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    August 5, 1854.] THE LEADER. 735

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    < 3! > r{l>t t rfhTt i l> 3L4iv*imii£*

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    Critics are not the legislators, bub the...

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    De Qtjuncey, in his preface to the repub...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    August 5, 1854.] The Leader. 735

    August 5 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 735

    ≪ 3! ≫ R{L≫T T Rfhtt I L≫ 3l4iv*Imii£*

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    Critics Are Not The Legislators, Bub The...

    Critics are not the legislators , bub the judge 3 and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review ,

    De Qtjuncey, In His Preface To The Repub...

    De Qtjuncey , in his preface to the republished " Selections" from his writings , makes this remark with respect to that portion of them which consists of " Essays , " properly so called ; that is , of disquisitions addressed primarily to the understanding , as distinct from the heart and the fancy " : " To think reasonably upon any question has never been allowed by me as a sufficient ground for writing upon it , unless I believed myself able to offer some considerable novelty . " We should like to see this remark disseminated far and wide , and the notion which it involves made legally imperative in the republic of letters . Were it distinctly understood that merely to think soundly and well upon any subject is no sufficient justification for writing upon it , nine-tenths of what is written would not be written at all , and society would not be a whit the loser . Kine-tenths of all our current

    literature of the " Essay" kind mayh-e characterised as consisting of " reasonable thinking ; " and the worst of it is that in reviewing it you have to say so , and tMt seems praise . But De Qukvcey ' s maxim amounts to this , that we ought not to allow mere " reasonable thinking" to come into literature at all ; that whatever cannot pretend to be something better than that ought , in Bacon ' s phrase , to be " consumed in smother " and that only a certain novelty , or height , or unusual fineness in the matter thought justifies its passing into print . The maxim , as we have said , has reference particularly

    to that kind of writing which chiefly addresses the intelligence—i . e ., to disquisitions 1 , criticisms , reflective essays , and the like . Bat we have no doubt corresponding maxims could be provided for the other great departme » ts of literature—historical writing , imaginative " writing , and writing for what our housemaid calls the foelinelcs . We wish it were done . The result would be , as - \ re have said , that society would be relieved of ninety per cent , of the literature now poured upon it , and the remaining ten per cent , would have a better chance .

    These remarks are particularly appropriate at the beginning of the month , when the magazines and other periodicals come in . The writing in periodicals is not worse than the writin g in books ; indeed , in many respects , it is better , and more to the purpose ; and yet , were our restrictive maxims applied , how our magazines and reviews would shrink in size ! To take the " Essay , " or disquisitional department alone—to which department belong the greater number of our review and magazine articles—what a vast proportion of our periodical literature in this department consists merely of that

    detestable " reasonable thinking" to which De Quincey alludes ! Editors , above all other men , ought to lay De Quincey ' s maxim to heart , and to act upon it . They ought to keep back all the merely " reasonable thinking : " indeed , considering the quantity of " reasonable thinking-, " ay , and of very pleasant syntax , always besieging the doors of periodicals , tliat ought , perhaps , to be their main function . But , after all , as we have to say almost eveiy month , the amount of really superior intellect and literary faculty at the service of periodicals is astonishing . The editorial standard of some

    periodicals is evidently higher than that of others—some editors arjpearing to have realised De Quincey ' s maxim for themselves , while others seem to have a personal passion for merely " reasonable thinking " - —but one can hardly take up any of our more important periodicals without finding in it one or more papei's of far more than average merit . During Emkrsox ' s visit to this country ho remarked that he and his American friends were often surprised at the compai'ativo indifFerence of the British public to papers in British periodicals , which , had they appeared in America , would have conferred immediato reputation on their authors . Why don ' t these " great unknowns" take the hint nnd emigrate ? The truth is , -we suspect , that the crack articles are generally by men otherwise known , and who have , therefore , no necessity to emigrate .

