England appeared to Mr Primrose quite a new world. He had sixteen
years ago sailed down the river Thames, which presented on its banks
at that time quite as much picturesque beauty as now. But he did not
then observe these beauties. His heart was full of other thoughts, and
his mind was moved by widely different feelings. There had not been in
his soul the sentiment of moral beauty, nor was there in his heart that
repose of pleasure which could admit of enjoying the external world in
its manifestations of beauty or sublimity. But on his return homewards
his thoughts were far different. He had left England in forlorn hope,
but he was returning under brighter auspices. He had sailed from his
native land, bearing a deeply felt burden of self-reproach; and though
he could not forget or forgive his former self, and though still there
were painful scenes to be witnessed, and melancholy information to be
received, yet the aspect of things was widely different from what it
had been at his departure. And he expressed himself delighted with all
that he saw. The little boats and the lighter craft upon the river
spoke of bustle and activity, and of human interest; and in them he saw
the flutterings of business and prosperity. Though it was winter, and
the trees on the rising grounds were leafless, and the fields had lost
their greenness, yet the very pattern and outline of what the scene
had been in summer, and of what it would be again in spring, were all
very charming to his eye, then active with imagination. His own bright
thoughts gave verdure to the trees and greenness to the fields; and
he thought that England indeed was a blessed land. And as the vessel
made her way up the river, and as at a distance a dense black cloud
was seen, he knew that that was a manifestation of their vicinity to
the great city, and that dark mass of floating smoke, which rustic
eloquence so glibly reprobates, was to his soul a great refreshment and
a most pleasing sight.
As soon as he disembarked, he first directed his steps to the office of
his agent in the city, to make enquiry respecting the speediest mode of
arriving at Smatterton: for he knew not that his daughter’s residence
was now in London. There is a great contrast between the appearance of
the banks of the Thames and the inside of a city counting-house; but
they are both very pleasant sights to those who are glad to see them.
Mr Primrose was indeed very glad to see his native land, and to walk
the streets of its busy metropolis; and with very great cordiality did
he shake hands with the principal in the office, and very politely did
the principal congratulate him on his return to England. Mr Primrose
did not notice the great contrast between his own joy-expanded face
and the business-looking aspect of the agent; but he thought that
all London looked as glad to see him as he was to see London. After
transacting at the office of his agent such business as was immediately
important, and without waiting to observe what changes and improvements
had taken place in the great city since he had left it sixteen years
ago, he made enquiry after the readiest and quickest mode of reaching
Smatterton, and finding that the stage-coach was the most rapid
conveyance, he immediately directed his steps thitherward.
There are in the course of human life many strange and singular
coincidences. Now it happened that the very day on which Mr Primrose
was preparing to start for Smatterton, Mr Kipperson also was going
to travel the same road, and by the same conveyance. Little did the
former imagine that he was going away from his daughter; little did
he think that, in his way to the White Horse cellar in Piccadilly, he
had actually passed the house in which his beloved child and only
hope lay sick and ill. The days in December are very short; and it was
nearly dark when, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Mr Primrose and Mr
Kipperson, unknown to each other, took their seats in the coach. They
had the inside of the coach to themselves.
Mr Primrose, as we have said, was in good spirits. He certainly had
some cause for grief, and some source of concern; but the feeling
of satisfaction was most prominent. He had shed tears to the memory
of Dr Greendale, and he hoped that the worthy man had so instructed
the dependent one committed to his care, that no permanent cause
of uneasiness would be found in her. The intelligence which he had
received respecting her alleged and supposed fickleness came from
Mr Darnley, and the father, therefore, knowing Mr Darnley to be a
very severe and rigid kind of man, and withal mighty positive, hoped
that a premature judgment had been formed, and trusted that, when
all was explained, all would be right. We must indeed do the father
of Penelope the justice to say that, with all his failings, he was
sincere, candid, and downright. He never suffered any misunderstanding
to exist where it could possibly be cleared up. He was plain and direct
in all his conduct.
We need not say that Mr Kipperson was in good spirits. He always was
so. He was so very happy that by this last journey to London he had
saved the nation from being starved to death by a superabundance of
corn. What a fine thing it is to be the cleverest man in the kingdom!
What would become of us all were it not for such men as Mr Kipperson
starting up about once in a century, or twice a-week, to rectify all
the errors of all the rest of the world? And what is the use of all the
world beside, but to admire the wisdom of such men as Mr Kipperson? Our
only fear is that we may have too many such profoundly wise men; and
the consequence of an over supply of wisdom would be to ruin the nation
by folly.
