may be resolved as discoveries pro-
gress,

The passage of electricity is so rapid that itsa iapraleas

 

 

 

 

70° LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

 

journey to Paris can scarcely be expressed in time,
yet it may be controlled, and used to record time’s
own progress ; for nothing is more accurate than
clocks worked by its power. It would not be dith-
cult to have all the clocks in a town worked with
perfect uniformity by the aid of electricity.

Electricity now plates with gold and silver the
baser metals ; copies in metal from more perishable
materials the most exquisite designs and forms ;
perpetuates the skill of the engraver, by multiplying,
at a trifling cost, his elaborately engraved plates ; and
separates and purifies the metals, formerly only ob-
tainable by tedious and complex chemical operations.

Electricity offers for your lighthouses light of a
brilliancy the most intense, and asks you to substitute
the light gas which streams through the streets by
a still more ethereal existence, running along simple
wires.

Even in the smallest offices of good-will to man
it refuses not aid, and offers to tell the pérfumer
whether his essential oils are adulterated with cheaper
fatty substances, as willingly as it lends aid to the
chemist in the minute operations of his laboratory
practice, or kindly ministers with the physician to
allay human suffering and restore wasted strength.
Recollect, that all these are but the beginning of its
applications, and that we know not to what extent
they may be carried out; and rejoice with me that
philosophers studied its abstract laws, from the know-
ledge of which these applications have arisen.

T have no time to extract further examples fromGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINEs. Te

physics or meteorology, but I cannot refrain from
directing a passing glance at the beautiful discoveries
of Colonel Sir William Reid. Studying the pheno-
mena of a hurricane at Barbadoes, he was led to ex-
amine the courses of all recorded hurricanes, and thus
elicited the simple law that hurricanes and many
gales are progressive whirlwinds, revolving in the
direction of the hands of a watch in the southern,
and in the reverse direction in the northern hemis-
phere, but moving along in their mass at the same
time. The variable winds in a hurricane now be-
come intelligible, and a mariner may use them to
steer out of its course, and prevent himself from
being overwhelmed in its vortex. To be wrecked in
a hurricane, with an open sea, can now only result
from a lamentable ignorance of scientific laws; for
knowledge has triumphed over the terrors of the storm.
The domain of meteorology is becoming fruitful in
applications, for science begins to encircle the ap-
parently capricious phenomena of weather by laws
which will become more and more defined. But
time will not permit me to refer even to a few of the
applications arising from the study of this subject by
American savans, nor dare I do more than allude to
the bold project of a simultaneous burning of forests
and prairies in their annual clearings so as to procure
artificial winds from moist districts to fertilize with
rain the arid plains.

Turn your attention to chemistry proper, and see
how this science supports the text of the argument.
It is an old science, and from the time of Tubal-cain72 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

to that of Liebig has been progressing steadily on-
wards, though not always with similar aims and aspi-
rations. The alchemist erred, as England now errs,
by valuing and studying only practical applications,
instead of searching for abstract laws. Health,
wealth, and longevity comprised their aspirations, in
the place of eternal truth. But these objects were
sufficiently important to produce in their search “a
zeal allied to madness,’’ and facts became accumulated
of infinite importance to the science when it attamed
self-consciousness, and learned to value itself for its
nobler ends. ‘No later than the time of Henry IV..,
a royal edict recommended that “the clergy should
search for the philosopher’s stone, for since they can
change bread and wine into the body and blood ot
Christ, they must also, by the help of God, suceeed
in transmuting the baser metals into gold.”

As soon as chemistry began to be studied for the
mere sake of abstract truth, then she deigned to
reward man for his unselfishness by numerous colla-
teral results having a direct material benefit.

He who supposes that chemistry is the result of
practical knowledge derived in its contact with in-
dustry knows little of the progress of the human
mind, or is little grateful for the infinite develop-
ment which it has given to human resources and
human enjoyment. Let us select a few examples of
abstract chemical truths bearing on practical appl-
ances. ‘I'he miners’ safety lamp is a most important
example of an industrial result depending upon pure

induction from abstract science. An element of de-GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINEs. 73

struction, apparently uncontrollable by human power,
had to be subjugated so completely as to be put
under the management of the most uneducated miner.
More dreadful in its effects than those of the light-
ning and the earthquake, firedamp, the scourge of the
miner, seemed. to defy investigation even as a scien-
tific phenomenon. By a pure inductive method, such
as a Bacon would have loved to witness, Davy
traced its history, step by step, until he fully made
out all its characters. He discovered that it in reality
requires a very high heat for ignition, the tempera-
ture of red-hot iron or charcoal being insufficient to
inflame it. The gas was found not to explode in
narrow tubes, as these cool it below the point of igni-
tion ; and a network of iron wire is only a series of
sectional tubes. A lamp surrounded by wire gauze is
now constructed, and this allows a light to be carried
into the most dangerous mine with perfect safety.
What a wonderful discovery is this! The destruc- |
tive gnome of the mine is imprisoned within a cage ’
of mere wire gauze, and, vainly struggling to escape,
heats to redness the bars of its prison. Science, to
its glory, has destroyed those scenes of death and
heart-sickening misery which haunted the miner in
his most peaceful hours, and has rendered safe an

 

 

occupation formerly one of dread and danger. Not-
withstanding that we have still too frequently to
lament the most deplorable catastrophes in mines, it
may be safely averred that they only occur because
the discoveries of science have been neglected.

When Dumas, in investigating the laws of subtitu-74: LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.B.S8.

  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
   

 

tion, discovered a new body in the distillation of
alcohol and bleaching powder, interesting indeed in its
chemical formula, but capable of bemg sneered at by
those who see science at a distance, through the
wrong end telescopic view of its commercial produc-
tiveness, who could have dreamt that this chloroform
was destined to remove many of the woes which man
is heir to, by mitigating pain, and preventing its
occurrence even in the most severe surgical operations?

In 1842, I had the pleasure of travelling with the
Dean of Westminster and Liebig over different parts
of England. Among other places visited was a lime-
stone region in the neighbourhood of Clifton, where
in former times saurian reptiles had been the pirates
of the sea. There, along with the relics of the fishes
on which they had preyed, were their own animal
remains. Coprolites, as these are termed, existed in

 

great abundance, and proved the extraordinary num-
ber of the reptiles which must have existed dur-
ing the deposition of the limestone. The interest-
ing question arose as to whether these excretions
of extinct animals contamed the mineral ingre-
dients of so much value in animal manure. The
question in fact not yet being solved by the chemist,
specimens were taken, in order to confirm by chemical
analysis the views of the geologist. After Liebig
had completed his analysis, he saw that they might
be made applicable to practical purposes. ‘‘ What a
curious and interesting subject for contemplation !
In the remains of an extinct animal world England
is to find the means of increasing her wealth in agri-GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 75

cultural produce, as she has already found the oreat
support of her manufacturing industry in fossil fuel—
the preserved matter of primeval forests—the remains
of a vegetable world! May this expectation be
realized: and may her excellent population be thus
redeemed from poverty and misery!” I well recollect
the storm of ridicule raised by these expressions of
the German philosopher, and yet truth has triumphed
over scepticism, and thousands of tons of similar ani-
mal remains are now used in promoting the fertility
of our fields. The geological observer, in his search
after evidences of ancient life, aided by the chemist,
excavated extinct remains which produced new life to
future generations.

Two years before this, the same German philo-
sopher, in his researches into the food of plants, had
drawn attention to the importance of guano as a
manure, and by his intellect wafted fleets to the
Ichaboes and to the Incas.

Man gets so accustomed to luxurious applications
of science, that he often forgets the searcher of
abstract truth whose discoveries led to them. No-
thing is more useful than has been the discovery of the
lucifer match. Some of us recollect the time when
the tinder-box was the only artificial means of procur-
ing light, and a lively remembrance of the often un-
successful efforts, always tedious and lengthy, is re-
quired. fully to appreciate the value of the lucifer
match. What an improvement it was when a little
bottle containing asbestos moistened with oi of
vitriol could be carried about, and by dipping matches76 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

into this, light was obtained! And yet, this elegant
method is now considered clumsy, and is entirely
superseded in less than ten years. The properties of
chlorate of potash and of phosphorus became by study
better understood, and their application to the pro-
duction of artificial light was apparently perfected.
But the lucifer match maker is dangerous to society,
and a curse to himself. The transparent waxy phospho-
rus with which he works must always be kept under
water, and even then is so hazardous that msurance
offices decline to insure the premises in which it is
contained. The heat of the hand causes it to inflame,
and the worker, even avoiding this, becomes diseased
and liable to ulcers. The practical man now help-
lessly lays his wants before the searcher of abstract
truth. Chemists had for some time noticed that
various bodies assume different forms, as, for example,
carbon, in the states of diamond, graphite, and char-
coal. An Austrain chemist, Professor Schrotter, in-
vestigating the abstract laws of allatropism, inquires
whether phosphorus has more than one form, and by
heat changes the transparent wax into a scarlet body.
This scarlet substance is the same phosphorus, and
when thoroughly well prepared, is in a state in which
it may be kept im the open air, or packed up and
transported in casks, and is not readily inflamed by
a gentle heat or by friction. Physiologically it has
little action on the body, and yet by proper admix-
tures makes as good lucifer matches as the ordinary
dangerous phosphorus. By these discoveries the
means of giving artificial h¢ht may be rendered a safeGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. ‘he

and healthy manufacture, when the practical difficul-
ties to its preparation on the large scale have been
overcome by the manufacturers, who have hitherto,
however, found them to be very serious.

A French chemist discovers that paper immersed
in nitric acid unites with that body, and becomes
highly combustible. Any woody fibre is subsequently
found to do the same. This observation lies dor-
mant for years, noticed only as an interesting fact
under a long and scientific term, in the books of
chemists. But one day a Swiss chemist announces the
startling fact, that the peaceful cotton bales of Man-
chester may be converted into dangerous ammunition
of war, and that cotton unchanged in its physical
appearance has been made more destructive than gun-
powder. There was something appalling in the fact
of this peaceful representative of industry being made
to assume such destructive properties, under the
magic wand of the chemist. The chemist now ex-
amines cotton in a new form, and trying to purify it,
finds that it is soluble in ether. When left exposed,
the ether quickly evaporates, and the gun-cotton
retains askin-like appearance. Surgeons seize the dis-
covery of the chemist, and gun-cotton dissolved can
heal the wounds it makes in its dry state. Numerous
applications follow, and man, forgetting his fear, uses
the gun-cotton to silver mirrors, and to produce the
portraits of his friends on glass, by a process speedy
as the Daguerreotype, or to decorate wedding sta-
tionery which he sends fearlessly to his friends.

Another chemist, seeing how readily cotton unites

oO
©78 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

with acids, investigates its power of combining with
alkalies. He discovers that it does so, but notices
that a contraction ensues in its fibres. Looms are
not now required to make coarse calico fine, for 1m-
mersion in soda makes it take a closer texture. The
alkaline calico washed in water loses its soda, but
unites with water, and this in turn is displaced by
colours when the calico is dyed, so that the calico
assumes dyes of much greaterintensity and brillianey.

These various discoveries of Schonbein, Mercer,
and others, did not in any case arise from a direct
practical search, but as offshoots of abstract investi-
gation.

Antioch, in the beginning of the fourth century,
discovered the importance, as a matter of police, of
lighting its streets. But the discovery lapsed, and
it was only in the middle of the sixteenth century
that Paris lighted up its streets by fires made of pitch
and rosin. Slowly did this matter of primary police
creep on till the end of the last century, when it
started forward with extraordinary vigour. Chemists
had long observed that coal on being distilled pro-
duced a combustible gas, and the means of collecting
and distributing various kinds of gas were among the
common experiments of a lecture table. But it was
not till 1792 that Murdoch employed coal gas to
light up his offices at Redruth. Now gas has entirely
substituted oil in the lighting of streets, but simply as
a question of cost, the coals from which it is produced
being cheaper than the corn necessary to form tallow.
It by no means follows that gas is always the mostGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 79

convenient form of using a combustible. “It would
certainly,” says Liebig, “be considered one of the
greatest discoveries of the age if any one could suc-
ceed in condensing coal gas into a white, dry, solid,
odourless substance, portable and capable of being
placed upon a candlestick or burned in a lamp.” A
want is rarely clearly expressed by man that science
does not administer to it; and already is the desire
of Liebig accomplished. A mineral oil flowed out
of coal in Derbyshire, and was obviously produced by
a slow process of distillation from the coal. It con-
tained solid paraftine dissolved in a liquid oil. Mr.
Young, of Manchester, in examining the mode of its
formation, found that paraffine, a solid waxy substance
hitherto never produced from coal, could in reality
be readily formed in commercial juantities by a slow
and regular distillation. This, in fact, is “ condensed
coal gas,” or, rather, it might be considered as a
solid form of olefiant gas. It is, therefore, really the
want of Liebig supplied. In forming coke, this pro-
duct, dissolved in an oil of a similar composition, may
readily be obtained ; and useful products are made
instead of those waste gases now thrown uselessly
into the atmosphere. It might appear chimerical to
you if I were to state many of the consequences
which must follow if this discovery in its maturity
be found as successful as it promises to be in its dawn
but it is not difficult to see that a cheaper and legs
carbonized coke could be burned in our domestic fires ;
and thus we might see a sun which now refuses to
penetrate the sooty canopy of our cities.80 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

 

Hour after hour might be employed in recording
the triumphs of chemistry in its investigations into
the play of the organic elements. Looking back no
farther than the last few years, you see how it has
thrown open the most hidden processes of animal and
vegetable life; how it has taught us to increase and
economize the food of man. It is even yet the prac-
tice of those who have not followed its discoveries
into the wondrous affinities of the few simple organic
elements to depreciate the importance of following
their infinite creations. If,.however, there were no
other result from doing so than the one great achieve-
ment of having distinguished the ingredients in food
used to build up the muscular frame, and those em-
ployed in the support of animal heat, the importance
of that discovery would have repaid all the labour of
the past century.

Almost all the staple manufactures of this country
are founded on chemical principles, a knowledge of
which is absolutely indispensable for their economical
application. Ina few educational establishments and
in some of our universities the alphabet of chemical
science is taught ; but it requires an institution such
as this, devoted to a special object, to teach how to
use that alphabet in reading manufactures. The ex-
tension of scientific and technical education is a want
of the age. The old and yet widely-existing schol-
astic system of education, introduced by the revival
of learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
is ill adapted to the necessities of the times. Eras-
mus would not now aid Cambridge in advancing theGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 81

progress of England, nor would Vitelli make Oxford
useful to the mass of its population. It would be
of little use to the lagging progress of Italy even if
Chrysoloras were again to teach Greek in its univer-
sities. Euripides and Thucydides cannot make power
looms and spinning-jennies; for these Watts and
Arkwrights are required. A Poggio may discover
copies of Lucretius and Quintilian, without thereby
producing a result equal to that of the smallest in-
ventions of a Stephenson or a Wheatstone. When
will our schools learn that dead literature cannot be
the parent of living science or of active industry ?
Do not suppose that in arguing against the limitation
of education to ancient literature in our classical
schools that I either undervalue classics as a means
of education, or that I depreciate the wisdom deriv-
able from the study of the authors of antiquity.
Human nature and human passions are the same now
as they were in the days of Rome and of Greece, and
the study of their glorious literature may be made of
the highest educational value. It is because I desire
to retain this in our system of education, that I pro-
test against its exclusiveness, as being unfitted to the
wants of the age. It is because, in this country of
production, I cannot understand why our sons of in-
dustry, destined to reap its harvests, should be placed
in its fields of corn, having only been taught how to
cull the poppies which adorn them. “The great
desideratum of the present age,” says Liebig, “is
practically manifested in the establishment of schools
in which the natural sciences occupy the most pro-
G

   
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
   
 

 

Seti Rik Pea PRR ES TE! ET

Pe82 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

 

minent places in the course of instruction. From
these schools a more vigorous generation will come
forth, powerful in understanding, qualified to appre-
ciate and to accomplish all that is truly great, and
to bring forth fruits of universal usefulness. Through
them the resources, the wealth, and the strength of
empires will be incalculably increased.”

Institutions, such as this, are not substitutes for,
but supplements to, the universities. It is the in-
dustrial training which we profess, and everything
else is made subsidiary to that object. Not that we
do or should forget abstract science, as such, because
the discoveries in abstract laws are of more real
benefit to industry than their immediate applica-
tions. The technical man is, perhaps, of more use
to himself and to his time and generation than he
who discovers the abstract laws applied by the former
to the purposes of industry ; but it is the abstract
philosopher who benefits all time, and confers uni-
versal and eternal benefit to society.

If I have convinced you that it is of mfinite im-
portance to a nation, not only to study science as
constituting the foundation on which industry rests,
but to promote the advancement of abstract science,
the soul and life of industry, you will readily under-
stand the importance of institutions the object of
which is to infuse this life into special departments
of technology. England has too long rested on the
position which it has acquired as a manufacturing
nation. This position was gained when local advan-

tages gave an impulse to our practical national mind.GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. 83

But now that the progress of human events has con-

verted the competition of industry into a competition of

intellect, it will no longer do to plume ourselves
in our power of mere practical adaptations. It is
miserable to see our industrial population glorying
in their ignorance of the principles on which their
manufactures depend, and vaunting their empiricism,
or, as they term it, their “practice.” Let us waken
from this delusion, unless we prefer to—

‘* Sit like spent ane patient fools,

Still puffing in the dark at one poor coal,
Held on by hope till the last spark is out.’

If England keep pace with other countries as a
manufacturing nation, it must be by her sons of in-
dustry becoming humble disciples of science. At
present her reliance in the “ practical”’ or “ common
sense ’’ of her population is the sunken rock directly
mm the course both of her agriculture and manufac-
tures. On this subject Archbishop Whately has
some excellent remarks. “ By common sense,” says
he, “is meant, I apprehend (when the term is used
with any distinct meaning), an exercise of judgment,
unaided by any art or system of rules; such an ex-
ercise as we must necessarily employ in numberless
cases of daily occurrence, in which, having no estab-
lished principles to guide us, no line of procedure, as
it were, distinctly chalked out, we must needs act on
the best extemporaneous conjectures we can form.
He who is eminently successful in doing this is said
to possess a superior degree of common sense. But
that common sense is only our second best guide—

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

 

Eo it ROR NaN ND in on So ee cc RS RSET84 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

that the rules of art, if judiciously framed, are always
desirable when they can be had,—is an assertion for
which I may appeal to the testimony of mankind in
general, which is so much the more valuable, inasmuch
as it may be accounted the testimony of adversaries ;
for the generality have a strong predilection in favour
of common sense, except in those points in which they
respectively possess the knowledge of a system of
rules, but in these points they deride any one who
trusts 40 unaided common sense. A sailor, e. g., will
perhaps despise the pretensions of medical men, and
prefer treating a disease by common sense ; but he
would ridicule the proposal of navigating a ship by
common sense, without regard to the maxims of
nautical art. A physician again will perhaps con-
temn systems of political economy, of logic, or meta-
physics, and insist on the superior wisdom of trusting
to common sense on such matters; but he would
never approve of trusting to common sense in the
treatment of diseases. Neither, again, would the
architect recommend a reliance on common sense
alone in building, nor the musician in music, to the
neglect of those systems of rules, which, in their
respective arts, have been deduced from scientific
reasoning, aided by experience; and the induction
might be extended to every department of practice.
Since, therefore, each gives the preference to unas-
sisted common sense only in those cases where he
himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably
resorts to the rules of art wherever he possesses the
knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind bearGOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINEs. 85

their testimony, though unconsciously, and often
unwillingly, to the preference of systematic knowledge
to conjectural judgments.” Practice and science
must now join together in close alliance, or the
former will soon emigrate to other lands. The time
is past when practice can go on in the blind and
vain confidence of a shallow empiricism, severed
from science, like a tree from its roots. The rudest
sailor may steer his ship in the direction of a land-
mark, but without compass and sextant he dare not
traverse the expanse of ocean. Ignorance may walk
in the path dimly lighted by advancing knowledge,
but she stands in dismay when science passes her ;
and she is unable to follow, like the foolish virgin
having no oil in her lamp. Depend upon it, an em-
pirical knowledge of practice is not the way now to
succeed in the struggle of individuals, or in the
struggle of nations. Intellect is on the stretch to
get forward, and that nation which holds not by it
will soon be left behind. Fora long time, practice,
standing still in the pride of empiricism, and in the
ungrateful forgetfulness of what science has done in
its development, reared upon its portal the old and
vulgar adage, that “an ounce of practice is worth a
ton of theory.”” This wretched inscription acted like
a Gorgon’s head, and turned to stone the aspirations
of science. Believe it not! for a grain of theory, if
that be an expression for science, will, when planted,
like the mustard seed of Scripture, grow and wax
into the greatest of trees. The pressure and diffi-
culties of the age, and the rapid advancement of

    
  
  
 
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

 

  

WushecGen eee PERNA See) forge86 LYON PLAYFAIR, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.

 

intellect in continental nations, have been the Per-
seus +o cub off this Medusa’s head from the industry
of England, and to fix it on the shield of Minerva,
who turns to stone those that believe that science
should be ignored by practice; but, reversing her
shield, wisely conducts such as are willing to go far-
ther under her guidance. It is now rare to find men
who openly avow, although they actually entertam,
a belief in a necessary antagonism between theory
and practice. Theory is in fact the rule, and practice
its example. Theory is but.the attempt to furnish
an intelligent explanation of what is empirically as-
certained to be true, and is always useful, even when
wrong. Theories are the leaves of the tree of science,
drawing nutriment to the parent stem while they
last, and by their fall and decay affording the mate-
rials for the new leaves which are to succeed.

I have now said enough to show you that it is
indispensable for this country to have a scientific
education in connection with manufactures, 1f we
wish to outstrip the intellectual competition which
now, happily for the world, prevails in all departments
of industry. As surely as darkness follows the set-
ting of the sun, so surely will England recede as a
manufacturing nation, unless her industrial popula-
tion become much more conversant with science than
they now are.ADDRESS
OF
SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTION, BART, MP. Wer
TO THE
ASSOCIATED SOCIETIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

ON THE OCCASION OF HIS INSTALLATION AS THEIR HONORARY PRESIDENT.

 

Delivered in the QUEEN STREET HALL. Jan, 18, 1854.
te

GENTLEMEN,—I may well feel overcome by the
kindness with which you receive me, for I cannot
disentangle my earliest recollections from my sense of
intellectual obligations to the genius of Scotland.
The first poets who charmed me from play in the
half-holidays of school, were Campbell and Scott—
the first historians who clothed, for me, with life, the
shadows of the past, were Robertson and Hume—
the first philosopher who, by the grace of his attrac-
tive style, lured me on to the analysis of the human
mind, was Dugald Stewart—and the first novel that
I bought with my own money, and hid under my
pillow, was the Roderick Random of Smollett. So,
when later, in a long vacation from my studies at
Cambridge, I learned the love for active adventure,
and contracted the habit of self-reliance by solitary88 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

 

excursions on foot, my staff in my hand and my knap-
sack on my shoulders, it was towards Scotland that
I instinctively bent my way, as if to the nursery-
ground from which had been wafted to my mind the
first germs of those fertile and fair ideas which, after
they have come to flower upon their native soil, return
to seed, and are carried by the winds we know not
whither, calling up endless diversities of the same
plant, according to the climate and the ground to
which they are borne by chance. |
Gentlemen, this day I visited, with Professor
Aytoun, the spot on which, a mere lad, obscure and
alone, I remember to have stood one starlight night
in the streets of Edinburgh, gazing across what was
then a deep ravine, upon the picturesque outlines of
the Old Town, all the associations which make Scot-
land so dear to romance, and so sacred to learning,
rushing over me in tumultuous pleasure; her stormy
history, her enchanting legends—wild tales of witch-
craft and fairyland—of headlong chivalry and tragic
love—all contrasting, yet all uniting, with the renown
of schools famous for patient erudition and tranquil
science,—I remember how I then wished that I
could have found some tie in parentage or blood to
connect me with the great people in whose capital I
stood a stranger. That tie which birth denied to me,
my humble labours, and your generous kindness, have
at last bestowed ; and the stranger in your streets
stands to-day in this crowded hall, proud to identify
his own career with the hopes and aspirations of the

youth of Scotland.UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 89

Gentlemen, when I turn to what the analogous
custom of other universities renders my duty upon
this occasion, and offer some suggestions that may
serve as hints in your various studies, I feel literally
overshadowed by the awe of the great names, all your
own, which rise high around me in every department
of human progress. It is not only the illustrious
dead before whom I have to bow your wonted fires
do not live only in their ashes. The men of to-day
are worthy the men of yesterday. A thousand rays
of intellectual light are gathered and fused together
in the varied learning of your distinguished Principal.
The chivalry of your glorious annals finds its new
Tyrteus in the vigorous and rushing verse of Pro-
fessor Aytoun. Your medical schools, in all their
branches

 

 

pathology, medical jurisprudence, surgery,
anatomy, chemistry—advance more and more to fresh
honours under the presiding names of Simpson—
Alison—Christison — Goodsir — Trail] — Syme and
Gregory. The general cause of education itself is
identified with the wide repute of Professor Pillans.
Nature has added the name of Forbes to the list of
those who have not only examined her laws but
discovered her secrets—while the comprehensive
science of Sir William Hamilton still corrects and
extends the sublime chart that defines the immaterial
universe of ideas. And how can I forget the name
of one man, whose character and works must have
produced the most healthful influence over the youth
of Scotland—combining, as they do, in the rarest
union, all that is tender and graceful with all that is

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 

 

Pica ee ML CSG SS90 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART,

 

hardy and masculine—the exquisite poet, the vigo-
rous critic, the eloquent discourser, the joyous com-
rade—the minstrel of the Isle of Palms-—the Christo-
pher North of Maga? How I wish that the plaudits
with which you receive this inadequate reference to
one so loved and honoured might be carried to his
ears, and assure him that, like those statues of the
great Roman fathers in the well-known passage of
Tacitus—if he be absent from the procession he is
still more remembered by the assembly. And since
I see around me many who, though not connected
with your college, are yet interested in the learned
fame of your capital, permit me on this neutral
ground to suspend all differences of party, and do
homage to the great orator and author, whose lumi-
nous genius, whose scholastic attainments, whose
independence of spirit, whose integrity of life, so
worthily represent not only the capital, but the
character of the people who claim their countryman
by descent in Macaulay. When I think of those
names, and of many more which I might cite, if time
would allow me to make the catalogue of your living
title-deeds to fame, I might well shrink from the
task before me; but as every man assists to a general
illumination by placing a single light at his own
window, so, perhaps, my individual experience may
contribute its humble ray to the atmosphere which
genius and learning have kindled into familiar splen-
dour.

Gentlemen, I shall first offer some remarks upon
those fundamental requisites which, no matter whatUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 91

be our peculiar studies, are essential to excellence in
all of them. Nature indicates to the infant the two
main elements of wisdom—nature herself teaches the
infant to observe and to inquire. You will have
noticed how every new object catches the eye of a
young child—how intuitively he begins to question
you upon all that he surveys—what it is? what it is
for P how it came there? how itis made? who made
itP Gradually, as he becomes older, his observation
is less vigilant, his curiosity less eager. In fact, both
faculties are often troublesome and puzzling to those
about him. He is told to attend to his lessons, and
not ask questions to which he cannot yet understand
the replies. Thus his restless vivacity is drilled into
mechanical forms, so that often when we leave school
we observe less and inquire less than when we stood
at the knees of our mother in the nursery. But our
first object on entering upon youth, and surveying
the great world that spreads before us, should be to
regain the earliest attributes of the child. What
were the instincts of the infant are the primary duties
of the student. His ideas become rich and various
in proportion as he observes—accurate and practical
in proportion as he inquires. The old story of New-

 

ton observing the fall of the apple, and so arriving,
by inquiry, at the laws of gravity, will occur to you
all. But this is the ordinary process in every depart-
ment of intelligence. A man observes more atten-
tively than others had done something in itself very
simple. He reflects, tests his observation by inquiry,
and becomes the discoverer, the inventor; enriches a

    
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
   
   
 
 

 

eg

caek a eeivigetna

a,

  

eta catl ae aed92 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

science, Improves a manufacture, adds a new beauty
to the arts, or, if engaged in professional active life,
detects, as a physician, the secret cause of disease—
extracts truth, as a lawyer, from’ contradictory
evidence—or grapples, as a statesman, with the com-
plicated principles by which nations flourish or decay.
In short, take with you into all your studies this
leading proposition, that, whither in active life or in
letters and research, a man will always be eminent
according to the vigilance with which he observes,
and the acuteness with which he inquires. But this
is not enough—something more is wanted—it is that
resolute effort of the will which we call perseverance.
I am no believer in genius without labour; but I do
believe that labour, judiciously and continuously
applied, becomes genius in itself. Success in removing
obstacles as in conquering armies, depends on this law
of mechanics—the greatest amount of force at your
command concentrated on a given point. If your
constitutional force be less than another man’s, you
equal him if you continue it longer and concentrate
it more. The old saying of the Spartan parent to
the son who complained that his sword was too short,
is applicable to everything in life—“ If your weapon
is too short, add a step to it.’’ Dr. Arnold, the famous
Rugby schoolmaster, said, the difference between one
boy and another was not so much in talent as in
energy. It is with boys as with men; and perseve-
rance is energy made habitual. But I forget that I
am talking to Scotchmen ; no need to preach energy
and perseverance to them. ‘Those are their nationalUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 93

characteristics. Is there a soil upon earth from
which the Scotchman cannot ring some harvest for
fortune ; or one field of honourable contest on which
he has not left some trophy of renown ?

We must now talk a little upon books. Gentle-
men, the objects and utilities of reading are so various,
that to suggest any formal rules whereby to dictate
its subjects and confine its scope, would be to re-
semble the man in a Greek anecdote, who, in order to
improve his honey, cut off the wings of his bees, and
placed before them the flowers his own sense found
the sweetest. No doubt, the flowers were the best
he could find on Hymettus ; but, somehow or other,
when the bees had lost their wings, they made no
honey at all. Still, while the ordinary inducement
to reading is towards general delight and ceneral
instruction, it is well in youth to acquire the habit
of reading with conscientious toil for a special pur-
pose. ‘Whatever costs us labour, braces all the sinews
of the mind in the effort; and whatever we study
with a definite object, fixes a much more tenacious
hold on the memory than do the lessons of mere
desultory reading. If, for instance, you read the
history of the latter half of the last century, simply
because some works on the subject are thrown in your
way; unless your memory be unusually good, you
will retain but a vague recollection, that rather serves
to diminish ignorance-than bestow knowledge. But
suppose, in a debating society, that the subject of
debate be the character of Charles Fox, or the admin-
istration of Mr. Pitt, and some young man gets up

ri hia94: SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

the facts of the time for the special purpose of making
an ample and elaborate speech on the principles and
career of either of those statesmen, the definite pur-
pose for which he reads, and the animated object to
which it is to be applied, will, in all probability, fix
what he reads indelibly in his mind ; and to the dry
materials of knowledge will be added the virida vis of
argument and reasoning. You see now, then, how
wisely the first founders of learning established insti-
tutions for youth on the collegiate principle ; fixing
the vague desire for knowledge into distinct bounds,
by lectures on chosen subjects, and placing before the
ambition of the student the practical object of
honourable distinction—a distinction, indeed, that
connects itself with our gentlest affections, and our
most lasting interests: for honours gained in youth
pay back to our parents, while they are yet living,
some part of what we owe to their anxiety and
care. And whatever renown a University can confer,
abridges the road to subsequent success, interests our
contemporaries in our career, and raises up a crowd
eager to cheer on our first maturer efforts to make a
name. The friendships we form at College die away
as life divides us, but the honours we gain there
remain and constitute a portion of ourselves. Who,
for instance, can separate the fame of a Brougham or
a Mackintosh from the reputation they established at
the University at Edinburgh ?_ The variety of know-
ledge embraced in the four divisions, which are here
called faculties, allows to every one an ample choice,
according to the bias of each several mind, or theUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 95

profession for which the student is destined. But
there is one twofold branch of humane letters in which
the Universities of Scotland are so renowned that I
must refer to it specially, though the reference must
be brief—I mean moral and metaphysical philosophy,
which, in Edinburgh especially, has been allied to the
Graces by the silver style of Dugald Stewart, and
taken the loveliness which Plato ascribes to virtue
from the beautiful intellect of Brown. N ow, 1t would
be idle to ask the general student to make himself a
profound metaphysician. You might as well ask him
to make himself a great poet. Both the one and the
other are born for their calling ; not made by our
advice, but their own irresistible impulse. But a
liberal view of the principal theories as to the forma-
tion of the human mind, and the latent motives of
human conduct, is of essential service to all about to
enter upon busy practical life. Such studies quicken
our perceptions of error and virtue, enlarge our general
knowledge of mankind, and enable our later experience
to apply with order and method the facts it accumu-
lates. I need not remind those who boast the great
name of Chalmers, or who heard the lectures of your
Principal two years ago, that Moral Philosophy is the
handmaid of Divinity. She is also the sister of Juris-
prudence, and the presiding genius of that art in
which you are so famous; and which, in order to
heal the body, must often prescribe alteratives to the
mind—more espécially in these days, when half our
diseases come from the neglect of the body in the
overwork of the brain. In this railway age the wear96 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.
a

 

and tear of labour and intellect go on without pause
or self-pity. We live longer than our forefathers,
but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties
and cares. They fatigued only the muscles; we.
exhaust the finer strength of the nerves ; and, when
we send impatiently to the doctor, it is ten to one
but what he finds the acute complaint, which is all
that we perceive, connected with some chronic mental
irritation, or some unwholesome inveteracy of habit.
Here, then, the physician, accustomed to consider
how mind acts upon body, will exercise with disere-
tion the skill that moral philosophy has taught him.
Every one knows the difference between two medical
attendants, perhaps equally learned in pharmacy and
the routine of the schools; the one writes in haste
the prescription we may as well “throw to the dogs ;”
the other, by his soothing admonitions, his agreeable
converse, cheers up the gloomy spirits, regulates the
defective habits, and often, unconsciously to ourselves,
“ministers to the mind diseased, and plucks from the
memory a rooted sorrow.” And the difference
between them is, that one has studied our moral
anatomy, and the other has only looked on us as
mere machines of matter, to be inspected by a peep
at the tongue, and regulated by a touch of the pulse.
And in order to prove my sense of the connection
between moral and metaphysical philosophy and
practical pathology, and to pay a joint compliment
to the two sciences for which your college is so pre-
eminent, I here, as a personal favour to myself, crave
permission of the heads and authorities of the Uni-UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. «. 97
versity to offer the prize of a gold medal, for the
current year, for the best essay by any student on
some special subject implying the connection I speak
of, which may be selected in concert with the various
Professors of your medical schools, and the Professors
of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy.

Gentlemen—allow me to preface the topic to which
I now turn by congratulating you on the acquisition
your scholarship has recently made in the accom-
plished translator of Aischylus, Professor Blackie—
who appears to have thrown so much light on the
ancient language of the Greeks by showing its sub-
stantial identity with the modern. I now proceed
to impress on you the importance of Classical studies.

I shall endeavour to avoid the set phrases of decla-
matory panegyric which the subject too commonly
provokes. But if those studies appear to you cold
and tedious, the fault is in the laneuor with which
they are approached. Do you think that the statue
of ancient art is but a lifeless marble? Animate it

with your own young breath, and instantly it lives

and- glows. Greek literature, if it served you with
nothing else, should excite your curiosity as the
picture of a wondrous state of civilization which, in
its peculiar phases, the world can never see again, and
yet from which every succeeding state of civilization
has borrowed its liveliest touches. If you take it
first as a mere record of events—if you examine only
the contest between the Spartans and the Athenians

—the one as the representative of duration and order,

the other of change and progress, both pushed to the

i

 

       
  
 
  
  
 
  
  
  
 
   
 
   
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 

 

    

ds 2c i prereset
“ASE apa ta nanan eae isFae 8

98 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

 

extreme—there instantly rise before you, in the
noblest forms—through the grandest illustrations of
history —through the collision of characters at once
human and heroic—there instantly, I say, rise before
you lessons which may instruct every age, and which
may especially cuide the present. For so closely does
Grecian history bear on the more prominent disputes
in our own day, that it is not only full of wise saws,
but still more of modern instances. I pass by this
view of the political value of Grecian literature, on
which I could not well enlarge without, perhaps,
provoking party differences, to offer some remarks,
purely critical, and for which I bespeak your indul-
gence if I draw too largely on your time. Every
Professor who encourages the young to the study of
the Classics will tell them how these ancient master-
pieces have served modern Europe with models to
guide the taste and excite the emulation. But here
let us distinguish what we should mean when we
speak of them as models—we mean no cheek to origi-
nality—no cold and sterile imitation, more especially
of form and diction. The pith and substance of a
good English style—be 1t simple and severe, be 1t
copious and adorned—must still be found in the
nervous strength of our native tongue. We need not
borrow from Greek or Roman the art that renders a
noble thought transparent to the humblest under-
standing, or charms the fastidious ear with the varying
music of elaborate cadence. The classic authors are
models in a more comprehensive sense. They teach
us less how to handle words than how to view things ;UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 99

—and first, let us recognize the main characteristic
of the literature of Greece. The genius of Greek
letters is essentially social and humane. Far from
presenting us with a frigid and austere ideal, it deals
with the most vivid passions, the largest interests
common to the mass of mankind. In this sense of
the word it is practical—that is, it connects itself with
the natural feelings, the practical life of man under
all forms of civilization.. That is the reason why itis
so durable—it fastens hold of sympathy and interest
m every nation and e every age. Thus Homer is im-
measurably the most popular poet the world ever
knew. The [iad is constructed from materials with
which the natural human heart has the most affinity.
Our social instincts interest us on both sides, whether
in the war of the Greeks avenging’ the desecration of
the marriage hearth, or the doom of the Trojans,
which takes all its pathos from the moment we see
Hector parting from Andromache, and unbinding his
helmet that it may not terrify his child. Homer
makes no attempt at abstract subtle feelings with
which few can sympathize. He takes terror and pity
from the most popular springs of emotion—valour,
love, patriotism, domestic affections—the struggle of
Man with fate—the contrast, as in Achilles, between
glorious youth and early death—between headlong
daring and passionate sorrow; the contrast, as in
Priam, between all that gives reverence to the king
and all that moves compassion for the man. Homer
knows no conventional dignity ; his heroes weep—
his godesses scold—Mars roars with pain when he is

    
   
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
  

   

Meaaeas

isis herr ato

  

See SeRAPA IEE

100 STR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

wounded—Hector himself knows fear, and we do not
respect him the less, though we love him more, when
his heart sinks and his feet fly before Achilles. So
essentially human is Homer, that it is said that he
frst created the Greek gods—that is, he clothed what
before were vague phantoms with attributes familiar
to humanity, and gave them the power of divinities,
with the forms and the hearts of men.

