Therefore I most sincerely congratulate you, "et laudo fortunas tuas, Qui natum haberes tali ingenio præditum." And I have the greatest confidence that he will not hereafter disappoint our expectations at the University; and when he comes to a more enlarged intercourse with mankind, the disposal of him when he leaves me must be the subject of another letter or of conversation when we meet. If you send him to Cambridge, I recommend Trinity College; if to Oxford, Christ Church, and I rather prefer the latter. I am, dear Sir, with the greatest respect and esteem, your most obedient, obliged, and faithful humble servant, J. DAVIES. P.S. I must now inform you that an alteration has been made these holidays in our system. That instead of what were called the "Bacchus Verses," shewn up on Shrove Tuesday, a composition is set, to be done in the holidays, and brought by the boys at their coming,-an 120 or 130 good verses, I hope; whereas before, they used to make 3, 4, or 500 indifferent ones. I must also in a more authoritative tone, as master, represent to you (as I have done to the parents of all my upper boys and others), the great hindrance to their improvement, occasioned by their long stay after the holidays. I therefore must desire that your son may come the middle of the 2d week at farthest. The school opens the 7th of January. The assistant masters have been desired by me to write on this point to their respective pupils, but to a great many, as I now do to you, I have written myself. The composition mentioned above, is very reasonably required to be done in the holidays, as there is now no repetition task. Mr. URBAN, Kellington, May 9. No depravity of the mind has been more frequently or more justly censured than Ingratitude. There is, indeed, sufficient reason for looking on those that can return evil for good, and repay kindness and assistance with hatred or neglect, as corrupted beyond the common degree of wickedness: nor will he, who has once been clearly detected in acts of injury to his benefactor, deserve to be numbered among social beings he has endeavoured to destroy confidence, to intercept sympathy, and to turn every man's attention wholly on himself. -Such are the remarks of our great national Moralist upon the subject of ingratitude. By the way of amelioration, he further continues, "there is always danger, lest the honest abhorrence of crime should raise the passions with too much violence against the man to whom it is imputed. In proportion as guilt is tained by stronger evidence." more enormous, it ought to be ascer If ingratitude, then, from one man to another who, perhaps, is almost indifferent to him in other respects, except on account of some small favour bestowed, is to be thus stigmatised, what ought our sentiments of his guilt to be who can' coolly and deliberately set down to vilify, by every possible means, the character and worth of another, to whom, perhaps, he is entirely indebted for nearly his all, nay, to whom he owes the very weapons which he now so basely and cowardly makes use of against his greatest benefactor? Charges, illiberal as they are unjust, have not unfrequently been made against the system of education pursued in our Universities. These accusations very often originate, too, from their own members; from persons who, brought up and cherished in the fostering bosom of Alma Mater, have derived from her, almost solely, all the powers which they possess to traduce and vilify her. Their insinuations against her gain more ground, and are more readily credited, as coming from men who, long resident within her sacred walls, have had sufficient opportunities to become acquainted with, and sufficient leisure and abilities to investigate and describe to the world her learning and her morals. What, then, can we predicate of those men who, in their juvenile years, have enjoyed every benefit arising from her extensive libraries, her learned professors; and who have not unfrequently been large partakers, also, of her immense incomes and emoluments; besides, have imbibed from her pure fountains the first draughts of every species as well of literary as of scientific knowledge; but who, in more advanced life, have dared to shoot the most envenomed arrows from the very bows with which she herself had furnished them; who, from her favourite sons, on whom she had deigned to shower down her choicest favours, have become, in return, the severest traducers and calumniators of their kindly-fostering mother? What can we possibly say of such men as these? Should we not necessarily accuse them, and accuse them with justice too, of the blackest ingratitude, and that employed against their kindest benefactor, who, in their tender years, amply supplied them with every means by which, had they been used with common prudence and discretion, their future lives might have been rendered good, perhaps eminent, and, at all events, some way or other useful to society? Have not the first rudiments of Theology, of Law, and of Physic been, in nine instances out of ten, imbibed in those distinguished seats of learning? Is not the State indebted to one or other of these seminaries, for her most sagacious ministers, and her most distinguished legislators and lawyers, who have excelled either in erudition or eloquence? To what, then, are we originally indebted for those noble institutions?