Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

The object of the alterations in the management clauses demanded by the National Society is sufficiently obvious. It is asked that a free choice among the several clauses be left to the promoters of church schools. This is a Jesuitical plan for getting rid of the co-operation and control of lay committee-men. The fourth clause would uniformly be chosen, under which no committee is appointed, but the bishop may empower the clergyman to nominate one. It is asked that another court of appeal be provided in matters relating to the appointment, selection, and dismissal of teachers and their assistants. By this means the teachers would be placed, in all matters, secular as well as religious, under the despotic control of the clergy instead of being amenable, in purely secular matters, to a committee principally composed of laymen, with an appeal to lay judges. The third demand also goes to limit the range of lay interference with, and control of church schools. The sole aim of the demands of the National Society, however variously expressed, is to increase the clerical power. Their desire and determination is to invest the clergy with absolute despotic power over all Church of England Schools.

In short, the quarrel fastened by the National Society on the committee on education is but another move of that clerical faction which is resolute to ignore the existence of laymen as part of the church, except in the capacity of mere passing thralls and bondsmen of the clergy. It is a scheme to further their peculiar views. It is another branch of the agitation which preceded and has followed the appeal to the judicial committee of the privy council in the Gorham case. It is a trick to render the church policy and theories of Philpotts omnipotent. The equivocation to evade the arrangement investing a degree of control over church schools in lay contributors to their foundation and support, by insisting upon liberty to choose an inapplicable "management clause," is transparent. So is the factious complaint against the court of appeal provided in secular matters, and the allegation that Nonconformists have no such appeal, when the complainants know that this special arrangement was conceded at their own request. The untrue averment that the committee of council have refused to contribute to the support of schools not adopting the management clauses is in proper keeping with these equivocations. Let us add that the intolerant, almost blasphemous denunciations of the council, and of all who act with it, which some advancers of these falsehoods and equivocations have uttered from the platform, are no more than might have been expected from men so lost to the sense of honesty and shame.

The position of the committee of council on education is, simply and fairly, this: They have yielded to the religious sentiment of an overwhelming majority in the nation, and have consented to the experiment of conducting the secular education of the people by the instrumentality of the various ecclesiastical associations into which the people are divided. But with reference to the church, as to all other communions, they insist upon the laity having a fair voice in the administration of those schools which are in part supplied by the public money, and which have in view secular as well as religious instruction. The clergy of only two communions seek to thwart them in this object, and to arrogate all power over the schools to themselves. The conduct of the ultra-High Church faction in the Anglican establishment we have attempted to make clear. The conduct of the Roman Catholic clergy has been more temperate, but hardly less insincere or invidious. Their poor-school committee declare that their prelates would be unwilling "to accept, were it tendered to them, an appellate jurisdiction over schools in matters purely secular;" but at the same time they claim for their "ecclesiastical authorities" the power of deciding what questions do or do not affect "religion and morals." The committee of the council, on the one hand, are exerting themselves to give effect to the desire of a great majority of the English public, that religious and moral shall be combined with intellectual education; and, on the other, to guard against their compliance with this desire being perverted into an insidious instrument for enabling arrogant priesthoods to set their feet on the necks of the laity.

We challenge for public men thus honorably and usefully discharging important duties a more frank and cordial support than it has yet been their good fortune to obtain. Several ornaments of the church, conspicuous for their learning and moderation – such men as the Bishop of Manchester, Archdeacon Hare, and the Rev. Henry Parr Hamilton – have already borne direct and earnest testimony to the temper and justice, as well as straightforward, honesty of purpose, displayed by the committee of council. It is to be hoped that the laity of the church will now extend to them the requisite support; and that the Nonconformists and educational enthusiasts, who, by their waywardness, have been playing the game of the obscurantist priests, may see the wisdom of altering this very doubtful policy.

[From the London Athenæum.]

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The great philosophical poet of our age, William Wordsworth, died at Rydal Mount, in Westmoreland – among his native lakes and hills – on the 23d of April, in the eighty-first year of his age. Those who are curious in the accidents of birth and death, observable in the biographies of celebrated men, have thought it worthy of notice that the day of Wordsworth's death was the anniversary of Shakspeare's birth.

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on the 7th of April, 1770, and educated at Hawkeshead Grammar School, and at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was designed by his parents for the Church – but poetry and new prospects turned him into another path. His pursuit through life was poetry, and his profession that of Stamp Distributor for the Government in the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland: to which office he was appointed by the joint interest, as we have heard, of his friend, Sir George Beaumont, and his patron, Lord Lonsdale.

