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    3 > Tfot*ftl'tf fJ> 3LiH,iUmiv»

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    3 ≫ Tfot*Ftl'tf Fj≫ 3lih,Iumiv»

    Kiktmtt .

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    Dje QnufCEr , in his preface to the republisixed " Selections" from his writings , makes this remark with , respect to that portion of them , wbieli 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 ii , unless I Relieved myself able to offer some ooaisiderable novelty . " We should like to see this reiftark disseminated far and wide , and the notion which it involves made legally imperative in tlie republic of letters . Were it distinctly understood that merely to thiijk 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 . Nine-tenths of all our current litera ~ ture of the " Essay" kind may be characterised as consisting of " reasonable thinking ; " and the worst of it is that in reviewing it you have to say so , and that seems praise . But Dje Quincey ' s iaaxini amounts to this , that we ought not to allow mere * ' reasonable thinking" to come iato literature at all ; that whatever cannot pretend to be sooietJiing better than that ouglat , 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 jnto print . The maxim , as we have saM , has j-efecence particularly to that kind of writing which chiefly addresses tie intelligence ! - —i . e ., to disquisitions , criticisms , re&ective essays , arid the like . But we have no doubt corresponding maxims could be provided for the other great departments of literature- —historical writing , imaginative writing , and writing for what our housemaid calls the feelhicks . We wish it were done . The result would he , as we have said , that society would be relieTed 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 writing 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 " j Essay , " or disquisitional department alone—to which department belong the greater number of pur 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 Quiscey alludes ! Editors , above all other men , ought to lay Dje Quincez ' s maxim to heart , and to act upon it . They ought to keep back all the merely " reasonable thinking : "

    indeed , considei'ing the quantity of " reasonable thinking , " ay , and of very pleasant syntax , always besieging the doors of periodicals , that ought , perhaps , to be their main function . But , after all , as we have to say almost every 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 appearing to have realised De Quijscey'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 papers of fur more than average merit . During Emkrson ' s visit to this country he remarked that he and his American friends were often surprised at the comparative indifference of the British public to papers in British periodicals , which , had they appeared in America , would have conferred immediate reputation on their authors . Why don ' t these " great unknowns" take the hint and emigrate P The truth is , we suspect , that the crack articles are generally by men otherwise known , aad who have , therefore , no necessity to emigrate .

    We have before us this month , mnong quarterlies , the North British and the Prospective ; and , among monthlies , Fraser , BlackwotZ , the Dublin University , Bentlafs Miscellany , the National Miscellany , the Ilamhlcr , and the monthly part of Chambers' ' s Edinburgh Journal . There is variety enough in their contents . The North British lias nine articles—one on the Life and JFriti / u / s of Vinjrt , the " most illustrious ornament of modern French ( Evangelical ) Protestantism , " , therefore , a figure of interest to the theological public ; one on Hugh Mijm , i ; u of Crontartf / , in which a view is taken of tho life and education of one of tho most remarkable of living Scottish writers and inon of science , apropos of am autobiography just published l ) y himself , under the title of My Schools and Schoolmasters ; one on Earhj English History in which recent researches into > Saxcm and Norinnn times nre considered and

    commented on ; one on tho interesting subject of Books for Chili ? smy ono on Greece during the Mawdoitiun Period , in which Niuiiuuu and imuMVAJui .. are criticised , and justice is done to Mr . Giiotic ; one on 1 ) antic and hh httriyretcr . s ; one , approving and sympathetic , on ' Mr . Arnold's . / ofl »/«; one on Siltiria and thv Gold Rct / iutis , involving an account of the Hciontilio life nnd labours of Sir Rodkrick . MruciiisoN ; anil one on the 1 astan-d Present Pud I teal Morality of British Statvsuivit . From the article on Hvqu Miixkh avq extract the following , by way of pendant to our

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    remarks on educational theories and edraeational iiteraiaare last week . Mr . Miller , celebrated as he now is as a journalist , a BmaedianeoaB xaan of letters , and a geologist , is self-educated—the greater part of Ms life , prior to 1840 , when he became editor of one of the most mflsjeaatial

    tamajy caso , ywUi the paternal or maternal will to spend it in college fees , . converted from farmers sons like himselMnto 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 Jhuglisli 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 < ireek fiora Gaelic , might suppose syllogistic to be ii species of Swiss cheese , and would blunder fearfully if they had to talk of conic sections . Alter all , the faculty of plain reading and writiug in one ' s own language is the grand separation between the educated soul tUe non-educated . All besides—at least , since books were invented and Increased—is , very much a matter of taste , perseverance , and in direction

