The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 24, 1858.

would remain in the pocket of the occupier ; and
if it never went any further, it is clear he would
be relieved front a burden in his capacity of
occupier of land—that is, the occupation of land
would be relieved from a certain disadvantage.
But in all probability it would ultimately find its
way to the landlord by means of a gradual but
general raising of rents in proportion to the
decrease of the tenant's expenses. As to the plea
of conscience, we must frankly state that we
totally disbelieve it. We all of us every day see
our money expended upon objects of which we
disapprove. Yet nobody refuses to pay his income
tax because thirty thousand a year is granted to
Maynooth. The plea will not hold water for a
single instant. Nor have the would-be confis-
cators even the Robin-Hood excuse of taking
from the rich to give to the poor. They arc
doing exactly the reverse, and selling up the
peasant's church to swell the hoards of some
unctuous plutocrat. The article on "Medical
Education" is uncommonly well written, and
very interesting. The following remarks do no
more than justice to a much maligned class of
really hardworking men:—
We are fully conscious of our temerity and danger in
venturing to give a truthful description of the ground on
which we are now treading. It is curious that although
the grinder is a direct emanation from the certificate system,
and was created solely to supplement its defects, the
very name of grinder stinks in the nostrils of" recognised
lecturers," and may scarcely be pronounced in their
preseuce unless in a whisper. They persist in ignoring
him, and if they ever mention him, they only do so in
anathemas, the language of which proves how profoundly ig-
norant they are of the nature of the grinding process. They
assert that it consists of verbal cramming,—that the grinders
acquaint themselves with the range of questions, sonic of
which constitute the examination of each candidate for a
diplo;na, and that they load the memories of their pupils
with answers to all the questions likely to be asked, instead
of informing their intellects and imbuing them with prin-
ciples—whereas only by a clear understanding of the latter
is a man truly educated. We deliberately assert that the
method thus ascribed to the grinder is exactly that which
they do not sdopt, and that if " recognised teaehers " would
pay a visit to Messrs. Power, at Exeter Hall, or to Mr.
Ilinde, at 29, Newman street, and would use their eyes and
ears, instead of constructing the grinders " out of their
moral consciousness" (as is the German process of con-
struction, according to a disticguished biographer of
Goethe), they might not only change their opinions, but
might also gather some hints highly useful to themselves,
as teachers, in the ensuing session. Alas, knowledge is
often inconvenient. It dissipates so many long-cherished
and ingenious theories which nourish our self-love and
minister to our comfort, that it seems little short of sacri-
lege to lift the veil of truth. But the nameless abstraction
who is only known as the editorial "we " can have no
feelings, and may therefore be expected to be ruthless.
We have reason to believe that large incomes are realized
by the Messrs. Power and Mr. Hinde from their grinding
operations, and we know that a large proportion of the
men who in successive years become members of the
College of Surgeons, or of the Apothecaries' Company,
and of those who graduate at St. Andrew's, or who
pass the competitive examination of the East India
Company's Medical Board, have been enabled to do so by
these teachers. Success is a potent argument in favour of
the method by which it is achieved, and we think it is a
strong presumption that that method is founded on reason
and common sense. In fact, it combines the essential
elements of all true teaching—personal responsibility, and
an exclusive appeal t 3 the reason. The grinder pledges
himself, in cor.sideration of a definite payment, to qualify
his pupil to pass any given examination, and he adopts
the only effectual way of storing his mind with the requi-
site knowledge, by taking care that he understands what-
ever is imparted to him. To insure the memory of facts,
they are clustered round principles. Education is an art
of no mean order, and it is as difficult as it is noble. By
vast labour and long experience these men have attained
it. The lectures of Messrs. Power, by their comprehen-
siveness, lucidity. and conciseness, attest how much atten-
tion they give to perfect their chief medium of instruction,
while the admirable illustrations of Mr. Hinde prove how
much he must have practised with his pencil, and how
important ho deems it as an instrument of instruction. If
the art of these men were possessed and practised by the
recognised teachers, who can command the aid of the
laboratory, the dissecting-room, and the hospital, how much
more might be learnt than is learnt now in the time which
is spent or misspent by students in getting their certi-
ficates, may be computed by the fact that Messrs. Power
enable men, marvellously ignorant, to pass the College of
Surgeons or the Apothecaries'-hall in a few months. It
therefore follows, logically, either that the present enforced
meths(' of medical education involves the expenditure of a
large amount of superfluous time and money, or that the
examinations are lamentably inadequate as tests of
efficiency. 'We care not which conclusion is accepted as
the true one. Each is fatal to the character of the existing
system. If grinders do not give Coat practical instruction
which is essential to a trustworthy physician or surgeon, it
is not the method, but the nature) of the examinations
hitherto generally instituted, which is at fault. Supply
only equals demand. Grinders are judicious men of busi-
ness, who provide the article asked tor at a remunerative
price, and, of course, expend no superfluous labour upon it.
But that they can produce a superior article, at a vropor-
tionately higher price, if demanded, is proved by the fart
that they prepare men for the East Indian Board examina.