    Wo have beforo vis this mouth , among quarterlies , the North Brithh and the Prospective ; nnd , among monthlies , Fraser , Bladncood , the Dublin University , Bentlafs Miscellany , tlie National Miscellany , the liamblcr , and the monthly part of Cluunbers ' s Edinburgh Journal . There is variety enough in their contents . The Nortfi British has nine articles—one on the Life and WrUiuc / s of vinkt , the " most illustrious ornament of modern French ( Evangelical ) Protestantism , " and , therefore , a figuro of interest to the theological public ; one on Hugh Mim . eh of Cuwtarl // , in which a view is taken of tho life nnd education of one of tho most remarkable of living Scottish writers and men of science , apropos of on autobiography just published by himself , under the titlo of My School and Schoolmasters ; one on luirlj / Enylhh Tlixfvri / in which recent researches into Saxon and Norman times are considered and

    commented on ; one on the interesting subject of Books for Children ; one on Oreeca chirin // the Macedonian Period , in which Nikkuur and ImiUATAix arc criticised , and justice in done to Mr . Gwoth ; one on Dantk and fit . i luffr / mfc ™; one , approving and nympnlhclic , on Mr . Aitivon / s ¦ ' *• '"* ; ono on AV / mV * and fJui Gold Jin / ion * , involving an account of the scionUlio Itfo and labours of Sir Kodkhick Mrucnisox ; and one on tho / ast ami Premtl Political Morality of Jh-Uhh Statesmen . From tliu nrticl * on livaiM Mim . br wo extract tho " following by vny oi' pendant to our

    remarks on educational theories and edueatknuil literature last week . Mr . Miller , celebrated as he now is as a journalist , a miscellaneous man of letters , and a geologist , is sel & edueated—the greater part ot his life , prior to 1840 , when he became editor of one ot the most influential of Edinburgh newspapers , having been spent in humble eh ? cumstance & in the north of Scotland as a common stonemason . This leads the tfeview-er to make some remarks on the subject of " self-education" and " self-educated" men . He

    says : — 1 he whole notion of being unusually charitable or unusually complimentary to what are called ' self-educated men , ' admits of question . This is the case now , at least ; and especially as concerns Scotland . There has been far too much said of Burns ' having been a ploughman if anything more is meant than simply to-register the-fact , antl keep its piotorial significance . Burns had quite as good a school education , up to the point where school education _ is necessary to fit for the general competition of life , as most of those conte miJorary Scottish youths had , whom the mere accident of twenty or thirty pounds more ot Family cash , with the paternal or maternal will to spend it in college fees , converted from tanner s sons like himself into parish clergymen , schoolmasters , medical men , and other functionaries of an upper grade . At this day , too , many Scottish mechanics , clerks , and grocers , have had just as good a school education as a considerable number of those who , in the English metropolis , edit newspapers , write - books , or paint Academy pictures . There are at this moment not a few gentlemen of the press in London , whom no one dreams of calling uneducated , or who , at least , never took that view of the subject themselves , who yet know nothing of Latin , could not distinguish . Greek from Gaelic , might suppose syllostic to be of Swiss cheese

    gi a species , and would blunder fearfully if they had to talk of conic sections . After all , the faculty of plain reading and writing in one ' s own language is the grand separation between the educated and the non-educated . AH besides—at least , since books were invented and increased— -is very much a matter of taste , perseverance , and apprenticeship in one direction rather than in another . The fundamental accomplishment of reading , applied continuously in one direction , produces a Cambridge wrangler ; applied in another , it turns out a lawyer ; applied in many , it turns out a variously-cultivated man . The best academic classes are but vestibules to the library of published literature , —in which vestibules students are detained that they may be instructed how to go farther ; with the additional privilege of hearing one unpublished book deliberately read to . them , whether they will or no , and of coming in living contact with . the enthusiasm of its writer . To have been in those vestibules of literature is certainly an advantage ; but a man may find his way into the library and make very good use of what is there without having lingered in any of them . In short , whoever has received from schools such a training in reading and writing as to have made these arts a pleasant possession to him , may be regarded as having had , in the matter of literary education , all the essential outfit . . The rest is In his own power . "

    The same notion is thus generalised and turned to account as ti contribution to the vexed question of national education , in another part of the article : — " We believe , Mr . Miller ' s estimate of the value of the pedagogic element in education , as ascertained for himself by his own experience , will fall considerably below that which many- , no more disposed than he is to consider pedagogues the only or even the chief schoolmasters of youth , will yet be constrained to form by reference to their experience . Wehave ourselves known men of the class of pedagogues whose effect on the entire education of tlia district to which they belonged was immense—men who rayed out spirit and epthusiasin among the . youth of whole neighbourhoods , and whose service to society consisted in nothing less than this , tliat , annually for twenty or- thirty years they had sent forth fifty or eighty lads into it , more docile , more methodical , more upright , and more brilliant b ' eings than they would otherwise have been . Arnold of Rugby was but the conspicuous type of a class of men of which there are at tins hour , both in Lngland and Scotland , many obscure representatives . Bearing this in mind , one must , even on the largest view of wfiat education is

