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Leader (1850-1860), 18th December 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 15, December 18, 1852.] THE LEADE R. 1211

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      December 18, 1852.] The Leade R. 1211

      December 18 , 1852 . ] THE LEADE R . 1211

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      „ -I V.B Are Not The Legislators, But Th...

      „ -i v . B are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not Critics a iaW 3 _ tKey interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Sevtew .

      We Have On More Than One Occasion Argued...

      We have on more than one occasion argued the question of classical learning and although the accident ? of our . own education may be supposed rather to bias our inclinations in favour of that which it has cost us so much labour to acquire , yet our impartial verdict is decidedly against allowing Greek and Latin to continue , in the dominant position they have hitherto held . We believe that on many accounts it is desirable for a certain class to occupy itself with the dead languages , as it is desirable for a class to occupy itself with antiquities , conchology , or any other special subject of study ; but general education ought to dispense with them , as practically we see it dispense with them ; of the thousands who receive a " classical education , " only a few retain enough of their hard-earned knowledge to make any use of it . We are led to notice this topic by an article in the Daily News on the

      performance of the Westminster play , exposing the " inconsistency" of representing such indecencies as those in which Terence abounds , before the youth and women of moral England ; after alluding to the subject of the Adelphi , the writer adds : — " And yet it is such a play as this , without either romance or sentiment to throw the thinnest of veils over its impurities , that youths of seventeen or eighteen act , and that their mothers and sisters witness . A crowd of elegantly dressed women , most of them doubtless in the upper ranks , of society , were listening last night—we trust without understanding what they heard—at one time to the story of a rape , and at another to the screams of a female . in the act of parturition . And this is an entertainment which good and learned men get up as a means of instruction to boys , and delight to their parents ! There is scarcely a greater anomaly in t of our social system .

      any par .. t ~ . i i j i _ _ __ ji--i ~ i . i ,: «~ ¦* - „! , « n-a man in -Khaf . nnanrri fMinorner to ls f WJ ^ " * , « * r -v * - * r *— ^ ¦— » -- - — , — — — ^ ^ j " Does not , however , the whole thing take its rise in that absurd clinging to antiquity which is a distinguishing feature of modern English education ? And if so , is not the real evil in question far greater than that of the representation of an indecent play ? The world is marching on , and leaving English education behind it as a worn-out antique . When a man comes out of a pubhc school into the world , and wishes to move along wit h society , he has really to educate himself . If learned much

      he has been to one of the first schools in the country , he has just as as would lave fitted him for the society of his ancestors three hundred years back , hit scarcely anything that enables him to take his place in the world that has advanced more in those three hundred years than in fifteen centuries before that time . He brings rusty implements to work with , whilst he finds that he can do nothing unless with modern tools . Why , then , it may be said , do so many still cling to such relics of antiquity ? We believe that the reason will he found in that class feeling which cuts up English society into sections , and draws broad lines of demarcation between bodies of men who ought to he united . A ' classical

      education' is valued by the great number , not on account of any proved value of its own , but because the poorer classes do not get it . This feeling strikes at one root of our nationality . There can be no national education , while one class insist upon laying the foundation in a dead lang uage which t he other class have nothing to do with . The ideas of the two classes are taught to flow in different channels from their very earliest youth , and when they meet tor / ether in manhood , they have little common ground of educational sympathy . " The Westminster play is an example of this anomaly in its grossest form . Pious clergymen are for months engaged in instructing ingenious youths feow with point to enunciate gross impurities ; the only excuse being , that the immorality is expressed in unexceptionable Latin . Boys are brought to the consideration of thoughts and deeds which , under any other shape , they would be told to flee from as from a pestilence . They are taught to laugh at actions which , from the pulpit , they are told to avoid . The gross absurdity of punishing boys ior making uso of expressions in tho piny-ground , which they arc taught to deliver with unction on

      the stage , must before long make itself evident . There arc three points in these remarks to which we desire especial attention : —1 st . The conservatism which undoubtedly does underlie tins absurd veneration for Antiquity , not as the common mother of us all , not as the life from which the Present was evolved , not in any high historic sense , but as the blind instinct of conservatism , which clings to whatever has been established , long after its significance has passed away and left it a mere tomb of the once living . 2 nd . The aristocratic feeling of cxclusivenes . s which it fosters ; although that must only be accepted as one side of

      the question . There is another . The classics form not only a barrier excluding the people , but a common ground of thought * illustration , poetic feeling , and historic association , to all within the barrier . A sentence from Hoiiack , a few words from Thucydidkh , an allusion to Virgil , an illustration from Plato , although perhaps when translated appearing very insignificant to those without the barrier , will have significance , beauty , and tli .. light for those within it . What the wayward Vivian chooses to call lead is not unfrequently a jewel sparkling on the finger of a friend , and an do not

      emblem of his being one of the same community as ourselves . We »« y it is not sometimes the dull lead of pedantry ; we say it is not necessaril y so . To make our meaning more apparent , let us refer to the days when Literature knew nothing of its present gigantic proportions ; before octavos were dreamt of , and Railway Libraries would have been a vision " . ore fantustie than Atlantis or Utopia ; in those days the common fund of litera tim * was one in every family : it comprised the Legends of Chivalry mid the various works of a religious ami moral cast , which in narrative or comment endeavoured to complete tho Bible . In those days one may notice a community of feeling and of opinion very different from the anarchy <> f our own . This community in in Home nort kept up by a claamcal

