The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

vice, and Lord W. Bentinck gave it to this friend of his
who had fallen into distress. That was the single instance
where Lord W. Bentinck had an opportunity of appointing
a friend, by going out of the service. What a security such
a system is for the proper disposal of the patronage .—infi-
nitely a better security than even the virtues of such a
man ; for if any man is to be trusted with the uncontrolled
disposal of the Indian patronage Lord W. Bentinck cer-
tainly was. (Hear, hear.) Then it appears we re agreed
that it is of the highest importance that the civil service
in India should be most capable and efficient. We are
agreed, also, that it must be a close service. Li this case,
it certainly necessarily follows that we ought to watch with
the utmost care over the road to admission to that service
—that we ought, if possible, to take such measures that
this service may consist entirely of fit and superior men.
Now, it is because, in my opinion, this bill does tend to
produce that effect that I feel earnestly desirous that it
should pass, and pass without delay. (Hear, hear.) My
right hon. friend (Sir C. Wood) proposes that all places
in the civil service—all admissions to the civil service,
shall be distributed among young men by competition in
those studies (as I understand the plan) which constitute
a liberal British education. That plan was originally sug-
gested by Lord Grenville in a speech which, thought I do
not concur in any part of it, I would earnestly recommend
every gentleman to read, for I believe that since the death
of Burke nothing more remarkable has been delivered.
Nothing, however, on this point was then done, and the
matter slept till 1833 when my friend Lord Glenelg, the
purest and most disinterested of men, proposed the adop-
tion of a plan not altogether framed according to his views,
but still a plan which would have introduced this principle
of competition. Upon that plan 20 years ago I remember
speaking here. I ought not to say here, for the then
House of Commons was burnt down, and of the audience
I then addressed the greater part has passed away. But
my opinion on that subject has always been the same.
(Hear, hear.) The bill was passed, but difficulties arose
with respect to the enactments I have just referred to, and
they were repealed, and the patronage continued to run in
the old course. It is now proposed to introduce this prin-
ciple of competition again, and I do most earnestly entreat
this house to give it a fair trial. (Hear.) I was truly
glad to hear the noble lord who proposed the present amend-
ment express approval of the general principle of that part
of the bill. I was glad, but not surprised at it, for it is
what I should expect from a young man of his spirit and
ability and recent experience of academical competition.
(Hear, hear.) But I must say Ido join with the hon.
member for Kidderminster in feeling some surprise at
the manner in which that part of the plan has been
spoken of by a nobleman of great eminence, once presi-
dent of the Board of Control and Governor-General of
India, and of very distinguished ability as a statesman. If
I understand the opinions imputed to that noble lord, he
thinks the proficiency of a young man in those pursuits
which constitute a liberal education is not only no indica-
tion that he is likely in after life to make a distinguished
figure, but that it positively raises a presumption that in
after life he will be overcome in those contests which then
take place. I understand that the noble lord is of opinion
that young men gaining distinction in such pursuits are
likely to turn out dullards and utterly unfit for the con-
