The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

i n prim. On the sth of October the ladies had begun to restrict themselves to two " chupatties , day ; there was still rice and beef; but horseflesh B eemed not altogether out of the question. On - 26th of October the rations were again reduced, order to last till the Ist of December ; so far as writer's experience went, they were sufficient , quantity, owing to the exact management of Mrs. Inglis. But others did not fare so well : 're were told that some of the soldiers belonging to new force are so hungry that they will do anything obtain food, and constantly run into the kitchen whenever they see cooking going on, seize on a chupsttie, leave a rupee in its place ! Poor fellows, it is indeed to hear of their being upon guard or duty of some kind all night long, especially now the moings are so 1, 1 and keen , and that without enough to ernat. was not till the 17th November that the eyes of the little garrison were gladdened by the sight of the first soldiers of Sir Colin Campbe ll ' s force. But even then the ladies' troubles were all over ; Sir Colin gave them only one day , make their preparations for departure, and they were obliged to leave much behind that they could ill spare. Even the passage through .he city was not without its dangers; at three places, which were exposed to the fire of a mosque, was necessary for the children to be taken out the carriages and for all the party to run across fast as they could. This unpleasant game of rounders being over, the worst was past, and nothing remained but the fatiguing journey to Allahabad. Mrs. Case's book is certainly interesting, but, we have said, a few notes would have eluci dated matters greatly, and this applies not only the events described, but to the llindostanee :xpressions which frequently occur. how many people, not Indians, know the meaning of a " chick," a " metah," " chotah hazrce," " rezais," of such a sentence as this : I remained in bed the whole day, almost unconscious what was going on, but heard enough to know that they were all busy with bon and coprawallahe the greater part of the day. Both the above works, however, will at least , turned over by all who wish to appreciate the struggle through which we are passing, and that the Chaplain especially, from its minuteness and care, will be valuable to any future writer who may undertake a connected history of the present outbreak. rise ii begLt a day seem the 2 in or the in ql dirs• We the n to of when and I ad t kind cold It eyes s►gh fan not to r they they the plat it w of tl as ft rout noti Alit as 'V dati to t exp Pen 64 e t or of N they part 1 he stn of ani wh pre To am sit of an so fin tit pr rei ab to Pe of wl fie th th ra Pt ar w nt ar of th w of b( th al bt le ti THE PRESS, JULY 24, 1858. would remain in the pocket of the occupier ; and if it never went any further, it is clear he would be relieved front a burden in his capacity of occupier of land—that is, the occupation of land would be relieved from a certain disadvantage. But in all probability it would ultimately find its way to the landlord by means of a gradual but general raising of rents in proportion to the decrease of the tenant's expenses. As to the plea of conscience, we must frankly state that we totally disbelieve it. We all of us every day see our money expended upon objects of which we disapprove. Yet nobody refuses to pay his income tax because thirty thousand a year is granted to Maynooth. The plea will not hold water for a single instant. Nor have the would-be confis cators even the Robin-Hood excuse of taking from the rich to give to the poor. They arc doing exactly the reverse, and selling up the peasant's church to swell the hoards of some unctuous plutocrat. The article on "Medical Education" is uncommonly well written, and very interesting. The following remarks do no more than justice to a much maligned class of really hardworking men:— We are fully conscious of our temerity and danger in venturing to give a truthful description of the ground on which we are now treading. It is curious that although the grinder is a direct emanation from the certificate system, and was created solely to supplement its defects, the very name of grinder stinks in the nostrils of" recognised lecturers," and may scarcely be pronounced in their preseuce unless in a whisper. They persist in ignoring him, and if they ever mention him, they only do so in anathemas, the language of which proves how profoundly ig norant they are of the nature of the grinding process. They assert that it consists of verbal cramming,—that the grinders acquaint themselves with the range of questions, sonic of which constitute the examination of each candidate for a diplo;na, and that they load the memories of their pupils with answers to all the questions likely to be asked, instead of informing their intellects and imbuing them with prin ciples—whereas only by a clear understanding of the latter is a man truly educated. We deliberately assert that the method thus ascribed to the grinder is exactly that which they do not sdopt, and that if " recognised teaehers " would pay a visit to Messrs. Power, at Exeter Hall, or to Mr. Ilinde, at 29, Newman street, and would use their eyes and ears, instead of constructing the grinders " out of their moral consciousness" (as is the German process of con struction, according to a disticguished biographer of Goethe), they might not only change their opinions, but might also gather some hints highly useful to themselves, as