for these defects-and, lastly, bringing into view that general intellectual improvement which is among the principal blessings of

our rational nature.

One of the objections to the study of classical learning, is made by a grave, calculating sort of wisdom, which asks, with a ledger always in view,' What remuneration does a boy receive for the time and money expended in this pursuit?' This view of the question is treated as it deserves, and dismissed peremptorily,* in few words. Another, a little purified from the gross selfishness of the former is made on the ground of that plausible topic, utility, this being, it seems, 'the sole standard by which all systems of education must be tried.'

To answer this question the author of the Reply takes up the inquiry a little farther back than writers on this subject commonly go.

It is an undisputed maxim in political economy, that the separation of the professions, and the division of labour, tend to the perfection of every art, to the wealth of nations, to the general well being of the community.' p. 107. ... The more the powers of each individual are concentrated in one employment, the greater skill and quickness will he display in performing it. But while he thus contributes most effectually to the accumulation of national wealth, he becomes himself more and more degraded as a rational being. In proportion as his sphere of action is narrowed, his mental powers and habits become contracted, and he resembles a subordinate part of some powerful machinery, useful in its place, but insignificant and worthless out of it.

'So sensible is the great and enlightened Adam Smith of the force of this objection, that he endeavours to meet it, by suggesting that the means of intellectual improvement multiply rapidly with the increasing wealth of society; that the facility, therefore, of acquiring those means may increase in the same ratio with the injurious tendency of that system we have just been considering.

National wealth is the sole end of his inquiry; and no one can blame him for confining himself to that single consideration. But national wealth is not the ultimate scope of society. . . . And if it be necessary, as it is beyond all question necessary, that society should be split into divisions and subdivisions, in order that its several duties may be well performed, yet we must be careful not to yield ourselves up to the guidance of this system: we must observe what its evils are, and we should modify and restrain it, by bringing other principles into action, which may serve as a check and counterpoise to the main force.'

In this train of disquisition, which, with reference to the present question, we believe to be novel, and which is certainly just and philosophical, the author passes on to consider the cultivation of literature, and particularly of classical literature, as the common link which, in the higher and middle departments of life, unites the jarring sects and subdivisions in one interest,which supplies common * Review, page 104. 26

V OL. IV. NO. VII.

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topics, and kindles common feelings, unmixed with those narrow prejudices with which all professions are more or less infected.' But the Reviewer still contends, that notwithstanding the advantage of classical learning, the ascendancy it has acquired in English education is preposterous, and the mode of teaching it in English schools, and (in one of the) universities, utterly absurd.'

It is not to be supposed that this critic, who treats the study of ancient literature as nothing more than learning Latin and Greek; who conceives that its poets, orators, historians, and moralists, are read only for the sake of anapasts and Eolic reduplications; who balances one of his facts, that the imagination only is cultivated, by another, that young men are taught neither to reason nor to imagine, but to conjugate and decline; who thinks the attempt to encourage the poetic faculty, in some degree common to all, a horrible absurdity; who asserts, that at Oxford, a place which many other travellers may have visited as well as himself, ali freedom of inquiry is discouraged; and who, acco ding to his own ideas, would have young men taught Latin and Greek,' just enough for them not to understand it ;-it is not to be supposed that such a writer is a very formidable adversary. Accordingly, these irregular fancies are treated as they deserve; and cleared away, for form's sake, merely to complete the argument. (p. 116, &c.) In this part of the Reply, however, it is to be regretted that the author should have stopped to bestow any of his learning upon the Reviewer's seeming intimacy with Sylburgius and Eolic reduplication.' It was paying too much respect to a blow made at

a venture.

IV. V. The course of studies pursued at Oxford is given in a very clear detail. It comprehends more than we can extract, and hardly admits of being abridged. We may observe, however, that it includes an estimate of the two different plans of academical instruction, by lectures from a professor's chair, and by private lectures in a college. The author thinks the best method would be that which should unite both more completely than is the case with any modern university.' But if they are compared one against the other as means of instruction, the preference seems strongly due to that of college lectures.' His leading distinctions we believe to be perfectly correct-The Public lecture will always be more highly prepared, and give a stronger impulse to the ardent minds of a few -the Private will be adapted with more discrimination, and be more general and certain in its effects.

It is a vulgar mistake, found in the mouths of some who live at a certain distance from Oxford, and whose desire to improve it seems to grow with their distance from it and its affairs, that there is no public lecturing there. An Oxford professorship, they suppose is the reward of approved merit, not a call to active

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service. To obviate such misapprehensions, we are informed in the Reply that lectures in a public way are read by the several professors in Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Botany, Anatomy, besides a course and sometimes two courses in Divinity. There is likewise a course in Modern His. tory often read to a select class, in which the doctrines of Political Economy have by the present professor been much introduced and discussed.' p. 154. The entire plan of the studies is given unaffectedly, with a proper caution as to such plans in general, that when sketched upon paper they are often very fallacious.' It gives us more confidence in the author when we see him fully aware that nothing is more easy than to mislead the public by representations of this kind.'

