The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times thinks that Greenwich Hospital might be
turned to fresh account by employing it as a kind of naval
college. There is now at Portsmouth the germ of such an
institution in what is termed the Naval College. It is
true that the officer, at the age we speak of, has to pass
his final examination in navigation and the use of the
steam-engine. But this college is not a college in the
sense with which wo are familiar at our civil universities
It is little more than a place of examination. It is not
an institution at which all naval aspirants must for a
time reside, pursuing definite , studies, and competing
one with another in them. As it is, the authorities
are cramped and require larger space, and there
cannot be a doubt that if this college is ever
to be expanded, and to be made a really valuable adjunct
to the education on board ship, there is no place so suitable
for its development as one of the vacant quarters of Green-
wich Hospital, with its close proximity to the workshops
of the Thames and the Royal Observatory, as well as to
London and Whitehall. It would be no slight advantage
that the reputation of a young officer should not depend
alone on the report cf the captain of his ship, and that
in cases where he had been unlucky in his first ship
he should have a second chance of distinction at the
college. And it is plain how easy of extension
such a college or university would be for providing
staff officers with all means and appliances of study.
We commend these proposals to the consideration of Mr.
Childers. We recognise a step in the direction we have
indicated in the announcement that the examinations for
entry into the Britannia are to be held at once in Green-
wich Hospital. The Britannia, it must be borne in mind,
be it good or evil, is the necessary corrective of a system of
nomination. Professional schools have serious drawbacks,
as we shall probably learn from the labours of the present
Royal Commission upon Military Schools. If Mr. Chil-
ders will minimize their evils, he may render good
service to the navy, and the vacant quarters of Green-
wich Hospital furnish him with an unprecedented opportu-
nity of founding, without cost to the country, a great
naval university.
The Daily News says that eminent political performers
are fulfilling now their provincial engagements. Lord
Carnarvon, whom we encountered the other day at High-
clue, improvising a policy on the Irish Land question, for
the edification of a farmers' club, was to be found on Wed-
nesday in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, distributing
prizes to the young gentlemen who have distinguished
themselves in the Oxford Middle Class Examination. Some
time ago, the association of Manchester and Oxford in any
educational purpose would have been deemed strange. Lord
Carnarvon is stirred when he contemplates the happy com-
bination by which the ancient University, with all its
great and noble traditions, is brought into connection
with a centre of modern industry, one of those great towns,
as he describes it, through which England speaks and lives
and moves and breathes through trade. The connection,
the importance of which cannot be thought of too highly,
does not date from the Oxford Middle Class Examina-
tions. It was symbolised very strikingly when an Ox-
ford Professor edited, and the University printers and
publishers brought out, the speeches of John Bright.
Manchester •taught old Oxford before Oxford examined
young Manchester. The enlargement of the Univer-
sity's view of teaching and learning is clue in no small
degree to the influence of those modern ideas which have
their headquarters there. The Free Trade Hall, in
which Lord Carnarvon spoke on Wednesday, was the
cradle, if not the birthplace, of many of those views which
have since been taught with effect from Oxford chairs.
Lord Carnarvon's address was in its main features a defence
of classical studies, suitable enough to an audience some of
whom were schoolboys, and of whom a great proportion
belonged, as he said, to the fair sex. Viryinibus pucrisgue
eantat. We may say that the matter and style of Lord
Carnarvon's address are such as might have entitled it, if
the noble author had been competitor instead of distributor,
to the prize for English composition at an Oxford Middle
Class Examination. It is a good schoolboy essay, and
little more. It adds nothing, not oven new fallacies
stimulative of correction, to the subject.
The Standard declares that if anything could deepen the
feeling of pain and indignation aroused among all classes
of Churchmen by Mr. Gladstone's nomination to the see of
Exeter, it would be found in the correspondence of eight
years back between Bishop Phillpotts and Dr. Temple, on
the subject of the "Essays and Reviews." We said at th
outset that not the least objection to Mr. Gladstone's•choice
was the violent antagonism between the theological view•.
