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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd October 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 949, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      It is a matter of general remark , that the Westminster Review , since it passed into Mb . Chapman ' s hands , has recovered the former importance it acquired when under the editorship of John Stuart Mill . It is now a Review that people talk about , ask for at the clubs , and read with respect . The variety and general excellence of its articles are not surpassed by any Review . The number just out opens with a thoughtful , temperate , and sagacious examination of the Oxford Commission , which gently , but firmly , exposes the deep-rooted abuses of the University , and suggests a practical , satisfactory remedy . The writer , after detailing the absurdity of the statutes , says : — ?

      " But those who profit by these endowments consider themselves bound by the conditions of their statutes ; and being unable to fulfil the duties therein imposed on them , decline to substitute others in their place ; yet the country generally regarding Oxford as a place of education , and the colleges as the means of conducting it , are wholly unable to take this view of the matter , and are anxioxis to see some substantial results arising out of all this expenditure . If the legend of . the 30 , 000 students who were to be found in Oxford in the time of the third Edward be only half correct , when the revenues after all deductions from the altered value of money were less than a tithe of what they are at present , it is difficult to know why , with the present England and the English empire , some 1300 , or 1400 should now be the outside of its numbers ; and it is to the causes of this remarkable anomaly that the inquiries of the Commissioners have been particularly directed . They are found to lie generally in the moral and intellectual life of the young men

      who are at present in training there . The evidence on these points is remarkably uniform—and , in fact , is in many ways remarkable . Those who have furnished it , are for the most part the fellows and tutors of the college , men whose quiet habits have disqualified them from recognising or understanding the ordinary lives of average undergraduates : who , as Mr . Wilkinson says , are cut off from opportunities of observing them by an impassable gulf ; and the disorder must have become serious indeed to have become conspicuous to eyes short-sighted as theirs . College tutors are supposed , in theory , to exercise some sort of surveillance over their pupils ; but to the proctors or university magistrates only , the real state of things is known : and a personal friend of our own , who had been many years resident , first as an undergraduate and then as a fellow and tutor , told us that it was not till he became prdctor that he had the least idea of the profligacy with which uudergraduate life was saturated . "

      Whatever difficulty may be found with the statutes , it is quite clear that the one enormous evil of extravagant expenditure forced upon the students may be avoided . A thousand pounds for three years and a-half of residence is a sum considerably under the average cost of a degree to an ordinary commoner : and " seeing that the residence is but for twenty-six weeks in each year , and that tuition , as it appears in the bills , is charged but sixteen guineas , " the surplus that goes to mere expenses of living , for a young man , makes a very awkward figure in the accounts , and causes even the best friends to the University to note with sorrow how colleges , originally meant for the poor , have become saturated with the vices of the rich .

      " One more illustration of the hollowness which underlies the beads of houses ' ild ' enco of themselves . At least , they will appeal to their tuition—their tuition That is excellent ; cheap , dirt cheap—sixteen guineas a-year ; and three hours adiiy from the ablest men that can bo found in the university—there , indeed , is an example of liberality which all the world may wonder at . It has u very pretty sound ; yet , not to waste our time on an analysis of the method of its working , let us look at tho results of it ; first , by-the-bye , observing that the undergraduate lias to pay four years' tuition fees , as well as four years' room rent , although lie is not permitted cither to attend lectures or occupy rooms for more thuri three ; so that , i" fact , the sixteen guineas urn twenty-one , and the accounts are " cooked" to suit the simplicity of the public . Eighty undergraduates , then , pay twenty-one guineas each for ( he year ' s lecture which they-attend , making in all something over 1700 / .

      Aow , in order to make the tuition more than it name , ten pupils is us many as suiy tutor could successfully manage *; and the 1 * 700 / . would bo divided between eight ; tutors . Ituting his fellowship at liOO / . additional , a college tutor would thus receive 41 . 2 / . or AAWl . u-year / 'or six months ' work , an income which might be thought very sullicient for nil reasonable wants . So , however , do not think the beads of houses ; and to convert the tutorships into valuable pieces of patronage , they give «'<» ch tutor twenty pupils , thus doubling his income , and turning tho otlice into a sinecure , from the , impossibility of mi adctjiuiU ; discharge of the duties of it . (! onw «| iiently , according to tho common consent of nil the evidence before us , the tutors : | I '

      I crliaps , however , this expense ; is compensated by the advantages of a < ' <> llcge education . " Jonks pays heavily for . Ionnn junior ; but , at u " y l ! l'e , he lias the consolation of thinking what useful friendships will be United by the scion of the house ofJnNKS . 'ne of the supposed benefits of college lilts is the easy intercourse of the N 'iKlents with eiich other , tho friendships which are formed in a cultivated and '' KK'ciihle societ y . It sounds all very pretty , and that it is very pleasant there is ll () doubt cither ; but tho substantial result of it is , that the standard of the > u "" ° " '''" <¦ is fixed by those who have most money ; and if a young man coining I ¦<> 1 . lie university wishes to have the advantage of this so very valuable society , ' llll mt live like the rest . Wo do not mean that Micro nro not gradations of ox-¦ ' ¦ <» l course thorn are ; but the lowest average of the amusements and the 1 ( 1 | ' 'iiiinnentrt is pitched far beyond what the position of the sons of the clergy *

