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uarations ! There is no doubt about" it . Alarmists have even gone so far as to predict a piratical attack on our shores . Though this may not be impossible at a future time , the armaments of Prance have now another and more direct meaning . She has been taunted with , her financial embarrassments , and has been almost told that she cannot draw the sword because she has not the money to buy it . She imagines that the conviction , of her incapacity and unwillingness to engage in a general European war has had much to do with the non-success of
her recent diplomatic attempts . At least , this is said to be the personal opinion of the Emperor . Hence , in spite of the remonstrances of his Finance Jlinister , who takes a less cheerful view of the resources of the country , he is resolved that all future despatches shall be backed by an unmistakable display of force . There is but one way in which these inducements to compliance can be met unless we mean to comply . The system of counterbalancing armies by armies and fleets by fleets is a ruinous one , it is true , but the choice may not be
left to us . Belgium has voted a law which had been prepared beforehand , and has made no concession in that particular save voting in a hurry . Its police , however , has been troublesome to the refugees ; and its representatives have sometimes refused to viser the passports of persons ordered into exile . Condemnations of unnecessary severity , which we are expected to imitate , have " been pronounced on tie authors of articles in newspapers . The peculiar position of Belgium , which always appears as a French province in the Bonapartist secret map , accounts for this weakness .
Switzerland has consented to displace or expel many refugees ; and takes its stand on a formal question as to the increase of French consuls . Here the resistance to foreign exigencies has , therefore , no grand or striking character . We are very far from the national movement against the Prussian pretensions on Neufchatel . Piedmont still holds good . Its juries have been conscientious , and have acquitted journals accused of intangible offences . The destruction of the jury system has therefore been demanded . As yet , everything seems to foretel that this demand will not be complied with . At any rate , there has been a bona fide resistance . The report of the commission appointed to examine the law proposed by Count
Cavour is a veritable manifesto against the right of one State , however powerful , to interfere in the internal legislation of another . If this right were allowed we should soon have a sort of secret universal empire . The true protest against it should come from England and Piedmont . We cannot say we believe that our present Government is inclined to take a proper attitude in this affair . On the contrary , it seems purposely to divert public attention from the danger of Piedmont being reduced to a province of France to the quarrel about the Cagliari . Important questions of international law are no doubt involved in that quarrel ; but after all it is still more important to prevent
France from absorbing the Sardinian States . We regret to perceive that , acting under we know not what influence , M . de Cavour is supporting the Bonapartist pretensions with ' something like passion ; and that tho task of defending the independence of the country is left to the combined oppositions , to Liberals and to Austrian partisans . Is it true that this ia because England declines to use her influence on behalf of Piedmont , and after refusing for a time to legislate under foreign dictation , cares not how far other States may be humiliated ? Not only is this suid , but it is also asserted that Lord Malmesbury will be glad to sec the example set . As is well known , tho French papers have nevor ceased to affirm that in case M . Simon
Bernard bo acquitted , tho English low will bo proved defective , and some change must take place . They never refleot that if we were to relegislato every time an acousod person is declared not guilty , wo should have work for a dozen Parliaments . The object of tho French Government is to obtain something like ' satisfaction '—what for it is difficult to Bay . If wo condomn Bernard we escape from the ——necosaity-of-altoi'ingutho . law . —In _ prdqyjQ _ rnah ) 1 tajin _ a great right without danger to ourselves , shall we do a little wrong ? That ia a difficult question , unless we reject tho doctrine of expedients . Meanwhile , as wo have said , tho French Emperor is preparing to ' have hia rovongo' for the bafllixig he has received in tho last diplomatic game . Wo do not think that courtesy ought to prevent us from playinff our cards as well as we can .
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EDUCATION AND LITERARY TEACHING . It is a noteworthy fact that tho word " education " in tho present day has acquired almost entirely a literary meaning . An " educated person" and a " litorato person" are convertible terms to tho common-iniiid . ^ Pj : ofo 3 aor , BlaokiQ , JiiU ]! io _^/ i _ oI Wednesday , denounces the prevailing' vice of our sohools ; and tho denunciation coming from a man well known for his learning , will havo an emphasis that did not attach to tho same opinion expressed often beforo by men of minor celebrity and of less literary knowledge . It is rather curious that tho most depreciatory criticisms on mere learning
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ffo . 420 , April 10 , 1858 ] THE LEADER . 349
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INFLUENCE OF BUCKLE ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN . A correspondent calls in question one passage of our recent commentary on Mr . Buckle ' s lecture . " Mr . Buckle having asserted , " he says , " that , in the state of society exhibited by Plato and his contemporaries , the influence of women was less than in tue more barbarous period depicted by Homer , you ask , ' What evidence have we of this alleged decline of the influence of woman ? ' and you proceed to urge that if we turn from the exceptional records of history to the more consistent writings of the poets , we shall learn something very different . Now , one
of the honours gained at Oxford by the distinguished man who has just been elevated to the Chair of Modern History , was the prize for a Latin essay , the subject being * The Condition of Women among the ancient Greeks . ' In this essay the author describes the condition of women in the Homeric age , in Sparta and in Athens ; and , from the very materials which you accuse Mr . Buckle of neglecting , namely , the writings of the poets , arrives at the same conclusion as Mr . Buckle has done . " And our correspondent marks for us various passages in the essay which go to establish his position .
