of some stimulating object, or the peace which is attained by there being nothing to quarrel with... stop drinking, they gamble; stop gambling, and a worse license follows. You do not get rid of vice by human expedients; you can but use them according to circumstances, and in 5 their place, as making the best of a bad matter. You must go to a higher source for renovation of the heart and of the will. You do but play a sort of "hunt the slipper" with the fault of our nature, till you go to Christianity. In morals, as in physics, the stream cannot rise higher than its source. Christianity raises men from earth, for it comes from heaven; but human morality creeps, struts, or frets upon the earth's level, without wings to rise. The Knowledge School does not contemplate raising man above himself; it merely aims at 10 disposing of his existing powers and tastes, as is most convenient, or is practicable under circumstances. It finds him, like the victims of the French Tyrant, doubled up in a cage in which he can neither lie, stand, sit, nor kneel, 15 and its highest desire is to find an attitude in which his unrest may be least. Or it finds him like some musical instrument, of great power and compass, but imperfect; from its very structure some keys must ever be out of 20 all. All cannot be first, and therefore each has I say, you must use human methods in their place, and there they are useful; but they are worse than useless out of their place. I have no fanatical wish to deny to any whatever subject of thought or method of reason a place altogether, if it chooses to claim it, in the cultivation of the mind. Mr. Bentham may despise verse-making, or Mr. Dugald Stewart logic, but the great and true maxim is to sacrifice none-to combine, and therefore to adjust, its place, and the problem is to find it. It is at least not a lighter mistake to make what is secondary first, than to leave it out altogether. Here then it is that the Knowledge Society, tune, and its object, when ambition is highest, is to throw the fault of its nature where least it will be observed. It leaves a man where it found him-man, and not an Angel-a sinner, not a Saint; but it tries to make him look as 25 Gower Street College, Tamworth Reading much like what he is not as ever it can. The Room, Lord Brougham and Sir Robert Peel, poor indulge in low pleasures; they use bad are all so deplorably mistaken. Christianity, language, swear loudly and recklessly, laugh and nothing short of it, must be made the eleat coarse jests, and are rude and boorish. ment and principle of all education. Where Sir Robert would open on them a wider range 30 it has been laid as the first stone, and acknowlof thought and more intellectual objects, by edged as the governing spirit, it will take up teaching them science; but what warrant will into itself, assimilate, and give a character to he give us that, if his object could be achieved, literature and science. Where Revealed what they would gain in decency they would Truth has given the aim and direction to not lose in natural humility and faith? If so, 35 Knowledge, Knowledge of all kinds will he has exchanged a gross fault for a more minister to Revealed Truth. The evidences subtle one. "Temperance topics" stop drink- of Religion, natural theology, metaphysics,— ing; let us suppose it; but will much be gained, or, again, poetry, history, and the classics,if those who give up spirits take to opium? or physics and mathematics, may all be Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret,7 40 grafted into the mind of a Christian, and give is at least a heathen truth, and universities and libraries which recur to heathenism may reclaim it from the heathen for their motto. and take by the grafting. But if in education we begin with nature before grace, with evidences before faith, with science before conscience, with poetry before practice, we shall the appetites and passions, and turn a deaf ear to the reason. In each case we misplace what in its place is a divine gift. If we attempt to effect a moral improvement by means of Nay, everywhere, so far as human nature remains hardly or partially Christianized, the 45 be doing much the same as if we were to indulge heathen law remains in force; as is felt in a measure even in the most religious places and societies. Even there, where Christianity has power, the venom of the old Adam is not subdued. Those who have to do with our Colleges 50 poetry, we shall but mature into a mawkish, give us their experience, that in the case of the young committed to their care, external discipline may change the fashionable excess, but cannot allay the principle of sinning. Stop cigars, they will take to drinking parties; 55 Louis XI (1461-83). Scott describes these cages in Quentin Durward, I. xv. "In point of fact these cages were eight feet long and about seven feet high." "You may cast out nature with a pitchfork, but it will always return." frivolous, and fastidious sentimentalism;-if by means of argument, into a dry, unamiable longheadedness;-if by good society, into a polished outside, with hollowness within, in which vice has lost its grossness, and perhaps increased its malignity;-if by experimental science, into an uppish, supercilious temper much inclined to scepticism. But reverse the order of things: put Faith first and Knowl edge second; let the University minister to the Church, and then classical poetry becomes the type of Gospel truth, and physical science a comment on Genesis or Job, and Aristotle changes into Butler, and Arcesilaus into Berkeley. SITE OF A UNIVERSITY (From The Office and Work of Universities, 1854) and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon, as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them 5 with due honours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built the first of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, and he formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebrated Academy. Athens it was once the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wild wood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks and welcome fountains. If we would know what a University is, con- 10 Planting is one of the most graceful, as in sidered in its elementary idea, we must betake ourselves to the first and most celebrated home of European literature and source of European civilization, to the bright and beautiful Athens, Athens, whose schools drew to 15 Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the her bosom, and then sent back again to the business of life, the youth of the western world for a long thousand years. Seated on the verge of the continent, the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a central metropolis 20 of knowledge; yet, what it lost in convenience of approach, it gained in its neighbourhood to the traditions of the mysterious East, and of the loveliness of the regions in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort of ideal land, where 25 menced what may be called her University all archetypes of the great and the fair were city's civilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity. His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants, who assembled in the Agora, for many generations. 