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NATIONAL EDUCATION.
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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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National Education.
to the glib assertion , tliat education is of " inestimable benefit . But do we believe it to be " inestimable " ? Do we even believe it to be a veryserious and pressing necessity that the people should be educated ? If we believed it , we should insist upon its being done . But we do not believe it . Our languid assent is given to a truism , and we act as if it were a falsism ! In this plight there are but two methods whereby an issue may be effected . The public mind must be startled , and it must be educated : startled by
pic-NAT 1 ONAL EDUCATION . National Education not Necessarily Governmental , Sectarian , or Irreligious : shown in a Series oj Papers read at the Meetings of the Lancashire Public School Association . 0 . Uilpin . Among the great national movements having broad and elevated views for the welfare of the People , and recommending itself as equally practical and farreaching , we must point to the Public School Asso * ciation , originated in 1847 by a number of gentlemen in Lancashire , and now in a very hopeful condition , notwithstanding the vehement opposition of sectarian
intolerance and the still more fatal obstacle of lazsscz / hire indifference . Mr . Kay , in his invaluable work recently reviewed in our columns , has shown beyond the possibility of legitimate cavil how immediately beneficial is a system of national education , and how easily all the supposed obstacles are overcome by the nation which has once resolutely taken the matter in hand . Here , as in most of our public matters , the great want is a want of will . We are not sufficiently in earnest . "We assert glibly enough , or assent easily
tures of the present condition of the people and by pictures of terrors imminent—the dark and riotous acts of Ignorance maddened by misery ( and Mr . Kay ' s work is rich in such material ) , and educated by a constant insistence of first principles , refutation of objections , and laying out of feasible plans . The Lancashire Public School Association is a powerful engine for this work ; and the volume of papers read at its meetings , which now lies on our table , we can earnestly recommend to the attention of all who profess to interest themselves in the condition of the people .
After a well-written introduction by Mr . Samuel Lucas there comes a paper on " The Present Insufficiency of Educational Means in England , " in which Mr . Richard Gardner briefly and lucidly sets forth the subject . He truly says that all classes of society require to be educated on education . The lower classes are not aware of its advantages : — " On the other hand , the upper classes perfectly well understand that knowledge is power—a power , not indeed to be denied at this time of day , but to be kept as much , as possible in their own hands . They form quite a different theory of the qualifications of a teacher for their own
children from those of a teacher for the children of their inferiors . What they desire for the latter office , is not the man who has the greatest skill in imparting knowledge and putting the youthful mind into the way of thinking for itself , but the man who will most faithfully direct it into the channels of their supposed interests and occupy it the most fully with their own traditions . I do not say this feeling is openly avowed , or even that the individuals in question are always conscious of it ; but I say that in a country of aristocratic institutions , where the instruction of the people is left to private benevolence , considerations of this kind will influence more or less a large majority of patrons . "
There is a third class—the agriculturist—whose opposition is pleasantly illustrated in this anecdote : — " A very enlightened clergyman of the Church of England was one day relating to me the difficulties which attended the establishment of a superior primary school in a rural district . When the improved programme was put forth , the neighbouring gentry and clergy looked on with simpleindifference and distrust ; but , as the most important
inhabitants of the parish m question were farmers , it was necessary to take this class into confidence . The farmers accordingly held a long consultation , and this was the response of the agriculturist oracle : — ' We undci stand , sir , that you are going to teach the children geography , and we , therefore , decline to have anything to do with the matter . ' The leading objection in their minds was , that they did not like to have the children of the labourer treading upon the heels of their own . "
The following passage on the political necessity of education is worth attention : — *• Whatever may be our private views upon general politics ( and we have nothing to do with such topics here ) , it can scarcely be denied as a fact that the masses of the people are dissatisfied with their present position—that they claim a greater share of social and political influence , and sooner or later that claim will have to be conceded . The rising generation of labour is born into the world with new aspirations which you cannot check , which have an organized utterance , which exist for good or for evil : for good , if we understand our epoch—for evil , if
we do not . So long as power was the prerogative of a particular class it was sufficient , for the conduct of Government , that that class should enjoy a monopoly of knowledge also ; and , therefore , to this day , the serfs of Russia and the slaves of America are formally condemned to igno > ance , and wisely , according to the theory of those Governments . But in our age and country all barriers of caste and colour are thrown down , and our refusal of political privileges is mainly based on the very arbitrary , and indeed offensive , allegation of want of intelligence .