705

tion, which we believe is a test of professional knowl edge
and skill equal to any to which students are submitted in
the United Kingdom. Of course, at present the in ain
function of the grinder is that of supplementing the deft eta
of the " recognised " teacher; but were the certificate
system abolished, competition would force him to insure
instruction in practical anatomy, chemistry, eta., but he
would take cans that his own method of teaching should
Will be applied. to each 'wench of study. It is, perhaps,
fair to infer from Wisrs. Power's scale of charges what. is
their estimate of the relative value of the different ex-
aminations, as tests of professional knowledge and
ability :
For preparing a pupil to pass the London College
of Surgeons £s 5 0
PI I> „ Apothecaries' Company 5 5 0
to graduate at St. Andrew's 10 10 0
to pass the East India Board J. 15 0
to become a Licentiate of the
London College of Physicians....
Now, we maintain that if students were allowed to obtain
their knowledge where and hew they pleased, they would
elect as their teachers men who proved themselves to be,
equally with Messrs. Power and Mr. Hinde, real artists in
their vocation. Oral instrucam will,' doubtless be re-
placed to a great extent by books and private study ; but
many accomplished men, feeling themselves elected to the
office of teacher by Na'ure herself, would devote themselves
to the task, and knowing that their pecuniary reward would
be proportionate to their professional success, every avail-
able auxiliary, in the shape of practical demonstrations, in
each department of science and medical and surgical art,
would be called into requisition. Competition would
stintulste exertion, would raise the ablest men to the first
rank, would induce experiments of various methods, until
the best aro discovered and adopted and would result in a
vast amount of private tuition, which has the immense
advantage of bringing the pupil in close personal relation
with his teacher, whose moral as well as intellectual
influence can then be most effectually exerted. Thus ter
it appestat, theta, that the best as well as the cheapest
education will only be obtainable when the medical and
surgical corporations shall cease to dictate the method of
that education by authority derived from the State.
The article on " Women Artists" is very plea-
sant reading, and contains much curious infor-
mation.

The National is very good. The paper upon
" Old and New Ghosts" is marked by great
breadth of view and great moderation of lan-
guage. Declining to pass any decided opinion
on the phenomena which have given rise to the
vulgar superstitions on the subject, the writer
merely requires that other people shall do the
same till the whole question has received scientific
investigation. We cannot say we have much
faith in the fruits of any such process, but we
are quite willing to hold our judgment in sus-
pense for an indefinite period. The review of
Mr. Gladstone's Homer is much what we should
have expected in the National—nicely written,
candid, and anti-mystical. But we must once
more* protest against the character here given of
Virgil which the writer adopts in its entirety
from Mr. Gladstone—without, as it seems to us,
having taken any trouble to examine it for him-
self:—

Mr. Gladstone nowhere shines more than in dealing
with the persons of the Homerie tale, and in distinguishing
the true Homeric conceptions from the perversions valtned
off upon the world by Euripides and Virgil. Of the whole
dealing of the latter with the Trojan story Mr. Gladstone
has made a thoroughly withering exposure. A modern
Roman could not be an oid Achaien, the court-poet of
Augustus could not rival the nature And simplicity of the
singer of the Hellenic people; thus far the fault was that
of the age and not of the man. But Virgil might have
spared us his wilful perversions both of great matters and
of small, alike of the character of Ellen, and of the com-
parative bigness of Sirnoeis and Skamanlros. From the
Cyclic poets down to Dryden and Racine the whole world
seems to have conspired to disfigure the glorious concep-
tions of Homer. to mar alike the unrivalled power and the
incompsrable delicacy of his touch. Odysseus, the wise
and valiant, becomes a vulgar rogue • Acbilleus sinks into
a mere brutal soldier, far below the Homeric Anis ; the
generous, the brave, the Affectionate Menelaos becomes a
coward and a soplist. zlischyltis alone seems to have re-
tained some little rev-rence fur the heroes and for him who
designed them. He has given us an Agamemnon perhaps
unduly surpassing the Agamemnon of Homer ; but in
return even he seems not to have been sble to touch
without defilement the Homeric conception •if Achilleus
tied Petroklos. But the miserable treatment to which the
Homeric characters have been subjected rises to its height
in the ruthless way in which later writers have marred and
polluted the masterpiece even of Homer's art, the picture
of the Homeric Helen. Even Colonel More, who has done
so much for Homer and the Homeric personages, here fails
us ; it has been reserved for Mr. Gladstone to set once
more before ns the Helen of Homer in all her beauty. The
Helen of the later poets is a vain and wanton adulteress ;
the Tritice of paint!) eamminis Erinnys, who can at hest only
exculpate herself by transferring her own sins to the charge
of Fate and Aphrodite.
Now, to say nothing of the fact that Virgil is
here most unfairly associated with the later Greek

