English i would have astonished his ears the less, for our would make him profoundly feel the human

short i does bear some resemblance to the southern i

whereas our long i resembles no single letter in any alphabet of the Latin family of languages. We are scrupulously careful to avoid what we call false quantities, we are quite utterly and ignorantly unscrupulous about false sounds. One of the best instances is the well-known “veni, vidi, vici," which we pronounce very much as if it had been written vinai, vaidai,

vaisai, in Italian letters.

LETTER IV.

TO A STUDENT OF LITERATURE.

Studies, whatever they may be, always considered, by some, a waste of time-The classical languages-The higher mathematics-The accomplishments-Indirect uses of different studies-Influence of music-Studies indirectly useful to authors-What induced Mr. Roscoe to write the

lives of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X.

WHATEVER you study, some one will consider that particular study a foolish waste of time.

associations of many localities which to an ignorant man would be devoid of interest or meaning; and this human interest in the scenes where great events have taken place, or which have been distinguished by the habitation of illustrious men in other ages, is in fact one of the great fundamental motives of landscape painting. It has been very much questioned, especially by foreign critics, whether the interest in botany which is taken by some of the more cultivated English landscape painters is not for them a false direction and wrong employment of the mind; but a landscape painter may feel his interest in vegetation infinitely increased by the accurate knowledge of its laws, and such an increase of interest would make him work more zealously, and with less danger of weariness and ennui, besides being a very useful help to the memory in retaining the authentic vegetable forms. It may seem more difficult to show the possible utility of a study apparently so entirely outside of other studies as music is; and yet music has an important influence on the whole of our emotional nature, and indirectly upon expression of all kinds. He who has once learned the self-control of the musician, the use of piano and forte, each in its right place, when to be lightly swift or majestically slow, and especially how to keep to the key once chosen till the right time has come for changing it; he who has once learned this knows the secret of the arts. No painter, writer, orator, who had the power and judgment of a thoroughly cultivated musician, could sin against the broad principles of taste.

If you were to abandon successively every subject of intellectual labor which had, in its turn, been condemned by some adviser as useless, the result would be simple intellectual nakedness. The classical languages, to begin with, have long been considered useless by the majority of practical people—and pray, what to shopkeepers, doctors, attorneys, artists, can be the use of the higher mathematics? And if these studies, which have been conventionally classed as serious studies, are considered unnecessary notwithstanding the tremendous authority of custom, how much the more are those studies exposed to a like contempt which belong to the category of accomplishments! What is the use of drawing, for More than all other men have authors reait ends in a worthless sketch? Why should son to appreciate the indirect utilities of we study music when after wasting a thousand knowledge that is apparently irrelevant. hours the amateur cannot satisfy the ear? A Who can tell what knowledge will be of most quoi bon modern languages when the accom-use to them? Even the very greatest of auplishment only enables us to call a waiter in French or German who is sure to answer us in English? And what, when it is not your trade, can be the good of dissecting animals or plants?

To all questionings of this kind there is but one reply. We work for culture. We work to enlarge the intelligence, and to make it a better and more effective instrument. This is our main purpose; but it may be added that even for our special labors it is always diffi'cult to say beforehand exactly what will turn out in the end to be most useful. What, in appearance, can be more entirely outside the work of a landscape painter than the study of ancient history? and yet I can show you how an interest in ancient history might indirectly be of great service to a landscape painter. It

thors are indebted to miscellaneous reading, often in several different languages, for the suggestion of their most original works, and for the light which has kindled many a shining thought of their own. And authors who seem to have less need than others of an outward help, poets whose compositions might appear to be chiefly inventive and emotional, novelists who are free from the restraints and the researches of the historian, work up what they know into what they write; so that if you could remove every line which is based on studies outside the strict limits of their art, you would blot out half their compositions. Take the antiquarian element out of Scott, and see how many of his works could never have been written. Remove from Goldsmith's brain the recollection of his wayward