Civilization advances, but the Greek literature still
preserves this special character of humanity, and each
succeeding writer still incorporates his genius with
the actual existence and warin emotions of the crowd.
Aischylus strides forth from the field of Marathon,
to give voice to the grand practical ideas that
‘nfiuenced his land and times. He represents the
apotheosis of freedom, and the dawn of philosophy
through the mists of fable. Thus, in the victory
hymn of “the Perse,”’ he chaunts the defeat of
Xerxes; thus, in the “Seven before Thebes,’ he
addresses an audience still hot from the memories of
war, in words that rekindle its passions and re-echo
its clang ; thus, again, in the wondrous myth of the
“ Prometheus Bound,” he piles up the fragments of
primeval legend with a Titan’s hand, storming the
very throne of Zeus with assertions of the liberty of
intellectual will, as opposed to the authority of force.
In Alschylus there is always the very form and pres-
sure of an age characterized by fierce emotions, and
the tumult of new ideas struggling for definite expres-
sion. Sophocles no less commands an everlasting
audience by genial sympathy with the minds thatUNIVERSITY ‘OF EDINBURGH. 101

thought, and the hearts that beat, in his own day.
The stormy revolution of thought that succeeded the
Persian war had given way to a milder, but not less
manly, period of serene intelligence. The time had
come in which what we call “The Beautiful ” deve-
loped its ripe proportions. A sentiment of order, of
submission to the gods—a desire to embellish the
social existence secured by victorious war-—pervaded
the manners, and inspired the gentle emulation, All
this is reflected in the calm splendour of Sophocles.
It seems a type of the difference between the two
that Alschylus—a bearded man—had fought at
Marathon, and Sophocles—in the bloom of youth—
had tuned his harp to the peans that cireled round
the trophies of Salamis. The Prometheus of
Aschylus is a vindication of human wisdom, made
with the sublime arrogance of a Titan’s pride. The
(Hdipus of Sophocles teaches its nothingness to
Wisdom, and inflicts its blind punishment upon
Pride. But observe how both these great poets
inculeate the sentiment of Mercy as an element of
tragic grandeur, and how they both seek to connect
that attribute of humanity with the fame of their
native land. Thus it is to Athens that the Orestes
of Alschylus comes to expiate his parricide—it is the
tutelary goddess of the Athenians that pleads in his
cause, and reconciles the Furies to the release of their
hunted victim. But still more impressively does
Sophocles inculcate and adorn this lesson of beautiful
humanity. It is not only amidst the very grove of
the Furies that Cidipus finds the peaceful goal of hisFann ene

PEE LPO REALE Saab a Oo Pa Sc

 

 

102 STR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

 

wanderings—but round that grove itself the poet has
lavished all the loveliest images of his fancy. There,
in the awful ground of the ghastly sisters, the Night-
ingales sing under the ivy—there blooms the Nar-
cissus—there smiles the olive—there spring the
fountains that feed Cephisus. Thus terror itself he
surrounds with beauty, and the nameless grave of the
outlawed CEdipus becomes the guardian of the benig-
nant state, which gave the last refuge to his woes.

A few years more, and a new phase of civilization
develops itself in Athens. To that sentiment for the
beautiful which in itself diséovers the good, succeeds
the desire to moralize and speculate. The influence
of women on social life is more admitted—statesmen
and sages gather round Aspasia—love occupies 2
larger space in the thoughts of men, and pity is
derived from gentler, perhaps from more effeminate,
sources. ‘This change Euripides—no less practical
than his predecessors in representing the popular
temper of his age—this change, I say, Euripides
comes to depict in sententious aphorisms, m scholastic
casuistry, accompanied, -however, with the tenderest
pathos, and enlisting that mterest for which he is
ridiculed by Aristophanes—the interest derived from
conjugal relations and household life—the domestic
interest,—it is this which has made him of all the
Greek dramatists the most directly influential in the
modern stage. And it is Euripides who has sug-
gested to the classic tragedy of Italy and France
two-thirds of whatever it possesses of genuine tender-
ness and passion. Ina word, the Greek drama 1s notUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 103

that marble perfection of artistic symmetry which it
has too often been represented to be, but a flesh and
blood creation, identifying itself with the emotions
most prevalent in the multitudes it addressed, and
artificial rather by conventions derived from its
religious origin than by any very deep study of other
principles of art than those which sympathy with
human nature teaches instinctively to the poet. The
rules prescribed to the Greek dramatist, such as the
unities, were indeed few, and elementary, belonging
rather to the commencement of art than to its full
development. There are few critics nowadays, for
instance, who will not recognize a higher degree of
art in Shakspeare, when he transports his willing
audience over space and time, and concentrates in
Macbeth the whole career of guilty ambition, from
its first dire temptation to its troubled rise and its
bloody doom, than there can be in any formal rule
which would have sacrificed for dry recital the viv acity
of action, and crowded into a day what Shakspeare
expands throughout a life.

In fine, then, these Greek poets became our models
—not as authorities for pedantic laws, not to chill
our invention by unsubstantial ideals or attempts to
restore to life the mere mummies of antiquity—but
rather, on the contrary, to instruct us that the writer
who most faithfully represents the highest and fairest
attributes of his own age has the best chance of an

 

audience in posterity; and that whatever care we
take as to the grace or sublimity of diction, still the
diction itself can only be the instrument by which

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 

 

   

iar iba eS Sash ET

Sn daa
PES NRTA Bia Ral aie I104 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

 

the true poet would refine or exalt what ?—why, the
feelings most common to the greatest number of
mankind. We have heard too much about the calm
and repose of classic art. It is the distance from
which we take our survey that does not allow us to
distinguish its force and its passion. Thus the
rivulet, when near, seems more disturbed than the
ocean beheld afar off. At the distance of two thou-
sand years, if we do not see all the play of the waves,
it is because we do not stand on the beach. The
same practical identification with the intellectual at-
tributes of their age which-distinguished the poetry,
no less animates the prose of the ancient Greeks.
The narratives of Herodotus, so simple yet so glowing,
were read to immense multitudes—now exciting their
wonder by tale and legend—now gratifymg their
curiosity by accounts of barbarian customs—now
inflaming their patriotism by minute details of the
Persian myriads that exhausted rivers on their march,
and graphic anecdotes of the Grecian men, whom the
Medes at Marathon saw rushing into the midst of
their spears, or whom the scout of Xerxes found
dressing their hair for the festival of battle i the
glorious pass of Thermopyle. No less does the
eraver mind of Thucydides represent the mtense
interest with which the Grecian intellect was accus-
tomed to view the action and strife, the sorrow and
triumph, of the human beings, from whom it never
stood superciliously aloof. Though the father of
philosophical history, Thucydides knows nothing of
that cynical irony which is common to the modernUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 105

spirit of historical philosophy in its cold survey of the
follies and errors of mankind. He never neglects to
place full before you whatever ennobles our species,
whether it be the lofty sentiment of Pericles or the
hardy valour of Brasidas. It is his candid sympathy
with whatever in itself is good and great which
vivifies his sombre chronicle, and renders him at once
earnest yet impartial. ach little bay or creek, each
defile or pass, where gallant deeds have been done,
he describes with the conviction that the deeds have
hallowed the place to all posterity, and have become
apart of that ~7%«'es és which he proposed to be-
queath. This is the spirit which returns to life in
your own day, and in your own historians, which
gives a classic charm to the military details of Napier,
and lights with a patriot’s fire the large intelligence
and profound research that immortalize the page of
Alison.

Pass. from history to oratory. All men in modern
times, famous for their eloquence, have recognized
Demosthenes as their model. Many speakers in our
own country have literally translated passages from
his orations, and produced electrical effects upon sober
English senators by thoughts first uttered to passion-
ate Athenian crowds. Why is this? Not from the
style—the style vanishes in translation—it is because
thoughts the noblest appeal to emotions the most
masculine and popular. You see in Demosthenes the
man accustomed to deal with the practical business
of men—to generalize details, to render complicated
affairs clear to the ordinary understanding

 

and, atPRR Era

106 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

the same time, to connect the material interests of
life with the sentiments that warm the breast and
exalt the soul. Itis the brain of an accomplished
statesman in unison with a generous heart, thoroughly
in earnest, beating loud and high—with the passion-
ate desire to convince breathless thousands how to
baffle a danger, and to save their country.

A little time longer, and Athens is free no more.
The iron force of Macedon has banished liberty from
the silenced Agora. But liberty had already secured
to herself a gentle refuge in the groves of the Academy
—there, still to the last, the Grecian intellect main-
tains the same social, humanizing, practical aspect.
The immense mind of Aristotle gathers together, as
in a treasure-house for future ages, all that was valu-
able in the knowledge that informs us of the earth
on which we dwell—the political constitutions of
States, and their results on the character of nations,
the science of ethics, the analysis of ideas, natural
history, physical science, critical investigation, omne
immensum peragravit; and all that he collects from
wisdom he applies to the earthly uses of man. Yet
it is not by the tutor of Alexander, but by the pupil
of Socrates, that our vast debt to the Grecian mind
is completed. When we remount from Aristotle to
his great master, Plato—it is as if we looked from
nature up to nature’s god. There, amidst the decline
of freedom, the corruption of manners—just before
the date when, with the fall of Athens, the beautiful
ideal of sensuous life faded mournfully away—there,
on that verge of time stands the consoling Plato,UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

 

107

preparing philosophy to receive the Christian dispen-
sation, by opening the gates of the Infinite, and pro-
claiming the immortality of the soul. Thus the
Grecian genius, ever kindly and benignant, first
appears to awaken man from the sloth of the senses,
to enlarge the boundaries of self, to connect the desire
of glory with the sanctity of household ties, to raise
up in luminous contrast with the inert despotism of
the old Eastern world—the energies of freemen, the
duties of citizens; and, finally, accomplishing its
mission as the visible Iris to States and heroes, melts
into the rainbow, announcing a more sacred covenant,
and spans the streams of the Heathen Orcus with an
arch lost in the Christian’s Heaven.

T have so exhausted your patience in what I have
thus said of the Grecian literature, that I must limit
closely my remarks upon the Roman. And here,
indeed, the subject does not require the same space.
In the Greek literature all is fresh and original; its
very art is but the happiest selection from natural
objects, knit together with the zone of the careless
Graces. But the Latin literature is borrowed and
adopted ; and, like all imitations, we perceive at once
that it is artificial—but in this imitation it has such
exquisite taste, in this artificiality there is so much
refinement of polish, so much stateliness of pomp—
that it assumes an originality of its own. It has not
found its jewels in native mines, but it takes them
with a conqueror’s hand, and weaves them into regal
diadems. Dignity and polish are the especial attri-
butes of Latin literature in its happiest age; it

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
   
    

 

 

=

ee105 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

betrays the habitual influence of an aristocracy,
wealthy, magnificent, and learned. To borrow a
phrase from Persius—its words sweep along as if
clothed with the toga. Whether we take the sono-
rous lines of Virgil or the swelling periods of Cicero,
the easier dignity of Sallust, or the patrician simplh-
city of Cxsar, we are sensible that we are with a race
accustomed to a measured decorum, a majestic self-
control, unfamiliar to the more lively impulse of small
Greek communities. There is a greater demarcation
between the intellect of the writer and the homely
sense of the multitude. The Latin writers seek to
link themselves to posterity rather through a succes-
sion of select and well-bred admirers than by cordial
identification with the passions and interests of the
profane vulgar. Even Horace himself, so brillant
and easy, and so conscious of his monumentum ere
perennius, affects disdain of popular applause, and
informs us, with a kind of pride, that his satires had
no vogue in the haunts of the common people.
Every bold schoolboy takes at once to Homer, but it
is only the fine taste of the scholar that thoroughly
appreciates Virgil; and only the experienced man of
the world who discovers all the delicate wit, all the
exquisite urbanity of sentiment, that win our affection
to Horace in proportion as we advance in life. In
short, the Greek writers warm and elevate our
emotions as men—the Latin writers temper emotions
to the stately reserve of high-born gentlemen. The
Greeks fire us more to the inspirations of poetry, or
(as in Plato and parts of Demosthenes) to that sub-UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 109

lmer prose to which poetry is akin; but the Latin
writers are, perhaps, on the whole, though I say it
with hesitation, safer models for that accurate con-
struction and decorous elegance by which classical
prose attains critical perfection. Nor is this elegance
effeminate, but, on the contrary, nervous and robust,
though, like the statue of Apollo, the strength of
the muscle is concealed by the undulation of the
curves. But there is this, as a general result from
the study of ancient letters, whether Greek or Roman
—both are the literature of grand races, of free men
and brave hearts; both aboundin o generous thoughts
and high examples ; both, w henthes their occasional
lense, inculeate, upon the whole, the habitual
practice Be nanly. virtues; both glow with the love
of country ; both are animated by the desire of fame
and honour. Therefore, whatever be our future pro-
fession and pursuit, however they may take us from
the scholastic closet, and forbid any frequent return
to the classic studies of our youth, still he whose
early steps have been led into that land of demi-gods
and heroes will find that its very air has enriched
through life the blood of his thoughts, that he quits
the soil with a front which the Greek has directed
towards the stars, and a step which imperial Rome
has disciplined to the march that carried her eagles
round the world.

Not in vain do these lessons appeal to the youth
of Scotland. From this capital, still as from the
elder Athens, stream the lights of philosophy and
learning. But your countrymen are not less renowned

    
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
  
 
    
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  

 

i
0110 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

 

for the qualities of action than for those of thought.
And you whom I address will carry with you, in your
several paths to fortune, your national attributes of
reflective judgment and dauntless courage. I see
an eventful and stirring age expand before the rising
generation. In that grand contest between new
‘deas and ancient forms, which may be still more
keenly urged before this century expires, whatever
your differences of political opinion, I adjure you to
hold fast to the vital principle of civilization. What
is that principle? It is the union of liberty with
order. The art to preserve this union has often
baffled the wisest statesmen in stormy times ; but
the task becomes easy at once, if the people whom
they seek to guide will but carry into public affairs
the same prudent consideration which commands
prosperity in private business. You have already
derived from your ancestors an immense capital of
political freedom ; increase it if you will—but by
solid investments, not by hazardous speculations.
You will hear much of the necessity of progress, and
truly: for where progress ends decline invariably
begins ; but remember that the healthful progress of
society is like the natural life of man—it consists in
the gradual and harmonious development of all its
constitutional powers, all its component parts, and
you introduce weakness and disease into the whole
system, whither you attempt to stint or to force the
growth. The old homely rule you prescribe to the
individual is applicable to a State—‘ Keep the limbs
warm by exercise, and keep the head cool by temper-UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. Pit

ance.” But new ideas do not invade only our poli-
tical systems ; you will find them wherever you turn.
Philosophy has altered the directions it favoured in
the last century—it enters less into metaphysicai
inquiry ; it questions less the relationships between
man and his Maker ; it assumes its practical character
as the investigator of external nature, and seeks to
adapt agencies before partially concealed to the
positive uses of man. Here I leave you to your own
bold researches ; you cannot be much misled, if you
remember the maxim, to observe with vigilance, and
Inquire with conscientious care. Nor is it necessary
that I should admonish the sons of religious Scotland
that the most daring speculations as to Nature may
be accompanied with the humblest faith in those
sublime doctrines that open heaven alike to the wisest
philosopher and the simplest peasant. I do not
presume to arrogate the office of the preacher ; but,
believe me, as a man of books, and a man of the world,
that you inherit a religion which, in its most
familiar form, in the lowly prayer that you have
learned from your mother’s lips, will save you from
the temptations to which life is exposed more surely
than all which the pride of philosophy can teach.
Nor can I believe that the man will ever go very far
or very obstinately wrong who, by the mere habit of
thanksgiving and prayer, will be forced to examine
his conscience even but once a day, and remember
that the eye of the Almighty is upon him.

One word further. Nothing, to my mind, preserves
a brave people true and firm to its hereditary virtues,5S SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

more than a devout though liberal spirit of nation-
ality. And it is not because Scotland is united with
England that the Scotchman should forget the glories
of his annals, the tombs of his ancestors, or relax one
jot of his love for his native soil. I say not this to
flatter you—l say it not for Scotland alone. I say
it for the sake of the empire. Jor sure I am that, if
ever the step of the invader should land upon these
kindred shores—there, wherever the national spirit is
the most strongly felt—there, where the local affee-
tons most animate the breast—there will our defend-
ers be the bravest. It would ill become me to enter
into the special grounds of debate now at issue; but
permit me to remind you that, while pressing with
your accustomed spirit for whatever you may deem
to be equal rights, you would be unjust to your own
fame if you did not feel that the true majesty of
Scotland needs neither the pomp of courts nor the
blazonry of heralds. What though Holyrood be
desolate—what though no king holds revels in its
halls ?—the empire of Scotland has but extended its
range ; and, blended with England, under the daughter
of your ancient kings, peoples the Australian wilds
that lay beyond the chart of Columbus, and rules
over the Indian realms that eluded the grasp of
Alexander. That empire does not suffice for you.
it may perish. More grand is the

 

It may decay
domain you have won over human thought, and iden-
tified with the eternal progress of intellect and free-
dom. From the charter of that domain no cere-
monial can displace the impression of your seal. InUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. its

the van of that progress no blazon can flaunt before
that old Lion of Scotland (pointing to the flag sus-
pended opposite). This is the empire that you will
adorn in peace ; this is the empire that, if need be,
you will defend in war. It is not here that I would
provoke one difference in political opinion—pbut surely
you, the sons of Scotland, who hold both fame and
power upon the same tenure as that which secures
civilization from lawless force—surely you are not the
men who could contemplate with folded arms the
return of the dark ages, and quietly render up the
haven that commands Asia on the one side and
threatens Europe on the other, to the barbaric ambi-
tion of some new Alaric of the north. But, whether
in reluctant war or in happier peace, I can but bid
you to be mindful of your fathers—learn from them

how duties fulfilled in the world become honours after

death; and in your various callings continue to

maintain for Scotland her sublime alliance with every
power of mind that can defend or instruct, soothe or
exalt humanity.

   
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
   
   

 

ee

usar saa Ba

setaADDRESS
OF
RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.
TO THE
MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION AT BARNSLEY,
ON THE OCCASION OF THE

RE-OPENING OF THE NEW LECTURE HALL

CONNECTED WITH THE ABOVE INSTITUTION.

 

Delivered October 25, 1853.

 

Lapres AND GrntiEmEn,—The details we have
heard of the early difficulties and infant struggles of
this association are only just those trials which we
are all liable to encounter in every good and great
work which we undertake; and I should not consider
a good worth possessing, unless it were deserving of
those efforts which are required to make such an in-
stitution as this prosper. Now, our excellent friends
have given you some details as to the character
and workings of this institution. I remember the
time when the first mechanics’ institutions were
launched under the auspices of Dr. Birkbeck—a
man whose name can never be held im too high
reverence for disinterestedness and truly Christian
patriotism, and his honoured colleagues, LordBARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 115

Brougham and others. I remember when they
launched the first mechanics’ institutions. They
were intended not so much as schools in themselves,
but as something to supply the defects of early edu-
cation to that class who in former times had not had
an opportunity of receiving such education, for you
must remember that Dr. Birkbeck and others were
the strenuous advocates of a better system of educa-
tion for the young, and the mechanics’ institutions
were, to a large extent, something devised as a resource
for those who had not had any opportunities for early
education. Such being the case, in order to carry
out the object of the founders of these institutions,
it is not enough for you to draw together a large
number of members in your lecture-room or your
library, or to collect books in your library; these
things could have been obtained, probably, in a less
convenient way before mechanics’ institutions were
created; but one of the primary objects of mechan-
ics’ institutions was to enable young men, feeling
themselves deficient in some particular branch of
knowledge, to join a society where they could have
an opportunity of repairing such deficiency. For
this purpose it has been customary, in all good me-
chanics’ institutions, to establish classes—classes for
different branches of study, which young men, or men
of middle age, or even old men, could join, and find
that particular knowledge they were in quest. of.
Now, I believe your institution has not such classes.
I don’t mean to mention it as a reproach, because
you have had so many difficulties to fight against116 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

that I did not expect you could get over all these
things at once; but, having surmounted so many
difficulties, and placed your institution, as I cannot
but hope, on a firm basis,—for an institution which
has grown into so many difficulties must have a firm
basis,— you must determine that it shall be—what
all mechanics’ institutions were intended to be—a
means of instruction to the neglected adult popula-
tion, I think, too, you must have classes—classes for
teaching arithmetic, geography, drawing; and even
chemistry is not too much to aspire to. You must
have, also—and I hope you.will—a class for French.
Now, there has been an allusion to one branch of
study which particularly interests the manufacturers
of this district—I mean drawing and designing. I
think I have heard the gentleman who last spoke
say that there was no drawing master in Barnsley ;
that you must have an itinerant drawing master,
who, located at Sheffield, must have his circuit, radi-
ating from that town, and who must pay occasional
visits to Barnsley. If I were a Barnsley manufac-
turer, and dealt in figured damask linens, I should
beg and entreat the reporter not to let that fact get
out; don’t let the world know that Dunfermline has
got all the designs. Now, I am told, for I am very
curious in inquiring anything about the art of design,
inasmuch as my own business was very much con-
nected with that art,—I have been told, I say,
in consequence of inquiries I have made since I
arrived here, that your damask linens—the patterns
of those damask linens which we all so much admire,BARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 117

are made by the weavers themselves; that the pat-
terns are designed by the labourer ‘oh weaves the
cloth, and that he, so far from having had any in-
struction in the art of designing, has been oe im
a town where there is no re master. Now;
take it as a proof that you have a talent for draw; ing
among you, that you have had a body of men
brought up as weavers, who have been able to make
patterns for you; but I say to the capitalists, “ You
are not doing oe to that mechanic, if you are
only going to give him a ninth or a tenth part of a
drawing master.’’ You must let it go forth from this
moment—and I hope my friend on the left, who is
interested in the matter, will rise before the conclu-
sion of these pr pecadige: and declare it—that
another month shall not elapse before steps are taken
to insure the presence of a dr: awing master in Barns-
ley ; and that all those ingenious young weavers who
are able to put together a damask pattern shall be so
ceircumstanced as to be able to learn something of
the art of design from a practical teacher baton we
meet here again. I say, then, that one of your
classes must be a drawing class, and in this respect
you will be aided by the Government in a way which
I think it is perfectly legitimate for a government to
aid—I mean this, you will be supplied by the Board
of Trade with the best possible models, both of
sculpture and drawing. I say I am an advocate so
far for centralization, that I will at all times sanc-
tion and applaud a government which draws to one
centre the best designs and models for drawing and

    
 
  
 
   
   
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
  
   
 

 

 

 

   

a pect cam
ane Rewagae enseke

118 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

sculpture, and then multiplies thosedesigns and models
in the cheapest possible way, with a view to their
diffusion among the general public. It involves no
undue expense or the imposition of any unnecessary
tax or interference with the powers of self-govern-
ment, while the public benefits and profits by the
opportunity thus afforded of procuring such designs
and models as the superior intelligence and know-
ledge of the gentlemen at the head of such a depart-
ment, say in London, can give you in Barnsley or
elsewhere of the best specimens of sculpture and
forms of art which are to be found in London, Paris,
or Rome.

But I rather think you have already been to the
Board of Trade, and got something in the way of
models, or something of that kind; and, if you have,
I suppose you are going to make some use of them ;
but you can’t make any use of them unless you have
got classes; and I will undertake, on behalf of this
meeting and the intelligent manufacturers of Barnsley,
to say that it is intended to connect with this institu-
tion a drawing class, and that a drawing master shall
be appointed capable of giving efficient instruction.

With regard to other branches—take, for instance,
a class for arithmetic—I would ask, how many young
men are there who may be sitting at their looms
with the best of heads upon their shoulders—phre-
nologically speaking—but who, from some cireum-
stances not under their control, had no opportunity
of cultivating that head when a child? And yet
such a young man feels within him a capacity to fillBARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 119

any station of life, if he had only had the necessary
education to enable him to rise in society. The first
thing such a young man required, if he was to do
anything in the way of business, was to learn some-
thing of arithmetic ; but in your institution how is a
young man to learn the rule of three or obtain any
knowledge of arithmetic ? It is necessary, therefore,
you should have a master. I don’t mean a stipen-
diary master, for I hope you will find independent
public-spirited men enough in Barnsley who will
begin and initiate the necessary classes in connection
with your institution, and that you will not only
have drawing and arithmetic classes, but also a
French class, for, now that French is very generally
spoken, a knowledge of it is necessary to enable you
to enter into communication with a large portion of
the public, and there is no reason why you in Barns-
ley should not be able to do this as well as others.
It is the object of mechanics’ institutions to bring
those branches of knowledge within the reach of
adult mechanics and labouring men in all the towns
of the kingdom. Now, Barnsley is of such a size
that it ought to be able to maintain a mechanics’ in-
stitution of such a magnitude as to support all these
classes. I am aware it is difficult in a small town
to do this, but here you have a population of from
14,000 to 15,000 in Barnsley and the neighbourhood,
and I must say that 250 members are not enough
for a population of such magnitude. You must
double that before we have another anniversary.
Let every member try to find another member,120 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.
and then the thing is done. Your terms are 10s.
a-year. How in the world can anybody buy amuse-
ment, or gratification, or enlightenment cheaper than
at 10s. a-year? And I would say to the members
who already belong to the institution, you have a
particular motive in trying to add to your numbers.
You have already a large lecture theatre here, most
admirably arranged—rather too hot, I think. If you
could contrive to arrange those lights so as not to be
so hot, it would be better. You have, I say, a large
lecture theatre, a reading-room, and library, and I
venture to say, if you double your numbers, you may
still comfortably accommodate yourselves im your
lecture-hall, reading-room, and library, while your
fixed expenses remain the same. If your income at
the present is 130/- a-year, your fixed charges will
be from 702. to 801., leaving you not more than 504.
for the purposes of lectures, purchasmg newspapers,
and such like things. Your current expenses must
be going on, whether you have few or many mem-
bers, and therefore, by increasing your numbers, the
additional subscriptions you get will be so much gain
in the way of providing education, and increased at-
traction in your institution. If all the members
were thus to act you would have a surplus fund,
which would enable you to engage masters for your
classes, and to enter into all those studies I have
pointed out. Besides, having a double number, you
would have a sufficient number for each class to make
it worth while for a teacher to give the necessary
tuition in those classes; therefore, those belong-é
BARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 121

ing to the institution have every motive for increasing
the number of members.

I think you ought also to try to establish a school
in connection with this institution. That is one of
the most useful of the adjuncts of the Huddersfield
and other mechanics’ institutions. I would recom-
mend you to endeavour to connect a school with this
institution, as a feeder to it, for it is by means of
schools that you areto get members. If,in consequence
of the advices given by our friend Mr. Wilderspin,
20 years ago, there had been an infant school estab-
lished in every village, you would not have wanted
customers for your mechanics’ institutions; they
would have grown up around you. And this brings
me to the question
tution

 

leaving for a moment this insti-
what were these institutions established
for? Not asa system of education, but to supple-
ment the want of education, and we want the
education still which we wanted when these institu-
tions were founded. I know that it is made a vexed

 

question, and to some extent a party question. [
never regarded it asa party question. I don’t care
through what it comes. Give me voluntary edu-
cation, or State education—but education I want.
I cannot accept statistics to prove the number of
people who attend schools—to prove that the people
are educated, because I cannot shut my eyes to what
is evident to my senses,—that the people are not
educated,—that they are not being educated. I was
talking only yesterday with a merchant in Manches-
ter, who told me that he had attended at the swearing122 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

in of the militia in one of the largest manufacturing
towns of England, and that not one-half of those
sworn in could read, and not one-third could sign
their names. Now, without wishing to utter any
fanatical opinion with regard to the peace question, I
must say, with all sincerity, I think it would have been
much better to hand these young men over to the
schoolmaster rather than to the drill-sergeant. For
I think the safety of this country would be more
promoted by teaching them to read and write than
by teaching them to face about right rightly. I was
talking this subject over to an old friend of mine at
Preston, and he said, “I attended the coroner one
day last week at an inquest. There were 18 jury-
men; five signed their names, and eight made their
mark.’? Can I shut my eyes to what is going on
around us? I cannot, and therefore I say we are
not an educated people; and I say it is our duty,
and our safety calls upon us, to see that the people
are educated; and I know of no place more fitting to
discuss this subject than in such a meeting as this,
because I take it for granted you are all interested in
it. You all admit the deficiency of juvenile mstruc-
tion, or you would not have attended to the defective
adult education. We are not an educated people,
and I have no hesitation in asserting that, in point
of school learning, the mass of the English people
are the least instructed of any protestant community
in the world. I say that deliberately. I remember
quite well at the time of the Hungarian emigration
into this country, after the revolution, a very distin-BARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 123

guished minister or religious teacher of Hungary, was
talking to me on the subject of our education, and I
told him a large portion of our people could neither
read nor write. He could not believe it, and said,
“If it is true a large proportion of your people can
neither read nor write, how do you maintain your
constitutional franchises and your political liberties ?
Why, it is evident to me that your institutions are
rather ahead of your people, and that this self-govern-
ment is only a bad habit with you.” Itis a habit, and
we will cling to it and hold it; but I want a safer
foundation. I want to have our self-government a
habit of appreciation—something our people will be
proud of, and not simply a habit; and there is no
security unless it is based upon a wider intelligence
of the people than we meet with at the present
moment. It meets us at every turn—you can’t
do anything in social reform but you are met with
the question of education. ‘Take the question of
sanitary reform. Why do people live in bad cellars,
surrounded by filth and disease? You may say it is
their poverty, but their poverty comes as much
from their ignorance as their vices; and their
vices often spring from their ignorance. The great
mass of the people don’t know what the sanitary
laws are; they don’t know that ventilation is good
for health; they don’t know that the miasma of an
unscavenged street or impure alley is productive
of cholera and disease. If they did know these
things people would take care they inhabited better
houses ; and if people were only more careful in their124 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

habits than they are, and husbanded their means,
they might get into better houses. And when I hear
persons advocate temperance, which I, as one of the
most temperate men in the world, always like to hear
advocated, I say the best way is to afford them some
other occupation or recreation than that which is
derived only through their senses—the best way is
to give them education. If the working man is de-
prived of those recreations which consist of the m-
tellectual and moral enjoyments that education and
good training give, he naturally falls into the excite-
ment of sensual indulgence, because excitement all
human beings must have. Therefore, when you wish
to make them more temperate, and secure moral and
sanitary and social improvements among the working
classes, education, depend upon it, must be at the
bottom of it all.

Gentlemen, I see in different parts of the country
a great social movement going on between different
classes of the community. For instance, in the town
of Preston you have 20,000 to 30,000 persons out of
work, and there is in that place not a chimney but
is cold and cheerless—neither smoke nor steam cheer-
ing your eyes. Look at the destitution and misery
caused by leaving a town in this state for a month
or six weeks. Why is this? I answer, it springs
from ignorance. Not ignorance confined to one
party in the dispute. It is ignorance on both sides,
and deplorable in its result. But do you suppose
that when the world becomes more enlightened you
will have such a scene as this, of a whole communityBARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 125

stopping its labours for a month or six weeks, and
creating misery, immorality, and destitution, that
may not be removed for five or six years to come ?
When masters and men understand the principles
upon which the rate of wages and profits depend,
they will settle their matters and arrange their dif-
ferences in a less bungling way than that which now
brings so much misery upon all parties to the quarrel.
Even now, however, we see great progress in this
respect. I remember the time when the cessation of
labour by 25,000 persons would have led to riot and
disturbance, and the calling out of the military.
This is not to be seen now. We see passive resist-
ance and firmness to an extent which, if they had
policy and propriety at their back, would be highly
desirable and most commendable.

But, gentlemen, we shall probably live to see the
time when another step will be taken onward. You
will live to see the time when men will settle these
matters, not by resorting to blind passion, by vitu-
peration, and counter-vituperation—when the ques-
tion of wages will be left to the master and man to
azrange according to their own interest—when the
whole question of wages and the rate of wages will
be settled just as quietly as you now see the price of
any article fixed in the public market. They did
not find that people who went to market with cattle,
potatoes, or anything else, struck against the buyers
of those cattle or potatoes. They did not find that
the seller of the cattle struck against the seller of the
potatoes, and that the buyers and the eaters of the126 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

potatoes stood quietly by and starved while’ the
potatoes rotted. They did not find men doing such
things; but they found that it was by the higgling
of the market that they tranquilly decided its price ;
they thus fixed the price of the day, and the whole
thing was quietly settled without that irritation and
waste of property, without that misery and suffering,
which I consider most painful, and, as a sign of the
intelligence of the day, the most discreditable—that
struggle between master and workpeople which is
passing in our time. I am not saying one word of
the merits of either side upon this question. Both
parties think themselves right, and both are, no
doubt, right in attempting to get the best price they
can, the one for his labour, and the other for his
capital; but if there were more intelligence upon this
question—if the laws were better understood which
decide finally and inexorably the relative value of
labour as well as everything else, these matters would
be settled without that hideous amount of suffering
which I deplore to see accompanying these strikes
and troubles in the manufacturing districts. And
when I say, gentlemen, that intelligence will put an
end to these things, I am only saying that will be
done here which has already been done in America.
You cannot point to an instance in America, where
people have more education than they have here, of
the total cessation from labour of a whole community,
of an entire town given over as a prey to destitution.
You cannot point out such an instance in America ;
neither will you see it in England when that intelli--BARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 127

gence and enlightenment which these institutions
are intended to promote shall be spread throughout
our country.

Well, gentlemen, this brings me back again to the
point that we want schools—schools to teach people
these principles—schools to teach people from their
youth to take a calm and reasoning view of the
things which affect their interest, and so to educate
them that they shall not. allow others to lead them
away by appeals to their passions. We shall never
be safe as a manufacturing and mining community
until a school invariably grows up along with every
manufactory and at the mouth of every pit and mine
in the kingdom. Now, gentlemen, I must here
again allude to America. When I came through
Manchester the other day I found many of the most
influential manufacturing capitalists talking very
gravely upon a report which had reached them from
a gentleman who was selected by the Government to
go out to America, to make a report upon the Great
Exhibition in New York. That gentleman was one
of the most eminent of the mechanicians and machine-
makers of Manchester, employing a very large num-
ber of workpeople, renowned for the quality of his
productions, and known in the scientifie world, and
whose scientific attainments were appreciated from
the Astronomer Royal downwards. He has been
over to New York to report upon the progress of
mechanics and mechanical arts in the United States.
Well, he has returned. No report from him to the
Government has, as yet, been published, and what he128 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

has to say specifically upon the subject will not be
known until that report has been so made and pub-
lished to the country. But it has oozed out in
Manchester among his neighbours, that he has found
in America a degree of intelligence among the manu-
facturing operatives and a state of things in the
mechanical arts which have convinced him that, if
we are to hold our own—if we are not to fall back
in the rear of the race of nations—we must educate
our people so as to put them upon a level with the
more educated artizans of the United States. We
shall all have an opportunity of judging of this
matter when that report is tssued; but sufficient has
already oozed out among his neighbours to excite a
great interest, and, | may say, some alarm. Well, I
am delighted to find an intelligent man has been
selected for this duty, for all the world will approve
of the selection made, because the gentleman alluded
to was fully competent to the task; and he has come
to tell us it is necessary to educate the people. I
went to that country 20 years ago, and I published
a record of my opinions. That was written in 1835,
and I stated that Kngland would be brought to the
consciousness that 1t was to that country she would
have to look with apprehension as to manufacturing
rivalry ; and now I am delighted that it should turn
out as I have stated, that it has come from a quarter
—from a person so well qualified to procure correct
information that no one will question the truth of
his report when it comes out. I say I am delighted,
because I want England to know her danger, if thereBARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 129

is one. Napoleon used to say to those in communj-
cation with him, “If you have any bad news to tell
me, awake me at any hour of the night, for good
news will keep, but bad news I cannot know too
soon.’ I say, then, I am delighted with this, for
let but Englishmen know of a danger to face, and of
a difficulty to surmount, and there is nothing within
the compass of human capacity which they will not
accomplish ; but the great misfortune is, that Eng-
hshmen are too much given up to and incrusted with
their insular pride and prejudice,—a sort of Chinese
notion of superiority,—that they will not awaken up
and use their eyes as to what is going on in other
countries, until it is too late. Iam glad, therefore,
that this question is to be brought forward; but why
should America be better educated than England ?
Do you think that a new country, which has the
wilderness to cultivate, primeval forests to level,
roads to make, and every bridge and church to erect,
—do you think that such a country is in a position
to rival an old country, if that country will only do
its duty to its people? N o; an old country has
greater advantages and facilities at command than a
new one; and if you find a new country beating
an old one in this matter, depend upon it, it is be-
cause of some fault in the old one. We don’t read
in ancient Greece, when she sent forth her colonies,
that they became the teachers of the mother country.
No; Athens always remained the teacher of the
whole world. And it isa shame if a new people, '
sent out from us only yesterday, is to be held up for
K130 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

    
   
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

our admiration and example, and this too in the mat-
ter of education.

