The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 16, 1858.

1004

THE WEEK.

SILENCE, SAYS JEREMY TAYLOR, IS AN EXCELLENT ART. Quaint and
keen JEREMY TAYLOR, how right you were ! How true is this ! Babbling
comes by nature. To cry, to make an unmeaning noise is the first effort,
the first instinct of almost every animal, from the baby that grows into
a Parliamentary catechist down to the pig that grows only into bacon.
To know when and where to be silent is the result of careful education
and profound thought. PLUTARCH said well, that "to be taught
" first to be silent, then to speak well and handsomely, is
" education fit for a Prince." If JEREMY TAYLOR was right about
excellence in art, and if PLUTARCH had a correct notion of the
true nature of education, then are we as a Nation by no means so
far advanced in the arts and in social sciences as the Association
in session at Liverpool would have us believe. And if our position
is to be measured by the abundance of our talk and the meagreness of
our doing, we are as arrieree as Red Indians, in whose alleged habits of
silence we do not the least believe. Talk ! Good heavens ! how
we do talk ! Everybody talks. We shall be buried in talk. All power
of discerning, all energy for doing will be swamped, drowned in talk,
unless the Association will do violence to their nature, and advance the
cultivation of the art of silence. In truth, the only people whom the
Week has exhibited as cultivating what JEREMY TAYLOR so well describes
as an art are the Barristers at the Newcastle Sessions, and they
have done it on wrong principles and with an undiscerning obstinacy.
Why has not Lord Jons ItrssEti. recommended a reformatory
establishment for notorious and incorrigible talkers under the supervision
of NAPOLEON 111., who in the entire civilized world is the only man, as it
seems to us, who knows when to be silent, when to speak, and how much
to say. The first Menus in the institution would naturally be the Com-
missioners of the Weedon Inquiry, who lighten their labours with bad
Police Magistrate jokes, Alderman SALoNtoss, who squabbles from the
Bench with a gentleman who applies for a summons against a Company in
whose Undertaking the Alderman has shares, and the Members of the
Social Science Association, to whom was intrusted the Paper on " The
Characteristics and Influences of 'Water Closets." It is very wise and very
true all this. We are perfectly convinced of it, and the first thing we shall
do will be to go against our own convictions, pander basely to the public
taste, and give a long and sober account of the talking which we
deprecate.

The meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social
Science, and the Speeches delivered at it, have been the great feature of
the week. The first Speech, discursive and comprehensive to a bewildering
degree, was delivered by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, in his capacity of Presi-
dent of the Association. His Lordship took a bird's-eye view of the five
departments into which the business of the Association is divided.. He
took occasion to laud the proceedings of the committee appointed last year
on his own motion for considering the amendment of the Bankruptcy Laws,
and again recommended the consolidation of the bankruptcy and insolvent
courts. By-the-bye, does it not sound strange to hear Noble Lords talk-
ing of " delegates from the National Amociation," and the like ? The
words have queer Chartist reminiscences about them, which cannot fail to
raise a smile as they issue from the lips of the champion of the Constitu-
tion. His Lordship passed a high encomium on the code of NAPOLEON,
and concluded his remarks on this head by inviting attention to the two
most important points in our criminal system. His Lord-
ship's remarks upon the other departments were sufficiently to the
purpose. On Tuesday morning, before the inaugural addresses
of the Presidents of Departments, Lord BROUGHAM delivered an address,
which he said was of universal application, on the subject of Popular
Literature. Without impugning the correctness of the Noble Lord's
general view, we must be permitted to doubt the accuracy of some of his
facts. Most of the cheap publications to which he alluded deserve the
terms in which he spoke of them ; but all do not. Nor do we believe that
the remuneration given to literary men engaged upon such works is
always of that liberal character which his Lordship asserted it to be.
Another defect in the address is this—that our popular literature,
taken as Lord BROUGHAM took it, in the sense of penny literature.
extends over a much wider field than was indicated by his Lordship. If
the Noble orator had perused an article which recently appeared in House-
hold Words, entitled "The Unknown Public," his address would have
approached nearer to completeness. Lord Bitouoitam's address was fol-
lowed up by those of the various Presidents ; and according to the pre-
arranged order the President of the Law Amendment Department should
have led off. But the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who had undertaken
the duties of this position, had forgotten that he was after a manner
ascriptus glebe, and could not leave Ireland without her Majesty's per-
mission. Mr. COWPER, therefore, the President of the Educational
Department, delivered his address first. With some portion of this gen-
tleman's remarks we confess we cannot quite agree. " How little," said he,
" of what men learn at school or college is useful to them in after life."
Now, this statement involves a rather mistaken theory of education.
Education is not so much the pouring into the mind of certain masses of
information as that preparation of the mind which enables it afterwards to
receive and assimilate any kind of knowledge it may require. It
may be true that a young man cannot go up to a merchant,
and ask for a seat in his counting-house solely on the strength
of a university education, or that a solicitor will' not give briefs to
a man of classical attainments in preference to any other. But once
let the candidate have mastered the preliminary information necessary
to the first step, which he will do all the better through his previous training,
and then we ask, which of these two is more likely to rise in his profession
or to adorn it when he has risen, the man of high general culture or he
whose knowledge is purely technical? A university education is not
always immediately convertible into money. But
it is an investment of

