Idea of a University — Lecture 4 - Elementary Studies Part 2: Composition

1. I am able to present the reader by anticipation with the correspondence which will pass between Mr. Brown’s father and Mr. White, the tutor, on the subject of Mr. Brown’s examination for entrance at the University.

And, in doing so, let me state the reason why I dwell on what many will think an extreme case, or even a caricature.

I do so, because what may be called exaggeration is often the best means of _bringing out_ certain faults of the mind which do indeed exist commonly, if not in that degree.

If a master in carriage and deportment wishes to carry home to one of his boys that he slouches, he will caricature the boy himself, by way of impressing on the boy’s intellect a sort of abstract and typical representation of the ungraceful habit which he wishes corrected.

When we once have the simple and perfect ideas of things in our minds, we refer the particular and partial manifestations of them to these types; we recognize what they are, good or bad, as we never did before, and we have a guide set up within us to direct our course by.

So it is with principles of taste, good breeding, or of conventional fashion; so it is in the fine arts, in painting, or in music.

We cannot even understand the criticism passed on these subjects until we have set up for ourselves the ideal standard of what is admirable and what is absurd.

So is it with the cultivation and discipline of the mind, it a handsomer place than I thought for—really a respectable town.

But it is sadly behind the world in many things.

Think of its having no Social Science, not even a National Gallery or British Museum!

nor have they any high art here: some good public buildings, but very pagan.

The bay is a fine thing.

“I called with your letter on Mr. Black, who introduced me to the professors, some of whom, judging by their skulls, are clever men.

“There is a lot here for examination, and an Exhibition is to be given to the best.

I should like to get it.

Young Black,—you saw him once,—is one of them; I knew him at school; he is a large fellow now, though younger than I am.

If he be the best of them, I shall not be much afraid.

“Well—in I went yesterday, and was examined.

It was such a queer concern.

One of the junior Tutors had me up, and he must be a new hand, he was so uneasy.

He gave me the slowest examination!

I don’t know to this minute what he was at.

He first said a word or two, and then was silent.

He then asked me why we came up to Dublin, and did not go down; and put some absurd little questions about βαίνω.

I was tolerably satisfied with myself, but he gave me no opportunity to show off.

He asked me literally nothing; he did not even give me a passage to construe for a long time, and then gave me nothing more than two or three easy sentences.

And he kept playing with his paper knife, and saying: ‘How are you now, Mr. Brown?

don’t be alarmed, Mr. Brown; take your time, Mr. Brown; you know very well, Mr. Brown;’ so that I could hardly help laughing.

I never was less afraid in my life.

It would be wonderful if such an examination _could_ put me out of countenance.

“There’s a lot of things which I know very well, which the Examiner said not a word about.

Indeed, I think I have been getting up a great many things for nothing;—provoking enough.

I had read a good deal of Grote; but though I told him so, he did not ask me one question in it; and there’s Whewell, Macaulay, and Schlegel, all thrown away.

“He has not said a word yet where I am to be lodged.

He looked quite confused when I asked him.

He is, I suspect, a _character_.

“Your dutiful son, etc. , “ROBERT.

” _Mr.

White to Mr. Brown, sen. _ “MY DEAR SIR, “I have to acknowledge the kind letter you sent me by your son, and I am much pleased to find the confidence you express in us.

Your son seems an amiable young man, of studious habits, and there is every hope, when he joins us, of his passing his academical career with respectability, and his examination with credit.

This is what I should have expected from his telling me that he had been educated at home under your own paternal eye;

indeed, if I do not mistake, you have undertaken the interesting office of instructor yourself.

“I hardly know what best to recommend to him at the moment: his reading has been _desultory_; he knows _something_ about a great many things, of which youths of his age commonly know nothing.

Of course we _could_ take him into residence now, if you urge it; but my advice is that he should first direct his efforts to distinct preparation for our examination, and to study its particular character.

Our rule is to recommend youths to do a _little well_, instead of throwing themselves upon a large field of study.

I conceive it to be your son’s fault of mind not to see exactly the _point_ of things, nor to be so well _grounded_ as he might be.

Young men are indeed always wanting in _accuracy_; this kind of deficiency is not peculiar to him, and he will doubtless soon overcome it when he sets about it.

“On the whole, then, if you will kindly send him up six months hence he will be more able to profit by our lectures.

I will tell him what to read in the meanwhile.

Did it depend on me, I should send him for that time to a good school or college, or I could find you a private Tutor for him.

“I am, etc. ” _Mr.

