(1) Since the above article was prepared for the press, wehave met with a new and very important work on the subjectof West-India Slavery. It is entitled, “TheWest Indiesas they are, or a real Picture of Slavery, particularly inJamaica,” by the Rev. H. Bickell, a clergyman of the Churchof England, who resided a considerable time in that island.The work is ill written; and it might have been reduced withadvantage to half its present size. It produces, however, anirresistible impression of the honesty and right intentionsof the author, who was an eyewitness of the scenes hedescribes: and it continues, in a remarkable manner, all theleading statements which, on the authority of Mr. Cooper,Dr. Williamson, and Mr. Meabing, were laid before the publictwo years ago, in the pamphlet called “Negro Slavery.” Mr.Bickell has also brought forward various new facts of themost damning description, in illustration both of therigours of Negro bondage, and of the extraordinarydissoluteness of manners prevailing in Jamaica. We stronglyrecommend the work to general perusal, as a most seasonableantidote to those delusive tales of colonial amelioration,by which it has been attempted to abate the horror souniversally felt in contemplating the cruel and debasingeffects of the slave system.
Fewthings have ever appeared to us more inexplicable than the cry which it has pleased those who arrogate to themselves the exclusive praise of loyalty and orthodoxy, to raise against the projected University of London. In most of those publications which are distinguished by zeal for the Church and the Government, the scheme is never mentioned but with affected contempt, or unaffected fury. The Academic pulpits have resounded with invectives against it; and many even of the most liberal and enlightened members of the old foundations seem to contemplate it with very uncomfortable feelings.
We were startled at this. For surely no undertaking of equal importance was ever commenced in a manner more pacific and conciliatory. If the management has fallen, in a great measure, into the hands of persons whose political opinions are at variance with those of the dominant party, this was not the cause, but the effect of the jealousy which that party thought fit to entertain. Oxford and Cambridge, to all appearance, had nothing to dread. Hostilities were not declared. Even rivalry was disclaimed. The new Institution did not aspire to participate in the privileges which had been so long monopolised by those ancient corporations. It asked for no franchises, no lands, no advowsons. It did not interfere with that mysterious scale of degrees on which good churchmen look with as much veneration as the Patriarch on the ladder up which he saw angels ascending. It did not ask permission to search houses without warrants, or to take books from publishers without paying for them.
(1)Thoughts on the Advancement of Academical Education inEngland.1826.
Therewas to be no melo-dramatic pageantry, no ancient ceremonial, no silver mace, no gowns either black or red, no hoods either of fur or of satin, no public orator to make speeches which nobody hears, no oaths sworn only to be broken. Nobody thought of emulating the cloisters, the organs, the painted glass, the withered mummies, the busts of great men, and the pictures of naked women, which attract visitors from every part of the isand to the banks of Isis and Cam. The persons whose advantage was quietly in view belonged to a class of which very few ever find their way to the old colleges. The name of University was indeed assumed; and it has been said that this gave offence. But we are confident that so ridiculous an objection can have been entertained by very few. It reminds us of the whimsical cruelty with which Mercury, in Plautus, knocks down poor Soda for being so impudent as to have the same name with himself!
We know indeed that there are many to whom knowledge is hateful for its own sake,—owl-like beings, creatures of darkness, and rapine, and evil omen, who are sensible that their organs fit them only for the night,—and that, as soon as the day arises, they shall be pecked back to their nooks by those on whom they now prey with impunity. By the arts of those, enemies of mankind, a large and influential party has been led to look with suspicion, if not with horror, on all schemes of education, and to doubt whether the ignorance of the people be not the best security for its virtue and repose.
We will not at present attack the principles of these persons, because we think that, even on those principles, they are bound to support the London University. If indeed it were possible to bring back, in all their ancient loveliness, the times of venerable absurdities and good old nuisances—if we could hope that gentlemen might again put their marks to deeds without blushing—that it might again be thought a miracle if any body in a parish could read, except the Vicar, or if the Vicar were to read any thing but the Service,—that all the literature of the multitude might again be comprised in a ballad or a prayer,—that the Bishop of Norwich might be burned for a heretic, and Sir Humphry Davy hanged for a conjurer,—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might negotiate loans with Mr. Rothschild, by extractingone of his teeth daily till he brought him to term—then indeed the case would be different. But, ala! who can venture to anticipate such a millennium of stupidity? The zealots of ignorance will therefore do well to consider, whether, since the evils of knowledge cannot be altogether excluded, it may not be desirable to set them in array against each other. The best state of things, we will concede to them, would be that in which all men should be dunces together. That might be called the age of gold. The silver age would be that in which no man should be taught to spell, unless he could produce letters of ordination, or, like a candidate for a German order of knighthood, prove his sixty-four quarters. Next in the scale would stand a community in which the higher and middling orders should be well educated, and the labouring people utterly uninformed. But the iron age would be that in which the lower classes should be rising in intelligence, while no corresponding improvement was taking, place in the rank immediately above them.
England is in the last of these states. From one end of the country to the other the artisans, the draymen, the very ploughboys, are learning to read and write. Thousands of them attend lectures. Hundreds of thousands read newspapers. Whether this be a blessing or a curse, we are not now inquiring. But such is the fact. Education is spreading amongst the working people, and cannot be prevented from spreading amongst them. The change which has taken place in this respect within twenty years is prodigious. No person surely, will venture to say that information has increased in the same degree amongst those who constitute what may be called the lower part of the middling class,—farmers for instance, shopkeepers, or clerks in commercial houses.
If there be any truth in the principles held by the enemies of education, this is the most dangerous state in which a country can be placed. They maintain that knowledge renders the poor arrogant and discontented. It will hardly be disputed, we presume, that arrogance is the result, not of the absolute situation in which a man may be placed, but of the relation in which he stands to others. Where a whole society is equably rising in intelligence; where the distance between its different orders remains the same, though every order advances, that feeling is not likely to be excited. An individualis not more vain of his knowledge, because he participates in the universal improvement, than he is vain of his speed, because he is dying along with the earth and every thing upon it, at the rate of seventy thousand miles an hour. But if he feels thatheis going forward, while those before him are standing still, the case is altered. If ever the diffusion of knowledge can be attended with the danger of which we hear so much, it is in England at the present moment. And this danger can be obviated in two ways only. Unteach the pool-,—or teach those who may, by comparison, be called the rich. The former it is plainly impossible to do: And therefore, if those whom we are addressing be consistent, they will exert themselves to do the latter; and, by increasing the knowledge, increase also the power of an extensive and important class,—a class which is as deeply interested as the peerage or the hierarchy in the prosperity and tranquillity of the country; a class which, while it is too numerous to be corrupted by government, is too intelligent to be duped by demagogues, and which, though naturally hostile to oppression and profusion, is not likely to carry its zeal for reform to lengths inconsistent with the security of property and the maintenance of social order.
