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    1C j 0* THE Ii E AD E "R. [No. 444, Sept...

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    THE FUTURE OF THE SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES....

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    BOOK-HAWKING IN FRANCE. Amon g the many ...

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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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    • The Press In Piedmont. In Comparing Th...

    imprisonment , are not Jarful means for the attainment of any object ; and the sooner the Sardinian Iieo-fslature puts an end to such blots and excrescences 6 n the constitutional regime , the better . To © reserve them any longer would be at once a crime and a . blunder *

    1c J 0* The Ii E Ad E "R. [No. 444, Sept...

    1 C j 0 * THE Ii E AD E "R . [ No . 444 , September . 25 ^ 1858 .

    The Future Of The Scottish Universities....

    THE FUTURE OF THE SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES . "The disadvantages which characterise the Scottish University system * as contrasted with the ancient Academical institutions of our own country , are obvious , and have been dwelt upon in every discussion of the subject . The absence of endowments and emolument prevents the long residence of ^ students who want to achieve more than the rudimentary elements of knowledge in the scenes where ihese first instructions were gained . The absence of the imposition of an examination for graduation , as the necessary culmination of the student ' s ^ course , and a pre-requisite for admission into a learned profession , has necessarily acted against the high education of Scotland ' s teachers ; and the want of private guidance and instruction lias necessitated the fruitlessness of the larger portion of public prelections . These obvious drawbacks have been alleged with almost painful reiteration ; but we confidently believe that the opposite of the picture has not been sufficiently displayed . This converse , constituting as it does the specialties and peculiarities of Scottish College

    teaching , is , in other wordsj the existing capacities which further opportunity ought to use . Every reformis the best which finds in the thing about which the reform is to be achieved the elements of improvement . It is easier to nourish weak and * ickly shoots into maturity and fruit-bearing , than it is to graft upon them entirely foreign substances . And , to apply bur general rule , it is better for the "Scottish colleges to seek in their own old intent , history and practice , the seeds of future reforms , * han to weaken and denationalise themselves in the

    — —^ yaia-eBdeavour to make " of St . Andrews and Glasgow aii Oxford and a Cambridge . If this view be ^ granted , it must follow that to point out these -existing advantages , to show in what direction they -ought to be fostered , and to endeavour the dis--covery of what safeguards ought to surround and restrain them , is the oest course to pursue . The deepest in its nature and the widest in its influences of these specialties , is the popular basis on which the Scottish colleges are founded . In England and in Scotland both , promising youthful talent is not denied access , as a general rule , even if poor , to further academical instruction . This beaiencial end is in each case attained by different

    means . In England , universit y education is very ¦ expensive ; but by the foundations established by piety and by the network of close connexion which winds each old county and provincial school ^ to its own college and university , a talented boy is provided with a whole or a part of the means which -enable him to achieve graduation and further university advantages . In Scotland , on the other iand , with exceptions which are so trifling as not in -the least degree to affect the contrast , no such means are provided by public ! spirit for defraying the charge of the university education of the poor ; but then , on the other hand , the expenses of college education are so slight as to bring it withiu the reach of almost all who choose to make the

    necessary and testing sacrifices . It may be said , then , that practically the English -and the Scottish colleges are both equally popular on this score . This view fade * away on a little 4 eeper inquiry . For , after all , this pecuniary assistance in England can only reach some of those yrho wish and are deserving of it . And then * if , once on the foundation of a school , talent will ensure a further university training / on the other hand , it must be remembered that , in many instances ,

    only interest and influence can admit you into the school , and place you in the right groove . However munificent , then , the legacies and bequests which have created these facilities in England , howover undeniable the advantages to the country which they produce , their exercise is , at the best , only partial And incomplete . In Scotland , on the othjpr hand , the onl y element ; to the enjoyment of the privileges of college education for the Very poorest ia the perseverance and eelf-saortfice which w their essential pre-requisite condition . And no one can ;« ay but that that condition is the very one wbioh wieoom would have speeulativel y suggested . T ) icm i » more filling of the mind with knowledge