Brown, sen. , to Mr. White.

_ “SIR,

“Your letter, which I have received by this morning’s post, is gratifying to a parent’s feelings, so far as it bears witness to the impression which my son’s amiableness and steadiness have made on you.

He is indeed a most exemplary lad: fathers are partial, and their word about their children is commonly not to be taken; but I flatter myself that the present case is an exception to the rule; for, if ever there was a well-conducted youth, it is my dear son.

He is certainly very clever; and a closer student, and, for his age, of more extensive reading and sounder judgment, does not exist.

“With this conviction, you will excuse me if I say that there were portions of your letter which I could not reconcile with that part of it to which I have been alluding.

You say he is ‘a young man of _studious habits_,’ having ‘_every hope_ of passing his academical career with respectability, and _his examination with credit_;’ you allow that ‘he knows something about a _great many things_, of which youths of his age commonly _know nothing_:’ no common commendation, I consider; yet, in spite of this, you recommend, though you do not exact, as a complete disarrangement of my plans (for I do not know how long my duties will keep me in Ireland), a postponement of his coming into residence for six months.

“Will you allow me to suggest an explanation of this inconsistency?

It is found in your confession that the examination is of a ‘particular character.

’ Of course it is very right in the governors of a great Institution to be ‘particular,’ and it is not for me to argue with them.

Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that at this day nothing is so much wanted in education as _general_ knowledge.

This alone will fit a youth _for the world_.

In a less stirring time, it may be well enough to delay in particularities, and to trifle over minutiæ; but the world will not stand still for us, and, unless we are up to its requisitions, we shall find ourselves thrown out of the contest.

A man must have _something in him_ now, to make his way; and the sooner we understand this, the better.

“It mortified me, I confess, to hear from my son, that you did not try him in a greater number of subjects, in handling which he would probably have changed your opinion of him.

He has a good memory, and a great talent for history, ancient and modern, especially constitutional and parliamentary;

another favourite study with him is the philosophy of history.

He has read Pritchard’s Physical History, Cardinal Wiseman’s Lectures on Science, Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, Macaulay, and Hallam: I never met with a faster reader.

I have let him attend, in England, some of the most talented lecturers in chemistry, geology, and comparative anatomy, and he sees the Quarterly Reviews and the best Magazines, as a matter of course.

Yet on these matters not a word of examination!

“I have forgotten to mention, he has a very pretty idea of poetical composition: I enclose a fragment which I have found on his table, as well as one of his prose Essays.

“Allow me, as a warm friend of your undertaking, to suggest, that the _substance_ of knowledge is far more valuable than its _technicalities_;

and that the vigour of the youthful mind is but _wasted_ on _barren_ learning, and its ardour is _quenched_ in _dry_ disquisition.

“I have the honour to be, etc. ” On the receipt of this letter, Mr. White will find, to his dissatisfaction, that he has not advanced one hair’s breadth in bringing home to Mr. Brown’s father the real state of the case, and has done no more than present himself as a mark for certain commonplaces, very true, but very inappropriate to the matter in hand.

Filled with this disappointing thought, for a while he will not inspect the enclosures of Mr. Brown’s letter, being his son’s attempts at composition.

At length he opens them, and reads as follows: _Mr.

Brown’s poetry_.

THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.

(40) Oh, might I flee to Araby the blest, The world forgetting, but its gifts possessed, Where fair-eyed peace holds sway from shore to shore, And war’s shrill clarion frights the air no more.

Heard ye the cloud-compelling blast(41) awake The slumbers of the inhospitable lake?

(42) Saw ye the banner in its pride unfold The blush of crimson and the blaze of gold?

Raglan and St. Arnaud, in high command, Have steamed from old Byzantium’s hoary strand;

The famed Cyanean rocks presaged their fight, Twin giants, with the astonished Muscovite.

So the loved maid, in Syria’s balmy noon, Forebodes the coming of the hot simoon, And sighs.

…

And longs.

…

And dimly traces.

…

* * * * * _Mr.

Brown’s prose.

_ “FORTES FORTUNA ADJUVAT.

” “Of all the uncertain and capricious powers which rule our earthly destiny, fortune is the chief.

Who has not heard of the poor being raised up, and the rich being laid low?

Alexander the Great said he envied Diogenes in his tub, because Diogenes could have nothing less.

We need not go far for an instance of fortune.

Who was so great as Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russias, a year ago, and now he is ‘fallen, fallen from his high estate, without a friend to grace his obsequies.