Whether Mr Kipperson addressed Mr Primrose, or Mr Primrose addressed
Mr Kipperson, we know not; but in a very short time they became mighty
good friends. To some observation of Mr Primrose, his fellow traveller
replied:
“You have been abroad I suppose, sir?”
“I have, sir,” said Mr Primrose; “and that for a long while: it is now
upwards of sixteen years since I left England, and I am most happy to
return to it. Many changes have taken place since I went abroad, and
some, I hope, for the better.”
“Many improvements have indeed been made in the course of that time. We
have improved, for instance, in the rapidity with which we travel; our
roads are as smooth as a bowling-green. But our greatest improvements
of all are our intellectual improvements. We have made wonderful
strides in the march of intellect. England is now the first country in
the world for all that relates to science and art. The cultivation of
the understanding has advanced most astonishingly.
“I remember noticing when I was in India,” said Mr Primrose, “that the
number of publications seemed much increased. But many of them appeared
to be merely light reading.”
“Very likely, sir; but we have not merely light reading; we have a most
abundant supply of scientific publications: and these are read with
the utmost avidity by all classes of people, especially by the lower
classes. You have no doubt heard of the formation of the mechanics’
institutes?”
“I have, sir,” replied Mr Primrose; “but I am not quite aware of the
precise nature of their constitution, or the object at which they aim.
Perhaps you can inform me?”
“That I can, sir,” said Mr Kipperson; “and I shall have great pleasure
in so doing; for to tell you the truth I am a very zealous promoter
of these institutions. The object of these institutions is to give an
opportunity to artisans, who are employed all day in manual labour, to
acquire a scientific knowledge, not only of the art by which he lives
and at which he works, but of everything else which can possibly be
known or become a subject of human inquiry or interest.”
“But surely,” interrupted Mr Primrose, “it is not designed to convert
mechanical into scientific men. That seems to my view rather a
contradiction to the general order of things.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied the other; “you are repeating, I perceive,
exploded objections. Is it possible, do you think, that a man should do
his work worse for understanding something of the philosophy of it? Is
it not far better, where it is practicable, that a man should act as a
rational reflecting creature, than as a piece of mere machinery?”
“Very true, certainly, sir; you are right. Ay, ay, now I see: you
instruct all artisans in the philosophy of their several employments.
Most excellent. Then, I suppose, you teach architecture and read
lectures on Vitruvius to journey-men bricklayers?”
“Nay, nay, sir,” replied Mr Kipperson, “we do not carry it quite so far
as that.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” replied Mr Primrose, “I had not the slightest
idea that this was carrying your system too far. It might, perhaps,
be a little refinement on the scheme to suppose that you would teach
tailors anatomy; but after all I do not see why you should start at
carrying a matter of this kind too far. The poet says, ‘a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing;’ and, for my own part, I can see no
great liberality in this parsimonious and stinted mode of dealing out
knowledge; for unless you teach the lower classes all that is to be
taught, you make, or more properly speaking keep up, the distinction.”
Mr Kipperson was not best pleased with these remarks; he saw that his
fellow-traveller was one of those narrow-minded aristocratic people,
who are desirous of keeping the mass of the people in gross ignorance,
in order that they may be the more easily governed and imposed upon.
Though in good truth it has been said, that the ignorant are not
so easily governed as the enlightened. The ingenious and learned Mr
Kipperson then replied:
“You may say what you please, sir, in disparagement of the system of
enlightening the public mind; but surely you must allow that it is
far better for a poor industrious mechanic to attend some lecture on
a subject of science or philosophy, than to spend his evenings in
drunkenness and intemperance.”
“Indeed, sir, I have no wish to disparage the system of enlightening
the public mind; and I am quite of your opinion, that it is much more
desirable that a labouring man”----
“Operative, if you please,” said Mr Kipperson; “we have no labouring
men.”
“Well,” pursued Mr Primrose, “operative; the term used to be labouring
or working when I was last in England: I will agree with you, sir,
that it is really better that an operative should study philosophy,
than that he should drink an inordinate quantity of beer. But do you
find, sir, that your system does absolutely and actually produce such
effects?”
“Do we?” exclaimed Mr Kipperson triumphantly: “That we certainly and
clearly do: it is clear to demonstration; for, since the establishment
of mechanics’ institutes, the excise has fallen off very considerably.