-to the best, certainly, of all human causes-to the propagation of the Christian religion. It is to the piety of Christians that we owe the venerable foundations of schools and colleges. It was the love of Christ which taught those towers to rise on the banks of the Cam and the Isis, which have preserved learning and learned works through the ignorance of the darkest ages of superstition and bigotry, and to them we perhaps are also indebted, in a great measure, for the learning which at present exists in the world," as well as for the first principles and tenets which have so much tended to increase the knowledge of the Arts and Sciences, and which have led the way to the application of them to some of the most extensive and useful improvements in manufactures, and in the arts connected with them, for which the present age is so much distinguished. It has been observed, that "infidels, educated in Christian countries, owe what learning they have to Christianity, and act the part of those brutes which, when they have sucked the dam, turn about and strike her." Such is nearly the case with the vilifiers and accusers of our Universities. The first attack directed against the mode of discipline and manner of education pursued in these establishments, and which seems to have attracted much notice, issued from the juvenile pen of an Oxonian, who, though in after-life not much distinguished for his depth of erudition or critical research, certainly claims, with justice, a very respectable rank as a pleasing and instructive writer on moral and literary subjects. He describes with minute exactness, several of the trifling circumstances which he asserts took place in his parent University, in the arduous examination for Bachelor's and Master of Arts' degree. He holds out all these, as far as his abilities permit him, to what he conceives to be the just contempt and ridicule of the world. He forbears, he tells us, to enter into a more minute description of such contemptible minutie. In consequence of this neglect in having these exercises properly and rigorously performed according to the intention of their first founders, and suffering them thus to be slurred over by boasted pretence and form, he insinuates that all good and sound learning has nearly ceased to exist in this once-celebrated seat of the muses. He concludes, also, that indolence and dissipation have in a great measure usurped the place of vigorous discipline and useful knowledge. He observes, "that after all the pompous ostentation and profuse expense which takes place here, the public has not, of late at least, been indebted for the great improvements in science and learning to all the Doctors, both the Proctors, nor to all the heads of Colleges and Halls laid together. That populous university, London, and that region of literary labour, Scotland, have seized almost every palm of scholastic honour, and left the sons of Oxford and Cambridge to enjoy substantial comforts in the smoke of the common or combination room. The bursar's books are the only manuscripts of any value produced in many Colleges: and the sweets of pensions, exhibitions, fines, fellowships, and petty officers, are the chief objects of academical pursuit.” The author of these aspersions no longer exists. Peace to his ashes. But I would seriously ask any impartial observer, and who is sufficiently acquainted with the politics and pursuits of the University of Oxford, to whom those pensions, exhibitions, fines, fellowships, and petty offices are usually awarded? Are they not assigned, as their original founders no doubt intended, as rewards for literary exertion, for scientific knowledge, for regular moral conduct, and assiduous application? The allotment of these emoluments may, I hope, in most Colleges (I know that it necessarily must in several) be regulated upon this principle. What can possibly add more vigour and energy to an ingenuous mind in the pursuit of knowledge of any kind, than the immediate - prospect of honour and emolument, certainly consequent upon their successful labours? The efficacy of the cause is, for the most part, in some degree at least, commensurate with the effect. That mode of education then is certainly by no means to be indiscriminately censured which has reared a Bacon, a Locke, a Halley, a Boyle, a Tickel, and an Addison. That abuses should imperceptibly creep in, and through a lapse of ages deteriorate the best regulated establishments, must necessarily be the lot of all human institutions. What errors existed, and to what extent they tended to vitiate the system of education pursued in the University of Oxford at the time the above writer was resident within her walls, I pretend not to say. That they were not many, or such as to influence materially the juvenile pursuits, or retard the future progress of any of the sons of Isis, we may safely conclude from the number of still existing characters (who were most probably contemporaries with him, and subject to the same mode of discipline), who are at present an ornament and honour to themselves, to their professions, to their parent University, and to the State in general. Amid all the din of obloquy on academical establishments with which we have of late been so forcibly stunned, -though Oxford may, perhaps, have had the greatest cause of complaint, yet the University of Cambridge has not been less assailed by the coarse and deafening clamour of illiterate malignity, than by tones which, it is no difficult matter to perceive, can only be the effect of cultivation and refinement. It has been insinuated in a well-known periodical publication, not more celebrated