’(43) The Turks are the finest specimen of the human race, yet they, too, have experienced the vicissitudes of fortune.

Horace says that we should wrap ourselves in our virtue, when fortune changes.

Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what we expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the Constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne.

“From all this it appears, that we should rely on fortune only while it remains,—recollecting the words of the thesis, ‘Fortes fortuna adjuvat;’

and that, above all, we should ever cultivate those virtues which will never fail us, and which are a sure basis of respectability, and will profit us here and hereafter.

” * * * * * On reading these compositions over, Mr. White will take to musing; then he will reflect that he may as well spare himself the trouble of arguing with a correspondent, whose principle and standard of judgment is so different from his own; and so he will write a civil letter back to Mr. Brown, enclosing the two papers.

3. Mr. Brown, however, has not the resignation of Mr. White; and, on his Dublin friend, Mr. Black, paying him a visit, he will open his mind to him; and I am going to tell the reader all that will pass between the two.

Mr. Black is a man of education and of judgment.

He knows the difference between show and substance; he is penetrated with the conviction that Rome was not built in a day, that buildings will not stand without foundations, and that, if boys are to be taught well, they must be taught slowly, and step by step.

Moreover, he thinks in his secret heart that his own son Harry, whose acquaintance we have already formed, is worth a dozen young Browns.

To him, then, not quite an impartial judge, Mr. Brown unbosoms his dissatisfaction, presenting to him his son’s Theme as an _experimentum crucis_ between him and Mr. White.

Mr. Black reads it through once, and then a second time; and then he observes— “Well, it is only the sort of thing which any boy would write, neither better nor worse.

I speak candidly.

” On Mr. Brown expressing disappointment, inasmuch as the said Theme is _not_ the sort of thing which any boy could write, Mr. Black continues— “There’s not one word of it upon the thesis; but all boys write in this way.

” Mr. Brown directs his friend’s attention to the knowledge of ancient history which the composition displays, of Alexander and Diogenes; of the history of Napoleon; to the evident interest which the young author takes in contemporary history, and his prompt application of passing events to his purpose; moreover, to the apposite quotation from Dryden, and the reference to Horace;—all proofs of a sharp wit and a literary mind.

But Mr. Black is more relentlessly critical than the occasion needs, and more pertinacious than any father can comfortably bear.

He proceeds to break the butterfly on the wheel in the following oration:— “Now look here,” he says, “the subject is ‘Fortes fortuna adjuvat’; now this is a _proposition_; it states a certain general principle, and this is just what an ordinary boy would be sure to miss, and Robert does miss it.

He goes off at once on the word ‘fortuna.

’ ‘Fortuna’ was not his subject; the thesis was intended to _guide_ him, for his own good; he refuses to be put into leading-strings; he breaks loose, and runs off in his own fashion on the broad field and in wild chase of ‘fortune,’ instead of closing with a subject, which, as being definite, would have supported him.

“It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to write on ‘fortune’;

it would have been like asking him his opinion ‘of things in general.

’ Fortune is ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘capricious,’ ‘unexpected,’ ten thousand things all at once (you see them all in the Gradus), and one of them as much as the other.

Ten thousand things may be said of it: give me _one_ of them, and I will write upon it; I cannot write on more than one; Robert prefers to write upon all.

“ ‘Fortune favours the bold;’ here is a very definite subject: take hold of it, and it will steady and lead you on: you will know in what direction to look.

Not one boy in a hundred does avail himself of this assistance;

your boy is not solitary in his inaccuracy; all boys are more or less inaccurate, _because_ they are boys; boyishness of mind means inaccuracy.

Boys cannot deliver a message, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence, without a blunder.

They do not rouse up their attention and reflect: they do not like the trouble of it: they cannot look at anything steadily; and, when they attempt to write, off they go in a rigmarole of words, which does them no good, and never would, though they scribbled themes till they wrote their fingers off.

“A really clever youth, especially as his mind opens, is impatient of this defect of mind, even though, as being a youth, he be partially under its influence.

He shrinks from a vague subject, as spontaneously as a slovenly mind takes to it; and he will often show at disadvantage, and seem ignorant and stupid, from seeing more and knowing more, and having a clearer perception of things than another has.

I recollect once hearing such a young man, in the course of an examination, asked very absurdly what ‘his opinion’ was of Lord Chatham.

Well, this was like asking him his view of ‘things in general.

’ The poor youth stuck, and looked like a fool, though it was not _he_.

The examiner, blind to his own absurdity, went on to ask him ‘what were the characteristics of English history.

