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208 The Leader arid Saturday Analyst. [M...
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SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. IT was on...
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MARGABET FULLER.* rpHE somewhat romantic...
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* Xi ' ifo Without and Within; or, JRevi...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Cnugsittrs Ov Cambridge. Rpiie Admirers ...
The prison in which the captured are confined . m a filthy hole > into which all are indiscriminately thrust , and from which there . can be , no egress afforded by any of the means allowed to those > nnjustly confined in the other prisons of England . The laws of the University are more despotic than those of modern Rome or Naples * and a Jurisdiction at this moment exists in Cambridge and Oxford which exceeds in rigour the despotism of Antonexm or of King Bomba . Be it Further known , that , though no woman can safely or without danger of insult appear in the streets of Cambridge after dusk , nor sometimes even in mid-day , these insults are perpetrated not by the undergraduates , but by the authorities " of the place , the " bulldogs , " & c , whose zeal for the preservation of order is like that of the sea captain who > when the discipline of his ship was disturbed , administered justice by flogging the whole crew , he being of opinion that such indiscriminate punishment lma Mater Canta
was certain to include the guilty . Verily , A - brigiensis , or , as she is entitled from her years and decrepitude to be called , " Proayia alma , " whatever sweetness of temp er she may occasionally show to her sons , displays nothing but sourness to her female offspring . Her daughters live in constant dread of blows , gyves , the Spinning House , the bull curs , and the proctor There are laws—antiquated and disused , but still in the statute book of the University— -empowering the old lady to administer a sound flogging to any of her male children , beneath the degree of a master of arts , who shall be found bathing liis limbs in the Cam . But there is no law , as is the case with regard' to the " unprotected females , which subjects them , if suspected of moral impurity within the town or within a circuit of four miles thereof , to be publicly whipped and driven into banishment . Well might Joecn Milton exclaim , alluding io these , amongst other similar matters— " Cseteraque ingenio non subeunda meo . "
208 The Leader Arid Saturday Analyst. [M...
208 The Leader arid Saturday Analyst . [ March 3 , I 860 .
Scottish University Education. It Was On...
SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION . IT was once the boast of Scotland , that it was the best educated country in the world . If no longer able to make that boast , Scotland has still , as . regards education , a great superrbrity over England . For many years , however , while Scotland lias had a vast industrial development , has been undergoing notable social changes , has been the theatre of striking ecclesiastical revolutions , its chief educational institutions have clung too much to the ancient ways- ^ - though less . from prejudice than from lethargy . Tt is generally felt that the Scottish schools , the . Scottish universities , must be completely and grandly . transfigured , if Scotland is to continue to hold its moral and intellectual supremacy . The . constitution , of a Scottish university is extremely simple . Besides being simple it is
profoundly democratic . This gives the universities immense ^ povver in a country where the churches are all democratically constituted There are many things distinguishing the Scottish universities from the English , Two of the chief are the absence of cloistral control , and of any class clothed with aristocratical privileges ^ English , universities are > mediaeval institutions ; Scottish universities bear the broad , deep stamp of the Reformation . Students usually enter the Scottish universities at a very early age ; and if they intend to take the degree of Master of Arts , they remain four or five years . The machinery is wholly professorial , » "d the income of the professors is mostly derived from fees . Some of the professors , but none of the students , lodge within the walls of the university . JExcept in class hours , the teachers , the officers of , the university , like
assume no authority over the students , who live where they , and how they like . It- might be supposed that this unfettered liberty would be fatal to mere boys . On the contrary , it brings , forth its true fruits—manliness , self-reliance , and piirifcy . There is incomparably less Vice at Scottish than at English universities . The Scottish students are , for the most part , the sons of farmers and tradesmen , sometimes the sons of common labouring men . They have been accustomed to frugality ; they have no aristocratic tastes or habita ; and there are no aristocratic examples to lead them astray ; they set forth with the heroic idea that self-denial should be the companion of learning , and seldom are they faithless thereto . A . signal advantage of the Scottish university system is , that it never severs the scholar from the people . A child of the
people hue the student come to the university , and a -child of the people he remains . It io from this that the kingly , tho unquestioned sway pf the Scottish clergy is derived : they have x * ever lost their bond and sympathy with the earnest , upright , valiant plebeians . Now , believing , 'from an intimate knowledg / o of Scottish universities , that they require a thorough transformation , we should yet not interfere'with what we venerate na their osaential basis . The Divine light of the mind , symbol and piietft of the divinest light , should be honoured for its own sako . Thus is it honoured in ^ Germany : thus is it honoured in Scotland : but we oannot say that thus is it honoured in England , Loyal to their essential basis the Scottish universities ennobled and fructifiedlv
need to bo enriched and enlarged , . . ep « ing their athletic element , their potenoy of discipline , they must add thereto a more opulent and radiant culture . With tho Spartan vigor which is theirs they must combine an Atbeninn gorgeausness , variety , and vivacity , which are not theirs . Thei curse , of Scotland is not drunkenness , ria the calumniators any , it is what the Scotch themselves call arglebarglirig ' . Now this leprosy is in tho Scottish nature : but it is tortured into an incurable disease by the Scottish universities . A student enters the university a logical , and ho leaves it a psychological machine . Mosfc young Scotchmen who have boon at a university are exceedingly clover , qxceecUng / ly captious , are disposed to talk about every thing 1 , and are to
