Whose human vengeance dares not to prolong L.S Five Years in an English University. Five Years in an English University. By CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED, late Foundation Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1852. CONCERNING Mr. Charles Astor Bristed, and the book whose title we have placed at the head of this article, we have a few words to say. We presume that most of our readers know who he is. What he is, to the best of our knowledge and belief, and what title he has to the confidence of the student public, we propose briefly to set forth. We may save ourselves any labor in research by receiving in good faith the account which our author has so kindly furnished in the second chapter of his somewhat remarkable work. To the "Oro te, quis tu es?" which he has prefixed to the ingenuous relation therein contained, he does, apparently, his best to give a satisfactory answer. From it we learn that he entered Yale in his fifteenth year, with the usual Freshman aspirations for honors- succeeded in obtaining three prizes, and an English Oration-occupied the year subsequent to graduation in talking politics, and in running up a "pretty large bill for cakes, ice cream, and sherry-cobblers," and, finally, there being no one, as we are told, "able to instruct, or inclined to sympathize" with him, packed his trunks for England. If Mr. Bristed had written inclined to instruct, or able to sympathize, we conceive that, while the sentence would have lost nothing of its point, it would have gained much in credibility. It serves perhaps, as a convenient excuse for the idleness which wasted a year in unprofitable, though not uncongenial employments. We come, then, to the entrance of this "young New Yorker" upon University Life in England. The necessity of the prologue thereto has not struck us so forcibly as it did Mr. Bristed. We pass over the contents of the first volume as hastily as we may. We have no doubt that it contains a tolerably correct representation of the life of a Cantab of a certain sort; ever vacillating between the attractions of dissipation and the pleasures of a rowing man,-and the more honorable enjoyment that repays the exertions of the student. We do not mean to be understood that the former gained an ascendancy, nor to underrate the classical acquisitions of Mr. Bristed. It is sufficiently evident from his book, that these are of no mean order, and his controversy some years since with Profs. Felton, of Harvard, and Lewis, of Union College, proved that in the field of classics he was no unworthy antagonist, even of those distinguished gentlemen. That his five years in an English University was spent to advantage of one kind, we have no doubt. As a scholar, in spite of his unsuccessful strife for a "First Class," which we are willing to attribute to ill health, we think he may take rank with some of the first of the young men in this country, who have devoted themselves to the attainment of classical erudition. By young men, we mean young in scholarship: in age perhaps from thirty to forty. His account of the May Examination, of the Classical and Mathematical Triposes, and of the Scholarship Examination, (in which latter he was successful,) are calculated to convey to us, whose notions of such things are limited to the terrors of the "Biennial," a very high idea of the standard of scholarship at Cambridge. is the question that, as And with the view to But what is the practical result of all this? young Americans, most naturally occurs to us. the getting of a correct answer to the inquiry: What are the objects which Mr. Bristed has at various times set before himself? "Meaning, then, with God's help, to be a clergyman, I wished first to make myself a scholar, and for this purpose resolved to spend some time at a European University." Six years later, with the spirit of American Institutions smothered in his breast by the gradual assimilation of his habits and character to those of the English, we find recorded in the same volume the declaration that he would rather be a Fellow of Trinity, than anything he could rationally hope to be in his own country. What has become of his former purpose? Is this the legitimate effect of a University education in England? Has it promoted the end at first contemplated? Has it not rather changed the whole man-his views, his purposes, his plans? The natural result, it would seem, for Mr. Bristed relates his own experience as worthy of imitation by others, is to convert Americans into Englishmen, to check the growth of republican sentiments, to create and foster an attachment to the spirit and form of monarchical government. But this is the Institution which is displayed before our astonished eyes, as a bright and shining light; which is to be unto us in the remodeling of old, and the construction of new Educational Systems, "by day a pillar of cloud, and by night a pillar of fire." And this brings us to a part of our task from which we would gladly be relieved: the consideration of the strictures of Mr. Bristed upon American Colleges, and the plan he has superficially set forth in the last chapter of his second volume. Though a graduate of a Literary Institution may feel no affection for his Alma Mater, courtesy toward the officers with whom he had been for four years in intimate relation, would seem to demand some consideration on his part, however much he might disapprove certain particulars of its government or direction. It was with no little pain that we read the concluding chapters of this work. We were well aware that its author had become thoroughly imbued with the prejudices and spirit of English University Life. But we had not supposed that this would furnish an excuse, even in his mind, for coarse abuse, and unwarranted attacks upon Yale. To this must be ascribed the almost universal dislike that, in spite of its racy tone, its originality, the unquestionable ability it displays, has attended the perusal of Mr. Bristed's book. Its intense egotism, even its excessive illiberality, might be pardoned; but there is no one of us who does not feel called upon to resent the insult, which, offered to the Institution, becomes in a measure personal. But, turning from a subject so unpleasant, upon what does Mr. Bristed ground his assertion of the inferiority of American Colleges? Upon the fact that they are ill calculated to lay the groundwork of a future education, professional or