architecture), which are sometimes confounded with art in general, rest
on the application of the laws of form and colour, and what may be
called the science of the beautiful. They do not rest on any arbitrary
theory on the modes of producing pleasurable emotions, but follow fixed
laws—more difficult perhaps to seize than those regulating the material
world, because belonging partly to the sphere of the ideal, and of our
spiritual essence, yet perfectly appreciable and teachable, both
abstractedly and historically, from the works of different ages and
nations.
No human pursuits make any material progress until science is brought to
bear upon them. We have seen accordingly many of them slumber for
centuries upon centuries; but from the moment that science has touched
them with her magic wand, they have sprung forward, and taken strides
which amaze, and almost awe, the beholder.
Look at the transformation which has gone on around us since the laws of
gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and the expansive power of heat
have become known to us. It has altered our whole state of
existence,—one might say, the whole face of the globe. We owe this to
science, and to science alone; and she has other treasures in store for
us, if we will but call her to our assistance.
It is sometimes objected by the ignorant that science is uncertain and
changeable, and they point with a malicious kind of pleasure to the many
exploded theories which have been superseded by others, as a proof that
the present knowledge may be also unsound, and, after all, not worth
having. But they are not aware that, while they think to cast blame upon
science, they bestow, in fact, the highest praise upon her.
For that is precisely the difference between science and prejudice: that
the latter keeps stubbornly to its position, whether disproved or not,
whilst the former is an unarrestable movement towards the fountain of
truth, caring little for cherished authorities or sentiments, but
continually progressing, feeling no false shame at her shortcomings,
but, on the contrary, the highest pleasure, when freed from an error, at
having advanced another step towards the attainment of Divine truth—a
pleasure not even intelligible to the pride of ignorance.
We also hear, not unfrequently, science and practice, scientific
knowledge and common sense, contrasted as antagonistic. A strange error!
for science is eminently practical, and must be so, as she sees and
knows what she is doing, whilst mere common practice is condemned to
work in the dark, applying natural ingenuity to unknown powers to obtain
a known result.
Far be it from me to undervalue the creative power of genius, or to
treat shrewd common sense as worthless without knowledge. But nobody
will tell me that the same genius would not take an incomparably higher
flight, if supplied with all the means which knowledge can impart; or
that common sense does not become, in fact, only truly powerful when in
possession of the materials upon which judgment is to be exercised.
The study of the laws by which the Almighty governs the Universe is
therefore our bounden duty. Of these laws our great academies and seats
of education have, rather arbitrarily, selected only two spheres or
groups (as I may call them) as essential parts of our national
education: the laws which regulate quantities and proportions, which
form the subject of mathematics, and the laws regulating the expression
of our thoughts, through the medium of language, that is to say,
grammar, which finds its purest expression in the classical languages.
These laws are most important branches of knowledge, their study trains
and elevates the mind, but they are not the only ones; there are others
which we cannot disregard, which we cannot do without.
There are, for instance, the laws governing the human mind, and its
relation to the Divine Spirit (the subject of logic and metaphysics);
there are those which govern our bodily nature and its connection with
the soul (the subject of physiology and psychology); those which govern
human society, and the relations between man and man (the subjects of
politics, jurisprudence, and political economy); and many others.
Whilst of the laws just mentioned some have been recognized as
essentials of education in different institutions, and some will, by the
course of time, more fully assert their right to recognition, the laws
regulating matter and form are those which will constitute the chief
object of _your_ pursuits; and, as the principle of subdivision of
labour is the one most congenial to our age, I would advise you to keep
to this speciality, and to follow with undivided attention chiefly the
sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and the fine arts in
painting, sculpture, and architecture.
You will thus have conferred an inestimable boon upon your country, and
in a short time have the satisfaction of witnessing the beneficial
results upon our national powers of production. Other parts of the
country will, I doubt not, emulate your example; and I live in hope that
all these institutions will some day find a central point of union, and
thus complete their national organization.
Thanking you once more for having allowed me to assist at the foundation
of your Institution, I, with all my heart, wish it growth, vigour, and
prosperity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDRESS TO THE
3RD AND 4TH REGIMENTS OF THE GERMAN
LEGION
AT SHORNCLIFFE, ON PRESENTING TO THEM
THEIR COLOURS.
[DECEMBER 6TH, 1855.]
-------
Es freut mich herzlich Ihnen persönlich diese Fahnen überreichen zu
können, da mir diess zugleich eine Gelegenheit giebt Ihnen auszudrücken,
wie sehr die Königin die Bereitwilligkeit anerkannt mit welcher Sie
ihrem Rufe gefolgt und unter die Waffen getreten sind.
