LIBERALISM AND CULTURE.
MR. FORSTER, in his speech to the Gladstone Club at Glasgow, and Lord Derby, in his speech to the Liberal Club at Manchester, have both expressed themselves very unwilling to believe that Culture is, on the whole, on the side of the Conservatives. Indeed, Mr. Forster hinted that the difficulties which the Tories find in establishing a Conserva- tive magazine go some way to prove that culture is on the side of the Liberals. It is, however, beyond doubt, as we showed a week or two ago, in dealing with the Cambridge Uni- versity election, that the Universities of the United. Kingdom, including even the four Scotch Universities and the Univer- sity of London, are much more Conservative than Liberal. Oxford and Cambridge prefer decidedly Conservative Mem- bers even without any claim to Academical repute, to Liberal Members with very high claims of this kind ; and as for the University of Dublin, it would not elect a Liberal even if ho had written a poem that placed Irish genius above every other national genius, and had also discovered the means of opening a lively communication with the most distant spheres, and had invented a universal language, and had proved himself an artist as great as Raffaelle or Phidias. Even the Scotch Universities are more Conservative than Liberal, for while Edinburgh and St. Andrew's return a Liberal by a mere fluke, so close is the running, Glasgow and Aberdeen return a Conservative by a decisive majority. The London University is the only one genuinely Liberal, and the London University is one in which Dissent certainly preponderates. Thus, however false it may be that Culture is positively Tory, we have very little reason to suppose that it is essentially Liberal. It appears, then, that whether culture is Conservative or not, it certainly is very far indeed from insuring anything like sympathy with progressive Liberalism.
And we think we can explain the reason. Dr. Abbott, in a fine sermon preached three weeks ago before the University of Oxford, on the text, " Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifleth," took some pains to define the sort of knowledge which has the effect of puffing up. The knowledge which puffs up, he said, is the know- ledge on which we pride ourselves as distinguishing us from our inferiors. Knowledge of that kind must be more or less leisurely and ornamental,—not the knowledge which is wholly absorbed by the mind in the energetic pursuit of truth or beauty, but knowledge on which we reflect with a certain conceit as constituting us the elite of Society, and giving us the excuse for airing our exclusive interests and our refined sensibilities. It is, he said, " The satisfaction arising from the feeling that we possess, directly or remotely, some- thing which others possess not at all, or in a less degree," which puffeth up. The knowledge which is prone to declare that men are " mostly fools," mostly to be moved by bribes and fears, and not by their higher and more rational feelings, is the knowledge that puffeth up. In other words, the know- ledge which generates scorn, puffeth up ; the knowledge which generates humility helps the influence of the charity which edifieth. This distinction of Dr. Abbott's will go a good way, we think, towards explaining the repulsion of culture for popular causes. It is a very common saying, that the more a man knows, the humbler he is, but it is by no moans a true saying. On the contrary, so far as superficial knowledge goes, it is a very false saying. Nothing is more delusive than the importance which a so-called educated man assigns to his knowledge in relation to his fitness for the work of lifo. The truth is that its real importance, though considerable, is, relatively to the value of other non-intellectual qualities of character, nothing like as groat as is supposed ; and, indeed, is actually much less than it might be, on account of the false and misleading importance which a superficially educated
man attaches to his education. Nay, his education con- stantly leads him into positive error, whenever it induces him to think—as it constantly does—of those who have no education as on that very account devoid of the chief elements of, for instance, political judgment. Now, we do not scruple to say this,—that a poor man who can neither read nor write, but who is, nevertheless, upright in heart, and full of sympathy for his fellow-men, whether rich or poor, has in him far more of the elements of a sound political judgment, than a rich man, who has taken his degree at one of the Universities, but who is selfish and exclusive, can by any possibility possess. For most of the homely purposes of life,—for most of the political purposes of mem voters,—a warm heart and power of putting yourself in imagination into the place of others, whether poor or rich, is a far better contribution towards sound judgments, than the full total of any little book knowledge that is picked up at school and college. The bad effect,—we believe the only bad effect,—of education is its inflating tendency, its tendency to turn the educated into a clique or caste who think of those who have no education as the Pharisees thought of the " accursed " people who knew not the Law. Even a little education is most valuable, so long as its value is not over- rated by him who possesses it, as it too often is. You will find that a boy who can just translate "Canis latrat," thinks himself, on that account, entitled to give himself airs with a boy who learns only English. And yet the know- ledge of a few Latin words, at all events while it goes no further, is absolutely without effect on the conduct of life ; though the smallest excuse for giving oneself airs has a very
injurious effect indeed on the conduct of life. It is the same with an elementary knowledge of history, geography, and even " the use of the globes." To know these things is some little good, so long as they are not overrated. But to know them, and yet so to mistake the importance of knowing them that it " puffs up " a man's general demeanour, is a very doubtful benefit indeed,—perhaps even a mischief. We believe that, on the whole, the effect of an average University education—we do not mean a thorough one, which is sure to bring with it a certain amount of humility, if not of directly enlarged sympathies—is to inspire men with a very dangerous scorn for ignorance, and antipathy to what are often quite falsely thought of as cries due to ignorance, though they may be really very different things, cries due to suffering and want. This is why we do not value the political opinion of the Uni- versities highly. The voters at the Universities include pro- bably three superficially educated men, for every one in whom educatiqn has widened the sympathies and deepened the humility. And of course, these three men will be even poorer judges of political matters than they would have been if they had not had their sympathiei narrowed by a misplaced scorn for the "dim common populations."
Knowledge, so far as it puffeth up—and a great deal of it produces much more political effect in the way of inflating windbags, than it produces in the way of pricking them—mis- leads. We sincerely believe that if the •University suffrage were limited to men who had actually got to the knowledge of their superficiality and ignorance, and Who had taught them-
selves how much less knowledge contributes to a sound practical judgment than rightly-ordered sympathies, the Universities would seldom or never return a representative capable of set- ting his face like a flint against a great popular movement. The classes who are usually described as educated are made up in much larger degree of persons whose sympathies have been gravely disordered by the polish given to their tastes, than of persons whose sympathies have been widened while their in- tellects have been expanded under the process of education. And the result is that, if you poll the educated classes alone, you will probably find three persons who see nothing bat buncombe in popular causes, to every two who have learned that popular causes always have something substantial in them, even though the multitude may have mistaken seriously in what direction the true remedy for their grievances lies.
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