tests of active life, and I am not sure that the noble lord
did not say that it would be better to make boxing or
cricket a test of fitness than a liberal education. I
must say it seems to me that there never was a fact better
proved by an immense mass of evidence, by an experience
almost unvaried, than this—that men who distinguish them-
selves in their youth above their cotemporaries in academic
competition almost always keep to the end of their lives
the start theyliave gained in the earlier part of their career.
This experience is so vast that I should as soon expect to
hear any one question it as to hear it denied that arsenic
is poison, or that brandy is intoxicating. Take the very
simplest test. Take down in any library the Cambridge
Calendar. There you have the list of honours for a hun-
dred years. Look at the list of wranglers and of junior
optimes, and I will venture to say that for one man who
has in after life distinguished himself among the junior
optimes you will find 20 among the wranglers. Take the
Oxford Calendar; look at the list of first-class men, and
compare them with an equal number of men in the third
class, and say in which list you find the majority of men
who have distinguished themselves in after life. But is
not our history full of instances which prove this fact?
(Hear, hear.) Look at the church, the Parliament, or the
bar. Look to the Parliament from the time when Parlia-
mentary government began in this country—from the days
of Montagu and St. John to those of Canning and Peel.
You need not stop there, but come down to the time of
Lord Derby and my right hon. friend the Chancellor of
the Exchequer. (Hear, hear.) Has it not always been
the case that the men who were first in the competition of
the schools have been the first in the competition of life?
(Hear, hear.) Look also to India. The ablest man who
ever governed India was Warren Hastings, and was he not
in the first rank at Westminster? (Cheers.) The ablest
civil servant I ever knew in India was Sir Charles Met-
calfe, and was ho not a man of the first standing at Eton ?
The most distinguished member of the aristocracy who
ever governed India was Lord Wellesley. What was his
Eton reputation ? What was his Oxford reputation ?
(Hear, hear.) But I must mention—l cannot refrain from
mentioning—another noble and distinguished Governor-
General. A few days ago, while the memory of the speech
to which I have alluded was still fresh in my mind, I read
in the Mum Cantabrigienses a very elegant and classical
ode, which the University of Cambridge rewarded with a
gold medal. The subject was the departure of the house
of Braganza from Portugal for Brazil. The young poet,
who was then only 17, described in very Horatian
language and versification the departure of the fleet, and
pictured the great Portuguese navigator, Vasco de Gama,
and the great Portuguese poet Camoens hovering over the
armament which was to convoy the fortune. ~r to Portu-
guese monarchy to a new hemisphere ; and with pleasure,
not altogether unmingled with ir;—, read at the bottom
of that composition the or he Hon. Edward Law, of
St. John's College.
must say I saw with some consider-
able pleasure
luaL the name of Lord Ellenborough may be
added ..me long list of those distinguished men who, in
eat youth, have, by eminent academical success, given
en augury of the distinguished part which they were after-
wards to play ; and I could not but feel some concern and
surprise that a nobleman so honourably distinguished in
his youth by attention to those studies should, in his
maturer years, have descended to use language respecting
them which I think would have better become the lips of
Ensign Northerton, or the captain in Swift's poem, who
says—