Mr. Wordsworth made his first appearance as a poet in the year 1793, by the publication of a thin quarto volume entitled "An Evening Walk – an Epistle in Verse, addressed to a young Lady from the Lakes of the North of England, by W. Wordsworth, B.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge." Printed at London, and published by Johnson in St. Paul's Church-yard from whose shop seven years before had appeared "The Task" of Cowper. In the same year he published "Descriptive Sketches in Verse, taken during a Pedestrian Tour in the Italian, Grison, Swiss and Savoyard Alps."

What was thought of these poems by a few youthful admirers may be gathered from the account given by Coleridge in his "Biographia Literaria." "During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, 1794, I became acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's first publication, entitled 'Descriptive Sketches;' and seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced." The two poets, then personally unknown to each other, first became acquainted in the summer of 1796, at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire. Coleridge was then in his twenty-fourth year, and Wordsworth in his twenty-sixth. A congeniality of pursuit soon ripened into intimacy; and in September, 1798, the two poets, accompanied by Miss Wordsworth, made a tour in Germany.

Wordsworth's next publication was the first volume of his "Lyrical Ballads," published in the summer of 1798 by Mr. Joseph Cottle, of Bristol, who purchased the copyright for thirty guineas. It made no way with the public, and Cottle was a loser by the bargain. So little, indeed, was thought of the volume, that when Cottle's copyrights were transferred to the Messrs. Longman, the "Lyrical Ballads" was thrown in as a valueless volume, in the mercantile idea of the term. The copyright was afterward returned to Cottle; and by him transferred to the great poet, who lived to see it of real money value in the market of successful publications.

Disappointed but not disheartened by the very indifferent success of his "Lyrical Ballads," years elapsed before Mr. Wordsworth again appeared as a poet. But he was not idle. He was every year maturing his own principles of poetry and making good the remark of Coleridge, that to admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality. In the very year which witnessed the failure of his "Lyrical Ballads," he wrote his "Peter Bell," the most strongly condemned of all his poems. The publication of this when his name was better known (for he kept it by him till, he says, it nearly survived its minority) brought a shower of contemptuous criticisms on his head.

Wordsworth married in the year 1803 Miss Mary Hutchinson of Penrith, and settled among his beloved Lakes – first at Grasmere, and afterward at Rydal Mount. Southey's subsequent retirement to the same beautiful country, and Coleridge's visits to his brother poets, originated the name of the Lake School of Poetry – "the school of whining and hypochondriacal poets that haunt the Lakes" – by which the opponents of their principles and the admirers of the Edinburgh Review distinguished the three great poets whose names have long been and will still continue to be connected.

Wordsworth's fame increasing, slowly, it is true, but securely, he put forth in 1807 two volumes of his poems. They were reviewed by Byron, then a young man of nineteen, and as yet not even a poet in print, in the Monthly Literary Recreations for the August of that year. "The poems before us," says the reviewer, "are by the author of 'Lyrical Ballads,' a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's muse are, simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse, strong and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary sonneteers. 'The Song at the feasting of Brougham Castle,' 'The Seven Sisters,' 'The Affliction of Margaret – , of – ,' possess all the beauties and few of the defects of this writer. The pieces least worthy of the author are those entitled 'Moods of My Own Mind.' We certainly wish these moods had been less frequent." Such is a sample of Byron's criticism – and of the criticising indeed till very recently of a large class of people misled by the caustic notices of the Edinburgh Review, the pungent satires of Byron, and the admirable parody of the poet's occasional style contained in the "Rejected Addresses."

His next publication was "The Excursion, being a portion of The Recluse," printed in quarto in the autumn of 1814. The critics were hard upon it. "This will never do," was the memorable opening of the review in the Edinburgh. Men who thought for themselves thought highly of the poem – but few dared to speak out. Jeffrey boasted wherever he went that he had crushed it in its birth. "He crush 'The Excursion!'" said Southey, "tell him he might as easily crush Skiddaw." What Coleridge often wished, that the first two books of "The Excursion" had been published separately under the name of "The Deserted Cottage" was a happy idea – and one, if it had been carried into execution, that would have removed many of the trivial objections made at the time to its unfinished character.

While "The Excursion" was still dividing the critics much in the same way that Davenant's "Gondibert" divided them in the reign of Charles the Second, "Peter Bell" appeared, to throw among them yet greater difference of opinion. The author was evidently aware that the poem, from the novelty of its construction, and the still greater novelty of its hero, required some protection, and this protection he sought behind the name of Southey: with which he tells us in the Dedication, his own had often appeared "both for good and evil." The deriders of the poet laughed still louder than before – his admirers too were at first somewhat amazed – and the only consolation which the poet obtained was from a sonnet of his own, in imitation of Milton's sonnet, beginning:

A book was writ of late called "Tetrachordon."