“But an University without religion!” softly expostulates the Quarterly Review.—“An University without religion!” roars John Bull, wedging in his pious horror between a slander and a double-entendre. And from pulpits and visitation-dinners and combination-rooms innumerable, the cry is echoed and re-echoed, “An University without religion!”
This objection has really imposed on many excellent people, who have not adverted to the immense difference which exists between the new Institution and those foundations of which the members form a sort of family, living under the same roof, governed by the same regulations, compelled to eat at the same table, and to return to their apartments at the same hours. Have none of those who censure the London University on this account, daughters who are educated at home, and who are attended by different teachers? The music-master, a good Protestant, comes at twelve; the dancing-master, a French philosopher, at two; the Italian master, a believer in the blood of Saint Januarius, at three. The parents take upon themselves the office of instructing their child in religion. She hears the preachers whom they prefer,and reads the theological works which they put into her hands. Who can deny that this is the case in innumerable families? Who can point ont any material difference between the situation in which this girl is placed, and that of a pupil at the new University? Why then is so crying an abuse suffered to exist without reprehension? Is there no Sacheverell to raise the old cry,—the Church is in danger,—that cry which was never uttered by any voice however feeble., or for any end however base, without being instantly caught up and repeated through all the dark and loathsome nooks where bigotry nestles with corruption? Where is the charge of the Bishop and the sermon of the Chaplain, the tear of the Chancellor and the oath of the Heir-apparent, the speech of Mr. William Bankes and the pamphlet of Sir Harcourt Lees? What means the silence of those filthy and malignant baboons, whose favourite diversion is to grin and sputter at innocence and beauty through the grates of their spunging-houses? Why not attempt to blast the reputation of the poor ladies who are so irreligiously brought up? Why not search into all the secrets of their families? Why not enliven the Sunday breakfast-tables of priests and placemen with elopements of their great-aunts and the bankruptcies of their second cousins?
Or, to make the parallel still clearer, take the case of a young man, a student, we will suppose, of surgery, resident in London. He wishes to become master of his profession, without neglecting other useful branches of knowledge. In the morning he attends Mr. M’Culloch’s lecture on Political Economy. He then repairs to the Hospital, and hears Sir Astley Cooper explain the mode of reducing fractures. In the afternoon he joins one of the classes which Mr. Hamilton instructs in French or German. With regard to religions observances, he acts as he himself, or those under whose care he is, may think most advisable. Is there any thing objectionable in this? Is it not the most common case in the world? And in what does it differ from that of a young man at the London University? Our surgeon, it is true, will have to run over half London in search of his instructors; and the other will find all the lecture-rooms which he attends standing conveniently together, at the end of Gower Street. Is it in the local situation that the mischief lies? We have observed that, since Mr. Croker, in the last session ofParliament, declared himself ignorant of the site of Russell Square, the plan of forming an University in so inelegant a neighbourhood has excited much contempt amongst those estimable persons who think that the whole dignity of man consists in living within certain districts, wearing coats made by certain tailors, and eschewing certain meats and drinks. We should be sorry to think that the reports which any lying Mandeville from Bond Street may have circulated respecting that Terra Incognita, could seriously prejudice the new College. The Secretary of the Admiralty, however, has the remedy in his own hands. When Captain Franklin returns, as we trust he soon will, from his American expedition, he will, we hope, he sent to explore that other North-West passage which connects the city with the Regent’s Park. It would then be found, that, though the natives generally belong to the same race with those Oriental barbarians whose irruptions have long been the terror of Hamilton Place and Grosvenor Square, they are, upon the whole, quiet and inoffensive; that, though they possess no architectural monument which can be compared to the Pavilion at Brighton, their habitations are neat and commodious; and that their language has many roots in common with that which is spoken in St. James’s Street. One thing more we must mention, which will astonish some of our readers, as much as the discovery of the Syrian Christians of St. Thomas on the coast of Malabar. Our religion has been introduced by some Xavier or Augustin of former times into these tracts. Churches, with all their appurtenances of hassocks and organs, are to be found there; and even the tithe, that greatarticulum stantis aut lahantis ecclesiae, is by no means unknown.
The writer of the article on this subject in the last Number of the Quarterly Review, severely censures the omission of religious instruction, in a place styling itself an University,—never perceiving that, with the inconsistency which belongs to error, he has already answered the objection. “A place of education,” says he, “is the least of all proper to be made the arena of disputable and untried doctrine.” He severely censures those academies in which “a perpetual vacillation of doctrine is observable, whether in morals, metaphysics, or religion, according to the frequency of change in the professional chair.” Now, we venture to say, that theseconsiderations, if they are worth any thing at all, are decisive against any scheme of religions instruction in the London University. That University was intended to admit not only Christians of all persuasions, but even Jews. But suppose that it were to narrow its limits, to adopt the formularies of the Church of England, to require subscription, or the sacramental test, from every professor and from every pupil; still, we say, there would be more field for controversy, more danger of that vacillation of doctrine which seems to the Reviewer to be so great an evil, on subjects of theology, than on all other subjects together. Take a science which is still young, a science of considerable intricacy, a science, we may add, which the passions and interests of men have rendered more intricate than it is in its own nature, the science of Political Economy. Who will deny, that, for one schism which is to be found among those who are engaged in that study, there are twenty on points of divinity,within the Church of England?
