TOPICS OF THE DAY.
CAUTION FOR THE TIMES.
Tae gradual improvement of institutions—whether the correc- tion of positive abuses, the abolition of worn-out usages, the sub- stitution of more effective for less effective instruments, or the elevation and enlargement of ultimate aims—is, in free countries especially, so much the result of an aggressive public opinion, and -of exasperated conflict between parties interested respectively in the maintenance of the old and the establishment of the new, and so rarely proceeds from the experience of those engaged in the working of the machinery needing alteration, that we cannot won- der at the extent to which our reforms leave undone ranch that they should do and do much that they should leave undone. The blame rests chiefly with the party in possession, whose per- tinacity in the defence of selfish interests too frequently succeeds in staving off all change, till the accumulated mass of grievances excites the vehement indignation of the people, and then good and bad are swept away together ; and, so the work of clearance be
done, the nation cares little for minuter points, for real wants that the old institution supplied, for secondary and indirect benefits it b=as perhaps all the while silently effecting for the community. ut the fervour of change, the gloss of the novelty, soon passes, and practical experience resuming sway begins to- feel that the change is not wholly for good ; and what is called reaction setting in, we either go on grumbling at the disappointment of all mortal hopes, or have to set to work afresh at a supplementary joint to the new maohinery which shall do the work of something we have only a little before blindly destroyed. Everybody's experience of public and even of private life will furnish instances in abundance of this sort of experience. We reformed our electoral system, and we did what was much needed ; but, going rather fiercely to work, we limited most injuriously our range of choice for able men to fill the administrative departments of the State, and we shut the doors of the House of Commons upon all young men of ability, except those of high birth, great wealth, or extreme opinions,—m other words, a change professedly democratic has thrown us more completely in practice into the hands of the aristocracy, and no Venetian oligarchy was ever more exclusive than our present caste of State-governors. Church history among us exemplifies the principle abundantly. The Reformation, which purified the- ology, simplified worship, and made the State supreme—looked at on its reverse dried up religion to a mummy of dogmatic skeleton encased in a colourless skin of logic, struck down religious art with a deathblow, and deprived the Church of a freedom necessary to every institution that is to present absolute truth under chan- ging historical conditions.. Our recent efforts at Church-reform have been mainly directed to increase the efficiency of the Church as the direct educator of the nation in religious truth. But it may well be doubted, whether we have not too much lost sight of the indirect influence of Church dignities as supports of learn- ing, and as placing learned men on a social equality with our aris- tocracy of birth and money. We determined to turn Cathedral Canonries to what we call practical utility, and could think - of no wiser plan than to attach them, in many cases, to University Professorships ; by which device, we have prevented laymen from holding purely scientific and literary appointments, and have thrown additional weight into the clerical predomi- nance, already excessive in those departments. Even now we are in danger—unless wiser counsels prevail over the clamour of demagogues, alarmed for their personal influence, and unable to endure the criticism of a powerful press— of sacrificing our higher journalism to a paltry and hypocritical cry about taxes on knowledge. A careful observer of facts, or even a careful a priori thinker, could not examine one of our great reforming measures, wise as they may have been when considered broadly, without perceiving that their good was not unmixed— that they were not only imperfect, but had each destroyed some- thing that was useful, without supplying its place. And such an examination exhaustively applied to all our recent reforms—in- cluding the great one of all, the reform of the instrument of re- form—would be one of the most philosophically instructing and .practically useful contributions possible to political science. We may observe in passing, that this tendency of all political changes to destroy what is useful, as well as introduce what is more widely useful, is something very different from their tendency to create a necessity for further change by enlarging the scope of our desires after perfection, and introducing a purer spirit into public life. " Man never is, but always to be blest," is the mainspring of all progress. Ever as we advance towards our ideal, the horizon vanishes, the distance widens with our widening vision, and we never reach the infinite however far we may travel along the lines of the finite. But this, which is as true of national as of indivi- dual action, does not arise from any avoidable imperfection in the steps of our progress ; the more perfect each stage is in itself, the
more surely is it only a stepping-stone to another and a higher stage, the more surely is our view from it enlarged ; the possible yet unattained expands in proportion to the magnitude of our at- tainments. But the tendency we speak of arises wholly from the folly and haste of our own procedure, and is to that extent within our control, and is actually checked by the influence of each wise calm man among us.
