The Press.
London, England, 1855-04-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Through all these disfigurements, Margaret recognised
John Boucher.
These passages are enough to exhibit the
pictures drawn of manufacturing life in these
pages. The writer appears to think that such
things are inevitable, and that the fierce strife
between operatives and masters is the natural
working of society. It is true that towards
the close of the story Mr. Tharnton is repre-
sented as a little humanised, but every one
will see that these softening effects are ob-
tained only at the expense of consistency.
The general management of the story is un-
skilful and gloomy. In the second volume
one death-bed follows close upon another, and,
in the style of the vulgarest school of fiction,
virtue is at last rewarded in the person of
Margaret with a splendid legacy. It is, per-
haps, more natural than romantic that she
should, after taking a quiet farewell of the
kind old face of her benefactor, return to her
relatives in time for dinner, thank God for
having spared her dear friend a long illness
(always detestable cant), and acknowledge
that joy and gladness might yet gather round
her.

The book is remarkable for strong por-
traiture and dramatic effects, but it is less
natural, and by so much less pleasing, than
some previous fictions of the author

Learning and Labour. By Frederick D.
Maurice, M.A. Cambridge : Macmillan.
[ Second Notice.]

THE lectures of Mr. Maurice—though we
cheerfully award them the praise of great
literary merit—are chiefly noticeable for their
relation to that scheme of education for work-
ing men which they were designed to promote.
He does not, however, inform us how many of
the 140 students of the Working Men's Col-
lege in Red Lion-square are really working
men ; how many have families ; and how far
they can, on the whole, be said to represent
that adult labouring population which he
argues is in a condition to profit by such col•

leges.
It is true that we ought not to judge such
institutions by their direct effects. Others
may benefit by them than the immediate re-
cipients of their instruction. In society, " a
" little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
There is gravitation in character. Raise the
mind of one workman in a manufactory and
you do something to raise the mind of all. But
even allowing for this indirect influence, we
fear that very little effect can be produced on
the labouring mind by working men's colleges,
or any similar institutions. We are at direct
issue with Mr. Maurice on the one main point
of his theory. We do not believe that labour-
ing men will or can pursue intellectual im-
provement for the sake of improvement—that
they will engage in mathematics to open their
mind—go through the Latin grammar that they
may at some distant time—how distant !
have the pleasure of poring over Virgil and
Horace—or that they will learn the names of
bones and muscles (a most laborious business),
that they may gain some knowledge of
anatomy.
ißut working men, it may be urged, will pursue
such studies as have reference to their trade,
and may operate to improve their physical
condition. The number of persons who can
be animated by such motives must be very li-
mited. When men's habits in any kind of
handicraft are fixed they are fixed for life.
Now and then a carpenter, or mason, or brick-
layer, may really profit by instruction in
drawing or in mechanics, but the cases must
be rare. The real college of the working man
is, and must be, the workshop in which he has
served his apprenticeship. Mr. Maurice prac-
tically overlooks the fact, that owing to the
extent to which the division of labour is carried
amongst us, and to the perfection which every
branch of industry, mental and mechanical,
has attained, a special education has already
been provided for every art and trade.
In one respect Mr. Maurice is unjust to me-
chanics' institutes. He supposes that they do
not provide courses of study. In most, or
all, of those in large towns there are classes of
instruction open, and some of them excellently
conducted. If mechanics' institutes have in any
degree failed, it certainly is not, as Mr. Maurice