teachers, in the ensuing session. Alas, knowledge is often inconvenient. It dissipates so many long-cherished and ingenious theories which nourish our self-love and minister to our comfort, that it seems little short of sacri lege to lift the veil of truth. But the nameless abstraction who is only known as the editorial "we " can have no feelings, and may therefore be expected to be ruthless. We have reason to believe that large incomes are realized by the Messrs. Power and Mr. Hinde from their grinding operations, and we know that a large proportion of the men who in successive years become members of the College of Surgeons, or of the Apothecaries' Company, and of those who graduate at St. Andrew's, or who pass the competitive examination of the East India Company's Medical Board, have been enabled to do so by these teachers. Success is a potent argument in favour of the method by which it is achieved, and we think it is a strong presumption that that method is founded on reason and common sense. In fact, it combines the essential elements of all true teaching—personal responsibility, and an exclusive appeal t 3 the reason. The grinder pledges himself, in cor.sideration of a definite payment, to qualify his pupil to pass any given examination, and he adopts the only effectual way of storing his mind with the requi site knowledge, by taking care that he understands what ever is imparted to him. To insure the memory of facts, they are clustered round principles. Education is an art of no mean order, and it is as difficult as it is noble. By vast labour and long experience these men have attained it. The lectures of Messrs. Power, by their comprehen siveness, lucidity. and conciseness, attest how much atten tion they give to perfect their chief medium of instruction, while the admirable illustrations of Mr. Hinde prove how much he must have practised with his pencil, and how important ho deems it as an instrument of instruction. If the art of these men were possessed and practised by the recognised teachers, who can command the aid of the laboratory, the dissecting-room, and the hospital, how much more might be learnt than is learnt now in the time which is spent or misspent by students in getting their certi ficates, may be computed by the fact that Messrs. Power enable men, marvellously ignorant, to pass the College of Surgeons or the Apothecaries'-hall in a few months. It therefore follows, logically, either that the present enforced meths(' of medical education involves the expenditure of a large amount of superfluous time and money, or that the examinations are lamentably inadequate as tests of efficiency. 'We care not which conclusion is accepted as the true one. Each is fatal to the character of the existing system. If grinders do not give Coat practical instruction which is essential to a trustworthy physician or surgeon, it is not the method, but the nature) of the examinations hitherto generally instituted, which is at fault. Supply only equals demand. Grinders are judicious men of busi ness, who provide the article asked tor at a remunerative price, and, of course, expend no superfluous labour upon it. But that they can produce a superior article, at a vropor tionately higher price, if demanded, is proved by the fart that they prepare men for the East Indian Board examina. 705 tion, which we believe is a test of professional knowl edge and skill equal to any to which students are submitted in the United Kingdom. Of course, at present the in ain function of the grinder is that of supplementing the deft eta of the " recognised " teacher; but were the certificate system abolished, competition would force him to insure instruction in practical anatomy, chemistry, eta., but he would take cans that his own method of teaching should Will be applied. to each 'wench of study. It is, perhaps, fair to infer from Wisrs. Power's scale of charges what. is their estimate of the relative value of the different ex aminations, as tests of professional knowledge and ability : For preparing a pupil to pass the London College of Surgeons £s 5 0 PI I> „ Apothecaries' Company 5 5 0 to graduate at St. Andrew's 10 10 0 to pass the East India Board J. 15 0 to become a Licentiate of the London College of Physicians.... Now, we maintain that if students were allowed to obtain their knowledge where and hew they pleased, they would elect as their teachers men who proved themselves to be, equally with Messrs. Power and Mr. Hinde, real artists in their vocation. Oral instrucam will,' doubtless be re placed to a great extent by books and private study ; but many accomplished men, feeling themselves elected to the office of teacher by Na'ure herself, would devote themselves to the task, and knowing that their pecuniary reward would be proportionate to their professional success, every avail able auxiliary, in the shape of practical demonstrations, in each department of science and medical and surgical art, would be called into requisition. Competition would stintulste exertion, would raise the ablest men to the first rank, would induce experiments of various methods, until the best aro discovered and adopted and would result in a vast amount of private tuition, which has the immense advantage of bringing the pupil in close personal relation with his teacher, whose moral as well as intellectual influence can then be most effectually exerted. Thus ter it appestat, theta, that the best as well as the cheapest education will only be obtainable when the medical and surgical corporations shall cease to dictate the method