MIL MAURICE ON EDUCATION, BY THE STATE OR THE CHURCH ?

ON what occasion these Lectures were delivered does not appear; but let them have been delivered when or where they may, they are a very able and rhetorical series of lay sermons, to advance for the Church of England, with some attention to times and circumstances, a spiritual power such as Rome exercised in the middle ages. Every thing in them bespeaks the well-educated, accomplished, thoroughgoing, and. (if so harsh-sounding a word may be used without oflimee) the impudent divine. There is " the pride that apes humility ; " there is the unction, oily, bitter, or venemous, as the case requires ; there is the affected candour—the admission, in words, of the fallibility of an erring creature, whilst the auditor, in effect, is reminded that the mere mortal is clothed, in his ministerial capacity, with authority from the Most High; and there is all that comfortable assumption of convenient premises, which is apt to characterize men who hold forth from pulpits, where they cannot be contradicted or set right. But with these things there is mixed great literary merit. Mr. .11.tuateu is a scholar and an observer ; he has pondered over the history of ant iquit y, he lnis looked about him in his own day ; he has a general knowledge of modern literature, especially where it relates to the subject he discusses ; and his views are laid down with perfect dis. tinctness. He is also a well-exercised and accomplished theological rhetorician—rotund, pleasing to the ear, always lucid, with more solid matter than the followers of the inflated school generally possess, and without the affected personifications which distinguish several ; but he carries the allusive style to such an extent that his meaning is often not clear except to persons acquainted with the subject. Diffuse too be is, no doubt, as are most men accustomed to harangue ; but the stuffing is of a superior kind, and inserted in a workmanlike way.

The following may be taken as an outline of Mr. nu:axes views. Secular systems of education, whether practised by the state or by individuals, are resolvable into three kinds,—one in which the restraint of the faculties is the leading object ; a second in which their development is aimed at ; and a third whose purpose is to impart information. To judge of' the merit of either of these, says the lecturer, we should consider the results produced in action, and, if it be possible, where one end alone was sought for. One requisite example he considers, may be 'blind in Sparta, the object of whose institutions were to restrain the natural disposition—to put a stop to all individual freedom of action or even thought—and to produce, not a man, but a Spartan. But though the laws of LYCURGUS effected his purpose, they failed in raising up it great nation. At Athens, Mr. MAntien conceives, the plan of deceiving the faculties was pursued, and with remarkable success ; producing the most penetrating, animated. and clever people upon record, but the vet' reverse of a sober, virtuous, and in a rational sense well-educated community. The third purpose, that of imparting information, Mr. MAriticE conceives to be the chief element of modern systems ; not so much in England, (where the views of education-mongers are kept in check by the influence of old establishments,) as on the Continent, where the French Revolution and its effects swept away all the old institutions, and in a measure compelled the state to set up a government machinery for national education, if the people were to be taught tut all. And our lecturer concludes, front various reasonings, that this third scheme of a state education has thiled the fundamental cause of thilure being, that on the Continent they do not cultivate men, but craftsmen.

Having thus decided that the state has filled on three great occasions, in each of the three modes by which secular education can be conducted, Mr. 'MAURICE looks about him fbr an exemplar, and finds it in religion,—that is, in the clergy of his own Church, who alone are callable of combining the three systems in a tertian' qua. Some honour is assigned to the Romish Church, for its foundation of Universities, &c. in the darker ages; but the Catholics foiled in educating a nation, because they interfered with the secular power, or rather attempted to usurp its place, This evil was banished by the Reformation : the spiritual power was separated from the secular, and devoted itself (alaek, good man !) to its proper function, the education of mankind, by the worldly means of the pious endowments placed in the bands of its Romish predecessor. The first principle by which the Church and the Universities have accomplished this great object, is by cultivating what is universal itt man, instead of what is .moda/—tbat is, adapted to some trade or profession, or embodying the fleeting fashion of the day. The chief means in use are, 1. The study of the ancient languages ; involving, besides grammar and its concomitants, geography, chronology, history, oratory, and poetry—which sharpen the intellect, develop the faculties, form the taste, and give to an individual by

the shortest cut, the pith If more extensive and varied experience of affairs and human nature than he could attain in the longest life : 2. The study of theology—by which man is taught his duties, his responsibilities, and his hopes as a spiritual being. The charge brought agaiust the Univeraitics, of aversion to reform and slowness to change, is held to be an advantage, as it prevents education from fluctuating with every change of opinion in the people or their rulers, and offers .the spectacle of something stable amidst the mutations of this transitory world.