They show mainly two things : that women were excluded from the public life of men in Athens and Sparta , and at the same time that men of the upper classes lived so completely in public life , that the two customs amount to a separation of the sexes . Women were placed under a condition of domestic slavery not dissimilar from that of the East in more modern days . One ground of exclusion , in Sparta especially , was that the intrusion of ¦ women would disturb public counsel and studies and interfere with the exercise of arms , and the accomplished author remarks that , as women thus decline , the men who were seeking the exclusive culture of masculine virtues , themselves degenerated into masculinejrices .
We are not in controversv with our correspondent or with Mr . Gdldwin Smith ; simply , we will observe that the portion of history now in question was much more limited than that to which Mr . Buckle referred . He spoke of the classic times of Greece and Rome ; but we believe that with reference to the entire period , both of Greece and Rome , the lecturer , the essayist , and our correspondent have all been induced to exaggerate the force of the evidence which is before them . They are arguing
by synecdoche ; We have yet to learn for what period the peculiar institutions and their effects lasted . We know that long before , throughout the East , the feminine influence was powerful and extensive . The earliest record that we have , the Bible , is filled with examples . The literature of Greece indirectly gives us evidence , from the Trojan war to Pericles , that the influence which is inherent in the race had not been extinguished . ' The system' unquestionably was bad ; but it does not at all follow that the whole of society really succumbed to the system . Weof all people , ought to have great reason for
, entertaining this doubt ; let us remember that the literature which comes down to us is exceedingly partial ; we do not have it corrected by the copious controversy which , in our own day , is poured forth upon every detail ; and if we were to judge from the writings of those who might be most willing to set themselves up as historians and teachers at tho present day , we . should have very imperfect and misleading notions with regard to our own society . Let us suppose Macaulay ' s New Zealander endeavouring , at some future ago , to land
ascertain the position of women in Eng — where will ho ilnd it P He would learn that she was cxoluded from the Senate ; that she could not bo seen in the Chamber representing the people ; that in order to attain the slightest glimpse of the ropresoritativo men at their duty she must creep into tho ' ventilator , ' and Iook surreptitiously through holes in tho roof . Ho would find her ex eluded from all professions , not merel y by ohoioo but by their laws . If , in some few families of tho Peerage , a fcmailc succession prevails , the Peeress is still oxcludcd from tho Chamber to which her order belongs , and she exercises none of tho rights of her station , save and except tho enjoyment of tlionf ^^ Tty ~ and "" tho" -wearin ^ -of— an-ornamental title . Tho student would discover that in somo
moral condition of our country was the more admirable from this exclusion ; that " the proper ? lace of woman is in the household , " and so forth , n many respects English society resembles , in its broader traits , the society to which we are referred by our correspondent . The wife of a very numerous class is a domestic drudge , whose proper place is home . She has no business at public amusements , in the vestry , in the House of Commons . If she goes to church , it is not to take part in the office , but only to listen humbly . And if the lord and master seeks relief from the tedium and restraint of a home thus governed , it is still- in the salon of some Aspasia . Such is the decline of female influence on civilization among the British !
If the New Zealander should desire to correct the information thus derived from the study of our institutes and didactics , he would &ni it in the more trivial departments of the newspapers , and in the poetry aad fiction of the day . It is there that he will learn how large an influence woman exercises over English life , not only in its domestic sphere , but in literature , in professional advancement , and even in politics . He would naturallv observe that when a female ascends the English throne , she does so with some diminution of privilege , and bearing even an inferior title , —a
circumstance which might lead him . to define the feminine influence narrowly and unjustly . For if he were to study again the more trivial literature and indirect evidence of the day , he would find that no monarch whom this country has possessed , for many a reign , has exercised one-tenth of the influence on the politics or social state of the country that Queen Tictoria has created—not the first female sovereign whose reign has been marked by the same kind of elevating ascendancy . The unrecognized exceeds the recognized . c The system' is modified , in some cases submerged , by the customary deviations from the system ; and the didactic inquiry would result in false conclusions from the narrowness of its
scope . There is one broad fact to corroborate our conjecture as to the unrecorded influence of women in the classic time of Greece . It is not probable that amongst a nation habitually despising feminine influence , Olympus should have been discovered , with its extensive female society , a Parnassus imagined with a population more than half female , the woods and streams peopled with feminine creations far more beautiful than the male frequenters of those haunts . It is difficult to assign exact dates to the chronology of Olympic development ; the whole complicated fable , no doubt , grew up by
degrees , and comes to us with Roman as well as semi-modern additions ; but the very idea is one which would have been alien to a . barbaric mind unconscious of female influence . If Apollo was the sovereign ruler of art and light , he was assisted by a council of the nine Muses . Prudence itself is impersonated in Pallas . And , we repeat , from Homer to Ovid , the history of the poets is filled with instances not only of the influence that women exercised upon life , but of the beautiful and elevating influence which they exercised . But , we say , we arc less in controversy with our correspondent and Mr . H . T . Buckle than they are with h
us . We admit their evidence , thougthey overlook ours . Authentic history is not always tho most accurate or complete ; no one ought to know that better than Mr . Buckle . Wo all know how near to- tho buckle is embroidered the profound maxim ' Honi soit qui mal y penso ; ' but historical investigation has only thrown obscurity upon the origin of that most illustrious and chivalrous order . Inquirers have ventured to assert that the story of Edward and tho Countess of Salisbury is apocryphal : as well say that tho spirit of the motto adopted by the order is apocryphal . Tho truth of tho talo is proved , as tho Dest things in this world arc , by its beauty .
few particulars tho feme sole may possess or acquire a few of tho rights of a single man , but very precariously and doubtfully . Woman , in , fact , is excluded from tho boasted institutions of England . Didactic writers praising our institutions would toll tho Now Zealand inquirer that tho
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 10, 1858, page 349, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2238/page/13/
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