(Edinburgh, Review, February 1826.)
Few {331}things 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 in
England._ 1826.
There {332}was 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 extracting {333}one of his
teeth daily till he brought him to term--then indeed the case would be
different. But, alas! 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 individual {334}is not more vain
of his knowledge, because he participates in the universal improvement,
than he is vain of his speed, because he is flying along with the earth
and every thing upon it, at the rate of seventy thousand miles an hour.
But if he feels that _he_ is 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 poor,--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, {335}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
of {336}Parliament, 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 great _articulum stantis aut labantis 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 these {337}considerations, 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 Arminians, 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 be {338}the 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 of
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 ingenious {339}youth 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 of {340}the 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 age 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 for {341}years 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.
The {342}cry against the London University has 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 which {343}they 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 revolutions
{344}take 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 under 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 clever {345}men 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 proceedeth, 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.”(1)
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
fact {346}declare, 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.
(1) Advancement of Learning, Book II.
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, {347}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 suffer 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 fatal {348}to 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 transplanted 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
a _malum in se_, as distinct from a _malum prohibitum_.
Or, if {349}we 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 grammaticise 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
concords.
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 instruments {350}of 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 tolerates {351}where
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 language
{352}than 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 Theatetus and the Phaedon. 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 intelligent {353}men; 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 altogether
_reversed_ this 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 treat {354}himself 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 good 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 docet? Who teacheth? Magister
docet. 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 after {355}classical 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.
Hence {356}proceeds 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 of _their_ idleness, 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 of _Parlez-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 merits {357}come 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 discussions {358}as 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 his _Alma Mater_, 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. {359}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.
Even those who think our hopes extravagant, must own that no positive
harm has been even suggested as likely to result from this Institution.
All the imputed sins of its founders are sins of omission. Whatever
may be thought of them, it is surely better that something should be
omitted, than that nothing should be done. The Universities it can
injure in one way only--by surpassing them. This danger no sincere
admirer of these bodies can apprehend. As for those who, believing that
the project really tends to the good of {360}the country, continue to
throw obloquy upon it--and that there are such men we believe--to them
we have nothing to say. We have no hope of converting them; no wish
to revile them. Let them quibble, declaim, sneer, calumniate. Their
punishment is to be what they are.
For us, our part has been deliberately chosen--and shall be manfully
sustained. We entertain a firm conviction that the principles of
liberty, as in government and trade, so also in education, are
all-important to the happiness of mankind. To the triumph of those
principles we look forward, not, we trust, with a fanatical confidence,
but assuredly with a cheerful and steadfast hope. Their nature may be
misunderstood. Their progress may be retarded. They may be maligned,
derided, nay at times exploded, and apparently forgotten. But we do,
in our souls, believe that they are strong with the strength, and quick
with the vitality of truth; that when they fall, it is to rebound; that
when they recede, it is to spring forward with greater elasticity; that
when they seem to perish, there are the seeds of renovation in their
very decay--and that their influence will continue to bless distant
generations, when infamy itself shall have ceased to rescue from
oblivion the arts and the names of those who have opposed them, the
dupe, the dissembler, the bigot, the hireling--the buffoon and the
sarcasm, the liar and the lie!