Englishmen intolerable bores . The great English public schools give what the o-reat Scottish public schools do not give *—culture , — -in which is included a delicate classical instinct , which few Scotchmen possess . It is not easy for an Englishman to rise ¦ > to Catholicity ; Jsnock away from a Scotchman a few provincial fetters , and he becomes Catholic at once . But through superior culture the ^ Englishman contrives to appear to superficial judges the more Catholic pf the two . The circle of studies at Scottish universities must . be tenfold expanded , and a barren logic and a chattering psychology must be driven from the scene . What the Scotch require is poetic reflectiveness as opposed to fierce logomachy . The shortest poem of Geoege Hebbee * would do them more good than all those triumphant llogisms of which they are so proud . Scottish individuality
sy cannot be hammered down by the Times , cannot be sneered down by Punch . Shallow , sparkling , magniloquent leading articles , small cockney jokes leave the stupendous granite mass unworn and unwounded . But Scottish individuality—a colossal force might remain a colossal force , and yet also be a garden of the Lord . Is it to give no sign of its existence , except when some peak high as heaven falls fulminating into the valley ? Grievously do ye err , my Scottish brothers ; the tree of knowledge is . not the tree of life . First life , then knowledge : not first knowledge and then life . The Scottish universities must remain Scottish , but they must clothe themselves with the Catholicity for which the Scottish heart irrepressibly yearns . How , in detail , mechanically , organically , the not to declareit would
revolution is to be achieved , we pretend , , be futile to declare , even if the declaration were a facile feat . What primordially concerns Englishmen and Scotchmen too , is , that we should make the heights of the naked granite broad enough , warm enough , rich enough , for the angels to rest on . When once we have convinced the Scotch that their universities are not perfect , they will rush to the work of perfection with that perfervid genins for which they are famous . After all , there is a more godlike spirit iu nations than universities . A people ' s soul is of more importance than a people's schools . But while the spill is made healthy and holy , why should not also the schools be made beautiful temples of the Omnipotent ? The-Acropolis * with its girdle of fanes , and its garniture of gods , did not despise the quiet and sacred scenes where the philosophers taught . V
Margabet Fuller.* Rphe Somewhat Romantic...
MARGABET FULLER . * rpHE somewhat romantic his tory and the tragic fate of Margaret J- Fuller have drawn attention more toward her than the intrinsicmerit of her works . Of these , with the very best disposition to be lenient ; and appreciative , we cannot speak highly . They have rhetorical flow , but no artistic finish ; liveliness of conception , but no fulness of idea ; they want that without which no . literary production can be perfect , —a sound view of ttie world ; a clear , calm glance into human relations . Of creation in the divine poetic sense Margaret Fullei was altogether incapable . That she was a person of considerable faculty it were foolish to deny ; but it was faculty precociousmorbidfeverishfitful ; stimulating itself into wild force
, , , by artificial enthusiasm . She would not have achieved great things even if she had had the very best culture , but as she had the very worst culture she could only do extraordinary things . , Her education had been a mad feast of excitements , and thus was bred in her the insatiate hunger for new sensations . With an aspiring for the lofty she had no sympathy for the profound ; she was always trying " to ny to cold Alpine peaks ere she had trodden with modust , inquiring , reverent steps the scenes immediately around her , She rhapsodised incessantly , yet she kindled no one into kindred rhapsody . Her writings were confessions , the confessions of her dreams ; but her dreams were not the offspring of an opulent phantasy—they were frigid , ghastly monstrosities borrowed from the chaos of books .
The root of the evil was in that audacipus , impious lntellectutilism which New England has substituted for religion , AH tlje universe was to be intelloetuaiism , arid all intollectualisin was to be inordinate , insane New England babblement . In Old England we have a stable existence , solid studies , a tranquil , clumsy , olophantine march . If we are the fools and fanatics of conservatism , better , verily better that we should be such fanatics arid fools than the maniacs of a restlessness sputtering itself away in infiriite and sterile speech . Well were it for the United States if for long years they had limited themselves to the development of theip stupendous industrial energies . In this domain they are truly great , But when they resolved to have a literature of their own . they egregiously blundered . What could their literature bo except wretched imitation , tasteless exacerevation , blatant , braggart declamation P The
institutions of . the United States drive m < m to vary the hunt for dollars with boundless jargon , Every one is a noisy orator , except a handful <> f duiet persons , who shrink from politics . Nowhere else on the earth is the tongue so continually wagging . The vilest , vulgaivst eloquence reigning supremo , communicates to literature its own cardinal defects j . literature , instead of purifying eloquonce , is rendered itself impure by an eloquence of the lowest kind . No Arnerican . writers have escaped this contamination , but those who , like Fenimore Cooper , BrooUden , Brown , Washington Irving , have faithfully followed English mode s . Tlie rest have been merely stump orators in books . Margaret Fuller wae a stump orator in books , of rathor a nobler sort than her neighbours . Like the Yankees in general , she speoohiJfied so everlastingly ,, and with such hot delirious haste , that she hud no time for thought , no time for substantial , systematic acquirements . Hence , in her
* Xi ' Ifo Without And Within; Or, Jrevi...
* Xi ' ifo Without and Within ; or , JRevietaa , Narratives , M * am , and JPooms . By ftlAKflARBT JFux-HBR Ossowc , Edited by hor Brother , Awiuuk . B . Fowew ; London : Sampson Jkow , Son and Qo ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1860, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03031860/page/12/
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