    England ; there is in Scotland moi * e creation in the mind of wants . This we believe to be the great distinction between the effects of Scottish and English collegiate training . The English fra duate knows more , and apprehends what he nows more thoroughly and systematically , than-he who has just quitted the Natural Philosophy and Rhetoric classes at Edinburgh , at the conclusion of his four years * course . The English student sails out of harbour a neat , small craft , with all his appointments complete * In the mind of the Scottish student there have been laid down only ribs , far separated and d isjointed it may be , of a barque which , if ever completed , will be much nobler , much more capacious . It will be answered at

    once , and most fairly , that you had better produce a self-consistent culture in the minds of most , than merely lay foundations of intellectual development , which , in nine cases out of ten , have never one timber more laid upon them , for the sake of the tenth case where a fabric , more or less complete , is reared . But the extenuation lies here : the Scottish student has only what we may call the term of his under-graduateship to receive all the benefits of university training . And you must attempt to do for a quick and promising Scottish student , in the four years which elapse before he betakes himself to law , divinity , or business , all that you can do for a man who studies at an English college over a number of years of indefinite extent . But it must be allowed , after all ,

    that in considerable measure Scottish colleges arc themselves remedying this defect of the small fabric on the large foundation . Scotland supplies its philosophic teachers from itself , but as it is only now and again that it has produced a Ruddiman or an Adam , and as it is itself convinced that it has no more Playfairs and Leslies , with a wise liberality of spirit it has sent to England for Mr . Kelland , of Edinburgh , and the accomplished Professor Thompson , of Glasgow ; just as it has there filled its classical chairs from the same source . _ Partially to recapitulate what we have said , but move to make application . of our remarks in

    the light intended in the outset , we have only now tp add that , while the popular basis . of a Scottish collegiate teaching is a benefit which can hardly be over-estimated , the benefit can only blossom into full fruition and perfection if additional facilities , such as those which exist in England , are afforded for deeper and higher instruction . While Scotchmen may still point with pride and satisfaction to the influence of the public teachings of Hutcheson , who vivified with soul and spirit the cold materialism which , in his day , ocqupied the whole philosophical domain , and repelled m en from the study of mind ; while they may still be proud Professorchair the

    that from a Glasgow ' s came philosophical method which has proved itself as applicable to the reputation of the transcendentalisms of Reid ' s future , as it did to the plausible sophistries prevalent in his own day ; while they have a right to proclaim the fact that Dugald Stewart sent to London a school of politicians who have guided the public progress of the century ; that many a mind now speaking to the ears and eyes of England through press and pulpit , received its culture as it hung upon the words of Sir William Hamilton ; while these and many similar instances are just grounds for the high laudation of tho efficacy of ' professorial teaching , they ought not to blind the national mind to the fact that , although

    here and there a giant oak or elm may arise irom a seed planted by fortuition tho most unexpected , the humble but necessary broad crop of waving grain requires the modest efforts of tho patient tiller , as well as the broadcast seed-sowing of him who plants the germ . Tutorial instruction without professorial teaching will only reduce to culture powers only half developed in their energy and in their numbers . Bat just as truly , professorial prelection without tutorial inculcation may produce hero and there a mighty monument of its influence , but will leave barren and fruitless many a spot of soil , good in itself , and unproliftc only from tho absence of tho humble oaro of tho tutor .

    Book-Hawking In France. Amon G The Many ...

