Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1867-09-04
NEW BOOKS.
Dickens.

W hen Dickens comes TO this country on
his projected visit, he will find himself bet
ter known as an author here than he is at
home. His genius and his novels have an
immense audience in the United States and
many of his characters have become almost
as famous and as universally known as those
of Shakespeare. No historical personages
can be any more real to the Imagination than
the men and women and children who look
out upon Us from the pages of the great
novelist. They reach our symrathics and
awaken our likes and dislikes as though we
were witnesses of the scenes in which they
act. This Is the highest result of creative
genius and its most valuable result, when,
as in the writings Of Dickens. our svmpa-
thies are enlisted upon the side of the great
reforms which mark the progress Of the age
and We are brought to see more distinctly
the outrageous abuses which have lived far
beyond their time by partially hiding from
the light of day. The novelist nobly serves
his time, who smites with his pen the wrongs
the abuses, the stolid conservatism of the
age, and who reveals with the glare of the
light Of his intellect the dust, the decay and
the death that linger in places which should
be swept and garnished and purified for the
new world which every day is coming into
its inheritance. No man has done a greater
work in this field than Dickens. and he Will
receive, when he shortly visits US, a welcome
which Will assure him how well his geniu.
is appreciated on this side the water
just now the rivalry in the publication OF
Dickens works in this country will take the
place of new introduction. We have lost
the count of the new editions which are
being issued by the publishers and we ma
be sure they all sell they would not be
printed. In many respects the . Charles
Dickens Edition." published by Ticknor
Fields, is the most desirable for the price. OF
any vet issued. 1t is convenient in size. with
type not too small for any eyes, compact
neatly bound, making a handsome book for
the library. each volume complete, and Is
sold for $50. The second volume of this
edition, just issued, contains Nicholas Nickle-
by, of which the author says in his preface
The story was begun within few months
after the publication Of the completed - Pick
wick Papers There were, then, n good
many cheap Yorkshire schools in existence.
There are very few now.
:. Of the mOnstr0us neglect of education
in England. and the disregard Of it by the
state Is means of forming good or bad citi-
zens, and miserable or happy men, private
schools long afforded a notable example.
Although any man who had proved his un-
RI,
free. without examination or qualification. to
open school anywhere although prepara-
ton for the functions he undertook, was
required in the surgeon who assisted to bring
boy into the world, or might one day assist.
perhaps, to send him out Of it; in the
chemist, the attorney the butcher, the baker.
the candle-stick maker the whole round OF
crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted
and although schoOlmasters. as a race. were
the blOckheads and imposters who might
naturally be expected to spring from such 4
state of things, and to flourish in it these
Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and
most rotten round in the whole ladder
Traders in the avarice. Indifference, or i'm
becility of parents, and the helplessness OF
children ignorant. sordid brutal men, u
whom few considerate persons would have
entrusted the board and lodging of Il horse
or a dog; they formed the worthy corner
stone OF a structure, which, for absurdity
and magnificent high minded laisSce -aller
neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the
world
The volume which exposed this most
rotten round IN the whole ladder, was 80
truthful in its descriptions, and so faithfully
portrayed these abominable things called
schools, that many of the pedagogues took
legal advice To ascertain whether they could
not have their action of libel for being 50
mercilessIy held up TO public derision and
Indignation and the author can now with
much self-gratulation write of the schools
- There are very few now" And it will
not be long, under the impulse Of Reform as
now moving onward in England, before the
British government will find. as we found
long since in this country, that the cause ol
education should be the first care of the state