And it is to these influences that Mr. MAURICE attributes the mind of this country, the stability of its institutions, and in short, all the blessings of our Glorious Constitution. lie does not indeed pretend to maintain that the Church has yet educated more than a section of the country—and that section, we may observe, from which most could be got either in meal or in malt. He fairly pleads guilty to indifference and neglect as regards the past, and proceeds to chalk out a plan for the general education of the people. But its this he is far less effective than in examining the plans of others. Speaking generally, he would allow the Universities to remain much as they are, for the education of' the upper classes, and of 'those destined for professions. For the middle classes, he would establish schools in which English should be the main thing taught, but on a large and comprehensive system, so as to possess the pupil thoroughly with the compass and history of his mother tongue, as well as with the masterpieces of its literature and the exploits of his countrymen, thus fostering a national and social middle class spirit, whilst the intellect was cultivated. Conjoined with this, there would be, of course, religious education according to the Church of England, and, as we understand Mr. MAURICE, music, in the shape of psalmody. For those who have time, means, or marked ability, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, or both, should be taught, in -a higher class of schools, whence scholars could proceed to the University. About the people at large our lecturer does not seem to have made up his mind, or to have succeeded in concocting any plan for their education ; except that something may be done by means of existing schools, old dames, and the parson of the parish. With many remarks and views of a large and almost philosophical character, this work is disfigured by a one-sided, advocating, parson-like spirit, which militates against its better parts, and is indeed its leading defect. Springing front this cause, the reader -will detect many fallacies, sometimes latent, sometimes palpable— and occasionally something more than fallacies. These we shall not notice in particular cases, but content ourselves with commenting on the more pervading ones, in the same general way as we have presented an outline of the author's views. In the first place, then, his foundation is assumed. It does not follow because the state has failed (supposing it to have failed) on the three occasions in which it tried separately the three systems of restraint, development, and imparting knowledge, that the state could not establish a system combining the three. In arguing as to the effects produced by the Universities, Mr. MAURICE adopts the sophism non camel pro Ca218(2; attributing to Church-education all the good which has been coexistent with the Church; though, if he consult the Reverend SYDNEY SNUT/I'S Works, lately published, he will, besides a demolition of the general argument, find it shown by an enumeration of particular names, that nearly all the most celebrated men in literature, science, arts, and arms, were never at the Universities at all. In proposing his own plans and improvements, Mr. MAURICE leaves us altogether in the dark as to the means. How are his middle class •

schools to be erected ? Who is to teach in them Whence are his funds to come ? Is he disposed to apply any " surplus " Church property to this purpose, or any surplus from those endowments which have increased vastly in value by the growth of population ? Will the clergy fulfil their proper function without additional pay? and if they are paid by the state, must they not be controlled by the state ; or is he prepared to say that money is to be given the clergy to do what they please with ? Lastly, the more pressing want, the education of the urban masses, is altogether unpro vided for.

. Descending to lesser fallacies, though still of a general kind—it cannot in strictness be said that the system of imparting information is merely vocational, or only fitting a man for some particular pursuit. On the contrary, natural philosophy embraces the whole science of physical objects; mithmetic and mathematics that of numbers and form in their largest extent ; the difference between the two courses of education being, that the student of this acquires something which is sure to be of direct use to him in the business of life, whilst the student of the classics does not. Then, though Mr. MAURICE asserts, with a more than oracular dogmatism, that the two Greek systems were perfectly successful, he is very far from proving it. Witness this sketch of

ATIIENTAN EDUCATION.