otherwise, by a thorough discipline of the mental powers? Manifestly not. Upon alleged defects in their system of government? With the exception of some trifling details of discipline, we remember no charge against them in this regard. Is the tone of morals lower here, the prevalence of dissipation greater, are the temptations to vice more numerous, than in Cambridge or Oxford? Far otherwise. Divesting the argument of the chapters before us of all coloring, the point contended for is simply this: that our Collegiate system is less fitted than that of the English Universities to make classical and mathematical scholars of the first order. Now is the end, which we acknowledge to be attained to a remarkable degree of perfection in these Institutions, a desirable one? If not, then the whole castle in the air which our speculator has so ingeniously wrought of such frail materials, upon such unstable foundations, falls to the ground. Considered as an end, we answer, most decidedly, no. Ours is eminently the age of advancement in practical wisdom. Never was the utilitarian spirit more prevalent, never more productive of positive good, than at the present day. Of all countries, our own witnesses its most rapid progress. It is among the men of republican America that the genius and philosophy of Bacon find the truest appreciation. We resolutely reject the speculations of Aristotle, with the cry, "Give to us that which maketh to grow rich, and great, and good." What then is the use of our Colleges? To educate a generation of scholars, to train up subtle theorists, philosophers, none even profess to do. To convey to every one of the hundred graduates that yearly leave our University, an accurate knowledge of one branch even of classical literature, is manifestly impossible. It is not even desirable. A certain amount of study expended in this direction is necessary, or at least advantageous, to render mental discipline complete and thorough. We all acknowledge it; we all desire it. In a word, we conceive the real aim of our Schools and Colleges to be this: to fit men by a course of study not too extended to be impracticable, nor too limited to fail of its end, for future usefulness and excellence in whatever department they uudertake. The grand mistake then of Mr. Bristed is in viewing as the end that which should properly be regarded as the means. With his ideas upon the subject of education, we no longer wonder that to him the system pursued in our Colleges, seems deficient and wholly inadequate for the purpose. We grant that it is so. Not that the proportion of good scholars is greater there, than with us; but that the facilities for turning out first-rate scholars are superior. From his own showing, the average. excellence in scholarship we take to be rather below our own; but the few who have taste or inclination for one branch or the other of learning, can be gratified to the top of their bent. But what in the consideration, the most favorable of all to them, is the result? Evidently, the man who devotes himself to classics for ten or fifteen years, (we include the preparatory schools,) may attain a very high degree of proficiency. And so of mathematics. But the balance of his mind is lost. He becomes onesided, and if ever called to resist great external pressure, must fall. There is a law of gravity which obtains in spiritual as well as in material existWith good reason might Mr. Bristed, himself, a striking instance of the truth of our proposition, prefer to vegetate as Fellow of Trinity, rather than mingle in the active pursuits of life; to rust in idleness, rather than incur the danger of destruction by continual contact with the roughness of the Actual, which brightens into splendor or grinds into dust whatever is subjected to its attrition. ence. We take our leave of Mr. Bristed with no unkindly feeling, save such as he has himself provoked. As an accurate and elegant scholar, as a brilliant writer, as a man whose talents must gain distinction in whatever path he marks out for himself, we admire and respect. In his book there is much that is valuable, but much also that deserves condemnation. For his English loves and prejudices we have no sympathy. His aspersions of a class of our students known as beneficiaries, which however true they might once have been, are now but foul slanders upon men universally respected for their attainments, and regarded for their social qualities, and his assaults on what ought to be most sacredly venerated, have everywhere met with the rebuke which their wantonness has so richly deserved. With him we have done: but we hope at some future time to notice some of the really valuable suggestions for government and education which this work contains. Sydney Smith as a Workingman. WE most firmly believe that any man of us who wants literary profit, and pleasure in gaining that profit, will find just what he seeks in the works of Sydney Smith. From the same source too, one gets better ideas of a truth-teller's mission, and more hope in a truth well told. He who plunges into the current of the author's feelings, will, of course, feel a shiver at his peculiar notions of the world's peculiar ways, but, this over, you roll in an ocean of fun. Heaving about you are the greatest ideas, foaming around you is the most creamy of humor, sparkling on all sides is the most brilliant wit. Although in your gambols you have at times a sense of brine and bitterness, you never feel the worse for it. Here is the distinguishing characteristic of Smith's sarcasm. He is fierce, and at times merciless, almost, but-after his deadly blowsthere comes a course of action for which you love him. He has in criticism, killed as many customs as Macaulay has killed men, yet he always sets about their burial so kindly and solemnly, and his dirges are always so pathetic, and his provision for succeeding customs is always so disinterested, and he always recalls in your mind such a vivid picture of the prime sport you had in seeing the system run down and slaughtered, and he has such a soothing way of proving that his victim was a rascality, and that he would not harm anything else for all the world; that you always forgive his critical hardness of heart. To see what Smith and his compeers of the Edinburgh did, you must refer to the whole history of their times, or to what is easier, the short preface to the American edition of his Miscellanies. You had no doubt before of his |