studies and strange experiences, and you | teur; a scholar who writes imperfect Latin, would remove the rich material of the "Trav- not for money, escapes the imputation of eller" and the Essays, and mutilate even the amateurship, and is called a learned man. immortal “Vicar of Wakefield." Without a Surely we have been blinded by custom in classical education and foreign travel, Byron these things. Ideas of frivolity are attached would not have composed "Childe Harold;" to imperfect acquirement in certain direcwithout the most catholic interest in the liter- tions, and ideas of gravity to equally imperature of all the ages, and of many different fect acquirement in others. To write bad peoples from the North Sea to the Mediterra-Latin poetry is not thought to be frivolous, nean, our contemporary William Morris but it is considered frivolous to compose imwould never have conceived, and could not perfectly and unprofessionally in other fine have executed, that strong work "The Earth-arts. ly Paradise." It may not seem necessary to Yet are we not all of us amateurs in those learn Italian, yet Mr. Roscoe's celebrity as an pursuits which constituted our educationauthor was due in the first place to his private amateurs at the best, if we loved them, and fondness for Italian literature. He did not even inferior to amateurs if we disliked them? learn Italian in order that he might write his We have not sounder knowledge or more biographies, but he wrote about Lorenzo and perfect skill in the ancient languages than Leo because he had mastered Italian, and be- Prince Albert had in music. We know somecause the language led him to take an interest thing of them, yet in comparison with perfect in the greatest house of Florence. The way mastery such as that of a cultivated old Greek in which authors are led by their favorite or Roman, our scholarship is at the best on a studies indirectly to the great performance of level with the musical scholarship of a cultitheir lives has never been more clearly illus-vated amateur like the Prince Consort. trated than in this instance.

When William Roscoe was a young man he had for his friend Francis Holden, nephew of Mr. Richard Holden, a schoolmaster in Liverpool. Francis Holden was a young man of uncommon culture, having at the same time really sound scholarship in several languages, and an ardent enthusiasm for literature. He urged Roscoe to study languages, and used especially, in their evening walks together, to repeat to him passages from the noblest poets of Italy. In this way Roscoe was led to attempt Italian, and, having once begun, went on till he had mastered it. "It was in the course of these studies," says his biographer, "that he first formed the idea of writing the Life of Lorenzo de' Medici."

LETTER V.

TO A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN WHO REGRETTED
THAT HIS SON HAD THE TENDENCIES OF A DI-

LETTANT.

Inaccuracy of the common distinction between amateur pur

suits and more serious studies-All of us are amateurs in many things-Prince Albert-The Emperor Napoleon III. -Contrast between general and professional education

If the essence of dilettantism is to be contented with imperfect attainment, I fear that all educated people must be considered dilettants.

It is narrated of the Emperor Napoleon III. that in answer to some one who inquired of his Majesty whether the Prince Imperial was a musician, he replied that he discouraged dilettantism, and 'did not wish his son to be a Coburg." But the Emperor himself was quite as much a dilettant as Prince Albert; though their dilettantism did not lie in the same directions. The Prince was an amateur musician and artist; the Emperor was an amateur historian, an amateur scholar, and antiquary. It may be added that Napoleon III. indulged in another and more dangerous kind of amateurship. He had a taste for amateur generalship, and the consequences of his indulgence of this taste are known to every one.

The variety of modern education encourages a scattered dilettantism. It is only in professional life that the energies of young men are powerfully concentrated. There is a steadying effect in thorough professional training which school education does not supply. Our boys receive praise and prizes for doing many things most imperfectly, and it is not their fault if they remain ignorant of I AGREE with you that amateurship, as what perfection really is, and of the immensigenerally practised, may be a waste of time,ty of the labor which it costs. I think that but the common distinction between amateur you would do well, perhaps, without discourpursuits and serious studies is inconsistent. aging your son too much by chillingly accurate A painter whose art is imperfect and who estimates of the value of what he has done, to does not work for money is called an ama- | make him on all proper occasions feel and see