of that education by authority derived from the State. The article on " Women Artists" is very plea sant reading, and contains much curious infor mation. The National is very good. The paper upon " Old and New Ghosts" is marked by great breadth of view and great moderation of lan guage. Declining to pass any decided opinion on the phenomena which have given rise to the vulgar superstitions on the subject, the writer merely requires that other people shall do the same till the whole question has received scientific investigation. We cannot say we have much faith in the fruits of any such process, but we are quite willing to hold our judgment in sus pense for an indefinite period. The review of Mr. Gladstone's Homer is much what we should have expected in the National—nicely written, candid, and anti-mystical. But we must once more* protest against the character here given of Virgil which the writer adopts in its entirety from Mr. Gladstone—without, as it seems to us, having taken any trouble to examine it for him self:— Mr. Gladstone nowhere shines more than in dealing with the persons of the Homerie tale, and in distinguishing the true Homeric conceptions from the perversions valtned off upon the world by Euripides and Virgil. Of the whole dealing of the latter with the Trojan story Mr. Gladstone has made a thoroughly withering exposure. A modern Roman could not be an oid Achaien, the court-poet of Augustus could not rival the nature And simplicity of the singer of the Hellenic people; thus far the fault was that of the age and not of the man. But Virgil might have spared us his wilful perversions both of great matters and of small, alike of the character of Ellen, and of the com parative bigness of Sirnoeis and Skamanlros. From the Cyclic poets down to Dryden and Racine the whole world seems to have conspired to disfigure the glorious concep tions of Homer. to mar alike the unrivalled power and the incompsrable delicacy of his touch. Odysseus, the wise and valiant, becomes a vulgar rogue • Acbilleus sinks into a mere brutal soldier, far below the Homeric Anis ; the generous, the brave, the Affectionate Menelaos becomes a coward and a soplist. zlischyltis alone seems to have re tained some little rev-rence fur the heroes and for him who designed them. He has given us an Agamemnon perhaps unduly surpassing the Agamemnon of Homer ; but in return even he seems not to have been sble to touch without defilement the Homeric conception •if Achilleus tied Petroklos. But the miserable treatment to which the Homeric characters have been subjected rises to its height in the ruthless way in which later writers have marred and polluted the masterpiece even of Homer's art, the picture of the Homeric Helen. Even Colonel More, who has done so much for Homer and the Homeric personages, here fails us ; it has been reserved for Mr. Gladstone to set once more before ns the Helen of Homer in all her beauty. The Helen of the later poets is a vain and wanton adulteress ; the Tritice of paint!) eamminis Erinnys, who can at hest only exculpate herself by transferring her own sins to the charge of Fate and Aphrodite. Now, to say nothing of the fact that Virgil is here most unfairly associated with the later Greek • This portion of Mr. Gladstone 's work appeared in an article in the Quarterly Review, Po d at the time of us publication we questioned the correctness of the views it contained. THE QUARTERLIES. To review Reviews appears at first sight analogous to Mr. Weller's notion of " vheels ithin vheels." But on second thoughts there is of course no valid reason why this species of iterature should not be as regularly criticized as any other. Seeing, also, that at the present day so much of the thought and taste of the nation finds expression through this channel, and that the number of regular books is diminished in proportion, we should of course fail to make our readers acquainted with some of the most remark able productions of the age, were we pedantically to adhere to any rule that should exclude periodical-writing from a full consideration in our columns. The Westminster Review for July is some what heavier than usual. But it presents con siderable variety. The paper upon Calvin is good because nothing lately has appeared upon the subject; but we by no means subscribe to all the writer's views. The article on Church rates is rather historical than practical. The present state of the question is, however, briefly and correctly put as regards facts, but the writer's deductions are fundamentally erroneous. For instance, in speaking of the Braintree case, he says : In that year, 1833, the Lords at length passed the preg nant decision, " that a rate must be made by the majority ; and that no other rate is valid." By this decision the state o f the law Was rendered not only clear, hut indisputable ; the pretence of church-rate being a charge upon the lend was swept away ; the impost stcod forth in its true character of a personal tax—once unexceptionable, bin long ego become opressive through change of circumstances—and the ground was cleated for efforts to get rid of the impost altogether, such as the measures which have been since brought forward in Parliament, obtaining larger and larger majorities in the HOuse of Commons. Now, no decision of the House of Lords or any other body can alter facts. If we ask the simple question of who would benefit by the abolition of Church -rates, we shall soon see whether the Church-rate is a charge upon land, or a personal tax. In the first instance, of course, the money