’ Another silence, and the poor fellow seemed to lookers-on to be done for, when his only fault was that he had better sense than his interrogator.

“When I hear such questions put, I admire the tact of the worthy Milnwood in _Old Mortality_, when in a similar predicament.

Sergeant Bothwell broke into his house and dining-room in the king’s name, and asked him what he thought of the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s; the old man was far too prudent to hazard any opinion of his own, even on a precept of the Decalogue, when a trooper called for it; so he glanced his eye down the Royal Proclamation in the Sergeant’s hand, and appropriated its sentiments as an answer to the question before him.

Thereby he was enabled to pronounce the said assassination to be ‘savage,’ ‘treacherous,’ ‘diabolical,’ and ‘contrary to the king’s peace and the security of the subject;’ to the edification of all present, and the satisfaction of the military inquisitor.

It was in some such way my young friend got off.

His guardian angel reminded him in a whisper that Mr. Grey, his examiner, had himself written a book on Lord Chatham and his times.

This set him up at once; he drew boldly on his knowledge of his man for the political views advanced in it; was at no loss for definite propositions to suit his purpose; recovered his ground, and came off triumphantly.

” Here Mr. Black stops; and Mr. Brown takes advantage of the pause to insinuate that Mr. Black is not himself a disciple of his own philosophy, having travelled some way from his subject;—his friend stands corrected, and retraces his steps.

“The thesis,” he begins again, “is ‘Fortune favours the brave;’ Robert has gone off with the nominative without waiting for verb and accusative.

He might as easily have gone off upon ‘brave,’ or upon ‘favour,’ except that ‘fortune’ comes first.

He does not merely ramble from his subject, but he starts from a false point.

Nothing could go right after this beginning, for having never gone _off_ his subject (as I did off mine), he never could come back to it.

However, at least he might have kept to some subject or other; he might have shown some exactness or consecutiveness in detail; but just the contrary;—observe.

He begins by calling fortune ‘a power’; let that pass.

Next, it is one of the powers ‘which rule our earthly destiny,’ that is, _fortune_ rules _destiny_.

Why, where there is fortune, there is no destiny; where there is destiny, there is no fortune.

Next, after stating generally that fortune raises or depresses, he proceeds to exemplify: there’s Alexander, for instance, and Diogenes,—instances, that is, of what fortune did _not_ do, for they died, as they lived, in their respective states of life.

Then comes the Emperor Nicholas _hic et nunc_; with the Turks on the other hand, place and time and case not stated.

Then examples are dropped, and we are turned over to poetry, and what we ought to do, according to Horace, when fortune changes.

Next, we are brought back to our examples, in order to commence a series of rambles, beginning with Napoleon the First.

_Apropos_ of Napoleon the First comes in Napoleon the Third; this leads us to observe that the latter has acted ‘very differently from what we expected;’ and this again to the further remark, that no explanation has yet been given of his getting rid of the Constitution.

He then ends by boldly quoting the thesis, in proof that we may rely on fortune, when we cannot help it; and by giving us advice, sound, but unexpected, to cultivate virtue.

” “O!

Black, it is quite ludicrous” … breaks in Mr. Brown;—this Mr. Brown must be a very good-tempered man, or he would not bear so much:—this is my remark, not Mr. Black’s, who will not be interrupted, but only raises his voice: “Now, I know how this Theme was written,” he says, “first one sentence, and then your boy sat thinking, and devouring the end of his pen; presently down went the second, and so on.

The rule is, first think, and then write: don’t write when you have nothing to say; or, if you do, you will make a mess of it.

A thoughtful youth may deliver himself clumsily, he may set down little; but depend upon it, his half sentences will be worth more than the folio sheet of another boy, and an experienced examiner will see it.

“Now, I will prophesy one thing of Robert, unless this fault is knocked out of him,” continues merciless Mr. Black.

“When he grows up, and has to make a speech, or write a letter for the papers, he will look out for flowers, full-blown flowers, figures, smart expressions, trite quotations, hackneyed beginnings and endings, pompous circumlocutions, and so on: but the meaning, the sense, the solid sense, the foundation, you may hunt the slipper long enough before you catch it.

” “Well,” says Mr. Brown, a little chafed, “you are a great deal worse than Mr. White; you have missed your vocation: you ought to have been a schoolmaster.

” Yet he goes home somewhat struck by what his friend has said, and turns it in his mind for some time to come, when he gets there.

He is a sensible man at bottom, as well as good-tempered, this Mr. Brown.

§ 3. Latin Writing.