for its extensive circulation than for the ability and talent with which it is conducted, that in the system of education established at Cambridge, "the invention finds no exercise; the student fined within narrow li mits; his curiosity is not roused, the spirit of discovery is not awakened." Little must that man be acquainted with the nature and extent of a Senatehouse examination in that University, who does not feelingly know that every nerve of invention, and every spirit of discovery must be awakened and exerted to its highest pitch by every competitor for academic honours, and that, too, on almost every subject of scientific investigation. The examinations, also, are real, and the respective merits of each individual candidate are ascertained and rewarded, as far as human imperfections will allow, with the utmost accuracy and precision. Having myself been a resident member of that ancient seminary for many years, the truth of this statement, I am, from experience, sufficiently enabled to confirm and establish. The questions proposed, also, in these examinations being annually published, furnish ample means for establishing the just censure, or approbation, of a discerning public. This last charge, we have every reason to believe, emanated from a Professor of Natural Philosophy in a celebrated seminary of learning and science, situated in an adjoining country, and who was not, most probably, very accurately acquainted with the pursuits, or the method of forwarding these pursuits, generally used in our English Universities. On that account, therefore, he is certainly not chargeable with ingratitude in the same degree as the former calumniator. He, perhaps, too vainly thought that by exalting the younger, he should be enabled more effectually to depress the older sister. A recent and perhaps still more virulent and illiberal attack has lately been directed against the University of Cambridge by one of her own offspring-by a favourite son whom she had dignified with her highest honours. What a return for all her indulgences!-what a scene of ingratitude is here displayed! But let us still be cool, and enquire a little further whether any probable existing circumstances can be found which may, in any measure, palliate such a torrent of invective. The charge alluded to, made its appearance in a late number of the London Magazine, under the signature of "Senior Wrangler." This, as every one in the least acquainted with the University must necessarily know, is the most distinguished scientific honour, and generally leads to the most responsible literary and lucrative situations which Alma Mater has in her power to bestow. This writer, we have every reason to believe, was really honoured with that pre-eminent degree, upon his taking his Bachelor's. With the brightest prospects, then, for his future life full in his view, and which were confirmed nearly to certainty by the earnest which his kind, fostering mother had already given him, he spurns with the utmost peevishness the almost offered boon, kicks his dam, leaves the University, and arrogantly throws himself upon the world. In this busy and active scene, so far different in its pursuits, its manners and customs, to what he had been for some time habituated in academic retirement, he meets, as might have been naturally expected, with nothing but disappointment. He turns away from it with disgust, and unjustly lays the sole blame of his failure upon the place, and the imperfect mode of education used there, and by which he had been previously instructed. Let us take a short view of his life, as he relates it himself, and then enquire whether such important and gross charges can possibly be substantiated. Our "Senior Wrangler," we have every reason to believe, is a native of a distant northern county. In those remote parts, public seminaries abound. In one or other of these establishments-though certainly none of them are eminent for classical versification or critical minutiæ-several have received the first rudiments of their education, who, in after-life, have shone forth as the brightest luminaries of theology, of law, of physic, of literature, and of the sciences; though perhaps, not so well calculated to form elegant, yet they have certainly ushered into the world, and sent for the purpose of more mature improvements to each of our Universities, many solid, substantial, and useful classical scholars. Our writer, we shrewdly suspect, was not educated within the walls of any of those ancient foundations, and consequently became an inmate of Cambridge, labouring under many heavy and serious disadvantages. His scientific knowledge at that time seems also not to have been very extensive, if we may be allowed to credit the account which he himself gives us, of his pri mary examination by the late Dean of Carlisle. Thus prepared, then, and by the recommendation of that worthy dignitary, he becomes a member of Queen's. He is hospitably received within her walls under the care of a tutor not more known and admired for the elegance of his taste in ancient geometry, than for the kindness and urbanity of his manners, and whose many acts of candid advice for the regulation of his conduct in College, and whose gratuitous instructions on many literary subjects more immediately connected with the studies of the place, the writer of this, though not his pupil, still remembers with heartfelt sentiments of gratitude and respect. How long he remained a resident of this hospitable mansion, where