THE ENGLISH ABROAD AND THEIR GUIDE-BOOKS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
shall be glad if you can allow me space in the Spectator for a few remarks on the above subject, which have been sug- gested to me by a four months' visit to Germany. If they should lead to any discussion in the Spectator, some good will, I think, come of it.
"The proper study of mankind," we commonly say, "is man.'' But "man," his life and well-being ; what human life is, in the several countries through which the Guide-books conduct us ; what is done in them now, and has been done in former years, for the elevation and moral and physical improvement of men ; what institutions are to be found in them for benevolent purposes ; what the state, and what the methods of education, and how they differ from those to which we are accustomed in England,—on these and the whole class of subjects bearing upon human life and progress, there is almost complete silence in our Guide-books. They tell us in detail of pictures and works of art of all kinds, of the antiquities, the oddities and curiosities, the beauties of scenery, to be seen in the countries they describe; the rules for living com- fortably; but on man, what he is and how he lives, little is said. In this respect the Guide-books may remind us of those maps in physical atlases in which only the beasts, and birds, and fishes, or only the plants, and the winds and currents, and the physical temperature and its characteristics, in each country, are noted, and man and his doings ignored. St. Paul, waiting in ancient Athens, had his spirit, we are told, greatly stirred within him with pain because he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. But if he had been a typical modern traveller, it would have been only with pleasure, because he saw it so full of beautiful works of art.
Now this defect is to be deplored. If the editors of our Guide- books turned their attention more to subjects of present and living human interest,—less to antiquities, and more to the living world, as it is now ; less to ancient, and more to the most modern history, they would confer a great benefit upon multitudes of English traveling and settlers in foreign lands. "Me trouvant inutile a ce Bieck, je me rejette k un passe," said a French anti- quarian. This appears to be the motto we are expected to adopt on our travels ; hence, we lose great pleasures and benefits which we might derive from them. The fault, perhaps, is not primarily in the Guide-books ; they only provide what the readers demand, and the demand being what it is, Murray, Baedeker, and the rest meet it admirably. But what we have to complain of is that the demand is not, in a great degree at least, of another, and more " human " and Christian sort. Man and his life is always the most interesting object in any place. If I had been treating in a guide-book some years back of Leeds, and replying to the ques- tion, "What is its most remarkable product ?" I should have been inclined to answer, "Dr. Hook." "And what is best worth observing in the town ?" "The fine old Vicar's work in his parish." But the common guide-books would have answered, "wool" and the "manufactories." The fact is, we have got into the habit of looking at the world from a fundamentally erroneous and misleading point of view, in which art, commerce, and the like stand out as the first and most prominent objects of atten- tion, and man and his life only second. "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." We apply the first limb of that sentence to the study of commerce, art, and the like, and the second to man and his life ; whereas we ought evidently to do the reverse.
Now, no doubt, it will be said that all this is visionary and un- practical. We may pass these abstract resolutions, but when we go into committee to consider how to pat them into practice, we shall find it cannot be done,—the work is too deep and large. The reason, it will be said, why the subject of Art, and the like, is noticed, and directions given as for its study, and the other wider subjects omitted, is that it is so mach easier to study and to give rules for the study of the former than of the latter. The canons of Art, for instance, are comparatively definite, and when once clearly stated, easy of application ; but as to the moral char- acteristics of a population, none but professed philosophers can deal with such a subject, and when they do, none but philosophers will listen to them. It is true that the one book with which I happen to be myself acquainted which attempts systematically to -offer help of the kind I am speaking of for the study of man,—i.e., the volume of the valuable series published, I think, by the Admiralty some years ago, on "How to Observe," which refers to "morals and manners," and which was written by so able and practised a writer as Miss Martineau, is not, in my opinion at least, very successful for its purpose. Much of it wpuld be, to most of us, heavy ancrunattractive reading.
