190 HISTORY-ITS DEFECTS-ITS POWER. [ESSAY II. torians of comparatively unimportant things to fill the greater portion of their pages. People exclaim that the history of Europe is little more than a history of human violence and wickedness. But they confound history with that portion of history which historians record. That portion is doubtless written almost in blood,-but it is a very small, and in truth a very subordinate portion. The intrigues of cabinets; the rise and fall of ministers; wars, and battles, and victories, and defeats; the plunder of provinces; the dismemberment of empires;-these are the things which fill the pages of the historian, but these are not the things which compose the history of man. He that would acquaint himself with the history of his species must apply to other and to calmer scenes. "It is a cruel mortification in searching for what is instructive in the history of past times, to find that the exploits of conquerors who have desolated the earth, and the freaks of tyrants who have rendered nations unhappy are recorded with minute and often disgusting accuracy, while the discovery of useful arts and the progress of the most beneficial branches of commerce are passed over in silence, and suffered to sink into oblivion."* Even a more cruel mortification than this is to find recorded almost nothing respecting the intellectual and moral history of You are presented with five or six weighty volumes which profess to be a history of England; and after reading them to the end you have hardly found any thing to satisfy that interesting question,-How has my country been enabled to advance from barbarism to civilization; to come forth from darkness into light? Yes, by applying philosophy to facts yourself, you may attain some, though it be but an imperfect, reply. But the historian himself should have done this. The facts of history, simply as such, are of comparatively little concern. He is the true historian of man who regards mere facts rather as the illustrations of history than as its subject-matter. As to the history of cabinets and courts, of intrigue and oppression, of campaigns and generals, we can almost spare it all. It is of wonderfully little consequence whether they are remembered or not, except as lessons of instruction, except as proofs of the evils of bad principles and bad institutions. For any other purpose, Blenheim! we can spare thee. And Louis, even Louis "le grand!" we can spare thee. And thy successor and his Pompadour ! we can spare ye all. man. Much power is in the hands of the historian if he will exert it: if he will make the occurrences of the past subservient to the elucidations of the principles of human nature,-of the principles of political truth,-of the rules of political rectitude: if he will refuse to make men ambitious of power by filling his pages with the feats or freaks of men in power; -if he will give no currency to the vulgar delusions about glory:-if he will do these things, and such as these, he will deserve well of his country and of man; for he will contribute to that rectification of public opinion which, when it is complete and determinate, will be the most pow erful of all earthly agents in ameliorating the social condition of the world. * Robertson: Disq. on Ancient Commerce of India. CHAP.11.1 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 191 CHAPTER XI. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. "It is no less true than lamentable, that hitherto the education proper for civil and active life has been neglected; that nothing has been done to enable those who are actually to conduct the affairs of the world, to carry them on in a manner worthy of the age and country in which they live, by communicating to them the knowledge and the spirit of their age and country."*" Knowledge does not consist in being able to read books, but in understanding one's business and duty in life.”—Most writers have considered the subject of education as relative to that portion of it only which applies to learning; but the first object of all, in every nation, is to make a man a good member of society." "Education consists in learning what makes a man useful, respectable, and happy, in the line for which he is destined."t If these propositions are true it is evident that the systems of education which obtain need great and almost total reformation. What does a boy, in the middle class of society, learn at school of the knowledge and the spirit of his age and country? When he has left school, how much does he understand of the business and duty of life? Education is one of those things which Lord Bacon would describe as having lain almost unaltered "upon the dregs of time." We still fancy that we educate our children when we give them, as its principal constituent, that same instruction which was given before England had a literature of its own, and when Greek and Latin contained almost the sum of human knowledge. Then the knowledge of Greek and Latin was called, and not unjustly called, learning. It was the learning which procured distinction and celebrity. A sort of dignity and charm was thrown around the attainments and the word which designated them. That charm has continued to operate to the present hour, and we still call him a learned man who is skilful in Latin and Greek. Yet Latin and Greek contain an extremely small portion of that knowledge which the world now possesses; an extremely small portion of that which it is of most consequence to acquire. It would be well for society if this word learning could be forgotten, or if we could make it the representative of other and very different ideas. But the delusion is continually propagated. The higher ranks of society give the tone to the notions of the rest; and the higher classes are educated at Westminster and Eton, and Cambridge and Oxford. At all these the languages which have ceased to be the languages of a living people, the authors which communicate, relatively, little knowledge that is adapted to the presen affairs of man, are made the first and foremost articles of education. To be familiar with these is still to be a "learned” man. Inferior institutions imitate the example; and the parent who knows his son will * Art. 4; Education. Wesmt. Rev. No. 1. Playfair Causes of Decline of Nations, p. 97, 98, 227. 