The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 16, 1858. 1004 THE WEEK. SILENCE, SAYS JEREMY TAYLOR, IS AN EXCELLENT ART. Quaint and keen JEREMY TAYLOR, how right you were ! How true is this ! Babbling comes by nature. To cry, to make an unmeaning noise is the first effort, the first instinct of almost every animal, from the baby that grows into a Parliamentary catechist down to the pig that grows only into bacon. To know when and where to be silent is the result of careful education and profound thought. PLUTARCH said well, that "to be taught " first to be silent, then to speak well and handsomely, is " education fit for a Prince." If JEREMY TAYLOR was right about excellence in art, and if PLUTARCH had a correct notion of the true nature of education, then are we as a Nation by no means so far advanced in the arts and in social sciences as the Association in session at Liverpool would have us believe. And if our position is to be measured by the abundance of our talk and the meagreness of our doing, we are as arrieree as Red Indians, in whose alleged habits of silence we do not the least believe. Talk ! Good heavens ! how we do talk ! Everybody talks. We shall be buried in talk. All power of discerning, all energy for doing will be swamped, drowned in talk, unless the Association will do violence to their nature, and advance the cultivation of the art of silence. In truth, the only people whom the Week has exhibited as cultivating what JEREMY TAYLOR so well describes as an art are the Barristers at the Newcastle Sessions, and they have done it on wrong principles and with an undiscerning obstinacy. Why has not Lord Jons ItrssEti. recommended a reformatory establishment for notorious and incorrigible talkers under the supervision of NAPOLEON 111., who in the entire civilized world is the only man, as it seems to us, who knows when to be silent, when to speak, and how much to say. The first Menus in the institution would naturally be the Com missioners of the Weedon Inquiry, who lighten their labours with bad Police Magistrate jokes, Alderman SALoNtoss, who squabbles from the Bench with a gentleman who applies for a summons against a Company in whose Undertaking the Alderman has shares, and the Members of the Social Science Association, to whom was intrusted the Paper on " The Characteristics and Influences of 'Water Closets." It is very wise and very true all this. We are perfectly convinced of it, and the first thing we shall do will be to go against our own convictions, pander basely to the public taste, and give a long and sober account of the talking which we deprecate. The meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, and the Speeches delivered at it, have been the great feature of the week. The first Speech, discursive and comprehensive to a bewildering degree, was delivered by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, in his capacity of Presi dent of the Association. His Lordship took a bird's-eye view of the five departments into which the business of the Association is divided.. He took occasion to laud the proceedings of the committee appointed last year on his own motion for considering the amendment of the Bankruptcy Laws, and again recommended the consolidation of the bankruptcy and insolvent courts. By-the-bye, does it not sound strange to hear Noble Lords talk ing of " delegates from the National Amociation," and the like ? The words have queer Chartist reminiscences about them, which cannot fail to raise a smile as they issue from the lips of the champion of the Constitu tion. His Lordship passed a high encomium on the code of NAPOLEON, and concluded his remarks on this head by inviting attention to the two most important points in our criminal system. His Lord ship's remarks upon the other departments were sufficiently to the purpose. On Tuesday morning, before the inaugural addresses of the Presidents of Departments, Lord BROUGHAM delivered an address, which he said was of universal application, on the subject of Popular Literature. Without impugning the correctness of the Noble Lord's general view, we must be permitted to doubt the accuracy of some of his facts. Most of the cheap publications to which he alluded deserve the terms in which he spoke of them ; but all do not. Nor do we believe that the remuneration given to literary men engaged upon such works is always of that liberal character which his Lordship asserted it to be. Another defect in the address is this—that our popular literature, taken as Lord BROUGHAM took it, in the sense of penny literature. extends over a much wider field than was indicated by his Lordship. If the Noble orator had perused an article which recently appeared in House hold Words, entitled "The Unknown Public," his address would have approached nearer to completeness. Lord Bitouoitam's address was fol lowed up by those of the various Presidents ; and according to the pre arranged order the President of the Law Amendment Department should have led off. But the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who had undertaken the duties of this position, had forgotten that he was after a manner ascriptus glebe, and could not leave Ireland without her Majesty's per mission. Mr. COWPER, therefore, the President of the Educational Department, delivered his address first. With some portion of this gen tleman's remarks we confess we cannot quite agree. " How little," said he, " of what men learn at school or college is useful to them in after life." Now, this statement involves a rather mistaken theory of education. Education is not so much the pouring into the mind of certain masses of information as that preparation of the mind which enables it afterwards to receive and assimilate any kind of knowledge it may require. It may be true that a young man cannot go up to a merchant, and ask for a seat in his counting-house solely on the strength of a university education, or that a so licit o r will' not give briefs to a man of classical attainments in preference to any other. But once let the candidate have mastered the preliminary information necessary to the first step, which he will do all the better through his previous training, and then we ask, which of these two is more likely to rise in his profession or to adorn it when he has risen, the man of high general culture or he whose knowledge is purely technical? A university education is not always immediately convertible into money. But it is an investment of time and labour which for those who can afford to wait is certain to be profitable in the long run. Another point to which we really think more importance has been attributed than it