-The price of high accomplishment.

the difference between half-knowledge and a system of encouragement which offered inthorough mastery. It would be a good thing ducements outside the genuine ambition of for a youth to be made clearly aware how an artist. The true enthusiasm which is the enormous a price of labor Nature has set | life of art impels the artist to express his own upon high accomplishment in everything feeling for the delight of others. The offer of that is really worthy of his pursuit. It is a medal or a pension induces him to make this persuasion, which men usually arrive at the sort of picture which is likely to satisfy only in their maturity, that operates as the the authorities. He first ascertains what is most effectual tranquillizer of frivolous activ-according to the rule, and then follows it as ities.

LETTER VI.

TO THE, PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE.

nearly as he is able. He works in a temper of simple conformity, remote indeed from the passionate enthusiasm of creation. It is so with prize poems. We all know the sort of poetry which is composed in order to gain prizes. The anxiety of the versifier is to be

The Author's dread of protection in intellectual pursuits-Ex-safe: he tries to compose what will ́escape ample from the Fine Arts-Prize poems--Governmental censure; he dreads the originality that may encouragement of learning-The bad effects of it-Pet give offence. But all powerful pictures and pursuits-Objection to the interference of Ministers-A poems have been wrought in the energy of inproject for separate examinations. dividual feeling, not in conformity to a pattern.

WHAT I am going to say will seem yery strange to you, and is not unlikely to arouse Now, suppose that, instead of encouraging as much professional animosity as you are ca- poetry or painting, a Government resolves to pable of feeling against an old friend. You encourage learning. It will patronize certain who are a dignitary of the University, and pursuits to the neglect of others, or it will enhave earned your various titles in a fair field, courage certain pursuits more liberally than as a soldier wins his epaulettes before the en- others. The subjects of such a Government emy, are not the likeliest person to hear with will not follow learning exclusively for its depatience the unauthorized theories of an inno-lightfulness or its utility; another consideravator. Take them, then, as mere specula- tion will affect their choice. They will inquire tions, if you will-not altogether unworthy of consideration, for they are suggested by a sincere anxiety for the best interests of learning, and yet not very dangerous to vested interests of any kind, since they can have little influence on the practice or opinion of the world.

I feel a great dread of what may be called protection in intellectual pursuits. It seems to me that when the Government of a country applies an artificial stimulus to certain branches of study for their encouragement, by the offer of rewards in honor or in money beyond the rewards inherent in the studies themselves, or coming naturally from their usefulness to mankind, there is a great danger that men may give a disproportionate attention to those favored branches of study. Let me take an example from the practice of the Fine Arts. A Government, by medals and crosses, or by money, can easily create and foster a school of painting which is entirely out of relation to the century in which it exists, and quite incapable of working harmoniously with the contemporary national life. This has actually been done to a considerable extent in various countries, especially in France and in Bavaria. A sort of classicism which had scarcely any foundation in sincerity of feeling was kept up artificially by

which pursuits are rewarded by prizes in honor or money, and they will be strongly tempted to select them. Therefore, unless the Government has exercised extraordinary wisdom, men will learn what they do not really care for and may never practically want, merely in order to win some academical grade. So soon as this object has been attained, they will immediately abandon the studies by which they attained it.

Can it be said that in these cases the purposes of the Government were fulfilled? Clearly not, if it desired to form a permanent taste for learning. But it may have done worse than fail in this merely negative way; it may have diverted its youth from pursuits to which Nature called them, and in which they might have effectually aided the advancement and the prosperity of the State.