859

supposes, from the want of offering their
members the means of real and solid improve-
ment. We doubt if it will be possible for him
with his college, and his terms, and his matri-
culated students, and his fellows, to do inure
than has been done, and is still to some extent
doing, by the plain mechanics' institutes.
If the progress of mechanical discovery is in
one respect favorable to working men, and
does afford superior ability a greater chance of
distinguishing itself, it is in other respects ad-
verse, we will not say to intellectual culture,
but to that kind of " learning" upon which Mr.
Maurice lays so much stress. In each depart-
ment of industry the energies of the labourers
are fully tasked. All may be the better for
this regularity and full measure of toil—each
worker in his place may help to roll onward
the great and complicated machine of civilisa-
tion, but obviously there is less opportunity
for each to aim at some higher post than that
which he happens to till. In contradiction to
the doctrine laid down by Mr. Maurice, we
venture to say that the scholar and the worker
were never separated by a greater interval than
now, and that the grooves in which classes
move were never channelled deeper.
If there be any truth in these views, it
would seem that, as regards the elevation of
the bulk of our labouring people, not much is
to be hoped from the regular courses of study
advocated by Mr. Maurice. We are rather in-
clined to believe, that if ever the mass of our
toiling people are to feel the elevating in-
fluences of intellectual culture, it must be
through offering them such relaxation from
their toil as they will gladly embrace. A tired
body and fresh mind cannot coexist together.
Why does Mr. Maurice overlook so plain a
truth? The workman after his day's labour
needs repose for his franand refreshment
for his mind. He is in no condition to enter
on new studies ; but he may prcfitably listen
to a lecture on some subject in which he feels
interested, or engage in discourse, or exercise
himself in some pursuit which has peculiar at-
traction for him. It is rightly stated in these
lectures, that—

Of all experiments in English education, beyond com-
parison the most successful has been that for diffusing a
knowledge of music and a love of music among our
people. The mechanic's institutes have attracted a few
men here and there, and those generally nut mechanics ;
the classes of Mr. Hullah have brought thousands together
of both sexes in London and in every part of England.
Every order down to the lowest has felt the impulse. I
am credibly informed that, instead of merely hearing
lectures about singing, numbers have actually learned to
sing.
Does not this tend to show the direction
which our efforts for elevating the working
class should take? There has been a foolish
cry lately that our mechanics' institutes are
degenerating because the members prefer
music to algebra and hydrostatics. We are
not at all sure that music is not the better
kind of instruction for them ; this much is
certain, that the music-hall is better than the
gin-shop. To engage their minds at all we
must consult their tastes, and we should like
to see the experiment fairly tried of institu-
tions which from the attractions they held out
would have the effect, at least, of getting the
real working class to frequent them. In oppo-
sition to Mr. Maurice we think it likely that
mechanics' institutions have failed, not through
being too superficial, but through being too
profound. Offer the working man, in institu-
tions expressly designed for him, something
which shall really please him, something
which shall afford him grateful relaxation
after his day's work, and the probability is
that he will gladly accept it. We think there
is room for effort, not to change his state, but
to render it more agreeable to him ; not to
raise him above his calling, but to make him
contented with it.

On the influence of music there are in one
of these lectures some exquisite passages,
which we gladly quote, both as showing the
use which may he made of music as an
element in adult education, and as a specimen
of Mr. Maurice's eloquence :
- -

To understand this question rightly you must put your-
self in the place, not exactly in the place of some utterly
dull and incapable listener like myself, but of some
simple clown, all whose work has been of the roughest
kind, but who has had a father and mother, perhaps a wife
and children, and who possesses the strange power, which
it has never occurred to him to think about, of recoLleeting

.

that which has been in his own life, of anticipating that
which shall be. Very strange! This clown is a creature
that looks before and after. All the economy of his exist-
ence is adapted to one possessing these faculties ; he is
descended from one who is in his grave ; those are climbing
his knees who will be playing or working on this earth
when he is in his grave. I cannot tell what these strange
Bounds, so unlike the ordinary discourse which he hears
when he is talking about the weather, or buying and
selling in the market, mean to him, what kind of message
they carry to him ; but I am quite sure it has something
to do with these memories, and hopes, and fears of his ;
that it joins itself to a number of vague feelings which he
has had about other days, and about faces which he has
seen and hands which he has pressed ; that it gives them
a kind of distinctness which it had not before. I cannot
explain how this comes to pass, and I am sure he could
not. The music speaks to something within him, which
the ordinary language does not speak to, something more
near his own very self touching wires which that language
does not reach, and making them vibrate. . . . Even
the vulgarest street music is an education to the hearts of
those who stand at the doors of pestilential dwellings to
listen to it. Till that day which shall unseal all pent-up
words, and reveal the secrets of all hearts, it may not be
known what thoughts have been stirred up in human
spirits by sounds that fell utterly dead upon our ears,
what authentic tielin,„os of invisible things came to them
through those channels when other avenues seemed to be
closed; what awakenings of conscience, what aspirations
after truths never yet perceived, what search fur treasures
that had been lost.
- -

