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¦ October 2, 1852.] T HE LEADER. 949
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Xntxaxuvt
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. arP not the legislators, but the -judg...
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s a matter of general remark, that the W...
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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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¦ October 2, 1852.] T He Leader. 949
¦ October 2 , 1852 . ] T HE LEADER . 949
Xntxaxuvt
Xntxaxuvt
. Arp Not The Legislators, But The -Judg...
. arP not the legislators , but the -judges and police of literature . They do not Critics ar | - ^\ aws _ tEey interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Bevtew .
S A Matter Of General Remark, That The W...
s a matter of general remark , that the Westminster Review , since it ssed into Mr . Chapman ' s . hands , has recovered the former importance Cacquired when under the editorship of John Stuart Mill . It is now 1 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 sao-acious 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 : — ... . . , , . ^ themselves bound bthe
. « But those who profit by these endowments consider y 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 anxious 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 . intellectual life of the
They are found to lie generally in the moral and 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 proctor that he had the least idea of the profligacy with which
undergraduate 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 , nnrl 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 hollowneas which unde rlies the heads of houses defence 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 adivy from the ablest men t hat can be found in the university—there , indeed , is an example of liberality which all the world may wonder at . It has a very pretty sound ; yet , not to waste our time on an analysis of the method of its working , l »! t us look at the results of it ; first , by-the-bye , observing that the undergraduate has to pay four years' tuition fees , as well as four years' room rent , although he is not permitted either to attend lectures or occupy rooms for more than three ; so that , in fact , the sixteen guineas are twenty-one , and the accounts aro " cooked" to suit the simplicity of tho public . Eighty undergraduates , then , pay twenty-one guineas each for the year ' s lecture which they attend , making in all something over 1700 Z .
Now , in order to make the tuition more than a name , ten pupils is as many as any tutor could successfully manage ; and tho l 70 ( K . would be divided between eight tutors . Hating his fellowship at 200 Z . additional , a college tutor would thus rewivu 412 / . or 4 LIU . a-yenr for six months' work , ( in income which might bo thought very millicient for all reasonable wants . So , however , < lo not think the heads of houses ; and to convert the tutorships into valuable pieces of patronage , they give < "u : h tutor twenty pupils , thus doubling bin income , and turning tho office into a Kiueo . ure , from the impossibility of an adequate discharge ! of tho duties of it . Consequently , according to the common consent of all the evidence before us , the tutors il 'e comparatively useless , and the substantial teaching of the university is given by private tutors whom tho poor fleeced undergraduates are obliged to provide for themselves at a cost of fifty pounds a-year . "
• erhaps , however , this expense is compensated by the advantages ol a " college education . " . Ionics pays heavily for Jonkh junior ; but , at u » y rate , he has the consolation of thinking what useful friendships will be formed by the scion of the house of Jonkh . " One of the supposed benefits of college life is the easy intercourse of the " •'" dents with each other , tho friendships which are formed in a cultivated and ' ^ ' ¦ enable society . It sounds all very pretty , and that it is very pleasant there is 11 ('» < loiiU either : hut the substantial result of it in , that the ntniidnrd of the
• 'Oininon life in fixed by those who have most money ; and if a young man coming "I > to the university wishes to have the udvantugo of this so very valuable society , " » unt live like the rest . We do not iiieim tlmt there aro not gradations of exl - » s «; of course there are ; but the lowest average of the amusements and tho ?" tertniinru'nts is pitched far beyond what the ]> ositioii of the sons of tho clergy UI 'd the poorer gentlemen are entitled to ; Uiu Htylo of life altogether is quite above 1 'in in necessary for them or for any ono ; and in all cases the fiiciliticH for infill ' U § llKl ) '' n « ro ho grout , and tho temptutioua wining from tho extravagance and v ° * half tho undergraduate * in every oolkgo ftrtt » o immwdkU and proving .
* hat however fair on paper the discipline may look , with its caps , and gowns , and chapel-goings , 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 , surrounded with wine parties and breakfast 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 may 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 at 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 man ' s credit is limited by Ms means , and 7 ds society is determined by his position . At college , unlimited credit is offered and even obtruded , and whether they can afford it or not , they must mix with the society which 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 . Whewell , 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 . As a defence of Bentham the article will have a more permanent interest ; but for those who are awed by the great acquirements and great reputation of Dr . Whewell 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 Style 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 had 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 . His preference for Saxon words is just enough , but we think too exclusive . Latin words are often preferable to Saxon , and are 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 jiIso ; and therefore although that form of speech which will be more quickly interpreted by the intellect will , as an intellectual expression , be the more effective , 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 specimen of the application , of the principle , let us quote the following , and direct especial attention to the ingenious illustration at the close .
" Thus poetry , regarded as n vehicle ; of thought , is especially impressive , partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech , and partly because in ho < loin ^ if , imitates the natural utterances of excitement .. Whilst the matter embodied 18 idealized emotion , the vehicle is the idealized language of emotion . As the musical composer catches the cadences in which our feelings of joy and sympathy , # rief and despair , vent themselves , and out of these germs evolves melodies su ^ esl . ing higher phases of these feelings ; no the poet developes from the typical expressions in which men utter passion and sentiment , those choice forms of verbal combination in which concentrated passion and sentiment may be fitly presented .
" There is one . peculiarity of poetry conducing much to its effect--the peculiarity which is indeed usually thought its characteristic one—still romiiiniiitf to be considered : wo mean its rhythmical structure . This , unexpected as it may be , will bo found to come under the wiiiki generalization with the others . Like each of them , it is an idealization of Mm natural languageof emotion , which is known to be more or less ' metrical if the emotion be not violent ; and like eneh of them , it In nn economy of the reader ' s or hearer ' s attention . In the peculiar tone and manner wo adopt in uttering versified language may be discerned its relationship to the feelings ; and tho pleasure which its measured movement jjfives us is nscribablo to tho comparative oaso with which words metrically urnuitfed can be recognised . Tina lost position will Mwcsly b « nt one * admitted j but a llttiu explanation will iihow
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 2, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02101852/page/17/
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