The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-08 00:00:00

of the order it moulded fifty years ago. He instances
the non-success of the distinguished Cambridge men
at the bar, and contrasts it with that old uniformity of
career through which the senior wranglers and medal-
lists of former days passed, almost as a matter of course,
from the schools of Cambridge to the bench at
Westminster. The particular fact alleged is cer-
tainly, to a great extent, a truth, and typical of the
general rule, that Cambridge luminaries of the
day are, with some brilliant exceptions, unsuccess-
ful in the business of life. Their fewer triumphs
at the bar do not indeed altogether justify the re-
proach. The enormous growth of that rude and in-
condite mass, the English law, gives daily greater
advantages to mere length of training, and less to
refinement of analytical or sytbetic power. Without
any allusion to the gentlemen specified by our con-
temporary—the Lushes and Peacocks, of whose an-
tecedents we know nothing—it may be doubted
whether the fairest promise of success is not now-a-
days with the ambitious attorney's clerk, who brings
the technical knowledge of a dozen years to the bar.
" You wonder," was the bitter remark of an emi-
nent Queen's Counsel, " you wonder that X has
risen from a country solicitor's back office to the
bench ; the real wonder is, that Y has reached
it after receiving the education of a gentle-
man." The disadvantage under which University
education thus places University men, could only
be compensated by the University's converting itself
formally into a school of English law, with functions
subordinate to those of a pleader's chambers. Such
a sacrifice to the confusion of the Statute Book we
trust Oxford and Cambridge know themselves too
well to make. At the same time, it will not do to
attribute even the diminished forensic success of men
trained at college wholly to this cause, though a
powerful one. Something, undoubtedly, there is,
which proves a let and hindrance to the race which
the Universities train their pupils to run. This
obstacle is nothing more than the exhaustion which
follows the struggle for University honours. Look
at the wrangler or medallist after his laurels are
won. Pale, etiolated, and worn—enfeebled in body,
if not enervated in mind—he brings to the study
of a science with little system, nothing but an
intellect over-sharpened by familiarity with the most
systematic sciences. Even if the spirit be willing—
if the aspirant is not repelled by the crude matter of
our jurisprudence—the flesh is weak. The candidate
for distinction in the most laborious of professions
has gone through, before his twenty-second year, the
physical wear and tear of an Attorney-General.
What wonder that success is either impossible, or
gained at the cost of premature debility and death !
Certainly, it is not always so ; but cases are suffi-
ciently frequent to determine the rule; and both the
cause and its remedy are as simple and patent as
possible. The University of Cambridge, instead of
merely fixing a standard, the attainment of which
shall entitle a student to enrolment in a particular
class, goes on to classify, in order of merit, the persons
who reach the standard. It distinguishes its students
not only by the class in which they are worthy to
be placed, but, according to their place in that class.
It might, of course, arrange the names of all who
have passed a certain fixed test, in alphabetical or any
other arbitrary order, but it does not ; it enters into
the question of their comparative merit. The struggle
is thus not to reach a particular class, but a particular
place in that class ; not merely to gain a particular
mark, but to get further past it than one's neighbour.
In this way the contest becomes entirely one of in-
dividuals. Very frequently A and B are singled out,
in the first year of their course, as likely to head
either Tripos, and then, during two years and a half,
A and B are engaged in personal struggle. No de-
finite limit to their studies is placed, nor is there any
but the natural limit of the sciences studied. It is
not wonderful that the most intense emulation is ex-
cited, and still less wonderful that this emulation
should produce its lamentable result, in the mental and
bodily prostration of the persons subjected to its in-
citements. Why the University countenances such a
system, it is difficult to imagine. Its clear duty is to fix
a certain standard of proficiency to be attained by its
alumni ; and this it may place as high as it pleases.
But why settle the precedence of the persons who
have passed it?—why prejudge their merit when,
after all, it must be judged by the fruits of their
after-life, without reference to the decision of the
University ? True it is that a larger amount of know-
ledge is secured than would probably be otherwise
gained; the extent of the field traversed at Cambridge
is enormous. But not the most bigoted believer in
the system will venture to deny that it is doubtful
whether the cause of knowledge gains on the whole—
whether as much is not lost by this exhaustion of
minds as is gained by their premature development.
Assuredly, whatever be the effect on the few who de-
vote themselves to science, the consequence to the
many who mix in active professions is, generally
speaking, inevitable failure. Overstrained faculties
and a damaged physique take the place of that nerved
and braced energy which ought to follow on the
finished educational training. And all this in conse-
quence of an arrangement which appears to have been
originally adopted by accident.
HERALD.—It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary for
us toi,observe that Conservative union does not mean
alliance, defensive and offensiveogainsta mischievous
and feeble Government—between the country party
on the one hand, and Messrs. Cobden and Bright on
the other. That it signifies restoration of peace on
the part of Sir Robert Peel and his former followers