Is it not notorious that Arminiens, who stand on the very frontier of Pelagianism, and Calvinists, whom a line scarcely discernible separates from Antinomianism, are to be found among those who eat the bread of the Establishment? Is it not notorious that predestination, final perseverance, the operation of grace, the efficacy of the sacraments, and a hundred other subjects which we could name, have been themes of violent disputes between eminent churchmen? The ethics of Christianity, as well as its theory, have been the theme of dispute. One party calls the other latitudinarian and worldly. The other retorts accusations of fanaticism and asceticism. The curate has been set against the rector, the dean against the bishop. There is scarcely a parish in England into which the controversy has not found its way. There is scarcely an action of human life so trivial and familiar as not to be in some way or other affected by it. Whether it is proper to take in a Sunday newspaper, to shoot a partridge, to course a hare, to subscribe to a Bible Society, to dance, to play at whist, to read Tom Jones, to see Othello,—all these are questions on which the strongest difference of opinion exists between persons of high eminence in the hierarchy. The Quarterly Reviewer thinks it a very bad thing, that “the first object of a new professor should be to refute the fundamental positions of his predecessors.” What would bethe case if a High Churchman should succeed a Low Churchman, or a Low Churchman a High Churchman, in the chair of religion? And what possible security could the London University have against such an event? What security have Oxford or Cambridge now? In fact, all that we know of the state of religious parties at those place, fully bears out our statement. One of the most famous divines of our time. Dr. Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, Margaret Professor of Theology at Cambridge, and author of eighty-seven of the most unanswerable questions that ever man propounded to his fellow-men, published a very singular hypothesis respecting the origin of the Gospels. With the truth or falsehood of the hypothesis we have nothing to do. We have, however, heard another eminent Professor of the same University, high in the Church, condemn the theory as utterly unfounded, and of most dangerous consequence to the orthodox faith. Nay, the very pulpit of Saint Mary’s has been “the arena of disputable and untried doctrine,” as much as ever was the chair of any Scotch or German professor,—a fact, of which any person may easily satisfy himself, who will take the trouble to rescue from the hands of trunk-makers and pastry-cooks, a few of the sermons which have been preached there, and subsequently published. And if, in the course of his researches, he should happen to light on that which was preached by a very eminent scholar on a very remarkable occasion, the installation of the Duke Gloucester, he will see, that not only dispute, but something very like abuse, may take place between those whose office it is to instruct our young collegians in the doctrines and duties of Christianity.
“But,” it is said, “would it not be shocking to expose the morals of young men to the contaminating influence of a great city, to all the fascinations of the Fives’ Court and the gaming table, the tavern and the saloon?” Shocking, indeed, we grant, if it were possible to send them all to Oxford and Cambridge, those blessed spots where, to use the imagery of their own prize-poems, the Saturnian age still lingers, and where white-robed Innocence has left the print of her departing footsteps. There, we know, all the men are philosophers, and all the women vestals. There, simple and bloodless repasts support the body without distressing the mind. There, while the sluggish world is still sleeping, the ingeniousyouth hasten to pour forth their fervent orisons in the chapel; and in the evening, elsewhere the season of riot and license, indulge themselves with a solitary walk beneath the venerable avenues, musing on the vanity of sensual pursuits, and the eternity and sublimity of virtue. But, alas! these blissful abodes of the Seven Cardinal Virtues are neither large enough nor cheap enough for those who stand in need of instruction. Many thousands of young men will live in London, whether an University be established there or not,—and that for this simple reason, that they cannot afford to live elsewhere. That they should be condemned to one misfortune because they labour under another, and debarred from knowledge because they are surrounded with temptations to vice, seems to be not a very rational or humane mode of proceeding.
To speak seriously, in comparing the dangers to which the morals of young men are exposed in London, with those which exist at the Universities, there is something to be said on both sides. The temptations of London may be greater. But with the temptation there is a way to escape. If the student live with his family, he will be under the influence of restraints more powerful, and, we will add, infinitely more salutary and respectable, than those which the best disciplined colleges can impose. Even if he be left completely to his own devices, he will still have within his reach two inestimable advantages, from which the students of Oxford and Cambridge are almost wholly excluded, the society of men older than himself, and of modest women.
There are no intimacies more valuable than those which a young man forms with one who is his senior by ten or twelve years. Those years do not destroy the sympathy and the sense of equality without which no cordiality can exist. Yet they strengthen the principles, and form the judgment. They make one of the parties a sensible adviser, and the other a docile listener. Such friendships it is almost impossible to form at College. Between the man of twenty and the man of thirty there is a great gulf, a distinction which cannot be mistaken, which is marked by the dress and by the seat, at prayers and at table. We do not believe that, of the young students at our ancient seats of learning, one in ten lives in confidence and familiarity with any member of the University who is a Master of Arts. When the members ofthe University are deducted, the society of Oxford and Cambridge is no more than that of an ordinary county town.
This state of things, it is clear, does more harm than all the exertions of Proctors and Proproctors can do good. The errors of young men are of a nature with which it is very difficult to deal. Slight punishments are inefficient; severe punishments generally and justly odious. The best course is to give them over to the arm of public opinion. To restrain them, it is necessary to make them discreditable. But how can they be made discreditable while the offenders associate only with those who are of the same age, who are exposed to the same temptations, and who are willing to grant the indulgence which they themselves may need? It is utterly impossible that a code of morality and honour, enacted by the young only, can be so severe against juvenile irregularities as that which is in force in general society, where manhood and ape have the deciding voice, and where the partial inclinations of those whose passions are strong, and whose reason is weak, are withstood by those whom time and domestic life have sobered. The difference resembles that which would be found between laws passed by an assembly consisting solely of farmers, or solely of weavers, and those of a senate fairly representing every interest of the community.
A student in London, even though he may not live with his own relatives, will generally have it in his power to mix with respectable female society. This is not only a very pleasant thing, but it is one which, though it may not make him moral, is likely to make him decorous, and to preserve him from that brainless and heartless Yahooism, that disdain of the character of women, and that brutal indifference to their misery, which is the worst offence, and the severest punishment of the finished libertine. Many of the pupils will, in all probability, continue to reside with their parents or friends. We own that we can conceive no situation more agreeable or more salutary. One of the worst effects of College habits is that distaste for domestic life which they almost inevitably generate. The system is monastic; and it tends to produce the monastic selfishness, inattention to the convenience of others, and impatience of petty privations. We mean no reproach. It is utterly impossible that the most amiable man in the world can be accustomed to live foryears independent of his neighbours, and to lay all his plans with a view only to himself, without becoming, in some degree, unfitted for a family. A course of education which should combine the enjoyments of a home with the excitements of a University, would be more likely than any other to form characters at once affectionate and manly. Homebred boys, it is often said, are idle. The cause, we suspect, is the want of competitors. We no more believe that a young man at the London University would be made idle by the society of his mothers and sisters, than that the old German warriors, or the combatants in the tournaments of the middle ages, were made cowards by the presence of female spectators. On the contrary, we are convinced that his ambition would be at once animated and consecrated by daily intercourse with those who would be dearest to him, and most inclined to rejoice in his success.