This sonnet runs as follows —

A book came forth of late, called "Peter Bell;"Not negligent the style; – the matter? – goodAs aught that song records of Robin Hood;Or Roy, renowned through many a Scottish dell;But some (who brook these hackneyed themes full wetNor heat at Tam O'Shanter's name their blood)Waxed wrath, and with foul claws, a harpy broodOn Bard and Hero clamorously fell.Heed not, wild Rover once through heath and glen.Who mad'st at length the better life thy choice.Heed not such onset! Nay, if praise of menTo thee appear not an unmeaning voice,Lift up that gray-haired forehead and rejoiceIn the just tribute of thy poet's pen.

Lamb in thanking the poet for his strange but clever poem, asked "Where was 'The Wagoner?'" of which he retained a pleasant remembrance from hearing Wordsworth read it in MS. when first written in 1806. Pleased with the remembrance of the friendly essayist, the poet determined on sending "The Wagoner" to press – and in 1815 the poem appeared with a dedication to his old friend who had thought so favorably of it. Another publication of this period which found still greater favor with many of his admirers, was "The White Doe of Rylstone;" founded on a tradition connected with the beautiful scenery that surrounds Bolton Priory, and on a ballad in Percy's collection called "The Rising of the North."

His next poem of consequence in the history of his mind is "The River Duddon," described in a noble series of sonnets, and containing some of his very finest poetry. The poem is dedicated to his brother, the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, and appeared in 1820. The subject seems to have been suggested by Coleridge; who, among his many unfulfilled intentions, designed writing "The Brook," a poem which in his hands would surely have been a masterly performance.

The "Duddon" did much for the extension of Wordsworth's fame; and the public began to call, in consequence, for a fresh edition of his poems. The sneers of Byron, so frequent in his "Don Juan," such as,

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope,Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthey;

and again in another place,

"Peddlers" and "Boats" and "Wagons." Oh! ye shadesOf Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?

and somewhat further on,

The little boatman and his Peter BellCan sneer at him who drew Achitophel,

fell comparatively harmless. The public had now found out (what was known only to a few before) that amid much novelty of construction and connected with some very homely heroes, there was a rich vein of the very noblest poetry throughout the whole of Wordsworth's works, such as was not to be found elsewhere in the whole body of English poetry. The author felt at the same time the truth of his own remark, that no really great poet had ever obtained an immediate reputation, or any popular recognition commensurate to his merits.

Wordsworth's last publication of importance was his "Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems," published in 1835. The new volume, however, rather sustained than added to his reputation. Some of the finer poems are additions to his Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, which have always ranked among the most delightful of his works.

In the same year Mr. Wordsworth received a pension of £300 a year from Sir Robert Peel's government, and permission to resign his office of Stamp Distributor in favor of his son. The remaining fifteen years of his life were therefore even less diversified by events of moment than any fifteen years previous had been. He seems henceforth to have surrendered himself wholly to the muse – and to contemplations suitable to his own habits of mind and to the lovely country in which he lived. This course of life, however, was varied by a tour to Italy in company with his friend, Mr. Crabb Robinson. The result of his visit, as far as poetry is concerned, was not remarkable.

On Southey's death Mr. Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate: an appropriate appointment, if such an office was to be retained at all – for the laurel dignified by the brows of Ben Johnson, Davenant, Dryden, Tom Warton, and Southey, had been sullied and degraded by appearing on the unworthy temples of Tate, Eusden, Whitehead, and Pye. Once, and once only, did Wordsworth sing in discharge of his office – on the occasion of Her Majesty's visit to the University of Cambridge. There is more obscurity, however, than poetry in what he wrote. Indeed, the Ode in question must be looked on as another addition to the numerous examples that we possess of how poor a figure the Muse invariably makes when the occasion of her appearance is such as the poet himself would not have selected for a voluntary invocation.

If Wordsworth was unfortunate – as he certainly was – in not finding any recognition of his merits till his hair was gray, he was luckier than other poets similarly situated have been in living to, a good old age, and in the full enjoyment of the amplest fame which his youthful dreams had ever pictured. His admirers have perhaps carried their idolatry too far: but there can be no doubt of the high position which he must always hold among British Poets. His style is simple, unaffected, and vigorous – his blank verse manly and idiomatic – his sentiments both noble and pathetic – and his images poetic and appropriate. His sonnets are among the finest in the language: Milton's scarcely finer. "I think," says Coleridge, "that Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great philosophic poet than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed in England since Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have abandoned the contemplative position which is peculiarly – perhaps I might say exclusively – fitted for him. His proper title is Spectator ab extra."