4 Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty; for all the while their ships had been carrying forth the intellectual fame of Athens to the western world. Then com existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the government and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to have entertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece; in this he failed, but his encouragement of such men as Phidias and Anaxagoras led the way to her acquiring a far more lasting sovereignty over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sources of her own greatness, Athens would go to war: peace is the interest of a seat of commerce and the arts; but to war she went; yet to her, whether peace or war, it mattered not. The political power of Athens waned and disappeared; kingdoms Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant genius of his people, and 40 rose and fell; centuries rolled away, they did but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet and the sage. There at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to meet the blueeyed Gaul; and the Cappadocian, late subject Cimon, after the Persian war, had given it a home. That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens; she had become an imperial state; and the Ionians, bound to her by the double chain of kindred and of subjection, 45 of Mithridates, gazed without alarm at the were importing into her both their merchandise The two ancient Greek philosophers, Aristotle, the profound thinker and logician, and Arcesilaus, a sceptical teacher of the fourth century, who declared that certain knowledge was unattainable by man, are here taken as types of those who put knowledge before faith; while 50 haughty conquering Roman. Revolution after revolution passed over the face of Europe, as well as of Greece, but still she was there,— Athens, the city of mind,—as radiant, as splendid, as delicate, as young, as ever she had been. Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue Ægean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample; but there was one charm in At55 tica, which in the same perfection was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain The market place, used not only for buying and selling, but as a place of assembly for debating, elections, trials, etc. would visit their Ionian cousins, a sort of viaduct thereto across the sea; but that fancy would not occur to him, nor any admiration of the dark violet billows with their white 5 edges down below; nor of those graceful, fanlike jets of silver upon the rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themselves, and disappear, in a soft mist of and panting of the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keeping steady time, like a line of soldiery, as they resound upon the hollow shore, he would not deign to notice that his stars that he was not upon it. Nor the distinct detail, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful outline and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows cast from Otus or Laurium by the declining sun;our agent of a mercantile firm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather we must turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from a semi of Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift; Boeotia, which lay to its immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy atmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was associated in popular belief with the dulness of the Bootian intellect: on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its genius, did that for it which earth did 10 foam; nor of the gentle, incessant heaving not; it brought out every bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and rugged country. A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its 15 restless living element at all, except to bless greatest length, and thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an angle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain,-Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not 20 always full;-such is about the report which the agent of a London company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate was mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble; more pasture 25 barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, land than at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate; olives in profusion. But what he would not 30 think of noting down, was, that the olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to climb 35 up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to his employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out, yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had a softness and harmony, for 40 hues and soothing sounds, they would not have all their richness, which in a picture looks exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the pale olive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and 45 Alma Mater at the time, or to remain afterits cheek glowed like the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the thyme and thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted Hymettus; he would hear nothing of the hum of its bees; nor take much account of 50 when a number of strangers were ever flocking the rare flavour of its honey, since Gozo and Minor a were sufficient for the English demand. He would look over the Ægean from the height he had ascended; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands, which, start- 55 their minds. Now, barren as was the soil of ing from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the fabled divinities of Attica, when they A promontory forming the extreme southern point of the province of Attica. as to a shrine, where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and coruscations of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the stranger from a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene so different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his fiery choking sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by coming to understand the sort of country, which was its suitable home. Nor was this all that a University required, and found in Athens. No one, even there, could live on poetry. If the students at that famous place had nothing better than bright been able or disposed to turn their residence there to much account. Of course they must have the means of living, nay, in a certain sense, of enjoyment, if Athens was to be an wards a pleasant thought in their memory. And so they had: be it recollected Athens was a port, and a mart of trade, perhaps the first in Greece; and this was very much to the point, to it, whose combat was to be with intellectual, not physical difficulties, and who claimed to have their bodily wants supplied, that they might be at leisure to set about furnishing Attica, and bare the face of the country, yet it had only too many resources for an elegant, Laurium was a mountain range in Attica. Otus is apparently a misprint for Orus, the peak of Aegina. nay luxurious abode there. So abundant were the imports of the place, that it was a common saying, that the productions, which were found singly elsewhere, were brought all together in Athens. Corn and wine, the staple of subsistence in such a climate, came from the isles of the Ægean; fine wool and carpeting from Asia Minor; slaves, as now, from the Euxine, and timber too; and iron and brass from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The 10 Athenian did not condescend to manufactures himself, but encouraged them in others; and a population of foreigners caught at the lucrative occupation both for home consumption and for exportation. Their cloth, and other 15 it would cost a round sum to realize it. What textures for dress and furniture, and their hardware