The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin Part 21

So is it with the cultivation and discipline of the mind, it a handsomer place than I thought for-really a respectable town. But it is sadly behind the world in many things. Think of its having no Social Science, not even a National Gallery or British Museum! nor have they any high art here: some good public buildings, but very pagan. The bay is a fine thing.

"I called with your letter on Mr. Black, who introduced me to the professors, some of whom, judging by their skulls, are clever men.

"There is a lot here for examination, and an Exhibition is to be given to the best. I should like to get it. Young Black,-you saw him once,-is one of them; I knew him at school; he is a large fellow now, though younger than I am. If he be the best of them, I shall not be much afraid.

"Well-in I went yesterday, and was examined. It was such a queer concern.

One of the junior Tutors had me up, and he must be a new hand, he was so uneasy. He gave me the slowest examination! I don't know to this minute what he was at. He first said a word or two, and then was silent. He then asked me why we came up to Dublin, and did not go down; and put some absurd little questions about a???. I was tolerably satisfied with myself, but he gave me no opportunity to show off. He asked me literally nothing; he did not even give me a pa.s.sage to construe for a long time, and then gave me nothing more than two or three easy sentences. And he kept playing with his paper knife, and saying: 'How are you now, Mr.

Brown? don't be alarmed, Mr. Brown; take your time, Mr. Brown; you know very well, Mr. Brown;' so that I could hardly help laughing. I never was less afraid in my life. It would be wonderful if such an examination _could_ put me out of countenance.

"There's a lot of things which I know very well, which the Examiner said not a word about. Indeed, I think I have been getting up a great many things for nothing;-provoking enough. I had read a good deal of Grote; but though I told him so, he did not ask me one question in it; and there's Whewell, Macaulay, and Schlegel, all thrown away.

"He has not said a word yet where I am to be lodged. He looked quite confused when I asked him. He is, I suspect, a _character_.

"Your dutiful son, etc.,

"ROBERT."

_Mr. White to Mr. Brown, sen._

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I have to acknowledge the kind letter you sent me by your son, and I am much pleased to find the confidence you express in us. Your son seems an amiable young man, of studious habits, and there is every hope, when he joins us, of his pa.s.sing his academical career with respectability, and his examination with credit. This is what I should have expected from his telling me that he had been educated at home under your own paternal eye; indeed, if I do not mistake, you have undertaken the interesting office of instructor yourself.

"I hardly know what best to recommend to him at the moment: his reading has been _desultory_; he knows _something_ about a great many things, of which youths of his age commonly know nothing. Of course we _could_ take him into residence now, if you urge it; but my advice is that he should first direct his efforts to distinct preparation for our examination, and to study its particular character. Our rule is to recommend youths to do a _little well_, instead of throwing themselves upon a large field of study.

I conceive it to be your son's fault of mind not to see exactly the _point_ of things, nor to be so well _grounded_ as he might be. Young men are indeed always wanting in _accuracy_; this kind of deficiency is not peculiar to him, and he will doubtless soon overcome it when he sets about it.

"On the whole, then, if you will kindly send him up six months hence he will be more able to profit by our lectures. I will tell him what to read in the meanwhile. Did it depend on me, I should send him for that time to a good school or college, or I could find you a private Tutor for him.

"I am, etc."

_Mr. Brown, sen., to Mr. White._

"SIR,

"Your letter, which I have received by this morning's post, is gratifying to a parent's feelings, so far as it bears witness to the impression which my son's amiableness and steadiness have made on you. He is indeed a most exemplary lad: fathers are partial, and their word about their children is commonly not to be taken; but I flatter myself that the present case is an exception to the rule; for, if ever there was a well-conducted youth, it is my dear son. He is certainly very clever; and a closer student, and, for his age, of more extensive reading and sounder judgment, does not exist.

"With this conviction, you will excuse me if I say that there were portions of your letter which I could not reconcile with that part of it to which I have been alluding. You say he is 'a young man of _studious habits_,' having '_every hope_ of pa.s.sing his academical career with respectability, and _his examination with credit_;' you allow that 'he knows something about a _great many things_, of which youths of his age commonly _know nothing_:' no common commendation, I consider; yet, in spite of this, you recommend, though you do not exact, as a complete disarrangement of my plans (for I do not know how long my duties will keep me in Ireland), a postponement of his coming into residence for six months.

"Will you allow me to suggest an explanation of this inconsistency? It is found in your confession that the examination is of a 'particular character.' Of course it is very right in the governors of a great Inst.i.tution to be 'particular,' and it is not for me to argue with them.

Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that at this day nothing is so much wanted in education as _general_ knowledge. This alone will fit a youth _for the world_. In a less stirring time, it may be well enough to delay in particularities, and to trifle over minutiae; but the world will not stand still for us, and, unless we are up to its requisitions, we shall find ourselves thrown out of the contest. A man must have _something in him_ now, to make his way; and the sooner we understand this, the better.

