The Press. — London, England, 1854-04-15 00:00:00

the long life, The noel success, the pecuniary Opulence, which in the end became his lot. Of his early years of trial we have few re cords. It is a pity, for these years form the most interesting part of every man's life. We know that he studied diligently the native lan guages, and that at the tie of eighteen he wrote a financial paper (being then a clerk in the " uncovenanted service ") which was ap proved and adopted by his superiors. But it was in 1790 that his prospect of advance ment first became bright. Under the patron age of Sir W. Jones he received employment and pay. An office in the Indian Board of Trade was soon afterwards conferred upon him. From the two appointments his income rose to 700/. ; and he even procured for one of his brothers a commission in the army. His prosperity, however, was not without vicissi tudes. Impatient of small profits, he joined a house of business, and, though still under age, engaged in speculation. The house failed —he was again thrown back—a heavy load of debt fell upon him—ten years elapsed before it was finally cleared off—and in the interim anxiety and privation had well-nigh cost him his life. This seems to have been the turning point of his career; for in the next year he gained admission to the covenanted civil ser vice, and Lord Wellesley's quick eye discerning his talent gave room and scope for its exercise. His path, if not easy, was now plain before him. In 1801 he became Accountant-General, with the charge of Indian finances generally, and the salary of an English Secretary of State. It is singular that two years after this great advancement we find him seeking to retire from office, and enter a mercantile house. This, indeed, for a time he did ; but in 1805 returned to the career which he probably felt he had done unwisely in quitting. Serving under Barlow at a critical period, he shared in much undeserved obloquy, the natural re ward of a reforming financier. Health failed him shortly afterwards, and in 1810, after twenty-five years of Indian servitude, he took the decisive step of returning to England. An agreeable chapter of domestic life follows. There is scarcely a situation more enviable than that of the successful Indian official who, still comparatively young, revisits the country of his birth. All to him seems so new, yet so familiar. He has old ties to reunite, new ones to form. Rest has been earned by previous labour, and experience has matured judgment without impairing the power to enjoy. These pleasures Mr. Tucker enjoyed to the utmost. He rejoined all that was left of his family after so long an interval : he married, and per haps thought of abandoning public life. But such resolutions seldom last long. In 1812 the new-married couple were on their way again to Calcutta, which they did not finally quit until 1815. A nine years' interval of in action ensued, partly filled up by the disa greeable incidents of a canvass for the direc torship. In 1824, though not without a close contest, the object of his ambition was gained. He became a director, and in time succeeded to the chair. Henceforth he took an active though unobtrusive part in Indian politics, and recorded many useless but judicious pro tests against the policy of Sir John Hobhouse. He opposed the Afghan war; he opposed the Scinde war; he dissented from the resump tion of rent-free tenures ; and pleaded the cause of native princes, not rightly appre ciating the " manifest destiny " which absolves England from keeping treaties contracted in Asia. Twice chairman of the Company, he died in harness. His last official minute was written in May, 'sl, and within three weeks its author had ceased to live, being then in his eighty-first year. To a life so laborious and useful—for his official services extended over sixty years—it is impossible to deny our ap plause. In the second rank of our Indian statesmen—for men like Clive, Hasting,s, and Wellesley stand apart—few names stand higher than his. He loved literature, read much, studied hard, and even wrote verses and tra gedies, which are judiciously suppressed. Liberal of his hard-earned fortune, attached to his many friends, and kind to all, his private merits enhanced his public reputation. In a word, he left behind an example of deserved THE PRESS. 4 .. , prOspeiity - , arid achieved a career which wile may desire, none need despair to imitate. Of Mr. Kaye's book a few words. It is generally well written, the remarks judicious, the narrative graphic. His chief fault is that of diffuseness and an occasional affected turn of phrase which we do not remember to have perceived either in his essay on Indian govern ment or his history of the Afghan war. E. g., " these conjectural deductions hover on the " extreme verge of the Absurd," p. 9 ; "with " out wandering into the regions of the great " Far-fetched," p. 9; " the act belong ed to the " great family of the Well-meant," p. 24. Page 82, Lord Wellesley is described as " a little " man with great aims "—a criticism which we cannot believe serious, and which, if not se rious, is a foolish jingle of words. Page 85, a financier becomes " commander of the Money bags." Page 118, "this project was flung, " like many others, into the great Hereafter; ' and much more to the same effect. We note such blemishes only because a second edition may remove them. Collegiate and Professorial Teaching and Disci pline, in Answer to Professor Vaughan's Stric tures. By the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. Oxford and London: J. H. Parker. Pn•stY has here giyen us an interesting treatise on the relative merits of collegiate and professorial instruction; in other words, of teaching by lectures, or teaching by examina tions. The value of such an argument at the present time is great, for of all the suggested Oxford reforms none is more popular with a certain class than the substitution of profes sorial lessons for those of public or private tutors as usually given at the present day. To us this step seems a retrogression, not an advance. The arguments used by Dr. Pusey are in the main these :- 1. A lecture orally delivered and listened to is at best " a text without notes." No digres sion, no turning aside to deal with small de tails, is possible, for it involves the distraction of the student's attention, and the breaking of the chain of argument ; yet such illustrations and expansions of a writer's meaning often times form the most valuable part of his trea tise. In a lecture, if we may so illustrate Dr. Pusey's reasoning, the whole picture is fore. ground. There can be no light and shade. All points touched upon stand out in equal pro minence. 