deserves is orthography. Bad spelling is certainly a laughable blunder ; but we cannot think it a matter of such paramount weight that nobody should be entitled to the name of an educated man who spelt agreeable with one e or disselen:iwngithreosnleiltss. Mr. Cower tt was succeeded by the Earl of CARLISLE on Punishment a n d Reformation. He gave his hearers a long account of' the convict prison s in Ireland. After dwelling at some length on the p obtained from the system of juvenile reformatories, he concluded by recommending the introduction of more purely penal ref%rmatories for the incorrigible. Lord SHAFTESBURY, upon Public Health, has delivered an address which the most captious critic would find it difficult to abuse. The eloquence of real earnestness breathed throughout it, and the maxims he laid down were as remarkable for their truth as their simplicity. The gist of his observations was that in seeking to elevate the social condition of the people, you must begin with what they can appreciate, and work upwards; not strive to reach their bodily degradation through spiritual influences, but to prepare them for the reception of the latter by vigorously assailing the former. Better wages, more leisure, pure air, and wholesome water, constitute his Lord ship's receipt for the amelioration of the working classes. Among all the addresses, however, delivered on this occasion, Sir JAMES STErttEs's upon " .So cial Economy" carries off the palm for polished language and s ti r ring periods. Sir JAMES chose for the special object of his discourse the in fluence exercised by our colonies and the mother country on each other. In the course of his remarks, Sir JAMES took occasion to criticise the opi nions of Sir G. C. LEWIS on the advantages and disadvantages of our colonial empire, and maintained that "the glory of being the metropolis " of these magnificent dependencies was a real and a substantial advantage " to Great Britain and Ireland," though he confessed he was unable to define the nature or to express the amount of that advantage in any au thentical or statistical terms. Sir JAMES glanced facetiously at the Eng lish habit of caricaturin g ourselves, and owned his preference of the Tom Browns to the John Bu lls—a sentiment in which we heartily concur. Alluding to the political economists and the causes which had falsified the predictions of MALTHUS, Sir JAMES admonished his hearers that, although they might learn from such teachers how the resources of States were squandered and restored, if they would learn what were the duties of States they must address themselves to " nobler oracles "—to the shrines of religion and science, of faith and hope, of an enlightened patriotism, and a world-embracing philosophy. The orator then noticing the peculiar fitness of the English race for colonization, took exception to Archbishop WHATELY's picture of its modern results, and said he held it was an art which this age had not lost but had discovered. The papers as yet read in the various departments embrace one upon the Bankruptcy Laws, by Mr. G. W. HASTINGS, in which he did little more than repeat what had been already stated on the subject by Lord JOHN RUSSELL. Another in the Educational Department, by Mr. HottAcE MANN, on the Civil Service Examinations, who made himself very merry at the expense of stupid people, whom he recommended to take refuge in the professions of law and literature. In the discussion which ensued on this subject., we are glad to see that Mr. M. MILNES had the moral courage to point out some of the evils of the system. All persons practically versed in the business of education know well enough that success in a compe titive examination depends very much on the amount of tutorial assistance which the candidate is able to afford. Mr. thistcm's paper on " Education in Art" was characterized by all the vigour of style for which that gentleman is famous, and, barring a somewhat dogmatic tone in portions of it, was a valuable contribution. In the remaining de partments, the two most noticeable papers were contributed by Mr. KINGSLEY and Miss NIGHTINGALE. The subject of the former was " The Influence of our Elective System on Sanitary Improvement," and the object of it was to show that local measures of reform were impeded by local interests, as those of builders, attorneys, &c., who objected to inter ference with their property. Our readers should compare with this view some remarks of Lord ROBERT CEicti. in his recent paper on Parlia mentary Reform, contributed to the " Oxford Essays." The opinion of the meeting, however, seemed to be hostile to Mr. KINGSLEY'S suggestion, on the ground that wholesale Government interference would never be tole rated by the people. Miss NwarrlNGALE's paper was on The Health of Hospitals." She expressed herself as decidedly sceptical on the aubject . sof contagion and infection, and declared that these notions were all originally generated by bad management and the want of light and air. The sit tings of the departments terminated yesterday, but we have not yet re• ceived reports of the later readings. The destruction of the Austria by fire at sea is one of the most real and authentic horrors that has for a long time stirred the emotions and excited the pity not only of English society hut of the world at large. The narrative of her loss is one of the most circumstantial and painful that we can call to mind. The President two decades of years ago foundered suddenly, or drifted to some more dreadful though more gradual ruin. The hope deferred that made the heart sick nevertheless buoyed up that heart with expectation, and thereby alleviated the very suffering that it caused. To the fond imagination of affection the case of Sir JOHN FRAYKLIN and his brave comrades may yet present hopeful features. But in this instance of the Austria, as in Nit of the Amazon, Ivc know everything, and what we know is tragic beyond tragedy. An English-built screw steamer of 2,500 tons, trading between Hamburg and New York, left that port on the 2nd of September, touched at South ampton, and eleven days afterwards was seen by the officers and crew of the French bark Maurice, in lat. 4.5.01, long. 41.30, a mass of flames, con fusion, wreck, and terror. By the lurid light of this hideous destruc tion, scenes were witnessed which dwarf into ordinary dimensions the wildest scene paintings of the poet or novelist. Families leaping together in the sea—a pardonable suicide, which migM. puzzle a cold casuist, but which ordinary men must - accept, if they fIRER 16, 1858. who can afford to wait ia certain to be -+ to which we really think more orthography. Bad matter