EDITOR'S TABLE. 



559 



pitiful protestations of classical gradu- 

 ates (with their incomparable "mental 

 discipline") that they could not even 

 understand the epoch-making books of 

 these great thinkers. 



From this point of view, the English 

 experience with classical studies is espe- 

 cially rich in instruction. Every public 

 influence in that old, aristocratic, tradi- 

 tion-ridden country has favored the as- 

 cendency and the perpetuity of dead 

 languages in all grades of education. 

 Whatever benefits could be got from 

 them have been there obtained in 

 abounding measure. Modern knowl- 

 edge has been hindered and repressed 

 that the classics might have free course 

 and undisputed sway; and yet, as we 

 have before observed, the system worked 

 out such miserable and scandalous re- 

 sults that the state was compelled to 

 look into the subject and do what it 

 could to expose if not to correct the 

 abuses. The Government reports on 

 the condition of education in the uni- 

 versities and great public schools re- 

 vealed a state of things which will be 

 the wonder of all future ages. Some 

 twenty years ago, Prof. W. P. Atkinson, 

 of Boston, printed a very valuable pam- 

 phlet devoted to these English educa- 

 tional reports. We regret to say that 

 it is now out of print, for it would be 

 an invaluable contribution to the dis- 

 cussion now going forward upon this 

 question. As its contents will be new 

 to many, we reprint some passages il- 

 lustrating the extent to which, even at 

 that time, the classical university edu- 

 cation had been practically superseded 

 by forms of culture more suited to the 

 necessities of the times : 



This view [that the English universities 

 have lost the hold they once had on the edu- 

 cated classes] will be corroborated if we con- 

 sider how many of the most influential minds 

 of the century, in science, literature, art, and 

 politics, have either had no connection what- 

 ever with the universities, or are under small 

 obligation to them for any connection they 

 may have had. In politics, and political 

 economy, we might name, among others, 



Romilly, Bentham, Ricardo, Bright, Cobden, 

 Stuart Mill. Though the government of Eng- 

 land is monopolized by the aristocracy, the 

 political thought which governs her govern- 

 ors comes daily more and more from the 

 people. The list of "uneducated" men of 

 science if I may be allowed the absurdity of 

 such a phrase is far longer, as, after what 

 has been said, might reasonably be expected, 

 than any the universities can show Davy, 

 Wollaston, Dalton, Faraday, Wheatstone, De 

 la Beche, Murchison, Hind, South, Fitzroy, 

 Playfair, Carpenter it might be indefinitely 

 extended; and we shall find that the most 

 eminent of her college - educated men of 

 science are the foremost in denouncing her 

 university system. Of course, all her great 

 engineers, inventors, and builders, are un- 

 educated men Watt, Telford, Smeaton, Ren- 

 nie, Brindley, the Brunels, the Stephensons, 

 Sir Joseph Paxton it is with these names 

 that that sad but glorious volume, " The Pur- 

 suit of Knowledge under Difficulties," is 

 filled. Her great artists are all " uneducated " 

 men Flaxman and Gibson, Landseer, Tur- 

 ner, and Stanfield, Kemble and Macready, 

 and all the rest. And, when we turn to liter- 

 ature itself, the greatest English historical 

 work of this generation a work on classic 

 history, too was written by an " unedu- 

 cated" London banker. The greatest, I 

 might almost say the only, English attempt at 

 a philosophy of history, a work which, with 

 all its errors and paradoxes and I shall not 

 deny that they are many and great is still 

 one which can not be matched by any similar 

 academic performance, was the work of the 

 "uneducated" son of a London merchant. 

 Her novelists Dickens, Thackeray, Jerrold, 

 Marry at come from all quarters save the 

 banks of the Cam and the Isis ; not to men- 

 tion so many of that sex which is excluded 

 altogether from their sacred borders. Bulwer 

 is, indeed, a Cambridge man, but I think 

 Cambridge will be slow to put forward that 

 pretentious charlatan as an example of the 

 fruits of her classical training. Even of her 

 poets, critics, and essayists, what a long list 

 are among the wholly "uneducated," or must 

 be classed among those who derived no bene- 

 fit from their stay at a university, save that 

 (undoubtedly great) one which comes from 

 mere residence at a place of learning ! The 

 names at once occur of Crabhe, Rogers, 

 Lamb, Moore, Montgomery, Hunt, Gifford, 

 Hazlitt, Hood. Who would hesitate to say 

 where Scott's real education lay ? Who has 

 criticised the education of Oxford so wittily 

 as Sydney Smith, or so grimly as Carlyle? 

 Wordsworth and Coleridge, in their short 



