The Press.
London, England, 1858-03-06 00:00:00

Moved altogether if it movel at all.

Moreover, it ne Ter moved except by genuine impulses
from his own nature. Wordsworth himself was not more
intensely individual. Now, while the elements of which
Arnold's character was composed included perhaps all the
noblest and finest which the range of human nature offers,
and these in unusual strength and perfection, they were
comparatively limited in number, and he bat( little or no-
thing of that sort of imagination which enables some men
to live a large margin of life beyond that of their own idio•
syncrasy. There are two kinds of men who succeeit in
making a great impression on the world. The one is he
whose wide and deep insight into human nature places
men as it were at his coraniand, and, if he cannot remove
the obstacles to his will, enables him at least to avoid
theta. He, like Homer's steersman—
Mt e. . .
Km, 90;7v :9,m,.

The other, wanting this insight, making 'his way rather
like the iceberg than the ship, mole roil sad ; he bars
. down impediments, but it is at the expense of collision.
It was to the latter class that Arnold belonged, and the in-
capacity of understanding other natures differently consti-
tuted from his own was his great defect as a schoolmaster.
A school of any size is a microcosm which will contain all
the elements of human character that are subsequently to
diversify the larger scene. It is essential that the man
who is to train these young minds should not only be able
to enter into these diversities, but should reconcile him-
self fairly to that wisdom which has ordained that such
diversities should be permanent. Arnold fulfilled neither
requisition—the former because lie could not, the latter
because he did not think of it. As far as his own consti-
tution coincided with that of the boy, he sympathised with
him, but no further. This alone secured that Arnold
should be in more or less sympathetic relation with the
best and highest natnres with which he came into contact,
but equally it left him outside a great part of the life which
he desired to rule—not that he did not see the phenomena.
for his observation was quick, but that he could not rightly
interpret them. And again, as a natural result of this
limitation, he had but one ideal for all boys, and that his
own conception of the perfect man. The difference be-
tween boys, to which he submitted as a necessity, was only
a difference of more or less; the boy approached nearer
or remained further from that standard by which he mea-
sured all. He did not conceive that grand doctrine of
equivalents which is the foundation of all true education.
This was quite natnral and unavoidable in him—himself
a man of so few, and those such engrossing, sympathies—
tended to diminish his efficiency

. whether in any situation of active
been that of a military commander, for
great capacity—Arnold's practical in-
aye suffered from this imperfect Byrn-
t in that political sphere for which, in
as undoubtedly highly qualified. In
better or worse, was Arnold " a man
e have indicated, he could not cor-
himself to those differences of nature and
he man of the world begins by recog-
thia, that capacity of suiting himself to
ch the latter, whether in the right or the
eminently possess, was almost an im-
Arnold.

The Spasmodists " is sound and

observable articles in Blackwood
Our Convicts," and " Food and
is careful, thoughtful, and argu-
, writer's idea is the popular one of
transportation must be abandoned.
error, as in our opinion it is,
article. But assuming that to be
admirable. We deny the impossi-
new settlement ; nor do we think

w get "a colonial population willing
-aomit to the mixture of convicts." We cannot
snw go into this question, but our own views were
arguel at some length in TILE PRESS rather more
than a twelvemonth since. The writer of " Food
and Drink," though very clever and readable, ap-
pears to us both to misrepresent his opponents and
to misstate his facts. English physiologists do not
deny that " the fats, oils, and salts" are essential to
the formation of tissues. Besides which he has
aiveral blunders and bits of carelessness; as, for in.
stance, at page 334, he says :

Examination of the structure of the blood shows that,
so far from tieing composed exclusively of nitrogenous
substances, it is composed of a variety of substances,
• which the nitrogenous albumen and Urine
to not more than 72 in 1,000 parts; and if a
be added for the globuline and btetnatine of

but so far as it acted it
`‘ as a schoolmaster.
It may be doubted
u life—nitless it had been
4. Ouch be showed grea
fl t.:ielici would not have
psi ouvo and not least in
h 4u., respects, he was
o •
.j. 'use of the term, In
of Ille world." As we
' i •ly reconcile himself
4. ranter which the m
• ing, but beyond this,
1c 1- umstances which th
"*.Jong spirit, must etni
I.4.;ssibility with Arnold.
'he article on "TE
useful.
.lie two most of
..s month are " 01
1,
Drink." The first it
mentative. The wri
the day that trans]
This fundamental i
/
vitiates the whole art
sound the rest is adi
bility of making a ns
at
it impracticable to go
" to rubmit to the pi'

among a
amount t
trille mot