It is grounded in Miss Martineau's somewhat ponderous and, to rainy of us, questionable philosophy of life ; and it is not worked up enough into popular shape to be read by travellers. If the very cold " cream " which she gives us had been " whipped " by the light hand of some practised literary cook, it might have been made to "go down" well enough. But it would not be necessary to keep to such high, abstract regions. We might have such subjects treated, for instance, as the state of the schools, and education for children, and adults, and all kinds of religious and benevolent associations might be noticed, with the names and directions of the principal persons from whom trustworthy information may be had upon them. Even such points as the laws of etiquette which regulate visiting in the different countries—as, for instant?, whether a foreigner or a resident is expected to " call " first, and under what condi- tions—for lack of knowledge of which we often miss valuable acquaintance which we might have made, and even give serious offence, and bar our way into social life, might be given with very great advantage, if inquiry was made of the really trustworthy authorities on such matters.
The general object is to enable a traveller to' realise truly the kind of world, social, moral, religious, political, in which he is in any place ; what he should notice chiefly, and how he may best inform himself upon all questions of interest bearing upon human life and its welfare there.
All this requires, if it is to 'be well done, to be treated by a competent writer ; if possible, by a master-mind, well acquainted with the whole life of each place, and with sufficient knowledge of the places and countries (specially of England, if it is for the guidance of the English that he writes), to be able to compare with truth that place with others. But for so great an object as the right guidance of inquiry upon such vital questions, it would not, I think, be difficult to induce some of the best and largest- minded men to give their assistance, particularly when they saw, as they would do in writing for guide-books, that they were likely to gain the ear of large numbers of persons, at times when they would have leisure and inclination to reflect upon the subjects treated. If, for instance, such a man as Mr. Max Muller could
be got to write a dozen or more pages on Germany, and its manners, institutions, and interests, to be read by English travellers and settlers in Germany, there would surely be no fear that what he wrote, with his great name and practised literary skill to recommend it, would not be eagerly read and studied,— or would not carry great weight. If any one of anything like the same knowledge, authority, and literary gifts would write a similar essay on France, on Italy, and other countries, and if each writer would append a brief "catalogue raisonne " of the best books upon the countries of which he treats, and of the best authorities to consult, the advantage would be incal- culable to all future travellers and settlers in foreign lands. Such a series of "Humanity Guide-books," as one now might call them, need not displace those to which we are accustomed, but accompany them. Then travellers would not have to say, "Me trouvant inutile a cc siècle, je me rejette k an passé ? " but at the same time that they cast intelligent glances at past times, they would keep their most lively and earnest atten- tion for the living world and its all-important interests. And the spirit so cultivated would, I think, be likely to bring more of what may be called human interest into the study of Art and Antiquities too. It would help men to look at these things with a view to improving their knowledge not only of the canons of Art, important as they are in their place (and if Mr. Ruskin, for instance, would help in the guidance of travellers in each country, great would be the advantage), and of Antiquities, with a view to chronology, or to mere political or art history, considered in a technical sense, but with regard to what such remains of past ages or specimens of the works of distant nations may show as to what the nature of that human life was, or is, which was the con- text out of which they came. In some such ways, either by issuing a new kind of Guide-books, to be added to the common ones, or by procuring the insertion of essays into the old ones, by the best authorities, a great reform, much needed, might be introduced, which would give much deeper and more pro- fitable interest to that enormous fact in The world's life,— English travelling and English influence upon the world, and enable us all to bring home lessons, gathered from the experi-
ence of our brother-men in all nations, which might add in very many ways to the interest and profit of our lives at home, when we return.
As it is, though English bees swarm all over the world, they do not bring home a thousandth part of the honey and wax they might bring, if better trained and directed for their work, to the P.S.—Since I wrote the above, I have been informed that there is one guide-book written upon the principles for which I am pleading. In Baedeker's guide-book for Egypt, in addition to articles—each written by one of the men of highest authority upon its subject—with regard to antiquities and the questions which occupy the learned on Egypt and its remains, the work contains also, I am told, a very thorough treatment of the subject of the present condition and actual life of the country. Of course, in the case of nations more developed in civilisation, and which present for notice elaborate systems of education and a many- sided life, to do this would be a larger and more arduous under- taking, but not an impossible one for a man of the requisite know- ledge and ability.
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