Now, I hope that it wont be said that there 1s
anything in these remarks which is out of place in
an assembly such as this. It appears to me that if
there can be a meeting at which such a subject as
this should be discussed, it 1s just such a meeting as
this. Weare all here, at all events, presumed to feel
a great interest in the subject of education, and
therefore anxious to promote it. And I don’t de-
spair even now. I should not despair of this country,
if the people of this country would only resolve to
do it, surpassing all the world in education im a gen-
eration or two. But we must not refuse to adopt
the improved machinery of other countries. We
must not be like the Chinese with their junks, who
vefuse to build their ships after our improved model ;
we must not refuse to adopt what we see m other
countries if better than our own. If we see the
Americans beating us in their spinning-jennies and
in their sailing-boats,-we adopt their improvements ;
if they send over a yacht which beats ours, we send
over and build one which will beat them ; if a man
comes over and picks our locks, we may wonder how
it is he makes better locks than we do, but we buy
them; and so it is in other matters of this kind.
But, on the question of education, they have in
the United States adopted a system which we in
this country have not adopted, except in Scotland to
some extent; and what is so natural as that we
should follow the same rule in this matter as we doBARNSLEY MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 13]

in the manufacture of our machines for spinning

cotton, and in the construction of our ships? I take

it that, the result being in favour of American edu-
cation, it proves that they have adopted better means
than we have, and, if we would rival them, we must
not be ashamed to adopt their plan, if better than
ourown. ‘There is not any party, I believe, now
opposed to education, none who do not think that
there is more danger from ignorance in our present
artificial state than in education. Whatever our
political predilections, there is not one who will not
say—whatever we are doomed to undergo, whether
proceeding from a straitening of circumstances, from
a decline of our commerce, or from difficulties of a
strictly political character—whatever there may be
in store for us of troubles and distresses—there is
nobody but will say we had better have an educated
people to meet them than have to encounter them
with masses of ignorance and untrained passion ; for,
after all, the masses of the people do govern in this
country—they are called on in the last resort.
Every one must admit it is better to have an arbi-
trator who is trained to discuss reasons and to deduce
facts from evidence—it is better to have minds of
this sort to settle great national questions than to
refer such mighty interests to the arbitrament of
ignorance and passion.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I have said too
much on this subject to you and to those elsewhere
who may read what we are now saying, I must tell
you, that I feel so strongly upon it, that when among

 

     
    
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
 
 
  
 
 

 

ratte ae Rr i ncnecein trap tots ay

ie

Jeep Piaowsiy 6 Sa -132 RICHARD COBDEN, M.P.

 

a body of men met together im favour of education,
I cannot be responsible for withholding my opinions
in reference to the want of juvenile education, for it
is not possible +o compensate for the want of juvenile
education by means of such institutions as this. We
may by such means improve the education of the
people, but we can’t have a really educated and safe
community unless we begin at the beginning, by
training the young. I can only say, whether you
look at this question of education in the interest of
morality or religion, as affecting the happiness, in-
terest, or the welfare of society—in whatever way
you regard this question, you may depend upon it
the very highest interests, the dignity, honour, and
happiness of the people, are bound up with it.ADDRESS

OF THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P,
TO THE MEMBERS OF

THE LEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION
AND LITERARY SOCIETY.

Delivered in the Music HALL, ALBION STREET, December 8, 1852.

 

 

Lapies anp GuntTLEMEN,—Your excellent presi-
dent having conveyed to mea wish that I should
preside at this meeting of the Leeds Mechanics’
Institution, I had great pleasure in complying with
his request; for, since the first establishment of
mechanics’ institutes, I have had the greatest
satisfaction in seeing how much they have con-
tributed to the instruction of those who belong to
them, and to the general knowledge and to the
general welfare of the country. I had the pleasure
of assisting Dr. Birkbeck in the beginning of these
institutions. I wish now, as far as I am able, to
address you upon some points of general concern.
My ignorance of the particulars and details relating
to these institutions would make it an impertinence
on my part if 1 were to attempt to go into those134 LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

matters to which your president has referred. JI am
glad to say that from the last report of the institution
it appears that the various objects to which it is
intended to minister—the schools, the classes, the
instructions of various kinds, and the libraries, have
all been well supported, and that there are not less
than 2,000 members belonging to your association.
[4 occurs +o me, however, that if I can address any-
thing to you worthy of observation, it should be
rather upon the general state of knowledge at this
time, and the prospect of what is before us, than
upon any particulars relating to the institution over
which I am now presiding. * Let us observe how very
different the present state of affairs is from the time
when great foundations were made for the purposes
of education and instruction. Before the Reforma-
tion, and immediately afterwards, great sums of
money and broad lands were given for the purpose of
endowing academies, colleges, and schools, for educa-
ton. Our ancestors thought, and I believe wisely
thought, that the best plan they could adopt was to
teach, or to provide means for teaching, the science
and the literature which had been derived from
ancient nations, for in those days that science and
that literature contained all that was known, that
was really worthy of study, the most profound works
upon subjects of geometry and science, and the best
models of literary writing. I am far from thinking
that our ancestors committed an error, either when
they directed the education of youth almost ex-
clusively to these objects, or when they decided that aLEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. Sh

great length of time should be given to that know-
ledge; but we have to consider that in the present
day we stand in a totally different position. Not
that we ought to forget what great advantages we

have derived from the science and the literature of

ancient nations; because upon the geometry delivered
to us from the ancients has been founded all that in-

crease of knowledge which ended in the discoveries of

Newton,—from the writings of the poets of antiquity
the great poets of modem times have derived the
best models they could imitate,—from the jurispru-
dence of the Romans were derived the laws by which
most of the nations of the continent have been ruled.
But, while this tribute must be paid, it isa paramount
object of attention that we, in the course of the three
centuries and a half that have elapsed from what is
called “the revival of letters,’ have added to the
stores that we have received immense stores of our
own,—that by the side of that rich mine we have
opened other mines, which, if not of richer ore, are
more easily worked, and are more abundant in their
produce. It was Lord Bacon who first pointed out
that the mode of the pursuit of science for modern
nations ought to be different from that mode for the
discovery of truth which had been pointed out by
some of the great philosophers. It has been much
questioned whether Lord Bacon was in fact the guide
by whom other discoverers have been enabled to
pursue the track of knowledge and of invention, and
upon that point I think it is certainly clear that it
was not Lord Bacon who enabled Galileo and Torri-136 LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

 

celli, Pascal, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and Kepler,
to make the great discoveries which have immortalized
their names. But what is true is, that Lord Bacon
at a very early period laid down the rules by which
all modern men of science have guided themselves.
He pointed out the road they have followed, and laid
down more clearly, more broadly, more ably than any
one else, the great method by which modern discovery
should be pursued. You will find, I think, if you
pursue this subject—if those who belong to me-
chanics’ institutes will study the two works of Lord
Bacon, the one called the New Organ, and the other
on the Instawration of the Sciences,—you will find that
the latest discoveries, the latest inventions, have been
made according to that mode which he pointed out.
A work was published but a year ago by Mr. Fair-
bairn, giving an account of the experiments which he
adopted under the direction of Mr. Stephenson, and
by which that gentleman was enabled to construct
the tubular bridges at Conway and over the Menai
Straits. You will find that all those experiments
were according to the rules which Lord Bacon has
laid down. Take another work on geology, and a
most interesting work it is, called the Old Red Sand-
stone, by Mr. Hugh Miller, and you will find in that
interesting work, which is as remarkable for the
beauty of its style as for the importance of its matter,
that Mr. Hugh Miller, being at first a mason working
in a stone quarry, pursued, in his method of investi-
gation, the same rules which Lord Bacon, more than
three centuries ago, laid down, and which have thusLEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 137

become the foundation of the law, as it were, of
modern science. And now, ladies and gentlemen,
having said thus much with regard to the original
method, let me venture to say that, interested as no
doubt the members of the Mechanics’ Institute may
be in the various sciences which of late have made SO
great a progress,—that, interesting to you as are
those discoveries which have given us the power of
rapid locomotion, and the electric telegraph,—wonder-
ful and extraordinary as all those discoveries are, and
the study of the means and methods by which they
were made, [would earnestly press upon you that
there is one science which, though its practical use is
rather upon the sea than upon the land; is yet worthy
of the deepest study, on account of the magnificent
results which it unfolds. The science to which I
allude is the science of astronomy. Whether those
who, having begun the mathematical studies with the
simplest problems of geometry, wish to pursue them
to the end, and follow the works of Newton himself
—and no more interesting works can be studied by
a mathematician

 

with the view of seeing how it
was that he discovered that great law of gravitation
by which his name will be for ever known, or whether,
contenting yourselves with the popular accounts of
astronomy in many of the works of the day, written
by Sir John Herschell and other eminent men—
whether you pursue one branch or the other—you
cannot fail to be struck with the dread magnificence
of heaven which is unfolded to you in astronomical
speculations. That course of discovery, be it re-1388 LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

ynarked, is still open—it is still pursued; and it is
but lately that it has been found that those parts of
the heavens which seem to be mere collections of
Juminous clouds, and not to contain anything lke
form of world or form of suns, are in fact full of stars,
small in appearance to us, but really of very great
magnitude, though at an immensely remote distance ;
so that, as it were, a new heaven is opened to us, and
it appears that to Him to whom “a thousand years
are but a day’? a thousand worlds are but a speck.
I certainly shall not attempt to detain you, and to
occupy your time by speaking of any of those other
sciences which all have their delight and their utility.
Let me only say that there cannot be a greater
mistake than that which prevailed a number of years
ago, when I first visited this district—and I am sorry
to say it is now 40 years since I came into the district,
and in company with a learned and eminent man,
the late Professor Playfair, visited your factories and
workshops, I was struck—I could not fail to be struck
—hby the ingenuity displayed, by the wealth that was
obtained; but I own that I left the manufacturing
districts with somewhat of a painful feeling that no
greater means were used to spread and obtain know-
ledge, and that a theory seemed to prevail—a false
and unfounded theory I am sure it was—that those
who are continually occupied in toiling and in spin-
ning, in hammering and in forging, could not obtain
time to have the means of penetrating the recesses
of science and of literature. I believe that no doc-
trine ever was more false; and experience indeed hasLEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION, 1389

proved that, while science and literature add to the
skill and to the ability by which the artizan conducts
his trade, on the other hand his toil is sweetened by
the comfort of thinking that he can read and instruct
himself when his hour of leisure shall arrive. Gentle-
men, I noted in a journal I kept at that time the
various manufactures I had visited and the inventions
I had seen, and I ended with a few observations on
the moral and intellectual state of the manufacturing
districts, expressing, with the sanguine hope of youth,
a confident expectation that great improvement
would be made in these respects; and I come now,
after this long period, to rejoice in the prospect that
that hope is being fulfilled.

I will now turn for a short time to the subject of
literature. That subject again is so vast that if I
were to attempt to go over any one of its numerous
fields I should not find the time sufficient to enable
me to do so; but there is one leading remark which
I will venture to make, and which, I think, it is worth
while for any person who studies literature to keep
in view. There are various kinds of productions of
literature, of very different forms and of very different
tastes—some grave and some gay, some of extreme
fancy, some rigorously logical, but all, as I think,
demanding this as their quality,—that truth shall
prevail in them. A French author has said that
nothing is beautiful but truth, that truth alone is
lovely, bué that truth ought to prevail even in fable.
I believe that remark is perfectly correct; and I
believe you cannot use a better test even of works of140 LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

imagination than to see whether they are true to
nature. Now, perhaps I can better explain what I
mean in this respect by giving you one or two in-
stances than I should be able to do by precept and
explanation. A poet of very great celebrity in the
last century, and who certainly was a poet distin-
guished for much fancy and great power of pathos,
but who had not the merit of bemg always as true
as he is pointed in the poetry he has written—I
mean Young—has said, at the commencement, I
think, of one of his “ Nights ”’ :—

“Sleep, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes,

And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.”
Now, if you will study that sentence you will see
there are two things which the poet has confounded
together. He has confounded together those who
are fortunate in their peace of mind, those who are
fortunate in the possession of health, and those who
are fortunate in worldly advantages. Now; it fre-
quently happens that the man who is the worst off
in his worldly circumstances—to whom the world
will pay no homage—on whom it would not be said
that fortune smiled, enjoys sweeter and more regular
sleep than those who are in the possession of the
highest advantages of rank and wealth. You will all
remember, no doubt, that in a passage I need not
quote, another poet—one always true to nature—
Shakspeare, has described the shipboy amidst the
storm, notwithstanding all the perils of his position
on the mast, as enjoying a quiet sleep, while heLEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 141

describes the king as unable te enjoy any rest. That
is the poet true to nature; and you will thus, by
following observations of this kind, by applying that
test to poetry as well as to history and to reasoning,
obtain a correct judgment as to whether what you
are reading is really worth your attention and worth
your admiration, or whether it is faulty and is not so
deserving. I may give another instance, and I could
hardly venture to do so if my friend and your friend,
Lord Carlisle, were here, because the want of truth I
am going to point out is in the writings of Pope.
There is a very beautiful ode of Horace, in which,
exalting the merits of poetry, he says that many
brave men lived before Agamemnon ; that there were
many great sieges before the siege of Troy ; that
before Achilles and Hector existed there were brave
men and great battles; but that, as they had no
poet, they died, and that it required the genius of
poetry to give immortal existence to the bravery of
armies and of chiefs. Pope has copied this ode of
Horace, and in some respects has well copied and
imitated it in some lines which certainly are worthy
of admiration, beginning—
‘‘ Lest you should think that verse shall die,
Which sounds the silver Thames along.”

But in the instances which he gives he mentions
Newton, and says that not only brave men had lived
and fought, but that other Newtons “systems fram’d.”’
Now, here he has not kept to the merit and truth of
his original, for, though it may be quite true that
there were distinguished armies and wonderful sieges,142 LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

and that their memory has passed into oblivion, it 1s
not at all probable that any man like Newton followed
by mathematical roads the line of discovery, and that
those great truths which he discovered should have
perished and fallen into oblivion. I give you these
two instances of want of truth even in celebrated
poets, and L think it is a matter you will do well
always to keep in view, because there is a remarkable
difference between the history of science and the
history of literature. In the history of science the
progress of discovery is gradual. Those who make
these discoveries sometimes commit great errors.
They fall into many absurd mistakes, of which I
could give you numerous instances ; but these blun-
ders and these errors disappear—the discoveries alone
remain ; other men afterwards make these discoveries
the elements and the groundwork of new investiga-
tions, and thus the progress of science is continual ;
but truth remains, the methods of investigation even
are shortened, and the progress continually goes on.
But it is not so with regard to literature. It has
indeed happened often in the history of the world,
among nations that have excelled in literature, after
great works had been produced which brought down
the admiration of all who could read them, that others,
attempting to go farther—attempting todo something
still better—have produced works written in the most
affected and unnatural style, and, instead of promoting
literature, have corrupted the taste of the nation m
which they lived. Now, thisis a thing against which
I think we should always be upon our guard, and,LEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 143

having those great models of literature which we
possess before us,—havine Shakspeare, and Milton,
and Pope, and a long line of illustrious poets and
authors,—we should always study to see that the
literature of the day is, if not on a par with, at least
as pure in point of taste as that which has gone before
it, and to take care that we do not, instead of advane-
ing in letters, fall back and decay in the productions
of the time. I will now mention to you another
instance. It is apparently but a trifling one, but
still it is one in which I think nature and truth are
so well observed that it may be worth your while to
listen to it. One of our writers, who the most
blended amusement with instruction, and ease of style
with solidity of matter, as you all know, was Addison.
He describes a ride he had along with a country
squire, whom he fell in with in travelling from London
to a distant town. They came to an inn, and Addi-
son says that they ordered a bowl of punch for their
entertainment. The country squire began, as was
perhaps a mode with country squires, which may
have continued even to the present day, to depreciate
trade, and to say that foreign trade was the ruin of
the country, and that it was too bad that the foreigner
should have so much the advantage of our’ English
money. Upon which, says Addison, “I just called
his attention to the punch that we were going to
drink, and I said, ‘If it were not for foreign trade,
where would be the rum, and the lemons, and the
sugar, which we are about to consume?’” The
squire was considerably embarrassed with this remark

 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
  
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

 

en

pertain ts?

sa ia144 LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

but the landlord, who was standing by, came to his
assistance, and said, “ There is no better drink than a
cup of English water, if if has but plenty of malt in
it.’ Now, although that appears a slight and trifling
story, and told in a very common way, yet it 1s per-
fectly true to nature, and it conveys in a very lively
manner a rebuke to the ignorance and prejudice of
the person with whom Addison represents himself to
be conversing.

Having made these observations, you will, perhaps,
permit me, ladies and gentlemen, to say that the
cause of my venturing to come here is, that I might
both see the progress that you are making in instruc-
tion of all kinds, and also that I might express my
hopes and my wishes for your welfare in the time
that is to come. It has been my fortune, since the
active part of my life began, to live in times of peace,
and to see great discoveries and great improvements.
I think you will feel that we who have had the direc-
tion of affairs during that time—I speak not now of
any difference of political parties or of religious sects,
but taking us altogether, all political parties, and
men of all religious denominations,—I_ think we have
not done ill for the country during that period in
which we have borne an active share in its affairs. If
you look back to 1815, when a bloody and costly
struggle terminated, I think you will see that since
that period, whether by the judgment of Parliament
—whether by the action of great bodies and great
societies—or whether by the skill and invention of
individuals, the condition of the people of this landLEEDS MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION, 145

has very much improved. While the means of gus-
tenance have become cheaper—while the public bur-
dens have become less—while the means of education
have been improved—there has been, with these cir-
cumstances, and partly owing to these circumstances,
a general progress in society. I think that we who
have belonged to that time,—and, as I tell you again,
I wish to make no political allusion, or to claim for
one party over another any advantage—but I say
generally that we who have lived in this time have,
upon the whole, not ill performed our duty. It will
be for you, when we retire from the more active
business of this scene, to endeavour to carry on to
still greater knowledge, to still more comfort, to still
greater wellbeing, the country in which you live.
There is a great charge imposed upon you, and I
trust you will properly perform it. Let no insane
passion carry you without reason into contests with
foreign countries. Let no unworthy prejudices induce
you to withhold from any part of your countrymen
that which is their due. Let no previous convictions
prevent you from examining every subject with im-
partial eyes, and from placing before you the light
of truth, which ought to guide you in your investi-
gations. With these convictions I am persuaded you
will abide by the institutions which you have, by the
faith which you hold, and that you will adorn the
country to which you belong.

   
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
    
  
 

 

Tay seria ne a micah nt en aoINAUGURAL ADDRESS
OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,

ON HIS INSTALLATION AS

LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

 

Delivered Wednesday, March 21, i849-

 

My first duty, gentlemen, is to return you my
thanks for the honour which you have conferred on
me. You well know that it was wholly unsolicited ;
and I can assure you that it was wholly unexpected.
I may add that if I had been mvited to become a
candidate for your suffrages, I should respectfully
have declined the invitation. My predecessor, whom
I am so happy as to be able to call my friend, de-
clared from this place last year, in language which
well became him, that he would not have come for-
ward to displace so eminent a statesman as Lord John
Russell. I can with equal truth affirm that I would
not have come forward to displace so estimable a
gentleman and so accomplished a scholar as Colonel
Mure. But Colonel Mure felt last year that it was
not for him, and I now feel that it is not for me,
to question the propriety of your decision on a pointUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 14.7

of which, by the constitution of your body, you are
the judges. I therefore gratefully accept the office
to which I have been called, fully purposing to use
whatever powers belong to it with a single view to
the welfare and credit of your society.
fam. not using a mere phrase of course, when I
say that the feelings with which I bear a part in the
ceremony of this day are such as I find it difficult to
utter in words. I do not think it strange that when
that great master of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood
where I now stand, he faltered and remained mute.
Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which rushed
into his mind was such as he could not easily arrange
or express. In truth, there are few spectacles more
striking or affecting than that which a great historical
place of education presents on a solemn public day,
There is something strangely interesting in the con-
trast between the venerable antiquity of the body
and the fresh and ardent youth of the great majority
of the members. Recollections and hopes crowd
upon us together. The past and the future are at
once brought close to us. Our thoughts wander back
to the time when the foundations of this ancient
building were laid, and forward to the time when
those whom it is our office to guide and to teach will
be the guides and teachers of our posterity. On the
present occasion we may, with peculiar propriety, give
such thoughts their course. For it has chanced that
my magistracy has fallen on a great secular epoch.
This is the four hundredth year of the existence of
your University. At such jubilees as these, jubilees

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
  
     
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

4
He
u
1s148 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

of which no individual sees more than one, it 1s natu-
ral, and it is good, that a society like this, a society
which survives all the transitory parts of which it is
composed, a society which has a corporate existence
and a perpetual succession, should review its annals,
should retrace the stages of its growth from infancy
to maturity, and should try to find, in the experience
of generations which have passed away, lessons which
may be profitable to generations yet unborn.

The retrospect is full of interest and instruction.
Perhaps it may be doubted whether, since the Chris-
tian era, there has been any point of time more im-
portant to the highest interests of mankind than that
at which the existence of your University commenced.
It was at the moment of a great destruction and of
a great creation. Your society was instituted just
before the empire of the East perished ; that strange
empire, which, dragging on a languid life through
the great age of darkness, connected together the
two great ages of light; that empire which, adding
nothing to our stores of knowledge, and producing
not one man great in letters, in science, or in art, yet
preserved, in the midst of barbarism, those master-
pieces of Attic genius which the highest minds still
contemplate, and long will contemplate, with admir-
ing despair. And at that very time, while the fana-
tical Moslem were plundering the churches and
palaces of Constantinople, breaking in pieces Grecian
sculpture, and giving to the flames piles of Grecian

eloquence, a few humble German artizans, who little
knew that they were calling into existence a powerUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 149

far mightier than that of the victorious Sultan, were
busied in cutting and setting the first types. The
University came into existence just in time to see
the last trace of the Roman empire disappear, and to
see the earliest printed book.

At this conjuncture, a conjuncture of unrivalled
interest in the history of letters, a man, never to be
mentioned without reverence by every lover of letters,
held the highest place in Kurope. Our just attach-
ment to that Protestant faith to which our country
owes so much, must not prevent us from paying the
tribute which, on this occasion, and in this place,
justice and gratitude demand, to the founder of the
University of Glasgow, the greatest of the restorers
of learning, Pope Nicholas the Fifth. He had sprung
from common people; but his abilities and his erndi-
tion early attracted the notice of the great. He had
studied much and travelled far. He had visited
Britain, which, in wealth and refinement, was to his
native Tuscany what the back settlements of America
now are to Britain. He had lived with the merchant
princes of Florence, those men who first ennobled
trade by making trade the ally of philosophy, of
eloquence, and of taste. It was he who, under the
protection of the munificent and discerning Cosmo,
arranged the first public library that modern Europe
possessed. From privacy your founder rose to a
throne; but on the throne he never forgot the studies
which had been his delight in privacy. He was the
centre of an illustrious group composed partly of the
last great scholars of Greece, and partly of the first150 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

great scholars of Italy, Theodore Gaza and George
of Trebisond, Bessarion and Filelfo, Marsilio Ficino
and Poggio Bracciolini. By him was founded the
Vatican library, then and long after the most precious
and most extensive collection of books in the world.
By him were carefully preserved the most valuable
sntellectual treasures which had been snatched from
the wreck of the Byzantine empire. His agents were
to be found everywhere, in the bazaars of the farthest
East, in the monasteries of the farthest West, pur-
chasing or copying worm-eaten parchments, on which
were traced words worthy of immortality. Under
his patronage were prepared accurate Latin versions
of many precious remains of Greek poets and philo-
sophers. But no department of literature owes so
much to him as history. By him were introduced
to the knowledge of Western Hurope two great and
unrivalled models of historical composition, the work
of Herodotus and the work of Thucydides. By him,
too, our ancestors were first made acquainted with
the graceful and lucid simplicity of Xenophon and
with the manly good sense of Polybius.

It was while he was occupied with cares like these
that his attention was called to the intellectual wants
of this region, a region now swarming with popula-
tion, rich with culture, and resounding with the clang
of machinery, a region which now sends forth fleets
laden with its admirable fabrics, to lands of which, in
his days, no geographer had ever heard, then a wild,
a poor, a half barbarous tract, lying on.the utmost
verge of the known world. He gave his sanction toUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 151

the plan of establishing a University at Glasgow, and
bestowed on the new seat of learning all the pr
which belonged to the University of Bologna. I can
conceive that a pitying smile passed over his face as
he named Bologna and Glasgow together. At Bo-
logna he had long studied. No spot in the world
had been more favoured by nature or by art. The
surrounding country was a fruitful and sunny country,
a country of corn fields and vineyards. In the city,
the house of Bentivoglio bore rule, a house which
vied with the house of Medici in taste and maeniti- I
cence, which has left to posterity noble palaces and

ivileges

 

 

 

temples, and which gave a splendid patronage to arts
and letters. Glasgow he just knew to be a poor, ie
a small, a rude town, a town, as he would have He
thought, not likely ever to be great and opulent; for He
the soil, compared with the rich country at the foot
of the Apennines, was barren, and the climate was
such that an Italian shuddered at the thought of it.
But it is not on the fertility of the soil, it is not on te
the mildness of the atmosphere, that the prosperity
of nations chiefly depends. Slavery and superstition i
can make Campania a land of beggars, and can change
the plain of Enna into a desert. Nor is it beyond
the power of human intelligence and energy, deve-
loped by civil and spiritual freedom, to turn sterile f
rocks and pestilential marshes into cities and gardens,
Enlightened as your founder was, he little knew that
he was himself a chief agent ina great revolution,
physical and moral, political and religious, in a revo- A
Intion destined to make the last first, and the first152 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

 

last, in a revolution destined to invert the relative
positions of Glasgow and Bologna. We cannot, il
think, better employ a few minutes than in reviewing
the stages of this great change in human affairs.

The review shall be short. Indeed I cannot do
better than pass rapidly from century to century.
Look at the world, then, a hundred years after the
seal of Nicholas had been affixed to the instrument
which called your College into existence. We find
Europe, we find Scotland especially, in the agonies
of that great revolution which we emphatically call
the Reformation. The liberal patronage which
Nicholas, and men like Nicholas, had given to learn-
ing, and of which the establishment of this seat of
learning is not the least remarkable instance, had
produced an effect which they had never contem-
plated. Ignorance was the talisman on which their
power depended, and that talisman they had them-
selves broken. They had called in knowledge as a
handmaid to decorate superstition, and their error
produced its natural effect. I need not tell you what
a part the votaries of classical learning, and especially
the Greek learning, the Humanists, as they were
then called, bore in the great movement against
spiritual tyranny. They formed, in fact, the vanguard
ofthat movement. Every one of the chief Reformers
—I do not at this moment remember a single excep-
tion—was a Humanist. Almost every eminent
Humanist in the north of Europe was, according to
the measure of his uprightness and courage, a Re-
former. In a Scottish University I need hardlyUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. Loe

mention the names of Knox, of Buchanan, of Mel-
ville, of Secretary Maitland. In truth, minds daily
nourished with the best literature of Greece and
Rome necessarily grew too strong to be trammelled
by the cobwebs of the scholastic divinity ; and the
influence of such minds was now rapidly felt by the
whole community ; for the invention of printing had
brought books within the reach even of yeomen and
of artizans. From the Mediterranean to the Frozen
Sea, therefore, the public mind was everywhere in a
ferment ; and nowhere was the ferment greater than
m Scotland. It was in the midst of martyrdoms and
proscriptions, in the midst of a war between power
and truth, that the first century of the existence of
your University closed.

Pass another hundred years, and we are in the
midst of another revolution. The war between
Popery and Protestantism had, in this island, been
terminated by the victory of Protestantism. But
from that war another war had sprung, the war be-
tween Prelacy and Puritanism. The hostile religious
sects were allied, intermingled, confounded with
hostile political parties. The monarchical element
of the constitution was an object of almost exclusive
devotion to the Prelatist. The popular element of
the constitution was especially dear to the Puritan.
At length an appeal was made to the sword. Puri-
tanism triumphed; but Puritanism was already
divided against itself: Independency and Republi-
canism were on one side, Presbyterianism and limited
Monarchy on the other. It was in the very darkest

    
 

ee

De ge ES

a 3

sin wera ner

Se rence154 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

part of that dark time, it was in the midst of battles,
sieges, and executions, it was when the whole world
was still aghast at the awful spectacle of a British
king standing before a judgment seat, and laying his
neck on a block, it was when the mangled remains
of the Duke of Hamilton had just been laid in the
tomb of his house, it was when the head of the
Marquis of Montrose had just been fixed on the
Tolbooth of Edinburgh, that your University com-
pleted her second century.

A hundred years more, and we have at length
reached the beginning of a happier period. Our
civil and religious liberties had indeed been bought
with a fearful price. But they had been bought.
The price had been paid. The last battle had been
fought on British ground. The last black scaffold
had been set up on Tower Hill. The evil days were
over. A bright and tranquil century, a century of
religious toleration, of domestic peace, of temperate
freedom, of equal justice, was beginning. That cen-
tury is now closing. When we compare it with any
equally long period in the history of any other great
society, we shall find abundant cause for thankfulness
to the Giver of all good. Nor is there any place in
the whole kingdom better fitted to excite this feeling
than the place where we are now assembled. For m
the whole kingdom we shall find no district in which
the progress of trade, of manufactures, of wealth, and
of the arts of life, has been more rapid than in
Clydesdale. Your University has partaken largely
of the prosperity of this city and of the surroundingUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 155

region. The security, the tranquillity, the hberty,
which have been propitious to the industry of the
merchant, and of the manufacturer, have been also
propitious to the industry of the scholar. To the
last century belong most of the names of which you
justly boast. The time would fail me if I attempted
to do justice to the memory of all the illustrious
men who, during that period, taught or learned wis-
dom within these ancient walls ; geometricians, ana-
tomists, jurists, philologists, metaphysicians, poets ;
Simson and Hunter, Millar and Young, Reid and
Stewart ; Campbell, whose coffin was lately borne to
a grave in that renowned transept which contains
the dust of Chaucer, of Spenser, and of Dryden ;
Black, whose discoveries form an era in the history
of chemical science ; Adam Smith, the greatest of all
the masters of political science; James Watt, who
perhaps did more than any single man has done,
since the New Atlantis of Bacon was written, to
accomplish that glorious propheey. We now speak
the language of humility when we say that the
University of Glasgow need not fear a comparison
with the University of Bologna.

Another secular period is now about to commence.
There is no lack of alarmists, who will tell you that
it is about to commence under evil auspices. But
from me you must expect no such gloomy prognosti-
cations. I have heard them too long and too con-
stantly to be scared by them. LEver since I began
to make observations on the state of my country, I
have been seeing nothing but growth, and hearing

ae

gee

Ca phe ON retin156 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

of nothing but decay. ‘The more I contemplate our
noble institutions, the more convinced I am that
they are sound at heart, that they have nothing of
age but its dignity, and that their strength is still
the strength of youth. The hurricane which has
recently overthrown so much that was great, and
that seemed durable, has only proved their solidity.
They still stand, august and immovable, while dynas-
ties and churches are lying in heaps of ruin all around
us. Isee no reason to doubt that, by the blessing
of God on a wise and temperate policy, on a policy
of which the principle is to preserve what is good by
reforming in time what 1s evil, our civil institutions
may be preserved unimpaired to a late posterity, and
that, under the shade of our civil institutions, our
academical institutions may long continue to flourish.

I trust, therefore, that, when a hundred years
more have run out, this ancient College will still
continue +o deserve well of our country and of man-
kind. I trust that the installation of 1949 will be
attended by a still greater assemblage of students
than I have the happiness now to see before me.
That assemblage indeed may not meet in the place
where we have met. Thesevenerable halls may have
disappeared. My successor may speak to your suc-
cessors in a more stately edifice, in an edifice which,
even among the magnificent buildings of the future
Glasgow, will still be admired as a fine specimen of
the architecture which flourished in the days of the
good Queen Victoria. But though the site and the
walls may be new, the spirit of the institution will,UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 157

I hope, be still the same. My successor will, I hope,
be able to boast that the fifth century of the Uni-
versity has been even more glorious than the fourth.
He will be able to vindicate that boast by citing a
long list of eminent men, great masters of experi-
mental science, of ancient learning, of our native
eloquence, ornaments of the senate, the pulpit, and
the bar. He will, I hope, mention with high honour
some of my young friends who now hear me; and he
will, I also hope, be able to add that their talents
and learning were not wasted on selfish or ignoble
objects, but were employed to promote the physical
and moral good of their species, to extend the empire
of man over the material world, to defend the cause
of civil and religious liberty against tyrants and
bigots, and to defend the cause of virtue and order
against the enemies of all divine and human laws.

I have now given utterance to a part, and a part
only, of the recollections and anticipations of which,
on this solemn occasion, my mind is full. I again
thank you for the honour which you have bestowed
on me; and I assure you that, while I live, I shall
never cease to take a deep interest in the welfare and
fame of the body with which, by your kindness, I
have this day become connected.

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
   

ori 7 eee osADDRESS

OF
HENRY LORD BROUGHAM,

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE

MANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION.

 

Delivered July 21, 1835.

