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    SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. of Scotlandthat it the best

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    MARGARET FULLER* ic fe

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    The prison in which the captured are confined is a filthy hole , into which all are indiscriminately thrust , and from which there can be no egress afforded by any of the means allowed to those unjustly confined in the other prisons of En gland a The laws of the University are more despotic than those of modern Rome or Naples , and ' a jurisdiction at this moment exists in Cambridge and Oxford which Exceeds in rigour the despotism of Antonexli or of King Boiiba . Be it further known > that , though no woman can safely or without danger of insult appear in the streets of Cambridge after duskv nor sometimes even in mid-day , these insults ^ are perpetrated not by the undergraduates , but by the " authorities " of the place , the " bulldogs , " &c , whose zeal for the preservation of order is like that of the sea captain who , when the discipline of his ship was disturbed , administered justice by flogging the whole crew , he being- of opinion that such indiscriminate punishment Mater Canta

    was certain to include the guilty . Verily , Alma - brigiensis , or , as she is entitled from her years and decrepitude to be called , "Proavia alma , " whatever sweetness of temper she may occasionally show to her sons , displays nothing but sourness to her female offspring . Her daughters live in constant dread of blows , gyves , the Spinning House , the bull curS , and the proctor . There are laws—antiquated and disused , but still in the statute book oi the TJniversity ^ eihpowering the old lady to administer a sound flogging to any of her male children , beneath the degree of a master of arts , who shall be found bathing his limbs in the Cam . But there is np law , as is the case with regard to the " unprotected females , which subjects them , if suspected of moral impurity within the town or within , a circuit of four miles thereof , to be publicly whipped and driven into banishment : Well might John Milton exclaim , alluding to these , amongst other similar matters— - " Cseteraque ingenio noa subeunda meo . "

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    men intolerable bores . The great English public schools give what the great Scottish public schools do not give , —culture ,- —in which is included a delicate classical instinct , which few Scotchmen possess . It is not easy for . an Englishman to rise to Catholicity ; knock away from a Scotchman a few provincial fetters , and be becomes Catholic at once . But through superior culture the Englishman contrives to appear to superficial judges the more Catholic of the two . The circle of studies at Scottish universities must he tenfold expanded , and a barren logic and a chattering psychology musfc . be driven from the scene . What the Scotch require is poetic reflectiveness as opposed to fierce logomachy . The shortest poem of Geoege Heebeet would do them more good than all those triumphant syllogisms of which they are so , proud . Scottish individuality cannot be hammered down by the Times , cannot be sneered down by Punch . Shallow , sparkling , magniloquent leading- articles ,, small cockney jokes leave the stupendous granite mass unworn and unwounded . But Scottish individuality- —a colossal force might remain a colossal force , and yet also be a garden of the Lord Is it to give no sign of its existence , except when some peak high as heaven falls ' fulminating- into the valley ? Grievously do ye err , my Scottish brothers ; the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life . First life , then knowledge : not first knowledge and then life . The Scottish universities must remain Scottish , but they mtist clothe themselves with the Catholicity For which the Scottish -heart irrepressibly yearns . How , in detail , mechanically , organically , the revolution is to be achieved , we pretend not to declare . It would be futile to declare , even if the declaration were a facile feat . What primordially concerns Englishmen and Scotchmen too , is , that we should make the heights of the naked granite broad enough , warm enough , rich enough , for the angels to rest on . When once we have convinced the Scotch that their universities are not perfect , they will rush to the work of perfection with that perfervid genius for which they are famous . After all , there is a more godlike spirit in nations than universities . A people ' s soul is of more importance than a people ' s schools . But while the soul is made healthy and holy , why should not also the schools be made beautiful temples of the Omnipotent ? The Acropolis , with its girdle of fanes , and its garniture- of gods , did not despise the quiet and sacred scenes where the philosophers taught . .- . ¦ - ' : ' .

    profoundly democratic . This gives the univex-sities unmense ^ power in a country Where the churches are all democratically constituted . There are many things distinguishing the Scottish universities from the English ; , Two of the chief are the absence of cloistral control and of any class clothed with aristocnitical privileges , ^ English universities are mediaeval " -institutions ; Scottish universities bear the broad , deep stamp of the Reformation . Students usually enter the Scottish universities at a very early age ; and if they intend to take the degree of Master of Arts , they remain four or five years . The machinery is wholly professorial , and the income of the professors is mostly derived from fees . Some of the professors , bnt none of the students , lodge within the walls of the university . Except in class hours , the teachers , the officers of the university , studentswho live where like

    IT was once the boast of , was educated country in the world . If no longer able to make that boast , Scotland has still , as regards education , a great superiority over England . For many years , however , while Scotland has had a vast industrial development , has been undergoing ndtable social changes , has been the theatre of striking ecclesiastical revolutions , its chief educational institutions have clung too much to the ancient ways--though less from prejudice than from lethargy . It is generally felt that the Scottish schools , the Scottish universities , must be completely and grandly transfigured , if Scotland is to continue to hold its moral and -intellectual supremacy . ' The constitution of a Scottishuniversity is extremely simple . Besides being simple it is . *

    assume no authority over the , they , and how they like . Jt might be supposed that this unfettered liberty would be fatal to mere boys . On the contrary , it brings forth its tru . e fruits—manliness , self-reliance , and purity . There is incomparably less vice at Scottish than at Eng-lish universities . The Scottish students are , for the most part , th e sons of farmers and tradesmen , sometimes the sons of common labouring men . They have been accustomed to frugality j they have no aristocratic tastes or habits ; and there are " no aristocratic examples to'load them astray ; they set forthwith the heroic idea that self-denial should be the companion of learning-, and seldom , are they faithless thereto . A sigiial advantage of the Scottish university system isthat it never severs the scholar from the people . A child of the