    assign a high educational value to the scholastic clement . That this element figures so low in 31 r . Miller ' s account of the process of his education may arise in a great measure from Hie fact , that his experience of professional schoolmasters was not particularly fortunate ; but it must arise also , in part , from the unusual preponderance in Ms case of other agencies of education , and from the fact that he stopped short , in his schooling , precisely there where pedagogy begins to reveal its peculiar power and rises into an art . At the same time we are glad that such is the case , seeing that it lends the whole weight of Mr . Miller ' s experience to what we consider a most important practical conclusion—namely , that , after all , the schools of a country fulfil their main and most proper function when they thoroughly impart the faculty of reading books . It might bo well if in these days , when the great problem of National Education is so much discussed , this limited notion of what we can expect from schools were , for a timo at least , more piov & lent . If by schools we understand institutions for completely educating the youth of a country , that is , for uniting in themselves all those educational functions which in Mr . Miller ' s case were distributed among so many ' schools' and * schoolmasters , ' then the task of construct ing . a national system of schools

    does seem hopeless . Nay , if , taking a more moderate view , we desire to have schools that shall include a complete system of arrangements for the formation of all the habits , and the inculcation of all the doctrines considered primarily necessary to make a youth a tolerably good member of civil society , even then we shall find tho construction of a national system of schools a truly Herculean labour . How shall wo fix in schools what wo have not yet fixed in sodi-ty ? But if we choose for a timo to define schools as institutions set up to accomplish thoroughly tho ono good object of teaching all the children of a community to rend and write , theii j though we shall greatly narrow our notion of schools in so doing , it ; will not seem an impossible tusk to devise a miichinery adequate for tho purpose . As yet in Great Rritaiu we huvo never attained even to this very moderate ideal of a national school system . Not to mention tho musses among us who cannot read or -write at all , the number of those who , in tho language of statistical returns , can only ' read nnd write imperfectly , 'is enormously great . With rvgarJ to such , it ought to be considered llmt schools huvo simply nob 1 ' uKilled any function whatever . Until the entire mechanical difficulty of reading has been overcome and tho art niailo a pleaaant nnd unconscious possession , no child can bo mud

    to have had the banchb of a school . Tho ono grand separation between tho educated and tho uneducated of u community is , as wo havo already waid , tho accomplishment of perfect nnd easy reading . AH on tho ono sido of this lino ot separation fall back into the ono promwcuous ol « 88 of the illitorato ; nil whom an adequate school-training has pi , iced on tho other aide constitute another clnsa , among whom , indeed , thoro may bo grades nnd peerages , hut who yet all have in common that which distinguishes thorn , from tho Helots , and puts tho future in their own power—tho frnnehiao of books . Tho tnuiitional superiority of tho humbler ranks of Scotchmen over tho corresponding ranks of Englishmen has consisted , wo beliuvn , very much in this single circunistuuco , that , thanks to ourschoul-syatom , suoli us it is , tlio poorest Scotchman , wlwiover ho goes , does carry with him , as a part of lib outfit , no > ine capneity nnd taste for romling . Whothor , however , in tho view of all this , wo ou ^ lit to bo content with such a syslomof schools us shall merely provido for universal instruction iu reailini ? mul wiitinc . ia another and u vorv dillicultciueslion . All that wo any is , time

    , Mr . Miller ' s iiutobiognmliy contains suggoations on this point Hint , ought to bo lukcu into ncconnt . If Air . Miller ' w work did nothing cl . io tlmn Inlly brlnjr out nmUiniiruisa upon , people tho ono notion that education requires u nlunditij of ncliootti , It would uo a groat sorvico . l ' orhnps wo am in orror in simpoMiig Unit , by" aiiy ingmiuir . y , wo can over contrive uny ona educational institution that nliall do for a buy nil llmt . work wluoli , in our authors . c « u « , it required mi undo Jhiiu'h , iintl at . uuulo thinly , « " « ' ""> vxirioiw cireunMiinoea ot a Scottish oiwt count , and a Imrd lilb na a Htoneiiiiinoii , mul much touching bowdoa , to perform . " In tho nrticlo on tho " Past ami rixwont Political Morality of British Statesmen , " a retrospect ia taken of tho changes that havo come over tho fnaliion of our aUtosmunaliip nnd of our parliamentary oratory tuneo Uho tvmo of Walpomc ; and tho conclusion ia thiifc our stntetun « nahip has bocu gradu-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 5, 1854, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05081854/page/15/