236 
and continue to owe a considerable 
portion of their active energy, to that 
elasticity of mind and quickness of per- 
ception, which literary cultivation and in- 
tellectual genius first diffused; and which 
they still continue to diffuse, though, 
in many instances, with an undetected 
influence, through the whole extended 
circle of society. Where would che- 
mistry, where would mechanic science, 
where would operative art,comparatively, 
have been, if a Bacon had never lived ? 
There is scarcely a rustic at his plough, 
certainly notamechanic in his workshop, 
who has not his daily obligations to 
that great luminary of the paths of mind. 
Yet was it at the lamp of classical eru- 
dition, that the philosopher Bacon first 
lit up that flame, which has diffused its 
warmth and its lustre through the gene- 
ral atmosphere, not of his country only, 
but of the civilized world. Nor is there 
a highly cultivated mind of any activity 
(whatever may be the particular walk of 
his studies and attainments) that does 
not contribute something to the gene- 
ral diffusion of this vivifying warmth 
and light. 
The Reviewer, in disputing the appli- 
cability of the present system of educa- 
tion, puts aside, for the present, its re- 
ference to the church. 
« But the church (as he observes) con- 
stitutes but a small part of the active com- 
munity. It has no share in law, physic, 
commerce, orarts ; it exerts no productive in- 
dustry, and, with the exception of the twenty- 
four bishops, it takes no part in the poli- 
tical government. If our institutions edu- 
cate lawyers, and merchants, and physi- 
cians, and statesmen, they teach them what 
they teach to churchmen — Ovid and Catul- 
lus, Homer and drinking, driving curricles 
and stage-coaches, and rowing boats. Must 
we conclude that education is an useless 
labour? that nature does all; that man, at 
twenty-four, having been denominated a 
master of arts, springs up a lawyer, a 
statesman, or a physician, to act and govern 
by intuition; and, well imbued with syntax 
and port, to transfer his hand from the 
reins of four greys to those of the state? 
No: there is here a dilemma. That he 
may fall down from Newmarket into the 
cabinet, a statesman, we do not deny: but 
if he hopes to thrive at the bar or the ex- 
change, he knows that he must commence 
his education when he is thought to have 
quitted it.’’—“‘ The education of those who 
are really educated is their own work.’’— 
“‘ Twenty times in a century the world 
wonders at a ‘self-taught’ individual—a 
Ferguson, a Burns, a Watt, or a Chantrey. 
It forgets that all who are taught are 
equally self-taught; but Westminster and 
Classical Literature. 
[ Oct. 1, 
Oxford receive the praise, and the indivi- 
dual alone, who knows whence his know- 
ledge came, holds his pedce and maintains 
the deception.” : 
This is a little too strong. That the 
trammels of our public schools and uni- 
versities, with their absurd methods and 
false objects of education, have a ten- 
dency to keep down the towering ener- 
gies of first-rate, or extraordinary minds, 
we can readily believe ; but that (with all 
their hereditary monkish absurdities) 
they mature many to a respectable 
mediocrity, cannot, we think, be ques- 
tioned. When the thousands that are 
educated at them, and the millions ex- 
pended on that education, come to be 
considered, it is true that the record of 
conspicuous results (swell the catalogue 
as you will) is but “a beggarly account 
of empty boxes:” but, without them, 
unless we had something better, what 
would have been the probable state of 
national intellect at this time? Nor let 
it be supposed that even a Ferguson, a 
Watt, or a Chantrey ; or even a Burns, 
at his plough-tail, had nothing in his 
mind that would not have been there 
but for our seminaries of classical edu- 
cation. We are, however, perfectly 
ready to admit that 
“the cultivation of letters alone is but 
one branch of education, and ought to be 
but one branch of the Academic Institu- 
tions of a nation, as nations now are, or 
should desire to be.” 
And we cannot but think, considering 
the title of the book which stands at the 
head of this Westminster article, that 
some notice ought here to have been 
taken of what Professor Jardine has not 
only suggested, but, in some degree, 
effected in this respect. Among all the 
voluminous disquisition of three Quar- 
terly Reviews, is it to be left to us (if 
our scanty space and opportunities 
should ever permit) to bring the general 
reader acquainted with the obligations 
which the science of education owes to 
the enlightened professor of Rhetoric 
at the University of Glasgow ? 
We shall not follow the Westminster 
Reviewer through all his reiterated refe- 
rences to r 
“the many men, the enlighteners of 
their age in literature, science and art, who 
have been educated at a mean country 
school, or at no school, and are as unac- 
quainted with the taste of Christchurch 
claret, as of Baliol beer ;”—* 
But 
* We cannot upon this subject confine our vision 
to ourown country. The pure, the benevolent, the 
heart-warming philosophy of the Jew beggar boy, 