For you will observe that most public men when questioned on the hustings as to their view of the suftrape question , usually reply that , for their parts , they would gladly extend the franc / iise , provided the people tocre educated . Well , then , make haste , say I , to educate the people ; lose no time about it ; resolve yourselves into a committee of the whole nation for that purpose , and cease to travel in this imbecile circle . Be sure , at all events , that you will not mend matters by affronting the self-love of claimants , who , precisely in proportion to their want of intelligence , will be the last to admit that want as a valid reason for their exclusion . "
The idea of taxing the community for tho sake of universal education alarms those who are willing enough to bo taxed for the support of paupers , police , prisons , &c . It is said to be an encroachment on our " liberty " : —
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1781 . His mother was a sickly nervous woman , her life , " a tale of pain terminated by death—one long sigh , " from whom he inherited his nervous irritability , bashfulness , and proneness to anticipate evil ; also hei tendency towards " first-rate dreaming . " His father " Devil Elliott , " as he was called—he describes as a fierce hater , a satiric politician , a fearless advocate of rebellion , and an ultra Calvinist preacher , terrifying his delighted hearers with pictures of Hell hung round with span-long children ! From these parents it is not difficult to trace the genesis of the Corn-law Rhymer ' s mind : —
" < Oh , blessed are the beautiful ! ' says Haynes Baily , uttering for ever a sentiment to which I can feelingly and mournfully respond ; for in my sixth year I had the small pox , which left me frightfully disfigured and six weeks blind . From the consequences I never recovered . To them , quite as much as to my poor mother's infirm constitution , I impute my nerve-shaken weakness . How great was that weakness I will endeavour to show the reader . When I was very young—I might be twelve years old—I fell in love with a young woman called Bidgeway—now Mrs . Woodcock , of Munster , near Greasbro '—to whom I never spoke a word in my life , and the sound of whose voice , to this day , I have never heard ; yet if I thought she saw me as I passed her
father ' s house I felt as if weights were fastened to my feet . Is genius diseased ? I cannot remember the time when I was not fond of ruralities . Was I born , then , with a taste for the beautiful ? When quite a child—I might be seven or eight years old—I remember filling a waster frying-pan with water , placing it in the centre of a little grove of mugwort and wormwood that grew on a stone-heap in the foundry-yard , and delighting to see the reflection of the sun , and cloulds , and the plants themselves , as from the surface of a natural fountain ; for I so placed the pan that the water only- was visible , and I seldom failed to visit it at noon , when the sun was over
it . But I had also a taste for the horrible—a passion , a rage , for seeing the faces of the hanged or the drowned . Why , I know not ; for they made my life a burden * following me wherever I went , sleeping ^ with me , and haunting me in my dreams . Was this hideous taste the result of constitutional infirmity ? Had it any connexion with my taste for writing of horrors and crimes ? I was cured of it by a memorable spectacle . A poor friendless man , who , having no home , slept in collierly hovels and similar places , having been sent one dark night from the Glasshouse for a pitcher of ale , fell into the canal , and was drowned . In about six weeks his body rose to the surface of the water , and I , of course , ran to see it . The spectacle which by that time it presented was daily in
and nightly , whether I was alone or in the street , bed , or by the fireside , for months my constant companion . Had this morbid propensity any relation to my solitary tendencies ? Healthy , man is social ; but in my childhood I had no associates . Although the neighbourhood swarmed with children , I was always alone ; and this is perhaps one reason wh y I was deemed rather wanting in intellect , and why I might really have had fewer ideas than other children of my age , for I cut myself off from communication with theirs . But though I was alone , I have no recollection that ray solitude was painful . On the contrary , I employed my time delightfully in swimming my little fleets of ships , and repairing my fortresses on the banks of the canal between the Greasbro' and Bawmarsh bridges . "
He charmingly describes the solitary rambles of his boyhood how" I passed my Sundays in gathering flowers , that I might make pictures of them . I had then , as now , no taste for the science of botany , the classifications of which seemed to me to be like preparations for sending flowers to prison . I began , however , to feel mannish . There was mystery about me . People stopped me with my plants , and asked what diseases 1 was going to cure ? But I was not in the least aware that I was learning the art of poetry , which I then hated—especially Pope's ,
which gave me the headache if I heard it read aloud . My wanderings , however , soon made me acquainted with the nightingales in Basingthorpe Spring—wherr , I am told , they still sing sweetly—and with a beautiful green snnkc , about a yard long , which on the fine Sabbath mornings , about ten o ' clock , seemed to expect me at the top of Primrose lane . It became so familiar , that it ceased to uncurl at my approach . I have sate on the Btile beside it till it seemed unconscious of my presence ; and when I rose to go , it would only lift the scales behind Us head , or the skin beneath them—and they shone in this sun like fire . "