We have fallen into this train of thought, not from meditating on any-special instance of the tendency forced upon us by current events, but by reading the inaugural lecture of the new Latin Professor at Oxford, Mr. John Conington. The lecture is more re- markable for thorough good sense, and ajust estimate of the posi- tion the learned languages are henceforth destined to occupy in English education, than for any display of brilliant literary quali- ties or profound philosophic views. It is the work of a practical scholar, whose function is to teach others what he knows, not to theorize about teaching what he does not know. But the lecturer begins by giving a brief account of the history of the study of Latin at Oxford ; and recalls to our remembrance, that three hun- dred years ago, Cardinal Wolsey and Bishop Fox—at a time when Latin was ceasing to be a common European medium of communi- cation, and when Greek was beginning to rival its exclusive lite- rary attractions—instituted two professorships to maintain the study of Latin under these new conditions. The Reformation came soon after, and in its devouring, fertilizing deluge, Oxford did not escape. The enlightened intentions of Wolsey and Bishop Fox shared the fate of worse things, and Oxford has since then— in spite of the just censure to which her exclusive devotion to the ancient learning has exposed her—been without any University teaching of Latin, till the modern demand for a severely scientific study of both Latin and Greek has at last called into exist- ence the professorship which Mr. Conington worthily fills, and which may be said to represent both the foundations of Fox and Wolsey, as Corpus Christi College and the University contribute each a half of the new Professor's salary. It was the history of this professorship. which set us thinking on the general principle of which we have given above several exemplifications from our re- cent political experience. Here was one of the mightiest reforms in modern history, sweeping away, with the accumulated rubbish and iniquity of centuries, a little newly-planted germ of good and it has taken us three hundredyears to restore that germ— no proof that it was not really wanted before, unless we are to al- low that intellectual deficiencies always create an appetite that seeks to supply them, and unless we are to reject the almost con- current testimony to the decay of high. Latin scholarship among us. We may observe in conclusion, that the like deficiency in the academical staff exists still at Cambridge, and that among_pro- jected reforms the institution of a University-Professor of the Latin language and literature is contemplated there too. If we confine our attention to that field of experience to which Mr. Conington's lecture naturally draws us, we shall find the principle of which we have hitherto given political exemplifica- tions hard at work. Take as an instance the study of the ancient language. What an outcry there was in the early part of this century, from the Liberal party generally, against wasting the time of young men on Latin and Greek ! what a demand for "useful knowledge"—for the study of things instead of words! But for the via inertite of our institutions, it may be doubted whether this outcry would not have scared ancient literature and history out of schools and universities into solitary. nooks and corners. For, much as might have been said on their behalf, the real practical value of these studies was but dimly perceived by even their advo- °atm But the simple resisting power of our institutions preserved them, and the innovating spirit only succeeded in making them unpopular and ridiculous in the eyes of "the enlightened." But the continual discussion and conflict threw an ever-increasing light upon the truth held by each party, enabled the higher and less passionate minds to disentangle the truth from the falsehood with which it was mixed, to find both faces of truth where they had before seen and worshiped but one, till it has gradually come to be acknowledged that the classical literature and languages form an essential part of a complete modern education,—not because they do not convey a knowledge of useful things, but just in proportion as they are the only means of getting at a large class of important facts ; while as instruments of training they have the immense ad- vantage of affording but little pleasure to the student except on the condition of rigorous critical study, whereas neither modern literature nor physical science refuses even the idlest reader some- thing of a pastime. Here, then, we have to thank that very re- sisting power of our institutions with which we are apt occasion- ally to get very angry, for standing in the way of a crude sweep- ing revision of our national education, which would have in- flicted upon us incalculable injury. No doubt, thepractical difficulty is to combine this large view of the mixed tendency of great popular movements with active zeal in pursuing what each man thinks to be right and necessary at any one time. Philosophic breadth is apt to degenerate into indifferentism, freedom from popular and party narrowness into a disbelief in truth ; and in practical action one is often compelled to choose between doing a great good with a little harm and leaving a great evil unassailed. No formula will enable us to avoid or conquer the difficulty ; but it may be disarmed, by the consideration and recognition of a principle which does more than any other to cheek party violence, personal bitterness, and gene- rally that narrowness of view which characterizes our contests of opinion, and which finds indeed an organized expression in our party system of government, from which individuals acting in public life in cooperation with others feel it so hard to escape. The more is it incumbent on us, and on all whose province is com- ment and criticism and suggestion, and whose freedom is large and uncontrolled, to cultivate the opposite temper, to bow to no idols of the hour, to submit experience and reason'to no over- whelming influence of one idea forced into activity by some necessities of the moment. It is especially the business of those who aspire to form public opinion, rather than to use its motive power for special purposes, to bear in mind the words of one who has only missed being a great poet by wilfulness — ." There is truth in falsehood, falsehood in truth ; no man ever told one great truth, that I know, without the help of a good dozen of lies at least, generally unconscious ones." And it is the same in action. To lay a wise finger on those good dozen lies that every great change for good comes entangled with—to pick them out one by one, and hold them up to the populace, hungry for the good, and careless how many, lies they swallow with it—that is the function of the thinker, who would help his age by spending on the com- plexities of present human affairs the labour and the genius so many are willing to spend upon brute matter and curious antiqui- ties. We want the popular sympathy of whioh demagoguism is the counterfeit, with the wisdom and the, calmness that refuse to bow to popular idols, to be allured by applause or scared by mo- mentary anger. When will our higher education, of which we hear so much from Oxford and Cambridge, so train up our states- men and clergy as to meet this want, long and deeply felt, and more pressing as our affairs increase in complexity and our people in political power P
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