If ever a people really deserved to be called intellectual, this was that people. We must be convinced, when we look at what they have done, and at what they were, that no additional machinery which we possess—no new store of facts or opinions with which twenty-five centuries may have endowed us, can accomplish this work, simply and nakedly considered, of educating the powers or faculties of man better than it was accomplished among them. If it be not so, show us in what single power or faculty the Athenians, as a people, were defi • cient—in what single faculty or power they did not excel any nation that has -ever been upon the earth.

Very well, let us see ; and from our lecturer's own account. "Amid yet, however strange and incompatible with this faith it may seem,

• tbe conviction is forced upon us by Athenian history, that the qualities cultivated in this people, by their education, did become a curse to them, and were

time cause of their ruin. We arc not permitted to suspect that possibly the want of education in some, rather than the possession of it in others; "Wale have caused Athens to decline. We are not permitted to attribute thaldeeline to its slave system, or to any other cause, but to one which is direweitliiyelei co nected with their intellectual discipline. It is the testimony not of one pest Athenian writer of the awe of Pencles, but of those whose opinions and f• ings were in all respects the most opposite to each other, that SophistS Rhetoricians were the destroyers of the Athenian nation ; and that thev de. stroyed it be appealing to those powers, and that sense of power, education of the nation had imparted to it. The great comedian of Athens saw tics : he saw that the feeling of their own insight and profundity made his countrymen a prey to the vulgarest delusions. The .great philosopket of Athens, whom that comedian ridiculed, Saw still deeper Into the meaning of the same fact—saw that the most clever and enlightened of the youth of Athens knew about all manner of things—could talk about all manner of things—but knew liothing whatever of themselves. * * * And therefore, strange as it may seem, sonic of his disciples, though themselves profiting in the most eminent degree by Athenian cultivation, actually sighei after that Lacedlemonian discipline which excluded it altogether. The thought of men who were not always talking, who uttered now and then a pregnant sentence, but for the most part did their Ivork in silence ; the thought of men who did know how to restrain themselves in the gratification of' their tastes and in-• stinets, who were able to practise self-government, and were not the victims of every wretch who had a new theory to hawk about, or a new scheme to try; the contemplation of such men as these was so delightful to these disciples of Socrates, wearied as they were with the infinite variety and endless chatter of the clever Athenians, with their conceit of their own sagacity, their readiness to receive every impostor who came provided with fine phritees and a system of philosophy, that they would have been willing to exchange all they had hears and learned for the rugged ignorance of the Spartan." An educated person like Mr. 111.sunici . cannot but be aware, that man has such a faculty as reason; for it is pretty generally held to be the essential characteristic of our species. Yet it scems the most " perfectly successful" system of developing the fheulties left the principal iheulty undeveloped, and the Athenians, with all their activity and brilliancy of intellect, had entirely neglected the faculty of judgment. In forming his decision, Mr. nauttlee should also Imo remembered that the circumstance of a few citizens stir. rounded by a slave population, which gave rise to the peculiar objects of Sparta, and perhaps, as he says of Athens, could have no effect in modern Europe.

Having quoted Mr. MsuateE on the effects of Athenian educe., tion, we will take, as a pendant, his sketch of the Lacedtemonian ; not merely as a good specimen of the writer, but because, amid the one-sidedness of a rhetorical pleader, there are some remarks worth consideration.