"e@

I am sure there never were thanks worse earned,
or, I may say, more superfluously bestowed, than
those which your most worthy president and my
respected friend, Mr. Heywood, has just been pleased
to return to me for coming here this evening; when
I ought really to render my thanks to you for the
very high gratification I have received since I came
within these walls. I need hardly tell you that I
have taken an active, a very humble part certainly,
but still a warm interest,in the establishment of
institutions of this and a similar description, —for
this differs from many, in some respects exceeds them,
and I do assure you

 

 

in others, perhaps, falls short,
that in some particulars this very greatly, or I will
say considerably, for one ought not to exaggerate at
all, even upon occasions like the present of mutual
congratulation, but I will say it very considerablyMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION, 159

exceeds any other in the country, and I believe I
know the whole of them which have been created
from the year 1824, when they were first established
in England, down to the present time. I think that
in many important particulars this institution does
very considerably excel any other with which I am
acquainted, and therefore I may venture to say, any
now established. In the first place, it has a greater
number of constant subscribers and regular attend-
ants; in the next place it is fully as well lodged as
any, and better than any other with one exception, I
mean the institution in London, of which it does not
fall short in any material respect. The lecture
theatre is somewhat less; but still, as the present
assembly shows, it is capable of accommodating with-
out inconvenience a very large number. From a
rough estimate I have made in casting my eye
around (and I dare say some of those boys we have
just heard, are better able to make one than I am),
I should say that there are not less present than
from 1,100 to 1,200 persons altogether,—I should
guess, from my habit of seeing large numbers of
people, that there are from 1,150 to 1,180 persons
present, and yet nobody really feels any inconveni-
ence from so large a body of persons within this
space. I have not yet had an opportunity of seeing
the library ; but I have run my eye over the cata-
logue: it seems well chosen, and not inconsiderable
in extent and in variety. I believe also that there
is apparatus for carrying on different lectures with
scientific experiments. But in one particular, and

eect
(ibaa eg ecco ws

LAA a ee MAR Ty EI RS SIT oa hE

 

at taney eee SMH EN)

wwe160 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

that a most important one, it excels every other in-
stitution, with the exception of that in London, and
with that it comes on a level,—I mean in the regular
attendance of the classes and schools ; and with the
exception of that one shortcoming which I am about
to mention presently, the attendance of the schools
appears to be excellent, and if the specimen we have
had to-night may be taken, I should say it 1s, as re-
gards the youngest portion of the boys, undoubtedly
very superior in point of proficiency. Now, the arith-
metic is most perfect ; I cannot conceive anything
better than the proficiency of the boys generally. i
take it for granted that they are selected; I assume
them to be the best in the school,—if they were an
average it would indeed be very marvellous,—but
there were two of those boys than whom none could
be more ready calculators ; and the bulk of them went
through, in a longer or shorter time, the different
sums with great ability. I may gather this from
my own short experience; for of the many sums
there were not above two which I did myself in my
own mind as quickly as the bulk: and only one which
I did as suddenly as those two boys. They had the
benefit of the slates, it is true; but I had greater
experience and longer practice. With the exception
of one instance, I never knew boys so quick,—and i
compare them with exhibitions of a similar nature in
our central Borough Road School, and undoubtedly
there they do these questions without slates; but I
don’t say this as a disparagement; for if taught the
knack, a boy will learn just as easily to do themMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 161

without as with the slate, and therefore T lay that
out of view. Doing sums as quickly as these boys
do with the slate, implies as great an effort of the
mind, and must be done as much by a mental pro-
cess, as if the boys had no slates in their hands.
These boys certainly are equal to those very ex-
traordinary exhibitions which every one has lately
witnessed in the London Borough Road School.
Whether they have gone on equally well in geography
I have not had an opportunity of learning. If the
time had permitted, I should have liked to see what
progress they had made in that important study, which
is as entertaining as it is useful. As to the reading,
it was very good. I can only say that I detected
but one error; the boy read “that which’? instead of
“ that which ;”’ but there was no error in pronuncia-
tion, or anything that could indicate that he had fallen
into the plan of reading by rote, or did not under-
stand what he was reading. My great satisfaction
is to perceive that these boys are taught to reflect
and reason to a certain degree upon what they pass
over with their eye, or on what passes through the
ear as another reads. That was remarkable in the
examination which Mr. M‘Dougall made after the
boy had finished reading the page. There are two
systems which ought always to be set in view in
teaching ; shunning the one, setting it up as a beacon
to be avoided, and placing the other before you as a
light to direct your course into the harbour of know-
ledge ; the parrot system to be avoided as the rock,
the beacon, and the shoal; and the intellectual sys-
M162 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

 

tem, the reasonable, rational system, to be steadily
pursued and substituted for the former. And there
is no greater error committed than that of those
teachers who make a great display of boys’ memories,
exercising that faculty only, by means of which they
may make very accomplished parrots with a great deal
of trouble and waste of time; but “quickly come, lightly
SOs” that which they learn so easily they lose shortly,
and even while they retain it, find it of no use what-
ever; for it does not imbue their mind or penetrate
their faculties. I have some reason to believe that
‘+ tg a shoal which lies peculiarly on the course of
teachers by the new, or Laneasterian, or Bell, or
national system, called by some the British, and some
the Madras system; but whether invented by Bell
or Lancaster I stop not to inquire. Both were very
great benefactors to mankind; and which invented
it, is not very material to our present purpose, as
neither is here to take out a patent; but I will call
+4 the New and Cheap system of instruction; and I
often find that, as the scholars learn very quickly by
it, they are apt to forget as swiftly—nay, that they
often learn merely by rote; the consequence of which
is, that those at the head of such establishments
have of late taken great pains, and I am glad to find
most successfully, to avoid that rock. Accordingly,
they who go to the Borough Road School, instead of
learning by rote, learn by thoroughly understanding
the subject; they learn nothing for which they can-
not give a reason, of which they cannot render an
account, and explain the foundation and principles,MANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 163

as well as execute on the spot and at a call. The
consequence of this plan is a true instruction of the
right sort; and I mention with pleasure, that these
boys appear to be educated by Mr. M‘Dougall in
that course, than which nothing can be more satis-
factory. Having said this, I shall ¢r espass a little
further on your patience ; and, in consequence of my
always dealing with this subject as often as I have
an opportunity, I shall offer a few remarks on the
shortcoming in this institution to which I have
alluded, and which I really think might, in the course
of a short time, be supplied. I is far more profitable
on occasions like this, to point out defects than merits.
This converts such meetings into the means of im-
provement, instead of mere ceremonies or excuses for
idle speech-making. Now, nothing can be more gra-
tifying than the number of your members, nearly
1,400 individuals actually subscribing and placing at
the disposal of the directors a fund quite sufficient to
bear the current expenses without involving the im-
stitution in debt and difficulty; and also to obtain
not only an increase from time to time in the library
and other parts of the establishment, but the aid of
various skilful lecturers. But the next question that
arose with me was, of course,—to what class of the
community those 1,300 or 1,400 members belonged ;
and no doubt I was a little disappointed to find that,
—though nothing can be more useful or more im-
portant than that those respectable classes, of which
the bulk of the community consists, should belong
to such an institution, and should gain therefrom the

       
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
  
 
 

 

 

Tk tess164 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

inestimable benefits of knowledge in letters and in
science, and should also reap the pleasure of social
intercourse of the most harmless, nay, of the most
beneficial character, and thus be kept out of evil
habits, and have their intellectual faculties whetted,
their industry excited, and their exertions stimulated,
by mutual intercourse and social study,— though
nothing can be more important than this, and though
this will in the end provide a remedy for the defect
which I am about to take notice of,—I still cannot
avoid feeling that if there was an addition to,—I
won’t say a body placed instead of, but one added to
the 1,400 members of the institution, for I would
not have one single individual less of those; but if,
‘n addition to those, there were 200 or 800 to begin
with those of another class, of which but a small pro-
portion belongs at present to this institution—I mean
artizans and common mechanics of the ingenious and
working classes of this town,—I would not have them
displace any of those who are now members—there
is room enough for all,—but only if they should be
added to those superior classes which now belong to
the institution, I am sure that the improvement
would be prodigious.’ I hold it to be perfectly cer-
tain, that it is the common interest of both masters
and men, of both you and me,—of you who belong
to the higher industrious class to which I belong,
and not to that of common artizans, every one of
whom may in this country, by knowledge and skill,
rise to the situations which we are in, who are in the
same country with them, and running the same raceMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 165

of competition, each in our several branches, and only
for the present removed a little in circumstances into
an easier station than theirs, they being as capable
of obtaining that station themselves,—I say nothing
can be more important for them and for us, than
that they should learn the knowledge which we have
learned, and are still learning and extending. This
is of the utmost importance to be impressed upon
their minds and yours; it is a lesson which ught
never to be erased from their recollection. I have
been told—and in saying this, I seek to pay no com-
pliment to Manchester because I happen to be in it
—for I would rather speak truths unpalatable than
pleasing phrases, things fine to hear but useless to
know—but I hear, and I indeed know it of my own
knowledge, that in Manchester the artizans, the
mechanics, though as honest men, of as independent
habits, of as excellent understanding, of as oreat in-
dustry, and in their own arts of as consummate skill,
as any human beings in any manufacturing town, or
in any other place, be that place what or where it
may—yet that they are not sufficiently penetrated
and imbued in their minds, dispositions, and tastes,
with the love of scientific knowledge and useful learn-
ing, to seek opportunities of learning the principles
even of those arts in which they are engaged. There
are, doubtless, exceptions; great and creditable ex-
ceptions this institution itself affords; but they are
few in number compared with the great bulk of the
industry, intelligence, and skill which exists in Man-
chester; the others do not flock to this Hall, when

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

tereHENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

its doors are open to receive them all; when, at a

very moderate cost, they might reap the benefits of

it, and obtain the delights and the advantages of im-

struction and of social intercourse within its walls.

And when I say the advantages of instruction, I

am speaking a plain practical proposition. 1 am

not merely talking of the accomplishment of learn-

ing and its pleasures, great though they be, but of
the positive utility of it, to each of them in his
own separate case. Who, for instance, can doubt
that it would be of the greatest use to a common
mechanic, engaged in the manufacture of tools and
engines, at one of those magnificent establishments
with which, at my last visit here, I was so delighted,
through the kindness of their excellent owners—who
can doubt that it would be of the greatest benefit to
the workmen there, and still more to those employed
in the manufacture of steam-engines, and various
other useful and complicated machinery, in this town
who can doubt that it would be of the utmost
possible practical use to them in their several trades,
to know the principles upon which those engines are
constructed, by becoming acquainted with so much
chemistry, for example, as may teach them the nature
and properties of steam, of refrigeration and expansion,
of the manner in which heat works and cold operates,
and learning as much mechanical science as may ex-
plain the grounds of the various mechanical contriv-
ances which that engine exhibits? I say it is of
positive use and actual profit to them to know these
things. At present they put up the cylinder, theyMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 167

ft the piston into its place, and adjust that exquisite
eontrivance ef Watt, the parallel motion; but they
do these things mechanically, by rote, and according
to the parrot system, which I have lately said a word
about in reference to boys. The boys here, indeed,
can tell the steps by which they arrive at the answers
to the questions given them, and upon that page of
reading they could give you reasons and illustrations
connected with the various parts which formed the
passage which their young neighbour and friend read.
But these mechanics know that the rod cannot work
sweet and smooth in the cylinder unless perfect per-
pendicularity be always preserved, and that this per-
pendicularity is gained and kept by means of a certain
combination of iron rods and hinges, which they have
learned to call the “parallel motion,’ without even
knowing why it is so called; and how it operates,
and upon what principles that perpendicularity is
secured, they have never yet learned; and yet that
branch of mechanics, though connected with some

refinement certainly, may be brought to the level of

the student’s capacity, with little or no mathematical
learning. One should think they would be all the
better workmen if they knew not only that they
were te go on in a certain line, but why they were
to do so; that they were not only not to deviate to
the one hand or to the other, but why there would
be danger if they did. At all events, I say, these
things are very just objects of curiosity, and that
men might naturally feel desirous to know about the
things which they are every day practising. Just168 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

in the same way they might naturally desire to know
why, upon a certain jet of water being admitted into
the cylinder, down comes the piston ; how it happens
that a vacuum makes it descend, and how the steam
pressure from above accelerates the descent. ‘They
would surely make it all the better for knowing the
principles upon which it acts. And is it not a natural
object of curiosity to men whose whole lives are passed
in causing this operation, to inquire upon what prin-
ciples of science it is that it was invented by one of
the most profoundly scientific men that ever lived to
adorn this country ? I should think that such in-
formation would be a pleasant relaxation to the mmd
in the intervals of labour. Can any one doubt that a
dyer would find himself more comfortable if he studied
a little of the nature of mordants—if he knew why
dyed cloth in certain cases took the colour, and im
other cases rejected it—if he knew, for example, upon
what principles that ingenious invention of scarlet
dyes operated, which was imported into this country
by my friend Mr. Thompson, who obtained a patent
for it, the invention of an able French chemist ?
But it is very odd, the operative dyer goes on dyeing
all his life,—making his arms light blue and his
clothes dark blue, without knowing, any more than
the hog that feeds in the trough by his side, the
principles upon which his ingenious and useful art is
founded. I might run through a variety of instances
of the like sort. I take it for granted that no per-
son tries to make optical instruments, even an ap-
prentice, who does not know something of optics ;MANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 169

and yet I should be apt to say that those who do
not come here do not know much more than enables
them to grind glasses into the convex or plano-convex
shape that the instrument in hand may happen to
require. But would it not be much better if they
knew the laws which regulate the dispersion as well
as the refraction of light—(of refraction, perhaps,
they do know a little)—of the laws which regulate
the making of achromatic glasses, so called because
they give no colour; of the way in which crown and
flint glasses being of several dispersive powers, the
action of the one corrects that of the other? And
if they also rose a little higher in their views, there
would be no harm done—if they ascended so as to
discover that the most perfect of all optical instru-
ments, the eye, is formed precisely upon the same
principle on which Mr. Dollond formed his first
achromatic glasses, and upon which Dr. Blair after-
wards suggested an improvement, which, I believe,
has never yet been much used in practice. It would
be a solace to him, it would strengthen his religious
belief, 1¢ would make him a better and a happier, as
well as a wiser man, if he soared a little into those
regions of purer science where happily neither doubt
can cloud, nor passion ruffle our serene path. These
things are all so obvious that one really ought to
apologize for reminding you of them; but it is not
you, it is rather others who are not here, that I
would remind through you of these things. They
know that I can have no interest but their good, in
wishing them to consider what pure and elevated170 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

pleasure might be enjoyed by them, if they would
come and drink at the fountain of science open to
every one here, and seek instruction under its great-
est masters. When I say that such knowledge is of
practical use, I might goa step farther. ‘Those men
who are daily employed in handling tools, working
amongst the very elements of mechanical science, or
always using mixtures of chemical drugs in a me-
chanical way (I here use the word “ mechanical AoA
its bad sense,—meaning without knowledge, by rote)
__those who, making and using pulleys, see that one
pulley being fixed gives no increase of power, but
only changes the direction of the force, while another
unfixed pulley greatly multiplies the power; but who
only see and don’t know why it is so, and have their
information only by rote,—those men are amongst
the very persons whose situation is the best adapted
in the whole world for actually making discoveries
and inventing improvements. They are in the way
of good luck; for there is great luck in even scientific
discoveries, and there is more in mechanical inven-
tions; and these men are always in the way of it.
They are continually using agents applied to practical
purposes; and they have opportunities of striking
out new ideas which, for aught they know, may lead
to the discoveries of the philosopher, or the improve-
ments and inventions of the mechanician. What did
Mr. Watt do more ?—that man to whom we owe
the greatest revolution, morally speaking, of modern
times,—I mean that which subdued steam to the
use of man, by his improvements upon the old en-gines of Worcester and Newcomen.

 

    
 

MANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 171

Far be it from

me to undervalue the great step of the vacuum, made
by Newcomen ; but all was in vain for practical use,
till the discoveries of Watt gave a new aspect to the
machine. He is therefore the real inventor, and may
be said to be the second father, of the steam engine ;

and it is to him we owe all the wealth, the increased

power, and the extended comfort, which we now
have from the great engine, which actually annihi-
lates distance between place and place, and, as I yes-
terday told my friends at Liverpool, brings Man-

chester, though thirty miles inland, close to its great
seaport and outlet, Liverpool.

Watt himself was

one of that class of workmen which I am now ad-

dressing; and if he had gone on making mathema-

tical instruments without ever studying the principles
of science upon which they are constructed, he never
would have achieved any one of those splendid in-
ventions which gave such celebrity to his name, such
fortune to his family (though far from equal to his
prodigious deserts), and such an increase to the
He would

have gone on to his grave working at the rate of

power and the happiness of mankind.

30s. or 40s. a-week, without ever having raised his
own name, or adorned his species, or improved the
condition of mankind, in the marvellous manner, and
to the boundless extent, which he was enabled to do,

solely by his scientific education and philosophic

studies. Why, then, I place Watt as a model before

all working mechanics.

They may not have his
genius, but they may all have as much industry as172 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

he had, and gain as much learning. It is their own
fault, therefore, if they don’t rise out of their level,
and obtain the chances of making discoveries which
would secure them the gifts of affluence, and bestow
on them a share in the greatest glory at which man
ean arrive, the renown of extending the boundaries
of science and art. Totally independent of that,
they might be much happier men, much more useful
men, and much more profitable workmen, both for
themselves and others. And, after all, what sacrifice
would they make for it? Why, men receiving 30s.,
35s., or 40s. a-week, would have to sacrifice how
much? Not 6d. a-week, for the subscription is only
20s. a-year, to obtain all the benefits, and reap all
the enjoyments, of this excellent institution. Sup-
pose it were even 26s. a-year, or 6d. a-week, why it
is only that they should consume so much less beer
or meat, and the diminution is so little in amount,
that they would hardly feel at the week’s end that
they had made the sacrifice. I know they ought to
do a great deal more than that; and unless they do
it, I also know they can never be the happy men
which their talents and skill, and the prosperous and
flourishing situation of this great city, entitle them
to be. If they, with large wages, have not learned
another lesson, beside saving sixpence a-week for
learning, they have but learned half their duties.
They ought to do as we lawyers, physicians, and
others have always to do; they ought to lay by for
a bad day. I know that this is not a very popular
doctrine; but if they do not hear it and practise it,MANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 173

they won’t be very respectable men. Every man ig
bound to do so as a bare act of justice to himself,
and to make him an independent man, without which
he does not deserve to be called a man at all, much
less the citizen of a free state. He ought to look to
himself and his savings, and not trust to that most
odious, mean, and despicable of resources, the parish
fund, in case of a bad day. Suppose when I was at
the bar, toiling my way up, as you are doing now, to
independence, that I had lived up to every farthing
of my income, as these men spend their 40s. a-week,
—I speak of some of them only who spend the whole
of the 40s. they earn every week, and never have
anything in case of a fall of wages, or being thrown
out of employment, or sickness,—if I, or those
whom I used to associate with at the bar, had done
that,—then there comes a broken limb or a bad
season for business, when people are wiser than they
generally are, and therefore don’t go to law—or when
they are poorer, and cannot afford that very expen-
sive luxury,—supposing a person is ill for six months ;
what is he to do? All men of business know that
it is their bounden duty to lay by for such accidents,
from which the ablest, best, and strongest men are
not at all exempt. And why should these workmen
not do the same thing? But I have been drawn
from my course by this important subject. From
the nature of this place, one is apt to get lecturing a
little, and I was lecturing on the propriety of layimg
by only 4d. or 6d. a-week, for the purpose of possess-
ing the benefits of this admirable, useful, and most

    
   
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
 
 
 
 
  
   
 

TROT PT RSARICS coen: Nariman174 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

gratifying institution. I can conceive people having
some excuse elsewhere for not coming to lectures:
and enjoying them; but when I hear so admirable a
report as was made to-night by your worthy and
able secretary, when it appears that you have not
only those able men by whose advice the workmen
flocking hither might benefit, but when you have
such lecturers as those whose names we have heard
to-night,—when, above all, there is in this very town,
at this moment, happily preserved to us,—and I hope
to God he long may be,—the very greatest chemical
philosopher of the present day,—known all over
Europe and all over the world,—I mean Dr. Dalton,
—why, what a proof is here how people neglect
things within their power, and which they would be
grasping at and panting after, if they were but re-
moved beyond their reach! I met an old and worthy
friend of mine, a man of great ability and learning
also, your townsman, Dr. Henry, to-day. We were
fellow-collegians, and learned chemistry together,—
though God wot he learned a great deal more than
I did; and we both agreed, while conversing at Mr.
Heywood’s, that nothing had given each of us so
much pleasure (both had often thought of the same
thing, and we communicated our sentiments upon
meeting), as the happy circumstance of having lived
in time to attend the course of lectures given by the
greatest improver of chemistry in his day, I mean
Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, of fixed air,
of the nature of the mild and the caustic earths, as
connected with that air’s absorption, and who mayMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 175

literally be said to be the father of modern pneumatic
chemistry. We had the happiness of drinking in
our knowledge of chemistry at that pure and exalted
source, by attending the last lectures of that great
man. Now, suppose anybody had told us when we
got to Edinburgh (I lived there, but Dr. Henry
came from a distance), “Oh, you are a year too late.
If you had only come the year before, you would have
been in time to hear the last course of lectures, im-
pressively and gracefully delivered, by that great
man.’ We should have wrung our hands and declared
that we could not tell that; that we did not know
he was so old; that we would have given up any
engagement, made any sacrifice, to have heard him,
But suppose that we had lived in the same town to
the age of thirty, and had never thought of going to
Dr. Black; suppose that he in the course of nature
had paid its debt and died, and that we had then
read the life of Dr. Black, as the great ornament of
the city of Edinburgh, as the most illustrious che-
mical philosopher of his day, as the founder of the
new system of chemistry, as a man whose discoveries
had altered the face of the scientific world in that
great department of knowledge ; we should have said,
‘ Bless us, is it possible that we should have lived
ten or fifteen years here since we reached the age of
discretion, and never have thought of going to that
man’s class—never have thought of paying our two
or three guineas for the benefit, nay the glory of
learning under that most illustrious of all chemists?”
We should certainly have been extremely to blame,176 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

very much to be pitied, not a little to be despised,
for having allowed so many years to pass, with the
doors of the lecture-room open to us, and yet never
hearing this celebrated philosophical teacher. There
is now living in this town, and, from his love of
science, volunteering to give five or six lectures in
the course of the season, a chemical philosopher who
has made the greatest discovery since the decomposi-
tion of the fixed alkalies, and which in all likehhood
will be the root of still greater discoveries in chemical
science, enabling us, as I firmly beheve, to trace the
connecting links in that chain which separates the
mechanical from the chemical kingdom of science,
and supplying that long wanted desideratum of the
step which unites the two,—we have that very indi-
vidual existing, lecturing, this place; and in the
course of time—(distant may the change be!)—he
must cease to lecture and to exist. I don’t believe
there will be one man who has failed to avail himself
of the opportunity of hearmg the lectures of that
eminent philosopher and discoverer, who will not then
upbraid and despise himself, and feel a kind of remorse
at the sin of omission he will have been guilty of.
Gracious me! to have lived in this town, and never
gone to hear the principles of chemistry explained
by the great discoverer of Definite Proportions !
That is the sort of feeling which a person will excite
in others; and, if he is worthy of bemg compassion-
ated, it is the sort of feeling that will arise in his own
breast, upon making the humbling reflection when it
is too late. In this matter I at least wash my handsMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 177

of all blame; and no one will have any ground for
saying I did not give him timely ¥ varning. Now,
my observations are addressed not merely to the
mechanics who don’t come and learn these things,
and who might by their coming extend our numbers
—(I call it “our,” for we are all engaged in the
same common cause)—who do not avail themselves
of such precious opportunities; but I would remind
you also, and others through you, that those things
which I have mentioned, because they appear to be
suited to the present occasion, ought to sink deep
into the minds of the considerate and right-thinking
of all classes. I am sure I should doa very aselete
thing, if I were here to enlarge upon the benefits of
education. They are admitted by all, even by those
who formerly sneered at them. Some people tell us
that “education won’t fill people’s bellies,’ and trash
of that sort. Why, they might just as well complain
of the baker or the butcher, because with their beef
or bread they don’t fill people’s minds. But every
one knows that “man lives not by bread alone,”—
that knowledge leads to skill, that skill leads to use-
ful and lucrative occupation, and that the gain derived
from lucrative occupation enables men to get the
staff of this mortal life, after getting the staff of that
immortal life which improves and strengthens his
better part—his mind. Therefore it is not true to
say that learning does not fill people’s bellies, as some
grossly and stupidly say; for it puts the staff of
common animal life within our reach; so the bread
and beef got through its means ultimately tend to
N178 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

support the mind, inasmuch as, without the support
of the animal part, the incorporeal portion of our
nature would have but a small chance of surviving.
But now, whatever improves men’s minds tends to
give them sober and virtuous habits ; and with the
knowledge of the community, elear I am that virtue
is assuredly certain to be promoted; and I am quite
confident that, with the knowledge of men, the rights
of men—I mean their indefeasible rights of every
kind, the rights which they have to civil Hberty and.
to religious liberty, the greatest of earthly and social
blessings,—are sure to be infinitely promoted; nor
do I know of any more certain mode of reforming 4
country, any better way of redressing her grievances,
than giving education to her people. I know that
I am now addressing myself to those who hold various
opinions on these matters, to some who differ from
me in opinion. I have my own opinions; they have
theirs ; I shall certainly not give up mine; they may
keep theirs; perhaps they may come round in time
to mine; unless I am favoured with some new hight
I assuredly won’t go to them; but I say that all
political, or, to avoid the use of the word politics, all
social reforms, are never so sure to be obtained, and
never so safely obtained, as when the people amongst
whom they are in vogue, and bear a high price, with
whom they are in great estimation and much pursuit,
—as when that people is well educated ; because the
better educated a people are in all thei branches, so
much the more tranquil, peaceful, and orderly, m
their political conduct will they be. But I am notMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 179

one of those who preach in favour of people being
contented when they ought not to be contented.
When they have grievances they ought to be discon-
tented, and their discontent ought to boil as high as
the law will allow,—not to explosive heat (to speak
the language of the engineer), but higher than tem-
perate heat, in order to make their grievances attended
to, and so get them redressed. That is my doctrine.
And when not redressed, the heat should inc rease,
but always keeping under the regulation of the
governor, if I may so speak—always under the control
of the law, which is the governor,—and the governor
being affected in the ene gine, as you know, by the heat
below, even so the law is apt to be affected and made
to give way and yield to the pressure of just demands
acting upon it; and as the heat in the engine, acting

through the steam on the governor, communicates to

 

it a centrifugal force, which again, when much aug-
mented, compresses the vapour below, so by the
moral law does the governor affect the pe eople, while
he is in his turn very much affected by the people.
Therefore, when I preach up contentment, is only
where the people ought to be contented, y being
ruled as cheap as possible, and as well as aan
but this I always shall hold, that their discontent
should never exceed the bounds allowed by law.
They should be firm, persevering, temperate, for their
own sakes rather than for the sake of others, and
should go on towards their own purpose, neither
looking to the right, neither to the left, till that

legitimate purpose be accomplished. But the more180 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

knowing they are, the more peaceable they will be;
and, in my judgment, the more clear-sighted they
are upon the subject of their rights, the more steadily
will they perform their duties. One word more be-
fore I release you from what I have called this lecture
of mine,—one word upon the manner in which learn-
ing and improvement make their way in society. I
think it must be admitted that it is always in one
way, and that downwards. You begin by making
the upper classes aware of the value of certain kinds
of knowledge; and though it constantly happens that
the middle classes know a great deal more than their
superiors, yet it is by the upper part of the middle
class becoming aware of the exquisite pleasures of
learning, and, above all, of scientific information, that
the other parts of this class become impregnated with
the same divine influence. Well, then, we teach, we
impregnate this stratum, if 1 may so call it,—for
society is something like a pyramid, having an ex-
tensive base and tapering upwards,—the middle parts
of the middle class get well acquainted with the sub-
ject and feel its importance; every now and then

 

there springs up an enlightened individual who says,
“JT have a good mind to endeavour to make this
knowledge spread among the people below me who
know less than I do,” and by degrees he succeeds in
this truly benevolent and philanthropic design. For I
stop to observe that a man is not a philanthropist
who throws away his money upon useless charity
to multiply idlers in the land: he is truly a philan-
thropist, he is truly charitable, who gives his moneyMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 18]

im such a way as to prevent his fellow-creatures from
wanting charity, from being reduced to the pitiable
necessity of asking alms. A man who makes war
upon the poor-house by keeping people out of it, he
is a charitable man; a man who makes war upon the
gin-shop by teaching people that sobriety and know-
ledge are better than intoxication and ignorance,—a
man who makes war upon the “rabble rout” of sedi-
tious, immoral, and licentious persons, by reclaiming
them from their evil habits, and improving them by
early education, especially by planting infants’ schools,
—he is a truly charitable man. And above all, a
man who has bestowed his money, his time, and his
exertions so as to make war upon the gaol, the oib-
bet, the transport-ship and the tread-mill, by lessen-
ing through instruction the number of victims sent
for their crimes to these places,—that man is indeed
charitable; and the more he teaches his fellow-crea-
tures, and refines their appetites, and removes them
from low, sensual gratifications, the more charitable
is that man. Therefore have I stopped to say what
man is charitable——not he who gives alms, or who
subscribes to charities for the purpose of seeing his
name enrolled among their benefactors, but such a
man as I have depicted, one who not only is bene-
volent, but beneficent,—one who both means well,
and does good. Of such, then, there are many in the
second order or stratum of the middle classes; and
they try, by their exertions and their money, kindly
apphed and judiciously bestowed, to spread to the
class below them, a little of the same feeling, the182 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

same love of learning, which they possess themselves ;
and so that lower class gets by degrees impregnated
itself, Thus it goes to the class immediately below
it. to the artizans, the skilful workmen, the class as
respectable as any in the community from the duke
down to the peasant. They might know a great deal
more than they do; they soon will know a great deal
more than they now do. Well, they get the sugges-
ions of those immediately above them. We, for
instance, in this institution, can operate upon them ;
and upon them it 1s our bounden duty, in my opinion,
to operate till we carry them on in the course of
knowledge, and impregnate them with that love of
knowledge which is germain to this stratum and class
above all others, and through this class, I hope, it
will spread downwards till it reaches the very lowest
description of the community. Then those very
men, the artizans, we shall see endeavouring to in-
struct the common daily field labourers, a class a
thousand times lower in mental rank than skilful
artizans, as for instance optical instrument makers,—
infinitely inferior in all respects as to station and
everything else,—much more the imferiors of the
artizan than that artizan is of the proudest peer in
the land. Those artizans having slaked their thirst
at the fountain of knowledge, opened here by the
lectures, by the library, and by social intercourse
amongst the members,—having tasted the pleasures
and gained the advantages of science, will endeavour
even to become in their turn teachers, and to carry
those benefits and lights and enjoyments into theMANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 183

humblest class of the community, which now sits in
the thickest darkness.

T ought to apologize for having detained you so
long; but as you all know my motives, I can only
express my great desire and readiness in any way to
promote the interest of this admirable and now most
Hourishing institution. J have just cast my eye upon
a page of the report which reminds me that there
was a course of lectures upon Political Economy,
which I was the means of procuring for you last
season, and though in the report it is not stated that
they were my lectures, it is mentioned so ambigu-
ously, that you may very likely think I had written
them and given you acopy. The real fact is I did
no such thing, I did not write one lecture of the
whole number. They were written by a friend, whose
name f am not at liberty to mention. What I did
was to go carefully over them, to alter some parts,
and here and there to add a sentence where I thought
the meaning was not sufficiently brought out; and I
believe all I wrote of them would go into less than
five pages. The lectures were prepared at a time
when I held the Great Seal, and therefore I could
not give more attention than what was required
shghtly to correct them. It is no doubt true that I
formerly recommended the plan of what I called
anonymous lecturing. In 1824, the year the Me-
chanics’ Institution was established in London, I was
aware of the difficulty of obtaining lecturers, and also
aware how much lectures might be made available,
provided we had them of a perfectly simple, intelli-184: HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

gible, and plain description, containing the elements of
science laid down in a way that would readily be com-
prehended by uneducated men. All that then was
wanted was a good and distinct reader; and the plan
I proposed at the time was this:—That lectures
should be prepared, and that the first should be read
on one day, and on the next meeting of the class the
same lecture should be read a second time, together
with half the second lecture, and then the following
meeting that half a second time, with the latter half
of the same lecture; so that every lecture was read
twice, giving the artizans time for discussion during
the interval; and when their minds were whetted by
such discussion, it was repeated, and they also learned
another bit. In those days we wanted lecturers; so
that it was necessary the lectures should be made
plain enough to be given to any one who could merely
read. Now we have a better supply, for these insti-
tutions have created not only a demand for lectures,
but have also created lecturers, because many of those
who have been taught in these institutions are now
ready to become teachers. And no fruit which they
have borne is more satisfactory to my mind than this.
When I disclaim the authorship of those able lectures
on Political Economy, I do so only to renounce the
credit which is not mine, and with no wish to under-
value the useful labours of those who prepare lectures
for the people. I have worked at this myself. In
1825, I devoted the summer to preparing a course of
lectures, which have been delivered, ever since, many
times over, in different parts of the kingdom, more inrr a

 

  

MANCHESTER MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 185

the south than in the north; and no person I dare
say knew who was the author; nor do I intend to
make it known. I don’t think I have ever mentioned
the circumstance before, and I do it now as a proof
of the advantage of “ anonymous lecturing.” It has
this great recommendation, that several persons may
join in preparing a course, at a small trouble to each,
every person contributing a lecture or two, if he
cannot write a whole course. We are now going’ on

in the same plan with various courses. I am taking ,

part myself by preparing one course of twenty-four
lectures: and I suppose that some of these courses
will be ready for delivery in three months. I don’t
mention who are the writers, nor what are the sub-
jects, because it is my intention the authors should
not be known; but they will be ready for delivery
under the patronage some of one useful society and
some of another, in order to give them greater cur-
rency. I have explained this for the purpose of
adding, that if it should be your pleasure to benefit
by this arrangement, in consequence of any want of
lectures here, upon any of those subjects which are
now in preparation, I hope and indeed think I shall
have it in my power to help this institution to those
particular courses.

I beg leave once more to return you my best ac-
knowledgments for the very kind reception I have
met with amongst my fellow-citizens in this great
town, and in this institution particularly ; and I shall
have great pleasure in reporting to my coadjutors the
prosperity of this institution, especially to Dr. Birk-186 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM.

beck—to whom more is due than to all the rest of
us together—who first devised the plan of giving
lectures to artizans in the year 1800, at Glassow—
(I have the prospectus in my possession of his first
course)—a plan which was afterwards carried ito
execution in various parts of the kingdom; he was
also, | think, the originator of the London Institu-
tion, though he had most able coadjutors, and I
know his priority in this has been disputed; but at
any rate he advanced in its aid £4,000 or £5,000,
which I am sorry to say he is not nearly repaid at
this moment.—I shall have the utmost satisfaction
in telling him how this institution beats our London
one in many important particulars, and that there
are only one or two points in which 1t falls short. I
know that nothing will give him greater satisfaction
than to hear from me that the child has outstripped

the parent.I dea

 

 

    
  
  
 
   
   
    
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS
OF
pin ROBE RT PH ET BA Rw:
ON HIS INSTALLATION AS
LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

Delivered Wednesday, January 11, 1837.

 

PrincrpaL MacrarLAN AND GENTLEMEN, — I
gladly avail myself of this opportunity of personally
and publicly expressing the gratification which I de-
rive from my appointment to the office on the duties
of which I have just entered. I might have hesi-
tated voluntarily to present myself as a candidate for
that office, not from unbecoming indifference to the
distinction which it confers, but partly from disin-
clination to interfere with the pretensions of others,
and partly from reluctance to add to the pressure of
those duties, which in public and private life I am
called upon to perform. But when I received the
unexpected intelligence that my election had actually
taken place—had taken place under circumstances
which had spared me the painfulness of voluntary
competition, and relieved me altogether from the
anxieties and the asperities that are incident to con-188 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

test—I required no advice—I asked for no time to
eonsider—I acted upon the impulse of feelings that
were better counsellors than doubts and deliberation ;
and I resolved at once to justify the generous confi-
dence which had tendered me this high trust, and
which must have anticipated my acceptance of it. I
do accept it, grateful for the kindness which has
conferred it, proud of the relation in which I stand
to this venerable seat of learning, anxious to dis-
charge with fidelity and zeal the duties which that
relation may involve. And not merely those duties.
If I can extend the sphere of usefulness beyond the
proper functions of this office, if there be any other
capacity in which my services can be made available,
they shall be freely tendered for the protection of
every just and useful privilege to which the Univer-
sity can lay claim, and for the maintenance of its
true and permanent interests.

The state of this University, and of the other
Universities of Scotland, has recently undergone
visitation and inquiry by a commission, which owed
its appointment to advice humbly tendered by me
to the crown.

Various suggestions have been offered in the report
of that commission, concerning the revenues, the
government, and the discipline of this University ;
and the intervention of Parliament will, | presume,
be requisite in order to give effect to such of those
suggestions as it shall be ultimately thought fitting
to adopt.

You will not expect from me at the very outset ofCf i Ps

 

 

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 189

my connection with the University, the declaration
of a formed and positive opinion upon matters so |
intimately affecting its welfare. I should not mark
my respect for you,—I should not justify the confi-
dence you have reposed in me, were I to content

myself with merely ascertaining the popular or pre-

vailing opinion here, and promising a blind subscrip-
tion to it, or were I to regard solely temporary in- |
terests, and pledge myself to their exclusive protec-
tion. I shall better maintain the dignity of this
office, I shall better consult your true interest, I
shall more certainly secure your lasting favour, by
exercising an impartial and independent judgment,
by weighing maturely each suggestion of improve-
ment, and the evidence or reasoning by which it is
supported ; not merely regarding the abstract merits
of the isolated proposal, but viewing it in reference
to the whole scheme of academical education in
Scotland, bearing in mind the connection of that
scheme with the means of preliminary instruction,
its adaptation to the state of manners and society in
Scotland, its capacity for supplying those acquire-
ments and that description of knowledge, which shall
best msure the success and eminence of those for
whom academical instruction is intended. Be as-
sured, however, that I shall enter upon the consider-
ation of these important matters with a strong pre-
possession that, speaking generally, the system of
academical education adopted in the Universities of
Scotland, modified, as it gradually has been, according
to the changes in the state of society, and the new190 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

demands for knowledge, is admirably adapted to the
great ends for which 1b is designed. I see im it a
system planned m conformity with the suggestion
of Lord Bacon, that learning should be made sub-
servient to action—a system that does not partake
of a professional character—that embraces all dis-
tinctions and classes of society—that qualifies those
of the highest rank for the public duties they will
have to perform—that provides for men engaged in
business, and even advanced in life, the opportunity
of ascertaining the progressive discoveries in science,
and the applicability of those diseoveries to their re-
spective pursuits—that offers also to those whose
pecuniary means are the most restricted, the benefits
of an enlightened education and the rewards of liter-
ary distinction. Be assured, also, that I shall enter
upon the consideration of such matters with a firm
conviction that the relation in which the Universities
stand towards the Established Church of Scotland
ought to be maintained with scrupulous fidelity.

I should not be acting in conformity with the
established usage of this University, I should still less
be acting in unison with my own feelings, if I did not
on this occasion address myself immediately to those
who are pursuing their studies within these walls.

Yes, let me who have not survived my sympathies
with the feelings and aspirations of academic youth,
who have drunk from the same pure spring from
which you are allaying the thirst for knowledge, who
have felt the glow of your emulation, and have

panted like you for academic distinction—let me,UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 191

a

after being engaged in the active scenes of public
life, and buffeted by the storms and contentions of
party,—let me bring the living testimony of practical
experience to confirm the truth of those precepts, to
enforce those exhortations which you hear from the
higher authority of the distinguished men of whom
your instruction is the immediate and peculiar pro-
vince.

 

Let me assure you, with all the earnestness of the
deepest conviction, founded on the opportunities of
observation which public life and intercourse with
the world have afforded, that your success, your
eminence, your happiness, are much more independent
of the accidents and caprices of fortune, infinitely
more within your own control, than they appear to
be to superficial observers.

There lies before you a boundless field of exertion.
Whatever be your pursuit, whatever be the profession
which you may choose, the avenues to honourable
fame are widely open to you, or at least are obstructed
by no barriers of which you may not command the
key.