      education ; whatever our differences of opinion , we have a common ground m the literature of Greece and Rome . And this it is , quite as much as the aristocratic notion of exclusiveness , which unconsciously makes many men defend the study of the classics . The third point we have to notice is that of the " inconsistency . 1 o those who follow the teachings of clergymen with a commentary of practice nothing can be surprising in the way of inconsistency . Sometimes these inconsistencies are the instincts of virtue overthrowing dogmas ; sometimes they are fortunate safety valves for an inworking force , which if compressed would shatter the whole fabric to pieces : how often are inconsistencies the * cracks by which Society is kept free to expand , without which it would explode Sometimes , again , " inconsistencies" are the revelations of the real spirit underling profession For example : the Protestant party—especially

      y . that section of it which arrogates the name of evangelical—is intensely bitter against the Catholic system and Papal Infallibility . The " sacred liberty of private judgment" has no more acrimonious advocates , so long as that private judgment is their own ; but no Catholic can manifest greater intolerance than these evangelicals against those who presume to question their infallibility . We have a specimen in the Manchester Courier . The disgraceful scene acted by Mr . Commissioner P hillips the week before last in the Court of Bankruptcy was noticed by the Manchester Guardian—* paper of the highest standing—a sort of Times of the North ; and noticed because it " unaccountably escaped comment from the London press , to whom it properly belongs" ( it escaped owing to the timidity of the press ) ; and after a narrative of the affair these remarks were added :-

      —« So the scene terminated . The unfortunate sceptic was ejected out of a court of justice like a thing too foul for human contact ; and the insolvent , in detault of ba «' We do not undertake to say whether Mr . Commissioner Phillips was at liberty to reject the oath offered to him by a p erson who declared that it was bndmgon his conscience , though we know that the duty of a judge has been differently interpreted in similar cases ; and we entertain an impression that it was exceeded on this occasion . But we do protest against the tone in which he was pleased to pronounce his decision , and the unwarrantable comments which he tacked to it . If the law forbad him to accept Mr . Holyoake ' s adjuration . , it was for him to say

      so calmly and dispassionately , and not , under protection of the judicial robe , to insult an unoffending man with his blatant orthodoxy . Mr . Holyoake s religious peculiarities have as good a right to be treated with respect as those of a Quaker , a Jew , a Hindoo , or any other witness who may come before a court of law . We need hardly say that we differ from him on almost every point respecting which his opinions are publicly known ; we consider his condition and his career as unenviable and distressing . But lie has this claim on respect , that he has suffered deeply for his convictions , which is more than vye arc aware that Mr . Commissioner Phillips has done , and more than we think he is likely to do . "

      Upon this , the evangelicals are in arms . The Manchester Courier has an indignant article , full of all the sweetness of Christianity and the charity characteristic of the sect . " The undoubted respectability of our contemporary gives a kind of patent to the dissemination of infidel doctrines that renders the publication of the article infinitely dangerous , " says the mild and Christian Courier . Again , — " Of the infidel character of our contemporary ' s remarks there can be no doubt . They have < raised the blood' of some of the best men not only in Manchester , but in the towns which surround us . " Unhappy men ! unhappy Courier ! Can such drivel be , And not o ' crconic us as a winter ' s cloud ?

      How beautifully engaging these men make Christianity appear Directly a word of charity and tolerance is spoken , they cry out anathema ; but as they are fond of fixing others in the pillory , we will fix them in one , and they can scarcely object , for it shall be built with their own hands . Here is the conclusion of the article : — " Tho fact is , that the whole of our contemporary ' s remarks , and the too-evident spirit which has dictated them , combined with what , we cannot help thinking , is a mere affectation of ignorance of the law , to serve the purpose of the moment , convinces us that , that old Komrian spirit for which the Guardian was notorious m days long passed , has deepened to something infinitely darker and more hideous . There is really no true ' liberality' in attempting to loosen the bonds of religion think that Commissioner

      • hmI morality , and instead of ridicule and censure , we Mr . Phillips deserves the very highest praise for purifying the courts of this kingdom from the . stain of infidelity which was sought to be cast upon them by Mr . ( ieorgo . Jacob Holyoake , the proferrcd bail , who did not aclfhowledge the existence of ( Jod We say , ( Jod forbid that any person who denies the existence of the Deity should be hoard >» n » J < - < mrt of justice in England . We trust that the moral and social responsibilities of such a man will never be recor / nised ; for if they be , there can no longer be any security for the well-heincf of society in this or any other country . It Ls n downright insult to ' a Quaker , u . lew , or ft Hindoo , ' to place them in tho name category with huc . 1 i a creature as Mr . Holyoake . And it is an insult ; ton ChriNtiim community ( which we believe Manchester to be ) , that « iny jotininl hIiouM dare to pronouncn Much opinions as are habitually pronounced by tho Manchester

      Guardian , in the present day . " Pray notice the amiable and honest logic by which the writer is " convinced" that the Guardian has deepened into a creed " infinitely more hideous"' than Socmianiam , and notice also the courageous imbecility of this disclaimer of social responsibilities . O nomen dulce libertatis ! tl jus eximium nostra vivitatis ! Well might Cickiio apostrophise the sweet name of Liberty and the sacred rights of citizenship , when both are to be forfeited if men do not lead throug h the same , spectacles as those in authority . ^ "" Wio have spoken with undisguised contempt of the Courier ^ and now contrast with it the tone of another religious paper , iu , superior to the l \ i . -, . _

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 18, 1852, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18121852/page/15/