We have dwelt too long on Mr. 11Iaurice's
main purpose to have space now for criticising
his lectures in detail. They contain many
profound thoughts and many striking beau-
ties. Persons who still think with Sir A.
Alison that education has a dangerous ten-
dency may find food for consolatory reflection
in this passage, showing how instruction pro-
motes order :

I do not suppose that the only end of education is to
make us free. It would not accomplish that object if it
did not lead us to perceive an order in all that we do and
in all that we think. Here, again, lam only enunciating
a proposition to which we have all in some form or other
given an assent. " Schoolmasters," says George Herbert,
in an often-quoted passage, " deliver us to laws." Their
business is not to supply a substitute for the paternal go-
vernment, or for the affection of the mother, but to make
us understand the meaning of ordinances which are fixed
for a whole society, and cannot be transgressed by any one
without bringing down punishment; ordinances which are
to be obeyed because they exist, but which are gradually
to make their justice and wisdom apparent to us. These
ordinances are not only imposed that the lessons may
go on uninterruptedly—they are the most important part
of the lesson. They help to make it intelligible to the
boy how there should be rules of grammar and composi
tion ; how it should be his obligation not to make false
concords. On the other hand, the detection of his false
concords, and the punishment of them, is part of his
initiation into the principles of order. He finds that there
are laws of speech which existed before his day, before his
master's day, to which one as much as the other must
conform himself. This is discipline and education
united.
We think it likely that these lectures will
long outlive the " college " they were designed
to promote. The men who are gratuitously
devoting much of their time to the work are
to be honoured; but, as regards labouring
men, we are not sanguine of the result. But
in success or failure Mr. Maurice will stand
alone. He disclaims the aid of president and
vice-presidents—of committee and subscrip-
tion-lists. He says :
Either the teacher must boldly proclaim the Busby
principle, and keep his hat on his head when the many-
headed king enters his school•room, in which case he will
bepronounoed a direct rebel and probably be dismissed, or
he must submit to a constraint which will destroy all
harmony in his studies and all respect in his scholars.
We admire the high principle of this tone,
but we doubt whether it is either just or
prudent. Even a schoolmaster or "principal"
may be all the better for those controlling or
opposing influences which teach him the
necessity of self examination. Most of the
institutions which make us what we are as a
people are the result of that principle of asso
elation which Mr. Maurice slights; and there
may be real virtue as well as wisdom in some-
what modifying our own ideas to gain that
support which only association can give. The
passage, however, is eminently characteristic
of the author, and may help us to understand
how it is that with his distinguished ability he
has yet effected so little and remained co inpa
ratively so neglected.

Sisters of Charity Abroad and At Home. By Mrs.
Jameson. (A Lecture Delivered Privately, Feb.
14, 1855.) London : Longmans.
Mas. JAMESON has good right to he heard upon any
woman's question. She makes here an earnest ap-
peal, not upon the rights of woman, butfor their em-

THE PRESS.

ployment in a vocation peculiarly suited to their
faculties, their sympathies, and their instincts. It is
the woman's privilege, Mrs. Jameson contends, to
share in the labours of this "working-day world,"
and at her own free choice to be permitted to direct
her energies and devote those capabilities with which
God han endowed her to the performance of her share
of work in the great communion of labour :
I know that many well-meaning, ignorant people in this
country entertain the idea that; the existence of com-
munities of women, trained and organised to help in social
work from the sentiment of devotion, is especially a Roman
Catholic institution, belonging peculiarly to that Church, and
necessarily implying the existence of nuns and nunneries,
veils and vows, forced celibacy and seclusion, and all the other
inventions and traditions which in this Protestant nation are
regarded with terror, disgust, and derision. I conceive that
this is altogether a mistake. The truth seems ome to
amount to this : that the Roman Catholic Church has had
the good sense to turn to account, and assimilate to it-
self, and inform with its own peculiar doctrines, a deep-
seated principle in our human nature,—a law of life, which
we Protestants have had the folly to repudiate.
Mrs. Jameson sketches the history of charitable
sisterhoods from the seventh century, when we "find
" communities of charitable women first mentioned
" under a particular appellation." In our own land
and day we have had ladies whose energy in good
works might vie with the zeal of Angela da Brescia
or Madame Legras. But when our eye first caught
mention of one of these excellent persons, we thought
the passage must relate to some Lady Barrymore
who bad been the object of charitable care, not who
solicited it for others :

