Untitled

Evening Star, Issue 3274, 18 August 1873, Page 2

Our contemporary, the Daily Times , has a long article on the High School this morning. Were the object to render that institution what it ought to be, we could sympathise in the movement; but the tone of the remarks evinces no such desire. It savors more of a personal attack upon the Rector, than an attempt to advocate such alterations in the system as are calculated to make the school a high-class educational institute. It renews the discussion of the merit of the comparative readings of certain passages in Latin classics by Professor Sale and Mr Hawthorne, the settlement of which can never be decided by public controversy, and the verv uselessness of which is proved by the fact that the subject is open to doubt. And this very question points to the necessity for determining what is henceforth to be considered the aim and purpose of education. If we are to be a nation of men capable of conquering and subduing the earth, of bending nature’s forces to our will, and leaving to future generations monuments of our skill and energy, we must cultivate a love of science as applied to art rather than that which is merely a branch of archaeology. It is remarkable that we still persist in ascribing chief place to a knowledge of words rather than things ; as if it mattered to an Englishman whether a thought handed down from Aristotle was presented to his mind in Greek or AngloSaxon. Truly translated, the idea is the same, and if worth having is valuable; but, unfortunately, while youth are learning that which is worth remembering of what the Ancients thought, they are absorbing a good many notions better forgotten. We do not undervalue the ability to translate an ancient poem ; but it should be recollected that those fathers of thought fulfilled their work when they gave the germs of science to posterity. We do not know that the builders of the Pyramids, or the Parthenon, or the Temple of Diana, found it necessary to undergo a preliminary study in ancient languages, prior to mastering so much of the mechanics and mathematics as the most highly cultivated amongst them had acquired. We do not know that Euclid in compiling his elements, or Archimedes in his mathematical studies, found the acquirement of Hindoo or Chaldaic requisite to success. It is not so much attainment, as training to method as a means of attainment, that is required in education. Habits of undivided attention, abstraction, observation, and reflection are of more value in the present age ttian. a storing in. the memory of all the works of Plato or Aristotle. We have now more valuable treatises on cognate sciences than the Stagyrite ever wrote, and a lifetime is not sufficient to obtain a thorough knowledge of the realities modern science has brought to light. No efforts of the devotees of ancient languages can retain them in their former estimation as vehicles of learning, and it is useless to struggle against the current. A cßrtain class of minds will always be found to prefer the past to the present; but the world must progress, and, while leaving them to their idiosyncracy, our duty is to reach forward to those things which are before, as being of more importance than those of the remote past. To make classics the end of education has a tendency to stagnate thought. We take infancy as our starting-point, and each generation runs over ground already travelled and worn barren. Our platform should be the advanced position already gained if we mean to go forward. To go so far back is to waste energy; the mind has already become burdened with gathering useless weeds on the way, before it has reached the elementary knowledge of the present day. Let us determine what the High School is to be, and make it what it ought to be. If a school is to lit youth for battle with the world, it must cultivate modern science and modern thought. Our Wellington correspondent writes : “Mr Harrison, editor of the Independent, prosecutes Mr Lundon, landlord of the Galatea Hotel, for assault and battery, and in return Mr Lundon summonses Mr Montrose, manager of the Press Agency, and Mr Tribe, M.H.R , for corporeal damage. The case oomes on Tuesday (to-morrow),

The Guardian , this morning, lectures theatrical critics of other papers upon what “ Histriomastix” its “ crown’s worth” interpreter—terms “trowelling.” As men gather their pet terms from the calling to which they have been accustomed, we presume he is by education a bricklayer’s laborer, and consequently liable to overlook the work done under his eyes, in the process of carrying his load to the heights that other men have raised. We remember one of this class, after emptying his hod, standing on one of the topmost rungs of a ladder, looking at a distant building, and soliloquising thus : “A very flashy bit of work that there is ; I wonders if the man as pays for it likes it just as “ Histriomastix” wonders whether Miss Colville likes what may be admitted to be very sober “trowelling” by the Times and Star, compared with the plastering process of the Guardian. We suppose their plaster wanted finish—was only two-coat work instead of three. Theirs was admiration after the act, a mere commonplace emotion compared with the attainments of the Guardian, who revelled in the prospect of a coming treat. How cold seem the “indistinct” epithets recalled by “Histriomastix ” in his drowsy dreaming, compared wiljjji the glowing anticipations of the Guardian. The commonplace critics told of “brilliant” doings, “signal success” by an “accomplished, charming, fascinating” actress Perhaps, so far as the lady was concerned, all such adjectives were useless, for When ladies are both young and fair, They have the gift to know it. But the raptures of the critics of the Times and Star are ice compared with what “ Histriomastix” forgot was in the Guardian, We ask his opinion of the following moreeau —we beg his pardon, that’s hrench, and means more than “bit,” morsel,” jor “ piece”—cut from the Guardian on announcing Miss Colville’s benefit Queen’s Theatre.— To-night’s benefit.—The performance at the above theatre this evening is likely to be the most largely attended of the season —the occasion being the benefit of that delightful young actress, Miss Florence Colville. The whole of the boxes, and the larger portion of the dress circle are already engaged. The lower part of the house is sure to be ciowded. The bill of fare will consist of two light and piquant disha, viz., the comedies of “The Unequal Match” and the “Comical Countess.” In both of these, Miss Colville will have an opportunity of showing off to the greatest possible advantage _ those numerous damns, both of person, and ability, of which she is the fortunate possessor. Her friends and her theatrical admirers are so numerous that we may fairly ex2>ect to see every seat in the house occupied.—(The italics are ours.) In the race of adulation we own ourselves eclipsed, and resign all pretensions to skill in “ trowelling” to our High street contemporary.