The eulogists of the old Universities are fond of dwelling on the glorious associations connected with them. It has often been said that the young scholar is likely to catch a generous enthusiasm from looking upon spots ennobled by so many great names—that he can scarcely see the chair in which Bentley sat, the tree which Alilton planted, the wadis within which Wickliffe presided, the books illustrated by the autographs of famous men, the halls hung with their pictures, the chapels hallowed by their tombs, without aspiring to imitate those whom he admires. Far be it from us to speak with disrespect of such feelings. It is possible that the memorials of those who have asserted the freedom, and extended the empire of the mind, may produce a strong impression on a sensitive and ardent disposition. But these instances are rare. “Coram Lepidis male vivitur.” Young academicians venture to get drunk within a few yards of the grave of Newton, and to commit solecisms, though the awful eye of Erasmus frowns upon them from the canvas. Some more homely sentiment, some more obvious association is necessary. For our part, when a young man is to be urged to persevering industry, and fortified against the seductions of pleasure, we would rather send him to the fireside of his own family, than to the abodes of philosophers who died centuries ago,—and to those kind familiar faces which are always anxious in his anxiety, and joyful in his success, than to the portrait of any waiter that ever wore cap and gown.
Thecry against the London University lias been swelled by the voices of many really conscientious persons. Many have joined in it from the mere wanton love of mischief. But we believe that it has principally originated in the jealousy of those who are attached to Cambridge and Oxford, either by their interests, or by those feelings which men naturally entertain towards the place of their education, and which, when they do not interfere with schemes of public advantage, are entitled to respect. Many of these persons, we suspect, entertain a vague apprehension, scarcely avowed even to themselves, that some defects in the constitution of their favourite Academies will be rendered more glaring by the contrast which the system of this new College will exhibit.
That there are such defects, great and radical defects in the structure of the two Universities, we are strongly inclined to believe: and the jealousy which many of their members have expressed of the new Institution greatly strengthens our opinion. What those defects appear to us to be, we shall attempt to state with frankness, but, at the same time, we trust, with candour.
We are sensible that we have undertaken a dangerous task. There is perhaps no subject on which more people have made up their minds without knowing why. Whenever this is the case, discussion ends in scurrility, the last resource of the disputant who cannot answer, and who will not submit. The scurrility of those who are scurrilous on all occasions, and against all opponents, by nature and by habit, by taste and by trade, can excite only the mirth or the pity of a well regulated mind. But we neither posess, nor affect to possess, that degree of philosophy, which would render us indifferent to the pain and resentment of sincere and respectable persons, whose prejudices we are compelled to assail. It is not in the bitterness of party spirit, it is not in the wantonness of paradox and declamation, that we would put to hazard the good will of learned and estimable men. Such a sacrifice must be powerful, and nothing but a sense of public duty would lead us to make it. We would earnestly entreat the admirers of the two Universities to reflect on the importance of this subject, the advantages of calm investigation, and the folly of trusting, in an age like the present, to mere dogmatism and invective. If the system whichthey love and venerate rest upon just principles, the examination which we propose to institute, into the state of its foundations, can only serve to prove their solidity. If they be unsound, we will not permit ourselves to think, that intelligent and honourable men can wish to disguise a fact which, for the sake of this country, and of the whole human race, ought to be widely known. Let them, instead of reiterating assertions which leave the question exactly where they found it; instead of turning away from all argument, as if the subject were one on which doubt partook of the nature of sin; instead of attributing to selfishness or malevolence, that which may at worst be harmless error, join us in coolly studying so interesting and momentous a point.—As to this, however, they will please themselves. We speak to the English people. The public mind, if we are not deceived, is approaching to manhood. It has outgrown its swaddling-bands, and thrown away its play-things. It can no longer be amused by a rattle, or laid asleep by a song, or awed by a fairy tale. At such a time, we cannot doubt that we shall obtain an impartial hearing.
Our objections to Oxford and Cambridge may be summed up in two words, their Wealth and their Privileges. Their prosperity does not depend on the public approbation. It would therefore be strange if they deserved the public approbation. Their revenues are immense. Their degrees are, in some professions, indispensable. Like manufacturers who enjoy a monopoly, they work at such an advantage, that they can venture to work ill.
Every person, we presume, will acknowledge that, to establish an academic system on immutable principles, would be the height of absurdity. Every year sees the empire of science enlarged by the acquisition of some new province, or improved by the construction of some easier road. Surely the change which daily takes place in the state of knowledge, ought to be accompanied by a corresponding change in the method of instruction. In many cases the rude and imperfect works of early speculators ought to give place to the more complete and luminous performances of those who succeed them. Even the comparative value of languages is subject to great fluctuations. The same tongue which at one period may be richer than any other in valuable works, may, some centuries after, be poorer than any. That, while such revolutionstake place, education ought to remain unchanged, is a proposition too absurd to be maintained for a moment.
If it be desirable that education should, by a gradual and constant change, adapt itself to the circumstances of every generation, how is this object to be secured? We answer—only by perfect freedom of competition. Under such a system, every possible exigence would be met. Whatever language, whatever art, whatever science, it might at any time be useful to know,that, men would surely learn, and woidd as surely find instructors to teach. The professor who should persist in devoting his attention to branches of knowledge which had become useless, would soon be deserted by his pupils. There would be as much of every sort of information as would afford profit and pleasure to the possessor—and no more.
But the riches and the franchises of our Universities prevent this salutary rivalry from taking place. In its stead is introduced an unnatural system of premiums, prohibitions, and apprenticeships. Enormous bounties are lavished on particular acquirements; and, in consequence, there is among our youth a glut of Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, and a lamentable scarcity of every thing else.
We are by no means inclined to depreciate the studies which are encouraged at Oxford and Cambridge. We should reprobate with the same severity a system tinder which a like exclusive protection should be extended to French or Spanish, Chemistry or Mineralogy, Metaphysics or Political Economy. Some of these branches of knowledge are very important. But they may not always be equally important. Five hundred years hence, the Burmese language may contain the most valuable books in the world. Sciences, for which there is now no name, and of which the first rudiments are still undiscovered, may then be in the greatest demand. Our objection is to the principle. We abhor intellectual perpetuities. A chartered and endowed College, strong in its wealth and in its degrees, does not find it necessary to teach what is useful, because it can pay men to learn what is useless. Every fashion which was in vogue at the time of its foundation, enters into its constitution and partakes of its immortality. Its abuses savour of the reality, and its prejudices vest in mortmain, with its lands. In the present instance, the consequences are notorious. We every day see clevermen of four and five-and-twenty, loaded with academical honours and rewards,—-scholarships, fellowships, whole cabinets of medals, whole shelves of prize books,—enter into life with their education still to begin, unacquainted with the history, the literature, we might almost say, the language of their country, unacquainted with the first principles of the laws under which they live, unacquainted with the very rudiments of moral and political science! Who will deny that this is the state of things? Or who will venture to defend it?