192 ANCIENT CLASSICS. [ESSAY II. be, like himself, a merchant or manufacturer, thinks it almost indispensable that he should "learn Latin." It may reasonably be doubted whether to even the higher ranks of society, this preference of ancient learning is wise. It may reasonably be doubted whether even at Oxford a literary revolution would not be a useful revolution. Indeed, the very circumstance that the system of education there is not essentially different from what it was centuries ago is almost a sufficient evidence that an alteration is needed. If the circumstances and the contexture of human society is altered,-if the boundaries of knowledge are very greatly extended, and if that knowledge which is now applicable to the affairs of life is extremely different from that which was applicable long ages ago,--it surely is plain that a system which has not, or has only slightly, accommodated itself to the new condition and new exigences of human affairs, cannot be a good system, cannot be a reasonable and judicious system. How stands the fact? When young men leave college to take part in the concerns of active life, how much assistance do they derive from classical literature? Look at the House of Commons. How much does this literature contribute to a member's legislating wisely upon questions of political economy, of jurisprudence, of taxation, of reform? Or how much does it contribute to the capability of any other class of men to serve their families, their country, or mankind? I speak not of those professions to which a dead language may be necessary. A physician learns Latin as he attends the dissecting room: it is a part of his system of preparation for his pursuits in life. Even with the professions, indeed, the need of a dead language is factitious. It is necessary only because usage has made it so But I speak of that portion of mankind who, being exempt from the necessity for toil, fill the various gradations of society from that of the prince to the private gentleman. Select what rank or what class you please, and ask how much its members are indebted to ancient learning for their capability to discharge their duties as parents, as men, or as citizens of the state, the answer is literally, "Almost nothing." Now this is a serious answer, and involves serious consequences. A young man, wher he enters upon the concerns of active life, has to set about acquiring new kinds of knowledge,-knowledge totally dissimilar to the greater part of that which his "education" gave him; and the knowledge which education did give him he is obliged practically to forget,-to lay it aside it is something that is not adapted to the condition and the wants of society. But for what purpose are people educated, unless it be to prepare them for this condition and these wants? Or how can that be a judicious system which does not effect these purposes? That no advantages result from the study of ancient classics it would be idle to maintain. But this is not the question. The question is, Whether so many advantages result from this study as from others that might be substituted; and I am persuaded that we shall become more and more willing to answer, No. With respect to the sum of knowledge which the works of antiquity convey, as compared with that which is conveyed by modern literature, the disproportion is great in the extreme. Το say that the modern is a hundred times greater than the ancient is to keep far from the language of exaggeration. And to say the truth, the majority of those who are educated at college leave it with but an imperfect acquaintance with those languages which they have spent years in professing to acquire. There are some men skilled in the languages: CHAP. 11.] CLASSICS IN BOARDING-SCHOOLS. 193 there are some "learned" men; but the very circumstance that great skill procures celebrity is an evidence that great skill is rare. Among educated laymen the number is very small of those whose knowledge of Latin bears any respectable proportion to their knowledge of their own language, of that language which they have hardly professed to learn at all. If the London University should be successfully established, it is probable that at least one collateral benefit will result from it. The wide range of subjects which it proposes to embrace in its system of education will possess an influence upon other institutions; and the time may arrive when the impulse of public opinion shall reduce the mathematics of one of our universities and the classics of both, to such a relative station among the objects of human study as shall be better adapted to the purposes of human life. If considerations like these apply to the preference of classical learning by those classes of society who can devote many years to the general purposes of education, much more do they apply to those who fill the middle ranks. Yet anong these ranks the charm of the fiction has immense power. It has descended from universities to boarding-schools of thirty pounds a year; and the parent complacently pays the extra "three guineas" in order that his boy may "learn Latin." We affirm that the knowledge of Latin and Greek is all but useless to these boys, and that if the