    apprenticeship one rather than , in another . Tlie fundamental accomplishment ; ot reading , applied continuously in one direction , produces a Cambridge wrangler ; applied in another , it turns out a lawyer ; applied in many , it tarns 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 UDpubhshed book deliberately xeaA 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 tkere 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 a contribution to ike vexeii question of national education , in anotler part of tlie article : — " We believe , Mr . Miller ' s estimate of the value of the pedagogic element in education , as ascertained for liimsdf Ijy his own experience , will fall considerably below that which many , no more disposed than he is to consider pedagogues tbe only or even'tlie chief schoolmasters of youth , will yet be constrained toform by reference to their experience . Wehave ourselves kuown men of the class of pedagogues whose effect on the entire education of the district to which they belonged was immense—men who rayed out spirit and enthusiasm among the youth of whole nei g hbourhoods , and whose service to society consisted in nothing less than tins , that , 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 feings than they would otherwise have been . Arnold of Rugby was bat the conspicuous type of a class of men of which there are at . this hour , both in England 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 element . That this element figures so low in M r . Miller's account of the process of his education may arise m a great measure from the fact , that his experience of professional schoolmasters was not particularly fortunate ; but it must arise also , in part , from the unusual preponderance in his 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 gl : il 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 < ill r the schools of a country fulfil their main and most proper function when they thoroughly impart tlie faculty of reading books . It might bo well if ; in these days , when the great prcblem of National Education is so much discussed , this limited notion of what we can expect from schools were , for a time at least , more prevalent . It' 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 cat = « were distributed among so many 1 schools ' and ' schoolmasters , ' then tho task of constructuig a national system of schools .

    does soein hopeless . Nuy , 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 tho doctrines considered primarily necessary to make u youth a tolerably good member of civil society , even then wo shall find the construction of a national system of schools a truly Herculean labour . How slndl wo fix in schools what wo huve not yet lixed in aocii-ty ? But if wo choose for a time to define schools as institutions set up to accomplish thoroughly tho ono good object of teaohiug all the children of a community to read niul wrjte , tlien though we shall greatly narrow our notion of schools in so doing , it will notation « n impossible tzisk to dovise n machinery adequate for the purpose . Asyat ia Great Britain we have never attained even to thia very moderate ideal ot a national school system . Not to mention the masses among us who cannot read or write ut nil , tho number of those who , in the language of statistical returns , enn only ' road and write imperfectly , ' is enormously grout . With rvgnrJ to such , it ought to bo considered that schools have simply not fulfilled any function whatever . Uutil tho entire mechanical difficulty of reading has been overcome and tho art made a pleasant nnd unconscious possession , no child can bo said

    to have hud tbe bsnent of a . school . Tho one grand separation between the educated and the uneducated of a community is , as ¦ we have already said , tho accomplishment of perfect and easy rtiadiJig . All on tlie ono aide of this line or separation fall buck into the ono promise uoub class of the illiterate ; all whom nn adequate school-training has pLicou on tho other aide coua'ituto another class , among whoni j indeed , there may bo grades and peerage ? , but whoyot nil hnvu in common tiutt which distinguishes thorn from tho Helots , and puts tho future in their own power—tho fnmchiso of hooka . Tho tradilionul superiority of tho humbler r « nlca of fcicotdijnoti over tho corresponding ranks of Englishmen has consisted , ivo believe , very much in tliis single ciroiunstince , that , thanks to our school-system , such Jia it ia , tho poorest Scolchinuu , wherever ho goca , doi-a carry with him , ua a part of liis outfit , Moino capacity nnd taste lor rending . Whether , however , in tho viow of nil this , we onfjufc to bo content with such u system of schools as ahull merely provide for univo real instnioUou ithat

    in reading mid writing , is another mid a very ditlicult quetttiun . All tlmt we my » , Mr . Millor ' K autobiography contiihiH suggoutions on thia noint that ought to bo ulccn into account . If Mr . Miller's work did nothing olso than Hilly briii" out ami imjircHa upon people \\ w ono notion Mint education rciiuiroH a pltiruliti / of nrfiooln , It would do u groat , service . 1 ' crlinp . s wo aro t « error in mm posing tlmt , by ' ingenuity , «; o ciia ovor contriver any OKfli'tliuiational institution that ttliull do ihv a boy itII llml work wlnoli , m our author » uatto , iUt-nuhvd an undo Junu'H , iiiwl uu undo Saiuly , nn » l' tho vnrwua c » reum- > t . inoea ol u Scotlwli t-ast coast , niid u hard lilts as u Htoneinawoii , and much toiidnng Dcttldua , to perform . " In tho artiulo on the u Fust uud Troaont Political Morality of British StaU'smon , " ii retrospect is taken of tho changes tlmt have como over tUo fashion of our BUfccsuiunshii > and of our piirliuuxontury oratory since the timo of Walpolk ; and iho conclubion ia that our BtutcHiu&iuiltip has been gradu-

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    August 5 , 1854 . ] THE LEA D E R . 7 g

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    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They ao not make lavvs—they interpret and try to enforce them . ¦* -Edinburgh Zteview .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 5, 1854, page 735, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2050/page/15/