Ich lebe der festen Ueberzeugung, dass Sie unter allen Umständen die
Ehre einer Fahne aufrecht erhalten werden, die bis jetzt siegenreich in
allen Theilen der Welt geweht hat, im Kämpfen für Recht, Ordnung, und
Freiheit, und zur Verbreitung der Civilisation.
Möge der Allmächtige Sie mit seinem Schutze in allen den Mühsalen und
Gefahren begleiten, die Sie sich muthig entschlossen haben, mit der
tapferen Englischen Armee zu theilen!
Sie wird Sie, daran zweifle ich nicht, als Brüder bewillkommen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE OPENING OF
THE GOLDEN-LANE SCHOOLS.
[MARCH 19TH, 1857.]
MR. ROGERS[6] AND GENTLEMEN, PROMOTERS AND SUPPORTERS OF THESE
SCHOOLS,—
Footnote 6:
The Rev. William Rogers, incumbent of St. Thomas Charterhouse, and
Chaplain to the Queen.
I thank you heartily for your kind and cordial welcome. I rejoice at the
opportunity which has this day been afforded to me of visiting this
noble establishment, and my satisfaction in doing so is increased by the
circumstance that my visit occurs at a period of its existence when the
state of useful development to which by your exertions it has attained
is about, by a continuance of the same exertions, to receive a still
wider extension. In the progress of these schools, struggling, I may
say, from the most lowly and humble beginnings up to their present noble
dimensions, we find a striking exemplification of the Divine truth, that
the principle of good once sown is not destined to lie dormant, but
that, like the grain of mustard-seed, it is calculated to extend and
develop itself in an ever-increasing sphere of usefulness; and we may
confidently hope that what you have now effected, following this
universal law, will not be limited in its results to the immediate
objects of your charitable exertions, but that it will prove the means
of diffusing untold blessings among the most remote generations. For
you, Mr. Rogers, who have been mainly instrumental, and at great
personal sacrifice, in bringing about this great good, and for those who
have stood by you, and contributed by their support to the success of
your efforts, there can, I am sure, be no higher source of gratification
than in the contemplation of your own work. The reflection that you have
been the instrument, under Divine Providence, of conferring upon the
poor and needy in this vast district that greatest of all boons, the
means of obtaining for their children the blessings of education and of
religious instruction, without which any lasting success in life or any
permanent amelioration of their lot would seem hopeless; and still
further, the feeling that this inestimable blessing will be secured in a
yet higher degree to their children’s children, will carry with it its
own best reward. Still it will be a source of legitimate pride and
satisfaction to you to know that your labours have not been unobserved,
but that your noble and Christianlike exertions to benefit those who
cannot help themselves have attracted the notice and admiration of your
Sovereign, and of those who are deputed under her to watch over and
promote the education and moral welfare of her people. The means which
you have adopted to effect your work of benevolence appear no less
deserving of commendation than the object itself. You have not been
content with the bare attempt to force, perhaps upon unwilling
recipients, a boon, the value of which might not be appreciated, but you
have wisely sought to work upon the convictions of the parents of the
children you wish to benefit by extending your assistance to those who,
by a small contribution out of their hardly-won earnings, have proved
that they are awake to a sense of the vast importance it is to their
offspring that the means of being fitted to pass successfully through
life, and by honest industry to better their worldly condition, should
be brought within their reach. It is a source of high personal
gratification to me that I have been enabled, by my presence here this
day, and by that of the Prince of Wales, to mark, not only my own
appreciation of your labours, but also the deep interest which the Queen
takes in the well-being of the poorest of her subjects; and that
gratification will be greatly enhanced if by this public expression of
the sympathy of the Queen and of her family and Government this noble
cause shall be still further advanced. Most earnestly do I pray that the
same success which has hitherto blessed your labours may continue to
attend your future progress, and that your example may stimulate other
localities to emulate your useful efforts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE OPENING OF
THE EXHIBITION OF ART TREASURES
OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AT MANCHESTER.
[MAY 5TH, 1857.]
-------
[The MAYOR of MANCHESTER having presented an Address, His ROYAL
HIGHNESS returned the following reply—]
MR. MAYOR, ALDERMEN, AND GENTLEMEN,—
I have received with feelings of no ordinary gratification the address
which you have presented to me, expressing such kindly feelings towards
myself, and professing to represent the good wishes of the vast
community which is collected in and around this city.
It will, I am sure, be most pleasing to the Queen to receive, from the
expressions contained in the address, a fresh assurance of the loyal
interest taken by her people in all that concerns her happiness.
I most willingly attend here this day to assist at a ceremony which the
inhabitants of Manchester may well witness with pride, as its object is
to inaugurate an Exhibition collected by the exertion of their
enterprise and public spirit, and intended, not for the amusement and
gratification of the neighbourhood alone, but for the instruction and
improvement of the nation at large.
You justly allude in terms of gratitude to that comprehensive and
liberal spirit which has adorned the walls of this building with the
choicest specimens of art from so many private galleries of the kingdom.
