The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-24 00:00:00

. THE AGE AND SOME OF ITS DELUASIONS.

LETTER NO. I.
EDUCATION, POPULAR AND POLITE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN DAILY TIMES.

Sra,—A conceit has lately taken me to address a few
words occasionally to all in the town, who will have the
patience to read them, about some subjects on which too
much can hardly be said, and on which, nevertheless, the
most extravagant amount of error seems to prevail. So
much is this the case, that there are some questions every
day talked of in the world, and which I can never
thoroughly dissociate from the idea of " humbug." No
sooner do men begin to speak of them at all, than one feels
morally satisfied they are going to speak absurdly. And
one very plain reason is this, we have grown puffed with
self-esteem in this age, and having achieved so much, begin
to fancy that we have settled everything--that our science
is omnipotent, and our systems unimpeachable. We have
got ideas into our heads that peculiar theories of education,
government civilization law, and theology have been per-
fectly settled by us, and need be reconsidered no more,
Consequently, when any one appeals to the genius of the
nineteenth century, you may always expect that he is about
to give forth some self-sufficient axiom upon a question
which neither he, nor I, nor the nineteenth century know
very much about, or have at all brought to a conclusion.
Thus it seems to me, that we do not at all possess that calm
spirit of modest inquiry which should distinguish en-
lightenment from ignorance and civilization, from•medinval
prejudice. With all our progress we have but reached the
strand of that sea of knowledge, beyond which stretch
regions which no eye or hand has yet reached, and whose
attributes we cannot even conjecture. I fear we are a
little too much inclined, like the Roman emperor, who
meditated an invasion of Britain, to declare that we have
done enough when we have reached the confines of the sea,
and there stop to pick up shells as trophies of our enterprise,
instead of following with simple and trusting courage the
breath of that destiny which invites and would convey us to
the shores at the other side.

If I knew of any question upon which so much self-
sufficiency and exalted ignorance are daily put forth as that
of popular education, I should assuredly begin with it. It
is the one great want, the terrible need of the age, of the
country, of this great town so filled with wealth and
squalid poverty, with churches and prisons, with priests and
sinners, ignorance and crime. Ido not know of any com-
munity where there are more public institutions for the
education of everybody, and the suppression of all vice than
this town of Liverpool ; and yet, who knows of any place
which is more filled with ignorance and crime ? Is there a
night or day that public places are not open here, and wise
men expounding the truths of knowledge, each according to
his own fashion, which of course differs from that of every-
body else ? And people are not won over. lam satisfied
it could be easily shown that vice is on the increase here in
this town—has been for some years, and will be. Why is
this ? It is because the people do not, and cannot listen to
your teachings, because their hearts can never be in them.
They do not listen. We fill our institutions and lecture-
rooms night after night, but they who need most instruc-
tion are not there. They are in gin-palaces and singing-
houses, in squalid garrets, in reeking lanes in places to
which a ray of moral light, a ray of the sunshine of fortune,
happiness, or hope never found its way. And you who
may perhaps read this, have you done anything to improve
that condition ? There are some I well know, who, having
glanced carelessly at this, may take a graver thought, and
say we have done nothing, and can do nothing. We have
thought deeply of these things. , and all the result has been
that we here declare our despair. This is a class of people
Ido not at all object to. They think strongly, although,
let us hope they are mistaken, and they have much good
materials out of which work might be wrought. But
another class will say, "We have striven to do our duty ;
we have diffused the blessings of education ; we have
delivered three hundred and sixty-five lectures every year,
all addressed to the working classes, We have pointed them
p# the way they should go in every conceivable subject.
•We have laid down the tram-way, and all the people have
got to 61p is to run upon it, and care they never get
off the rails. And they. are improving—education is being
fliffused—crime is vanishing, poverty of course they must
bear, for that is their lot, and it's all right and proper; but
we have changed all the rest." Now this great class of
people are nearly all of them good, true, well-meaning
individuals, who would really do all they could to advance
the condition of their race. But I maintain, indignant as
my readers, may possibly grow, or contemptuously as they
may smile, that they do not know how to do what they
,um at, and that midi they do, the people will never listen
to them When the llev, Mr. Boanerges piously and
sincerely anathematizes every other creed but his own, and
is gazed at with reverence by the upturned eyes of anti-
quated virginity, I am sure his intentions are excellent,
but I beg to say that I think the less the people hear of him
the better. When Professor Dingo delivers his famous
lecture upon the cultivation of knowledge, I only think of
the man in Dickens's book, who compiled the history of
Chinese metaphysics, lookinc, out in the British Cyclopmdia
for China, under the letter C, and metaphysics under the
Welter M, and combining his information, And while I
greatly respect the professor, I cannot conceive what
possible benefit I, as one of the people who want to be
educated would derive, even though I listened to his entire
course. I am satisfied I should %e just as fond of beer
And tobacco, and have just as few ideas in my brain as
gyer, I very much fear that these things are like the
dinners of the wealthy—only given to those who do not want
them. - - . _ -