" Your Noveds and Bluturehs, and Omurs and stuff,
By George, they dont't signify this pinch of snuff;
To give a young gentleman right education,
The army's the only good school in the nation."

(Laughter,) The noble lord seemed, from his speech, to
entertain that opinion. (A laugh.)
"My schoolmaster called me a dunce and a fool,
But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school."

(Loud laughter.) But if a recollection of his own early
academical triumphs did not restrain the noble earl from
using this language, I should have thought that his filial
piety would have had that effect. I should have thought
that he would have remembered how eminently splendid
was the academical career of that great and strong-minded
magistrate, the late Lord Ellenborough ; and, as I have
mentioned him, I will say that if there be in this world a
trying test of the fitness of men for the competition of
active life, and of the strength and acuteness of their prac-
tical faculties, it is to be found in the contests of the Eng-
lish bar. Look at Lord Mansfield, Lord Eldon, Lord
Stowell, Sir Vicary Gibbs, Lord Tenterden, and Lord
Lyndhurst. Take either the common law or the equity
bar. The present Lord Chief Baron was senior wrangler ;
Mr. Baron Alderson was senior wrangler Mr. Justice
Mania was senior wrangler ; Mr. Baron Parke was emi-
nently distinguished at the university for his mathema-
tical and classical attainments ; Mr. Baron Platt was a
wrangler ; and Mr. Justice Coleridge was one of the most
eminent men of his time at Oxford. Then take the equity
bar. The Lord Chancellor was a wrangler ; Lord Justice
Sir George Turner was high in the list of wranglers ; all
the three Vice-Chancellors wero wranglers ; Sir Lancelot
Shadwell was a wrangler, and a very distinguished scholar ;
my friend, Sir James Parker, was a high wrangler, and a
distinguished mathematician. Can we suppose that it was
by mere accident they obtained their high positions ? Is it
possible not to believe that these men maintained through
life the start which they gained in youth? And is it an
answer to these instances to say that you can point—as it
is desirable you should bo able to point—to two or three
men of great powers who, having neglected the struggle
when they were young, have afterwards exerted them-
selves to retrieve lost time, and have sometimes overtaken
and surpassed those who had got far in advance of them ?
Of course there are such exceptions ; most desirable it is
that there should be, and that they should be noted, in
order to encourage men who, after having thrown away
their youth from levity or love of pleasure may be in-
clined to throw their manhood after it in despair • but the
general rule is, beyond all doubt, that which I }lave laid
down. It is this— that those men who distinguish them-
selves most in academical competition when they are young
are the men who, in after life, distinguish themselves most
in the competition of the world. Now, if this be so, I
cannot conceive that we should be justified in refusingto
India the advantage of such a test. I know there aro
gentlemen who say—for it has been said—" After all,
this test extends only to a man's intellectual qualifications,
and his character is quite as important as his intellectual
qualifications." I most readily admit that his character
is as important as his intellectual qualifications ; but
unfortunately you have not quite so certain a test of a
man's character as of his intellectual qualifications.
Surely, if there are two qualifications you want a man to
possess, and which it is very important ho should possess
—and if you have a test by which you can ascertain the
presence of the one qualification, but no decisive test by
which you can ascertain the presence of the other- -your
best course is to use the test you have, and to leave as
little as you possibly can to chance. This argument would
seem unanswerable unless some person should say that
the circumstances of a man's superiority in academical
competition raised a presumption that he was inferior in
practical judgment and manly rectitude; but if that can
be shown, then the consequence would go a great deal
further than the rejection of my right hon. friend's pro-
posal. It would go to this, that we must reconsider the
whole system of English education, and remove our boys
from those places where they are trained to studies which
have a deleterious effect upon the character. (Hear.) There
is another point on which I am desirous to say a few words.
Some very able and judicious men, who are strongly of
opinion—as strongly as lam myself—that it is important
that there should be high intellectual tests for admission
to the Indian service, are yet of opinion that this would
be best managed, not by means of competition, but
by having examinations of a high standard, and re-
jecting every candidate who does not come up to that
standard. Now, all my experience and observation
lead me to believe that this is a complete mistake.
(Hear, hear.) The effect of competition is to keep up
the standard. Every man struggles to do his best, and
the consequence is that, without any effort on the part of
the examiner, under a system of competition the standard
keeps itself up. But the moment you sayto the examiner,
not " Shall A or B go to India ?" but " Hero is A ; is he
fit to go India ?" the question becomes altogether a diffe-
rent one. The examiner's compassion, his good nature,
his unwillingness to blast the prospects of a young man,
lead him to strain a point in order to let the candidate in
if ho possibly can. That would be the case even if we
suppose the dispensers of patronage to be left merely to the
operation of their own minds, but you would have them
subjected to solicitations of a sort which it would be im-

possible to resist. I speak of what I know, and of what
I have seen. I have known cases where public servants
have been under the painful necessity of pronouncing young
men, on examination, to be unfit for the public service.
What is the consequence? The candidate declares that
he will exert himself to the utmost, and that, if he be
but tried, no endeavour shall be wanting on his part to
discharge his duties satisfactorily. The father comes with
tears in his eyes ; the mother writes the most pathetic
and heartbreaking letters. I have repeatedly seen very
firm minds shaken by appeals of that sort. Now, the
system of competition allows nothing of the kind, but it
necessarily keeps your standard high, while the other sys-
tem constantly tends to bring it lower and lower. I hope
pleat earnestly it will not be supposed that in anything I
have said I intend in the smallest degree to reflect on the