The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-12-25 00:00:00

LORD DERBY AT EDINBURGH.

The Earl of Derby wat on Friday afternoon in last
week installed as Lord -Rector of the University of
Edinburgh, in the Free Assembly-hall. There was a
wary large attendance of members of the Senate, pro-
fessors, and students, every seat in the capacious hall
being occupied long before the commencement of the
proceedings. The Lord Justice General presided as
Chancellor of the University. The Lord Rector, who
appeared in a purple silk velvet robe trimmed with
gold lace, on entering the hall, was received with much
cheering. His Lordship was followed by Principal
Sir Alexander Grant, the Duke of Buceleuch, the
Lord Advocate, Lord Curriehill, Sir W. Stirling-
Maxwell, the Lord Provost, Principal Rainy, Dr.
Lindsay Alexander, and others.
The proceedings were opened by prayer, by the Rev.
Professor Wallace, after which,
Professor M'Pheyson, addressing the Chancellor,
said,—
My Lord,—lt is the custom of our Scottish Universities to
express their welcome to a new Rector by enrolling him
among their graduates, if he be not already of their number.
I know not whether the custom has sprang from a dread
of any one addsessing a meeting of the University who
has not received from it the licentia docendi, or rather, as
I think it does, from the fact that the sound instincts of
our undergraduates always lead them to select men whom
we universally may be proud to honour. Nor have they
failed on the rresent occasion to select one worthy no less
to be the successor of distinguished men who have per-
ceded him in the office of Rector than he is to bear the
names of Stanley and Derby, illustrious in the history
of their country and in scholarship—(cheers)—names
to which our Rector is adding honour by achieve-
ments entirely his own. (Cheers.) I do not wonder that
the public career of our Rector should now for a second
' time have attracted a University constituency, depending
as it does .on circumstances eminently calculated to en-
courage an academic assembly t because, as a statesman,
he continues the habits of close application which dis-
tinguished him as an undtrgraduate, and because in every
department in which he had served the State, he has in-
spired confidence by endeavouring to master every sub-
ject with which he has been called upon to deal. No public
'man in all discussions keeps more steadily in view the true
point to be determined, or strives more earnestly, by laying a
solid foundation of accurate facts on which to build his argu-
ments, and by the calmness-and -wisdom of his reflections -
and the soundness of his judgment, to lead captive the
understanding of his audience. (Cheers.) But it were un-
pardonable to detain longer what I believe to be the largest
af3senably of undergraduates that has ever met in Scotland
from the satisfaction of listening to the Rector of their
choice. Permit me then, my lord, on the part of the Senatus
A cademicus, to ask you to confer on the Right Hon.
Edward Henry, Earl of Derl,y, her Majesty 's Principal
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the degree of LLD.,
the highest honour the University has in its power to be-
stow. (Cheers.)
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The Chancellor having, in the name and by the
authority of the University, conferred the degree, with
the usual formalities and amid great cheering,
The Lord Rector, who was received with much en-
thusiasm, then delivered his inaugural address, in the
course of which, his lordship said :
There is nothing less easy to a public speaker than to dwell
on subjects which have at one • time or another occupied
everybody's mind, and to follow in a track which is boatels
flat and plain by the feet of innumerable predecessors.
On such topics you can scarcely avoid commonplace,
except by wandering into paradox s• and neither alternative
is agreeable. Therefore, gentlemen, do not suppose that
I am here to preach you a lay sermon about your duties
and your advantages in life. You know, better than I can
tell you, what is to be said on these points. You know
that your time here is limited ; that if youth can live in a
world of ideas, manhood is too often absorbed in narrow
and personal interests ; that , you will never have again
the leisure and freedom f.t study which you now
possess; and that on the use yen make of these years the
colour of your whole future life ; may depend. You know,
too, that for those of you who h)sve to work in your respec-
tive professions for-is living—ant I take for granted that they
form the great majority of the whole—the difference between
an acquired habit of industry cst of indolence resolves itself
into this—teat, in the one cait, you will go to your daily
duties cheerfully and happily ;in the other, they will be to
you perpetual worry and vexation and grievance; while in
either case the duties will equally have to be done under
penalties which are not pleasant to contemplate.
There is scarcely anything which is more entirely a matter
of habit than working power. A man who has passed his
life in a laborious profession is just as miserable when
he finds himself with nothing to do as one who has done
nothing for many years if suddenly thrown into heavy
business. We hear a great deal now and then of the mis-
chief done to health by over-work ; but I suspect, if cases of
thatkind come to be looked into, the mischief is generally
slue to mismansgenient rather than to actual mental labour.
Worry and excitement and anxiety as to rmults and
nervous impatience to finish a task undertaken in haste
my often hurt and sometimes kill ; iwel!ectud exertion
by itself, thought pure and simple, seldom, I believe,.
has injured anybody. One word I should like to say as
to the ohject to which studies elvuld be directed. I would
not discourage honourable ambition I am Lot blind to
the advantages which a State gains by the existence
among its citizens of a stroag feeling of social emulation;
but personally I am not a believer in what has been called
the "gospel of getting on." It is, for one thing, a gospel
which can only be preached to a small minority. To be
successful in the world's sense means to have got over your
neighbours' heads; to be rich, as the word is'used, means
to be richer than your neighbour; and by the very nature
of the case, these are results which, if everybody aims at
them, involve failure and disappointment to nine out of
ten. We all start in life with the notion of beating our
equals in the race; it is a useful stimulus at the outset of a
career; but I think I have noticed that as they go on in
life, most men who are worth • their salt think more and
more of doing their work as it ought to be done, and less
of the return in fame or gratified vanity which it is likely
to bring them. College successes no doubt give a good
start in life, and are a useful preparation for that
_ _ _ .