She attacked Home Secretaries, and she plagued magis-
trates ; no M.P. was safe from her ' • no Minister of State.
I have heard men in office say, " I dread the very sight of
that woman 1"

This lady was devoted to the reformation of juve-
nile delinquents, and, we learn, " made herself listened
"to by her much speaking, and at length leavened
'• the society in which she moved with her own feel-
ings, her own hopes, her own faith." As a practical
question, Mrs. Jauieson advocates the expediency of
charitable sisterhoods, on the ground that the neces
sary qualifications for a hospital nurse, " obedience,
" presence of mind, cheerfulness, sobriety, patience,
" forbearance, judgment, kindness of heart, a light
"delicate hand, a gentle voice, a quick eye," are
hardly to be expected " for 141. 103. a year."
Generally the work of the world is best done when
pursued and remunerated as a trade or profession ;
and if the payment of nurses be too low at present to
secure the proper training and qualifications, why
should not a higher rate be given ? We have no
more right to expect amateur nurses than amateur
surgeons or apothecaries. But the energies of some
ladies languish for lack of employment, says Mrs.
Jameson :
As if in these present times we had not known women
who in the midst of all the splendour of a luxurious home
have perished by a slow wasting disease of body and mind,
because they had nothing to do—no sphere of activity com-
mensurate with the large mental powers or passionate
energy of character with which Clod had endowed them.
Send such a woman to her piano, her books, her cross-stitch ;
she answers you with despair I—But send her on some
mission of mercy, send where she may perhaps die by
inches in achieving good for others, and the whole spirit
rises up strong and rejoicing.
One of the ladies at Scutari, rich, well-born, and accom-
plished, on being informed that she had been selected as
one of those who were to be sent to a post where addi-
tional difficulty, suffering, and even danger awaited her,
clasped her hands and uttered a fervent " Thank God l"
I remember a Sister of Charity who had been sent off
at half an hour's notice to a district where the cholera was
raging among the most squalid and miserable poor, and I
never shall forget the look of radiant happiness and thank-
fulness on that face.
Such cases must be exceptional, as most women
must have, or can find, sufficient occupation for their
thoughts, and sufficient opportunities of good, in the
quiet, unobtrusive duties of home and neighbourhood.
Without pretending, however, to judge Mrs. Jame-
son's theory of " organising female labour for noble
"purposes of public utility," we may express a high
opinion of her Lecture, though doubting whether the
question she discusses be of that " terribly momentous"
import which it appears to her excited imagination.

Robespierre. A Tragedy. By Henry Bliss, one of
her Majesty's Counsel. London : Kimpton.
Ir is very seldom indeed that the candid critic can
award to a new tragedy or any other poem the pre•
cise place in literature fondly anticipated for it in its
preface. That., however, we rejoice to say we can
with a clear conscience give to " Robespierre." It
will, unquestionably, remain amongst the " unacted
drama," and in all probability achieve the distinction
also of the unread. Mr. Bliss's estimate of the
gentleman whom he designates as "the mystic
Robespierre" is rather favorable, though he dm a not
go quite so far as the Chartist lecturers, who thought
that Robespierre was too mild. Tallien's appeal to
the "Deputies of France" against Robespierre may
be quoted as a fair specimen of the dramatic power
displayed in this tragedy in rhyme. The uncertainty as

SATURDAY,

to where " Hebert's widow, where Desmoulins' went,"
when beheaded, is worthy of Sampson Brass's safely_
hazarded opinion that the soul of Quilp was "
lookin' down " on them from " somewhere or an-
other " _ _

