The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY NOVEMBER 27, 1911 EDUCATIONAL IDEALS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 88, 27 November 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY NOVEMBER 27, 1911 EDUCATIONAL IDEALS.

TJie future of the working classes in Britain is, at present, engaging a great deal of attention and in the course of an address on Educational ideals, recently delivered by Sir W. H. Lever, he said that to him idealism was the true philosophy of education which should raise men in their ability not only to provide for the wants of the body and the mind, but to increase their own happiness and the happiness of all around, them. Education, ho continued, should train them to take advantage of natural forces, that they might be better clothed, better fed, and better housed, and enjoy happier lives; and that with the least expenditure of time and energy, for it was impossible for a man to obtain the highest development without leisure. If modern civilisation caused the workman to expend all his strength and energy on supplying the mere wants of his body, without leisure for the refinements of life, then civilisation was a comparative failure. Having enabled us to provide for the • wants of the body, the aim of education must be to develop the brain, to teach us to think and to investigate. The uneducated man was always vague and visionary in his facts. Scientific investigation opened the door to un told wealth, but only the educate! brain would achieve success. S > rapid had been the progress due to scientific investigation and scientific method in the past that it was scarcely possible for us to realise the state of civilisation two or three centuries ago. Education had taught us how better to support ourselves, and its next duty must be to provide more leisure, for the increase of happiness. Having achieved the possibility of wealth and the possibility of leisure the educated man would, by investigation and reason, find out the conditions necessary to achieve happiness. The workers were those best entitled to enjoy to' the fullest the luxuries and refinements of life. All wealth was the result of brain and hand, and it was from- the surplus of wealth produced by the labour of brain and hand that schools had been built, colleges and universities founded and endowed in the past. Out of this surplus must now come the provision of our luxuries—our art galleries, paintings, and all the elegancies and beauties of refined life. Education tended to put all classes of men more o!i an equality, and the best hope for the future of Britain was in the fact that the workman was bccom-

ng more and more intelligent. l iho .vorking man was becoming mere and nnre a reasoner and inquirer.

JURIES IN FRANCE

According to files to hand the attacks made upon the supposed deficiencies of the jury system in England have abated. A- correspondent says it is difficult to determine whether this is to be accounted for by the habit of seeming to be satisfied for the time being with a good allround grumble, but French jurors appear to be more vocal, more persistent, and much more ambitious. In recent years it has become quite a familiar feature of French judicial proceedings for the jury to made a presentment upon matters which we Britishers are not accustomed to regard as coming within the jury’s province. In addition, as might bo expected, French jurors show considerable interest in points which in the English sense directly concern them as a jury, and some recommendations of the jury of the Seine throw an interesting light upon each of these caetgories. Troubles with youthful offenders, it seems, are growing in France, and the Seine jury advise that adult instigators should be more rigorously pursued and then receive an additional punishment above that visited upon their dupes. This recommendation is an excellent example of the influence of an enlightened jury upon judicial development, as is another recommendation, that drunkenness should no longer be allowed to be considered as an extenuating circumstance. But at this point we begin to enter the judge’s jurisdiction, and a third presentment of the Seine jury boldly claims the right of a jury to take into account not only the facts upon which their verdict is grounded but the consequences of that verdict itself. This is, of course, a serious encroachment upon the duty of the Bench. It will be interesting to see. how this demand is regarded by the French judiciary. In England no jury perhaps would claro to put it forward.

THE HUTH COLLECTION

Recent cables have given some feiv particulars of prices obtained for works included in the famous Huth collection, tlie sale by auction of which commenced on November loth and was to conclude on November 24th. The collection is one of the first three or four private libraries in England, and a more valuable collection has probably never before come to tho market in one lot. Tlie “Daily Telegraph” says of the Shakespeare:—There will be a fight for the Shakespeares. The first folio happens to be that once in the possession of that protagonist of license, who became the champion of.liberty—John Wilkes., As for the quartos, when they are offered, we may ek'pect to see 'a recrudescence of that American collecting spirit which prompted two millionaires to fight each other tooth and nail a few years ago whenever a Shakespeare quarto came up for sale. Of the first quarto of “Hamlet” (1603) only two copies exist, that in the British Museum and the one at Chats worth. Of the second , quarto (1604), the Howe example (sold privately in 1907) and tho Chatsworth are the only others besides the Huth specimen to be offered on November 24th. With the ‘’‘Hamlet” are such prizes as tho first, 1597, quarto of “Richard III.” (once a British Museum “duplicate,” yet at that only tho third copy in existence), the second, 1599,. ‘Romeo and Juliet,” the extremely rare first, 1600 of “Part 2 of Henry IV” the 1609 “Troilus and Cressida,” and equally scarce first “Othello,” 1622. Then, too, there is that great find, a 1600 “Much Odoe About Nothing,” with two copies of 1600 “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” two of the 1600 “Merchant of Venice,” and first issues of the “Lucrece,” “Sonnets,” and “Poems.” Many of the foregoing were the prizes of the renowned Daniel sale in 1864, when the quidnuncs of the day professed to be staggered by the sums obtainable. Yet a genuine Shakespeare manuscript of a play, if it could possibly bo found, would nowadays, it is said, fetcli tlie price of a battleship.