- -
keen professional competition which,-whether we like it or
not, is inevitable in most employments. Ido not, assuredly,
undervalue them in that respect. But if we are to look at
the naked truth of the matter, I do not think I could honestly
tell you that the highest literary, or artistic, or scientific cul-
ture always leads to what the vulgar call the substantial
prizes of life. Many very illiterate persons have accumulated
large fortunes by their own energy and sharpness. Even in
the most intellectual professions many men have risen high,
and filled considerable posts and enjoyed widespread repu-
tations, who knew but little outside the range of their pro-
fessional work, though no doubt-they knew that thoroughly
well.
Do not understand me as denying or doubting that habits
of industry and mental training are an advantage tor active
life; they are an advantage, and a very great one; but what
I would urge upon you is that devotion to study, if it is to be
real and sincere, must rest on motives far stronger, reasons
mere conclusive than can be drawn from a calculation of
chances in the great lottery of the world. Culture may dis-
appoint you, if you seek it for what can be got out of it; it
can never disappoint you if you seek it for itself. Say what
we like about the lessening of social differences, there will
always be a gulf not easily passed over, a difference which
must make itself seen and felt, between the cultivated and
the vacant intellect. he man who has read little and
thought little, to whom history has no meaning and for
whom literature has no existence, may prosper in business
but he prepares for himself a dull existence and a melancholy
old age. There are many such: and sometimes you see them
toiling on to the last, determined, as they say, to die in har-
ness, not because they have any further need to work, not
even becauae their work continues to interest them, but be'l
cause they have no other interest and nothing else to turn
to. I hardly know a more miserable alternative than for a
wealthy and prosperous man eitherto exhaust his last. years
with needless labour, • •
"Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease."
- - - •

or else to sink into that vacuity and ennui which, to an active
temperament, is often worse than even acute suffering. But,
gentlemen, that is not all. In our age—probably in most
ages, but we can only speak of what we know—there is
nothing more common among those who have read a little
and thought a little than the Lipton of strong convictions
with very narrow intelligence. Arid next to the absence of
convictions altogether, there is no mental condition that is
socially less desirable, or politically more eangerousa "Cave
hominem .fllittS libri" is not an unmeaning phrase. No
olio so intolerant as the man who has got one idea firmly
estaalished in his head, and has not found room for a ,
•second. • e Sometimes he is the pole ician who thinks
the British Constitution ought to be extended to all
ceuritries and all races; sometimes the theologian who
believes that his own especial form of faith is destined to
pervade the whole earth; sometimes the social reformer or
philanthropist, , who hold that the acceptance of his parti-
cular theory is all that is wanted to accomplish what such-
persons are apt to call the regeneration oZ maid:hid. But
most of us err erica* or less, I am afraid in the same way.
Those who possesa few ideas are apt to be poseessed by them.
Many a man has died for a phrase which he did not under-
stand; arid many a man, having got hold of what may pet-
sibly be a tiuth, has regarded it ever after as the UMW.' .
.11105 ideas are like fire—gesetb-servants, but bad'maisterre;
and no one Can feel sure of retaining his mental balance, 41
he,thinks at all, who haa in?tl iii.)Serata Mete sitar, ithrlited
Wiser! the 'vast vailetY'of points of .view,teeni velaieh feferYt
great question can be aprehended: fllst.fry has many lessons,
and not the least important of these lessons, in an. age of
large theories and hasty generalities, is that we learn not to
reason on matters which coneerh mankind from an extierience
limited both in time and space. To the ignorant man,' Eng-
laud is the world • the 19th century represents all time. To
the student who has lived in the life of many countries and
may ages; human existence is too complex to be embodied in
any formula. He thinks of the dissppointed expectations
and the unfulfilled • predictions which are the staple of his-
tory. He remembers how many burning questions have grown
•Obld ; how many immortal principles have not survived their
authors ;.how small a space the great social or political prob-
lems of a few centuries ago take up in the records of our race;
and he learns a lessen of wise and not unkindly scepticism.
Napoleon predicting that within fifty years Europe would
be either Republican or Cossack ; Canning calling the
South American Republics into existence to redress the
balance of the Old World; the French thinkers of the last
century believing in the immediate downfall of what they
called superstition ; philanthropists, bved iniour risin time;
announcing that the great European wars had become out
of date and fnipossible--ethese, and a hundred other in-
stances, recur to his mind when sanguine men predict a
future of unlimited progress, because progress has been the
rule` in Europe during the last 500 years; or when philo-
sophers attempt te calculate the movements of the Amman
mind as astronomers calculate the movements of a comet.
I do not wish unduly to magnify the benefits of li.perary
culture; Nature will have her way : learning is not always
wisdom, and it may even occasionally happen that a learned
man shall be also a fool. But, at least, culture will save him
from some of the most unpleaking forms which unwisdom can
assume. Ile is not likely to cant, and he is not likely to rant.
He will not use cuteaud-dry phrases without attaching any
definite meaning to them—which I take to be the women of
cant ; and he will not be inclined to treat very little matters