knowledge were useful, they do not acquire it. What are the stations which they are about to fill? One is to be a manufacturer, and one a merchant, and one a ship-owner, and one will underwrite at Lloyd's, and one will be a consul at Toulon. Nay, we might go lower, and say, one will be a tanner, and one a draper, and one a corn-factor. Yet these boys must learn Latin, and perhaps Greek too. And they do actually spend day after day, and perhaps year after year, upon "Hic hæc hoc," "Propria quæ maribus,"-"As in præsenti,"-"Et, and; cum, when ;” and the like. What conceivable relationship do these things bear to making steam-engines, or discounting bills, or shipping cargoes, or making leather, or selling cloth? None. But it will be said, What relationship does any merely literary pursuit bear? Or why should a merchant's son read Paradise Lost? Such questions conduct us to the just view of the case; and accordingly we answer, Let these young persons attend to literature, but let it be literature of the most expedient kind. Let them read Paradise Lost. Why? Because it is delightful, and because they can do it without learning a language in order to acquire the power: if Paradise Lost existed only in Arabic, I should think it preposterous to teach young persons Arabic in order that they might read it. To those who are to fill the active stations of life, literature must always be a subordinate concern; and it would be vain to deny that our own language possesses a sufficient store for them without learning others to increase it. But indeed the children of the middle classes do not learn the languages. They do not learn them so as to be able to appreciate the merits and the beauties of ancient literature. Ask the boys themselves. Ask them whether they could hold an hour's conversation with Cicero if he should stand before them. The very supposition is absurd. Or can they read and enjoy Cicero as they read and enjoy Addison? No. They do not learn the ancient languages. They pore over rules and exercises, and syntax and quantities, but as to learning the language, in the same sense as that in which it may be said they learn English, there is not one in a hundred, nor probably in ten thousand, who does it. Yet N 194 LATIN AND GREEK. [ESSAY II unless a person does learn a language so as to read it, at least, with perfect facility, what becomes of the use of the study as a means of elevating the taste? This is one of the advantages which are attributed to the study of the classics. But without inquiring whether the taste might not be as well cultivated by other means, one short consideration is sufficient: that the taste is not cultivated by studying the classics but by mastering them, by acquiring such a familiarity with these works as enables us to appreciate their excellences. This familiarity, or any thing that approaches to this familiarity, schoolboys do not acquire. Playfair makes a computation, from which he concludes that in ordinary boardingschools, "not above one in a hundred learns to read even Latin decently well; that is, one good reader for every ten thousand pounds expended. As to speaking Latin," he adds, "perhaps one out of a thousand may learn that so that there is a speaker for each sum of one hundred thousand pounds spent on the language."* Then it is said that the act of studying the ancient languages exercise the memory, cultivates the habit of attention, and teaches, too, the art of reasoning. Grant all this. Cannot then the memory be exercised as well by acquiring valuable knowledge as by acquiring a mere knowledge of words? Would the memory lose any thing by affixing ideas to the words it learned? The same questions apply to those who urge the habit of attention, and to all those advocates of the study who insist upon the exercise which it gives to the mind. We do not question the utility of this exercise; we only say that while the mind is exercised it should also be fed. That such topics of advocacy are resorted to is itself an indication of the questionable utility of the study. No one thinks it necessary to adduce such topics as reasons for learning addition and subtraction. The intelligent reader will perceive that the ground upon which these objections to classical studies are urged is that they occupy time which might be more beneficially employed. If the period of education were long enough to learn the ancient languages in addition to the more beneficial branches of knowledge, our inquiry would be of another kind. But the period is not long enough: a selection must be made; and that which it has been our endeavour to show is, that in selecting the classics we make an unwise selection. The remarks which follow will be understood as applying to the middle ranks of society; that is, to the ranks in which the greatest sum of talent and virtue resides, and by which the business of the world is principally carried on.-If we take up a card of terms of an ordinary boarding-school, we probably meet with an enumeration something like this: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, English Grammar, Composition, History, Geography, Use of the Globes, &c. ;" besides the "accomplishments," and French, Greek, and Latin. "Education consists in learning what makes a man useful, respectable, and happy in the line for which he is destined." Useful, respectable, and happy, not merely in his counting-house, but in his parlour; not merely in his own house, but among his neighbours, and as a member of civilized society. Now surely the list of subjects which are set down above is, to say the least, very imperfect. Besides reading, writing, and arithmetic, what is the amount of knowledge which it conveys? English Grammar:-This is Ing. Causes of Decline of Nations, p. 224. |