Mr. Wordsworth's works are rich in quotations suitable to the various phases of human life; and his name will be remembered not by his "Peter Bell," or his "Idiot Boy," or even his "Wagoner," but by his "Excursion," his "Laodamia," his "Tintern Abbey," some twenty of his sonnets, his "Daisy," and his "Yarrow Unvisited." The lineaments of his face will be perpetuated by Chantrey's noble bust; not by the pictures of it, which in too many cases justify the description that he gave of one of them in our hearing: "It is the head of a drover, or a common juryman, or a writer in the Edinburgh Review, or a speaker in the House of Commons: … as for the head of a poet, it is no such thing."

THE MOTHER'S FIRST DUTY

I would wish every mother to pay attention to the difference between a course of action, adopted in compliance with the authority, and between a conduct pursued for the sake of another.

The first proceeds from reasoning; the second flows from affection. The first may be abandoned, when the immediate cause may have ceased to exist; the latter will be permanent, as it did not depend upon circumstances, or accidental considerations, but is founded in a moral and constant principle.

In the case now before us, if the infant does not disappoint the hope of the mother, it will be a proof, first of affection, secondly, of confidence.

Of affection – for the earliest, and the most innocent wish to please, is that of the infant to please the mother. If it be questioned, whether that wish can at all exist in one so little advanced in development. I would again, as I do upon almost all occasions, appeal to the experience of mothers.

It is a proof, also, of confidence. Whenever an infant has been neglected; when the necessary attention has not been paid to its wants; and when, instead of the smile of kindness, it has been treated with the frown of severity; it will be difficult to restore it to that quiet and amiable disposition, in which it will wait for the gratification of its desires without impatience, and enjoy it without greediness.

If affection and confidence have once gained ground in the heart, it will be the first duty of the mother to do every thing in her power to encourage, to strengthen, and to elevate this principle. —Pestalozzi.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The revival of gymnastics is, in my opinion, the most important step that has been done in that direction. The great merit of the gymnastic art is not the facility with which certain exercises are performed, or the qualification which they may give for certain exertions that require much energy and dexterity; though an attainment of that sort is by no means to be despised. But the greatest advantage resulting from a practice of these exercises, is the natural progress which is observed in the arrangement of them, beginning with those which, while they are easy in themselves, yet lead as a preparatory practice to others which are more complicated and more difficult. There is not, perhaps, any art in which it may be so clearly shown, that energies which appeared to be wanting, are to be produced, as it were, or at least are to be developed, by no other means than practice alone. This might afford a most useful hint to all those who are engaged in teaching any object of instruction, and who meet with difficulties in bringing their pupils to that proficiency which they had expected. Let them recommence on a new plan, in which the exercises shall be differently arranged, and the subjects brought forward in a manner that will admit of the natural progress from the easier to the more difficult. When talent is wanting altogether, I know that it can not be imparted by any system of education. But I have been taught by experience to consider the cases, in which talents of any kind are absolutely wanting, but very few. And in most cases, I have had the satisfaction to find, that a faculty which had been quite given over, instead of being developed, had been obstructed rather in its agency by a variety of exercises which tended to perplex or to deter from further exertion.

And here I would attend to a prejudice, which is common enough, concerning the use of gymnastics; it is frequently said, that they may be very good for those who are strong enough; but that those who are suffering from weakness of constitution would be altogether unequal to, and even endangered by, a practice of gymnastics.

Now, I will venture to say, that this rests merely upon a misunderstanding of the first principles of gymnastics: the exercises not only vary in proportion to the strength of individuals; but exercises may be, and have been devised, for those also who were decidedly suffering. And I have consulted the authority of the first physicians, who declared, that in cases which had come under their personal observation, individuals affected with pulmonary complaints, if these had not already proceeded too far, had been materially relieved and benefited by a constant practice of the few and simple exercises, which the system in such cases proposes.

And for this very reason, that exercises may be devised for every age, and for every degree of bodily strength, however reduced, I consider it to be essential, that mothers should make themselves acquainted with the principles of gymnastics, in order that, among the elementary and preparatory exercises, they may be able to select those which, according to circumstances, will be most likely to suit and benefit their children.

If the physical advantage of gymnastics is great and incontrovertible, I would contend, that the moral advantage resulting from them is as valuable. I would again appeal to your own observation. You have seen a number of schools in Germany and Switzerland, of which gymnastics formed a leading feature; and I recollect that in our conversations on the subject, you made the remark, which exactly agrees with my own experience, that gymnastics, well conducted, essentially contribute to render children not only cheerful and healthy, which, for moral education, are two all-important points, but also to promote among them a certain spirit of union, and a brotherly feeling, which is most gratifying to the observer: habits of industry, openness and frankness of character, personal courage, and a manly conduct in suffering pain, are also among the natural and constant consequences of an early and a continued practice of exercises on the gymnastic system. —Pestalozzi.