It added much to the pleasure with which the Queen and myself had
complied with the application for works of art belonging to us when we
found this example so generally followed by the possessors of treasures
which are, in general, so reluctantly intrusted by their owners to the
care of others.
The Queen will, I am confident, be glad again to visit Manchester, not
only to mark by her presence her approval of the object and successful
execution of this great undertaking which we have this day to celebrate,
but from a recollection of the enthusiastic loyalty exhibited when she
had formerly an opportunity of visiting this great centre of industry.
[Lord OVERSTONE having read the Address of the General Council,
His ROYAL HIGHNESS replied as follows—]
MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,—
You are very kind in thinking at this moment of the bereavement which
has befallen the Queen and her family.
In the Duchess of Gloucester we have all lost, not only the last of the
children of that good King who occupied the throne during sixty years,
and carried this country fearlessly and successfully through the most
momentous struggles of its history, and thus the last personal link with
those times, but also a lady whose virtues and qualities of the heart
had commanded the respect and love of all who knew her.
If I have thought it my duty to attend here to-day, although her mortal
remains have not yet been carried to their last place of rest, my
decision has been rendered easy by the conviction that, could her own
opinions and wishes have been known, she would, with that sense of duty
and patriotic feeling which so much distinguished her and the generation
to which she belonged, have been anxious that I should not on her
account, or from private feelings, disturb an arrangement intended for
the public good.
[Mr. FAIRBAIRN having presented the Address of the Executive
Committee,
His ROYAL HIGHNESS returned the following reply—]
GENTLEMEN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE,—
I thank you most sincerely for your kind address.
The expressions of loyalty and attachment to the Queen which it conveys
will, I feel certain, be most gratifying to her.
I have with pleasure accepted your invitation to preside at the
inaugural ceremony of an undertaking which I have watched with the
deepest interest from its first conception; and I may now be allowed to
congratulate you upon the success which has so far crowned your labours.
The building in which we are assembled, and the wonderful collection of
those treasures of art, as you so justly term them, which it displays,
reflect the highest credit upon you. They must strike the beholder with
grateful admiration, not only of the wealth and spirit of enterprise of
this country, but also of that generous feeling of mutual confidence and
goodwill between the different classes of society within it, of which it
affords so gratifying a proof.
We behold a feast which the rich, and they who have, set before those to
whom fortune has denied the higher luxuries of life—bringing forth from
the innermost recesses of their private dwellings, and intrusting to
your care, their choicest and most cherished treasures, in order to
gratify the nation at large: and this, too, unhesitatingly, at your mere
request, satisfied that your plans were disinterested and well matured,
and that they had the good of the country for their object.
This is a gratifying sight, and blessed is the country in which it is
witnessed. But not less so is the fact which has shown itself in this as
in other instances, that the great and noble of the land look to their
Sovereign to head and lead them in such patriotic undertakings; and when
they see that the Sovereign has come forward to give her countenance and
assistance to the work, that they feel it a pleasure to co-operate with
her and not to leave her without their support—emulating thus, in works
of peace, the chivalric spirit which animated their forefathers in the
warlike times of old.
You have done well not to aim at a mere accumulation of works of art and
objects of general interest, but to give to your collection, by a
scientific and historical arrangement, an educational character,—thus
not losing the opportunity of teaching the mind, as well as gratifying
the senses. And manifold are the lessons which it will present to us! If
art is the purest expression of the state of mental and religious
culture, and of general civilization, of any age or people, an
historical and chronological review given at one glance cannot fail to
impress us with a just appreciation of the peculiar characteristics of
the different periods and countries the works of which are here
exhibited to us, and of the influence which they have exercised upon
each other.
In comparing these works with those of our own age and country, while we
may well be proud of the immense development of knowledge and power of
production which we possess, we have reason also for humility in
contemplating the refinement of feeling and intensity of thought
manifested in the works of the older schools.
I trust that you may reap, in the approbation of the public at large,
and in the remunerative concourse of the people, the immediate reward of
your labours; and that, like the Exhibition of 1851, to which you so
flatteringly allude, you may thus also find the means of closing your
operations without having recourse to the Guarantee Fund which this
district has so generously put at your disposal.
Beyond this, however, I trust that the beneficial effects upon the
progress of art and taste in our country, which we may confidently look
to, may be a lasting memorial of your vast enterprise.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE OPENING OF THE
CONFERENCE ON NATIONAL EDUCATION.
[JUNE 22ND, 1857.]