    , people hus the student come to the university , and a child of the people he remains . It is from this that the kingly , the unquestioned sway of the Scottish clergy is derived : they have never lost thoiv bond und sympathy with the earnest , upright , valiant plebeians . Now , , believing , from an intimate knowledge of Scottish universities , that they require ft thorough transformation , wo should yet not interfere with what we venerate as their essential basis . The Divine light of the mind , symbol and priest of the divinest light , should be honoured for its own sake . Thus is it ; honoured in Germany : thus is it honpured in Scotland : but we cannot say that thus is it honoured in England . Loyal to their essential basia the Scottish universities need to be enriched and enlarged , ennobled and , fructified .

    Keeping their athletic element ) , their potency ot discipline , they must add bhereto a more opulent and radiant culture . With the Spartan rigor - ' which is theirs they must combine an Athenian gorgeousness , rariety , and vivacity , which are not theirs . The curse of Scotland is not drunkenness , as ilie calumniators say , it iswhat theScotch ihemselves call nrglebargling , Now this leprosy is m the Scottish lature ; but it is tortured into an incurable disease by the'Scottish miversities . A student enters the university a logical , and he e&ves it a psychological machine . Ikfost young Scotchmen who » ave been at p . university are exceedingly clover , exceedingly aptious , are disposed to talk about every thing , and are to English *

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    rnHE somewhat romantic history and the tragic late ot Margaret JL Fuller have drawn attention more toward her than the intrinsicmerit of her works . Of these , with the very best disposition to be lenient and appreciative , we cannot speak highly . They have rhetorical flow , but no artistic finish ; liveliness of cpnceptioii , but no fulness of idea ; they want that without which no literary production can be perfect , —a sound view of the vvorld ; a clear , cairn glance into human relations . Of creation in the divine poetic sense Margaret Fuller was altogether incapable . That she was a person of considerable faculty it were foolish to deny ; but it was faculty precocious , morbid , feverish , fitful , stimulating itself into wild force bv artificial enthusiasm . She would not have achieved great things culturebt she had the

    even if she had had the very best , uas very worst culture she could only do extraordinary things . Her education had been a njud feast of excitements , aud thus was bred in her the insatiate hunger for new sensations . With , an aspiring- for the lofty she had no sympathy for the profound ; she was always trying to ny to cold Alpine peaks ere she had trodden with modest , inquiring , reverent steps the scenes immediately around her . She rhapsodised incessantly , yet she kindled no one into kindred , rhapsody . Her writings were confessions , the confessions of her dreams ; but her dreams were not the offspring of an opulent phantasy—they were frigid , ghastly monstrosities borrowed from the chaos of books . The . root of the evil was in ' that audacious , impious intellectualism which New England has substituted for religion . All the universe

    was to be intellectualisni , and all intellectualism was to be inordinate , insane New England babblement . In- Old England we have a stable existence , solid studies , a tranquil , clumsy , elephantine march . If we are the fools and fanatics of conservatism , better , verily better that we should be such ' fanatics and fools than the maniacs of a restlessness sputtering itself away in infinite and sterile-Rpecoh ; Well were it for the United States if foivlong years they had limited themselves to the development of their stupendous industrial energies . In this domain they are truly great . Bub when they resolved to have a literature of their own they egregiously blundered . What could their literature be except wretched imitation , tasteless exaggeration , blatant , braggart declamation P Tlie institutions of the United States drive men to vary the hunt for dollars with

    boundless jargon , 3 Uvery one is a noisy orator-, except a handful ot quiet persons , who shrink from politics , Nowhere else on the earth is the tongue Jso continually waggiug . The vilest , vulgarcst cloquonce reigning supreme , communicates to literature its own cardinal defects ; literature , instead of purifying eloquence , is rendered itself impure by an eloquence of the lowest kind . No American writers have escaped this contamination , but those who , like Fenimore Cooper , Brockdoi > Brown , Washington Irving , have faithfully followed English models . The rest have been merely stump orators in books . JVJargai'et Fuller was a stump orator in bppks of rather a , nobler sort than her neigh- , bours . Like the Yankees in general , she speechified so evorlasting-ly ,. and with such hot delirious haste , that she had no time for thought , no time for substantial , systematic acquirements . Hence , in nor

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    208 The Leader andSaturday Analyst . [ March . 3 , 1860 .

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    * X > ifo WUhottt avA Within ,- or , Jfaviwti Wafratiwa , M 8 ta P > ¦ " ** Poomo . By ! YlAn . a , AftKP Fumwbir OsspH . Bdlbed by her brother , A » TUua B . Fuwfcpwf London s Sampson how , Bon tvn . 0 , up .

    Scottish University Education. Of Scotlandthat It The Best

    Scotlandthat it the best SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION . m' ¦ , n t ~ 4 » ¦ 1 ¦ T l I _ ! . ¦ ¦ i 1 ¦ _ i 1 ^ _ 1— _ _ i . > . J

    Margaret Fuller* Ic Fe

    MAIlGARliiT FULLER *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1860, page 208, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2336/page/12/