This is no new complaint. Long before society had so far outstripped the Colleges in the career of improvement as it has since done, the evil was noticed and traced to its true cause, by that great philosopher who most accurately mapped all the regions of science, and furnished the human intellect with its most complete Itinerary. “It is not to be forgotten,” says Lord Bacon, “that the dedicating of foundations and donations to professory learning, hath not only had a malign influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states and governments: For hence it proceed-eth, that princes find a solitude in respect of able men to serve them in causes of state,because there is no education collegiate which is free, where such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other like enablements unto causes of state.” The warmest admirers of the present system will hardly deny, that, if this was an evil in the sixteenth century, it must be a much greater evil in the nineteenth. The literature of Greece and Rome is now what it was then. That of every modern language has received considerable accessions. And surely, “books of policy and civil discourse” are as important to an English gentleman of the present day, as they could be to a subject of James the First.
We repeat, that we are not disparaging either the dead languages or the exact sciences. We only say, that if they are useful they will not need peculiar encouragement, and that, if they are useless, they ought not to receive it. Those who maintain that the present system is necessary to promote the study of classical and mathematical knowledge, are the persons who really depreciate those pursuits. They do in (1) Advancement of Learning, Book II.
In factdeclare, by implication, that neither amusement nor profit is to be derived from them, and that no man has any motive to employ his time upon them, unless he expects that they may help him to a fellowship.
The utility of mathematical knowledge is felt in every part of the system of life, and acknowledged by every rational man. But does it therefore follow, that people ought to be paid to acquire it. A scarcity of persons capable of making almanacks and measuring land, is as little to be apprehended as a scarcity of blacksmiths. In fact, very few of our academical mathematicians turn their knowledge to such practical purposes. There are many wranglers who have never touched a quadrant. What peculiar title then has the mere speculative knowledge of mathematical truth to such costly remuneration? The answer is well known. It makes men good reasoners: it habituates them to strict accuracy in drawing inferences. In this statement there is unquestionably some truth. A man who understands the nature of mathematical reasoning, the closest of all kinds of reasoning, is likely to reason better than another on points not mathematical, as a man who can dance generally walks better than a man who cannot.. But no people walk so ill as dancing-masters, and no people reason so ill as mere mathematicians. They are accustomed to look only for one species of evidence; a species of evidence of which the transactions of life do not admit. When they come from certainties to probabilities, from a syllogism to a witness, their superiority is at an end. They resemble a man who, never having seen any object which was not either black or white, should be required to discriminate between two near shades of grey. Hence, on questions of religion, policy, or common life, we perpetually see these boasted demonstrators either extravagantly credulous, or extravagantly sceptical. That the science is a necessary ingredient in a liberal education, we admit. But it is only an ingredient, and an ingredient which is peculiarly dangerous, unless diluted by a large admixture of others. To encourage it by such rewards as are bestowed at Cambridge, is to make the occasional tonic of the mind its morning and evening nutriment.
The partisans of classical literature are both more numerous and more enthusiastic than the mathematicians; and the ignorant violence with which their cause has sometimes been assailed,has added to its popularity. On this subject we are sure that we are at least impartial judges. We feel the warmest admiration for the great remains of antiquity. We gratefully acknowledge the benefits which mankind has owed to them. But we would no more sutler a pernicious system to be protected by the reverence which is due to them, than we would show our reverence for a saint by erecting his shrine into a sanctuary for criminals.
An eloquent scholar has said, that ancient literature was the ark in which all the civilization of the world was preserved during the deluge of barbarism. We confess it. But we do not read that Noah thought himself bound to live in the ark after the deluge had subsided. When our ancestors first began to consider the study of the classics as the principal part of education, little or nothing worth reading was to be found in any modern language. Circumstances have confessedly changed. Is it not possible that a change of system may be desirable?
Our opinion of the Latin tongue will, we fear, be considered heretical. We cannot but think that its vocabulary is miserably poor, and its mechanism deficient both in power and precision. The want of a definite article, and of a distinction between the preterite and the aorist tenses, are two defects which are alone sufficient to place it below any other language with which we are acquainted. In its most flourishing era it was reproached with poverty of expression. Cicero, indeed, was induced, by his patriotic feelings to deny the charge. But the perpetual recurrence of Greek words in his most hurried and familiar letters, and the frequent use which he is compelled to make of them, in spite of all his exertions to avoid them, in his philosophical works, fully prove that even this great master of the Latin tongue felt the evil which he laboured to conceal from others.
We do not think much better of the writers, as a body, than of the language. The literature of Rome was born old. All the signs of decrepitude were on it in the cradle. We look in vain for the sweet lisp and the graceful wildness of an infant dialect. We look in vain for a single great creative mind,—for a Homer or a Dante, a Shakspeare or a Cervantes. In their place we have a crowd of fourth-rate and fifth-rate authors, translators, and imitators without end. The rich heritage of Grecian philosophy and poetry was fatalto the Romans. They would have acquired more wealth, if they had succeeded to less. Instead of accumulating fresh intellectual treasures, they contented themselves with enjoying, disposing in new forms, or impairing by an injudicious management, those which they took by descent. Hence, in most of their works, there is scarcely any thing spontaneous and racy, scarcely any originality in the thoughts, scarcely any idiom in the style. Their poetry tastes of the hot-house. It is trail-planted from Greece, with the earth of Pindus clinging round its roots. It is nursed in careful seclusion from the Italian air. The gardeners are often skilful; but the fruit is almost always sickly. One hardy and prickly shrub, of genuine Latin growth, must indeed be excepted. Satire was the only indigenous produce of Roman talent; and, in our judgment, by far the best.
We are often told the Latin language is more strictly grammatical than the English; and that it is, therefore, necessary to study it, in order to speak English with elegance and accuracy. This is one of those remarks which are repeated till they pass into axioms, only because they have so little meaning, that nobody thinks it worth while to refute them at their first appearance. If those who say that the Latin language is more strictly grammatical than the English, mean only that it is more regular, that there are fewer exceptions to its general laws of derivation, inflection, and construction, we grant it. This is, at least for the purposes of the orator and the poet, rather a defect than a merit; but be it merit or defect, it can in no possible way facilitate the acquisition of any other language. It would be about as reasonable to say, that the simplicity of the Code Napoleon renders the study of the laws of England easier than formerly. If it be meant, that the Latin language is formed in more strict accordance with the general principles of grammar than the English, that is to say, that the relations which words bear to each other are more strictly analogous to the relations between the ideas which they represent in Latin than in English, we venture to doubt the fact. We are quite sure, that not one in ten thousand of those who repeat the hackneyed remark on which we are commenting, have ever considered whether there be any principles of grammar whatever, anterior to positive enactment,—any solecism which is amalum in se, as distinct from amalum prohibitum.