is equally out of the question. The organ of the
Right Hon. Baronet jumps too eagerly to its conclu-
sion when it supposes that the anxiety honourably
evinced by loyal men to forget much and forgive
more, in order to rescue " the Throne, the Peerage,
and the Church," from the glaring perils with which
Whig misgovernment has environed them, includes
an equally pressing desire to secure the questionable
services of the Right Hon. Baronot, whose political
creed is so very peculiar that it is impossible to
describe it save by his own familiar name.
This wish is father to the thought ; and -the
thought is as impudent as the wish is futile.
Sir Robert, the man to surround the Peerage
and the Church with impregnable defences !
The idea is ludicrous. Every individual is a fair
judge of his own necessities, and noble lords and
reverend clergymen may answer for themselves.
There was a time when the fiction was believed and
the man trusted. That time has gone—painful as it
may be to the friends of Sir Robert Peel to hear it—
never to return. " There is work for virtue and
patriotism left on earth," says the ex-Premier's ad-
vocate, " although to buy in the cheapest market and
sell in the dearest—that is, to distribute the produc-
tions of the globe according to the wants of its in-
habitants—is a law of nature, made manifest by
science—and recognised by common sense." In
other words, there is work for Sir Robert Peel to do,
although he did betray his party to Cobden, and sell
the West Indies like slaves in the market-place. No
doubt there is. And he may legitimately find it with his
new associates,—with the men whose unadorned elo-
quence in a day convinced the sagacious statesman
who for years had deceived himself,— with
the ardent reformers who look beyond Russell
to Peel for final triumph, and whOse affection for the
Peerage and the Church is universally appreciated 1
The cant concerning the "distribution of the produc-
tions of the globe according to the wants of its inha-
bitants," hardly needs exposure at our hands. Dis-

. ...
tribution, there is none I It is the want of
distribution that throws Manchester workmen out of

employ, that plays havoc with our exports, that
brings confusion into the national exchequer. We
were promised, indeed, the distribution, but it comes
not. We were charmed with pictures of reciprocity,
and visions of mutual love and self-sacrifice, before the
corn•laws were repealed ; but nothing has been
realised _ since, save the immediate and natural

effects of our own consummate folly. We give to
the world, but the world gives not to us. We un-
lock the Customs, but the foreigner enters not in
the spirit of brotherhood. Distribution is all in

___ _ .... ....
one direction. We distribute the fortunes of our
colonists, and the means of our small tradesmen;
but our allies, whose co-operation is so es-
sential to the successful operation of "the law of
nature," content themselves with distributing, as far
as their internecine wars will suffer them, our heavy
losses amongst themselves. "If there is any ques-
tion," further adds our contemporary, " upon which
honest men and statesmen may change their mind
without loss of character, it is natural to inquire whether a point of fiscal and and commercial expedi-
encynot snehha question." Our readers will un-
is
stood for Sir
" honest men" andt
derstand that
Rwobeerr6a. " virtue" and "patriotism"
c'eel in the former paragraph, so
office here. The in lit.statesmen" perform a similar
and in times like thelpriris: no doubt, is a natural one,
should be undertaken in
a spirit of stern impartiality, Vice believe that man
fiscal
tuahnse. and
d ntecommercial
rested
may change his opinion upotT'a
question, and still retain his honest
we
uroensty But before
Piteredntr ?
we take back Sir Robert Peel
recommendation of his organ, let
this is actually the great offence of the e"uxn whether
And whether it is for this alone that a
of honourable men have quitted his side, and dis
avowed his leadership ? Nothing can be more unjust
than to suppose that the Right Honourable Ba-
ronet had not the same privilege to modify his
commercial views that the humblest man in Parlia-
ment takes unasked. But we imagine that there
is all the difference between changing one's mind
upon a point of fiscal expediency, and changing
one mind, after five-and-twenty years of public
service, upon almost every question of the time. The
painful fact is, that Sir Robert Peel, by his present
treatment of every subject that engages his legislative
attention, convinces the unprejudiced that he has
hitherto affected a sentiment on behalf of interests,
for which, in his heart, he never cared a jot ; and that
for-an object known to himself, but unworthy, what-
ever it be, he has professed a creed that had no root in
his soul, and linked himself to a party, from which
all the while his affections were estranged. Nobody