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Leader (1850-1860), 21st November 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1120, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      ¦ ¦ ¦ . , ¦ . ? - —¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ Professor Blackie's opening address to his class at the commencement of the winter session of the Edinburgh University has given rise , in the columns of the leading journal , to an interesting discussion on . the merit sand defects of the Scottish University system . In this discussion tlie intrepid Professor and the cause he champions have been somewhat hardly used . Indeed , the very freshness and vivacity which give a charm to Professor Blackie ' s efforts as a University reformer , peculiarly expose him to misrepresentation and attack . "Like a true reformer , he emphasizes the evils which he wishes to correct , and in his anxiety to expose them to the utmost , tends rather to exaggerate their true proportions . For those on the spot , to whom he specially addresses himself , there can be no great harm iu this . They know the system which he criticises intimately , are practically acquainted with its whole working , and through a natural partiality are perhaps more alive to its excellences than to its defects . But to . ¦ ¦ others" at a distance , who know little or nothing of the system save through Professor Blackie ' s lively denunciation of its evils , his representations may convey a very false impression . This is evidently the case with the writer of the article in the Times . His whole knowledge of the Scotch University system appears to be derived from Professor Blagkie's adverse criticism . The Professor complains , that a large proportion of the students entering the junior classes of a Scotch university are boys . This statement ,. which is an extreme one , if anything rather beyond the truth , is ingeniously elaborated by t he Times writerinto a view of the Scotch iiniversity system which , is altogether false . Troni the fact that a number of boys enter the junior classes of a Scotch university he draws the conclusion that during the whole course of study the mass of the student ? are boys , that the work which the professors have to do is exclusively schoolmasters' work , and that the universities are therefore schools . Any one really acquainted with the working of a Scotch university will know at once how essentially fallacious this

      representation is . Take the University of Edinburgh , for example , of which Professor BiiACKLE chiefly speaks , and which , as the metropolitan seat of learning , it is fair to accept as the standard of university education in the kingdom . What he says as to the number of boys who enter is true only of the junior classes in . the first year . In tlte classes of the second and third years of study the number of youths who can be fairly called boys is a very small proportion indeed—not more than about ten per cent , at most . The vast majority are young men of the same age as those attending the English universities . Nor is it at all true that the whole work of the professors is schoolmasters' work . With the exception of the junior classes in Greek and Latin , and , perhaps , the first class . of mathematics , there is no class in the whole curriculum which requires the professor to abandon his true functions . And to the rash assertion that the kind and degree of education imparted stamps the Scottish universities as s _ cliools , it is sufficient to reply that in some branches of knowledge—such , for example , as philosophy and literature—the northern seats of learning impart a far higher instruction than can be obtained at any English university .

      The writer in the Times prides himself on his strict adherence to fact , as opposed to Professor Bla . ckie ' s characteristic love of ideas and theory ; but in reality he is far more ideal and theoretical , his representations arc far wider of the truth than those of the Professor . Having started , in his account of the Scotch Universities , from an hypothetical fact , he proceeds to offer an explanation of this fact equally hypothetical . The Northern universities are essentially schools . Why ? Because the course of study is so short that they cannot give ' a high or university education , that is , one involving length of time . ' And why cannot students in a Scotch university afford the time necessary for a university education ? Because they come from the ranks of the middle classes , and arc destined for business . " Eor the great middle classes who have to get on , " says the Times critic , " and to be quick about it , it is nonsense talking of a high , or in the English sense of the phrase , a university education . A university education requires time , and this is exactly what the demands of active life cannot spare . " Now the whole of this explanation , which seems so plausible , is not only minutely but even curiously untrue . The facts appealed to iu sup . port of the critic ' s view of the system are quite fictitious . Take the question of time , for instance , on which he lays so mucli stress . The regular course of study at Edinburgh is invariably longer than at Oxford ox Cambridge . The curriculum for all students is four years , while for the majority—those who arc destined to the Church and the Bar—it is nearly double that time . The course of study for all theological students is eight years , and the period during which law students remain at the university is rarely much shorter . Or , look at the composition of tie classes . According to the Times , the classes arc mainly filled by youths destined for business ; but iu reality , the vast proportion of students in the ^ Faculty of Arts arc on their way to the special Faculties of Law , Medicine , or Divinity . A few youths from the trading middle classes no doubt com © up to the university every year , but they rarely go through the curriculum . They attend the junior classes for a session or two to ' get' as they term it , a little Latin and Greek before taking thoir place in the warehouse , or at the counter , but they go no further . This commercial element may slightly

      swell the junior classes , but it gives no special character to the universities , and does not sensibly affect their system of instruction . The explanation aflforded by the " Times , therefore , so far from being true , is exactly the reverse of the truth ; In the ingenious fiction of the Times the great majority of the students come up young because they are destined for business and have little time to spare . In reality they come up young because they are destined for the various professions and have an vtnusually long course of study before them . It is " . worth while to correct these misrepresentations of the Times , because any error propounded in its columns is sure to prevail for a while with those who know little ¦ or nothing of the subject . This has indeed already happened in the present histance . A number of other journals , in speaking of the Scotch universities , have adopted from the leading journal the cuckoo cry of ' schools . ' The subject , moreover , is a practical one , and the truth ought to be known in justice to Professor Biackie , and those friends of the Northern universities who are making active efforts to raise their character and increase their efficiency .