• This portion of Mr. Gladstone 's work appeared in an article
in the Quarterly Review, Po d at the time of us publication we
questioned the correctness of the views it contained.

dramatists, and that his eloquent tribute to the
character of Achilles, in the second ZEneid, is
conveniently forgotten, both Mr. Gladstone and
his critic overlook two considerations, which,
obvious as they are, have never yet, we think,
been allowed their due weight. Virgil was giving
the Trojan version of the story. He could not
well write a poem, of which Xneas was the hero,
without some allusions to the siege of Troy ; and
these allusions in the mouth of a Trojan would
have been extremely unnatural if they had ex-
pressed any very warm admiration for the
destroyers of his country. To a Trojan, then,
Helen was the communis Erinnys. Independently
of which, the character of Helen was common
property, and Virgil had as much right to dwell
on the bad side of it, as Homer had on the good.
In the next place, we must recollect what in
Virgil's day was the character which the Greeks
bore. It is impossible but that his ideas of the
ancients should be tinged by the dislike with
which he regarded their degenerate posterity.
The Fandi fietor Ulysses is only an anticipa-
tion of Juvenal's Gracia menda.r. While cer-
tainly a Roman, whose standard of female excel-
lence was so high, might be pardoned if in the
return of Helen to Menelaus he saw rather a
proof of the husband's laxity than of the wife's
innocence. But, in truth, Virgil says very little
about either of them. The burst of indignation
which he attributes to Xneas at meeting Helen
suddenly in the midst of his grief and excitement
is as naturally conceived as it is finely told. But
it might have been aroused, under the circum-
stances, by a lady in a much less equivocal
position than Helen occupied at Troy. The
other allusions in this paragraph are either unjust
or unintelligible. The Greek dramatists could
have had no motive for blackening the characters
of their countrymen ; and we may be sure that
what they wrote was merely the expression of a
traditional version differing from that of Homer.
The reference to the Simois and Scamander we
give up in despair. At first we thought the
critic must have alluded to the well-known
passage in the third book ; but as we find on
examination that this cannot be the case, even
if we suppose the Trojan Xanthus and the Sca-
mander to have been the same (and if we do not,
then we must remember that Virgil could not
use the word Scamander in an hexameter line at
all), we are flung back into perplexity, and
resign all hopes of a solution. The article on Mr.
Kingsley is nicely written, but in our opinion
wonderfully wrongheaded. Mr. Tupper is chas-
tised with a severe but discriminating toe, which
inflicts a heavy " thud" a tergo, while at the same
time it removes the garniture from his deformities,
and shows his half-civilized admirers what kind
of animal they have been worshipping. "Comte's
Life and Philosophy" appears to be a very able
paper, though we have not yet had time to
fully master it. The worst article in the number,
as is usually the case in the National, is the so-
called political one. After everybody has been
talking and writing of the fact for the last twelve-
month, we are informed with astonishing so-
lemnity that Parliament is no longer divided into
great parties ; but that, when the causes which
produce two great parties shall reappear, we may
expect the parties themselves to follow. The
causes will be found, the writer thinks (original
dog !), in the efforts of the Radical party to give
effect to their extreme views, which will unite all
genuine Conservatives against them. We recom-
mend the really able managers of this Review to
get rid of their political contributor as soon as
possible. Ile knows nothing of practical politics,
and he has a set of stereotyped prejudices which
he reproduces on every occasion. lle is peevish
where he might be smart, and pompous where
he might be grave.

The London Quarterly has a very readable
article on Miss Young's novels. Of the writer's
protest against this lady's theological opinions we
have nothing to say; but it seems to us that
there is a very obvious fallacy running through
his remarks upon novels generally. The author
who aspires to be a teacher will naturally employ
what he considers to be the most impressive
vehicle of instruction ; and we can no more
quarrel with Miss Young for teaching Puseyism
through the medium of novels in preference to a
treatise, than with an enemy for being armed
with revolvers instead of the ordinary pistol.
The paper on " Marriage of the Deceased Wife's
sister " " begins but breaks off in the middle."