for instance, armour-were in great request. Labour was cheap; stone and marble in plenty; and the taste and skill, which at first were devoted to public buildings, as tem- 20 stinct of mankind. ples and porticos, were in course of time applied to the mansions of public men. If nature did much for Athens, it is undeniable that art did much more. at the time; and one point which he was strong upon, and was evidently fond of urging, was the material pomp and circumstance which should environ a seat of learning. He con5 sidered it was worth the consideration of the government, whether Oxford should not stand in a domain of its own. An ample range, say four miles in diameter, should be turned into wood and meadow, and the University should be approached on all sides by a magnificent park, with fine trees in groups and groves and avenues, and with glimpses and views of the fair city, as the traveler drew near it. There is nothing surely absurd in the idea, though has a better claim to the purest and fairest possessions of nature, than the seat of wisdom? So thought my coach companion; and he did but express the tradition of ages and the in THE AIM OF A UNIVERSITY COURSE (From Idea of a University, 1852) To-day I have confined myself to saying that that training of the intellect, which is best for the individual himself, best enables him to discharge his duties to society. The Philosopher, indeed, and the man of the world differ in their very notion, but the methods by which they are respectively formed, are pretty much the same. The Philosopher has the same command of matters of thought, Here some one will interrupt me with the 25 remark: "By the bye, where are we, and whither are we going?-what has all this to do with a University? at least what has it to do with education? It is instructive doubtless; but still how much has it to do with your sub-30 ject?" Now I beg to assure the reader that I am most conscientiously employed upon my subject; and I should have thought every one would have seen this: however, since the objection is made, I may be allowed to pause 35 which the true citizen and gentleman has of awhile, and show distinctly the drift of what I have been saying, before I go farther. What has this to do with my subject! why, the question of the site is the very first that comes into consideration, when a Studium Generale is 40 contemplated; for that site should be a liberal and a noble one; who will deny it? All authorities agree in this, and very little reflection will be sufficient to make it clear. I recollect a conversation I once had on this very subject with 45 under no rule; a University is not a birthplace of matters of business and conduct. If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course; I say that it is that of training good members of society. Its art is the art of social life; and its end is fitness for the world. It neither confines its views to particular professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or inspires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius fall under no art; heroic minds come poets or of immortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles or Newtons, of Napoleons or a very eminent man. I was a youth of eighteen, and was leaving my University for the Long Vacation, when I found myself in company in a public conveyance with a middle-aged person, whose face was strange to me. How- 50 Washingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, though such miracles of nature it has before now contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with forming the critic or the experimentalist, the economist ever, it was the great academical luminary of the day, whom afterwards I knew very well. Luckily for me, I did not suspect it; and luckily too, it was a fancy of his, as his friends knew, to make himself on easy terms especially with 55 or the engineer, though such too it includes stage-coach companions. So, what with my flippancy and his condescension, I managed to hear many things which were novel to me 7 A university, or school of universal learning. within its scope. But a University training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life. It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in 10 choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skele rather like those, which I dare say most of us here have had, at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the relics of an orgy: a dried winejar or two, a charred supper-table, the breast 5 of a dancing-girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a jester: a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone3 twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve Muse is dead, and her song 15 ton, and wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone in those vacant sockets; and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once covered yon ghastly urging them. He is at home in any society, not go abroad. He has a gift which serves him William Makepeace Thackeray 1811-1863 THE RESTORATION DRAMA (From "Congreve and Addison,” in The English Humourists, written 1851) teeth pearls once. See, there's the cup she drank from, the gold-chain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a few bones! Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your ears and looking at people dancing. What does it mean? the measures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling and retreating, the cavalier seul advancing upon those ladies-those ladies and men twirling round at the end in a mad gallop, after which everybody bows and 35 the quaint rite is celebrated. Without the music we can't understand that comic dance of the last century—its strange gravity and gaiety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of its own quite unlike life; a sort of 40 moral of its own quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen mystery, symbolizing a Pagan doctrine; protesting-as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatre and laughing at their games; as Sallust and his 45 friends, and their mistresses, protested, crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands-against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure-hating doctrine whose gaunt disciples, lately passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, were There is life and death going on in everything: truth and lies are always at battle. Pleasure is always warring against self-restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha! and sneering. A man in life, a humourist in writing about life, sways 50 over to one principle or the other, and laughs with the reverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious business to Harlequin? I have 55 read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking of him; and my feelings were 1 The stage buffoon, one of the regular character types in French comedy. 2 One of the houses laid bare by the excavations at Pompeii is commonly said to have belonged to Sallust. It is the contrast between the levity and licentiousness of Pompeii, jesting almost within the shadow of a volcano, and the inexorable and terrible doom that overtakes it, which suggests and gives point to Thackeray's comparison. The witty and immoral comedies of Congreve, like the relics of Pompeiian orgies, speak of a dead generation of triflers, of a gayety destined to be choked in ashes. A name given to Italian guides for their volubility, in humorous allusion to the fluency of the great Roman orator Cicero. The cavalier who dances alone. |