"It mortified me, I confess, to hear from my son, that you did not try him in a greater number of subjects, in handling which he would probably have changed your opinion of him. He has a good memory, and a great talent for history, ancient and modern, especially const.i.tutional and parliamentary; another favourite study with him is the philosophy of history. He has read Pritchard's Physical History, Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on Science, Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Macaulay, and Hallam: I never met with a faster reader. I have let him attend, in England, some of the most talented lecturers in chemistry, geology, and comparative anatomy, and he sees the Quarterly Reviews and the best Magazines, as a matter of course.

Yet on these matters not a word of examination!

"I have forgotten to mention, he has a very pretty idea of poetical composition: I enclose a fragment which I have found on his table, as well as one of his prose Essays.

"Allow me, as a warm friend of your undertaking, to suggest, that the _substance_ of knowledge is far more valuable than its _technicalities_; and that the vigour of the youthful mind is but _wasted_ on _barren_ learning, and its ardour is _quenched_ in _dry_ disquisition.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

On the receipt of this letter, Mr. White will find, to his dissatisfaction, that he has not advanced one hair's breadth in bringing home to Mr. Brown's father the real state of the case, and has done no more than present himself as a mark for certain commonplaces, very true, but very inappropriate to the matter in hand. Filled with this disappointing thought, for a while he will not inspect the enclosures of Mr. Brown's letter, being his son's attempts at composition. At length he opens them, and reads as follows:

_Mr. Brown's poetry_.

THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.(40)

Oh, might I flee to Araby the blest, The world forgetting, but its gifts possessed, Where fair-eyed peace holds sway from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, And war's shrill clarion frights the air no more.

Heard ye the cloud-compelling blast(41) awake The slumbers of the inhospitable lake?(42) Saw ye the banner in its pride unfold The blush of crimson and the blaze of gold?

Raglan and St. Arnaud, in high command, Have steamed from old Byzantium's h.o.a.ry strand; The famed Cyanean rocks presaged their fight, Twin giants, with the astonished Muscovite.

So the loved maid, in Syria's balmy noon, Forebodes the coming of the hot simoon, And sighs....

And longs....

And dimly traces....

_Mr. Brown's prose._

"FORTES FORTUNA ADJUVAT."

"Of all the uncertain and capricious powers which rule our earthly destiny, fortune is the chief. Who has not heard of the poor being raised up, and the rich being laid low? Alexander the Great said he envied Diogenes in his tub, because Diogenes could have nothing less. We need not go far for an instance of fortune. Who was so great as Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russias, a year ago, and now he is 'fallen, fallen from his high estate, without a friend to grace his obsequies.'(43) The Turks are the finest specimen of the human race, yet they, too, have experienced the vicissitudes of fortune. Horace says that we should wrap ourselves in our virtue, when fortune changes. Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what we expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the Const.i.tution, and then mounted the imperial throne.

"From all this it appears, that we should rely on fortune only while it remains,-recollecting the words of the thesis, 'Fortes fortuna adjuvat;'

and that, above all, we should ever cultivate those virtues which will never fail us, and which are a sure basis of respectability, and will profit us here and hereafter."

On reading these compositions over, Mr. White will take to musing; then he will reflect that he may as well spare himself the trouble of arguing with a correspondent, whose principle and standard of judgment is so different from his own; and so he will write a civil letter back to Mr. Brown, enclosing the two papers.

3.

Mr. Brown, however, has not the resignation of Mr. White; and, on his Dublin friend, Mr. Black, paying him a visit, he will open his mind to him; and I am going to tell the reader all that will pa.s.s between the two.

Mr. Black is a man of education and of judgment. He knows the difference between show and substance; he is penetrated with the conviction that Rome was not built in a day, that buildings will not stand without foundations, and that, if boys are to be taught well, they must be taught slowly, and step by step. Moreover, he thinks in his secret heart that his own son Harry, whose acquaintance we have already formed, is worth a dozen young Browns. To him, then, not quite an impartial judge, Mr. Brown unbosoms his dissatisfaction, presenting to him his son's Theme as an _experimentum crucis_ between him and Mr. White. Mr. Black reads it through once, and then a second time; and then he observes-

"Well, it is only the sort of thing which any boy would write, neither better nor worse. I speak candidly."

On Mr. Brown expressing disappointment, inasmuch as the said Theme is _not_ the sort of thing which any boy could write, Mr. Black continues-

"There's not one word of it upon the thesis; but all boys write in this way."

Mr. Brown directs his friend's attention to the knowledge of ancient history which the composition displays, of Alexander and Diogenes; of the history of Napoleon; to the evident interest which the young author takes in contemporary history, and his prompt application of pa.s.sing events to his purpose; moreover, to the apposite quotation from Dryden, and the reference to Horace;-all proofs of a sharp wit and a literary mind.

But Mr. Black is more relentlessly critical than the occasion needs, and more pertinacious than any father can comfortably bear. He proceeds to break the b.u.t.terfly on the wheel in the following oration:-