Does the study of theology engage your attention?
Is the office of the sacred ministry to be your desti-

oO
o

nation? To what nobler aim can you dedicate your
faculties and acquirements than to vindicate the
great principles of our common faith, to defend them
from the assaults of infidelity, to establish them on
the only foundation on which the spirit of free in-
quiry will allow them to rest—the authority of
scriptural truth? But be not content with medio-192 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

crity: Aspire to that eminence which has been
attained by the great preachers of other ages, the
honoured champions of the Protestant religion.
Why should you despair of attaining it? Bring to
your sacred functions the spirit by which they were
animated, treasure up the same stores of professional
learning, make them available by the command of
the same simplicity of style and energy of expression ;
above all, enforce the precepts you inculcate by that
highest argument, the pure example of your own
lives, and despair not of exercising a moral influence
like that which they exercised, and founding a repu-
tation lasting as theirs. In*the commanding autho-
rity of your station—in the frequent opportunities
for the public exertion of your powers—in the eager-
ness with which men will listen to truths that con-
cern their eternal interests, if they be but enforced
(and they too frequently are not) with the same
measure of earnestness, of ability, and of eloquence
with which their worldly interests are defended, in
these things you will find all that can satisfy the
highest ambition for honourable fame.

Is science your pursuit? “The great ocean of
truth,’ to quote the expression of Newton, “ the
great ocean of truth” lies expanded before you. “I
do not know,” said he, at the close of his illustrious
career, “what I may appear to the world, but to
myself I seem to have been only like a boy playmg
on the sea-shore, finding sometimes a brighter pebble
or a smoother shell than ordinary, while the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 193

Hach subsequent advance in science has served not

to contract the field of inquiry, but to extend it on
every side. It has served, like the telescope, to make
us familiar with objects before imperfectly compre-
hended ; but at the same time, by the obscure vision
of things unknown, of relations and dependencies of
which we had no conception, it has shown us the
comparative nothingness of human knowledge.

Are you destined for the legal profession, or are
you ambitious of distinction in the public service of
your country ?

Surely the recent competition for this office, which
now entitles me to address you, is pregnant with
signal proof that whatever be the place of your
nativity, whatever be the accidents of your birth,
the highest distinctions are accessible to all, and that
no national’ jealousies remain to obstruct your
advancement, or to envy you the possession of them
when obtained.

There were two competitors presented for your
choice. You will readily believe, that on this occa-
sion I shall make no remark on any circumstance
connected with the recent contest, which can by
possibility revive or excite an angry feeling, or which
can even provoke an expression of dissent. But

there are reflections suggested by that contest which
can offend none, and may serve as an encouragement
and stimulus to all.

Your choice lay between two competitors: the one
the son of a minister of the Church of Scotland ;*

* Sir John Campbell, M.P.
O194: SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

the other the son of an Englishman, the founder of
his own fortunes by dint of honest and laborious
exertions in the very same pursuits of active industry
which, within this great city, are elevating so many
to affluence and to honou rable station. ‘The one at-
tains the highest emimence in the profession of the
law; the other was called by the favour and the con-
fidence of his Sovereign, to the highest trust which
a subject can execute, that of administering the
eat country. And mark the

government of this gr
gratifying proof of the obliteration of every prejudice
connected with national distinctions or jealousies.
The Scotsman is preferred to every English competi-
tor, and receives his honours at the bar of England,
without a murmur that they are conferred upon
a Scotsman. But although a Scotsman, educated at
a Scottish University, he is not equally successful in
a contest for academical distinction in his own
country. That is reserved for an Englishman, edu-
cated at an English University, with no other con-
nection with Scotland than that of respect for her
name and national character, and a cordial interest
in her welfare. And let me express a hope that
whatever other objections might apply to the choice,
there was no grudging feeling on account of this
reciprocation of honourable appointments between
the natives of the two countries, and that the cir-
cumstance of my being an Englishman does not
operate to my prejudice, even in the eyes of those
who would have preferred on general grounds a
different result of the election.UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

I have said that the field for exertion is boundless;
I have said the avenues to distinction are free; and
that itis within your power to command an entrance
to them. I repeat, with the earnestness of the deep-
est conviction, that there is a presumption, amount-
ing almost to certainty, that if any one of you will
determine to be eminent, in whatever profession you
may choose, and will act with unvarying steadiness
m pursuance of that determination, you will, if health
and strength be given to you, infallibly succeed. Yes,
even if what is called genius shall have been denied
to you, you have faculties of the mind, which may
be so improved by constant exercise and vigilance,
that they shall supply the place of genius, and open
to you brighter prospects of ultimate success than
genius, unaided by the same discipline, can hope to
attain. There may be, there are, no doubt, original
differences in different persons, in the depth and in
the quality of the intellectual mine; but, in all ordi-
nary cases, the practical success of the working of that
mine depends, in by far the greatest degree, upon the
care, the labour, the perfection of the machinery
which is applied to it.

Do I say that you can command success without
difficulty ? No: difficulty is the condition of success.
“ Difficulty is a severe instructor set over us by the
supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legis-
lator, who knows us better than we know ourselves,
as he loves us better too. ‘ Pater ipse colendi, haud
facilem esse viam voluit.’ He that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our196 STR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

 

antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with
difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with
our object, and compels us to consider it in all its
It will not suffer us to be superficial.””
These are the memorable words of the first of philo-
sophie statesmen, of the greatest orator of modern
ages at least, ‘¢ it were allowed to judge of oratory
by the compositions it has bequeathed to posterity,
without reference to the aid it has derived from the
authoritative position or the physical qualifications
of the speaker. They are words, which if this office
hath authority im your eyes, should have especial
weight with you; for thei illustrious author, Mr.
Burke, from this place, and on an occasion similar
to the present, might have exhorted the youth of
this University, by the example of his own life, as
well as by the eloquence of his precepts, to seek the
antagonist which is also our helper. Enter, then,
into the amiable conflict with difficulty. Whenever
you encounter it, turn not aside: say not “there 1s
a lion in the path ;” resolve upon mastering it; and
every successive triumph will inspire you with that
confidence in yourselves, that habit of victory that

relations.

will make future conquests easy.

On by far the greater part of you it is incumbent
to acquire those intellectual qualities which shall fit
you for action rather than speculation. It is not
therefore by mere study, by the mere accumulation
of knowledge, that you can hope for eminence.
Mental discipline, the exercise of the faculties of the
mind, the quickening of your apprehension, theUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 197

strengthening of your memory, the forming of a
sound, rapid, and discriminating judgment, are of
even more importance than the store of learning.

If you will consider these faculties as the gifts of
nature, by far the first in value—if you will be per-
suaded, as you ought to be, that they are capable of
constant, progressive, and therefore almost indefinite
improvement, that by arts similar to those by which
magic feats of dexterity and bodily strength are per-
formed, a capacity for the nobler feats of the mind
may be acquired,—the first, the especial object of
your youth, will be to establish that control over
your own minds, and your own habits, that shall
ensure the proper cultivation of this precious inheri-
tance.

‘Try, even for a short period, the experiment of ex-
ereising such control. If in the course of your study
you meet with a difficulty, resolve on overcoming it
—if you cannot, by your own unaided efforts, be not
ashamed to admit your inability, and seek for assis-
tance.

Practise the economy of time ; consider time, like
the faculties of your mind, a precious estate,—that
every moment of it well applied is put out to an ex-
orbitant interest. I do not say, devote yourselves
to unremitting labour, and forego all amusement;
but I do say, that the zest of amusement itself, as
well as the successful result of application, depend in
a great measure upon the economy of time. When
you have lived half a century you will have seen
many instances in which he who finds time for every-198 STR. ROBERT PEEL, BART.

thing—for punctuality in all the relations of life, for
the pleasures of society, for the cultivation of litera-
ture, for every rational amusement—is the same man
who is the most assiduous and the most successful
in the active pursuits of his profession.

Estimate also properly the force of habit. Exer-
cise a constant, an unremitting vigilance over the
acquirement of habit, in matters that are apparently
of entire indifference, that perhaps are really so, inde-
pendently of the habits which they engender. Itis by
‘the neglect of such trifles that bad habits are acquired,
and that the mind, by tolerating negligence and pro-
crastination in matters of small account, but frequent
recurrence,—matters of which the world takes no
notice, becomes accustomed to the same defects im
matters of higher importance.

If you will make the experiment of which I have
spoken, if for a given time you will resolve that there
shall be a complete understanding of everything you
read, or the honest admission that you do not under-
stand it; that there shall be a strict regard to the
distribution of time; that there shall be a constant

struggle against the bondage of bad habits; a con-
stant effort, which can only be made from within, to
master the mind, to subject its various processes to
healthful action, the early fruits of this experiment,
the feeling of self-satisfaction, the consciousness of
growing strength, the force of good habit, will be in-
ducements to its continuance more powerful than any
exhortations.
These are the arts, this is the patient and laboriousUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 199

process by which in all times and in all professions
the foundations of excellence and of fame have been
laid.

Is it possible to consult the works of any man of
veal eminence who has left a record of the discipline
by which his own mind was trained, without finding
abundant proofs that it was not by trusting to the
inspirations of genius, but by constant perseverance,
and vigilance, and care, that success was obtained ?
Take as an eminent example of this, the account
which Cicero gives of his own early education. Mark
the intentness on one object—mark how every occu-
pation, amusement, foreign travel, society, the con-
versation of the lightest hour, all were made ancillary

 

to the one great purpose of improving the mind, and
fitting it for the high functions to which its faculties
were to be applied. Speaking of himself he says,—
“ At vero ego hoc tempore omni noctes et dies in
omnium doctrinarum meditatione versabar.”’ ‘“ Huic
ego doctori (Diodoto), et ejus artibus variis, atque
multis ita eram deditus, ut ab exercitationibus ora-

torlis nullus dies vacuus esset. Cum me et amici

 

et medici hortarentur, ut causus agere desisterem,
quodvis potius periculum mihi adeundum, quam a
Cum
venissem Athenas’’—Observe, I beseech you, when
Cicero was engaged in foreign travel, how different

sperata dicendi glori& discedendum putavi.

 

were his occupations from those of many who trust
to the inspiration of genius,—and who complain of
the want of success without having resorted to any
one of the means by which success is to be attained !200 STR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

__«“(Cum venissem Athenas, sex menses cum Anti-
ocho, veteris academic nobilissimo et prudentissimo
philosopho, fui, studiumque philosophie numquam
intermissum, & primaque adolescentia cultum, et
ctum, hoe rursus summo auctore et doctore
“Post & me Asia tota peragrata est,
cum summis quidem oratoribus, quibuscum exercebar
ipsis lubentibus. Quibus non contentus, Rhodum
veni, me que ad eundem, quem Rome audiveram,
Molonem, applicavi. Nimis multa videor de me,
ipse preesertim ; sed omni huic sermoni propositum est,
non ut ingenium, et eloquentiam meam, unde longe
absum, sed ut laborem, et industriam admireris.’’

When such records of perseverance in study and
in mental discipline are presented to us, they abate,
in some degree, our wonder at the accomplishments
and aequirements which were the legitimate result.

“Tt is very natural,” says Sir Joshua Reynolds,
“for those who are unacquainted with the cause of
anything extraordinary, to be astonished at the
effect, and to consider it as a kind of magic.”

“The travellers into the East tell us, that when
the ignorant inhabitants of those countries are asked
concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining
among them, the melancholy monuments of their
former grandeur and long-lost science, they always
answer that they were built by magicians. The un-
taught mind finds a vast gulf between its own powers
and those works of complicated art which it is utterly
unable to fathom, and it supposes that such a void
can be passed only by supernatural powers.”

semper aul
renovavi.”UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 201

We have in the instance of Cicero, the stately
edifice, the monument of intellectual erandeur ; but
we have also the evidence of the illustrious architect
to prove to us by what careful process the founda-
tions were securely laid, and the scaffolding was
gradually erected. Our wonder at the perfection of
the work may be abated, but what can abate our
admiration and respect for the elevated views—the
burning thirst for knowledge and for fame—the noble
ambition which “scorned delights, and lived labo-
rious days,’—which had engraven on the memory
the paternal exhortation to the hero in Homer, the
noblest, says Dr. Johnson, that can be found in any
heathen writer :—

 

9
“ Algy ckelotevsiy xetl UTEIQOXOY ELemesvat HAAgY.””

The name, the authority, the example of Cicero,
conduct me naturally to a topic which I should be
unwilling to pass in silence. I allude to the immense
importance to all who aspire to conspicuous stations
in any department of public or learned professional
life—the immense importance of classical acquire-
ments, of imbuing your minds with a knowledge of
the pure models of antiquity, and a taste for their
constant study and cultivation. Do not disregard
this admonition from the impression that it proceeds
from the natural prejudice in favour of classical learn-
ing, which education at an English University may
have unconsciously instilled, or that it is offered pre-
sumptuously by one who is ignorant of that deserip-202 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

tion of knowledge which is best adapted to the habits
and occupations of society in Scotland.

Oh let us take higher and more extensive views !
Feel assured that a wider horizon than that of Scot-
land is opening upon you that you are candidates
starting with equal advantage for every prize of profit
or distinction which the wide circle of an empire
extended through every quarter of the globe can
include.

Bear in mind, too, that every improvement in the
means of communication between distant parts of
that empire is pointing out a new avenue to fame,
particularly to those who are remote from the seat
of government. This is not the place where injustice
should be done to that mighty discovery, which is
effecting a daily change in the pre-existing relations
of society. It is not within the College of Glasgow
that a false and injurious estimate should be made of
the results of the speculations of Black, and of the
inventive genius of Watt. The steam engine and the
railroad are not merely facilitating the transport of
merchandise, they are not merely shortening the
duration of journies, or administering to the supply
of physical wants. They are speeding the intercourse
between mind and mind—they are creating new
demands for knowledge—they are fertilizing the in-
tellectual as well as the material waste :—they are
removing the impediments which obscurity or re-
moteness, or poverty may have heretofore opposed to

 

the emerging of real merit.
They are supplying you, in the mere facility ofUNIVERSITY OF GLASGow. 203
locomotion, with a new motive for ‘ classical study.
They are enabling you with comparative ease to
enjoy that pure and refined pleasure which makes the
past predominate over the present, when we stand
upon the spots where the illustrious deeds of ancient
times have been performed, and meditate on monu-
ments that are associated with names and actions
that can never perish. They are offering to your
lips the intoxicating draught that is described with
such noble enthusiasm by Gibbon:—* At the distance
of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express
the strong emotions which agitated my mind, as I
first approached and entered the eternal city. After
a sleepless night I trod with a lofty step the ruins
of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus
stood, or Tully spoke, or Cesar fell, was at once
present to my eye, and several days of intoxication
were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool
or minute investigation.”

I need not recall to your recollection the earnest
and eloquent exhortations to the study of ancient,
and particularly of Attic composition, which have
been delivered from this seat. I need not remind
you of the manifold facilities which that study
affords you towards the comprehension of the struc-
ture of modern languages, and towards the formation
of style on the purest models; nor need I tell you
how indispensable it is to the understanding of a
thousand allusions to the usages and expressions and
annals of classical antiquity, which are scattered
with happy prodigality through some of the finest204 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

of modern compositions—allusions that have a voice
for the wise—Qavevre ovveroisv—that are intelligible
to those, but to those alone, who have been initiated
in these delightful mysteries.

Let me, however, attempt to bring from the
examples of public life a practical confirmation of the
truth of these maxims, and the wisdom of these
exhortations. I ask you simply to pass in succession
the names of those who have stood most conspicuous
in the great arena of public competition, and to
remark the proportion borne to the total number by
those who have been eminent for classical acquire-
ments. I purposely exclude the remoter periods of
our history, pregnant as they are with examples in
favour of the position I maintain, because, when
education was in a great degree confined to classical
learning, the possession of it would almost necessarily
accompany other superior qualifications for high
public trusts. But take recent periods of our history,
take the most recent preceding our own, when the
means of acquiring various knowledge have been so
extensive, that there is the opportunity for fair com-
parison between the several attainments which may
have assisted the competitor for public honours.

What are the chief names (I am speaking of
public life) that have floated down, and are likely to
yemain buoyant on the stream of time. Of the whole
number, how large is the proportion of men eminent
for classical acquirements and classical tastes! In
the judicial station there are Lord Mansfield, Lord
Stowell, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Tenterden. Inoe

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 205
political life, Lord North, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr.
Burke, Lord Grenville, Mr. Windham, Mr. Canning,
all pre-eminent for classical attainments. This, at
least, is demonstrated, that the time devoted by them
to classical studies had not obstructed their elevation.
But surely there is a very strong presumption, from
the proportion which they bear to the total number
of distinguished men of their time, that classical
learning, and the accomplishments derived from the
study of it, must have given them great advantages
in the competition for distinction.

No doubt high, perhaps equal, eminence has been
attained in some few instances by men who have not
cultivated, or at least have not been remarkable, for
classical acquirements ; but is there not strong reason
to believe, that in their case success would have been
more easy, and more complete, had such acquirements
been superadded to their other qualifications ?

Do not, however, contemplate the men whom I
have named merely amid the excitement of political
or forensic contention ; do not consider their classical
knowledge merely as an useful instrument for the
improvement of their style, and for gilding with the
charms of happy allusion or learned illustration the
public displays of their eloquence. Follow them
into the retirement of private life, witness the refined
taste with which classical studies have inspired them,
and learn to estimate the compensation they have
offered for the loss of power, or for the interruption
of active employment. ‘Take as examples the men
the most prominent in recent political history, the206 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

great rivals, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox. In the case of
each you have the most unexceptionable evidence, as
to the pursuits and studies in which they found
relaxation and amusement, whenever the contentions
and occupations of public life were intermitted.

Lord Holland thus speaks of Mr. Fox, in the pre-
face to the “History of the Reign of James Il.” —
“During his retirement the love of literature and
fondness for poetry, which neither pleasure nor busi-
ness had ever extinguished, revived with an ardour,
such as few in the eagerness of youth, or in pursuit
of fame or advantage, are capable of feeling. Hence
‘4 was that in the interval between his active attend-
ance in Parliament, and the undertaking of his
history, he never felt the tedium of a vacant day.

“Tt was more difficult to fortify himself against
the seductions of his own inclination, which was con-
tinually drawing him off from historical researches,
to critical inquiries, to the study of the classics, and
to works of imagination and poetry. Abundant proof
exists of the effects of these interruptions both on
his labours and on his mind. His letters are filled
with complaints of such as arose from politics, while
he speaks with delight and complacency of whole
days devoted to Euripides and Virgil.”

Still more recent testimony has been borne to the
acquirements, the tastes, the studies of Mr. Pitt, by
one who, combining the character of a statesman with
the highest acquirements of a scholar, is an authority
inferior to none, as to the importance and value of
classical accomplishments.UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 207

In a letter of the Marquis Wellesley, which has
been made publie within a few weeks, he says of Mr.
Pitt,—

‘ He was perfectly accomplished in classical litera-
ture, both Latin and Greek. The accuracy and
strength of his memory surpassed every example
which I have observed, but the intrinsic vigour of
his understanding carried him far beyond the mere
recollection of the great models of antiquity in ora-
tory, poetry, history, and philosophy; he had drawn
their essence into his own thoughts and language,
and with astonishing facility he applied the whole
spirit of ancient learning to his daily use.”

“Those studies were his constant delight and
resort. At Holwood, in Kent, and at Walmer
Castle, his apartments were strewed with Latin and
Greek classics; and his conversation with those
friends who delighted in similar studies frequently
turned on that most attractive branch of learning.
In these pursuits his constant and congenial com-
panion was Lord Grenville, who has often declared

to me that Mr. Pitt was the best Greek scholar he
ever conversed with.”

“T have dwelt on this branch of Mr. Pitt’s acecom-
plishments because I know not any source from
which more salutary assistance can be derived, to
chase from the spirits those clouds and vapours which
infest vacant minds, and, by self-weariness, render
retirement melancholy and intolerable.”

How striking is the contrast between the retire-
ment of these men and that of others, scarcely less208 STR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

eminent in public life, who had not congenial tastes

for literary and classical studies.

«Though he had not forgotten his classical attaim-
ments,’’ says the biographer of Walpole, “he had
little taste for literary occupations. He once ex-
pressed his regret on this subject to a friend who was
reading in the library at Houghton. ‘I wish,’ he

ch delight in reading as you do,

said, ‘I took as mu
it would be the means of alleviating many tedious
ement; but, to my mis-

hours in my present retir
fortune, I derive no pleasure from such pursuits.’ ”’
Surely these testimonies, and these contrasts, are
pregnant with lessons of instruction. Surely they
ge us to acquire those habits, and to cultivate
which, at the same time that they are
ace and the most grateful relaxation
orld, are furnish-

encoura
those studies,
the highest sol
from the cares of business and the w
ing to him who takes delight in them new capacity
for intellectual exertion, new stores of precious
knowledge.

« An tu existimas,” said the kindred spirit of anti-
“on tu existimas aut suppetere nobis - posse,
antd varietate rerum, nisi

quity,
quod quotidie dicamus in t
nostros doctrind excolamus, aut ferre animos

animos
‘ be aA qd eae
nem, nisi eos eadem doctrina

tantam posse contentio
relaxemus ?”’

Noble relaxation! which, while it unbends, invi-
gorates the mind—while it is relieving aud refreshmg
it from the exhaustion of present contention, 1s brac-
ing and fortifying it for that which is to come.

I have detained you at too great length. JamUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 209

well aware that the observations I have addressed to
you have nothing of novelty to recommend them :
that the truths to which I have adverted are so
obvious that they scarcely require the aid of reasoning
to enforce them. But they are truths of vital im-
portance, and it too frequently happens that the
ready assent which the understanding yields to them
has not the practical influence on our conduct which
it ought to have. If it had, how many of us would
have been spared the painful retrospect, that retros-
pect which you may avert, but which we cannot, of
opportunities lost, of time misspent, of habits of in-
dolence or negligence become inveterate.

Hitherto I have referred exclusively to the con-
siderations of worldly advantage and worldly fame, as
encouragements to early and continued exertion.
We have seen how powerful they were in animating
the ambitious spirit of the Roman orator. And yet
not one of the motives by which he was stimulated
is wanting to you. His field for competition was
not more ample, his reward of success was not more
splendid. You have a country as much endeared to
you by proud recollections—you have institutions,
civil and religious, standing in equal need of your
solicitude, and infinitely more worthy of your defence.

But for you there are incitements to labour, to
zeal in the cause of knowledge and of virtue, infinitely
beyond any which could have animated the exertions
of Cicero. The love of praise, the hope of posthu-
mous glory, were with him the chief springs of action
—the great, the only reward of anxiety and labour.
P210 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

“Nullum enim virtus aliam mercedem laborum,
periculorumque desiderat, preeter hanc laudis et gloriz,
qué quidem detracta, judices, quid est, quod in hoe
tam. exiguo vite curriculo et tam brevi, tantis nos im
laboribus exerceamus ?” You can give an answer to
that appeal which he could not anticrpate. To you
there will remain encouragements to exertion —com-
pensations for toil and danger—should the hope of
worldly praise and glory be obscured. You have the
express command of God to improve the faculties
which distinguish you from the beasts that perish.
You have the awful knowledge, that of the use or
neglect of those faculties a solemn account must be
rendered. You have the assurance of an immortality
far different from that of worldly fame.

By every motive which can influence a reflecting
and responsible being, “a being of a large discourse,
looking before and after,’—by the memory of the
distinguished men who have shed a lustre on these
walls,—by regard for your own success and happiness
in this life—by the fear of future discredit—by the
hope of lasting fame,—by all these considerations do
I conjure you, while you have yet time, while your
minds are yet flexible, to form them on the models
which approach the nearest to perfection—Sursum
corda! By motives yet more urgent,—by higher

and purer aspirations—by the duty of obedience to
the will of God—by the awful account you will have
to render, not merely of moral actions, but of faculties
entrusted to you for improvement,—by these high
arguments do I conjure you, so “to number yourUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 211

days that you may apply your hearts unto wisdom’’
—unto that wisdom which, directing your ambition
to the noble end of benefiting mankind, and teaching
you humble reliance on the merits and on the mercy
of your Redeemer, may support you “in the time of

99

 

your tribulation,

may admonish you “in the time of
your wealth,” and “in the hour of death, and in the
day of judgment,’”’ may comfort you with the hope
of deliverance.LECTURE

ON

UNIVERSITY BDUCATION,

BY

A. J, SCOTT, MA,

PRINCIPAL OF OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER.

Delivered October 3, 1851.

In has been thought proper, by the governing body
of Owens College, that its opening should be marked
in some more public and emphatic manner than its
position has yet allowed. The duty is imposed on
me of endeavouring to give some elevating and useful
aim to the interest awakened by such a celebration.
In delivering what must still be, in its essential
character, an inaugural lecture on commencing the
discharge of an academical office, I shall yield to the
modification of that character suggested by the cir-
cumstances in which we meet, and by the relation i
which our institution stands towards a community
like that of Manchester. The occasion which brings
us together is the establishment of a college; of an
institution for carrying on, in connection with a great
and growing university, the work of university edu-ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 213

cation. We cannot advert to this without being led
to consider the character and the worth of such an
education: and on this subject, chiefly, 1 am about
to address you.

The foundation in itself of the college, the zealous
discharge, by some of those who best know Manches-
ter, of the preliminary duties of its administration,
the eager discussion in public of questions relating
to the system to be pursued in it, in short, all the
indications of interest excited by this new effort to
introduce into the city the means of acquiring
academic scholarship, are proofs that a want is ac-
knowledged for which a university education is felt
to be the appropriate supply. I may, therefore, hope
to find among you a predisposition to weigh what
may be offered as aid towards a definite conception
of the culture which such an education is designed
to bestow, and of the grounds on which it is worthy
to be sought; while, on the other hand, | am stimu-
lated to the undertaking by contemplating the pro-
digious antagonist forces, with which the serene and
ideal attractions of the intellectual life have to struggle
in this metropolis of the world’s industrial activity :
forces, some of them essentially hostile, destined, we
trust, to be weakened or crushed in the conflict, but
for the most part intrinsically noble or needful, and
capable, therefore, of being harmonized with the
influences which we have now especially to advocate,
and of co-operating with them in a friendly oppo-
sition and healthful counterpoise, like that which
maintains order among the powers of the material214 A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

world, and which a due social organization strives to
resemble.

The most obvious conception of the culture in-
tended to be given by a university, is derived from such
establishments having been originally employed in
preparing men for the duties of a particular profession.
There can’ be no doubt that this is to a great extent
historically true, though not quite so absolutely as is
generally supposed. At a very early stage in the
history of modern civilization,—previously to the
twelfth century, that is,—the schools of the great
churches, then most nearly corresponding to univer-
sities, offered scholastic education to any one who
would accept it; though few, no doubt, perceived in
it any value except in preparing for the priesthood.
The schools of the more learned monasteries, such as
that of Bec, in Normandy, which furnished England
with two archbishops in the eleventh century, received,
even at that remote period, future counts and dukes
among the students as well as clergymen. But it is
on the whole true, that those great schools, and the
universities which from the twelfth century succeeded
them, educated few who were not designed to officiate
in the church. I¢ does not follow that the education
there bestowed was exclusively professional, aceording
to the standard of knowledge at the time. Were
this the proper occasion, it would not be hard to show
that the case was decidedly the reverse. According
to their means, it was characteristically a liberal edu-
cation that those teachers purposed to communicate.
Grammar, arithmetic, music, rhetoric, are studiesON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. DiS

well selected to form the basis of a general develop-
ment of the humanity. If they were wretchedly
taught, often wretchedly comprehended by those
who had to teach, this is a defect of quite a different
sort from priestly exclusiveness. A more just view
of the fact, in regard to the universities at this early
stage, is, that they attracted towards them the mass
of such as aspired after the full exercise of their men-
tal faculties, and an application of them to high and
worthy objects ; and that, in the existing condition
of society, there was also but one profession towards
which such men generally were drawn.

We are not, therefore, helped to solve the problem
of what a university education is, so far as the origin
of these institutions can help us, by this reference to
professional purposes. As they aimed simply to give
the highest education they could, we have stall to
inquire after the characteristics or essentials of this
highest education. No doubt, this predominance of
a professional interest gradually affected the process
of instruction. Still, so much secular knowledge and
free command of the intellect was imparted as to be
found, without some counter check, even dangerous
to theological belief. It was this, indicated by the
notorious fact that the great schoolmen, after the
universities had existed for a century, were the
champions of investigation rather than of orthodoxy, -
which led to the memorable enterprise of the Domi-
nican order in the thirteenth century, to give a
directly religious aim to all the prevailing studies ;

that is, in other words, to use every particle of the216 At OCOD, MA.

existing knowledge as a weapon on the side of the
established religious system. The intellectual culture
of the laity had already greatly advanced. ‘The pro-
fessional or theological character which it was now
sought to impress on general learning was in every
sense a reaction against secular predominance, against
independent inquiry, against studies which had attrac-
ted even the clergy from those of their profession.
Then, indeed, an ecclesiastical character was impressed
on the highest education. But it was quite too
late to attempt to repress what may be called the
secular spirit in its pursuit of acquirement. The
manifestations of zts reaction-In its turn were mani-
fold throughout lettered Kurope. There were already
universities mainly for secular studies, as Bologna for
civil law, Salerno for medicine. But in England
took place the most vigorous display of educational
enterprise on the part of the laity. The importance
of the higher studies in preparing for political life ;
and the eligibility, for laymen of a certain rank, of
professional pursuits hitherto abandoned to the
clergy, led, in the fourteenth century, to the establish-
ment of the Inns of Court. Then were the days of
that laborious learning, whose very effluvium or
aroma, after centuries, hangs about certain localities
like an infection, sufficiently vigorous to make men
catch lawyership as the endemic of the place. But
the process was not at once so very refined as now.
The Inns of Court constituted as yet a true lay uni-
versity, where a systematic and comprehensive know-
ledge was aimed at, of whatever entered into theON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 217

education of a gentleman, according to the standard
of the time.

It is not needful to pursue farther this historical
illustration. Whatever formalities, predilections, or
restrictions may remain to attest the former prepon-
derance of the clergy in European universities, they
are still conceived of as professing to give the most
thorough and the most finished intellectual prepar-
ation for the secular life also; with this noticeable
distinction, that in the universities of the continent,
the idea of fitting men for their special functions and
vocations has the greater influence, and in England,
the idea of that training which should distinguish the
man of mental cultivation in general,—what we
mean, in short, by the characteristically English
phrase to which I before had recourse, the education
of a gentleman.

Admitting, then, that at one time the members of
a particular profession mainly received their educa-
tion at the universities of Europe, and that now there
are certain vocations for which a university education
is considered as especially necessary, or is even abso-
lutely required by authority, we find, in these facts,
not the essential character of such an education, but
merely an extrinsic result of it. Universities are not
to be defined as the means of preparing men for
certain vocations, although there be certain vocations
for which a university education is peculiarly needful
or useful. In the middle ages, a prior or a parish
priest was not expected to make direct use, in his
official duties, of his acquaintance with the scientific218 A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

principles of arithmetic, dialectics, or astronomy, as a
knight was of his traiming in the use of arms and in
the management of his horse; but it was expected
that the whole mind and character of the scholar
should have received a discipline, nutriment, and ex-
pansion from his academic pursuits, fitting him the
better for humane, large, and lofty functions. This
is plainly what was meant, however it was performed.
In like manner, an English judge now may never in
his whole legal existence have to refer to the Princi-
pia of Newton, or to the Mécanique Céleste of La
Place; and yet the knowledge of those works, which
a university has placed within his reach, may truly
indicate a certain culture of the man, contributing to
the dignity, and depth, and exactness with which his
office is discharged. A French engineer has attended
the course of Cousin, a German diplomatist those of
Schelling or Hegel, an Edinburgh physician those of
Hamilton, and the more they have learned, the less
likely will they be to obtrude the methods or propo-
sitions of metaphysical or dialectical science into their
respective business ; but, the more they have learned,
the more comprehensiveness, resource, and mental
finish will they display there. Evidently, at least,
this was the object of their academic instruction.
Where in practice it is missed, or imperfectly realized,
the practice requires improvement, but ever in accor-
dance with the fundamental principle.

How, then, are we to characterize that learning of
which universities are to be the special seat? which
has evidently, at first sight, the air of somewhatON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 219

more profound, radical, and speculative than is else-
where cultivated; insomuch that wherever isolated
individuals dedicate themselves to the like researches
or contemplations, we feel that a substantial identity
subsists between their pursuits and those for which
colleges are erected. Instead of an immediately
tangible or saleable utility forming their essence,
they seem to be distinguished by its absence. What
can any man do, or produce, corresponding to, or co-
extensive with, his knowledge of the higher geometry,
of the comparative anatomy of Cuvier and Owen, or
or the comparative glossology of Grimm and Bopp ?
What may seem an answer to this confirms and illus-
trates our position. No doubt improvements m
theoretic mathematics, for example, are followed by
improvements in the arts of life, but from minds
fixed and limited by any practical ends, mathematical
system could never have come forth. Again, the
practical results of great discoveries of truth are, to
a great extent, necessarily unforeseen, their very
direction unthought of, not only during the mvesti-
gation, but even after the discovery is made, and by
the discoverer himself. They cannot constitute his
guidance or his inducement. It is truth for her own
sake he has sought. Men gather fruit from his
knowledge, because truth is prolific. But the pro-
gressive applications of a great discovery during
centuries, or to the end of time, are an incomplete
measure of the pregnancy of the original truth,
which, by its principle of active life, is greater and
more precious than all of them. We have here,220 ALF. SCOPE, MA,

then, a sphere of mental activity, which is, indeed,
found to be fertile in most important uses, while
these uses cannot be anticipated during the process,
or proposed as its object. If far the larger share of
such fruits are not directly or distinctly contemplated
by the inquirer himself, how much less will the mass
of mankind associate them with his abstruse studies ?
Kepler may have been aware that an improved
knowledge of the planetary motions must improve
navigation ; he may even have definitely contemplated
the lunar method of finding longitude as a result of
his improvement of the lunar theory ; but were mer-
chants or seamen likely to consider their affairs as
influenced by his enormous and apparently abstract
calculations P Had the passion with which he de-
voted himself to ascertain the law of proportion
between the distances of the planetary orbits from
the sun, and the periods of their revolutions, any-
thing to do, according to the apprehension of his
cotemporaries, with future fleets bringing home the
materials of English manufactures, and the produce
and manufactures of lands innumerable, for Knglish
use? And yet, in the commerce of all our ports is
Kepler living, thinking, working, even now, daily
and hourly, with a ubiquity and effect against which
no services of individuals directly engaged in it are
for a moment to be measured ; discharging functions
for which the payment of annual thousands in per-
petuity would be a scanty recompense. Nay, not
Kepler only, but the old Alexandrian, the Athenian
of two thousand years ago, the Chaldean watchingON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 221

the heavenly motions another millennium away from
us,—those who laid to the hands of Copernicus and
Kepler the vast accumulation of materials for astro-
nomical system,—all these are yet working in the
midst of us, and for us. But astronomy itself is
nothing without geometry. How purely contempla-
tive, how utterly disconnected from the thought of
practical application, were those studies of Euclid
and Archimedes, which to later ages have proved the
basis of practice in innumerable departments! In
the Pythagorean and Platonic schools were laid the
foundations of the Greek geometry; and there the
superiority to practical considerations was matter of
principle and of system: yet there were the Conic
Sections studied, so as to enable Kepler and his
successors, a thousand years after, to apply to the
planetary orbits a complete doctrine of the properties
of the ellipse, which had waited all that time for the
manifestation of its utility. Look, then, at those
abstracted and theoretic ancients ; and then show me
the practical man, the scale and the result of whose
operations is, for mere usefulness, to be named with
theirs. But it was a benefit they conferred unawares,
or knowing only that truth is fruitful, that knowledge
is ultimately power; and if they knew not of that
benefit, how could it be foreseen, or commissioned,
paid for beforehand, by any generation from theirs to
ours? There is no application of physical truth
which seems so like the multiplymg the limbs
and extending prodigiously of an individual human
presence, as the great series of the inventions of222 A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

James Watt. Your city, as it stands, is almost his
creation. To this there is no need to call your
thoughts. But observe the nature of his preliminary
inquiries. Who was likely to have considered as
practical, the employments of a poor maker of mathe-
matical instruments, devoting his too much leisure
to mastering, testing, and extending Black’s para-
doxical theory of latent heat? It is the pulse of his
brain that now throbs in all your engines; it is a
great assemblage of speculative spirits which wields
as its instrument the myriads of arms, and tools, and
machines that stir around us. The men who in the
very nature of things can never be appreciated, can
never be hired, are the men that do the most even of
that work which the world is readiest to value and
remunerate.

In these remarks, I would not be understood as
seeking to illustrate the practical utility of investiga-
tions in physical science. That topic is abundantly
trite, and uncontested amongst us; so much SO,
indeed, that physical science itself is popularly iden-
tified with its economic applications. But I would
take physical science as an illustration of the trans-
cendent part which solitary and abstract study, not
immediately directed to any outward result, bears in
the history of the most practical improvement. So
that human society is, for its own good, bound to
afford for such study, opportunity and encouragement,
since it cannot adequately recompense; to take care
lest all its members become mainly practical men; to
store up, and continue from age to age, the resultsON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 223

of the more profound inquiry and speculation; to
supply to the hand of the workers the stock of
principles and facts, on which the truth of their
working may be found, in varying and expanding
circumstances, to depend. For such ends, among
other instruments, has been instituted among every
highly civilized people, something equivalent to a
university education.

