THE TRUE NUCLEUS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION.
ACCORDING to the reply which Lord John Russell made to the Public School deputation last week, the machinery for the very imperfect education existing in this country is an obstacle to se- curing effective education for the body of the people at large. That we are not stretching his intent, but only bringing together the two extremes of his argument, will appear from a reference to his speech. Lord John did not deny that the American system would be a desirable one, that system being a public system, and independent of sectarian influences. Attempts have been made by more than one sect to obtain possession of it, one of the most per- tinacious being the Roman Catholic sect. The members of that persuasion attempted to obtain the management of a school in Ohio quite lately, and were wholly frustrated. In New York they have tried to procure the disuse of the Bible as &school-book ; and although there might be many Protestants in,that State who would not insist upon the use of the Bible, yet in the particular The Vulgate has Beneficenthe autem et communionis nolite oblivisci.' Again—we take examples quite at random-2 Tim. ii. 16, 'Profane autem et vaniloquia devita ; melt= enim proficiunt ad impietatem.' This the old version translated, 'But profane and vain speeches avoid ; for they do much grow to impiety.' In the emended edition (1750) we have, 'But shun pro- fane and vain babblings, for they grow much towards ungodliness.' This correction is taken verbatim from the Protestant version, with the exception of 'grow towards, instead of 'increase unto more.' Jut the change was injudicious; for the Latin compound vaniloquium, or the Greek rivoctueoia, is exactly expressed by vain speech' ; whereas the word ' babbling' corre- sponds to the entire word, and cannot have the epithet 'vain' ; for thus, the phrase would represent the absurd tautology 'vanum vaniloquium.' In later editions, as that of Dublin 1810, published with Dr. Troy's approbation, the word speeches' is restored, but the construction is not."
Here follow more instances, and the writer continues.
" But it had been well if Dr. Challoner's alterations had given stability to the text, and formed a standard to which subsequent editors had conformed. But, far from this being the case, new and often important modifications have been made in every edition which has followed, till at length many may appear rather new versions than revisions of the old. We believe Ca- tholic Britain to be the only country where such a laxity of attention has existed in regard to the purity of its authorized version. And we should have even less reason to complain had these systematic variations been the only vicissitudes to which it has been subject. The mass of typographical errors to be found in some editions is quite frightful, from many of them falling upon important words, and not so much disfiguring them, which would lead to suspicion and thereby to detection, as transforming them into others that give a correct grammatical but unsound theological sense. In 1632, the King's printers, Barker and Lucas, were fined 30001. for the omis- sion of one monosyllable ; and the Oxford Bible of 1792 is considered a curiosity because it reads (Luke xxii. 34) Philip instead of Teter. But in the edition which we have referred to, (of Dublin, 1810,) revised under Dr. Troy's direction by the Reverend B. MacMahon, many worse substitutions are to be found. A table at the end gives a number of them ' • as Matt. xvi. 23, Thou favourest not,' for Thou savourest not' ; and Romans vii. 18, To accomplish that which is good I find out,' instead of I find not.' The table of errata is, however, very far from complete : for instance, the follow- ing among others are omitted in it. Gal. iv. 9, How turn you again to the work (for weak) and poor elements.' Ib. v. 23, Modesty, conti- nency, charity,' instead of ' chastity.' In a note, p. 309, we read, ' Sin, which was asleep before, was weakened by the prohibition,' instead of awakened.'" The miscellaneous papers in the third volume have the advan- tage of greater -variety and a more general character than the previous " essays," although the Romanist objects of the writer continually appear. This gives a narrow and professional not to say a sectarian air to the whole, and conjoined with the pre- vious thousand pages on the same theme it becomes wearisome. The literary or politico-religious papers are not of remarkable merit. They have neither the refined, discriminating, pungent Criticism of Jeffrey, the striking, gorgeous pictures of Macaulay, nor the caustic sagacity, the penetrating wit and worldliness, of Sydney Smith. The best papers are those on art. They ex- kibit a wide acquaintance with the subject, long rather than deep -thought, a spirit of nice criticism, and an independence of mina not always found in art-critics, who are generally wedded to authority if not to conventions. It may be a question whether this independence, or the theological object of lending art to eccle- siastical purposes, may not be pushed a shade too far in the open- ing observations of the following extract on ancient art. Im- provement in Gothic forms is merely a correction, leaving the principle untouched. To change the Egyptian or Grecian em- blems, strikes us as altering the entire character of Pagan art, and exactly fulfilling the ridicule of the satirist, nominally of Dr. Wiseman's own communion :
"Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn, And Pan to Moses lends his Pagan horn ; See graceful Venus to a Virgin turned."
