The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-15 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

tral transept a preliminary Grand Handel Festival
or Congress, with a carefully selected orchestra of the
unprecedented extent of 2,300 performers.
THE DIFFF.RENCE3 OF OPINION prevailing between
the Earl of Albemarle and the committee for con-
ducting the Norfolk and Norwich Musical Festival
have been happily arranged, and the nonle lord has
consented to accept the office of chairman of the
committee, offered to him some time since. The
guarantee fund is reported to be progressing satis-
factorily; and Lord Sondes and Lord Suffield have
consented to act on the committee. At a meeting of
the City Committee of the Town Council on Thurs-
day it was decided to erect a new orchestra in St.
Andrew's-hall, althour,h the consideration of the
details was postponed for the present. It is proposed
that the orchestra should acc"mmodate 500 persons,
as it is intended to use it for the first time at the
festival.

MISS CATHERINE HAYES'S 18GL two nights at
Jullien's Concerts are Monday and Tuesday next
week.
Miss P. HORTON'S ILLUSTRATIONS.—MII. German
Reed on Thursday evening resumed her highly
attractive entertainment at the Gallery of Illustration,
Regent-street. The room was crowded, and, if the
first night of a season can be taken as a criterion, a
season of unexampled success is certain. The per-
formance presented few novel features, but it is not
necessary to say more than that Mrs. Reed's powers
were as conspicuous as ever, and that she really
merited all the applause she received.

THE CHRONOLOUY OF tr.NNYSON'S
POE MS.
TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."

Sir,—The point to which I beg to call your atten-
tion is, indeed, of very small importance; hut as I
took some pains to inform myself upon it, you shall
judge for yourself, after you have seen the evidence,
whether a remark which occurs in the last number
(November 8) of your valuable paper was not some
what precipitate. If you find that lam in the right,
perhaps you will have the kindness to say so. In
your review of the second volume of Professor
Wilson's Essays you condemn as "wholly irrelevant
and mistaken " my assertion that none of Mr. Tenny•
son's grander and more finished compositions had
been published when the Professor's critique was
written; and in disproof of my statement you affirm
that, "in 1832, Locksley Hall," The Gardener's
Daughter, The May Queen, yEnone,' and The
Two Voices,' had all been given to the world." I
undertake to prove that not one of these poems had
seen the light in May, 1832, the date of Professor
Wilson's series. I have now before me an edition of
Tennyson's poems (two volumes, Moron, 1842). The
first division of vol. i. is there stated to contain
"poems published in 183 l." This, in the original
impression, was the work reviewed by Professor
Wilson, and it certainly contains none of the above-
mentioned pieces. The second division of the first
volume contains "iEnone" and "The May Queen ;"
and a note on the last page informs us that "the
second division of this volume was publisbed in the
winter of 1832—in other words, " --Enone " and •' The
May Queen " were published sevoral months after
Professor Wilson's review. It is equally certain that
the others to which yon refer as disproving my
assertion, " Locksley Hall," "The Gardener's Daugh-
ter," and "The Two Voices," are of a still later date;
for these poems stand in the second volume of this
same edition (1842), which arrangement proves
that, whatever the date of their first publication may
have been, it was at any rate subsequent to the
winter of 1832, otherwise they must have been com•
prised either in the first series of 183 or in the
second series of 1832.

Founding upon these data, I humbly submit that
I have proved my statement to be neither mistaken
nor irrelevant. It is not mistaken, because I am
correct in my chronology of Mr. Teanyson's poetry ;
it is not irrelevant, because if the poems to which
you refer had been published when Wilson's article
was written, he would have been quite indefensible
in passing them over without notice; indeed, without
according to them the highest commendation.—l
have the honour to be, sir, your very obedient servant,
J. F. FERRIER.

St. Andrews, Nov. 12, 1R56.
[We regret that we received the above commu-
nication too late to avail ourselves of the information
it contains in our review. In the two volumes of
Mr. Tennyson's poems, published in 18:12, if we
mistake not, all the poems we mentioned are con-
tained. That they did not appear till after Professor
Wilson's critique, we have now no doubt was the
fact, and we are unfeignedly glad to hear i►. We
have great pleasure therefore in retracting our ob
serration on Professor Ferrier's apology, but would
take the liberty of suggesting that in a subsequent
edition he should make the state of the case appear
a little more clearly.—En.]