-------
GENTLEMEN,—
We have met to-day in the sacred cause of Education—of National
Education. This word, which means no less than the moral and
intellectual development of the rising generation, and, therefore, the
national welfare, is well calculated to engross our minds, and opens a
question worthy of a nation’s deepest interest and most anxious
consideration. Gentlemen, the nation is alive to its importance, and our
presence here to-day gives further evidence (if such evidence were
needed) of its anxiety to give it that consideration. Looking to former
times, we find that our forefathers, with their wonted piety and
paternal care, had established a system of national education, based
upon the parish organization, and forming part of parish life, which met
the wants of their day, and had in it a certain unity and completeness
which we may well envy at the present moment. But in the progress of
time our wants have outstripped that system, and the condition of the
country has so completely changed, even within these last fifty years,
that the old parochial division is no longer adequate for the present
population. This has increased during that period in England and Wales
from, in round numbers, 9,000,000 to 18,000,000, and, where there
formerly existed comparatively small towns and villages, we now see
mighty cities, like Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Leeds, Birmingham, and
others, with their hundreds of thousands, springing up almost, as it
were, by enchantment; London having increased to nearly two and a half
million of souls, and the factory district of Lancashire alone having
aggregated a population of nearly 3,000,000 within a radius of thirty
miles. This change could not escape the watchful eye of a patriotic
public; but how to provide the means of satisfying the new wants could
not be a matter of easy solution. While zeal for the public good, a
fervent religious spirit, and true philanthropy are qualities eminently
distinguishing our countrymen, the love of liberty, and an aversion from
being controlled by the power of the State in matters nearest to their
hearts, are feelings which will always most powerfully influence them in
action. Thus the common object has been contemplated from the most
different points of view, and pursued often upon antagonistic
principles. Some have sought the aid of Government, others that of the
Church to which they belong; some have declared it to be the duty of the
State to provide elementary instruction for the people at large, others
have seen in the State interference a check to the spontaneous exertions
of the people themselves, and an interference with self-government;
some, again, have advocated a plan of compulsory education based upon
local self-government, and others the voluntary system in its widest
development. While these have been some of the political subjects of
difference, those in the religious field have not been less marked and
potent. We find, on the one hand, the wish to see secular and religious
instruction separated, and the former recognized as an innate and
inherent right, to which each member of society has a claim, and which
ought not to be denied to him if he refuses to take along with it the
inculcation of a particular dogma to which he objects as unsound; while
we see, on the other hand, the doctrine asserted, that no education can
be sound which does not rest on religious instruction, and that
religious truth is too sacred to be modified and tampered with, even in
its minutest deductions, for the sake of procuring a general agreement.
Gentlemen, if these differences were to have been discussed here to-day,
I should not have been able to respond to your invitation to take the
chair, as I should have thought it inconsistent with the position which
I occupy, and with the duty which I owe to the Queen and the country at
large. I see those here before me who have taken a leading part in these
important discussions, and I am happy to meet them upon a neutral
ground; happy to find that there _is_ a neutral ground upon which their
varied talents and abilities can be brought to bear in communion upon
the common object; and proud and grateful to them that they should have
allowed me to preside over them for the purpose of working together in
the common vineyard. I feel certain that the greatest benefit must arise
to the cause we have all so much at heart by the mere free exchange of
your thoughts and various experience. You may well be proud, gentlemen,
of the results hitherto achieved by your rival efforts, and may point to
the fact that, since the beginning of the century, while the population
has doubled itself, the number of schools, both public and private, has
been multiplied fourteen times. In 1801 there were in England and Wales,
of public schools, 2876; of private schools, 487—total, 3363. In 1851
(the year of the census) there were in England and Wales, of public
schools, 15,518; of private schools, 30,524—total, 46,042; giving
instruction in all to 2,144,378 scholars; of whom 1,422,982 belong to
public schools, and 721,396 to the private schools. The rate of progress
is further illustrated by statistics which show that in 1818 the
proportion of day-scholars to the population was 1 in 17; in 1833, 1 in
11; and in 1851, 1 in 8. These are great results, although I hope they
may only be received as instalments of what has yet to be done. But what
must be your feelings when you reflect upon the fact, the inquiry into
which has brought us together, that this great boon thus obtained for
the mass of the people, and which is freely offered to them, should have
been only partially accepted, and, upon the whole, so insufficiently
applied as to render its use almost valueless! We are told that, the
total population in England and Wales of children between the ages of 3
and 15 being estimated at 4,908,696, only 2,046,848 attend school at
all, while 2,861,848 receive no instruction whatever. At the same time
an analysis of the scholars with reference to the length of time allowed
for their school tuition, shows that 42 per cent. of them have been at
school for less than one year, 22 per cent. during one year, 15 per
cent. during two years, 9 per cent. during three years, 5 per cent.
during four years, and 4 per cent. during five years. Therefore, out of
the two millions of scholars alluded to, more than one million and a
half remain only two years at school. I leave it to you to judge what
the results of such an education can be. I find further that of these
two millions of children attending school only about 600,000 are above
the age of nine.