time and labour which for those who can afford to wait is certain to be
profitable in the long run. Another point to which we really think more
importance has been attributed than it deserves is orthography. Bad
spelling is certainly a laughable blunder ; but we cannot think it a matter
of such paramount weight that nobody should be entitled to the name of
an educated man who spelt agreeable with one e or disselen:iwngithreosnleiltss.
Mr. Cowertt was succeeded by the Earl of CARLISLE on Punishment and
Reformation. He gave his hearers a long account of' the convict prisons
in Ireland. After dwelling at some length on the p
obtained from the system of juvenile reformatories, he concluded by
recommending the introduction of more purely penal ref%rmatories for the
incorrigible. Lord SHAFTESBURY, upon Public Health, has delivered
an address which the most captious critic would find it difficult
to abuse. The eloquence of real earnestness breathed throughout it, and the
maxims he laid down were as remarkable for their truth as their
simplicity. The gist of his observations was that in seeking
to elevate the social condition of the people, you must begin with
what they can appreciate, and work upwards; not strive to reach their
bodily degradation through spiritual influences, but to prepare them for
the reception of the latter by vigorously assailing the former. Better
wages, more leisure, pure air, and wholesome water, constitute his Lord-
ship's receipt for the amelioration of the working classes. Among all the
addresses, however, delivered on this occasion, Sir JAMES STErttEs's upon
" .Social Economy" carries off the palm for polished language and stirring
periods. Sir JAMES chose for the special object of his discourse the in-
fluence exercised by our colonies and the mother country on each other.
In the course of his remarks, Sir JAMES took occasion to criticise the opi-
nions of Sir G. C. LEWIS on the advantages and disadvantages of our
colonial empire, and maintained that "the glory of being the metropolis
" of these magnificent dependencies was a real and a substantial advantage
" to Great Britain and Ireland," though he confessed he was unable to
define the nature or to express the amount of that advantage in any au-
thentical or statistical terms. Sir JAMES glanced facetiously at the Eng-
lish habit of caricaturing ourselves, and owned his preference of the Tom
Browns to the John Bulls—a sentiment in which we heartily concur.
Alluding to the political economists and the causes which had falsified the
predictions of MALTHUS, Sir JAMES admonished his hearers that, although
they might learn from such teachers how the resources of States were
squandered and restored, if they would learn what were the duties of States
they must address themselves to " nobler oracles "—to the shrines of
religion and science, of faith and hope, of an enlightened patriotism, and
a world-embracing philosophy. The orator then noticing the peculiar
fitness of the English race for colonization, took exception to Archbishop
WHATELY's picture of its modern results, and said he held it was an art
which this age had not lost but had discovered.
The papers as yet read in the various departments embrace one upon
the Bankruptcy Laws, by Mr. G. W. HASTINGS, in which he did little
more than repeat what had been already stated on the subject by Lord
JOHN RUSSELL. Another in the Educational Department, by Mr. HottAcE
MANN, on the Civil Service Examinations, who made himself very merry at
the expense of stupid people, whom he recommended to take refuge in the
professions of law and literature. In the discussion which ensued on this
subject., we are glad to see that Mr. M. MILNES had the moral courage to
point out some of the evils of the system. All persons practically versed
in the business of education know well enough that success in a compe-
titive examination depends very much on the amount of tutorial assistance
which the candidate is able to afford. Mr. thistcm's paper on
" Education in Art" was characterized by all the vigour of style
for which that gentleman is famous, and, barring a somewhat dogmatic
tone in portions of it, was a valuable contribution. In the remaining de-
partments, the two most noticeable papers were contributed by Mr.
KINGSLEY and Miss NIGHTINGALE. The subject of the former was
" The Influence of our Elective System on Sanitary Improvement," and
the object of it was to show that local measures of reform were impeded by
local interests, as those of builders, attorneys, &c., who objected to inter-
ference with their property. Our readers should compare with this view
some remarks of Lord ROBERT CEicti. in his recent paper on Parlia-
mentary Reform, contributed to the " Oxford Essays." The opinion of
the meeting, however, seemed to be hostile to Mr. KINGSLEY'S suggestion,
on the ground that wholesale Government interference would never be tole-
rated by the people. Miss NwarrlNGALE's paper was on The Health of
Hospitals." She expressed herself as decidedly sceptical on the aubject. sof
contagion and infection, and declared that these notions were all originally
generated by bad management and the want of light and air. The sit-
tings of the departments terminated yesterday, but we have not yet re•
ceived reports of the later readings.

The destruction of the Austria by fire at sea is one of the most real
and authentic horrors that has for a long time stirred the emotions and
excited the pity not only of English society hut of the world at
large. The narrative of her loss is one of the most circumstantial and
painful that we can call to mind. The President two decades of years ago
foundered suddenly, or drifted to some more dreadful though more
gradual ruin. The hope deferred that made the heart sick nevertheless
buoyed up that heart with expectation, and thereby alleviated the very
suffering that it caused. To the fond imagination of affection the case of
Sir JOHN FRAYKLIN and his brave comrades may yet present hopeful
features. But in this instance of the Austria, as in Nit of the Amazon, Ivc
know everything, and what we know is tragic beyond tragedy. An
English-built screw steamer of 2,500 tons, trading between Hamburg and
New York, left that port on the 2nd of September, touched at South-
ampton, and eleven days afterwards was seen by the officers and crew of
the French bark Maurice, in lat. 4.5.01, long. 41.30, a mass of flames, con-
fusion, wreck, and terror. By the lurid light of this hideous destruc-
tion, scenes were witnessed which dwarf into ordinary dimensions
the wildest scene paintings of the poet or novelist. Families
leaping together in the sea—a pardonable suicide, which migM.
puzzle a cold casuist, but which ordinary men must -accept, if they