Let us suppose that a Government were to have a pet study, and offer great artificial inducements for success in it. Suppose that the pet study were entomology. All the most promising youth of the country would spend ten years in emulating Messrs. Kirby and Spence, and take their degrees as entomological bachelors. But might it not easily happen that to a majority of the young gentlemen this pursuit would have acted positively as a hindrance by keeping them from other pur

suits more likely to help them in their pro- | be allowed to teach anything who had not got a fessions? It would not only cost a great deal certificate for the particular thing he intended of valuable time, it would absorb a quantity to profess. In the confusion of your present of youthful energy which the country can ill system, not only do you fail to insure the afford to lose. The Government would prob- thoroughness of pupils, but the teachers themably affirm that entomology, if not always selves are too frequently incompetent in some practically useful in itself, was an invaluable speciality which accidentally falls to their intellectual training; but what if this train- share. I think that a Greek master ought to ing used up the early vigor which might be a complete Hellenist, but surely it is not be needed for other pursuits, and of which necessary that he should be half a mathemaevery human being has only a limited sup- tician. ply? We should be told, no doubt, that this powerful encouragement was necessary to the advancement of science, and it is true that under such a system the rudiments of entomology would be more generally known. But the vulgarization of rudiments is not the advancement of knowledge. Entomology has gone quite as far in discovery, though pursued simply for its own sake, as it would have gone if it had been made necessary to a bachelor's degree.

You will ask whether I would go so far as to abolish degrees of all kinds. Certainly not; that is not my project. But I believe that no Government is competent to make a selection amongst intellectual pursuits and say, "This or that pursuit shall be encouraged by university degrees, whilst other pursuits of intellectual men shall have no encouragement whatever." I may mention by name your present autocrat of Public Instruction, Jules Simon. He is a literary man of some eminence; he has written several interesting books, and on the whole he is probably more competent to deal with these questions than many of his predecessors. But however capable a man may be, he is sure to be biassed by the feeling common to all intellectual men which attributes a peculiar importance to their own pursuits. I do not like to see any Minister, or any Cabinet of Ministers, settling what all the young men of a country are to learn under penalty of exclusion from all the liberal professions.

To sum up. It seems to me that a Government has no business to favor some intellectual pursuits more than others, but that it ought to recognize competent attainment in every one of them by a sort of diploma or certificate, leaving the relative rank of different pursuits to be settled by public opinion. And as to the educators themselves, I think that when a man has proved his competence in one thing, he ought to be allowed to teach that one thing in the University without being required to pass an examination in any other thing.

LETTER VII.

TO THE PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE. Loss of time to acquire an ancient language too imperfectly for it to be useful-Dr. Arnold-Mature life leaves little time for culture--Modern indifference to ancient thinking-Larger experience of the moderns-The moderns older than the ancients-The Author's regret that Latin has ceased to be a living language-The shortest way to learn to read a language-The recent interest in modern languages-A French student of Hebrew.

I was happy to learn your opinion of the reform so recently introduced by the Minister of Public Instruction, and the more so that I was glad to find the views of so inexperienced a person as myself confirmed by your wider knowledge. You went even farther than M. Jules Simon, for you openly expressed a desire for the complete withdrawal of Greek from the ordinary school curriculum. Not What I should think more reasonable would that you undervalue Greek,-no one of your be some such arrangement as the following. scholarship would be likely to undervalue a There might be a board of thoroughly compe- great literature,—but you thought it a loss of tent examiners for each branch of study sepa- time to acquire a language so imperfectly that rately, authorized to confer certificates of com- the literature still remained practically closed petence. When a man believed himself to have whilst thousands of valuable hours had been mastered a branch of study, he would go and wasted on the details of grammar. The truth try to get a certificate for that. The various is, that although the principle of beginning studies would then be followed according to the many things in school education with the idea public sense of their importance, and would that the pupil will in maturer life pursue them fall quite naturally into the rank which they to fuller accomplishment may in some inought to occupy at any given period of the stances be justified by the prolonged studies national history. These separate examina- of men who have a natural taste for erudition, tions should be severe enough to ensure a ser- it is idle to shut one's eyes to the fact that viceable degree of proficiency. Nobody should most men have no inclination for school-work

