The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 2, 1858.

THE WEEK.

THE Revenue Returns just published are, we suppose, a further
instance of what the Times called Mr. DISRAELI'S "luck." This is a con-
venient phrase to use when an opponent's calculations turn out to be
correct ; but we think that by this time even the bitterest anti-Minis-
terialists will hold their tongue upon this subject. The increase in the
general revenue for the year ending Sept. 30, 1858, as compared with the
previous year, is a little under two millions, while for the last quarter
alone it appears to be nearly 900,0001. It must be clear now to anybody's
apprehension that Mr. DISRAELI's Budget was both safe and satisfactory ;
and that while such results as these can be shown, it is idle for persons to
indulge in the insinuations they have done against that gentleman's
financial abilities. We may now look forward to the winter with a capital
harvest, a flourishing revenue, and the most friendly understanding with
foreign Powers to inspirit us. And we have very little doubt that for
two of these blessings we have to thank a Conservative Government.

Among the numerous public " orations" which the columns of our
daily contemporaries have this week presented to us, Lord Goomicit's
deserves especial notice, and the more so that he has been arraigned by
the leading journal on a very groundless charge. There is nothing new,
rays the oracle, in Lord GonEnicies observations. His Lordship has conic
round to the idea that " a spade is a spade and a cat is a cat," with much
more to the same effect. Now, we recollect an idle clever fellow at the
University, who before going in for his examination, engaged a private
tutor to instruct him in logic. When asked by his friends what he
thought of his preceptor's powers, he replied that he seemed well enough,
but that he told him " nothing new." This worshipper of novelty was,
we need hardly add, hopelessly plucked, and affords an excellent instance
of the ease with which any proposition may become familiar to us without
in the least degree inducing us to think about it. Not less irrational is
this appetite for telling or hearing some new thing on the part of the
Times. Let us grant that Lord GODERICH told his audience at Knares-
borough nothing that had the character of a discovery. But what then ?
Like the Oxford tutor, he was enforcing and illustrating laws which
are as old as the human mind, but which are very frequently obscured
through prejudice, or neglected through ignorance. Mechanics' institutes
are the very places of all others where they are in danger of being for-
gotten. Indeed, it is quite a hopeful sign, and in some sense an actual
novelty, to find the audience on such an occasion addressed in the • lan-
guage used by Lord GODERICH. A few years ago, we heard of nothing
but the encyclopedic system. Give a man facts, it was said, and he could
always reason about them. " Facts" were the raw material, and he could
not have too much of them. Following very slowly in the wake of public
opinion, but still following, the University of Oxford became infected by
the same delusion, and adopted the principle of extensive knowledge just
as the rest of the world was beginning to find out its absurdity. Many
new authors were imported into the classical curriculum, modern philo-
sophers were added on to the ancient, and modern science had its own exclu-
sive honours reserved for it. University College, London, might have
acted as a warning against this error, where the Professors were lamenting
its bad effects Just when their brethren at Oxford were priding
themselves on their enlightenment in accepting it. But, as it is, we
already hear complaints on all sides that the results of an " Oxford educa-
tion" are no longer what they were, and that the thorough intellectual
discipline of the old system has been sacrificed to a visionary standard of
literary perfection. It is for exposing and refuting this dangerous error,
among persons especially exposed to its influence, that Lord Gonunicii
deserves our best thanks. It may be very true that large masses of our
population can get nothing more than miscellaneous and superficial
knowledge. But let them at least know that it is superficial. For the
great mischief that arises from the system is not so much that a man gets
crude opinions, as that he believes them to be well digested. Therefore, as
Lord GODERICH well pointed out, let it be the first object with all the
frequenters of such institutions to single out some one comparatively
limited subject of study, and endeavour to make themselves master of that
in all its bearings. By so doing, not only will they have strengthened
their intellectual powers far more than by ranging at will over wide and
various fields of knowledge, but, what is of equal importance, they will
have obtained a standard whereby to gauge all their future acquisitions.
They will have learnt what knowledge is ; and will have found an addi-
tional meaning in the proverb that truth lies at the bottom of a well—viz.,
that it is only by long and incessant labour that it can be pumped up.
Now, all these reflections, if not new in themselves, have something of the
force of novelty at the present day when delivered before a " literary in-
stitute." Coming from the lips of Lord GODERICH they assume a peculiar
significance ; and we are at a loss to understand how they can have
suggested the rambling and pointless article to which we have alluded,
which we see from his speech on Thursday last, at Leeds, on a similar
occasion, his Lordship treats with perfect good humour and indifference.
Next to Lord GODERICH come Lord SHREWSBURY, Lord SANDON, and
Mr. Hurr, who have been giving us their views on Cherbourg, the
national defences, and the prospects of war with France. Lord SHREWS-
BURY was till very lately, and Lord SANDON and Mr. Hurr still arc,
Members of the House of Commons. So that, when we find them
agreeing in their anticipations of the effect produced on that Honourable
Assembly by its visit to the great French fortress, we are bound to pay
some attention to the fact. Men do not weigh their forms of expression
very carefully in an after-dinner speech, and when Lord SIIREWISBURY