Or, ifwe suppose that there exist such principles, is not the circumstance, that a particular rule is found in one language and not in another, a sufficient proof that it is not one of those principles? That a man who knows Latin is likely to know English better than one who does not, we do not dispute. But this advantage is not peculiar to the study of Latin. Every language throws light on every other. There is not a single foreign tongue which will not suggest to a man of sense some new considerations respecting his own. We acknowledge, too, that the great body of our educated countrymen learn to grammatieise their English by means of their Latin. This, however, proves, not the usefulness of their Latin, but the folly of their other instructors. Instead of being a vindication of the present system of education, it is a high charge against it. A man who thinks the knowledge of Latin essential to the purity of English diction, either has never conversed with an accomplished woman, or does not deserve to have conversed with her. We are sure, that all persons who are in the habit of hearing public speaking must have observed, that the orators who are fondest of quoting Latin, are by no means the most scrupulous about marring their native tongue. We could mention several Members of Parliament, who never fail to usher in their scraps of Horace and Juvenal with half a dozen false con cords.
The Latin language is principally valuable as an introduction to the Greek, the insignificant portico of a most chaste and majestic fabric. On this subject, our Confession of Faith will, we trust, be approved by the most orthodox scholar. We cannot refuse our admiration to that most wonderful and perfect machine of human thought, to the flexibility, the harmony, the gigantic power, the exquisite delicacy, the infinite wealth of words, the incomparable felicity of expression, in which are united the energy of the English, the neatness of the French, the sweet and infantine simplicity of the Tuscan. Of all dialects, it is the best fitted for the purposes both of science and of elegant literature. The philosophical vocabularies of ancient Rome, and of modern Europe, have been derived from that of Athens. Yet none of the imitations has ever approached the richness and precision of the original. It traces with ease distinctions so subtle, as to be lost in every other language. It draws lines where all the other instrumentsof the reason only make blots. Nor is it less distinguished by the facilities which it affords to the poet. There are pages even in the Greek Dictionaries over which it is impossible to glance without delight. Every word suggests some pleasant or striking image, which, wholly unconnected as it is with that which precedes or that which follows, gives the same, sort of pleasure with that which we derive from reading the Adonais of poor Shelley, or from looking at those elegant, though unmeaning friezes, in which the eye wanders along a line of beautiful faces, graceful draperies, stags, chariots, altars, and garlands. The literature is not unworthy of the language. It may boast of four poets of the very first order, Homer, Æschylus. Sophocles, and Aristophanes,—of Demosthenes, the greatest of orators—of Aristotle, who is perhaps entitled to the same rank among philosophers, and of Plato, who, if not the most satisfactory of philosophers, is at least the most fascinating. These are the great names of Greece; and to these is to be added a long list of ingenious moralists, wits, and rhetoricians, of poets who, in the lower departments of their art, deserve the greatest praise, and of historians who, at least in the talent of narration, have never been equalled.
It was justly said by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that to learn a new language was to acquire a new soul. He who is acquainted only with the writers of his native tongue, is in perpetual danger of confounding what is accidental with what is essential, and of supposing that tastes and habits of thought, which belong only to his own age and country, are inseparable from the nature of man. Initiated into foreign literature, he finds that principles of politics and morals, directly contrary to those which he has hitherto supposed to be unquestionable, because he never heard them questioned, have been held by large and enlightened communities; that feelings, which are so universal among his contemporaries, that he had supposed them instinctive, have been unknown to whole generations; that images, which have never failed to excite the ridicule of those among whom he has lived, have been thought sublime by millions. He thus loses that Chinese cast of mind, that stupid contempt for every thing beyond the wall of his celestial empire, which was the effect of his former ignorance. New associations take place among his ideas. He doubts where he formerly dogmatised. He tolerateswhere he formerly execrated. He ceases to confound that which is universal and eternal in human passions and opinions with that which is local and temporary. This is one of the most useful effects which results from studying the literature of other countries; and it is one which the remains of Greece, composed at a remote period, and in a state of society widely different from our own, are peculiarly calculated to produce.
But, though we are sensible that great advantages may be derived from the study of the Greek language, we think that they may be purchased at too high a price: And we think that seven or eight years of the life of a man who is to enter into active life at two or three-and-twenty, is too high a price. Those are bad economists who look only to the excellence of the article for which they are bargaining, and never ask about the cost. The cost, in the present instance, is too often the whole of that invaluable portion of time during which a fund of intellectual pleasure is to be stored up and the foundations of wisdom and usefulness laid. No person doubts that much knowledge may be obtained from the Classics. It is equally certain that much gold may be found in Spain. But it by no moans necessarily follows, that it is wise to work the Spanish mines, or to learn the ancient languages. Before the voyage of Columbus, Spain supplied all Europe with the precious metals. The discovery of America changed the state of things. New mines were found, from which gold could be procured in greater plenty, and with less labour. The old works were therefore abandoned—it being manifest those who persisted in laying out capital on them would be undersold and ruined. A new world of literature and science has also been discovered. New veins of intellectual wealth have been laid open. But a monstrous system of bounties and prohibitions compels us still to go on delving for a few glittering grains in the dark and laborious shaft of antiquity, instead of penetrating a district which would reward a less painful search with a more lucrative return. If, after the conquest of Pern, Spain had enacted that, in order to enable the old mines to maintain a competition against the new, a hundred pistoles should be given to every person who should extract an ounce of gold from them, the parallel would be complete.