The men by whom achievements of such lasting
worth are to be done, being comparatively regardless
of results immediately estimable by others, must
needs be comparatively elevated above considerations
of self-interest. In children we see from the first a
beautiful inquisitiveness, rendering it a reward in
itself to know and understand more of that world of
life and matter which les around them. By and
by, they have learned enough of the objects, to have
a certain mastery over them, to be able to do some-
thing with them, if but in play, or in mimicry of
earnest processes. They discover what pleasure or
profit men can command from nature; and at this
point a great division takes place among minds,
affecting the course of the after life. Some follow in
the beaten track of profit and advantage; with some
few remains the fresh eagerness to know, and sym-
pathy, so to speak, with the life of the universe,
which made the happiness of the child. These are
the men to the highest of whom the world owes its
great accessions of quickening knowledge, while others,
in subordinate place, are well pleased to receive, com-
municate, perpetuate it, and hold it ready for theSR a a

224: A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

applications of those engaged in action. Disinter-
estedness is but another name for a disposition to find
their interest and their recompense in the seeking
and finding of the knowledge itself; a disposition. .
belonging, as we have seen, to the very essence of

their function. It would be idle to claim for this

class an exemption from the ordinary necessities and

appetites of humanity, or from the pursuit of their

gratification, or to deny that in some instances, among

which Watt is perhaps the most conspicuous, the

practical application has been so rapid and so gainful,

as to procure a large reward to the discoverer; but

it would be just as idle to overlook the fact, that an

amount of labour, a putting forth of superior power,

is contributed by them to the joit'capital of national ”
and human efficiency, altogether impossible to be
accounted for by the inducements which society holds
out to their sense of personal interest. I say not
merely look to the pittance of men like John Dalton,
or the voluntary starvation of men like the late Graff,
the German lexicographer ; but compare what is con-
sidered as competency or affluence by your Faradays,
Liebigs, and Herschells, with the expected results of
a successful life of commercial enterprise: then com-
pare the amount of mind put forth, the work done
for society in either case; and you will be constrained
to allow that the former belong to a sort of workers,
who, properly speaking, are not paid, and cannot be
paid, for their work; as indeed it is of a sort to
which no payment could stimulate.

As, then, we have seen exemplified in this class ofON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 225

labourers the paradox, that while their work is that
in which immediate utility is the least considered, it
is also that which is ultimately most useful; in them,
_too, we find exhibited another paradox, that, the nature
of their duties disqualifymg them for the care of
their own interest, and their products being indeed
without any immediate marketable value, the care
of their interest, to the extent at least of an ade-
quate provision for the continuance of their labours,
becomes the concern of the community. Your pro-
vision, then, for the highest investigations of pure
mathematics, is your provision for actual and future
engineering, surveying, statistics, timekeeping, navi-
gation,—the list you can extend at your pleasure ;
your provision for philosophical chemistry is your
provision for dyeing, agriculture, the public and private
eare of health, and indeed, what not, among the
economic arts; -your provision for a large and exact
literature and philology, is your provision for that
commerce with past ages and remote peoples, whose
imports are so essential to all the uses of life, and
make a nation truly a member of the great com-
munity of mankind; without which, indeed, it is
stranded and islanded in time, shut up to a narrowness
of resources which it is happily impossible for us to
conceive. For these, and the like ends, a university
education among a people is provided.

But again, we have seen that the vocation of the
scholar in literature and in science implies a specific
disposition, what in its highest examples is called a
genius, but must, in a measure, exist in the humblest,

Q226 A. J; SCOTT, M.A.

even in those who co-operate only as depositories and
distributors. Every specific inward impulse is defined
by its congenial good. The congenial good of the
scholar lies in the truth, beauty, and excellence of
ideas ; in plainer words, it is enjoyed by knowing and
contemplating. Tf others cannot sympathize with
this, that were no reason for its not being sought
after. ‘Che name of usefulness is much apt to beguile
men here. We have shown how useful is this call-
ing, even for such things as no man doubts to be ser-
viceable. But were it not so, were one to ask of
what use is your knowledge of the starry heavens ?
Of what use is your Sanscrit, your poetry, your dia-
lectics 2? Ask again, of what use is your champagne,
your silken hangings, your account at your bankers ?
It is answered, I like them, or like others to admire
them. But, I like them, is as good and as honest an
answer for the tastes and requirements of the intel-
lect, as for those of the palate. One is no more
obliged, as a preliminary to satisfying these appetites,
first to prove to others the reality of their objects,
than to forbear enjoying music till he has made it
demonstrable to a deaf man; or to suppress his
delighted exclamations at the beauty of the prismatic
colours, till he has made impossible the incredulity
of the blind. But, alas, there is one great difference.
The deaf man verily knows that he is deaf; the blind
man that he is blind; or rather, the humiliation of
confessing our defect is unavoidable as to the physical
perceptions, whereas men can and will brave it out
in regard to the higher senses of the intelligence.ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 227

Still it may be asked, are not certain things, as for
example a convenient equipage, and above all, a good
account at one’s bankers, of use, distinguishable from
mere immediate enjoyment ? No doubt, of great and
manifold use, especially the latter. But these things,
or anything else, can be good in but two ways, as
means or as an end; good for something else, or good
for itself. The account at the bankers is, I suppose ,
chiefly good for something else; for what it com-
mands. So far, then, its value to any man is the
pleasure or the intrinsic advantage to him of what
this enables him to have, or be, or do; and nothing
farther. In lke manner, if we set aside the pleasure
of being driven in a handsome carriage, and the com-
placency of calling it ours, the good of it is in the
facility and saving of strength, with which it conveys
us from place to place; and in this case, too, its worth
as means, is precisely the worth of the ends which it
brings within reach; and not a hair-breadth more.
It is tiresome, perhaps, to insist on so plain a point ;
but itis needful to remind men that usefulness is the
attribute of means, not of ends; and that there must
be a value above usefulness, as ends are above means.
This is the goodness of a thing in itself. The relish
of food, the smell of a rose, the sweetness of music,
the contemplation of truth, aye, the peace of a man’s
conscience ; these are instances, higher and lower, of
that which is good, apart altogether from its bemg
useful. But a thing is useful which procures me any
one of these. And this establishes, too, that there
could be no usefulness, if there were no other good

ee228 A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

| than usefulness; that means would have no value,

| were there no ends worth seeking for their own single

| sake; and, to come home to our immediate object,

| that useful knowledge is not necessarily the highest
kind of knowledge, nor usefulness its highest quality.
A man may show no deficiency of judgment, who,
while he reads the newspaper as a means to ends,
some of them small enough, regards as an end in
itself, and not of the smallest, the communion of his
spirit with that of a great ancient, and of a great
people; even were it that of the Athenians, and of
Thucydides.

Once more, the man is measured by his congenial
good. He is higher or lower in the scale of humanity,
not at all according to his command of the means of

pleasure, nor the keenness of his relish and uninter-
ruptedness of his enjoyment, but according to its
source. The dustman, or coalheaver, whose wages
give him food and clothes, and extend also to the
congenial good of tobacco and potent beer, stands in
his actual condition in another region from that of
Howard or of Newton, inasmuch as the end he is
content and qualified to pursue is a lower one. He
commands it as amply, pursues it as steadily, delights
in it as absolutely ; but by laws immutable and eter-
nal as humanity, it is lower in itself, and he is lower
along with it.

Indeed, a distribution, not practically useless, of
men’s pursuits might be made, according to the very
different degree in which the possession of the end
accompanies the production or employment of theON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 229

means. The toolmaker, for example, the man who
lays down a railway, the manufacturer, the stock-
broker and banker above all, are, in the exercise of
their business, conversant with the production or
accumulation of means, and means alone. Usefulness
is the proper attribute of such employments, precisely
because they can aspire no higher, because their
objects do not, and cannot pretend to the distinction
of being good in themselves, but are only good for
something. The artist belongs to another class. The
musician, for example, is not, like the maker of flutes
or piano-fortes, conversant with the means only of
musical enjoyment, but with the enjoyment of music
itself. For himself and for others, that attracts and
occupies him. He finds his end in the means. If
he ceased to do so, no practice, no miracles of execu-
tion, will save him from ranking with artizans, not
with artists. But if otherwise, it is this direct occu-
pation with the end which gives him a higher place,
within his own department, than the mere producer
of means. This places the player or singer above the
musical mechanic; but these, again, are but as in-
struments, relatively to the composer or musical poet.
With the end, with the life and spirit of music, he is
directly engaged. His place is, therefore, not only
highest in his art, but among those who have a simi-
larly central position in reference to all the great arts.
He sits with Phidias and the poets of form, with
Titian and the poets of colour, with Dante and
Shakspeare and the poets of speech—every man
after his measure. And so the man of science, of| 230 A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

literature, of philosophy, stands not upon the useful-
ness of his pursuit, as do their subordinates, who are
occupied with the means towards these several ends,
or with their applicability to other ends, but upon
its intrinsic worth and nobleness. His main business
is with the good that is in it, not with the good that

it is for.

With knowledge, then, and especially with the
higher and deeper knowledge, it is as in the case of
the bodily senses. What has more obvious, large
and important uses, than the eye? But when sight
is lost, these are not the benefits most regretted.
Milton, describing the Hebrew champion,—

Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age:
while he represents him as lamenting bitterly the
other evils to which he is thus subjected,
Dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors or without, still as a fool
In power of others, never in my own:
yet makes all this secondary to the privation of the
blessedness of seeing for the mere sight’s sake.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoyerably dark, total eclipse,
Without all hope of day!
O first created beam, and thou great word
** Let there be light,” and light was over all;
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant interlunar caye.

And when the great blind man, in strains that recurON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 21

so often, not too often, to our ears and lips, laments
in his own person the same calamity, it is not that
another must take him by the hand to cross the
street, that another must carve his food, or even that
he can read only by the eyes of others, hardships and
sore obstructions as these are, but he mourns that
Not to him returns
Day, the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or sight of yernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.

Finding thus—Wisdom at one entrance quite shut
out, to him no consolation is adequate but the hope
of the light that shines inward, and the mind through
all her powers irradiates. So were it with all of us.
It is good to have the guidance of our sight; but yet
more exquisitely “Light is good, and it is a pleasant
thing for the eye to behold the sun.”

Because, then, scholarship nourishes all the arts
of life, to which it is as the hidden moisture of the
ground is to the produce of our fields, because 1t
brings the mind in free contact with one of its higher
appropriate goods, because it 1s the nutrition and
development of faculties in man, without whose
exercise he is less and lower than he ought to be;
therefore it is well that countenance and encourage-
ment should be given by society to that higher
scholarship, which is the object of university educa-
tion. The presence of some who are dedicated to it
cannot fail to tell on an entire national hfe. I have
all along supposed that their chief aim professionally
is study itself. On this I am disposed to lay not a232 A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

little stress. The highest teaching can never be that
of him whose chief business is to teach. Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle were resorted to, not because
they had made teaching their business, but because
they were believed to make philosophy their business.
Look at the eagerness with which men in our own
time run to be taught by any one who has dedicated
himself to know and understand that of which he is
to speak ; Schelling or Liebig, De Candolle or Guizot,
Lyall or Faraday. It may happen that he is defec-
tive in the mechanism of the instructor. I have
known it so; though it be rarer than is commonly
supposed. Even then, from the master in any know-
ledge, something is to be caught that no other can
impart. And if he have also in any measure the
special gifts of a teacher, all will come forth from
him with a life and love, with a power, a fulness and
freshness, which you will look for in vain from the
man whose main business you make it to communi-
eate, and not to possess something worth communi-
cating. Accordingly, a college is originally a pro-
vision for study and contemplation. In all the older
colleges of Europe the endowment is for a life of
study, whether in its commencement or in its matu-
rity : the teaching is secondary. Not that communi-
ties are to be regardless of the impartation ; but the
chief portion of such care must be exercised over that
which is to be imparted. He who learns from one
occupied in learning, drmks of a running stream.
He who learns from one who has learned all he is to
teach, drinks “the green mantle of the stagnantON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. Dao

pool.” To catch information is something; to catch
the life and spirit of the pursuit and contemplation
of truth, is infinitely more. The one you may get
from him whose own studies are a hortus siccus; the
other from him only whose knowledge is a garden of
living plants, putting forth fruits in their seasons,
changing their aspect as they grow. The existence
of such men is communicative. Their manner of
being leavens that which is around them, even an
entire people. The more of free animated scholar-
ship there exists anywhere, the more will it assuredly
diffuse itself, by conversation and books, in its pure
and systematic forms, and in the aids of theoretic in-
sight afforded to those engaged in practice. But
where the highest style of formal instruction is to be
regularly provided for, it follows from our principles
that it should be confided to those who are to dedicate
themselves to the mastery and advancement of their
several branches of knowledge. This seems to be the
definition of the professor, as distinguished from the
minister of the earlier education.

The special recipients of university teaching will
naturally be those, firstly, who devote themselves to
that search after truth which furnishes the first idea
of university education ; then, those whose vocation
requires for its due discharge the general culture of
mind and character, which demands such education
for its completeness,—that is, the learned professions,
emphatically so called; those whose future vocation
requires the applying of principles belonging to science

and the higher literature ; along with all who are tore ea

    

A. J. SCOTT, M.A.

 

234

possess leisure and ample means, without imagining
that these things exempt from responsibility, or that
they are in themselves all-sufficient to the well-being
of a human mind and soul. Such are, in a country
like ours, among the most important public function-
aries, whether formally appointed or not. ‘They ex-
ercise a social influence, which is limited or extended,
and in all ways affected, for good or evil, by the man-
ner and measure of their education in its highest stage.
But if such men think only of the dignified enjoyment
of their wealth, they will remember how much this
depends on the same conditions. Books and pictures
the rich man has; stores of delight they would be to
the poor scholar or artist ; to him insipid and empty,
unless his mind be opened. The best things which
money and station can command are, I suppose, con-
versation and travelling; and these are to every one
in exact proportion to the mind he brings to them.
One meets with worthy people heartily glad to escape
from Rome, for example, because that great monu-
ment of the world is to them a book all in an unknown
tongue; because it appeals to sympathies which their
education has left dormant. Half the cost of some
great journeys, expended on mental preparation, in-

* stead of couriers and equipages, might have made

their pleasure and their profit tenfold. I shall never
forget one whom I met many years ago at Zug, in
Switzerland ; a man mild and refined, as if by nature,
who greatly delighted in the natural beauty and sub-
limity around us, but seemed to feel it quite an escape
from the cities of the Rhine, of which he was weary.ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 235

“ But the Rhine,’ said my companion, “is so full
of historical interest.” The stranger’s countenance
clouded as he said, ‘To you it may be: to me all
that is a blank.”

But it is time to remember that you may, not un-
reasonably, think I have said too much, while I am
painfully conscious of having said too little. I have
tried to set forth to you the inestimable services of
that higher knowledge of which colleges are the des-
tined conservators; the dependence of those services
on the free pursuit of knowledge, unfettered by con-
siderations of immediate application to use: the in-
trinsic worth of study, apart from all its utility. 1
have sought to show that it belongs to the region
above that of demand and supply in the market, and
that certain of its essential qualities are recognized,
and that a due homage is done to them, by perma-
nent provision for its maintenance irrespectively of
that law. Where these qualities are so far ignored
that this knowledge is put to the test of the counter,
and held to be good so far and no farther than it will
sell, you may do as is done in America, where senates
of universities are gravely deliberating whether the
lore of scientific method and primeval learning 1s not
to be abandoned, and directly profitable instruction,
as in agriculture or commerce, substituted in its
place: that is, whether university education shall
not cease. America can afford to do this, not with-
out loss, but she can afford to do it, and why? Seas
and revolutions are between us, but speech, and books,
and remembrances make us one people. Oxford and236 Ad. SCOTT, M.A.

Cambridge are felt there, as they are in Manchester.
But, in time, perhaps, America will feel that for her
is needed a new diffusion, nay, to meet her special
wants, a new modification, of that mental culture
which the older universities, here, supply under limits
of number and of form. May I be allowed to sup-
pose that Manchester already feels this ?INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

BY
PROFESSOR WILSON
TO THE

EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION.

Delivered in the QUEEN STREET Hat, November 1, 1850.

 

Wiru reference to two of the course of lectures
which are to be delivered on this occasion, those
by Professor Nichol and Principal Scott, namely,
on the astronomy and the geology of the period,
and on its mental philosophy and literature, I
wish to make some observations. In highest
favour now are the mathematical sciences—pure
mathematics—the intellectual faculties abstracting
themselves from everything without, and proceeding
upon the purest notions of space and time, they
exhibit those phenomena, extraordinary it will be
thought, in a finite creature—that they are founded
on infallible evidence—that they are perfectly and
entirely true. While, therefore, the metaphysician
regards those sciences with admiration and with
reverence, as exhibiting the variety of the human
faculties, which, without them it could not have been

ae238 PROFESSOR WILSON.

supposed these faculties possessed, and the more if
the metaphysician himself be, which has sometimes
happened, a proficient in those sciences, feeling that
he stands a boundless, shadowless, and wide horizon
upon the sphere of truth. It was held by some of
the ancient philosophers — by Pythagoras — that
numerical quantities constituted the harmony of
the universe; and unquestionably the application of
those pure sciences does penetrate and reveal to us
the mysteries, so far as they may be revealed, of
God’s universe. We had at first an ulumination, I
may say a sea, of light. We have now a substantial
and an illuminated creation from other wisdom than
that of Pythagoras, when it was said—“ In number,
height, and measure, Thou hast made them all.”
We have, therefore, as the glory of this age, pure
mathematics mainly unfolded; and we have the
physical sciences, of which they are the quickening
soul. What may be greater than this? This is
greater—that we know that all this is but a part of
our knowledge, and we know what part itis. Ifthe
external world is but the occasion of men’s knowmg
their own souls, and of knowing the Maker of the
world; and if he knows not that—if he sees not the
order and the harmony prevalent throughout the
whole creation; he may know all else—all that
science can ever reach—and yet be ignorant in com-
parison with the poor Indian who
‘Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind,”

proving that he is a greater proficient in the laws of
truth than the greatest philosopher. We are to know,EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 239

then, that the external world is but an occasion of
the mind for unveiling its faculties—we are to know
that it is but an accident for the mind, and that the
mind is not an accident for it. We are to know,
that our first intuitions are realities—as real as the
objects of the external world, and we are never to
forget that it is by such investigations we acquire a
knowledge of ourselves—that is, of our own souls.
It was sublimely said by Kant, the great German
philosopher, that there are two infinitudes open to
every human being—the starry heavens above our
head, and another infinitude within our souls. Into
the former it is the business of science to go; and
into that other infinitude within our own bosoms it
is also the business of another science to go, and the
farther we go, the more we are assured that it is the
more magnificent and sublime: The telescope of the
elder, not the greater Herschel—solved, | may say,
those stellar clouds which, before his time, were to
the naked eye confused groups of which nothing was
known: and the more powerful telescope of Lord
Rosse, which soared far higher into those abysses,
had resolved those nebule which now are known to
be suns and systems: and if there be another instru-
ment with double the powers of his, then again will
those nebule, those dim nebule, be dim nebule no
more; but they will be suns and systems, revealing
to our astonished and worshipping gaze the further
power of the Creator. But we may be well assured
of this—that go as far as we may, still are we but
entering upon infinitude—we should feel that we are—— ee

PROFESSOR WILSON.

 

240

as yet but upon the very borders of creation, and
that we must veil our faces and bow down still in
devotion to the Almighty maker. Now, the question
is, can we—can those who are altogether unable to
pursue those investigations by which such grand
discoveries are made, be put in possession of those
results which are apprehensible, and at the same time
are calculated to exalt and raise the mind? We
maintain that they are, and that all that can exalt
the imagination, or exalt the reason, may, by those
who are able to expound in adequate language those
wonderful sights, be raised to their nature as intellec-
tual beings, and also to their nature as moral beings.
For let us only consider for a moment what each of
ourselves has experienced upon our gradual progress
in science, even although that science may, perhaps,
in the eyes of philosophers, scarcely be entitled to
the name. We have all of us in our youth been in-
terested by the appearances of order—for that is
visible to the uninstructed eye —among all the
heavenly bodies. But although those impressions
have constituted a great part of our happiness, they
have been felt as expanding our intellects, and also as
ennobling our nature; but when the astronomer-has
taught us, he only has known a language more gram-
matically and more profoundly than we have done.
He enables us to read some sections or some chapters
of that book—of that mighty scroll which is still ex-
panding before the eyes of men, and of which many
unsatisfactory glimpses must necessarily be thought
to awe our faculties. Now, I can appeal to one workEDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 241

as corroborative of what I now say, and as in itself
removing any objection that may be urged against
what are called merely popular lectures on such a
subject—a work by a man of the highest intellectual
power, of the highest fame in the world—the hero, I
may say, of the sciences—Alexander Von Humboldt.
I may speak of the Cosmos, in which he endeavours
to show the harmony and the unity of creation—how
they all obey certain laws of affinity, and how there-
fore, it is entitled to be called the Cosmos. That
book is a handbook of science; but, unlike other
manuals, which are addressed to the tyro, and which
may be studied upwards, his manual is addressed to
masters, and calls upon them, in order to comprehend
and to understand it with all the stores of their know-
ledge and all the powers of their science ; and yet, at
the same time, such is the hold which it has taken
upon the public mind, that translation after transla-
tion has been made in this country ; so that it seems,
if it is not comprehensible to much of the ordinary
minds, as he himself declares to be his intention—it
is comprehensible to men of education, whatever
their profession may be —to men who retirmg from
the duties of active life, may be enabled by his means
to comprehend something, and to comprehend more
and more of the constitution of the universe. ‘The
learned Professor then passed a high eulogium upon
the character and qualifications of Humboldt, and
upon the tendencies of his invaluable work, and pro-
ceded to remark—Now, perhaps, I am right in saying
that the very term scientific or science 1s apt to deter
R242 PROFESSOR WILSON.

persons who are not scientific, or to prevent them
from daring to hope that they are able to compre-
hend the subject matter of the sciences. But what
nearer can there be to a human being than the subject
matter of the Cosmos? Itis our home. We may
feel, perhaps, as exiles from a foreign land ; that it is
but a transitory habitation. But here we live; we
are bound to it by our affections—we are bound to it
by our passions—we are bound to it by the myste-
rious associations of power and of greatness, of beauty
and of sublimity, and by all that most elevates us, in
the ordinary relations of life. Here we are born, and
here do we expect that we shall be buried. There-
fore the study is, has been from the earliest years,
more of a scientific study than we may imagine, and
we are better prepared at least, to follow all who,
with adequate power of expression, and with adequate
knowledge, are able to illuminate our minds with
their power. But Kant says that there is another
infinitude within our own bosom. Of that we can all
ask ourselves what we have been able to discover
there— whether there, too, will be discovered a
Cosmos—or whether, while order and love pervade
the physical and outward creation, there is nothing
but disorder, confusion, and chaos within? That is
not the answer of the philosophers. That there are
laws of mind as sure and immutable as there are laws
in the material world, we are all well assured; but
we have not here instruments to use; our knowledge
dees not depend upon the excellency of our imstru-
ments—we have no telescopes here, and no way o%EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 243

discovery either which was not in the possession of
the earliest of mankind. Can we hope, then, to
penetrate into that infinitude—ean we hope to see
there, as in that other, the proofs of order and of the
law, not only of the omnipotence but of the goodness
and the mercy of our Maker? We can; we are
assured that there are laws of the conscience—that
there are laws of the affections and of the passions—
that there are laws of duty, of virtue, of happmess
which if we know them and ebey them, our own soul
shall be in itself as noble, as lovely, as magnificent a
cosmos as the starry heaven above our heads. But
we meet with difficulties insufferable — difficulties
greater, I do not hesitate to say, than the astronomer
has to encounter in his journey through the starry

 

sphere. For what is it now that we have to con-
template? Each discoverer, each contemplator, has
to contemplate himself, to contemplate mankind in
himself and through himself. What other means
has he to become acquainted with life? But every
man has his own individuality

 

he has his own
specialities ; and thts, if he is to believe that he is
the representative of humanity at large, he would be
libelling his. species, and be misunderstanding alto-
gether the intention of his creation and of the provi-
dence of God. But independently of that, supposing
that any man was to endeavour to give a cosmos of
the human soul, how shall he be able to know all the
thoughts that pass through the mind of every other
individual—of all the different peoples in the earth—
as circumstanced by climate, by government, and byQ4A PROFESSOR WILSON.

the different conditions and aspects of society? By
what insight into the soul of man as it is spread over
the universe, shall he be enabled to draw such a picture
as to show the constant, the steady, and the regular
operation of certain laws? He may be a hero, and
may understand courage. He may be a patriot, and
understand patriotism. He may bea saint even, and
know to indulge in his prayers in his own cell as a
hermit or an ascetic—and he should vainly suppose
that that is a reflection of mankind at large, or that
he has advanced one inch, perhaps, in the investiga-
tion of the general laws of nature or the establishment
of cosmos in the providence of God. And how many
difficulties has he to encounter from the institutions
of men, and from the operation of those institutions !
He has lived, perhaps, all his life, or a great part of
it, under the domination of imposed opinions, of im-
posed doctrines, or dogmas; and if he was to be in-
spired with a desire to speak the truth, and yet if he
was running counter to what was most holy and
sacred in his soul, perplexed as he would be by the
dogmas and sectaries of religion, or by the sects
of philosophical schools, would these not make him
no longer master of his own soul? But further,
it has been well remarked by Professor Brown, that
the idea of an emotion or passion partakes in some
measure of the emotion or passion’s self, so that there
is something of trouble or disquiet in all our ideas of
the emotions of the mind; and when, therefore, we
eome to reconsider these emotions with the view of
putting them in philosophical order, or with the viewPBDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 245

of understanding exactly what they are, and the laws
which guide them, we are at once in a certain degree
and in some states of the soul, apt to receive false
and weak impressions, contrary to the truth. And
here allow me to remark, that the ancient philoso-
phers and mathematicians and men of science, res-
pecting the material universe, have often been the
eause of increasing those difficulties to which I have
alluded, by demanding of the mental philosopher the
method of treatment which they had found successful
in their own investigations, but which were altogether
inapplicable and totally misapplied when they are
made use of in this other region of nature. I allude
to such great men even as Liebnitz, Clarke, and many
other inferior names, who have endeavoured to carry
to the moral and mental investigation the same rule
and the same method which they themselves success-
fully applied to the material universe. They have
formulas for the composition of water—for the more
illusive agencies of the voltaic battery ; they are able
to chain in the fetters of measure the storms that
march over the waves of the Atlantic, and that over-
whelm the forests on either side; they are able even
to compute and weigh the lightning which destroys
the works of man—they are able to know all these,
and to put them down in their philosophy as accredited,
acknowledged, and assured truths; but let them en-
deavour to apply the same method of investigation
to the emotions of the soul, and see what they are—
see how they appear when they apply the measure,
see how they are able to find language to expressar aa

gr

I4A6 PROFESSOR WILSON.

shat application, so that it shall be intelligible to the
ordinary sons of men; let them so endeavour to
measure the affection of the mother, the passion of
the lover, the remorse of the murderer, the aspira-
tions of the martyr, and then they will feel that they
are entering a world that will not submit to it—
which is not susceptible of such treatment; and, not-
withstanding their powerful agencies in any other
department, they will find that they are domg the
converse of what was done of old, when man endea-
voured to apply to matter the ideas of mind. Now,
it may be asked, how does speculation, how does
theory, supposing erroneous speculation, erroneous
theory—how can that affect man’s happmess? I
believe that it may affect it—surely must affect it—
either most beneficially or most disastrously. For
what domain of the soul is insensible to the influence
of good theory or of bad theory on the subject of
morals? Itis true that there is a power in nature
which, in the great majority of any civilized society,
protects itself. There are innate affections which are
not easily to be overcome, and there is that blessed
ordination of trial which protects the general mind
in a great measure against erroneous or deleterious
theories ; but unquestionably their operation comes
one day or other, and infects the public mind far
more than at first you may imagine. Now, if it was
asked whether the knowledge of the human mind—
of our moral and intellectual nature—had increased
or Was increasing in any degree like the advance of
physical science, the answer must be that they areEDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 247

not. But if one, writing to ascertain the progress
which the physical sciences have made, were to com-
pare them with what has been done in the kingdom
of mind, he must not compare all that has been done
in physical science, and their books in the libraries,
with the works merely of the few great metaphy-
sicians that have existed. No, they must take a
wider view of the subject; and when you speak of
the libraries of the physical sciences, you must place
against them the histories of all nations, and the
histories of all distinguished individuals. You must
set against them the works of the theologians, of the
jurists, of the enlightened men who have written on
the economy of empires, and the works of philologists,
who have dealt with the signs and exponents of
thought; you must also place along with them the
works of the poets, of the sculptors, the works of all
countries, and of men who have dealt with the arts of
imagination—no small province, surely, of the human
soul: and having collected all these books with the
view of comparing them with the works that have
been produced on natural science, then, methinks,
that the library of mind will show with somewhat
more dignity and more power than the library of the
material sciences. I say, all the works of the divine,
for have they not always, and in every country, passed
their lives in the investigation of most important
truth, and awful truth, of the most awful mysteries
of our spiritual being? Have they done nothing to
show the nature of the ordinary laws by which
happiness and holiness are inseparable? They have ;

s
ro ng SGT a itera ~248 PROFESSOR WILSON.

but it is too much the fashion now-a-days to restrict
all that has been written on the mind to those who
have assumed to themselves the name of mental
philosophers, and to exclude from that high appella-
He tion others who are far better entitled to it, and who
have made far greater and more important additions
i to the knowledge of our moral and intellectual bemg.
Many speak of the wonderful enlightenment and
advancement of the human mind in this the nine-
teenth century, and to hear them speak you think
that all wisdom and that all virtue were concentrated
not only in the middle of the nineteenth century, but
in them, the men, as they call themselves, of the
nineteenth century. Every thoughtful man, however,

| must reverence the past. We must reverence the
| past as we reverence our father and our mother. We
are descended from the generations before us, and we
may partake of their virtues as we may partake also
of their vices ; but as we honour our parents, in spite
of all that may be wrong in them, so must we still
have a regard for the generations that have gone
before us because from it we are sprung. Let us,
then, cherish the memory of all who have laboured
well and successfully to elevate the more honourable
a and generous faculties and qualities of the soul over

the meaner and more contemptible. Let us think of

great heroes—of martyrs. for the truth—of those

who by their death, if death was necessary, founded

or helped to found or to secure our liberties, those

hiberties which we now enjoy; and let us apply it to
the history of our own country, and to the judgmentEDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 249

which we form of the qualities of our own country-
men. let us think of the lovers of truth, of the
old reformers, and of the lovers of patriotism. Then,
let us remember the Bruce of Bannockburn, that the
English remember for ever as their own Runnymede.
Are we, then, lovers of knowledge? Are we lovers
of personal independence; do we possess them ; do
we possess liberty ? Are our soldiers brave—are our
sailors armed, not afraid to face the battle or the
storm; are our fields and our cities consecrated by
the sound of the church-going bell? Whatever
virtues of old still survive among us, let us remember
that they were transmitted by our countrymen, that
they are our birthright; and let us endeavour, by
generous aspirations and high thoughts, and, above
all, by the discharge of all the duties incumbent upon
us, to transmit them to another generation, and to
latest posterity.INAUGURAL ADDRESS

OF
THOMAS CAMPBELL, ESQ.,

ON HIS INSTALLATION AS

LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

Delivered Thursday, April 12, 1827.

STUDENTS,—I return you my best thanks for your
having done me the honour of electing me to the
situation in which I now address you—the greatest
honour that was ever conferred upon me. It may
easily be imagined that I cannot speak to you at this
moment without experiencing considerably strong
sensations. If but to revisit these courts, and to look
from the windows of this Hall, suffice to make its
surrounding objects teem to me with the recollection of
ancient friendships and of early associates—some of
them your fathers—how much more deeply must I
be touched to find myself surrounded by the coun-
tenances of a young and rising generation, by whose
favour I have been invited to the spot of my birth,
and to this our venerated University. I throw
myself on the candour of all around me, not to mis-UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 251

construe this expression of my natural feelings into
the language of self-complacency. If, indeed, I could
come to this place with any such froward feeling, or
in any frame of mind but that of unfeigned diffidence,
the solemn associations which this bench inspires—
the images of revered instructors—and of great
departed men that hallow it to our memory—the
Genius of the Place itself would overawe and rebuke
me back into humility —No one is better aware than
myself of the accidental prejudices that mixed with
the partiality which called me hither; at the same
time, is it not right that I should be grateful for the
kindly prejudices of young hearts, free in their
choice, disinterested in their motives, and ingenuous
from their years? Your favour was such as I could
not have commanded with power, nor purchased with
wealth; and, believe me, I value it accordingly.
Students, I am not barely entitled, I am bound, to
hail and to hold you as my friends. An alumnus of
your own Alma Mater, and one taught by experience
to sympathize with all the hopes, and objects, and
fears, and difficulties of a Student, I can speak to
you with the cordial interest of fellowship and fra-
ternity.

Tf I shall presume to express this interest, in the
shape of a few words of well-meant advice to you, on
the subject of your studies, believe me that I do so
from having no other mode of showing my regard for
you, than by following a custom which has now
become half official; and that I am not unconscious

of tendering what may be called a service of superer-Pre aay

252 THOMAS CAMPBELL.

ogation, in giving you advice here, where you possess
the far abler counsel of the learned and respectable
men, your habitual instructors, at whose side I have
now the honour of addressing you. This University
has been clothed with respectability by the eminence
of its teachers, and attentiveness to their precepts is,
I take it for granted, an indelible part of your
academical character.

But if I should only repeat to you truths which
you have already heard from them, what I say cannot
efface those truths from your minds, and it may, by
some possibility, tend to aid your recollection of
them, owing to the casual novelty of the circumstan-
ees under which you hear them repeated: for an
accident of time or place will often influence our
associations, in the absence of more solid claims to
attention on the part of a speaker.

Students, I congratulate you on being the denizens
of an ancient, an honoured, and a useful University
—one of those institutions that have contributed to
the moralisation of modern man. It was mainly
through her Universities, that northern Europe, at
least, first learnt to distinguish between the blessed
light of religion, and the baleful gleams and false
fervours of bigotry. No doubt the benighted Euro-
pean ages had views of Heaven and Futurity, that
strongly rayed on the human imagination, and
kindled its zeal. But it was a light unblessed, and
portentous of crimes and cruelties that sullied the
face of the earth, and only aggravated the terrors
of mental darkness.

 

 

  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
   
 
   

“aeUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

Non secus ac liquidaé si quando nocte comet
Sanguinei lugubre rubent; aut Sirius ardor;
Tle sitim morbosque ferens mortalibus zgris,
Nascitur, et levo contristat lumine coelum.

It is well known that when Superstition had
walked abroad over Christendom, had forged the seal
of Religion, had stolen her vestments, and, though a
fiend, had counterfeited her sacred resemblance,
human learning was commissioned by Providence to
unmask the goblin imposter. Wickhif from Oxford
gave the signal of detection to Bohemia; and from
Germany the spirit of reformation came back to our
own shores. Among Universities, it is true, our own
is far from being one of the most ancient ; yet it
preceded the Reformation, and, whatever might be the
fluctuating incidents in the chapter of history, it
contributed to the Reformation ; for wherever learn-
ing was—there also was a rallying point for the
emancipation of human thought.

The advantages of study which you possess in this
University, I should be sorry to bring into invidious
comparison with those of any other places of educa-
tion, least of all with those of the great Universities
that have educated the intellectual heroes of England’s
majestic race of men. Yet, without invidiousness,
and without indelicacy, 1 may remark, that the
circumstance of all your Professors lecturing daily

feature of noble and inspiring

and regularly, 1s a
tionary system, which might be

usefulness in your tu
imitated to their advantage, even by those GREAT

Among our teachers, too, we can

INSTITUTIONS.
ce, that

look back to names in Literature and Scien254: THOMAS CAMPBELL.

are above the need of praise, as they are above the
reach of detraction: and the dynasty of Professorial
talent, I make bold to predict, is not to degenerate.
It is for you, however, my young friends, to recollect
that neither the glory of dead men’s names, nor the
efforts of the ablest living instructors, can maintain
the honour of a University, unless the true spirit of
scholarship animate the character, and pervade the
habits of its students.

The value of time and of youth, and the bitter fruits
that result from mis-spending them, aretruths sosimple
and obvious, that I fear, like the great tree in St. Paul’s -
churchyard, about the existence of which so many
wagers have been lost and won, they are sometimes in
danger of being overlooked from their very familiarity.
It would be easy indeed to invest these topics with a
gloomy interest, by proving that the evils resulting
from the lost opportunities of youth more or less
cling to aman throughout his existence; and that
they must be, from their nature, greater in reality
than they can be to the eye of common observation.
For men do their best to disguise the punishment of
a neglected education, or rather, to speak more truly,
the punishment disguises them. It hurries them
away from your sight, to be immolated in secret by
mortification, to die in the shade of neglect, and to
be buried in the shroud of oblivion. But it is not by
appealing to the ignoble principle of fear that we
should teach the youthful bosom the value of its
golden opportunities. A feeling still more honourable
than even anxiety for reputation, namely, the desireUNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 2509

of knowledge for its own sake, must enter into the
motives of every man who successfully devotes him-
self to mental improvement. For Learning 1s a
proud mistress that will not be courted for your
hopes of worldly profit by her dowry, nor for your
ambition to be allied to her family, nor for the pride
of showing her in public, without the passion and
devotion which you must bear to her sacred self.