The people are children, in their good qualities, and evil
their ignorance and belief. Perhaps in this respect they
;nay have some advantage over you and me, Mr. Editor,
rho are very wise in our own conceit, and therefore, can
hardly he got to admit any bglief, except like Moliere's
lion Juan, that two and two make four. You must appeal,
if you will have any result follow, to their feelings in the
first instance, nest their perceptions, and lastly, their pow-
ers of retention. Modern education does precisely the
opposite with men and with children, only with this diffe-
rew:e—that it leaves out the feelings altogether. We fill the
memory of children with words, and are quite surprised
when we find them growing up without ideas, Just the
same with the grown-up audiences. Suppose this to be
perfectly successful in the highest degree—suppose every
inhabitant of Whitechapel, of Vauxhall-road, of the lanes
near the Docks, were thoroughly acquainted with the first
book of Euclid, and able to repeat a list of the Kings and
Queens of England backward, would whiskey be drunk no
more, police-offices closed, thieves become pulpit lecturers,
and prostitutes Sisters of Mercy ? Is this kind of thing
altogether confined to the poor and uneducated at present ?
Are we of the middle classes, you of the upper classes,
qualified to throw a stone at any one ? We are not indeed,
brought up at police-offices usually, or condemned to hard
labour in prisons, but is it because we are more .free from
vice, or because we have better appliances for reducing it to
the limits of the law ? " Change places, and which is the
justice, which the thief ?" It is one of the most insufferable
piece of arrogance upon the part of us who have read a few
books, to go about, as I have continually heard learned
people do, preaching to the people as if ignorance were the'
sole cause of vice, as if what we choose to call education
were the entire radical cure ; as if they had only to become
like us in:orderloVe perfect; -as ir there were not 'Some Of
us who would cling to our selfishness, our insincerity, our
indolence, and our passions, though Plato's own lips ap-

pealed to our intellect, and the wisdom of Bacon pointed us
the road to practical kn'wledge.
It will, of course, occur to every one who. takes the trou-
ble to read this letter, that I am doing no more than railing
at those who try to do a good thing, not endeavouring to
show a better way of doing it. But one must begin by
saying what it is he objects to, and show why he objects to
it, before he goes about starting any new system in the place
of the old. And I have no new idea to suggest. I will
only say in words what every reader of the journal must
have at some moment thought of. I object, then, briefly, to
the present system of popular education—l shall come to
the Polite Education hereafter, if you, Mr. Editor, will
afford me space, and your readers patience. I object to the
present system, if indeed it deserves that name, because it is
a sham, and we have shams enough of necessity without
this. What is called education can effect none of the objects
which every one of us must believe to be the true journey's
end of instruction. And, if it could effect all this, those
who have undertaken the task of its diffusion do not know
how to execute it. To inculcate systems and chronologies,
not to clear the brain for thought to grow up, seems to be
its only object. Education seems to some of our instructors
like a nail, which only requires a few vigorous blows to drive
it right in, and then it remains, and all its purposes are
fulfilled. We want something else ; and wanting it we, the
ignorant, are losing faith in ye the learned. Look to it
that we do not —we, the few who have learned enough to wish
for more—open our ears and hearts to the breath of cold
scepticism and indifferentism which has passed over other
countries and withered them.

I shall endeavour, Sir, in my neat letter, to show how
little superior is what I have called polite education to popu-
lar ignorance ; and how a being from some other world, if
he were called in to decide the question, might be sadl;
puzzled which to choose. And then I shall do my best to
show why, and in what points, each is defective, unreal, and
false. If, among the working classes who desire instruction,
or among the school-educated ranks who an. ti posed to
have acquired it, there be found none to agr- much
of what I say, then I must indeed be profouni: •g, and
"my imaginatiu.. as foul as Vulcan's stithy ii, sir,
yours, &c., EXC SIOII.

g 1,12.1.1. Peel has consented to deliver a lecture in rive or
six towns of the midland district, in aid of the fund being
raised to employ a paid lecturer in connection with the
Midland Union of Mechanics' Institutes.
SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST AN OLD INITABITANT.—OR
Thursday the police apprehended Mr. E. Rolfe, of Glouces-
ter, slater and mason, on a charge of stealing a quantity of
slates, the property of Lord Sherbourne. The police found
about 200 slates and 17 pieces of timber buried in Rolfe's
garden. The accused is nearly 70 years of age, and was
formerly a dissenting preacher.
NINE FIRES IN THE METROPOLIS. —The London Brigade
and West of England fire engines were actively engaged
from Saturday night up to Monday morning, there having
been during that period nine fires in and near the metropolis.