But Utility is the incessant cry of some reasoners. To satisfy them, the author proceeds to observe that the arts and studies which relate to the improvement of manufactures, and to the raising and multiplying of the means of subsistence, terminate merely in the bodily enjoyments of man.' These arts, indeed, are highly necessary; but their results are not of the first order of good, nor are they the principal ends of human life. Neither necessity, nor conduciveness to the physical accommodation, or improvement of the machinery of life, can be taken as the measure of what is really excellent. It is in his intellectual, and especially in his moral and social nature, and in the studies which correct and advance it, that we must think of man as he deserves, and rate the value of his pursuits. Hence the author contends that there is a cultivation of mind which is in itself a good-of the highest order, without any immediate reference to bodily appetites or wants of any kind—and that it is idle to talk of studies being frivolous because they do not immediately tend to what is called practical good.'

We may add, that the appropriate subject of almost all that is commonly called classical learning is nothing else than man's moral nature-his passions, his plans of action-their springs and various movements-and whatever humanity or moral speculation is concerned with. All that deserves the name of wisdom, all the common sense of life in its most improved state, is drawn from this source. The fruit of other studies is only learning or science. Men may range over the whole compass of nature, and art; but their best researches will be those which are most intimately connected with some point of moral character in its diversified relations. Contracted and exclusive systems, indeed, must be wrong;. but if any one part of learning were to be set high above the rest, we know of none which could fill the station of pre-eminence with less disadvantage than those studies which engage men in the contemplation of themselves, and their common nature; in the knowledge of which they must always have a greater interest than in

any combination of matter which the chemist can analyze, or the astronomer survey. At Oxford, however, there is nothing like an exclusive system. Classical literature is surrounded by the sciences; and if they do not share equal favour with it, they are freely encouraged; none are excluded, none depressed.

The Reviewer indeed says,' We do not enter into so silly a speculation as whether chemistry, political economy, or classical knowledge, are of the greatest importance-we say all ought to be had in equal honour.' It would have been well if this lively Reviewer, in avoiding 'a silly speculation,' had kept clear of a silly dogmatism. Indiscriminate honour, we think, is a foolish thing. It is not for the sake of opposing this writer, (he must write much better before we can be very anxious to do this,) but merely with the desire of drawing attention to the question, that we venture to express a doubt, whether, in a seat of national education, it be desirable, on any account, that an equal regard should be paid to many different kinds of learning? whether the public mind, when dispersed over a very wide surface, may not lose more in the vigour of its studies, than it gains by the comprehensiveness of them? and whether the true cultivation of the mental powers is not more certainly and more highly advanced by a plan of liberal selection, than it would be by an Encyclopædia of the arts and sciences reduced into lectures?

Were it possible, therefore, to create an university at a stroke, and to mould its studies at pleasure, our notions would certainly lead us to provide for the reception and encouragement of every liberal or useful science, but to concentrate upon some selected divisions of learning (of course, the most important) the highest favour of the institution, and the principal efforts of the spirit and genius of the place. If our object were to correct any existing university, we should proceed in the same way. But here the question of practical fitness would take a new shape. Some concessions must be made to hereditary spirit, if that spirit be not wholly of an ungenerous kind; and the truest improvements, we think, would be those which should preserve as much as possible of the existing force and momentum of the institution, and draw from its present energies and attachments the support necessary for every change proposed.

Very remotely connected with this part of the subject are some free remarks of the critic upon the importance of chemistry and chemical discoveries. Of these he says very truly, that they have had a considerable effect upon the state of the world. Certainly there is nothing more curious than the history of the arts. The invention of Printing forms one great æra of it. There is a deep mistake, however, under which it is plain that the learned Reviewer

labours with regard to this most useful invention, which, in proper hands, has rendered as much service to the world as all the acids and alkalies put together. He believes, as firmly as any article of his creed, that printing was designed for the easier circulation of low abuse, and to lend wings to defamation. But the tenet is an erroneous one, nor should we despair of his being brought to another mode of thinking, if he could be induced to try two acts of severe, but wholesome mortification; viz. to abstain from reviewing, during the season when the town is full; and to peruse at the same time certain discourses upon Truth, Modesty, and other important, but neglected matters, by a reverend editor of Sermons, pointed out to his consideration in the second Reply. In those discourses,

Sunt verba et voces, quibus hanc lenire dolorum
Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem :
Laudis amore tumes? sunt certa piacula, quæ te
Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.

It is made a matter of blame, in the rejoinder of the Edinburgh journal, that the author of the Reply has written with heat and asperity.' To determine whether he has transgressed the bounds of just and indignant feeling, it is necessary to look at the first provocation. He remarks upon that point, that

The animadversions on this university were (in one instance) wholly irrelevant to the subject of the work under review-The opportunity was apparently sought after, or rather created. The charges were expressed, not indeed with heat and asperity (for how could that find place when there was no provocation?), but with a cool, sneering, sarcastic countenance, infinitely more insulting than the language and tone of passion-They were directed, not against an individual, but a body of individuals which is seldom addressed without some epithet of respect-They were injurious to its reputation in the highest degreeLastly, and above all, they were, I do not say exaggerated, and distorted, but directly and fundamentally false.

Under such circumstances, is it to be expected that the injured party shall come forward with a humble remonstrance? that he shall condescend to exculpate himself, and prove his innocence to the satisfaction of his accuser, in order that he may, if it suit his good pleasure, let the world know that he had been misinformed? I confess the person who stoops to that method of clearing himself, appears to me unworthy of enjoying the reputation which he would make such sacrifices to preserve.'

It is a bad symptom when a party is too patient under bold calumny before the world. Far from censuring some warmth of language in repelling an accusation, we should hardly believe a person had virtue enough to feel the infamy of the charge, or was in earnest about his character, who should preserve exactly the same courtesy and coolness in replying to his accuser, which we