We will admit that the Greek language is a more valuable languagethan the French, the Italian, or the Spanish. But whether it be more valuable than all the three together, may be doubted; and that all the three may be acquired in less than half the time in which it is possible to become thoroughly acquainted with the Greek, admits of no doubt at all. Nor does the evil end here. Not only do the modern dialects of the Continent receive less attention than they deserve, but our own tongue, second to that of Greece alone in force and copiousness, our own literature, second to none that ever existed, so rich in poetry, in eloquence, in philosophy, is unpardonably neglected. All the nineteen plays of Euripides are digested, from the first bubbling froth of the Hecuba to the last vapid dregs of the Electra; while our own sweet Fletcher, the second name of the modern drama, in spite of all the brilliancy of his wit, and all the luxury of his tenderness, is suffered to be neglected. The Essay on the Human Understanding is abandoned for the Theotetus and the Phoedon. We have known the dates of all the petty skirmisher, of the Peloponnesian war carefully transcribed and committed to memory, by a man who thought that Hyde and Clarendon were two different persons! That such a man has paid a dear price for his learning, will be admitted. But, it may be said, he has at least something to show for it. Unhappily he has sacrificed, in order to acquire it, the very things without which it was impossible for him to use it. He has acted like a man living in a small lodging, who, instead of spending his money in enlarging his apartments and fitting them up commodiously, should lay it all out on furniture fit only for Chatsworth or Belvoir. His little rooms are blocked up with bales of rich stuffs and heaps of gilded ornaments, which have cost more than he ean afford, yet which he has no opportunity and no room to display. Elegant and precious in themselves, they are here utterly out of place; and their possessor finds that, at a ruinous expense, he has bought nothing but inconvenience and ridicule. Who has not seen men to whom ancient learning is an absolute curse, who have laboured only to accumulate what they cannot enjoy? They come forth into the world, expecting to find only a larger university. They find that they are surrounded by people who have not the least respect for the skill with which they detect etymologies, and twist corrupt Epodes into something like meaning. Classical knowledge is indeed valued by all intelligentmen; but not such classical knowledge as theirs. To be prized by the public, it must be refined from its grosser particles, burnished into splendour, formed into graceful ornaments, or into current coin. Learning in the ore, learning with all the dross around it, is nothing to the common spectator. He prefers the cheapest tinsel; and leaves the rare and valuable clod, to the few who have the skill to detect its qualities, and the curiosity to prize them.
No man, we allow, can be said to have received a complete and liberal education, unless he have acquired a knowledge of the ancient languages. But not one gentleman in fifty can possibly receive what we should call a complete and liberal education. That term includes not only the ancient languages, but those of France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. It includes mathematics, the experimental sciences, and moral philosophy. An intimate acquaintance both with the profound and polite parts of English literature is indispensable. Few of those who are intended for professional or commercial life can find time for all these studies. It necessarily follows, that some portion of them must be given up: And the question is, what portion? We say, provide for the mind as you provide for the body,—first necessaries,—then conveniences,—lastly luxuries. Under which of those heads do the Greek and Latin languages come? Surely under the last. Of all the pursuits which we have mentioned, they require the greatest sacrifice of time. He who can afford time for them, and for the others also, is perfectly right in acquiring them. He who cannot, will, if he is wise, be content to go without them. If a man is able to continue his studies till his twenty-eighth or thirtieth year, by all means let him learn Latin and Greek. If he must terminate them at one-and-twenty, we should in general advise him to be satisfied with the modern languages. If he is forced to enter into active life at fifteen or sixteen, we should think it best that he should confine himself almost entirely to his native tongue, and thoroughly imbue his mind with the spirit of its best writers. But no! The artificial restraints and encouragements which our academic system has introduced have altogetherreversedthis natural and salutary order of things. We deny ourselves what is indispensable, that we may procure what is superfluous. We act like a day-labourer who should stint himself in bread, that he might now and then treathimself with a pottle of January strawberries. Cicero tells us, in the Offices, a whimsical anecdote of Cato the Censor. Somebody asked him what was the best mode of employing capital, he said, To farm pood pasture land. What the next? To farm middling pasture land. What next? To farm bad pasture land. Now the notions which prevail in England respecting classical learning seem to us very much to resemble those which the old Roman entertained with regard to his favourite method of cultivation. Is a young man able to spare the time necessary for passing through the University? Make him a good classical scholar! But a second, instead of residing at the University, must go into business when he leaves school. Make him then a tolerable classical scholar! A third has still less time for snatching up knowledge, and is destined for active employment while still a boy. Make him a bad classical scholar! If he does not become a Flaminius, or a Buchanan, he may learn to write nonsense verses. If he does not get on to Horace, he may read the first book of Cæsar. If there is not time even for such a degree of improvement, he may at least be flogged through that immemorial vestibule of learning. “Quis doeet? Who teacheth? Magister doeet. The master teacheth.” Would to heaven that he taught something better worth knowing!
All these evils are produced by the state of our Universities. Where they lead, those who prepare pupils for them, are forced to follow. Under a free system, the ancient languages would be less read, but quite as much enjoyed. We should not see so many lads who have a smattering of Latin and Greek, from which they derive no pleasure, and which, as soon as they are at liberty, they make all possible haste to forget. It must be owned, also, that there would be fewer young men really well acquainted with the ancient tongues. But there would be many more who had treasured up useful and agreeable information. Those who were compelled to bring their studies to an early close, would turn their attention to objects easily attainable. Those who enjoyed a longer space of literary leisure, would still exert themselves to acquire the classical languages. They would study them, not for any direct emolument which they would expect from the acquisition, but for their own intrinsic value. Their number would be smaller, no doubt, than that of present aspirants afterclassical honours. But they would not, like most of those aspirants, leave Homer and Demosthenes to gather dust on the shelves, as soon as the temporary purpose had been served. There would be fewer good scholars of twenty-five; but we believe that there would be quite as many of fifty.
Hitherto we have argued on the hypothesis most favourable to the Universities. We have supposed that the bounties which they offer to certain studies are fairly bestowed on those who excel. The fact however is, that they are in many cases appropriated to particular counties, parishes, or names. The effect of the former system is to encourage studies of secondary importance, at the expense of those which are entitled to preference. The effect of the latter is to encourage total idleness. It has been also asserted, that at some Colleges the distributors of fellowships and scholarships have allowed themselves to be influenced by party spirit, or personal animosity. On this point, however, we will not insist. We wish to expose the vices, not of individuals, but of the system. Indeed, in what we have hitherto written, we have generally had in our eye a College which exhibits that system in the most favourable light,—a College in which the evils which we have noticed are as much as possible alleviated by an enlightened and liberal administration,—a College not less distinguished by its opulence and splendour, than by the eminent talents of many of its members, by the freedom and impartiality of its elections, by the disposition which it has always shown to adopt improvements not inconsistent with its original constitution, and by the noble spirit with which it has supported the cause of civil and religious liberty.
We have hitherto reasoned as if all the students at our Universities learnt those things which the Universities profess to teach. But this is, notoriously, not the fact—and the cause is evident. All who wish for degrees must reside at College; but only those who expect to obtain prizes and fellowships apply themselves with vigour to classical and mathematical pursuits. The great majority have no inducement whatever to exert themselves. They have no hope of obtaining the premium; and no value for the knowledge without the premium. For the acquisition of other kinds of knowledge the Universities afford no peculiar facilities.