    BOOK-HAWKING IN FRANCE . Amon g the many objects of permanent suspicion to the French Government there are few that from time to time have caused more anxiety than tho salo of books , pamphlets , and periodicals , by means of what is termed oolportago . Ever since the days of Paul Courier , who was in a certain sense the Cobbett of France , and whose writings were

    dispersed by the book-hawkers through every depart ment Of the kingdom , it has been the practice of all who wished to disseminate widely their opinions to ' . commit their publications to the handsof these indefatigable agents . Far better than any professional propagandists they were supposed to do the -work of political and social propagandism . With his literary pack upon his shoulder , or suspended from his neck , the hawker trudged from village to village , and from town to to \ vn , displaying in each his latest assortment of cheap editions of old books and tempting

    copies of new ones . Histories compressed into two-franc volumes ; biographies , with striking portraits , for half the money ; and some without those stern embellishments , tor spvcnty-five centimes ; pocket collections of Bei-auger ' s songs , and Ten of the most celebrated dramas of the classic school , compacted into one dwarfish tome ; political brochures and piquant novels ; almanacks and lives of saints ; cookery books and gaudy-looking missals ; something , in short , for every age and taste was to be found in the wallet of the impartial pecller . Now and then a gendarme , more officious than the rest of his fraternity , would look inquisitively through the miscellaneous heap as it lay spread forth upon some

    tavern bench ; and now aud then an austere curate , who had detected one of his youthful penitents iu the perusal of a talc of Balzac or George Sand , would denounce as emissaries of Satan all itinerant vendors of profane and worldly publications . But the appetite was too strong to be scared either by priest's maledictions or policeman ' s frowns into abstinence iVonv'thc mental fare it once had tasted ; and neither Charles X . nor Louis Philippe ever ventured openly to tamper with the popular gratification . They were well aware that books of a radical tendency , were widely circulated by the colporteurs in rrinute districts , where otherwise the philosophic theories of Paris would never , have been known ; but they

    wisely shrank from meddling with a custom that had become thoroughly national , and contented themselves with encouraging such count . oractive agencies as were suggested to them from time to

    timec The present " paternal govcmor " of 'lfvancc has characteristically undertaken to determine what three-and-thirty millions of people sluill intellectually eat , what they shall mentally drink , and wherewithal they shall morally be clothed . Under the restored Empire steps have been taken for the first time to bring colportiige under the direct control of Government . An index expitrgatorius as rigorous as that of Home lms been framed at the Ministry of the Interior , in which , ia inscribed every work obnoxious to the powers that be . This list is not of course made

    public ; but manuals of instructions are luruished to the preTots , magistrates , and commissaries of police throughout the depart incuts . With these precious guides for their inquisitorial feet , tin ; local authorities have made it part of their ordinary business to rummage . the packs of the bouk-liiijvkcrs , and at their disoret ion to rille their cunt em s of whatever smells of political or social freedom . Si i Miniated moreover by the clergy , with whom their imperial master affecls to have such intimate n-lauons , they have extended their detective care to all books deemed heterodox by the cslnblisucci church . Speculative inquiry must bo suppressed ol order

    as tending to subvert the foundations ; and sectarian controversy of evory kind must ue treated as contraband of priestly war . Jjoeicauy following out those promises < o their prnoUpul conclusions , cheap copica of tho Bible were 1 U iuau / places seized , as being calculated to bmn , ' . \ y iigion of the State , and thereby tho bUife ^ > into contempt . How could the belief in iiiirnculoua manifestations like that of tho WJu »» \ MV ° l Lourdes be hoped for if the right ot private judgment were nnarchically pormitLcd , and iis o <¦> charter actually placed within , the reach ol al nou . Or how would tf . o nation co . no to regard 1 . o pro fusion of imperial expenditure on Catholic clmicnw and institutions of every kind , if oul ) l 8 W once permitted to be sown broudcust through Uio Jw »* to the exclusive truth of Catholicity r __ ui ¦*¦

    as _ no tu due UAVtuaxu i * ¥ »» vr » »• .---- v .. ^ wunTlft In the department of tho Bartho , some persona of consideration ventured lutoly , . howovoi , to re monstrato against tho perpetration ° ; ta . stretch of tho " paternal system . " J < X , X « tf tions wore made in high quurtora , and t o w das JJewv Months , tho fiurml do * J > dbat « t \ to * ¥° * and other journals courageously look up no u *> of this last remnant oT departed liberty . A & »

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 25, 1858, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25091858/page/18/