" That tide principle [restraint,] then, was tried most perfectly, and that it

proved itself to be good something in education, I think we have proof. And now the .questions remain, have we proof that it is the principle which we are to keep w sight in our education? Did it avail for that ultimate end which the legislator proposed to himself; the formation of a great legion? There is one gluing event in Greek history upon which we inevitallv fix as the illnstration ot the Spartan mind, and of the effects of Spartan disei;;line. doubtedly it was a marvellous illustration of both, for the three hundred Spartans died not from any principle of ambition or glory, or from any theory about ,what it was graceful or becoming to do, but simply in obedience to the laws. Such a feet is sufficient, I think, to prove that there was a strength and steadflistness in this principle ; and therefore it should be spoken of; and the repetitions of so sunny centuries have not made the record of it less stirring or less pregnant with meaning. But I believe it must be allowed that nearly the whole interest of Spartan history is gathered up in the pass of Thermopyle. Take away that one fact, and all their proceedings during the Persian war aye poor, selfish, and contemptible. Before that time, though their polity must have lasted for some centuries, they had certainly not produced one gist man. The most conspicuous figure in their history, up to the Persian usve,len, is Cleomenes, a mailman, who, in all his conduct at home and abroad, seemed to show what a tremendous reaction the Spartan system must produce in any mind that was not wholly formed by it. A still inure remarkable illustration of the :lune truth on another side is furnished by the history of the period im• mediately after the Persian war. During that time, when the other principal state of Greece was pouring forth remarkable men almost in multitudes, Sputa produced one of whom history has taken notice. This man, Pansanias, :Ads us an instance of a Spartan brought into contact with Oriental luxury. We find that it immediately turns his brain : be cannot the least resist the impression of splendid costume and imperial dainties; he must attempt the most absurd and awkward mutation of them in isis own republic. " But a period conies in the history of Greece, which would seem likely to mil forth all the greatness that was latent in Imeediemonia. [Mr. Maurice means the Peloponnesian wan] The Dorian is brought into contact with the Ionian; every tribe feeling is alive ; the Spartan has an opportunity of displaying lams& in his own proper occupation of war. We have the best opportunity of knowing what he did, fur we have a most impartial, observant, considerate historian of the whole transaction. Ile discovers one man during the whole war, who exhibited the same kind of virtue and spirit, though on far less remarkable occasinns, which distinguish the hero of Thermopylie, All the other actors on the Spartan side are users of too mark or worth at nil; mere generals, finding no occasion for the exhibition even of military virtues. If there had heels nay bright traits in tin. latter part of this period, the author who brings the history of the war to a couclusion, would certainly have discovered them, for Ite had the strongest prejudice in favour of Sparta and her institutions : it is a black picture ot pride and cruelty, with scarcely one redeeming feature. 'Whatever there was best among Spartans was probably called forth in the latest age of their commouwealth, when some men were stirred up, by the degeneracy of around them, to strive, and strive in vain, for the recovery of the ancient discipline. These fact would seem to go a good way in proving that the restraining principle, if it be a grand element in education, cannot be the governing law of it. And yet they are not all which show that the Lycurgaa system, complete and circular as it Wan, failed to accomplish its own purpose of building up a nation. We have the testimony of the most acute observer of antiquity, [the allusion is to An ISTOTLE,] a testimony which Mr. Alit ford has endeavoured to special plead, by alleging that it referred only to a period after the oil institutions had decayed ; whereas it is, in fact, a most elaborate criticism epon the principle of these Institutions, and the natural result of them,—we have this testimony, that the Spartan state became, through the measures of Lyeurgas, utterly without wealth, while its individual members became inordinate lovers of wealth; so that the restraining system operated indeed to the extinetioti of individual chaacter, but inflamed, instead of extinguishing individual ambition and avarice." As a sample of the bitter oil of the divine, these remarks on the changeful character of the spirit of the age may be adduced. The hit at the organ of the Benthamites is fair enough : toleration is not one of the prominent Utilitarian virtues.

Adam Smith had had his way—certainly, if the opinions of his contemporaries bad been followed—logic would have been treated as one of the Absurdities which had been hunted out (except in name) of all places but Oxford : not a book of Aristotle's would have been allowed to remain in the University. Within the lust ten years, logic has been pronounced, upon the