1099

LORD ROBERT CECIL UPON' EDUCATION.
LORD ROBERT CECIL last week delivered an address
at Stamford upon the subject of " National Educa-
tion." The noble lord first set out with disputing the
accuracy of the term education. It was not educa-
tion which was really meant, but instruction ; and
this distinction was necessary, for it involved more
than a mere verbal correction.—

It leads us to expect at the hands of our schoolmasters
results which they cannot possibly produce, and to wLich
they can only very partially contribute; and then we decry,
and perhaps abandon, our system because it does not
answer our unreasonable expectations. We call our school
instruction education, and then we expect from it that
moral training and moral renovation which only the real
education can supply. But real education cannot be done
on the school bench, under terror of the school cane, by
help of school books and black board. If done at all, it
must be done elsewhere than at school. It must be the
result of the influences which breathe around the daily life
in a well•ordered home ; of a mother's affectionate care
and tender vigilance ; of holy lessons instilled and fostered
under the genial warmth of that soft religions sympathy
which speaks, not in catechisms, but from heart to heart ;
of that which teaches more than words can teach—the
daily example of a parent's virtuous life. So far es these
exist the child will have a real education. If this were
general, we should indeed effect what we seek in vain from
our school instruction—the extirpation of profligacy an 1
crime. But how should we look for such results from tha
exercise of the schoolmaster's craft?

Morality, contentment, temperance, piety, were not
lessons that could be learnt by heart. If, therefore,
in the strenuous efforts we are making to promote
the spread of knowledge among the people, we
imagine we have discovered a panacea for making
them good citizens and good Christians, we shall
find ourselves grievously mistaken :

I believe that if we are to raise the social condition of
those classes with whose degradation our country is so
constantly taunted, the secret is in the elevation of their
homes. If, instead of the squalid misery by which an
English latouring man is so often repelled from his hone
and almost driven to the pothouse, we could substitute
cheerfulness and comfort, more would be done to make tim
temperate and contented than by thebest school instruc-
tion that could be given.
The noble lord then sketched the history of educa-
tion in this country. It scarcely dates, he said, be-
yond the present century. The Sunday school=,
indeed, reach back as far as 17n2. But there was
no organised system of daily popular education till
the National Society and the British and Foreign
School Society were formed at the beginning of the
century, the distinction between the two societies
being that in one the teaching was purely Church
teaching, in the other it was simply biblical in-
struction. These two great societies for forty years
have been growing rapidly in strength :

So rapidly did they work, so promptly did the liberality
of the people and the zeal of the religious bodies respord
to their call, that the number of scholars in England aid
Wales increased between the years 1818 and 1813 front
874,000 to 1.276,001), or nearly double. In IMB3 the sub-
ject began to attract the attention of the Government. It
was felt that the State had a direct interest in fostering
these benevolent efforts: though, happily, it was felt, too,
that the State's function was to assist, not to manage
education. Accordingly, a series of parliamentary grants
were commenced, and in conjunction with the two socie-
ties the Privy Council has made a number of judicious
regulations, has maintained colleges for the training of
schoolmasters, and has instituted a machinery of inspec-
tion by which an enormous stimulus has been given to
education in this country. The numerical proof of its
success may be found in the census. Between the years
1833 and 18.51 the schools have increased from 30,000 to
40,000, and the scholars from 1.200,00 to upwards of
2,000.000. Whereas in 1833 there was, on the whole of
the population, one person out of every at school, in
OM there was one out of every 81 ; and I may add in-
cidentally that so strongly had public feeling been enlisted
►n the cause of education that Sunday schools had in-
creased in a still greater proportion.

After briefly adverting, en passant, to the impor-
tance of the self-instruction furnished by nu chamcs'
institutes, rural libraries, and other kindred institu-
tions, his lordship returned to the educational con-
troversy and to the attacks that are made upcn
the Privy Council system. Its assailants he
divided into two classes—those who think it has done
too little, and those who think it has done too
much:—

Those who think it has done too much are the advocates
of the pure voluntary system. The other assailants of
the existing system who press their schemes on Parlia-
ment —namely, the advocates of a school rate—have
nothing in common with the supporters of volun-
taryism. On the contrary, their proposal arises
from the conviction that State a!tl is not carried far
enough. They are not satisfied with the present system.
They see, they cannot but see, that education has it.-
creased with strange and unexampled rapidity under the
shelter of the Privy Council system. The force which
propelled it exists still; the limits of its progress have not
been reached If the rate of its increase be maintained
it will probably before the next census comes have provided
for all who are now destitute of the means of education .
But this is not enough for the theorists of whom I speak.
They will be satisfied with no success that is not imam•