SMITHFIELD CLUB CATTLE SHow. —The show of fat ;little,
under the auspices of the Smithfield Club, is appointed to
commence at the King-street Bazaar on the 6th of Decem-
ber. In making their awards the judges are to keep strictly
in view the great object for which the Smithfield Club was
originally instituted—viz., the supply of the cattle markets
of Smithfield and other places with the cheapest and best
meat.

Too GOOD DINNERS AT PORTSMOUTH. —ln relation to the
reported extravagance of junior officers' messes afloat, the
port admiral of this station (Sir Thomas Cochrane) has
called for a return of the expenses of entrance and support
of such messes, and the hours of dining, &c., with a View to
check the matter complained of. _
NEWSPAPERS IN TURKEY. —Constantinople itself has
thirteen newspapers, Smyrna six, and Alexandria one. Ser-
via is rich in its periodical press, having eight papers, while
Wallachia and Moldavia jointly have only four. In all
there are thirty four newspapers in ths Ottoman Empire.
THE TURKISH ARMY. —The total number of regiments
comprised in the whole regular force is 74, of which 36 are
infantry, and 24 cavalry. The gross strength of the effec-
tive force is 138,680 men, and that of the reserve 130.000.
There are about 60,000 irregulars, and there is a nominal
force of rather over 100,000, assigned as the contingencies
of the tributary provinces, in all, half a million of men.—
Ottoman Empire and its Resources.

FIRE AS A VENTILATOR.—Fire is the great agent that
should be employed for the ventilation of sewers. Properly
applied it must necessarily cause the entire destruction of
all unhealthy and offensive exhalations therefrom. For the
ventilation of a given extent of sewerage there should be
constructed a shaft in the most convenient situation, with
which a furnace should be connected, and so contrived that
the whole supply of air necessary for the combustion of the
fuel employed in it would be drawn entirely from the sewers
to be ventilated.—Correspondent of The Builder

DERIVATION OF THE WORD " CROWEAR.”—III " John-
son's Dictionary" the explanation given of this word is
" piece of iron used as a lever to force open doors, as the
Latins called the hook corvus." In Walters' "English and
Welsh Dictionary," the first part of which was published
about the year 1770, this word is printed " Croe-bar." Is
it probable that the word crow has been derived from the
Camb.-Brit. word cro, a curve ? and that the name has been
given from the circumstance of one end of a crow-bar being
curved for the purpose of making it more efficient as a lever ?
—N.W.S.—Notes and Queries.
PrarunEs OF THE DEVIL.—The eminent antiquary, M.
Merimee, informed the writer that he had observed a marked
alteration in the mode of representing Satan in the carvings
of the twelfth century : previously he had always been
represented somewhat as a goat, but without the tail. This
change took place at the period of the crusades. Might not
the crusaders-have seen the Assyrian Satan (of which there
is an example in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum)
a so imported into the north the Oriental devil as an
interesting variety of the species ? Correspondent of the
Builder.

THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT.—The present Duke (who is
captain of the Ist Life Guards) comes in for a splendid un-
incumbered income of over £60,000 a-year, having never
joined in the engagements made by his late father. We
understand he is of a very prudent disposition, and in his
time the pecuniary fortunes of the house ofßeaufort will
doubtless wholly recover themselves. We may mention here
-that there is a sort of tradition belonging to the family,
that none of the Dukes of Beaufort, live to be 65, and we
believe there is no instance of any of them having attained
that age.—Bristol Mercury.
CARDINAL WISEMAN. —We are informed that Cardinal
Wiseman is still at Rome, whither he went from Paris, after
attending at the translation of the relics of St. TheOdosia,
at Amiens, and that it is considered more thin probable that
he will not return again to England. His health is said to
have suffered considerably from the severity of his labours
in England since the establishment of the Papal hierarchy ;
and a growing opinion is, we understand, prevalent in
Roman Catholic circles, that the Pope will employ him in
some high diplomatic post at Rome, instead of sending him
back to superintend the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church
in England.
INFORMATION FOR TILE PEOFLE.—Frequent inquiries
having been made with respect to the distribution of par-
liamentary papers amongst the different literary, scientific,
and mechanics' institutions, the readers of the Journal are
informed that the resolutions of the parliamentary committee
which sat last year on this Subject, cannot be carried into
effect until they have received the sanction of the House of
Commons. Owing to the illness of Mr. Tufnell, the chair-
man of the committee, the discussion on the resolutions was
necessarily postponed, but the council have authority to state
that it is Mr. Tufnell's intention to take the earliest oppor-
tunity, on the meeting of parliament, to bring forward the
resolutions of the committee. —Journal of the Society of
Arts.