Henceproceeds the general idleness of collegians. Not one in ten we venture to say, ever makes any considerable proficiency in those pursuits to which every thing else is sacrificed. A very large proportion carry away from the University less of ancient literature than they brought thither. It is quite absurd to attribute such a state of tilings to the indolence and levity of youth. Nothing like it is seen elsewhere. There are idle lads, no doubt, among those who walk the hospitals, who sit at the desks of bankers, and serve at the counters of tradesmen. But what, after all, is the degree oftheiridleness, and what proportion do they bear to those who are active? Is it not the most common thing in the world, to see men who have passed their time at College in mere trifling, display the greatest energy as soon as they enter on the business of life, and become profound lawyers, skilful physicians, eminent writers? How can those things be explained, but by supposing that most of those who are compelled to reside at the Universities have no motive to learn what is taught there? Who ever employed a French master for four years without improving himself in French? The reason is plain. No man employs such a master, but from a wish to become acquainted with the language; and the same wish leads him to apply vigorously to it. Of those who go to our Universities, on the other hand, a large proportion are attracted, not by their desire to learn the things studied there, but by their wish to acquire certain privileges, which residence confers alike on the idle and on the diligent. Try the same experiment with the French language. Erect the teachers of it into a corporation. Give them the power of conferring degrees. Enact that no person who cannot produce a certificate, attesting that he has been for a certain number of years a student at this academy, shall be suffered to keep a shop; and we will venture to predict, that there will soon be thousands, who, after having wasted their money and their time in a formal attendance on lectures and examinations, will not understand the meaning ofParlez-vous Français?
It is the general course of those who patronise an abuse to attribute to it every thing good which exists in spite of it. Thus, the defenders of our Universities commonly take it for granted, that we are indebted to them for all the talent which they have not been able to destroy. It is usual, when their meritscome under discussion, to enumerate very pompously all the great men whom they have produced; as if great men had not appeared under every system of education. Great men were trained in the schools of the Greek sophists and Arabian astrologers, of the Jesuits and the Jansenists. There were great men when nothing was taught but School Divinity and Canon Law; and there would still be great men if nothing were taught but the fooleries of Spurzheim and Swedenberg. A long list of eminent names is no more a proof of the excellence of onr Academic institutions, than the commercial prosperity of the country is a proof of the utility of restrictions in trade. No financial regulations, however absurd and pernicious, can prevent a people amongst whom property is secure, and the motive to accumulate consequently strong, from becoming rich. The energy with which every individual struggles to advance, more than counteracts the retarding force, and carries him forward, though at a slower rate, than if he were left at liberty. It is the same with restrictions which prevent the intellect from taking the direction which existing circumstances point out. They do harm. But they cannot wholly prevent other causes from producing good. In a country in which public opinion is powerful, in which talents properly directed are sure to raise their professor to distinction, ardent and aspiring minds will surmount all the obstacles which may oppose their career. It is amongst persons who are engaged in public and professional life that genius is most likely to be developed. Of these a large portion is necessarily sent to our English Universities. It would, therefore, be wonderful if the Universities could not boast of many considerable men. Yet, after all, we are not sure whether, if we were to pass in review the Houses of Parliament and the English and Scottish Bar, the result of the investigation would be so favourable as is commonly supposed to Oxford and Cambridge. And of this we are sure, that many persons who, since they have risen to eminence, are perpetually cited as proofs of the beneficial tendency of English education, were at College never mentioned but as idle, frivolous men, fond of desultory reading, and negligent of the studies of the place. It would be. indelicate to name the living; but we may venture to speak more particularly of the dead. It is truly curious to observe the use which is made in such discussionsas those, of names which we acknowledge to be glorious, but in which the Colleges have no reason to glory,—that of Bacon, who reprobated their fundamental constitution; of Dryden, who abjured hisAlma Muter, and regretted that he had passed his youth under her cure; of Locke, who was censured and expelled; of Milton, whose person was outraged at one University, and whose works were committed to the flames at the other!
That in particular cases an University education may have produced good effects, we do not dispute. But as to the great body of those who receive it, we have no hesitation in saying, that their minds permanently suffer from it. All the time which they can devote to the acquisition of speculative knowledge is wasted, and they have to enter into active life without it. They are compelled to plunge into the details of business, and are left to pick up general principles as they may. From all that we have seen and heard, we are inclined to suspect, in spite of all our patriotic prejudices, that the young men, we mean the very young men, of England, are not equal as a body to those of France, Germany, or Russia. They reason less justly, and the subjects with which they are chiefly conversant are less manly. As they grow older, they doubtless improve. Surrounded by a free people, enlightened by a free press, with the means of knowledge placed within their reach, and the rewards of exertion sparkling in their sight, it would indeed be strange if they did not in a great measure recover the superiority which they had lost. The finished men of England may, we allow, challenge a comparison with those of any nation. Yet our advantages are not so great that we can afford to sacrifice any of them. We do not proceed so rapidly, that we can prudently imitate the example of Lightfoot in the Nursery Tale, who never ran a race without tying his legs. The bad effects of our University system may be traced to the very last, in many eminent and respectable men. They have acquired great skill in business, they have laid up great stores of information. But something is still wanting. The superstructure is vast and splendid; but the foundations are unsound. It is evident that their knowledge is not systematised; that, however well they may argue on particular points, they have not that amplitude and intrepidity of intellect which it is the first object of education to produce. They hate abstract reasoning.The very name of theory is terrible to them. They seem to think that the use of experience is not to lead men to the knowledge of general principles, but to prevent them from ever thinking about general principles at all. They may play at bo-peep with truth; but they never get a full view of it in all its proportions. The cause we believe is, that they have passed those years during which the mind frequently acquires the character which it ever after retains, in studies, which, when exclusively pursued, have no tendency to strengthen or expand it.
From these radical defects of the old foundations the London University is free. It cannot cry up one study or cry down another. It has no means of bribing one man to learn what it is of no use to him to know, or of exacting a mock attendance from another who learns nothing at all. To be prosperous, it must be useful.
We would not be too sanguine. But there are signs of these times, and principles of human nature, to which we trust as firmly as ever any ancient astrologer trusted to the rules of his science. Judging from these, we will venture to cast the horoscope of the infant Institution. We predict, that the clamour by which it has been assailed will die away,—that it is destined to a long, a glorious, and a beneficent existence,—that, while the spirit of its system remains unchanged, the details will vary with the varying necessities and facilities of every age,—that it will be the model of many future establishments—that even those haughty foundations which now treat it with contempt, will in some degree feel its salutary influence,—and that the approbation of a great people, to whose wisdom, energy and virtue, its exertions will have largely contributed, will confer on it a dignity more imposing than any which it could derive from the most lucrative patronage, or the most splendid ceremonial.