The following estimate of his own genius , though modest , strikes us as true , and indicates a kind ot intellect commoner among remarkable men than is supposed : — 44 But I possess not that glorious power . Time has developed in me . not genius , but powers which exist in all men , and lie dormant in most . I cannot , like Byron and Montgomery , pour poetry from my heart as from an unfailing fountain ; and of my inability to identify myself , like Shakttpenrc and Scott ,
with the characters of other men , my abortive * Kcrhonnh , ' ? Tuurassdos , ' and similar rejected failures , arc melancholy instances . My thoughts arc nil exterior ; my mind is the mind of my own eyes . A primrose is to me n primrose , and nothing more ; I love it because it is nothing more . There is not in my writings one good idea that h ;; s not been suggested to me by some real occurrence , or by sonic olvjcct uctunlly before my eyes , or by some remembered object or occurrence , or by the thoughts of other mm , heard or read . If 1 possess any power at all allied to genius , it is that of making other
men ' s thoughts suggest thoughts to me which , whether original or not , are to me new . Some years ago , my late excellent neighbour , John Heppenstall , after showing me the plates of Audubon ' s Birds of America , requested me to address a few verses to the author . With this request I was anxious to comply ; but I was unable to write aline , until a sentence in Rousseau suggested a whole poem , and coloured all its language . Now , in this case , I was not like a clergyman seeking a text that he may write a sermon ; for the text was not sought but found , or it would have been to me a lying and a barren spirit . "
The letters in this volume are not of general interest , and can only be said to exhibit one aspect of Elliott , that , namely , of sympathy with young authors . The following account of his death shall be our closing extract . He was dying when he sent for Mr . Watkins : — " He desired the marriage to take place immediately , without' any celebration but the ceremony . All were anxious to fulfil his dying wishes . Accordingly , on the 17 th of Novemberthis , the most felicitous event of my
, life , took place at Darfield . He caused himself to be lifted out of bed , and placed at the window , to see us de-Kart for the church , and requested us to come to him for is blessing as soon as we returned . When we were gathered round his bedside , he said , « This is Bogers ' s Human life ! ' He planned several excursions for us in the neighbourhood with much kind solicitude , and , though dying , all bis thoughts were for the living . He did not even forget his dog , but one day sent his untasted dinner , saying , ' Tell him that his master thinks of him . '
" His powers of mind and body gradually decayed , but his medical attendants declared they had never known any one so tenacious of life . The love shown him by his wife and family made him very loth to leave them , and his mind ran on the publication of his new volume , also he was desirous to come to London to take up his abode with us . This made him say to me , 'You see a strange sight , sir , an old man unwilling to die ! ' Sometimes his mind wandered , and he dreamed awake . ' I thought I was on the common , ' he said once , ' and a child knocked me down with a flower . ' He has the same idea in one of his poems : — •« An infant might have felled him with a flower !"
" At another time he said , ' What a strange head your sister has ; like a flower top-heavy ! ' He lay helpless as a new-born babe , yet , with the strong self-will which , had governed him through life , he could not submit to death , but looked with a frown , as though he resented the intrusion of that stern power into his presence , and was indignant at the advantage which the conqueror was taking of his weak and prostrate condition . As if he would escape from the foe that was dealing his blows on him he resolved to get up and join his family at tea ; and was only prevented , though instant death would have been the consequence , by having the tea-table brought to his bedside .
" The trees were weeping their leaves for the poet of Nature , and his favourite little bird , the robin , perched beneath his window , and trilled its pensive lav . He heard it , and dictated the very last verses which he wrote : — " Thy notes , sweet robin , soft as dew . Heard soon or late , are dear to me ; To music 1 could bid adieu , But not to thee . When from my eyes earth ' s lifeful throng Has passed away , no more to be . Then autumn ' s primrose , robin ' s song , Return to me . '
" This song was sung to him by his daughter , like the music of the dying swan . 44 The villagers of Houghton were anxious in their enquiries after his health , and said , a great man who could be ill spared was going from them . His servant , who was about to lose the best master that man ever had , went to take his last leave of him . Diffidence kept him near the door ; the poet rested his languid eye upon him , and moved his lips inarticulately . Finding himself unable to speak , he held forth his hand , and the sorrowful retainer stepped forward , weeping as he grasped it , and then parted for ever . At length he sunk into utter insensibility , and on the morning of the 1 st of December won the great prize for which his life had been a struggle —the prize of immortality !"
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594 Qtlfrt % t&tttt . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 14, 1850, page 594, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1853/page/18/
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