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One clause in his apparatus of discipline is worthy of remark , coming , as it does , from a man whose integrity , ability , and character give him so high a name and so much moral weight : — " That when men , under this system , are associated together in numbers , they be required to distribute themselves into small parties ( say ) of six , with common interests ; each man being thus made to labour and refrain for others as well as for himself : exertion and good conduct being thus rendered popular , and indolence and misconduct unpopular , in the community , by each example of them affecting the fortunes of several together . "
This clause needs no comment . Its truth and good sense must find acceptance with a ll reflecting minds , whether we call it Socialism or the best idea of prison , management . It acknowledges the principle on the side of which we have enlisted ourselves ; and the involuntary adherence of such a man as Captain Maconochie to this great truth of cooperation , under any of its forms , is as gratifying as it is useful . Sooner or later , under this guise or under that , our thinking men and best Reformers must come round to the side of Socialism . There is
no help for it , for it is the truth ; and truth must eventually prevail over any amount of falsehood current in the world . Captain Maconochie is now governor of the Borough Gaol at Birmingham , where his system , much straitened and modified , is partly adopted on the juvenile side . We believe with complete success . The gradations are successively : forty-eight hours of strict separation without work on admi ssion ; the earning of a hundred marks by labour , still in the solitary cell ; association in parties of six or seven in a species of day-room , where each must earn a hundred marks more—interrupted by a fine on the party if one individual misconducts himself ; after this the
reflection—repentance—all the spiritual means effective in certain growths of the intellect—are the only reformatory agents used in the model prisons . How far better the honest , straightforward , common-sense views of Captain Maconochie , which teach a man the use of his hands , whereby he may gain an honest li velihood outside , and exercise him . in virtues of the
existence of which , perhaps , he never knew before ? Hard fare , hard work , the inculcation of those simple virtues which are , above all things , requisite in peasant life , are the characteristics of his system . We fear it is too much to hope that they should be recognized and adopted . An age that repudiates unsectarian education and sneers down universal suffrage
may well contemn all rational plans for reforming and educating the criminal poor . Where the first steps to prevent crime are not taken , we can hardly look for the moral cure of the criminal .
rest of the sentence worked out by time in the garden : — " But here a change much for the worse takes place in regard to them . There is nothing now to propose to them as a stimulus to peculiar exertion or selfdenial : and the ruinous time-sentences , fixed rations irrespective of exertion , made to earn them , and all the other incidents of existing prison-life , now envelope them , and undo much of the good previously effected . Yet it is not all lost . The whole class , both those who have gone through this probation , and those who have
not , dread and shun its infliction ; and habits of application , obedience , and good order once formed , do not , if a field continue to be furnished for their exercise , immediately pass away . The conduct on the juvenile side has been decidedly better since the system was introduced than it was before , and of ten boys who have come back reconvicted since the gaol was opened ( now almost five months } , not one has been of those who had undergone this training . " Such is the cheeriag result of a brave endeavour . Any system that would reform , not only punish , the criminal must be good . And , certainly , a system
that appeals to man ' s own powers , that strengthens his virtues , and corrects his vicious tendencies , is better than one which seeks only the coarse l aw of retaliation , worked out by the annihilation of a man's individuality and moral force . The question of crime generally rests on a far broader basis than the matter of prison discipline . Its physiology , necessity , creation , and extenuation belong to a field of enquiry as
large as the condition of humanity . If we could see with clearer eyes than we have now , we should be startled to find how much that passes under the name of crimes is positively the necessary result of foregone conditions utterly beyond our control , and how punishment , as pure punishment , is both unjust and illegal . But this belongs to another class of reasonings . For the present we have but dealt with methods of discipline , not with the considerations of
causes . In the management of prisoners the first thing to be regarded is their defective education and low organization . As a class , the criminal population is notorious for diseased members , coarse structure , small foreheads , and a preponderance of tho animal over the intellectual division of the brain . These are not the men , therefore , to address in any intellectual or rcsthetic manner . They aro men to bo simply
ilenlt with by such organs and powers of apprehension as tliey possess , —not by the assumption of others , which como only with education and a refined organization . Religion , unsupported by practical and familiar morality , cannot and docs not do any good . Hence wo find that men , shut up in the solitary cell , with only a few religious books to read , Dr u visit every now and then from tho chaplain , bcjome fatuous , from softening of the brain , or mad irom inflammation . Yet simple religion—thought—
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BURGES ' s PLATO . The Works of Plato . A New and Literal Version , chiefly from the Text of Stallbaum . Vol . III . By George Burges , M . A . ( Bohn ' s Classical Library ) . H . G . Bohn . It is not easy to discover , " says Dr . Johnson , *« from what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed . The subjects to be discussed by him are of small importance ; they involve neither property nor liberty , nor favour the interest of sect or party . The various readings of copies and different interpretations of a passage seem to be questions tlwrikmight exercise the wit without engaging the passes . But whether it be that small things make mean men proud , and vanity catches small
occasions , there is often in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and contempt , more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politics against those whom he is hired to defame . Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence of the agency ; when the truth to be investigated is so near inexistence as to escape attention , its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and exclamation . " These felicitous sentences , branding the absurdities of those self-constituted nuisances ll