after they have left school, and if they had | most cultivated contemporary intellects seek the inclination they have not the time. Our light from each other rather than from the own Dr. Arnold, the model English schoolmas- ancients. One of the most distinguished of ter, said, "It is so hard to begin anything in modern thinkers, a scholar of the rarest clasafter-life, and so comparatively easy to con- sical attainments, said to me in reference to tinue what has been begun, that I think we some scheme of mine for renewing my classiare bound to break ground, as it were, into cal studies, that they would be of no more use several of the mines of knowledge with our pu- to me than numismatics. It is this feeling, the pils; that the first difficulties may be overcome feeling that Greek speculation is of less conseby them whilst there is yet a power from with-quence to the modern world than German and out to aid their own faltering resolution, and French speculation, which causes so many of that so they may be enabled, if they will, to us, rightly or wrongly, to regard it as a palæongo on with the study hereafter." The princi-tological curiosity, interesting for those who ple here expressed is no doubt one of the im- are curious as to the past of the human mind, portant principles of all early education, and but not likely to be influential upon its future. yet I think that it cannot be safely followed This estimate of ancient thinking is not oftwithout taking account of human nature, en expressed quite so openly as I have just such as it is. Everything hangs on that lit-expressed it, and yet it is very generally prevtle parenthesis "if they will." And if they alent even amongst the most thoughtful peowill not, how then? The time spent in break-ple, especially if modern science has had any ing the ground has been wasted, except so far as the exercise of breaking the ground may have been useful in mental gymnastics.

conspicuous influence in the formation of their minds. The truth is, as Sydney Smith observed many years ago, that there is a conMature life brings so many professional or fusion of language in the use of the word “ansocial duties that it leaves scant time for cult- cient." We say "the ancients," as if they ure; and those who care for culture most were older and more experienced men than earnestly and sincerely, are the very persons we are, whereas the age and experience are who will economize time to the utmost. Now, entirely on our side. They were the clever to read a language that has been very imper-children, "and we only are the white-bearded, fectly mastered is felt to be a bad economy of silver-headed ancients, who have treasured time. Suppose the case of a man occupied in up, and are prepared to profit by, all the exbusiness who has studied Greek rather assid-perience which human life can supply." The uously in youth and yet not enough to read it sense of our larger experience, as it grows in with facility. Suppose that this man wants to us and becomes more distinctly conscious, get at the mind of Plato. He can read the orig-produces a corresponding decline in our feelinal, but he reads it so slowly that it would cost him more hours than he can spare, and this is why he has recourse to a translation. In this case there is no indifference to Greek culture; on the contrary, the reader desires to assimilate what he can of it, but the very earnestness of his wish to have free access to ancient thought makes him prefer it in modern language.

ings of reverence for classic times. The past has bequeathed to us its results, and we have incorporated them into our own edifice, but we have used them rather as materials than as models.

In your practical desire to retain in education only what is likely to be used, you are willing to preserve Latin. M. Jules Simon says that Latin ought to be studied only to be This is the most favorable instance that can read. On this point permit me to offer an be imagined, except, of course, those exceed-observation. The one thing I regret about ingly rare cases where a man has leisure Latin is that we have ceased to speak it. The enough, and enthusiasm enough, to become a natural method, and by far the most rapid Hellenist. The great majority of our con- and sure method of learning a language, is to temporaries do not care for ancient thought begin by acquiring words in order to use at all, it is so remote from them, it belongs to them to ask for what we want; after that we conditions of civilization so different from acquire other words for narration and the extheir own, it is encumbered with so many pression of our sentiments. By far the shortlengthy discussions of questions which have est way to learn to read a language is to bebeen settled by the subsequent experience of gin by speaking it. The colloquial tongue is the world, that the modern mind prefers to the basis of the literary tongue. This is so occupy itself with its own anxieties and its true that with all the pains and trouble you own speculations. It is a great error to sup-give to the Latin education of your pupils, pose that indifference to ancient thinking is you cannot teach them as much Latin, for peculiar to the spirit of Philistinism; for the reading only, in the course of ten years, as a