"The tendency of architectural movements is to return to given models, and to reproduce as nearly as possible the works of other times. This is the case with every sort of architecture. If a man revive Egyptian patterns, he must needs introduce sphinxes and hieroglyphics, though they are worse than absolute nonsense ; and the restorers of Grecian architecture give us most punctually the wreathed skulls of victims, the paterie, and other heathen srmhole, devoid of meaning, and of beauty too, when out of place. The better ecclesiological movement which has taken place in England (most happily, we own) has a similar though better-directed tendency to repro- duce the radenesses, and even deformities, of past ages. It so happened, by a very obvious process, that the various branches of what are called the fine arts did not develop equally in any country ; that while architecture, for instance, in England and France had reached its prime of matchless beauty, drawing and painting were not equally advanced : hence, splendid canopies overshadow but indifferent figures, and the few remains which we have of painting generally present but inferior specimens of conception or design. Unfortunately, in copying, as they deserve' the architectural monuments of our forefathers, we have taken to admire and even to copy their very unequal embellishments in the way of sculpture and drawing.
"Bat this is not even the worst : we have almost canonized defects, and
sanctified monstrosities. What was the result of ignorance or unskilfulness, we attribute to some mysterious influence or deep design. A few terms give sanction and authority to any outrageousness in form, anatomy, or position ; to stiffness, hardness, meagreness, unexpressiveness—nay, to impossibili- ties in the present aructure of the human frame. Feet twisted round, fingers in wrong order on the hand, heads inverted on their shoulders, distorted features, squinting eyes, grotesque postures, bodies stretched out as if taken from the rack, enormously elongated extremities, grim- ness of features, fierceness of expression, and an atrocious contradiction to the anatomical structure of man,—where this is displayed, are not only allowed to pass current, but are published in the transactions of societies, are copied into stained glass, images, and prints, and are called 'mystical,' or 'symbolical,' or 'conventional' forms and representations. And this is enough to get things praised and admired which can barely be tolerated by allowance for the rudeness of their own age. We have seen re- presentations of saints such as we honestly declare we should be sorry to meet in fieeh and blood, with the reality of their emblematic sword or club about them, on the highway at evening. And because these were the produc- tions of an age eminently Catholic, they are considered as the types of an art equally so. But religious art does not look at time but at nature, which changes not, and at religion, which is equally immutable. To make rude carvings because the building on which they are placed is Norman, or to make a stiff design because the glass is framed in early English traoery, may be all quite characteristic, but it is not artistic. The object of all art is to speak to the eye, and through it to the feelings."
We have said already, that in a literary or artistic sense the continual predominance of one subject, however varied, is mono- tenons and fatiguing. As applied to collected writings the fault is great, though of course it would not be felt in a publication at considerable intervals. As the proof of a preconceived pur- pose skilfully and indefatigably carried out, the literary fault be- comes a practical excellence, and a curious subject of contempla- tion to boot. It is obvious that for twenty years and upwards Dr. Wiseman had contemplated the " revival" of Romanism, which was somewhat dead and formal in the British Isles, and its extension, so far as might be. With this purpose, as he half intimates in the preface, he joined the _Dublin _Review. He lost no opportunity, in its pages and elsewhere, of advocatino. (as the reader has partly seen) an improvement in the sacred and religious literature of the Romanists—of endeavouring to excite the zeal of his coreligionists both lay and clerical, and to give them activity if not unction—to encourage the secondary influences of Romanism in art, in edifices, in costumes and external shows, so far as the law would let him, and maybe somewhat further—to aim at converts from the zealous, spirituel, good-intentioned, but often rather weakminded Tracts- nans, as well as from the silly sight-loving dilettante church-goers without religion either of the heart or the head, either of grace or knowledge ; for pure Protestants, he seems to think, are not very assailable. In this attempt, no doubt, he has been assisted by time and circumstance,—by a general religious movement among all Christian sects; by a sort of mediaeval revival in literature, art, and other things, which, in poetry beginning with Collins and Goldsmith, and in Percy's old ballads, culminated in Scott's novels, and declined into the unproductive good inten- tions of Young Englandism and the productive needlework of Tractarian young ladies. The great ability of some of the Trac- tarian "perverts," their influence over others, the notoriety of their conversion, and their proverbial renegade zeal, further assisted him. But the great adventitious aid of Dr. -Wiseman was de- rived from the Socialists and Red Republicans. The revolutionary terrors of 1848, whether rightly or wrongly, convinced the Legiti- mate rulers, or those who set up for such, that they must oppose the spirit of Democracy or progress by some other spell. The readiest to hand, and the best they knew, was the Papistry. Russia encouraged—Austria, France, and Spain, supported the Pope ; and possibly, as has been officially insinuated, the tenito- rial titles affair was the result of Austrian spleen. Still, when every allowance has been made to fortune and to others, the meed of success must be awarded to Dr. Wiseman : he has done what he proposed to do. Whether Nemesis has been asleep—whether the Cardinal is an exception to the warning of the ancient moralist,
"Quid, tam dextro pede eoncipis, at to Conatus non pmniteat, votique peracti "-
must be left to time to tell. In Great Britain his success has roused an Anti-Papal feeling which will outlast his life and per- haps generations after him. The alliance of Popery and tyranny throughout Europe has enlisted against the Papacy and its dog- mas all the progressive spirit of the age, save some crotchety " Liberals," whom the triumphant Church would soon dismiss to " go in peace." The restoration of the Pope by the bayonets of the French will most likely destroy the Popedom at the very first opportunity its subjects get.
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