SERFDOM r* RussrA..—The peasant continues deprived of
all protection but that of the customary law (la loi coutu-
miere) : he may be dragged from his family, from his com-
mune, although that be recognised by the se may be
made a servant. The lord has a right to .• s flogged,
only not to death : he has a right to i s". him in a
maison de police for disobedience. He ma • emn him to
military conscription, or pack him off to the mines of
Siberia at his own expense. In the two latter caspg, the
serf at least becomes free. Lastly, it is an c3tablished and
constant practice to sell serfs— if not separately, at least by
family. No land need be given to the peasants except just
enough to allow them to vegetate miserably. The lord is
under no obligation to his servants beyond supplying them
with just enough clothing to prevent them perishing of
hunger and cold.—Leader.

_ .
THE DUKE'S FIRST VlCTORY.—Perhaps it may interest
the future author of the life of the Duke of Wellington to
be informed of his first victory. It was not in India as com-
monly supp9sed, but on Donnybrook-road, near Dublin, that
his first laurels were won. This appears from the Freeman's
Journal, Sept. 18th 1789, where we learn that in cense.
qtience of a wager between him and Mr. Whaley, of 150
guineas, the ion. Arthur Wellesley walked from the five-
mile stone on Donnybrook-road, to the corner of the circu-
lar road in Leeson-street, in 55 minutes, and that a num-
of gentlemen rode with the walker, whose horses he kept in
tolerable smart trot. When it is recollected that those were
Irish miles, even deducting the distance from Leeson-street
to the Castle, whence the original measurements were made,
this walk must be computed at nearly six English miles.
OMICRON.—Notes and Queries,

_ .
UNREPRESENTED MINORITIES. - The majority returns 'all
the members, leaving the minority—often nearly as nume-
rous, and generally quite as wise—wholly unrepresented.
The evil is greater, and becomes more obvious, exactly in
proportion to the size of the constituency. Thus, in Andover,
where there are 241 electors, 121 may monopolise the
electoral power, to the- entire exclusion of the remaining
120 In London, at a recent general election, it did actually
happen that out cf about 13,500 voters, 6,722 (the number
who polled for the liberal candidates) returned four mem-
bers, while 6,719 (the number who polled for the tory
candidates) rettihieit no member at all. In Paris there used
to be about 250,000 electors, and 28 deputies : in a close
contest it might easily happen that 126,000 might return
all the deputies, and the remaining 124,000 be as entirely
ignored in the result of the election as if they had never
been upon the register, or never gone up to the poll.
Half the constituency (plus one) has everything; half the
constituency (minus one) has nothing at all.—" G."
in Chronicle.

.REV. H. S. BROWN'S LECTURE.

