The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-29 00:00:00

WHAT SORT OF EDUCATION
SHOULD BE GIVEN TO THE POOR ?

After struggling for above a century, the opponents
of general education have been reduced to silence, and
are compelled to give in their adhesion to some kind
of general education.
The question now is one of degree. The old oppo-
nents of education are still for giving as little as pos-
sible, and that of the worst sort. A little reading, less
writing, and no arithmetic, is what their liberality
would extend to • but still the two latter cannot he
absolutely refused, and though reading can be con-
fined at schools to hymns, psalms, catechisms, and
tracts, the schoolmaster, who is sure to be imbibed
with a better spirit than his haughty superiors, is led
to give instructions in writing and arithmetic of the
best kind to some of the better scholars, who neces-
sarily become favourites, and almost his adopted
children.

Never was there a greater mistake than to narrow
the education given to the bulk of the people. It
ought to be as extensive and liberal as possible, for
nature is very capricious in her gifts, and, instead of
following the ordinances of man, and giving the best
minds to the great and noble, she is frequently de-
mocratic enough to confer them on the meanest and
poorest of the people, who sometimes, if they can but
obtain a scrap of education, will work out wonders,
and have often astonished the world with their prodi-
gious discoveries, far surpassing all that was ever
made by the proudest disciples of the schools.
If some of the cheap and popular publishers of the
day would give well-condensed biographies of all the
great men who have sprung from the common people
and acquired immortal fame through the strength of
their own, often unaided, and frequently persecuted
genius, they would confer a greater benefit upon
society than by almost any other work of the kind
which has hitherto been published.
Let us briefly glance at a few. The intricate
Ptolemaic systens, supported by Aristotelean dogmas,
had maintained undisputed possession of the schools
for hundreds of years; to have questioned it would
have brought the Inquisition and the thunders of the
Church down upon the head of the impious innovator ;
for, in those days, to reason was considered synonymous
with Atheism. Copernicus, a poor obscure Polish
Roman Catholic priest, appeared, and contended that,
instead of the sun going round this little lump of
earth of ours, the earth went round the sun. The
learned world stood astonished at the assurance of the
contemptible priest ; but truth, whenever she shows
herself, is invincible ; Copernicus at once divided the
learned world, and half of it became reluctant con-
verts. Still, as both systems were little better than
theories, no further advance could be made without
more numerous and accurate observations, to obtain
what no unsound theory can withstand—facts.
The father of Galileo was so poor that he could not
maintain his son at Pisa.; he applied for a bursary ;
was disappointed, and Galileo seemed doomed to hope-
less poverty, when he obtained a patron in Guido Ri-
baldi, who got him a lectureship at 151. a-year, and
this poor scholar, who left college because un-
able to defray the expense of a doctor's degree,
upset all the learned schools in Europe ; at-
tacked with fearlessness Aristotle's doctrines of
mechanics, and overthrew, as with the spear
of Ithuriel, his fine-spun theories of the, perfec-
tion, smoothness, and absolute incorruptible essence of
the heavenly bodies; for Galileo had a telescope, in-
vented and made by himself in his hand, and dis-
covered the rugged irregular surface of the moon,
and what was far more important, the satellites
that revolve around the planet Jupiter. So palpable
and striking an analogy to the primary planets
revolving about the sun, furnished an argument in
favour of the Copernican theory, to which the most
bigoted followers of Aristotle could scarcely with-
hold assent.
And how did the enemies of education meet these
truths ? They declared the doctrine of the earth's
motion to be false, and imprisoned Galileo.
" It is in vain," exclaimed Pascal with honest zeal,
" that you have procured against Galileo a decree from
Rome condemning the opinion of the earth's motion.
Assuredly that will never prove it to be at rest; and
if we have unerring observations proving that it turns
round, not all mankind together can keep it from
turning, nor themselves from turning."
Those observations were made by Tycho Brahe,
who, not being a poor man, nor a commoner, does
not come within our range ; but the immortal Kep-
ler, every way Tycho Brake's superior, does. At
twelve years of age we find him a poor sickly pot-
boy in a miserable public-house kept by his father.
He afterwards went to the University at Tabingen.
The word university has an aristocratic sound in
an English ear; for though in former days Oxford
could boast of 30,000 poor students, all commoners,
both our English Universities have long since
been devoted exclusively . to the education of
the rich, and the poor, with here and there an excep-
tion, as in Bishop Prideaux's instance, have long
since been prohibited from entrance to places origi-
nally built expressly for their use. But the terms
" university" and " student" have a widely different
meaning in Germany, a clear though not very full
account of which may be found in the Life of Thomas
Platter in the 79th volume of the " Family Library,"
containing the " Lives of Individuals who raised
themselves from poverty to eminence or fortune."
Another strong instance of the importance to so-
ciety itself of giving to the very lowest classes an op-
portunity of obtaining education is furnished in the
life of Valentine Jomerai Duval, librarian to the Duke
Leopold, of Lorraine. He was the son of a labouring
man, who left a wife and large family in a season of
unusual scarcity. Duval kept turkies for a master by
whom he was almost starved. He afterwards became
cowherd to the four hermits of St. Anne, who assisted
him in gaining some useful knowledge, and taught
him to write, and the use of figures in arithmetic.
His own genius led him to study astronomy, and,
obtaining the world and of the
constellations,
enabled to make a kind of
a r m ai nryg some
he o
sphere—in d maps of
was
whi
which
h the earth was a ball of
clay, and the lines bent hazel twigs. Thus, almost
without any human assistance, and with the aid of a
few old books, he mastered, to a considerable extent,
mathematics, and, as all self-taught persons are irre-
gular in their studies, heraldry. It was in the
midst of a forest, clad in the homeliest habiliments,
and pursuing his studies, that he was found by Leo-
pold Duke of Lorraine, who took him in his rule
garb, and sent him to the college at Lunneville,
where he subsequently became professor of history,
antiquities, and of ancient and modern geography.
This is one of the numerous instances in which
genius has forced itself to eminence in spite of all ob-
stacles; but if we wish to have a serious, happy, in-
dustrious population, means of extending education
to all, on the most liberal scale practicable, must be
supplied.—Brighton Herald.