.
My wife, my wife,
Torn from mine arms this morning has been sent,
Where Hebert's widow, where Desmoulins' went,
Where your's may follow you, where I, and all,
His list, or hate, has margin for, must fall.
Forbid it, Deputies of France, forbid!
Old Mountaineers, who sit where Herault did—
Ye moderate men, that in the plain succumb—
If ye dare dream of Vergniaud's martyrdom ;
If seats here seem sufficiently bereft;
If any pity, pluck, or brains are left ;
Arrest atlast this merciless machine !
Down with him ! down, the incarnate Guillotine !
Hear my last summons ! sieze your last, sole chance !
It appears that " pluck" is not, 89 we flattered our-
selves, an Anglo-Saxon word or characteristic; and
still further to upset old prejudices, " head and
pluck," so time-honoured in their conjunction, are
here originally varied to " pluck and brains." The
above may be taken as a specimen of the sublimity
of the tragedy : we add an example of its simplicity.
Robespierre in prison is supposed to welcome
death:—

ROBESPIERRE.
And welcome ! Ready !

Present!

Hold I

VOICE.

What, without one prayer?
ROBESPIERRE.

VOICE.

BAILOR (without).
Ho!
ROBESPTERB.E.
Hark I

JAILOR (without).
Citizen!
ROBESPIERRE.

Who's there?
" Ready !" " Present !" Sm., have a perfectly militia-
like nervousness about them ; but as the Militia has
been scattered by the Ministers, we recommend such
passages to the "Lumber troop." On the whole, to
use the stereotyped phrase of the critics, we think
that " Robespierre" should " flnd a place on every
shelf "—whether that shelf be

The seventh upwards crowned with learned dust,
or the more useful depository whence the frugal
vendor of viands disperses modern literature envelop-
ing the more solid "joys of sense." Finally, we can
assure our readers that those who study " Robes-
pierre " will make acquaintance with Tom Moore's
ever famous

Bliss that the Muses have never cone( Ived.

Recollections of the Mess-table and the Stage. By

Henry Curling. London : Bosworth.
A COLLECTION of anecdotes, derived from the author's
experience of " Mess-table Chat and Green-room
Gossip." The military stories relate chiefly to the
Peninsular war, and the theatrical ones are supplied
from recollections of Jerry Russell, the comedian. The
volume is too slight for any other expression of opi-
nion than that Mr. Curling appears actuated by right
feeling, and that there are geodnatured readers whom
his goodhumoured reminiscences will please.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
BOOKS.

Poems. Bessie Rayner Parkes.
Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern.
The Lost Heiress.

J. Chapman.
Kent and Co.
Ward and Lock.

America and the Americans. W. E. Tiaxter, M.P. Rontledge.
The Illustrated Book of French Songs. John Oxenford.
Ingram and Co.
The New Existence of Man upon Earth. Part VI. Robert
Owen. E. Wilson.
Encyclopedia Metropolitana. Griffin.
Quarterly Review. Murray
our Indian Army. Captain Rafter. Bryce.
Quarterly Journal of Public Health. S. liighley.

PAMPHLETS.

Robin Hood and Other Poems.
The West of Scotland Magazine.

Lacy.
Murray.
' Cook.

Travels in-rlether. H. L:Watts.
Peace. A Poem. T. H. Stirling. Hall and Virtue.
Balmoral. A. Macalister. Bosworth.
Light from the Lantern of Diogenea. Shelton.
Honlston.
Inquire Within.

AN apropos, called Zouave et Highlander, ou
Pilbox (sic) et Triquet, has been put on the Petals
Royal stage. It was not very successful, although
M. Levassor is plus Anglais que lee Anglais, and
sings an English (?) song. The thing is more
amusing to a Briton than to a Gaul, from the ingenious
mistakes made—from the impossible plaids upward—
in everything outre-mauche.
IT is said in literary circles in Paris that M. Th.
Gautier is to leave the Presse, and to become
theatrical critic for the Moniteur, and that his late
post on the Presse will be filled by M. Nestor
BoguelaD, ex-director of the Opera.