And the love of learning is natural to man. It
springs from our interest im this magnificent and
mysterious creation, from our curiosity with regard
to truth, and even from our fondness for the airy
colourings of fiction. Still, however natural the
desire of instruction may be, it cannot be expected to
attain all the strength and maturity of a passion,
whilst our intellectual natures are yet themselves
immature ; and, in the most ingenuous young minds,
the volition for study may fall far short of their
abstract conviction as to the value of knowledge.
Voltaire has somewhere spoken of an astonishingly
wise young hero, who seemed, he says, to have been
born with experience, but alas, how very few of our
heads come into the world furnished with that
valuable material! And, precocious indeed, and born,
we may say, with experience, must that juvenile
intellect be, which, amidst the new sensations of life
and its early enjoyments, can antedate that day of
devotion to study, when a man shall wait for a new
book, or for new lights of information on any favour-
ite subject, as eagerly as Avarice watches the fate of
its lottery ticket, whilst the richest prizes yet remain256 THOMAS CAMPBELL.

in the wheel. But cherish the nascent principle of
curiosity, and that day will come to you in good
time, when study, instead of a duty, will become
an agreedble habit; and when it will yield you
consolations and amusements beyond what it is
conceivable, in the nature of things, that a young
imagination can well anticipate. Before those habits
have been acquired, however, I suspect that young
minds are sometimes beguiled into unwholesome
hesitation, by disputes about the particular path of
learning into which it is most advisable that they
should first strike, and push on most vigorously.
The general blessing of learning is no where disputed.
It is agreed on all hands that knowledge is power,
and that man zs but what he knows. None but
maniacs would lay the axe to the root of the tree;
and none but the most mischievous would propose
tearing down any of its branches, though they may
not bear fruits to their taste, or garlands to their
honour. Scaliger has incurred only the contempt of
posterity by his absurd diatribe against the useful-
ness of Mathematics; and neither Swift nor Johnson
have much raised themselves in the estimation of wise
men by having undervalued the Natural Sciences.
For it is clear that those men were misled by over-
weening vanity in their own pursuits, and by shallow-
ness in those pursuits which they decried; thus
bringing into monstrous conjunction the pride of
learning and the envy of ignorance. But although,
in the present day, there may be few or no direct
abolitionists as to any particular branch of knowledge,UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. Zod.

there is still a spirit of invidious comparison, and
a spirit too, for the most part, harshly biassed against
classical learning, that may be frequently observed in
discussions on the subject of education. I exhort
you, my young friends, not to trouble youre at
all about such disputes ; but always to consider that
branch of Science or Literature to be the most valu-
able, which you have the best opportunity of most
completely mastering

Of all the dangers to which the juvenile student is
exposed, I hold those of over-confidence and temerity
to be incomparably smaller than those of doubt and
distrust. It is very true that a young mind, plung-
ing prematurely into the depths of metaphysical
research, before it has stored itself with a knowledge
of useful facts, may be compared to one exploring the
wheels of a watch, before he has learned to read the
hours on its dial-plate. It is true, also, that pre-
cocious attempts at fine writing, and at colouring
language, before we have learned to give shape to
our thoughts, have their disadvantages. Yet still,
altogether, 1 bibs at the idea of damping the fire

of youthful ambition ; for in the young student, as
in the young soldier, the dashing and daring spirit is

preferable to the listless. To the early aspirant at
original composition—to the boy-poet—I should,
therefore only say, Go on and prosper, but never
forget, that in spite of random exceptions, Buchanan
is right in the general principle, when in awarding
immortality to mighty poets, he designates them by
the epithet, LEARNED.THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Sola doctorum monumenta Vatum

Nesciunt Fati imperium severi,

Sola contemnunt Phlegethonta et Orci
Jura superbi.

The opposite feeling of the mind’s distrust in its
own powers, ought not to be too harshly and hastily
set down as a token of mental debility in youth,
for it is often connected with considerable talent.
It is a failing, however, that, if suffered to continue,
will create all the effects of debility, and will dupe
the mind to be the passive agent of its own degra-
dation ;—like a juggling soothsayer contriving to
make his prophecy fulfil itself, or a blundering
physician verifying his ignorant opinion by despatch-
ing the patient whom he has pronounced incurable.
But, if to look abroad over the vast expanse and
variety of learned pursuits, should appal and over-
whelm any young imagination, like the prospect of
a journey over Alps and Glaciers, let it dispel the
unworthy fear, to recollect what guides, and lights,
and facilities modern science and literature afford, so
that a quantum of information is now of compara-
tively easy access, which would formerly have de-
manded Herculean labour.

As to those among you who may have the pros-
pect of being only a short time at College, I trust I
need not conjure you against the prejudice of lightly

stimating the value of a little learning, because you
cannot acquire a great deal. If indeed we were to
compare the value of much with that of little
learning, there is no concession in favour of the
much that I would not willingly make—But inee ee eet reso

       
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 259
comparing small learned acquisitions with none at all,
it appears to me to be equally absurd to consider a
little learning valueless, or even dangerous, as some
will have it, as to talk of a little virtue, a little
wealth, or health, or cheerfulness, or a little of any
other blessing under heaven, beimg worthless or
dangerous.

To abjure any degree of information, because we
cannot grasp the whole circle of the sciences, or
sound the depths of erudition, appears to be just
about as sensible as if we were to shut up our win-
dows, because they are too narrow, or because the
glass has not the magnifying power of a telescope.

For the smallest quantity of knowledge that a man
can acquire, he is bound to be contentedly thankful,
provided his fate shuts him out from the power of
acquiring a larger portion—but whilst the possibility
of farther advancement remains, be as proudly dis-
contented as ye will with a little learning. For the
value of knowledge is lke that of a diamond, it
increases according to its magnitude, even in much
more than a geometrical ratio. One science and
literary pursuit throws ight upon another, and there
is a connection, as Cicero remarks, among them all.
—“Omnes Artes, que ad humanitatem pertinent,
habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cog-
natione quadam inter se continentur.”’

No doubt a man ought to devote himself, in the
main, to one department of knowledge, but still he
will be all the better for making himself acquainted
with the studies which are kindred to and congenial260 THOMAS CAMPBELL.

with that pursuit——The principle of the extreme
division of labour, so useful in a pin manufactory, if
introduced into learning, may produce, indeed, some
minute and particular improvements, but, on the
whole, it tends to cramp human intellect.

That the mind may, and especially in early youth,
be easily distracted by too many pursuits, must be
readily admitted. But I now beg leave to consider
myself addressing those among you, who are conscious
of great ambition, and of manly faculties ; and what
I say, may regard rather the studies of your future
than of your present years.

To embrace different pursuits, diametrically oppo-
site, in the wide circle of human knowledge, must be
pronounced to be almost universally impossible for a
single mind. But I cannot believe that any strong
mind weakens its strength, in any one branch of
learning, by diverting into cognate studies ; on the
contrary, I believe that it will return home to the
main object, bringing back illustrative treasures from
all its excursions into collateral pursuits.

Let Science bear witness how many of her bright-
est discoveries have been struck out by the collision
of analogy, and by original minds bringing one part
of their vast information to consult and co-operate
with another.—For a single study is apt to tinge
the spirit with a single colour; whilst expansive
knowledge irradiates it, from many studies, with the
many-coloured hues of thought, till they kindle by
their assemblage, and blend and melt into the white
light of inspiration. Newton made history andcee eet eet 2

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 261

astronomy illustrate each other; and Richter and
Dalton brought mathematics to bear upon chemis-
try, till science may now be said to be able to weigh
at once an atom and a planet. I admit that this is
quoting only mighty names to illustrate the value of
general knowledge ; but all minds that are capable of
extensive application, more or less experience its
benefits,—for the strength of an active mind is not
exhausted by dividing the objects of its attention,
but refreshed and recruited,—it is not distracted by
a variety of lights, but directed by them ; and the
stream of learned acquisition, instead of bemg in
danger of becoming shallower by expansion, is ren-
dered more profound.

In literature, I might quote the excursive taste of
our Milton, our Gray, our Warton, Hurd, and Sir
William Jones among poetry beyond the classical
field, to prove that the rule applies to literature as
well es to Science: but I have detained you a consi-
derable time, and for the present must bid you adieu.
I do so with a warm heart: and I hold it to be no
profane illusion to the great and merciful Being who
has given us all knowledge, and all mercies, to wish
that His blessing may be with you.LECTURE
BY
PROFESSOR J.G. GREENWOOD, B.A.,

ON

THE STUDY OF THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE OF
GREECE AND ROME.

Delivered, OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER, March 13, 1851.

 

In considering the place which classical learning
ought to hold ina scheme of education, it may, I
suppose, be assumed that by education is meant, not
a mere preparation for some specific trade or profes-
sion, but rather a preparation for the whole business
of life.—a preparation which shall fit the student to
fill well his part as a member of a family, of a com-
mercial or professional community, of society generally,
and of a state. To furnish a complete education in
all these senses is, of course, not within the range of
any single institution; some portions of it, for
imstance, can only be supplied in the family circle to
which each belongs; others must be gained from im-
mediate intercourse with affairs, from the warehouse,
the factory, the courts of law, the hospital, or the
ship. To fit young men to enter at once on their
several professions is not the function of a college forOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 268

general education; but to develop, in their due pro-
portion, all the faculties of the man, that the student
may be fitted to perform well each of those duties
which belong to us all; that he may be furnished,
indeed, with all the learning that is wanting to enable
him afterwards to acquire the knowledge specially
necessary for his own pursuits; but yet that he may
be guarded against the danger of having his whole
mind absorbed by those pursuits; to effect that he
shall not be so mere a scholar as to look at every-
thing through the dusty spectacles of the antiquary,
or so ardent a manufacturer, or surgeon, or lawyer, as
to regard his fellow-men mainly as subjects for the
operation of the loom, the knife, or the statutes at
large. It is not meant that no help is furnished in a
collegiate education towards the various pursuits of
after-life: much may be done towards this directly,
by lectures on statute and commercial law, on political
economy, or on the principles of commerce ; and
much more indirectly, by the knowledge acquired in
the study of literature, of history, of mathematics and
physics, of chemistry and the natural sciences. Still
the main end of a liberal education is, not to furnish
such special information, but so to discipline the reason,
the understanding, and the taste, and so to strengthen
the various powers of the mind, that when the student
proceeds, thus disciplined and strengthened, to learn
the use of the weapons needful for himself especially,
he may acquire them most readily, and ever after-
wards use them most worthily for himself, and most
beneficially for the entire community.

ae264 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

If this be the true end of education, it will be seen
at once that the science of language must hold an
important place in it. Language is the medium of
intercourse between man and man; the instrument,
and. almost the very form, of thought; and how better
can the young student be introduced to the study of
the intellectual processes than by a minute analysis
of some of the most elaborated languages that have
ever been spoken? Or how better can he learn to
think accurately for himself than by the study of the
exact meaning of words and phrases? Yet, it may
be asked, while the claims of language to form an
essential part of education must be granted, why
should the dead languages of Greece and. Rome be
chosen for this purpose? Why cannot we take,
instead, some modern languages, which will be of
practical use themselves, as well as a valuable instru-
ment for training? To this question, so obvious,
and, at first sight, so forcible, a careful. answer must
be given: it should be shown that, while, on the one
hand, the study of modern languages would prove an
inferior discipline, so, on the other hand, it is not
true that the languages and literature of those ancient
nations are utterly alien to us. These languages are
a better instrument for training, because they are
more elaborate in their processes of etymology and
syntax, expressing by copious and multiform inflexion
and composition what the languages of modern
Europe express by mere juxtaposition of independent
words. ‘The permanence of their form, and the broad
difference between them and our own tongues, increaseiene kes oy

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
    

OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 265

their educational value, as the attention is more
readily fixed on the phenomena of language, when the
words embodying them are unfamiliar to the eye and
ear. Again, they supply an acknowledged standard
with which to compare the languages of modern
Europe; a standard, be it observed, not arbitrary but
real, since those languages are actually modelled, to
a great extent, after the classical tongues, and, some
of them, derived directly from them. Finally, though
this is an incidental advantage, we have in the
classical tongues one foundation for the language-
studies of educated men of all nations, as in the
elements of Huclid for their mathematical studies.

But it is not merely as an instrument of intellectual
training that the classical studies are to be valued :
the positive and direct worth of the stores they unfold
to the student is incalculable. We are hardly less
closely connected with the races of Greece and Rome,
than with our own immediate ancestors. Not more
truly do we owe our most valued civil rights and
social institutions to our Saxon forefathers, than we
are indebted to the Greeks and Romans for a large
element of our literature and philosophy. It is not
for us—

“The heirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of time ”—

to disown the bonds that unite us with the nations
of antiquity. We cannot efface these bonds; we
may ignore them, but it will be at our own cost. It
is a rich inheritance that we have received, and if we
would hand it down not impoverished but strength.266 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

ened, it must be by duly appreciating the relations
that we bear to it. They who have no past can have
no future. It is as wise for races as for individuals
to wish their “days to be bound each to each in
natural piety:’’ and an indispensable condition to
our contributing anything to other generations, either
in science, literature, or politics, is that we forbear
to look on what we have as the fruit of our own toil,
but reverently and gratefully own our debt to other
and earlier nations. For themselves, also, are the
ancient authors most deserving of intimate acquain-
tance. Within a bulk of comparatively small extent
we have the works of poets, historians, and orators,
who have been, by common consent, treated as mo-
dels of successful composition. In the same works
we see completely unfolded to us the history of some
of the most momentous events the world has seen,—
events full of instruction for the statesman, of interest
for the student, and of warning and wisdom for us
all. For it must not be supposed that the passions
and struggles, the triumphs and failures, of Greece
and Rome have no significancy for us. The heart of
humanity is much the same in all times; the wants
that call for national laws and institutions, the dan-
gers that threaten, and the obstacles that thwart,
them will not vary much. Some allowance must of
course be made for variations of race, climate, and
religion ; and this very necessity will introduce a new
and most valuable element into the study. It is
because this has often not been done,—because an
examination of the books and history has so oftenOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 267

been unaccompanied by a careful attempt to fix the
relations between the people and their literature, that
the study has so often been, not without reason,
charged with pedantry as an accomplishment, and
uselessness asa traming. ‘The history of the ancient
world is not only a link in a chain, of which our
own forms a continuation, but a whole in itself, an
historic cycle so complete and so concentrated as
to deserve our most careful study. It presents to
us a legendary age in which we must grope our way
with the most heedful caution, followed by a period
in which we can discern with more certainty, though
much obscurity still remains, the gradual rise of order
out of chaos, the growth of states and institutions,
and the consolidation of languages: then comes the
season of full national life and vigour, illustrated,
happily for us, by the clear ight of authentic history ;
and next the season of decay. In the history of
Greece, for instance, a country not larger than some
of the smallest of our present European states, and
in the course of a few centuries, we see enacted all
the vicissitudes of modern Europe. Numerous inde-
pendent states are presented to us, of small extent of
course, and formed of citizens of the same race and
language, but exhibiting almost every variety of
government, and animated by the most lively nation-
ality: we see them torn to pieces by intestine
struggles from the want of sympathy in any common
purpose, and saved from premature decay only by
threatened destruction at the hands of the great
Eastern monarchy. Amidst this danger, we see268 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

Greece so unconscious of her strength, that only by
the earnest persuasion and heroic self-devotion of
that one city, which was to Greece what Greece was
to the world besides, was she induced to face the
danger and overcome it. This was the period of
youth. It introduces the season of conscious great-
ness, marked by foreign supremacy, by the increase of
wealth and extension of commerce, and by the rapid
development of the arts and literature,—a glorious
era, but cut short by those intestine divisions
which the Persian wars had only interrupted. Less
than a century passes, and we find Greece humbling
herself before the very power which she had so
heroically defied; and then comes a long season of
national degradation and decay, terminated by the
virtual subjugation of all Greece to the half-barbarian
power of Macedonia; though fora time the same
city, which by her patriotic self-devotion saved her
country from the Persians, rallies the expiring energies
of the same Greece against the Macedonians,—by the
splendour of her fall, as of her rise, almost atoning
for the infatuated ambition of her middle course.
Instructive as such a history must be,—and it
would not be difficult to find many a momentous
parallel in the history of our modern world,—it might
be thought that its full meaning could be learned
from the great histories of Greece which our own
language possesses. But I wish to point out the
intimate connection between these events and the
contemporary histories which first narrate them. Of
the first period Herodotus, the historian of theOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 269

Persian wars, is the most perfect type; the form and
contents of his work, his style and diction, his Ionic
speech, full and flexible, but loose and careless, his
inquiring wonder, his simple and unaffected piety, all
bear the most faithful impress of the times and
events themselves. To the second period belongs
Thucydides, himself an actor in the scenes he de-
scribes, a type of Athens in her prime, mature and
philosophic in judgment, using a style masculine and
stately, free, on the one hand from the exuberance
and almost child-like simplicity of Herodotus, and,
on the other, from the too exquisite polish of his suc-
cessors. In like manner Xenophon represents the
third period of approaching decay, describing events
in some of which he bore himself no mean part, but
showing, in his own character, how the excessive in-
tellectual cultivation of his countrymen was combin-
ing with other causes to undermine their patriotism.
But if these three historians thus typify the times in
which they lived, and which they describe, how much
more apt a representative of the last struggle of Greece
do we find in him
Whose resistless eloquence

Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece

To Macedon.
Demosthenes does not merely describe the most mo-
mentous events of that period; his works are them-
selves such. Himself the soul of that glorious but
unavailing resistance, his speeches were the most
potent weapons used in it. A still closer relation270 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

would be found to exist between the poets of these
successive periods and their times. The Homeric
poems are almost the only record of the age to which
they belong, but we feel sure that they are the exact-
est transcript of that age. Afschylus, who fought
himself at Marathon, is the poet of youthful Greece,
reverent and sublime. In Sophocles the drama is
perfected, and art becomes self-conscious, as im
Thucydides; while Huripides, ike Xenophon, shows
that the climax had been reached, and that the seeds
of decay were already working. Never was a nation’s
literature so true an exponent of its history, and
therefore never was a literature so well worthy of the
most patient study.

Less need be said of the writers of Rome: excellent
as their works are, they are not so closely bound up
with the history of the people. It is, of course, true
that the leading features of the Roman character
may be read there; but they are not so essential
towards an effort to understand the history. In fact,
as the Romans themselves avow, their literature was
not home-sprung. Surrounded as Rome was from
her origin by fierce and active enemies, the poetical
element which appears in the legends of her early
history was soon stifled, nor was it renewed again till
she became mistress of the Greek towns of southern
Italy and Sicily, when “captive Greece took captive
her savage conqueror, and introduced the arts to rude
Latium.’ Butif Rome did not create a literature of
her own, she adopted that of Greece, and set upon
it the stamp of her own vigour. However we may172s 7g \R rep

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 271

feel the unapproachable superiority of Homer and
Thucydides, of Demosthenes and Plato, we could ill
spare the charm of “ Tully’s voice, and Virgil’s lay,
and Livy’s pictured page.’ Besides, when Greek
liberty was finally extinguished, we can hardly sup-
pose that the literature would have permanently sur-
vived, had not the hardier genius of Rome received
and transmitted it. Another debt, too, we owe to
Rome, which makes an acquaintance with her history
and her writers most needful: whithersoever her
arms penetrated, she brought her civil and municipal
institutions ; and, for good or for evil, she has im-
pressed her mark on the political life of Kurope, as
strongly as Greece has impressed hers on cur intel-
lectual life.

Another, and more incidental, advantage in classi-
eal studies, lies in their value as illustrative of our
own. literature and of that of modern Europe gene-
rally. Some knowledge of the literature of the

ncients is as essential to astudent of our own writers,
as some knowledge of the history of science is to the
student of science. It is needless to enforce a truth
so obvious, as scarcely one of our great writers, our
poets especially, can be continuously read but we
meet with numerous allusions, both in matter and in
manner, to the literature of Greece and Rome.

It is readily conceded, however, that sometimes
the study has been pushed too far, and that thus a
natural reaction has been produced against it. Nor
is this the only way in which the classics have suf-
fered from such exclusive preference. If, as I have272 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

 

ventured to assert, our own writers cannot be duly
understood without some knowledge of the ancients,
it is still more true that the literature of the ancients
will be but feebly appreciated and enjoyed by a stu-
dent entirely ignorant of our own. If he does not
feel how our own literature is shaped by our manners,
our institutions, and our religion, he will be slow to
see how, conversely, we may use the literature of the
ancients to interpret the men themselves. If he has
never observed the close relation in which our great-
est writers have stood to the times they lived in, he
will assuredly fail to read aright many of the best
authors among the ancients. ‘The inevitable ten-
dency of such a one-sided cultivation was to lead the
young student to look on his text-books from a purely
technical point of view, as if they were lifeless ob-
jects, on which the grammarian might experiment at
pleasure,—nothing better then a dry museum of
moods and cases. Jt is no wonder that Greek and
Latin have been so generally stigmatized as the dead
languages, and that the complaint has been so often
brought against classical studies, that, at the cost of
the great labour of many years, but little knowledge
was imparted, useless when gained, and soon forgot-
ten. But it must not be supposed that the study of
an extinct language is necessarily a merely verbal
exercise. Of course it may be made so; and so may
any study. It must be owned, indeed, that the acei-
dence of the Greek and Latin, as once presented to
the learner in the ordinary school grammars, was

open to this charge. The dreary array of declensionsOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 273
and conjugations set before the beginner in Latin,
and haunting him for years,—at last, with an incal-
culable waste of power, overcome only to appear
again in another, and still more perplexing, shape in
the Greek,—this was enough to dismay the boldest,
and to justify the opinion that such an amount of toil
was utterly disproportioned to the advantage gained.
But now that, by a clearer insight into the principles
of speech, these endless varieties of inflexion are
reduced to two or three in each language, which
again are shown to be intimately related, the greater
part of all this toil is saved, and ample time is found
in the years usually given to these studies for a good
mastery of the languages, and no mean acquaintance
with the several literatures. It is not meant that
some new way is discovered of learning Greek and
Latin, free from all difficulty ;—any such system
would be probably deceptive, and certainly bad ;—
but that the difficulty is not merely mechanical, and
that time is gained for more extended progress. The
first object, no doubt, must be to make the young
student a “good scholar,” to give him a thorough
command of the ancient languages, to enable him to
transfer the Greek of Homer, of Herodotus, of
Demosthenes, the Latin of Livy, of Horace, of Virgil,
or Tacitus, not into the uniform and inexpressive
dialect of the school-room, but into genuine English,
which shall, as nearly as may be, correspond to the
style and matter of the individuai author. Such an
attempt daily to render the Greek and Latin into an
English equivalent, in the manner which has been so
if274: PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

   

well set forth by Dr. Arnold, sets before the pupil
the idioms of three languages of a widely different
character ; to compare these languages, and to discern
how each contrives in its own way to convey the
same thought, how the genius of each people affects
the language, and how this again reacts upon their
mode of thinking,—all this, it will be allowed, supplies
a mental training of a high order. Simultaneously
with this power of translation, the pupil will have
imparted to him an insight into the inner structure
of the languages; and here a striking difference in
the phenomena which these languages present will
lead to a useful difference of treatment. The Greek,
pliant as the people who spoke it, and open to so
many varying influences, was easily moulded into
several dialects, each marked with the peculiar features
of the corresponding tribe, and each devoted, for the
most part, to a distinct style of composition. “ This,”
observes the recent historian of Greek literature,
“4s a peculiarity which distinguishes the literature of
Greece from that of all other nations. The division
into dialects is itself a feature common to the Greek,
with every other language spoken through an exten-
sive region. In all other cases, however, in the
annals at least of European literature, circumstances
have led to the establishment of a single dialect of
each tongue as the language of letters and polite
society, the remainder being restricted to vulgar or
provincial usage. In Greece the case was different ;
each of the leading dialects there claimed and enjoyed
the same advantage of literary culture ;’ and “as theOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 275

different branches of composition were invented and
matured, such was the fertility of native talent, that
in different districts authors arose pre-eminent in

some particular style.”

Within the limits of the

Greek language, then, we have the materials for the
most minute study of the processes by which lan-

guages are formed and modified.

While in Homer

we have what may safely be regarded as the first
literary phase of the language, in Herodotus, in

Thucydides, in Pindar, are found those dialectic
varieties of later times, which even in our own tongue

the philologer has to gather together with much toil
and the most incomplete results. The Latin does

not present the same phenomenon. ‘The language,

like the people themselves, less pliant than the Greek,
does not exhibit the same variety of dialects. Com-
paratively harsh and rigid, it does not possess the
same exquisite adaptation of form and style to every
variety of subject, or the same sensibility to influences
from slight changes of soil and climate, of social and

political circumstances.

But this very feature,—its

defect as a merely literary instrument,—is, in another

point of view, its chief merit.
of the Greek language,—its harmony, the delicacy of

The very perfection

its structure, its close connection with the Greek
soil, and climate, and history, all unfitted it to spread
over foreign lands, and to impose itself on barbarous
tribes: so that, had the noble literature which it
contains been left to itself, it would almost inevitably
have been lost, never to be recovered. The Latin,

on the other hand, abrupt, but concise and vigorous,ccganepereeersemcemenanuprmescmeenertere ooo
see Sees ,

 

276 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

 

was the natural companion of the Roman genius.
Of the language we may truly say, as Virgil says of
the people, that its high function was, not to exhibit
the refinements of arts and science, but to impose its
yoke on surrounding nations. Hence it is that the
French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Italian,
are little else than dialects of the old Latin; while
the German, and still more the English, have felt its
influence extensively. The study of the Latin, there-
fore, presents to us a different but no less important
exercise. ess elaborate and curious in its internal
structure, it is the key of the chief languages of
modern Europe, without a knowledge of which they
can never be thoroughly understood in their history
and character.

The young student, then, should be taught to
examine the ancient languages in their individua
peculiarities, and in their relations with each other,
and with those of later times ; to trace out the deriva-
tion of word from word, to classify, and analyze, and
compound. ‘This, of course, is to be done by a care-
ful study of the text of the authors themselves, and
by translation from English into Latin and Greek.
For atime he will be occupied with the easier books,
but even these will present much room for illustrative
instruction in geography, history, and antiquities. As
he proceeds to read books of a higher class, the great
models of poetry and history, oratory and philosophy,
he will be taught to appreciate their excellences of
style, to observe how they illustrate the character of
their times, and what influence they have exercised onOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. “kd

the literature of modern days. It is true that from a
range so extensive selections only can be read; but
it is quite possible, in a collegiate course, to read
enough to impart such a knowledge and appreciation
of them as will induce the student in after-life to take
them up again as an employment and relaxation in
leisure hours; and “the business of the tutor,” in
the words of Locke, ‘“‘is not so much to teach his
pupil all that is knowable, as to raise in him a love
and esteem of knowledge; and to put him in the
right way of knowing and improving himself when
he has a mind to it.”’

It may, however, be urged, and indeed is often
urged, that in a community so pre-eminently practi-
cal as this, so devoted to commerce and manufactures,
there can be no time for such studies, and that, if
there were, they would prove of little use to the
student in his after-life. The answer I would make,
paradoxical as it may sound, is, that it 1s precisely
because they will not be useful to him in the ordinary
sense, that they should be so sedulously cultivated.
The more absorbing these after pursuits are likely
to prove, and the stronger their tendency to shut
him up in the material and the present, the more
important is it that he should be familiar with
pursuits which will sometimes allure him to converse
with the great minds of other times and countries.
Other branches of knowledge will be taught in this
college which, in addition to their value as a mental
discipline, will prove of great use in their application
to manufactures and commerce. With such studies,

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     

 

 

 

Rt in

   
  

 

pick IE prea OT ca278 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

therefore, it is important in many ways that our
students should be familiar; and I am too sensible
of their value in counteracting the mischievous
effects of an exclusive devotion to classics, to under-
rate them as an independent pursuit. But there is
a danger on either side. As a too exclusive study of
literature, unbalanced by the sterner discipline of
the exact sciences, is apt to engender a vagueness of
thought, a slavish deference to authority, and a loose
and inconclusive style of reasoning, so the develop-
ment of the reason, or, more correctly, of the under-
standing, alone, is likely to lead to a one-sided and
disputatious frame of mind, a presumptuous and
over-weening self-reliance, which is as opposed to
true knowledge as it is to wisdom. The most ob-
vious corrective of this is a course of discipline, in
which the master works of the master minds of all
ages are set before the learner,—works which he is

 

not invited to discuss and criticise in the first in-
stance, but to study with reverence and submission
until he has gathered from the works themselves the
power to judge them aright. I find this phase of
the utility of literary study so well set forth by a
modern writer, though with another application, that
I cannot forbear the pleasure of quoting his words:
—“ Tf we think,” says this eloquent writer, “ that in
reading Cicero or Shakspeare our proper position is that
of judges, I am quite certain that . . . we shall not
understand them. ‘The posture of children, or learn-
ers, is the true profitable posture in all cases. It is
not safe to propose to ourselves the end of beingOWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER. 279

judges in any case. It is not safe for our minds
generally ; it is most unsafe for the judging faculty
itself. Therefore, we see the wisdom of the old
notion, that only the best books, only those which
earry a kind of authority with them, should be set
before boys; when they have been drilled by them
into habits of deference and humility, then they
may venture, if their calling requires it, on the study
of the worst, for then they will have acquired the
true discerning spirit, that spirit of which the judging
spirit is the counterfeit ; the one perceiving the real
quality of the food which is offered, the other merely
setting up its own partial and immature tastes and
aversions as the standard of what is good and evil.”
Before I finish I would address a few words to those
who are to form our first classes in Owens College.
It is an old Greek saying, that “the beginning is
If there is any truth im

29

more than half the whole.
this, there is some responsibility as well as honour in
being concerned with the opening of a new institu-
tion like this, and these must attach to you as well
as tous. I think I may promise for my colleagues
and myself, that zeal, at least, shall not be wanting in
us to secure a good beginning, and I trust we may
reckon on finding the same in you. With whatever
care your studies are chosen for you, and however
they are directed, it must lie mainly with yourselves
whether they are to be successful. I would remind
you that little can be gained by mere attention to
the classwork within the walls of this college. The
subject of every lesson must be carefully prepared at

 

 

 

 

Capa basa

Se Tete caters Sept

 

 

 

oot iene280 PROFESSOR J. G. GREENWOOD, B.A.

home, and afterwards revised at leisure. JI have
already reminded you that education is not in itself
an end, but a means towards many ends; and it
depends very much on what end you set before your-
selves, whether the education you carry away will be
worth the carrying. Those who simply wish to spend
a few wearisome years with as little trouble as pos-
sible, will be sure to gain their object. Those whose
main ambition is to earn distinctions here, will also
be likely to suceeed in that, but no further; for
knowledge learned for a temporary purpose mostly
proves temporary. Those who aim at the true end
of education,—the discipline of the mind and the
strengthening of its faculties for after-use in the
they too will gain their end, for the

 

noblest way,
very effort, if honestly made, implies success. “Stu-
dies;” says Lord Bacon, “serve for delight, for orna-
ment, and for ability. Crafty men contemn studies,
simple men admire them, and wise men use them ; for
they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom
without them, and above them.”’COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION,
A LECTURE,

mY DAV ELD MASSON,

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON,

Delivered in UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, Lonpon, Ociober 17, 1854, Introductory te
the Session of the Faculty of Arts and Laws, 1854-55.

I may take it for granted that all here present
have thoroughly freed their minds from that narrow
view of education which would make the word signify
merely a customary course of training, during a
certain period of life, in schools, academies, and col-
leges. We all know that the business of education,
in its widest sense, is coextensive with a man’s life—
that it begins with the first moment of life, and ends
with the last; and that it goes on not alone in build-
ings like that in which we are now assembled, but in
every combination of place, company, and circum-
stance, in which a man may voluntarily station him-
self, or into which he may be casually thrust. IT may
take it for granted, also, that we are all agreed that
education, to be complete, must involve not only the
process of the acquisition of knowledge or ideas, but
also that of the formation of habits. Thus secure

eine aah ares el aoe

SS ect

 

 

 

 

QasgSeeectrecr err neat eens toa nee

 

 

 

 

ene282 DAVID MASSON ON

against misconception, I have the less hesitation in
asking you to let go, for the while, these more com-
prehensive notions of what is meant by education,
and to accept the word with me in a somewhat
restricted sense. With your leave, I will here under-
stand education as a process extending only over that
preparatory period of life which, with young men,
may be supposed to close about the twentieth or
twenty-fifth year; and I will also understand the
word as referring chiefly to those means, whether
organized or casual, by which, during that period of
life, knowledge is acquired and accumulated.

My question then, is, Can.we classify those means ?
Can we enumerate and distinguish the various iflu-
ences or agencies to the operation of which, success-
fully or contemporaneously, during the first twenty
or twenty-five years of life, most of us owe the
acquirements with which at the end of that time we
find ourselves furnished, and to the varying power
and proportion of which in different lives are owing
the amazing differences, both in style and in strength
of intellect, which we observe among men of the same
age, and belonging, as it were, to the same wave? I
think we can; and, availing myself of some former
thoughts on the subject, which I have had occasion to
express in another place and form,* I will make the
attempt.

First of all, however, let us distinctly bargain that
it is not all education. Supposing that at this

* The reference here is to an article contributed to a recent number of
the North British Review, between which and the present Lecture there
are occasional coincidences of thought.COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 283

moment I had before me, on these benches, three
hundred young men, collected from different parts of
the country and the world, all between the ages of
sixteen and twenty-five, it would require but a glance
round among them to convince me, that, however
accurately and completely I might classify the mis-
eellaneous educational influences to which they had
been subjected up to the moment of my seeing them
together, I should still have to fall back upon a solid
substratum of assumed original difference upon
which all subsequent differences had been built. I
should see, in such an assemblage, great varieties of
stature, form, physiognomy, complexion, and tempera-
ment. I should see some tall and strongly knit,
others more delicate and nervous; some [I should find
of the dark or swarthy type, others blue-eyed and
fair-haired, and others of intermediate shades of dark,
ruddy, and fair. If I attended to minute differences,
I should find no two in the assemblage at all alike.
Now all this, with every allowance for the factitious
nature of these differences, would be but a pictorial
representation of the fact that, of all those three
hundred youths, no two had come into the world
with precisely the same faculties, possibilities, and
tendencies. I might settle as I chose the question
of how much, but that so much of the mass of intel-
lectual difference before me was constitutional and
prior to all education, I should be obliged to admit.
In those three hundred youths I should have to
recognize, so to speak, three hundred distinct frag-
ments of a vanished and immeasurable past, deriving

 

|

;

CoaneDAVID MASSON ON

 

84

their peculiarities of shape and colour from trains
of circumstances ascending inscrutably through the
depths of that past, and, in virtue of those derived
peculiarities, pre-related in various ways to the present
and the future. In the swarthier visage and more
flashing eyes of one I might discern southern or
oriental birth and blood; im the fairer features of
another I might be reminded of the colder north.
The large bone of one might mark him out as a
Scandinavian of the east coast; the fuller and less
rugged outline of another might connect him, in my
fancy, with the rich and sylvan English inlands.
One might have more, another less, of natural force
and grasp of mind. ‘The constitutional aptitude of
one might be for the harder exercises of the under-
standing ; another might be ardent, impassioned, and
imaginative. ‘The disposition of one, born of a genial
and affluent lineage, might be joyous, mild, and
mirthful; another, carrying in him the uncancelled
remains of ancestral crime or ancestral suffering,
might be foredoomed to a life of irritability, gloom,
and pain.

Once, however, having allowed for this substratum
of constitutional difference among the three hundred
objects of my curiosity, | should behold in them, with
all their diversities of character, power, and accom-
plishment, at the moment of my first acquaintance
with them, only the various results of certain pro-
cesses of schooling to which all of them had been
differently subjected from their infancy onwards, and
which, working upon the foundation supplied byCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 285

nature, had gradually formed them into what they
were. :
I should know, for example, tha tall those youths
had, in the first place, received a certain portion of
their most effective education, whether for good or
evil, in what I will call the school of the family.
The first school in which a man is bound to learn,
and in which every man does, in spite of himself,
learn more or less, is the school of his own ancestry,
parentage, and kindred. There is no man, however
strong his character, and however migratory his life,
in whose mature manner of thought there are not
traces of impressions produced on him by the family
faces amid which he first opened his eyes, the family
joys or griefs with which his childhood laughed or
sobbed, the family stories and traditions to which his
childhood listened. Happy they to whom this has been
a kindly school—the homes of whose infancy have been
homes of peace, order, and courtesy ; over whose early
years just fatherly authority and careful motherly
gentleness have watched ; in whose experience there
has been no contradiction between the sense of right
and the ties of blood ; and who can look back upon
progenitors remembered for probity, courage, and
good citizenship, and round among living kinsmen
well placed and well respected in the world. This is
not the common notion of pedigree. That man were,
indeed, little better than a har, who, counting high
historic names among his ancestors, should pretend
to be careless of the fact ; but the kind of pedigree of
which we speak is to be found in the humblest lineage

ee OE Ea

2S res ererersererererinite

 

 

 

 

Steen oecreer yee a eae
Ta a

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  

yin Seah Senet SET I
Aen aT

PRE

= Sate

 

 

  
 

286 DAVID MASSON ON

of the land; and at this hour, over broad Britain,
there are, as we all know, families neither rich nor
noble, to have sprung from which and to have been
nursed on their unrecorded fireside legends would for
the purposes of real outfit in life, be better than to
have been born in a castle and had the blood of
all the Plantagenets. And yet, on the other hand,
and they are many—to whom this school

 

even those
of family and kindred has been a hard school, may there

also have received many a powerful and useful lesson.
Men do learn very variously, and there is an educa-
tion of revolt and reaction, as well as of acquiescence
and imitation. The training received in the school of
family and kindred may not have been a genial or pro-
mising one; it may not be from the past in his own
lineage that one can derive any direct stimulus or
inspiration; the home of the early education may have

een one of penury, chill, and contention—a veritable
picture of a household with its household gods broken;
and yet, even so, the culture may have been great and
albeit, sometimes, a culture of strength at the

 

varied.
expense of symmetry.