known under the name of commentators , are recaed to us by the insufferable arrogance and ineptitude of the notes with which Mr . George Burges has profusely damaged this third volume of Mr . Bohn ' s Plato . Such an example deserves the strongest reprehension ; for it is a revival of the old system of annotation which has for some years past been decaying . The notes to a translation should be few , and those explanatory , not emendatory . If Mr . Burges feels called upon to rewrite Plato , let him do
caprices ; in a work addressed to the unlearned public a ll this parade of scholarship is extremely offensive , because , if the scholarship were valuabl e as such , which we cannot think it is , its value would here be thrown away . The tone he adopts is offensive : that he should laugh to scorn the emendations of other scholars is no more than what we expect from a verbal critic ; but the assumption with which he settles each point is positively exasperating , even to the mildest reader . " Others may , Inever will believe that Plato wrote , &c . " Frequently there occur candid admissions of his " inability to understand "
passages . These are often naive . Thus , on the phrase in the banquet , " But let the domestics , and if there is any other rude and profane person present , place upon their ears gates of very great size / ' we are favoured with this note , " Why Plato should have alluded to the great size of the gates I must leave to others to explain . " He evidently thinks that he has caught Plato tripping here ; we wonder he did not suggest an emendation : we w ill offer him one , in his own style . " Nothing shall ever convince me that Plato wrote such nonsense as icv \ a ^ peyahcu ; * gates of
very great size ; what he really wrote was xpvo-eoiq * golden , ' suggesting bribed silence . " Lest Mr . Burges should reject the above luminous emendadation , we w ill attempt an explanation of the passage as it stands , since it seems to puzzle him . Briefly , then , the phrase is one of those figures of speech called by some long name or other in rhetoric , and signifying the injunction of silence ; it is tantamount to our " put a padlock on his tongue . " That Mr . Burges should be puzzled by the allusion to the size
of the gates i s a pleasing evidence of his simplicity but even in not perceiving the intensification given by the allusion to size , we wonder a scholar should not have remembered the similar passage of . ^ Eschylus ( Agatn ., v . 36 ) , where the ox said to pass over the watchman ' s tongue is also characterized as a great ox —j 9 oi / f iitt < yXft >< r < r * j fxeyaq jSeJ&jKev . To the simple mind it must appear that an ox of any size , be he
never so diminutive , would amply weigh down a man s tongue in passing over it , and to insist that the ox be large is " wasteful and ridiculous excess . " Unhappily for their reputation neither ^ Eschylus nor Plato had an opportunity of consulting Mr . Burges in these delicate matters of taste , or he might have now been in possession of very different works—very different !
We could fill columns with exposures ; but , to what end ? The slightest inspection ' of these notes will convince any one Jthat they are vexatiously trivial . For the translation , it is so literal as frequently to be unintelligible ; and , having made nonsense of the text , he gravely declares in the notes that he does not understand it ! E . g . " In all such things as we call beautiful it is proper to investigate , but we refer them to two species contrary to each other . " Such , he says , «* is the literal version of the Greek , which
W tm . A A ¦ ^ W ^» « flit « * I confess I do not understand . " "Very likely not . But he has the facile remedy of rewriting the passage , which he does , and translates thus , "In all things such as we say are beautiful , it is meet to seek whether there are two species which we place opposite each other . " This he could understand ! Let the reader turn to the Greek , and he will have little difficulty in reading the passage as it stands , to
the effect that in the investigation of all things we call beautiful we must contrast the two opposite species of beautiful and ugly , harmonious and discordant , good and bad—for the subsequent explanation makes it clear that these are the opposites alluded to ; and all persons familiar with Platonic philosophy w ill understand the meaning ; but i t i s unnecessary to understand Plato when you can
rewrite him J And why should Plato not be rewritten ? When a certain Mr . Bloxham . " continued" Milton he declared it was blasphemy to suppose a second Milton could not be created , and to prove the blasphemy a foolish one he offered the world his evidence in a poem ; Mr . Burges may yet do tho same for Plato , and with the same brilliant incapacity .
We are sorry to bo forced to say anything discouraging of such an undertaking as that of Mr . Bohn to give us the boon of an English Plato : it was a spirited effort , and will make men grateful to him ; for no other publisher would have ventured on suoh a series . But the present volume must have no imitators , or tho series will bo greatly damaged . The translators must accept their honourable task in a spirit of self-abnegation , not in the spirit of
frivoso , and—earn the derision of scholars ; but to make this professedly popular work , addressed to the reading public , not to scholars , the vehicle for a display of his diseased activity in emendation , is an offence against propriety , and an injury to the purchaser . We cannot pause to soften our language to one whose language is a perpetual insult to the reader ' s good sense ; and we must say , therefore , that the whole mass of notes with which he has crowded these pages is a serious detraction from the utility of the volume .
Whenever he does not understand a passage , whenever the balance of the sentence or the wording of it seem inelegant to his sensitive taste , he takes upon himself to rewrite it , asserting that his emendation is what Plato wrote . Those who remember the freaks of that truly great scholar , Bentley , in " restoring " the text of Milton , may imagine what chances there are of a scholar like Mr . Burges correctly "
restoring" Plato ! We could give some laughable specimens , were this a classical journal ; one we w ill give , because it can be given briefly : —At page 522 , on the passage , ' the making of all animals is through the wisdom of Love , by which all living things are generated and produced , " he has this note : — " To get rid of the tautology in yiyveroii and ( pverai , we
must read what Plato wrote , ( pxiverai , * make their appearance . '" Now , we venture to s ay that any one in the least conversant with Plato ' s stylo will pronounce this note supremely ridiculous ; ridiculous in tho objection , for there is a difference between yiyyerctt and < pverai ( which might , perhaps , be represented by •« generated and developed " ) , and still more ridiculous in the substitution of " make their appearance , " which we aro so
unhesitatingly told Plato wrote . Moreover , our objection strikes at the whole system , Mr . Burges professes to translate Plato , not to restore his text : in a work addressed to scholars who purchase it for " restorations , " a commentator may indulge in his
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858 1 &t ) t & , $ & %$ t + [ Saturday , . ——————— . ^— . —
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 30, 1850, page 858, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1861/page/18/
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