The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-26 00:00:00

EARL DERBY AT LIVERPOOL.

As we have already stated by telegraph, Lord Derby
distributed the prizes at the Liverpool College on Friday
evening. The following is the full report of the noble
Earl's speech : The number of its pupils is a very
inadequate test of the work done by a place of public in-
struction. It does sometimes happen in England that
educational establishments obtain and keep a reputa-
tion to which they would find it difficult to make good
their title. We know that there have been times
when at the great public schools very little was
taught or learnt that could possibly be of use to any
human being ; yet, from old associations on the part
of parents, or from reputation acquired in more
prosperous dais, or from the vague and silly superstition,
perhaps not wholly dead, that the school in which a boy
was taught least was the most likely to make him a gen-
tleman—or, it may be, from sheer perplexity on the part
of parents as to what else could be done with boys who
must be sent somewhere,—these schools kept up their
numerical strength, on the whole, pretty steadily. I
should only be wasting words if I were to endeavour to
point out the usefulness—l will go further, and say the
indispensable character—of an institution such as ours is
to a community like that of Liverpool. Everyb,)dy is
exerting himself—at least so far as talking about it goes—
to educate the children of the poorest class.
You cannot open a newspaper without seeing in
it some paragraph about the election of a school board,
and even those—l suspect they are pretty numerous—who
cared exceedingly little about the matter when they or
their friends had it all their own way, are stimulated
into activity by the natural dislike of rival influences,
and in some cases also by the unpleasant prospect of
rates. Well, but what is to come of all this ? We
are in theory to have a well-instructed working class.
I say in theory, because, assuming everything to be
done that is possible, I apprehend that in the great
majority of cases the early age at which school teaching
must cease in that class will confine within exceedingly
narrow limits the results obtained. But there will be
many exceptions ; and, after all deductions made, we
must expect that there will be a large development of in-
telligence among that section of society which attends
village or rate-paid schools. That is, any way, what we
all profess to hope for and to anticipate. Well, it won't
do for the employers to be left behind by the employed.
It won't do for the wage-receivers to be able to say of
those who pay them, " They have got the brass, but it is
we who have got the brains." The class that is to hold
its own in actual English life must be an educated class,
and by that word I don't mean that it is indispensable that
they should have acquired this or that special branch
of knowledge—be it Greek, or Latin, or modern lan-
guages, or natural science,—but it is indispensable that
they should have got the culture, the training, which
makes it easy to pick up whatever knowledge may be
necessary ; which makes mental exertion, within reason-
able limits, a pleasure rather than a task ; and which
enables a man to grasp more clearly the details even
of a subject which may be entirely new to him, than
his neighbour, not similarly trained, will be able to
do with one with which he has long been familiar.
I am not about to enter on that old controversy, which
has been going on ever since I can remember, and will go
on probably after most of us are in our graves, as to the
comparative value of a classical or scientific education
There is as much to be said in favour of any kind of
human culture assuming that it is one in which cer-
tainty is attainable (for the mere guessing at and specu-
lating about insoluble problems is a hopeless waste of
intellect and industry)—that at least I wish to blame no
man, be he mathematician, chemist, naturalist, or clas-
sical student, who exalts his own favourite pursuits above
all the rest. But we live under hard and inexorable con-
ditions. The vast majority of men, in all r.ges and
countries, must work before they can eat. Even
those who are not under that necessity are, in Eng-