From this schoo] of family and kindred, all pass on
to another school, still more extensive and influential
—the school of what I will call native local cir-
cumstance. I have always felt disposed to attach a
peculiar reverence and a peculiar sense of value to
that arrangement, institution, or whatever you choose
to call it, common to most societies, which we in Great
Britain designate by the term, neighbourhood or

parish. That every man should be related, andCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 287

should feel himself related, in a particular manner,
to that tract of earth which he is taught to regard
as his parish, the assigned local scene of his habita-
tion and activity on this side the grave, seems to me
a natural and beautiful arrangement, which our poli-
tical system would do well to respect, use, and con-
secrate. The limits of this smallest and most natural
of territorial divisions may be variously defined. You
may figure a parish as a tract of earth containing and
supporting 2000 inhabitants—the ideal of a rural
parish ; or you may figure it as a tract of earth under-
lying the sound ofa particular church-bell. That this
smallest of territorial divisions should merge and fit
into larger and still larger divisions—the district, the
county, and so on—is also necessary and natural ;
but that a man’s closest relations ought to be with
his own parish and neighbourhood, that it is with
the natural and social phenomena lying around him
on this piece of earth that he is bound primarily to
make himself acquainted, and that all the elementary
requirements of his life ought to be provided for by
apparatus there set up, seems to me sound doctrine.
For a man not to be so locally related during at least
for a man to be shifted about in

 

a portion of his life
his youth from place to place, not remaining long
enough in any to root his affections among its objects
and details—seems to me a misfortune. In point of
fact, however, few are in this predicament. Removal
from one’s native place is common enough, and is be-
coming more common; but almost all—including
even those exceptional persons who, having been born

reyes et Pea yee cap Sse res pases tie Sn nes288 DAVID MASSON ON

at sea, are reputed to belong to the parish of Stepney
—are located, during some part of their lives, in some
one district, with the whole aspect and circumstance
of which they become familiar, and which they learn
to regard as native ground. Now, it is important to
remark that there is no district, no patch of the habi-
table earth, in which a man can be placed and bred
but there are within that spot the materials and in-
ducements towards a very considerable natural educa-
tion. Nay, more, there is, to all ordinary intents and
purposes, no one district in the natural and artificial
circumstance of which there is not a tolerable re-
presentation and epitome of*all that is general and
fundamental in nature and life everywhere. Take
Great Britain itself. Every British parish has its
mineralogy ; every British parish has its geology ;
every British parish hasits botany; every British parish
has its zoology ; every British parish has its rains,
its storms, its streams, and consequently its meteoro-
logy and hydrology ; every British parish has its
wonders of nature and art, impressive on the local
imagination, and, in some cases, actually exerting
a physical influence over the local nerve : and though
these objects and wonders vary immensely—though
in one parish geological circumstance may predomi-
nate, in another botanical, and in a third hydrological
or architectural—though in one the local wonder may
be a marsh, in another a rocky cavern, and in a third
an old fort or a bit of Roman wall—yet in each there
is a sufficient touch of what is generic in all. Over
every. British parish, at least, when night comes,COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 289

there hangs—splendid image of our identity at the
highest—the same nocturnal glory, a sapphire con-
cave of nearly the same stars. Descend to the life and
living circumstance of the community, and it is still
the same. There is no British parish in which all
the essential processes, passions, and social ongoings
of British humanity, from the chaffering of the market-
place up to madness and murderous revenge, are not
proportionately illustrated and epitomised. There is
no British parish that has not its gossip, its humours,
its customs, its oracular and remarkable individuals,
its oddities and whimsicalities, all of which can be
made objects of study. Finally, there is no British
parish that has not its traditions, its legends, and
histories, connecting the generation present upon it
with the world of the antique. And, with some modi-
fication, it is the same, if, passing the limits of Britain,
we extend our view to foreign lands and climes. The
circumstance, physical, artificial, social and historical,
of a district in Italy or in Spain, is largely different
from the corresponding circumstance of a district in
Britain ; much more so the circumstance of a district
in South America or Hindostan ; and yet, generically,
there is so much that is common, that, after all, a
person educated in the midst of Italian or Spanish
circumstance, has about the same stock of funda-
mental notions of things as an Englishman has, and
that a Hindoo jest will pass current in Middlesex.
Every man, then, learns a vast deal—a large propor-
_ tion of all our surest knowledge is derived—from this
education, which we all have, in spite of ourselves, in
U

 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

 

 

of aes eee - ~aaah.
Creta a
hy

a

 

290 DAVID MASSON ON

the school of native local circumstance. It appears
to me that, in our educational theories, we do not
sufficiently attend to this. It appears to me that,
among all our schemes of educational reform, perhaps
the most desirable would be one for the organization
and systematic development of this education of
local circumstance, which is, at any rate, everywhere
going on. This, I conceive, is the true theory of the
“teaching of common things.”’ Every child bern in
a parish and resident in it ought to have, as his in-
tellectual outfit in life, a tolerably complete acquain-
tance with the concrete facts of nature and life presented
by that parish; and in every parish there ought to be
a systematic means for accomplishing this object.
Every child ought to carry with him into life, as a
little encyclopedia, a stock of facts and pictures col-
lected from the scene of his earliest habitations and
associations ; ought to be familiar with that miscel-
lany of natural ‘and artificial circumstance which first
solicited his observation in the loealitv where he was
brought up—from its minerals and wild plants, and
birds and molluses, up to its manufactures, its econo-
mics, its privileges and bye-laws, and its local mytho-
logy or legends. A reformed system of parochial
education ought to take this in charge, and to secure
to the young some instruction in local natural history,
local antiquities, local manufactures and economics,
and local institutions and customs. Meanwhile, im
the absence of any systematic means of accomplishing
the object, we see that everywhere healthy boys do,
by their own locomotion and inquisitiveness, contriveCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION, 29]

to acquire a stock of concrete local fact and imagery.
We see them roaming over the circle of their ne 1on-
bourhoods singly and in bands — ascending hills,
climbing trees and precipices, peeping into ‘undue
von ops, and police offices—peering, in short, into
everything open or forbidden to them, and in the most
literal sense of the phrase, pursuing knowledge under
difficulties. And here, accordingly, in addition to
constitutional difference and the difference of family
schooling, is another source of the intellectual diver-
sity we find among grown-up men. The education
of local circumstance, as we have said, is by no means
necessarily a narrow education ; all that is general and
essential everywhere, whether as respects the main
facts of nature or the habits and laws of the human
mind, is repeated in miniature in every spot. Kant
never slept out of Konigsberg; and Socrates never
wished to go beyond the walls of Athens. Yet, on
the other hand, difference of local educating cireum-
stance is one of the causes of difference of intellectual
taste and style in mature life. No two districts or
parishes are precisely alike in their suggestions and
intellectual inducements. Some localities, as we have
said, allure to geology, others to botany, others to
fondness for landscape and colour, others to mechanics
and engineering, others to archeology and historical
lore. Of those supposed three hundred youths, for
example—even omitting such of them as had been
born and brought up abroad, amid scenes, and a vege-
“tation, and costumes, and customs, ay, and under
constellations different from our own

 

hardly any

 

 

a

ears

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
   
 
   

Cntiewina ee oe292 DAVID MASSON ON

book

two of the British-born would be found trading intel-
lectually, so to speak, on the same stock of recollected
facts and images. Some might have been born on
the sea-coast, and the images most familiar to their
memories would be those of rocks, and shingle, and a
breaking surf, and brown fishing boats, and gulls dip-
ping in the waves, and heavy clouds gathering for a

storm.
“TJ see a wretched isle that ghost-like stands,
Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wintry main;
And now a cheerless gleam of red-ploughed lands,
O’er which a crow flies heavy in the rain.”

Others might have been born and bred in sweet pas-
toral districts, and the images most kindly to their
fancy would be those of still green valleys, and little
streams flowing through them, and flocks, led by
tinkling sheep-bells, cropping the uplands. Others
might be natives of rich English wheat flats ; others
of barren tracts of hill and torrent. Some might
have been born in provincial towns, where the kinds
of circumstance peculiar to street-life would prepon-
derate over the purely agricultural or rural; others
might be denizens of the great metropolis itself, with
its endless extent of shops, warehouses, wharves,
churches, and chimneys. In large towns, and, above
all, in London, it is needless to say, the fact to be
noted is the infinite preponderance of artificial and
social circumstance over that of natural landscape,
and its infinitely close intertexture. The spontane-
ous education there, accordingly, is chiefly in what is
socially various, curious, highly developed, comic, and
characteristic. So strong, however, is the instinct ofCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 293

local attachment, that natives of London do contract
an affection for their own parishes and neighbourhoods,
and an acquaintance with their details and humours,
over and above their general regard for those objects
which claim the common worship of all. In short,
however we turn the matter over, we still find that
a large proportion of the most substantial education
of every one, consists of this unconscious and imevi-
table education of local circumstance; and that, in
fact, much of the original capital on which we all
trade intellectually during life, is that mass of miscel-
laneous fact and imagery which our senses have taken
in busily and imperceptibly amid the scenes of their
first exercise. In the lives of most men who have
become eminent, whether in speculative science or in
imaginative literature, a tinge of characteristic local
colour may be traced to the last. Adam Smith

meditated his “ Wealth of Nations’’ on the sands of

a strip of Fifeshire sea-coast, and drew the instances
which suggested the doctrines of that work to his
own mind, and bywhich he expounded them to others,
from the petty circumstance of a small fishing and
weaving community close by. And in Shakspeare
himself, widely as his imagination ranged, it will be
found that, in his descriptions of natural scenery at
least, large use is made of the native circumstance of
his woody Warwickshire, with its elms, its willows,
its crow-flowers, daisies, and long-purples. However
migratory a man has been, and however thickly, by
his migrations, he may have covered the tablets of
his memory with successive coatings of imagery, there

Fee eee rt aioe!
J) } $
AAD Boe eal ttt 2 oh ete 1

 

=

  
  
 
  

Ser=

   
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
    
 
   
 

aa ae
semen Nees aaa eae

raat
a a a Pe

Na Paap

294 DAVID MASSON ON

   

are times when, as he shuts his eyes, all these seem
washed away, and the original photographs of his
early years—the hill, the moor, the village-spire, the
very turn of the road where he met the solitary
horseman—start out fresh as ever. Nay more, it will
be found (and this is a fact of which Hartley and his
laws of the association of ideas have never made any-
thing to the purpose) that perpetually, underneath
our formal processes of thinking, apparently indepen-
dent of these processes, and yet somehow playing into
them and qualifying them, there is passing through
our minds a series of such unbidden reappearing
photographs, a flow of such recollected imagery.

So much for this school, on which I have dwelt so
long simply because, in doing so, I have accomplished
half my exposition. I will now name together three
other schools, which come next in theoretical order,
though, in fact, they and the last are often attended
simultaneously. These are—the school of travel, the
school of books, and the school of friendship. Under
the head of the education of travel I include, as you
may guess, all that comes of migration or change of
residence; and my remarks under the former head
will have enabled you to see that all this, important
and varied as it may seem, consists simply in the
extension of the field of observed fact and cireum-
stance. All the celebrated effects of travel, purely as
such, in enlarging the mind, breaking down preju-
dice, and what not, will be found to resolve them-
selves into this. If I pass now to the education of
books, here also I find that the same phrase—extensionCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 295

of the field of circumstance—answers to a good deal
of what this education accomplishes. Books are
travel, so to speak, reversed

 

they bring supplies of
otherwise inaccessible fact and imagery to the feet of
the reader. Books, too, have this advantage over
travel, that they convey information from remote
times as well as from distant places. “If the inven-
tion of the ship,” says Bacon, “ was thought so noble,
which carrieth riches and commodities from place to
place, and consociateth the most remote regions in
participation of their fruits, how much more are
letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass the vast i

 

seas of time, and-make ages so distant to participate
of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one
of the other!’’ In these words, however, there is a
suggestion that the education of books consists not
alone in the mere extension of the field of the con-
erete. Books admit us to the accumulated past

 

 

 

thought, as well as to the accumulated past fact and

seth Sree

incident of the human race; and, though much of that
thought—as, for example, what comes to us in poetry
—consists but of a new form of concrete (the con-
crete of the fantastic or ideal), yet a large proportion .
of it consists of something totally different—abstract i
or generalized science. It is in the school of books,
more particularly, that that great step in education 4
takes place—the translation of the concrete into the
abstract ; the organization of mere fact and imagery
into science. It is in conversation with books, more
particularly, that one first sees unfolded one by one, 4
that splendid roll of the so-called sciences—mathe- L

tlle ina

tel neni ll alaeee
i,

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  

ee

nen eet

 

Ses

DAVID MASSON ON

   

296

matics, astronomy, mechanics, chemistry, physiology,
moral science, and politics, with all their attached
sciences and subdivisions—in which the aggregate
thought of the human race on all subjects has been
systematized; and that one first sees all knowledge
laid out into certain great orders of ideas, any one
of which will furnish occupation for a life. This
great function, we say, pecuharly belongs to books.
And what shall we say of the education of friendship ?
In what does this consist, and what does it pecuharly
achieve ? It consists, evidently, in all that can result,
in the way of culture, from a closer relation than
ordinary with certain selected individuals out of the
throng through which one passes in the course of
one’s life. It is given to every one to form such
close sentimental relations with perhaps six or seven
individuals in the course of the early period of life :
and these relationships—far easier at this time of life
than afterwards—are among the most powerful edu-
cating influences to which youth can be subjected.
Friendship educates mainly in two ways. In the
first place, it educates by disposing and enabling one
to make certain individual specimens of human cha-
racter, and all that is connected with them, objects
of more serious and minute study than is bestowed on
men at large; and, in the second place, it takes a
man out of his own personality, and doubles, triples,
or quintuples his natural powers of insight, by com-
pelling him to look at nature and life through the
eyes of others, each of whom is, for the time being,
another self. This second function of friendship, asCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 297

an influence of intellectual culture, is by far the most
important. There are, of course, various degrees of
friendship, and various exercises of it in the same
degree. There is friendship with equals, friendship
with inferiors, and friendship with superiors. Of all
forms of friendship in youth, by far the most effective,
as a means of education, is that species of enthusiastic
veneration which young men of loyal and well-
conditioned minds are apt to contract for men of
intellectual eminence within their own circles. The
educating effect of such an attachment is prodigious ;
and happy the youth who forms one. We all know
the advice given to young men to “think for them-
selves ;’? and there is sense and soundness in that
advice ; but if I were to select what I account perhaps
the most fortunate thing that can befall a young man
during the early period of his life—the most fortunate
too, in the end, for his intellectual mdependence—it
would be his being voluntarily subjected, for a time,
to some powerful intellectual tyranny.

Having thus sufficiently illustrated the idea that
it is not in one school, but in a plurality of schools,

 

each having a characteristic effect, that a man receives
his education, and having named some of these
schools, I am in a position to consider more particu-
larly the nature of that education which is supplied
the school of books.

 

by one of the schools mentioned
I have already said enough to show that, of all the
varieties of education capable of being separately
+ regarded, this education of books, in the matter of
intellectual cultivation at least, deserves to standaah

 

298 DAVID MASSON ON

paramount. As the depositories of the past thought
and experience of the human race, books do yield us
our largest supplies of knowledge. It is- chiefly in
books, too, as we have said, that we find that immense
operation already performed to our hands—the distri-
bution of knowledge into certain grand orders or
progressions of ideas, called sciences. But, besides
this, it will be found, I think, that the school of
books performs a collateral function in regard to the
other schools, and that only those who have been
pupils in # can enjoy the higher education furnished
by the others. It will be found, I think, that it is
not the illiterate but the instructed inhabitants of a
parish that have the full benefit of intimacy with its
physical, its social, or even its legendary circumstance.
An illiterate native of Stratford-on-Avon is dead to
almost all that education which hes over and around
the town in virtue of its having been the birthplace
of Shakspeare; a boor dwelling by Stonehenge
drinks no instruction from its mysterious monuments ;
and the human beings that nestle in the clefts of the
Alps themselves are among the most mean and soul-
less of their kind. So with the school of travel.
You know the hero of Wordsworth’s tale,—

He, two and thirty years or more,
Had been a wild and woodland rover;
Had heard the Atlantic surges roar
On farthest Cornwall’s rocky shore,
And trod the cliffs of Dover.

He had travelled twenty times over all Britain, in
fact ; and what was the result P—COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 299

He royed among the vales and streams,
In the green wood and hollow dell;
They were his dwellings night and day—
But Nature ne’er could find the way

Into the heart of Peter Bell.

So, also, with the school of friendship—here, too the
literate are bad pupils. No wonder, then, that the
word education has come to be applied, peculiarly, to
the education of books, and that what is called the edu-
cational apparatus in every modern society is, in the
main, an apparatus set up to facilitate and systematize
the study of books. As we have said, we are, perhaps,
wrong in this; and it may well be made a question
in the highest view of education, whether in our
educational system, we do not attend too exclusively
to literary and scientific accomplishment. Still we
see that our instinct, in this respect, has some defence
in reason.

Let me repeat what I have just said. In point of
fact, in this and every other civilized country at the
present moment, all our educational apparatus, re-
cognized as such, is an apparatus for systematizing
and facilitating the study of books. All our schools,
all our colleges, all our libraries—almost everything,
in fact, that we recognize as an educational insti-
tution, with the partial exception of recently founded
industrial schools and schools of practical art—are
but a machinery for forwarding what may be called
book-education. Here, however, we must make a
distinction. This extensive machinery of book-educa-
tion, which is set up amongst us, consists of two

portions. One portion has for its object simply theterigs

 

eee

 

300

 

DAVID MASSON ON

effective teaching of the art of reading, with its usual
adjuncts; another has for its object the guidance of
the community in the use of that art when it has
been acquired. Let us say that the first function is
performed by the schools of the country, and that the
second is reserved for the colleges of the country.
This does not exactly accord with the fact—many of
our so-called schools going far beyond the mere teach-
ing of reading and writing, and undertaking part of
the duty we have assigned to colleges ; and many of
our so-called colleges, alas! having devolved upon
them too much of the proper drudgery of schools.
For our purposes, however, the distinction may very

well be so expressed.

It is the business of the schools of a country, then,
let us say, to impart to the youth of that country the
accomplishment of perfect and easy reading in the
vernacular, with the correlative of writing in the
same. This, if an elementary, is a grand function.
Teach a man to read and write perfectly, and the rest,
generally speaking, is in his own power. He is no
longer a Helot; you have put him in possession of

the franchise of books.

With this possession, and

with such access as he may have to libraries, he may
be anything he pleases and has faculty for. By read-
ing in one direction he may make himself a mathe-

matician ; by reading in another he may become an
adept in political economy ; by reading in many he
may become a variously cultured man. The accom-
plishment of perfect and easy reading in one’s own

language is, after all, the grand distinction betweenCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 301

the educated and the non-educated. There are, indeed,

degrees and differences among those above this line ;

but between those above it and those below it, there

is a great gulf. And here we come in sight of a

notion which seems to me of immense importance in
connection with our schemes of national education.

If we will have no concern with a national school
system which does not secure that all the young
members of a community shall be instructed in cer-
tain orders of ideas, then we may be engaged in a
very noble labour; but, it seems to me, we are en-
gaged in a very vast and very long one. But if we
pitch our ideal lower, if we will be contented, in the
first instance, with a national school system pretend-
ing to be nothing more than an apparatus for
thoroughly accomplishing the one good object of
teaching all the boys and girls in the community to
read and write—then I see hope. I would proclaim it,
in fact, as the primary function of a national school
system—other things, of course, reserved—to impart
to all the children in a community the full franchise
of books. How far we are from even this moderate
attainment in our land, who does not know? And
yet we debate, and delay, and wrangle ; we will have
this, we will have that ; we will have so many things,
that we do nothing. It is our disgrace as a nation.
Again and again, and again, I think that, if but twelve
of our leading men were to give themselves up to this as
the work of their lives—the setting up in our parishes
“of such an apparatus as would render it impossible for
any child born on British ground to grow up untaught302 DAVID MASSON ON

to read and write—the thing would be done before

twelve years were over.

O! is it come to this, that

a nation which, by its cash and courage exported to
the ends of the earth, can blow up a colossal citadel,
and reorganize a foreign peninsula, cannot educate its

own little ones ?

Once in possession of the franchise of books, a

man, as we have said, has, generally speaking, the

rest in his own power.

There is no limit to what,

with talent and perseverance, he may attam. He
may become a classical scholar and a linguist; or he

may grow eminent in speculation and the sciences.
We have instances in abundance of such perseverance ;
and we have a name for those who so distinguish
themselves. A person who, availing himself of the
spontaneous means of education afforded by the other
great schools which we have enumerated—the school
of family, the school of native local circumstance, the
school of travel, and the school of friendship; and
having, also, somehow or other, been put in possession
of the franchise of books—conducts the rest of his
book-education himself, and conducts 16 so success-
fully as to become eminent, is called a self-educated
man. Society often distmguishes between self-edu-

cated men and men who are college-bred—that is,

who have not only been taught to read and write in

plain schools, but have had the benefit, for a certain
period of their more advanced youth, of that higher
pedagogic apparatus, which directs and systematizes
reading, and, to some extent supersedes its use, by

imparting its results in an oral form. Now the ques-COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 303

tion has been raised, whether this higher pedagogic
apparatus—whether colleges, in fact—are really of so
much use as has been fancied ; and whether it would
not be enough if, in these days, pedagogy were to stop
at the first stage, that of thoroughly teaching the
mechanical art of reading, and were then to turn the
youth of a community so instructed loose upon the
libraries and the miscellaneous teaching of life. This
question is gaining ground, and not without apparent
reason. Of the men of our own day who are eminent
in station, influential in society, and distinguished in
art, science, and letters, there are many who have not
received what is generally called an academic educa-
tion. I have only to glance round among those who

re at present conspicuous in the various departments
of British literature, and I find not a few who never
studied in any university. And so if I look back
upon the past. The very king, the unapproachable
monarch, of our literature, was a Warwickshire man,
who had little Latin, less Greek, and, perhaps, no
mathematics. ‘True, the larger number of those ex-
amples of intellectual eminence attained without aca-
demic education, would be found to be not properly

 

self-educated men, in the precise sense in which we
are now using the term, but, to some extent, college-
bred. Over Great Britain, and in England, in
particular, there are hundreds of public schools and
private seminaries which do, though not to the same
length as the great universities, perform the functions,
as we have defined them, of colleges; and it is in
these that by far the largest proportion of youngee

 

304 DAVID MASSON ON

men even of well-circumstanced families are educated.
Shakspeare was taught at the grammar-school of his
native town, where the boys at this day wear square
academic caps, whatever they did in his; so that
the proper measure of Shakspeare’s education, even
scholastically, is that. he was carried as far on by the
pedagogy of his time as at least ninety-nine per cent.
of his contemporaries. Perhaps the number of self-
educated prodigies, in the present restricted sense
of the term, is not so great as supposed. Still,
there are examples of eminent men self-educated even
in this extreme sense of the term—that is, of men
who having received absolutely nothing from formal
pedagogy but the plain faculty of reading and writing,
if always that, have acquired all their subsequent
book-education privately for themselves. Seeing that
there are such men—seeing that, by simple perse-

‘verance in reading books, results seem to be arrived

at about equal in the main to what a regular college-
education would bring about, the question may again
be asked, whether, after all, a college-education merits
the respect so long accorded to it ? Your presence
here presumes, I believe, that you are convinced it
does ; I will conclude my lecture, however, with one
or two remarks which may, perhaps, express more _
particularly your views on the subject.

Observe, the question is not whether certain more
prominent institutions of the country, styled and
chartered as colleges—those included in the Universi-
ties of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, for example
—deserve the respect accorded to them. ‘The ques-COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 305

tion does, indeed, refer to those great chartered insti-
tutions, but not exclusively. Observe, also, the ques-
tion is not as to the present system of these or any
cognate institutions—the nature and course of the
studies pursued in them, or the adaptation of these
studies to the wants of the age. The question simply
is whether, when a community has, by one set of
educational apparatus, called schools, put its young
men in possession of that faculty of reading and taste
for the same, which are the key to all the knowledge
contained in books, it may then leave them to their
own private perseverance, according to their inclina-
tions and opportunities ; or whether finer results may
not be attained by handing them over, at this point,
to another and a higher kind of educational apparatus,
called colleges, which will take charge of them a few
years longer, assist them in their first roads upon the
vast mass of thought and knowledge accumulated in
books, and, in part, supersede and supplement that
method of acquiring knowledge by oral instruction.
In the first place, then, colleges fulfil this impor-
tant function—that they guarantee to society a cer-
tain amount of competency in certain professions m
which previously guaranteed competency is necessary.
The professions most ostensibly in this predicament
are those of law, theology, and medicine ; but there
are numberless other professions for the efficiency and
respectability of which a certain amount of attested
general acquirement, as well as of special professional
training, in those who engage in them, 1s absolutely
requisite. This function of insuring society against
x

Seeace

‘aa

sass

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

  

306 DAVID MASSON ON

the intrusion of quacks and ignorant pretenders into
important professions, is performed, as well as it ad-
mits of being performed, by colleges. Before a man
ean legally practice medicine, for example, it is re-
quired that he shall have attended courses of lectures,
not only in what appertains to medical science, but
also in those general subjects which enter into a
liberal education. And so, m various ways, and under
various forms of regulation, with other professions.
Now, it is certainly possible that the same result
might be attained by other means. The professions
might be thrown open to-all comers; they might
eease, so far, to be corporations ; all men might be
admitted to practice medicine or any other profession,
provided they gave evidence of ability for such prac-
tice, anyhow attained ; and this might be tested by
a system of examinations calculated to ascertain the
competency of candidates without inquirmg by what
means they had become competent. I think I see a
tendency in this direction ; I know not how far it will
go, but, as matters now are, I believe no security for
professional qualification could be devised that could
wholly dispense with the plan of college certificates
—the principle of which is that they attest that can-
didates have been at least physically detained, for a
certain period of time, in places where the required
knowledge was to be had, so that they must have
been impervious indeed not to have imbibed some of it.

This suggests an extension of the same argument.
It is not only with a view to professional qualifica-
tion that persons are the better for being detained,COLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 307

whether they will or not, in places where knowledge

is systematically administered. Indolence, love of

amusement, preference for the pleasant, the trivial.
and the immediate, over what is important, substan-
tial, and lasting, are besetting sins even in manhood:
but im youth they are especially natural. Ifa body
of young men, fresh from school, were turned loose
upon the huge library of printed literature to find
their way into it and through it, as they liked, many
of them, doubtless, would prove insatiable readers -
but it is questionable whether many of them, of their
own accord, would choose the right directions, or
would pursue their reading beyond that point where

toil and patience began to be requisite. The spirit of

competition, the chance of those prizes which society
confers on attainment, might, indeed, spur the ardent
to exertion, and make them exchange the pleasant for
the difficult ; and the mere progressive search after
interesting books, would lead others, by a zig-zag
course, from the lower to the higher kinds of litera-
ture—from Rosa Matilda novels to the novels of Scott
and Richardson ; from Anacreon and Peter Pindar to
Sophocles and Milton ; from jest books to Swift and
Addison ; from the daily or weekly newspapers to
Gibbgp or Macaulay. But what is clearly wanted is
a kind of intellectual generalship, if we may so speak,
that shall muster youth in front of the masses of lite-
rature which have to be pierced through and con-
quered ; drill them ; infuse a bold spirit into them:
point out to them the proper points of attack, the re-
doubts where glory is to be won ; and, while leaving

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 

 

oilsWaNuGE.
'

 

   

308 DAVID MASSON ON

them as much scope as possible for individual energy
and inclination, lead them on, according to a plan, in
regular order and column. This duty is undertaken
by colleges. There young men are assembled im
classes, the business of which has been arranged, how-
ever imperfectly, according to an idea of the best
manner in which knowledge may be partitioned ; they
are obliged to be present so many hours a-day im the
selected classes, and there to hear lectures on various
subjects deliberately read to them, whether they will
or not: and thus, as well as by the discipline of ex-
aminations and the like, certain orders of ideas as well
as certain intellectual tendencies are worked into
them, which they could not otherwise have acquired,
and which place them at an advantage all the rest of
their lives. That I have not exaggerated this use of
colleges, I believe observation will prove. I believe
it will be found that many of our first speculative
and scientific minds have derived the special tenden-
cies which have made their lives famous from im-
pulses communicated in colleges. I think also it will
be found that strictly self-educated men—of course I
except the higher and more illustrious instances—do
not, as a body, exhibit the same tenacity and perse-
verance in pushing knowledge to its farthest lingits as
academic men of equal power. ‘Their disposition, in
most instances, is to be content with what I will call
proximate knowledge—that which les about them
and can be turned to immediate account. It is in
current politics, in general literature, and in popular
matter of thought, that they move and have theirCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 309

beg ; upon the laborious tracks of abstract science,
or of difficult and extreme speculation, they do not so
often enter. Or, if occasionally, we do see a self-
taught geologist, a self-taught botanist, or a self-
taught mathematician—then, not unfrequently, there
is an egotistic exultation over the labour gone through,
and an exaggerated estimation of the particular science
overtaken in its relations to the whole field of know-
ledge. There is too much, so to speak, of the spirit
of the private soldier, whose idea of the field is but
the recollection of his own movements. There are, I
repeat, examples of self-educated men of so high an
order as to be free from these faults. Still I believe
what I have said will be found, in the main, correct.
Nay, abroad in society generally there is, I believe,
too much of that spirit of contempt for the high, the
profound, and the elaborate, in the way of speculation,
which the worldly success of half-taught men of good
natural abilities is calculated to foster. You will meet
in society many really clever and ingenious men, who
have a spruce way of talking of what is to them be-
hind the curtain. Formal Logic, High Art, Conic
Sections, Syllogisms, Aristotle’s Categories, the Ob-
jective and the Subjective, the Theory of Hurricanes,
the Philosophy of the Unconditioned—these and
other such phrases they sneer at in the most decisive
manner. Why cannot men say what they have got
to say in plain English? is their usual way of put-
ting the question. Now, from persons who under-
stand what they thus sneer at—who know a syllo-
gism when they see it, and could repeat Aristotle’srtiigee

Feet

Teta ay 5
tibia

 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

DAVID MASSON ON

 

310

Categories—all this is very well; but from those who
do not, it is intolerable. It is the mere conceit of
ignorance. Plain English! “The assymptote of a
hyperbola ’’—put that into plain English! “The

square of a semiordinate to any diameter is equal to

the rectangle under the parameter of that diameter

and the corresponding absciss’’—express that in plain

English, if you can! These are examples from one

science: but they teach the general lesson, that every

science must be allowed its own language, and it is

not for those who are outside the temple of Philosophy

to settle the terms on which its votaries shall be

initiated. To pedantry or mystification let there be

no mercy ; and whoever, in talking to a child, cannot

use words of one syllable, by all means let him pay

the penalty. But men do not always talk to children ;

and when they talk to each other at their highest

strain on great subjects, they will best settle their

own mode of procedure. This, accordingly, is one -
use of colleges—that, by accustoming young men to

the forms of high science, they kill in them this

unseemly conceit in proximate knowledge, and foster

in its stead a reverence for the lofty, the difficult, and

the elaborate ; and that, by training them in various

courses of knowledge at the same time, they cultivate

in them also a spirit of intellectual generality. And

so, irrespective of their effects on the professions,

colleges tend to keep up a high intellectual standard

in a community, and to increase the number of

strictly and variously cultivated men.

Again, even supposing that men could map outCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 31]

the field of knowledge for themselves, determine at
a glance into what great orders of ideas the past
thought of the human race could be best distributed
for the purposes of study, and spontaneously go to
work upon these in the right spirit, still, in the de-
tailed prosecution of any study by means of books,
assistance would be necessary. Accordingly, one use
of colleges is that they direct and systematize reading.
The art of recommending good books, and of leading
on from one book to another, is one of the most use-
ful qualifications of a teacher, and it may be carried
to extraordinary perfection. Perhaps, indeed, we do
not sufficiently attend to this function of colleges’ per-
haps we do not sufficiently attend to the fact that, since
colleges were first instituted, their place in the general
system of education has been greatly changed. When
colleges were first instituted, books were scarce and dif-
ficult of access; men were then their own encyclo-
pedias ; and every Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, or
other ornament of a university, was bound to be a
walking incarnation of the totum scibile. Hence a
course of lectures in those days was expected to be—
whatever might be its other merits—a digest of all
accessible information on the subject treated. Now,
however, that there exist, on all subjects, books, which
it is impossible for even the best living thinker wholly
to supersede, such lectures of a mere digest and detail
are out of place; and the business of teachers is
rather to direct the reading of the pupils, and to re-
serve their original disquisitions for those points where
they can hope to modify and extend what has been
previously advanced. I am not sure, as I have said,

     
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

 

i aaa ct ie inch it

aia be:DAVID MASSON ON

 

312

that we take this fact of the changed function of our
colleges, consequent upon the enormous increase of
books, sufficiently along with us in our practice.
If, in this respect, however, colleges have under-
gone a change of position, there is another respect
b in which they offer the same advantage as ever.
Quite as much now, as in those remote times when
colleges were first set up in Hurope, they afford to
youth that highest of all educational privileges—the
chance of coming into personal contact with men either _
of original speculative power in their several depart-
ments, or of unusual fervour and enthusiasm, kind-
ling into zeal all that come near them, and imparting
life and fire to all that they touch. I have spoken
| of the wonderful efficacy of this influence casually
encountered in society ; but it is the very nature of
colleges to concentrate it and make it accessible.
Besides, the preceptorial relation is undoubtedly that
in which this influence acts most intensely. Whata
privilege to have listened to the disquisitions of Reid
or Adam Smith! What a stream of men, notable in
the intellectual and political world, some of them still
alive, came forth from the class-room of Dugald
Stewart! I speak feelingly on this matter; for, in
my own experience, I have had occasion to know the

 

singular power of this element of education. I could
count up and name at this moment some four or five
men, to whose personal influence, experienced as a stu-
dent, I owe more than to any books, and of whom,
while life lasts, I will always think with gratitude.
The image of one silver-haired old man, in particular,

now rises before me—a man not unknown in theCOLLEGE-EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION. 313
history of his country—to whose memory, amid
changing forms of fact and thought, I pay my poor
tribute of undying veneration. Never, never to be
forgotten, that face, that form, gazed on so long!
Cold now he lies in a northern grave ; and abroad over
the British earth, walk thousands who, with me, once
listened to his voice; and who, when they too are old
and move heavily, willlook back, back through the mist
of years, fondly towards him, and the distant time.
Finally, I believe there is something in the oral
method of conveying knowledge, whether after the
tutorial or after the professorial fashion, but, perhaps,
most effective in the latter, which fits it to perform
certain offices of instruction far better than they
could be performed by private communion with books.
Twill not enlarge on this topic. I will only say,
that it appears to me that the forms and circum-
stantials of oral teaching are such, that anything in
the shape ofa general doctrine or principle is far more
expeditiously and impressively inculcated in this
mode, through the ear, than it can usually be taken
in through the eye; and that, consequently, any
science, such as political economy, the proper teaching
of which consists in the slow infiltration into the
minds of the pupils of a series of such general doctrines,
one by one, as well as those parts ofall sciences which
consist of massive single propositions, can be best
taught by lectures and examinations. Curiously
enough, this is precisely that function of colleges
which, after the revolution in our educational system
caused by the increase of books, would still, at any
rate, be reserved for them.

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 

 

x aia i eet ebb s314 DAVID MASSON.

 

It were wrong, however, to end on this key. One
of my colleagues, as many of you know, is in the habit
of inserting in the prospectus of his classes, a caution
that he cannot guarantee the proficiency of his stu-
dents, unless the work done in the classes is supple-
mented by diligent and continuous reading at home.
Tam sure we all endorse this caution. And what
does it mean but this, that, after all, self-education 18
the main work, andcollege education but a help to 16?
And so, Gentlemen-students, whatever advantages
your connection with this institution may give to
you, you are still cast back, with the rest of the
world, on your own energy and resources, your own
docility and quickness in those great schools which
are open to all—the school of family, the school of
surrounding nature and life, the school of travel, the
school of friendship, and the school of books. Even
in direct connection with this college, you have some
special facilities for self-education, of which you will
do well to avail yourselves. There is a library,where
means and appliances for private study are not
wanting; and in your literary and debating societies
you have opportunities for calling forth an influence
of reciprocal action, to which I, for one, assign great
value—that of emulous, yet genial intellectual com-
panionship. Use these means in their degree and
place. Let us enter on the duties of this session
with zeal; and may its results prove that, though
there never was a man of any intellectual worth who
was not, in the truest sense, self-educated, yet col-
leges are of some use!