And what can that deficiency be owing to, if it be not to the fact
which I have stated, that the operatives find philosophy a far more
agreeable recreation after labour than drinking strong beer?”
“You may be right, sir, and I have no doubt you are; but, as I have
been so long out of England, it is not to be wondered at that my ideas
have not been able to keep pace with the rapid strides which education
has made in England during that time. I am very far from wishing to
throw any objection or obstacle in the way of human improvement. You
call these establishments ‘mechanics’ institutions:’ but pray, sir,
do you not allow any but mechanics to enjoy the benefit of them? Now
there is a very numerous class of men, and women too--for I should
think that so enlightened an age would not exclude women from the
acquisition of knowledge;--there is, I say, a very numerous class of
men and women who have much leisure and little learning--I mean the
servants of the nobility and gentry at the west end of the town. It
would be charitable to instruct them also in the sciences. How pleasant
it must be now for the coachman and footman, who are waiting at the
door of a house for their master and mistress, at or after midnight,
instead of sleeping on the carriage, or swearing and blaspheming as
they too frequently do, to have a knowledge of astronomy, and study the
movements of the planets. Is there no provision made for these poor
people?”
“Certainly there is,” said Mr Kipperson. “There are cheap publications
which treat of all the arts and sciences, so that for the small charge
of sixpence, a gentleman’s coachman may, in the course of a fortnight,
become acquainted with all the Newtonian theory.”
Mr Primrose was delighted and astonished at what Mr Kipperson told him;
he could hardly believe his senses; he began to imagine that he must
himself be the most ignorant and uninformed person in his majesty’s
dominions.
“But tell me, sir,” continued he, “if those persons, whose time
and attention is of necessity so much occupied, are become so well
informed; do others, who have greater leisure, keep pace with them;
or, I should say, do they keep as much in the advance as their leisure
and opportunity allow them? For, according to your account, the very
poorest of the community are better instructed now than were the gentry
when I lived in England.”
“Education, sir,” answered Mr Kipperson, with the tone of an oracle,
“is altogether upon the advance. The science of instruction has
reached a point of perfection, which was never anticipated; nay, I
may say, we are astonished at ourselves. The time is now arrived when
the only ignorant and uninformed persons are those who have had the
misfortune to be educated at our public schools and universities: for
in them there is no improvement. I have myself been witness of the
most shocking and egregious ignorance in those men who call themselves
masters of arts. They know nothing in the world about agriculture,
architecture, botany, ship building, navigation, ornithology, political
economy, icthyology, zoology, or any of the ten thousand sciences with
which all the rest of the world is intimate. I have actually heard an
Oxford student, as he called himself, when looking over a manufactory
at Birmingham, ask such questions as shewed that he was totally
ignorant even of the very first rudiments of button-making.”
“Astonishing ignorance,” exclaimed Mr Primrose, who was rather sleepy;
“I dare say they make it a rule to teach nothing but ignorance at the
two universities.”
“I believe you are right, sir,” said Mr Kipperson, rubbing his hands
with cold and extacy; “those universities have been a dead weight on
the country for centuries, but their inanity and weakness will be
exposed, and the whole system exploded. There is not a common boys’
school in the kingdom which does not teach ten times more useful
knowledge than both the universities put together, and all the public
schools into the bargain. Why, sir, if you send a boy to school now,
he does not spend, as he did formerly, ten or twelve years in learning
the Latin grammar, but now he learns Latin and Greek, and French,
German, Spanish, Italian, dancing, drawing, music, mapping, the use
of the globes, chemistry, history, botany, mechanics, hydrostatics,
hydraulics, hydrodynamics, astronomy, geology, gymnastics,
architecture, engineering, ballooning, and many more useful and
indispensable arts and sciences, so that he is fitted for any station
in life, from a prime minister down to a shoe-black.”
Before this speech was finished, Mr Primrose was fast asleep; but
short is the sleep in a coach that travels by night. The coach stopped
and woke our foreigner from a frightful dream. We do not wish to
terrify our readers, but we must relate the dream in consequence of
its singularity. He dreamed then, that he was in the island of Laputa,
and that having provoked the indignation of some of the learned
professors by expressing a doubt as to the practicability of some of
their schemes, he was sentenced to be buried alive under a pyramid of
encyclopedias. Just as the cruel people were putting the sentence into
execution, he woke and found his coat-collar almost in his mouth, and
heard the word ‘ology’ from the lips of his fellow traveller. He was
very glad to find that matters were no worse.