authority of Mr. Bentham and Mr. Mill, and. other leaders of the nineteenth century, to be the most valuable of all studies; Aristotle has been held up as one of the greatest Utilitarian Ivriters. In Adam Smith's day, all poetical criticism not contained in Dr. Blair's Lectures or Lord Kaitues's Elements, would have been hunted out of reasonable society ; now those books themselves, and the school which they represent, have sunk into the lowest estimation. Robertson and Hume would of course have been Smith's standards (.1 historical writing; now the world can listen with great complacency to Charles Lamb's assertion, that their books have the same title to the character of histories as the chess-boards which we see inscribed in gilt letters Ishii the same honourable name. But has it required fifty years to make such changes as these? By no means. A. review started into existence in the Northern part of Great Britain about the year 1801. It was most oracular in all its announcements: especially it took this subject of education under its patronage. ; ridiculed the uuiversties; longed that they might be forced into conformity with the spirit of the age. Men quailed before the utterances of these mighty seers ; only a few poets, universelly denounced as madmen, ventured to dispute their judgments and defy their laughter. I ask those who know, whether there is one canon of taste, one leading dogma, one practical position which these rulers of the ag,e put forth, that would not now lie scouted by the corresponding class to that which then admired them, one which they have not been themselves compelled, by that fixed rule of adapting themselves to all changes of opinion and circumstances, quietly to retract or contradict? Yet more recently, another periodical publication was set on foot expsessly to embody opinions still more emphatically belonging to the age. Whoever differed from these was in the psges of this work, not a foul, but a knave. I do not mean that there was sot another cow:tin the indictment, containing the first charge; but th!s was most pressed. He must have some sinister interest to misdirect his_judgment, otherwise he would not reject doctrines so clearly and invincibly demonstrated. But, alas the knaves have been justitied, for the honest men have themselves abandoneit full one-half of these irresistible demonstrations, sea now find it oftentimes very convesient to convict their opponents of hold'Mg them and acting upon them. Still, like their predecessors, they ere enraged at Universities for not adapting themselves to the spirit of the age—that is to say, of not shaping their education according to the maxitns of 1S24, to be reformed again according to the altered and often opposite maxims of 1.939."

We will close with this specimen of

THE CHURCHMAN ON MS HIGH HORSE.

VI had alluded to these events, it would not have been for the purpose of reading a lesson to another country, but to oar own country and to ourselves. It would have been that 1 ought be able to say to English statesmen, " In mercy to yourselves do not meddle with us, or depend upon it, unless history be a lie, we shall mettle with you. And do not lay the flattering unction to your souls, that we have not power to meddle with you 110W, as we once had— 'that intellect has marched so far in advance of us, that all spiritual terrors will now prove of no effect. If you are men of sense, you cannot delude yourselves with such a notion as this. You cannot open your eyes and see wont is gein, on in Prussia, or indeed in every nation under heaven, and not know that, for good or for evil, spiritual influences are as much at work now as they ever were in any age of the world. The mere announcement of a spiritual principle, from whatever quarter it may proceed, creates a movement and a ferment through society, which compel the attention of politicians, and make them wonder how it is that with all their magic they cannot produce the most faint imitation of them. &months:, or (if you like the name better) Intellectualizethe people as you will, you will not stop the inlets through which this influence finds its way. You will only cause, that what can no longer reach tItz deep springs of. life in human society, shall be continually ruffling anddisturbing its surface. If then, being thus hindered in the exercise oj those functions which we feel are committed to us, we begin to claim authority in a province with which we have to concern, do not think that you will quell our arrogance by telling us, or telling the peoqle, that we know less of state matters than any creatures who write or read. That is very true ; whenever we do forsake our proper vocation, we display this pitiful ignorance. But see a het her we shall not be able to answer you by saying, These men display more ignorance in our province of education than any creatures that write or mad.' Se.e whether tee shall not he able to justify every act of madness of SLITS, by a parallel act of madness of yours. We call upon you then not to put us and yeurselves into this peril, eith,.r merely for the sake of defying us mid Awing us what you can do, or under some vain notion that you can benefit your cow t y by usurping functions which neither yeu nor your flithers were ever able to diseharge."

Mr. MAuttien is evidently an ecclesiastic of no common stamp ; and in these times of dearth of ability, the Church should foster and reward him. A Bishop, no doubt, he ought eventually to be; but let the dispensers of patronage bear in mind the maxims of our wise HENRY the Seventh, commended by the wiser BAcos, and proceed gradually in his advancements. These Lectures deserve a step ; but let it be understood that the: next grade must be earned by another intellectual effort, and so on—that the Church may get the utmost value out of him, and we Isis volumes to review.