      "' I ltl (! IWkitiwm Jl . » ii i . ii i 1 /•!*/• li it • a i w | i ¦ ' " ><) m" tftiiitloinen are entitled to ; the style of life altogether is quite above is necessary for them or for any one ; mid in nil cases the facilities for inloll r " , . '* lmi H <) K '' "' ,. and tho temptations arising from Mio extravagance and Mill tho umlurgruduuloij in ovory college uro ho immediate- ami prenahi tr ,

      hat however fair on paper the discipline may look , with its caps , and gowns , and chapel-gdings , and academic brotherhood , and paternal supervision—this very juxtaposition as equals of young men of all degrees of fortune , and the perpetual presence before the eyes of the less wealthy among them , of indulgences which they have only to stretch out their hands to reach , make the life in college a harder ordeal than they are likely to meet with again wherever they may be thrown . Can it be wondered at , that , surroundpd with wine parties and breaMfest parties , billiards and horses , prints and perfumery , and all sweet things in . which the youthful imagination and the youthful five senses take delight , so many of them should take the plunge into this tempting elysium ? Mr . Donkin says that there are no temptations at Oxford beyond what a young man way be fairly expected to overcome ; either he has never known , or he has forgotten the position of nineteen out of twenty undergraduates . They come up from home with characters altogether unformed , or they have been afc a public school , in which , as in some river Styx , they have been steeped in the knowledge and practice of all grossest and filthiest things , that they may learn early to fight their way in the world ; and then they come up to the university , where every facility for indulgence is thrust upon them . In the world , a marts credit is limited hy his means , and his society is determined by his position . At college , unlimited credit is offered and even obtruded , and tvkether they can afford it or not , they must mix with the society ivhicli they find " The suggestion with which this paper closes we commend to serious attention . After laying bare the corporate abuses of Oxford , the next article—on WhewelVs Moral Philosophy—with unsparing hand lays bare the intellectual insignificance which the Master of Trinity conceals beneath his immense pretensions , so that both Oxford and Cambridge are interested in this number of the Review . Dr . Whewell , everywhere out of Cambridge , and in Cambridge , too , among those competent to speak , is justly considered as a man of astonishing attainments , and of platitude of intellect equally astonishing . He knows more than almost any man of his time , but for ambitious weakness and platitude we can hardly name his rival . His reasonings are so shallow that they painfully puzzle the reader , unwilling to believe that what lies as meaning under the elaborate verbiage really is the meaning of this learned professor . We have had some little acquaintance with philosophical writings , and deliberately declare that in the writings of no one man who has ever gained attention have we met with anything comparable to the sustained incompetence of Dr . Whewbll , when he is giving his own opinions and not retailing those of others . The writer in the Westminster Review has a calm contempt for him—so calm that it disdains to express itself otherwise than , in the exposure of his reasonings , which is effected in a masterly style . xVs a defence of Bemtham the article will have a move permanent interest ; but for those who are awed by the great acquirements and great reputation of Dr . Wiiewell it will be a salutary warning .

      Plants and Botanists is the title of an article apparently without any purpose , and certainly without any value . Our Colonial Empire is a suggestive and useful survey of an important question , written with abundant knowledge and sagacious insight . In the Philosophy of Sti / le we have a scientific inquiry into an extremely complex subject , to be accepted as a valuable contribution , though far from an exhaustive one . Speaking anatomically , we should say that the writer hud demonstrated the vertebral column and some of the appendages , but the structure of Style has other elements still to be detected . " Economy of the recipient ' s attention" is here laid down as the secret of effect alike in the right choice and collocation of words ; and this principle is illustrated with great ingenuity and success , although we think the writer too exclusive in his treatment of it . It is the back-bone of language—it is not the pulsating heart , the flash in the eye , the smile , the grace , the charm . If is preference for Saxon words is just enough , but we think too exclusive . Latin words are often preferable to Saxon , and art ; employed because of their magnificent sonorousness , as well as their power of awakening- different associations ; for it should not be forgotten that . Language is not purely . symbolical and addressed to the intellect , but emotive also ; and therefore although that form of speech which will be more ; quickly interpreted by the intellect will , as an intellectual expression , be the more dlertive , yet still more effective than all will be the form of expression which , even at the expense of brevity , unites the force ; of sound to that of sense . The subject , however , is too extensive to be entered upon here . As a sn ^ ehnen of the application of the principle , let us quote the following , : uid direct especial attention to tin ; ingenious illustration at the dost ; .

      " Thus poetry , regarded as n vehicle of thought , is especially impressive , partly because it obeys all the laws of elfcctive speech , and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement . Whilst , the matter embodied is idealized emotion , the vehicle is the idealized language of emotion . As tho musical composer catches the cadences in which our feelings of joy and sympathy , grief and despair , vent , themselves , and out , of these j ^ erins evolves melodies suggesting higher phases of these feelings ; so the poet dovclopcs from the typical expressions in which mtmi utter passion and sentiment , ( hose choice forms of verbal combination in which concentrated passion and sentiment may he fitly presented ..

      " There is one peculiarity of poetry conducing much to its effect the peculiarity which is indeed usually thought , its characteristic one -still remaining to be consider * ) d : we mean its rliythihical strucl lire . Thin , unexpected us it may be , will bo found to come under tho same generalization willi the others . Like each of them , it is an idealization of the natural language of emotion , which is known to be more or less metrical if the emotion be not violent , ; ami like each of them , it , is an economy of the , reader ' s or hearer ' s attention . In tlm peculiar tone and manner wo adopt , in uttering versified language niiiy ho discerned its relationship to the feeliiifjfH ; and tho pleasure which its measured movement gives us is aseribuble to the comparative ease with which words metrically arranged can be recognised . This liuit position will acurcelv be at , once admitted ; but a littlo explanation will ahow

      Untitled Article

      rvitics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

      Untitled Article

      October 2 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 949

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 2, 1852, page 949, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1954/page/17/