Last evening the Rev. Mr. BROWN delivered the fourth of
his series of lectures on the religions of the Eastern world, in
the Concert Hall, Lord Nelson street. The subject of last
night's lecture was the nature, the rise and progress of Ma-
hometanism. The reverend lecturer commenced by giving a
brief outline of the state of the Mahometan power on the death
of Mahomet, and bow his followers had very nearly been in-
volved in a civil war, by the conflicting claims of the four
aspirants to his dominion. His father-in-law succeeded to his
power, and the style and title assumed by him and his succes-
sors was of no very ambitious character. They contented
themselves with the title of " Caliph," signifying successor,
but in that title both royal and priestly functions were con-
tained. The lecturer then described the holy wars and cru-
sades undertaken by the Moslems, by which they gratified at
the same time their love of plunder and of the religion of their
Prophet; and however unjustifiable in reason those wars might
be, they were not less justifiable than those of a like character un-
dertaken by christian princes from time to time in the early ages.
The reverend lecturer then sketched, in a bold and eloquent
manner, the triumphs of the Moslem arms, from the fall of
Damascus beneath their sway, to their defeat by Charles Martel,
on the plains of France, after they had crossed the Pyrenees
and threatened to leave to Europe, as its only hope from utter
destruction, the dire alternative of the " Koran, the tribute,
or the sword•" From this period the power of the Caliphs
began to decline, but] not so the Mahometan religion. Pre-
vious to entering into an analysis of this creed, the lecturer
took the opportunity of contrasting the progress which the
Arabians had made in science and other branches of learning
N{itll the then existing barbarism throughout the western
world, and observed that it was a singular fact, which ought to
abate our European pride, that at a time when Alfred could
scarcely find in his kingdom a priest who could read his book,
and when princes and " barons bold" could sign a deed only
by the universal cross,—at that time a Hindoo published a
learned treatise on the science of algebra. It was not strange,
then, that when the Moslems entered France, and beheld there
such rites in connection with religi)n as the " Festival of the
flight of the Virgin, or the feast of the ass," that they should
desire to proclaim the amity of God, even though they at the
same time asserted that Mahomet was his Prophet. The
foaturo in the weed of Islam was submission to the will
of God, but as a whole it defied analysis. Mahomet (Aid not
profess to reveal a new religion to the world. He came, as he
said, to reform the Arabians and the world, by bringing them
back to the true faith—to the religion of Moses, of Abraham,
and Jesus. The Koran he alleged to be a further revelation of
God's will, and with all its faults was neither so silly nor sen-
sual as the traditions contained in the lives of many a saint and
martyr. The lecturer then proceeded to explain that the Koran
in its present form could not be regarded as the ipsissima verba,
or the true expression of the revelation as alleged to have been
committed to him. It was corrupted by his successors, probably
to suit their own purposes, and numerous passages were cut out
and others interpolated. Tradition too, stepped in, as it had
with the religion of the western world; and he (the lecturer)
did not confine this remark solely to the Romish church, but ex-
tended it also to the Protestant church. They all boasted " The
Bible, and the Bible alone," was the foundation of their reli-
gion, but they all knew that that was a mere oratorical flourish,
and not consistent with facts. For, if they looked to the Pro-
testant communion, they ould find a hundred things, both in
its belief and practices, for which there was not one whit' more
scriptural authority than for purgatory, or the inquisition, or
masses for the dead. Besides there was not a ceremony in the
Mahometan religion which could not he paralelled by those of
the existing systems. And if the question should be asked,
. how came it to pass that this mingled mass of truth and error
should so extend itself throughout the world, from the banks
of the Euphrates to the north of the Tagus, so that men in
millions should cry "there is no God but God, and Mahomet
is his prophet? perhaps the best and truest answer to such a
question was this, that Mahometanism prevailed simply in con-
sequence of the corruptions of the cli: istians ; and it read to the
world, and to all ages of the world, this great lesson, that men
should beware how they tampered with the truth—how they
ever pandered to the mere passions of mankind for the pur-
pose of extending an unholy power. Christendom did this; and
the rise, progress, and conquest of Mahometanism was the al-
most natural result. He did not hesitate to say that the great
impostor of Mecca was sustained by the equally great impostor at
Rome, at the present hour; and if they were to place Christianity
before the Mahometan in all its scriptural simplicity and beauty,
they might expect his attention, and, if lie were an intelligent
man, they might expect him to close with then), and embrace
the truth. It was no marvel that the Mahometan should pre-
fer his mosque, all bare and unadorned, in which neither image
nor picture was ever permitted to divide with the duty and atten-
tion of the worshipper. Men talked of the overthrow of the
Ottoman empire. Be it so. Let it perish. But suppose the
Czar entered the gates of Constantinople —suppose the mosque
of St. Sophia was again a christian church, what had that to do
with Mahometanism, he should like to know ? Men talked of
the overthrow of the Ottoman empire, and then
they looked at the book of revelation, and thought
that Mallometanisin was to go with the Maho-
metan empire. But they ought to remember that
Mahometanism existed, conquered, flourished, and extended
itself from the Euphrates to the Appenines, long before the
Ottoman empire was established—that it existed 800 years
before the Sultan planted the crescent upon the ramparts of
Constantinople, and that it may exist for ages yet, though the
Sublime Porte should become the capital of the Czars. They
were often reminded in language poetical at all events, whether
true or not, that " the crescent of the false prophet is wearing
away." The "false prophet" never saw the crescent—it was
the emblem of the Turkish power, hut Mahometanism had
nothing to do with it. So that, after all, whatever might
become of the crescent signified very little, so long as-Maho-
metanisua was the belief of one hnnbred and eighty millions of
mankind, for that, and not the crescent, was the strength of
Islamism. (The reverend lecturer was throughout, and at the
conclusion of his lecture, rapturously applauded.)