of the late bishop and the divine so unhappily chosen to
succeed him. It must not be supposed that this is a
High Church grievance. The heresies of the Essayists
were equally repugnant to every section of Church-
men save that of which the writers themselves
were the most advanced representatives. And the
same remark applies to the protest against the nomination
of Dr. Temple. Tho tone of th o meeting at Exeter on
Tuesday reflects with tolerable fidelity the sense cf the
High Church party; and the recognised organ of the Low
Church party does not speak without warrant, when it
calls upon the Dean and Chapter of Exeter to "play the
man for the Church of their fathers and the truths of
their religion," and summons the faithful of every shade of
opinion to " rally round them as fighting the battle of the
living God, so far as relates to its maintenance in this
realm of England." Such an appointment is an out-
rage and a challenge to every earnest and do
vout Churchman. When ignominiously driven from
Oxford University, Mr. Gladstone declared before the
people of Lancashire that he was at length " unmuzzled,"
and, half in menace half in irony, expressed his hope that
the cause which his late constituents represented might
never suffer in consequence. This was the prelude to his
attack on the Irish Church, and if ho should contemplate
pursuing his vengeance against the Church of England,
there is no way in which he could wreak it more effectually
than by advancing to its highest offices men of the stamp
of Dr. Temple, who has proved himself as dangerous an
enemy to the purity of its faith as to its position as an
establishment. The worst foe of the Church could hardly
have dealt it a blow more calculated to weaken and
damage it.

The Post, in referring to the proceedings of the General
Church Council at Dublin, observes that it numbers 400
members, men selected as well for their social rank as
their intelligence, and it may be considered as faithfully
representing Irish Protestantism. So far as we are in a
position to judge from the proceedings of the first day, the
Conference did its work fairly, and in a very business-like
manner. The question whether the bishops and inferior
clergy should vote collectively or separately was
then discussed, but its settlement was apparently
remitted to the clerical order as exclusively
concerning its members. An amendment proposed by Mr.
Johnston, the member for Belfast, fixing the number of lay
representatives at double that of the clergy, was, after an
animated discussion, carried by a very large majority. We
have some difficulty in understanding what operative effect
this, or indeed the preceding, resolution, can have, except
as a guide to the lay representatives at the General
Council. It would be very awkward, for example, if the
clergy in Synod were to pass a resolution—as they are per-
fectly competent to do—that the numbers of clerical and lay
representatives should be equal. It is no doubt true that if
the system of voting by orders in the General Council be
adopted, it is of comparatively little consequence whether
or
not. C PTI•1 rata, orders ha 001.1.11
House of Lords, but that fact in no wayv.iaiartt;l6lllNet
of the latter if it desires to reject a measure adopted by the
former. However, as the lay representatives seem to
desire that they should largely outnumber those of the
clergy, perhaps it would be as well for the latter to 'concede
the point. There must bo mutual concessions, and both
sides must bo prepared for compromises if they would act
harmoniously together.
-

- -
The Herald thinks that the appearance of a new literary
review, when ushered in by such favourable auspices as
attend Mr. Murray's new venture, is a fact of some import-
ance. We are not accustomed to look to Albemarle-street
for second-rate writing; and the names which have already
been pressed into the service of its new periodical were a
guarantee that it would not be wanting in ability. Nor‘
unfortunately, can it be denied that we are sadly in want
of a critical journal such as it promised, and is likely to be.
The person must be easy to please who is satisfied with the
hasty and, we fear, not always dispassionate, judgment
which proceed from our most conspicuous critical au thori ties.
It is one good feature of the new raper that its writers
are permitted to handle only those subjects with which
they have a special acquaintance ; and another is that no
book which does not reach a certain standard of merit will
receive notice at all. Criticism is a serious work, r,n,
should be done seriously. T.y its aid merit that woul::
otherwise be overlooked ought to be dragged to light,
ignorance, shallowness, and showiness, which are wrongly
accepted as something mole substantial,should be exnosed.
only exposed with dignity. Only, too, when the public is
being misled need they be noticed. Equally idle is it t`.
write column upon column on each fresh work- of al:
author whose talent has long been recognised.
and who has become a setticd faVOUrito with tlic'
public—unless, indeed; there is some novelty in his new
Koduetiors, Greater space, too, should be given to forsige
authors, and it would not be amiss to take SOIIIO notice of
continental opinions aboui; our own. There are several
men who are regarded as demigods on this side the Channel.
who have never succeeded in exciting any olithusiasui
beyond it. Perhaps we ought to be the
bestjudges of our
liar t.y pountrym4n 1 but the claim would be more sure of
resognition if our critics would enter upon their task with
the same laborious and consistent application of principles
as is displayed by the leading critics in France and
Germany. There the critic, qua critic, becomes a man of
letters and a power. That cannot be said of many critics
among ourselves. We hope the Ac«Jenr,
NY;11 stOPIN the
•
44!