2. The modes of lecturing are and alit ays have been twofold—" dictation" or slow de livery, which, in fact, turns the lecture into a book, of which each student is expected to take a MS. copy ; and fluent delivery, or oratory. Each method has advantages pecu liar to itself. In times when printed books were scarce, dictation was not only a useful but almost a necessary practice. It is now superfluous (books abounding) and incon venient, since the manual labour of copying or taking notes renders simultaneous mental effort impossible. In fact, the proceeding be came so purely mechanical that, as Dr. Pusey tells us, at Padua, in the sixteenth century, the scholars sent down clerks, or servants, to take notes for them. This mode of lecturing is not likely to find favbur in England. But the opposite is equally faulty, though in a different way. No close reasoning, no condensed thought, can be conveyed in an off hand speech. Admitting the lecturer to possess the rare gift of extemporaneous accuracy, a very different thing from mere verbal fluency, the student's memory may still fail. He carries away a part only of what he hears, not the whole—even that part perhaps incorrectly. Here let Dr. Pusey speak for himself : Oral delivery, as compared to the study of a book, wastes time in two opposite ways What is easy is delivered too slowly ; what is difficult too fast. A lecturer may pause upon some sentence which he wishes to impress on his hearers ; or he may deliver somewhat more rapidly whatis necessary to be said but not to be dwelt upon. But in both ways he is limited. The words must be enunciated one after the other ; there is no pause ; no looking back ; no recovering what was not grasped at first. It is gone. in the more difficult parts the perception remains what it was, indistinct. No one who values time or knowledge would ever turn the book back into a lecture by having a printed book read aloud to him. This is done sometimes for social ends ; but whoever would study a book knows that he must stuck) , it for himself. In this way too what passes through the ear makes less impression than what is sub- .arillamiliM SATURDAY ; jected to " the faithful eye." One who should even read a book straight through without pausing would, unless he had a most retentive memory, remember at the end next to nothing of what he had read. What he did remember would be indistinct and undefined. No one would so read any book but a novel. Nay, if the novel, like Sir Walter Scott's, had any more vivid touches of human nature, any more solid reflection, any beautiful picture of our beautiful world, any flash of imagination, any his torical knowledge, the reader will either pause or go back to dwell upon it. Cursory reading or hearing does not sink. The river flows away, and sinks not in ; it fer tilises, like the Nile, where it rests. The office of delivery is toward the feelings rather than the intellect. The living being, if in earnest, has a power of persuasion over and above his book, on the very ground that he is seen to be impressed with what he says : Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi." Herein lies the difference between oratory and lecturing for the purpose of instruction. The two things have nothing in common. Their very end and object is not the same. Nor is it merely in want of perceptive power that the listener to an oral discourse is want ing. Memory must also be exercised. Two distinct mental efforts have to be carried on at the same time—that of understanding, and that of retaining. These, as most persons will feel who have made the experiment, are well-nigh incompatible. The strain cannot be upon both organs at once, consequently the lecture runs no small risk of either beiug un intelligible or being forgotten. 3. A lecture is addressed to a large number of persons gathered together. This is in its nature. The same exertion, mental and physical, is required to teach 20 as to teach 200. Consequently the greater the audience the better economy. But, also, the greater the audience the wider must be the diversity of individual minds composing that audience. How are all to be taught according to their several capacities? Either the best informed carry away little or nothing that to them is new, or the most ignorant find nothing suited to their comprehension. This holds of a single lecture. Much more of a course, or series of lectures. For here, where the know ledge acquired is supposed to be progressive, the rate of progress of all learners will not be the same. One remembers what he has heard once ; his neighbour requires at least three repetitions of the same lesson before it stands a chance of being retained. What is the teacher to do? To advance with the most rapid learner, or wait for the slowest? In either case time is lost ; either the first is delayed and disgusted, or his less acute fellow-pupil is carried on beyond his capacity to follow. 4. As time is lost in adapting the informa tion conveyed to the mind of the least advanced student, so it is also lost in dwelling on topics comparatively simple, which, never• theless, cannot be wholly omitted. In reading, how rapidly do we pass over what we already understand ! How remarkable is that mental intuition which penetrates the sense of a paragraph of which the words have perhaps hardly been glanced at ! And, on the other hand, who that has studied in earnest is not familiar with the frequent pause—the turning back to what was read before—the collation of passage with passage, each throwing li?ht on the other? Allthese things are in lecturing impossible. 6 . Between the mental condition of a student who reads, and of one who only listens, there is a wide difference. The intellect of the one is active, that of the other only passive. To sustain attention where no actual exertion is called for becomes doubly difficult. A cele brated philosopher is reported to have said, " If I want to understand a subject, I write a " book about it." And doubtless he was right. The labour of communicating know ledge creates the necessity for acquiring it thoroughly. He who even reads merely with a view to his own instruction runs the risk of reading hastily and superficially. Much more the mere listener, of whom nothing is required, except to keep his ears open and his attention awake. 6. Dr. Pusey argues also against what he regards as an evil, and one long prevalent in German teaching—the tendency of a pro. fessor's or lecturer's pupils to form a school, adopting his opinions blindly, and shaping their minds upon hie. The pr obability of this