every opportunity was amply afforded him of improving his moral and religious, as well as his intellectual and literary powers, I do not recollect that he tells us. However, through some unaccountable freak (and to such he seems to have been very subject during his earlier part of his life), and before he took his Bachelor's degree, he removes to Trinity. His finances were already by no means adequate to his expenses; yet led by a mistaken ambition, he quits a respectable, for a certainly more arduous and expensive situation. He might have been comfortably settled in either of these establishments; in each, his resources were more than sufficient, had they been used with common prudence and moderation, to meet every necessary expenditure; in each, though perhaps his "beau-ideal" of a lecture was not fully realised-he had tutors both able and willing to remind him of the proper subjects of study, whether literary or scientific; he had the best authors at hand to further his improvement in those studies; and he had every thing to prevent his reading from becoming rainbling and ineffective. Surrounded with those advantages, and imbued with very little of classical or historical learning, he dedicates his time and his attention, in a great measure, if not exclusively, to the acquirement of the mathematical sciences. In these he finally succeeds; and upon taking his degree, obtains the most distinguished honours. Here then, in a small College, was a certain earnest of future success. Perhaps, at Trinity, other attainments, and such as he seems now to regret the neglect of, might have been found necessary to ensure his future advancement. He never ventured to present himself at a fellowship examination in that College, in which due regard would have been paid to his knowledge in his favourites Reid and Stewart. Indeed, we have been informed upon creditable authority, that had he submitted to that ordeal, the result might have been more than doubtful. Something or other, however (not the most prudential motives we may well conceive), induces him to leave the University, and with it all the prospects and emoluments of his future life. Entering upon the busy scenes of life, though amply stored with all the resources of mathematical learning, but, we very much fear, with those alone, he, with astonishment, finds himself inferior, very far inferior indeed, to many literary characters who had never enjoyed the privileges of an academic education. On this account, his views and expectations are frustrated, and he loudly complains against his fostermother as the real cause of all his disappointments. "Was it for this," he exclaims," that I have submitted to your discipline,-only to find myself more ignorant than my fellow-men! Have struggled up the rude and rough paths of science, only to find that they lead to knowledge, which is useless, and to prejudices which are penurious. I, an honoured son of Granta, have been involved in all these difficulties solely on account of the inefficiency of her established system of education;" therefore, he concludes, every Cambridge man, who applies himself to mathematical studies, inust, upon his entrance into the world, necessarily experience the same fate. To little purpose has our "Senior Wrangler" pored over and digested the works of Newton and Locke, if they have only taught him to reason in this man the Itineraries, is in all probability derived. 1. In the first place, there are two altars, both erected pro salute et in columitate Marci Aufidii Maximi, dedicated Deæ Suli. In a published engraving of one of these altars, the word Suli appears Sulin. But this is an error. There is no sign of any thing after Suli, nor any appearance of any other letter having ever appeared there. 2. A sepulchral stone, found in 1795, commemorates Cains Calpurnius receptus sacerdos Deæ Sulis, a recognised priest of the goddess Sul. He died at the age of seventy-five, and it was placed to his memory by Calpurnia Trifosa Threpte, his wife. 3. It appears that this British goddess Sul became united with Minerva, forming a hybrid Divinity, who appears as Sulminerva in two of our inscriptions. They are both on votive altars in the first of which she appears alone: Dea Suliminervæ Sulinus Maturi Filius V. S. L. M. The other is inscribed Deæ Suli Min. et Numin. Augg., and was erected by C. Curiatius Saturninus. 4. There is the fragment of an inscription which formerly appeared in the front of some edifice C PROTACI ..... DEAE SVLIS M... which Mr. Lysons reads as indicating that C. Protacius restored some temple which was sacred to the Sul Minerva. 5. Lastly, there is an altar dedicated to the Suleva: Sulevis Sulinus Scultor Bruceti filius sacrum F. L. M. Then Suleve may be presumed to be the nymph, and the vicinity of those springs peculiarly placed under the presidency of Sul. It may be noticed, that the name of a hill in the neighbourhood, called Little Salisbury, appears to be connected etymologically with this British Divinity. I shall only add that the numerous altars and inscriptions, the sculptures, and especially the fine remains of the portico of the Temple of Minerva, which have been preserved for many years with a laudable care, by the Corporation of this City, in a depository appropriated to the purpose, have lately been removed to the Literary and Scientific Institution. The more remarkable of these remains may now be seen in the vestibule and passages of that edifice, and the rest in a room below. JOSEPH HUNTER. |