      Untitled Article

      "We learn that Earl Grey is preparing for the press a work connected with the progress of Parliamentary lie form . / Coming from the son of the Lord Grey of 1832 , it is sufficient to announce the authorship . The book will be issued shortly , and will of course command attention . Mr . Horace St . John has nearly completed his long-announced History of the First Reform Bill , based in great measure ... upon exclusive materials .- / It will probably appear next season .

      Untitled Article

      BEKANGER'S LAST SONGS : Demieres Chansons de P . J . dcBercinger , 1834 U 1851 , avec tine Lettre etune Trefucc deVAuteur . ' Paris : Terrotin . TagE report that all the songs left by Be ' ranger are not included in this volume seems to receive some confirmation from the dates on the title-page If the poet went on stringing together musical periods and elaborating pretty thoughts up to 1851 , we can scarcely believe that he never once tried his hand afterwards . The Coup d ' etat , instead of striking him dumb , was likely to stimulate him , and restore something of his youthful vigour . Even if the event itself suggested no terrible stanzas , there have " since been plenty of follies and ridicules to supply him-with topics . The report that his silence was indicative of approval is not received in Paris ; and he is said himself to have indignantly denied the charge . " We can safely believe that Eeranger lived and died a Kepiiblican of that school which makes nationality of more importance than freedom , and which with its honest hatred of oppression , and ignorance of all first principles , has oeen the principal cause of the glories and the misfortunes of France since the end of the last century . * .

      The present volume contains ninety-four songs , many of which have already , before they have become known to the public to which they are addressed , incurred the fate which will sooner or later overtake more than two-thirds of the works of a man who has somewhat improperly been called the French Horace . Their interest is passed , and their allusions , though not yet unintelligible , but faintly awaken the attention . However ungracious it may seem to say so , amidst this chorus of prepared enthusiasm which is rising on both sides of the Channel , they fall almost as Hat on the ear as would a newspaper article written ten years ago , and kept in portfolio ever since . Thus they have not even the same chance as songs on the most ephemeral topics , written , circulated , and sung when those topics were filling the public mind . The weapons of wit used in a conflict are remembered when the conflict is over , and sometimes seem as bright and as admirable in recollection as when they dealt the death-blow of a reputation ,

      or drove a solemn sham into exile . The joy of a triumphant party is reflected on them for ever . But what of weapons that have been forged and never used ? They hold nearly the same rank ia importance as repartees that should have been produced over the filberts , and are confided to the companion who lends a shoulder as the wit after the fact staggers home . The fortifications are now part and parcel of Paris , and we feel little interest , even as matter of history , in the exaggerated discussions which ushered in their creation—still less in such verses as the following , deformed by French sentimcntalism , and terminating with mysterious stars , which who cares to decipher?—Ah ! pour Hauver la vllle aainte , Fioz-vous au peuplo d ' en baa ; Quo Lion armu , dans son enceinte , 11 vcille ct rcsto l'armo au bras . Quol trait re devnnt aca cohortos , Paris bicn ou mal rctranohd , Osorait on livrer lea portoa , Fftt-il ! ' ??•* on F • * o ? It was a mistake to write such lines for posthumous publication ; and it is a greater mistake to publish them now that so many revolutions and national disasters have occurred to render them infmitosimall y unimportant . But the great drawback of this volume ia the constant recurrence of the Bonapartiat theme . When Bdranger penned these ditties he of course did not foresee that the aspirations they contained were so soon to be re alized to his own disgust , nncl the ruin of the party to which he belonged . We must not make him too much responsible lor his short-sightedness . He shared it with men whose duty it was to form the public opinion -which he only

      Untitled Article

      ¦ Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . Th ey do not make laws—th . ey interpret and try to enfor ce them . —Edinburgh Hevieiv .

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      tMtamt .

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      1120 THE ^ EABEU __ [ No . 400 , Novembeb 21 , 1857 .

      Untitled Article

      There is no longer an excuse for ignorance of Indian geography . To the series of general and special maps already published have now been , added two Atlases—the price of the one being lialf-a-crown , and that of . the other a shilling . Both bear the name and sanction of Messrs . Chapman and Ha . il Slurp ' s Atlas of India , half-a-crown , contains six maps , well engraved , and judiciously coloured . Lowrifs Atlas of India , in eight coloured maps , is all that a shilling's worth could possibly be . ¦

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 21, 1857, page 1120, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2218/page/16/