land, generally impelled by example, by custom
perhaps by a sense of what is fittest for them, t(
adopt what is called an active pursuit of some sort.
Life-long study is possible only to exceedingly few.
The concurrence of external and internal conditions which
makes it possible is very rarely found ; and unless such
study is to lead to some useful result to the rest of
the world, I don't know that we ought to desire
that those who follow it should be more numerous than
they are; for if there is on 3 thing more certain than
another it is this—that every member of a community is
bound to something for that community in return for
what he gets from it : and neither intellectual cultivation
nor the possession of material wealth, nor any other plea
whatever, except that of physical or mental incapacity,
can excuse any of us from that plain and personal duty.
Well, but if active life be the duty of most men, if it
has to be entered upon at an early age, as is generally the
case, and if, in these days of competion, it absorbs the
whole energies of body and brain, as is very often the
case, I fear it follows that systematic devotion to any
kind of study is seldom possible in later life. There have
been, and there are, very eminent exceptions ; we may
find some among public men either now or lately living ;
but they undoubtedly are the exception rather than the
rule. It is not time that is wanting ; you may take it as
certain that a man will always find time for what really
interests him. But energy is in each of us a limited
quantity, and we cannot blame or wonder at the wish to
rest altogether after a good day's work. Yet, knowing
all this, and feeling it myself, I do say to every young
man whom I am now addressing, " Whatever your pur-
suit may be, however active, however absorbing, don't,
unless you are willing to forfeit one of the most lasting of
human enjoyments don't, if you can possibly help it,
allow yourself to lose your taste for reading."—
I say nothing of books as a mere substitute
for, and preventive of, indulgence in low pleasure ; you, I
hope, are above wanting that sort of recommendation.
But it is a bad thing to have the brain always filled with
one's own narrow personal concerns, or, what is one
degree worse, with the small personal concerns of one's
neighbours. It is a great gain, putting it in the lowest
point of view, to be able to pass at pleasure out of the
eternal round of petty duties and trivial annoyances, to
observe, with however unpractised an eye, the marvellous
arrangements of nature, or to live in the lives and follow
the thoughts that have interested and instructed suc-
cessive generations of mankind. And though it may
be, in a community like this, considered by some to
be a heterodox view, I will say that it often appears to
me in the present day that we are a little too apt in all
classes to look upon ourselves as mere machines for what
is called "getting on," and to forget that there are in every
human being many faculties which car.not be employed,
and many wants which cannot be satisfied by that occu-
pation. It is difficult to speak on such matters without
seeming to imply more or less than one means. I have
not a word to utter against strenuous devotion to business
while you are at it; on the contrary, that is the secret of
success, and, what is worth more than success—of self-
approval. But one of the wisest. and most thoroughly
cultivated men whom I ever knew retired before the age
of 50 from a profession in which he was snaking an enor-
mous income, because, he said, he had got as much as he
or anybody else belonging to him could want,
and he did not see why he should sacrifice the rest of
his life to money getting. Some people thought
him very foolish ; I did not. And I believe that
the gentleman of whom I speak never once repented his
decision. But there is this to be remembered—that the
freedom and leisure which to a scholar and a philosopher
were only a means of transition from uncongenial to con-
genial pursuits, would to an unlettered man similarly
circumstanced have brought nothing but weariness and
disgust. One word more, and I have done. I hope that
those who have been successful in their work here will
equally recollect that after-life generally modifies, and
often reverses, the decisions which we pass at school or
college upon one another's capacities and chances.
Those who have done best have got a good start in
life, and nobody will grudge it them; but they have
got no more. Those who have failed are starting
fresh in a new field. Let there be no fal§p security on
the one hand—no premature despondency on the other.
Such advice is often given away freely on these occasions,
and some people are apt to say it is worth exactly as much
as it costs. lam not going into that line of business,
but to young men eager and energetic as many of you
are, making their start in the world, I will offer one hint.
Let them recollect that the race in which they are en-
gaging is one which will last all their working days, and
in which endurance is more important than speed. They
' know already that intemperance is one form of suicide—
let them remember that all neglect of physical laws
is open to the same reproach, and that there may be intem-
perance in work as well as in meaner indulgencies. You
cannot have mental efficiency without health ; you can-
not maintain health in an exciting and exhausting em-
ployment, such as most mental occupations are when
eagerly followed, without some care to preserve it. What
I had to tell you about keeping up literary tastes has
been said already. They are a great pleasure, a whole-
some and a lasting one. Keep them up if you can,
and as long as you can. But while you do that remember
also that there is one thing as compared with which not
only material wealth and luxury, but all art, all lite-
rature, all science even, are relatively unimportant—and
in regard to which the poorest labourer may compete
with any of you on equal terms—l mean a steady, un-
tiring performance by each individual of his public and
private duty.- ,

" Honour and fame from no condition rise—
Act well your part; there all the honour lies."