CRITICAL MISCELLANIES
BY
JOHN MORLEY
VOL. III.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898
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CONTENTS OF VOL. III
ON POPULAR CULTURE
THE DEATH OF MR. MILL
MR. MILL’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT
ON PATTISON'S MEMOIRS
HARRIET MARTINEAU
W.R. GREG: A SKETCH
4
31
43
74
105
137
165
FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 202
THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND
AUGUSTE COMTE
225
261
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ON POPULAR CULTURE
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE TOWN HALL, BIRMINGHAM
(OCTOBER 5, 1876), BY THE WRITER, AS PRESIDENT
OF THE MIDLAND INSTITUTE.
THE proceedings which have now been brought satisfactorily
to an end are of a kind which nobody who has sensibility
as well as sense can take a part in without some
emotion. An illustrious French philosopher who happened
to be an examiner of candidates for admission to the
Polytechnic School, once confessed that, when a youth
came before him eager to do his best, competently taught,
and of an apt intelligence, he needed all his self-control to
press back the tears from his eyes. Well, when we think
how much industry, patience, and intelligent discipline;
how many hard hours of self-denying toil; how many
temptations to worthless pleasures resisted; how much
steadfast feeling for things that are honest and true and of
good report — are all represented by the young men and
young women to whom I have had the honour of giving
your prizes to-night, we must all feel our hearts warmed
and gladdened in generous sympathy with so much excellence,
so many good hopes, and so honourable a display of
those qualities which make life better worth having for
ourselves, and are so likely to make the world better worth
living in for those who are to come after us.
If a prize-giving is always an occasion of lively
satisfaction, my own satisfaction is all the greater at this
moment, because your Institute, which is doing such good
work in the world, and is in every respect so prosperous
and so flourishing, is the creation of the people of your
own district, without subsidy and without direction either
from London, or from Oxford, or from Cambridge, or
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ON POPULAR CULTURE
from any other centre whatever. Nobody in this town at
any rate needs any argument of mine to persuade him that
we can only be sure of advancing all kinds of knowledge,
and developing our national life in all its plenitude and
variety, on condition of multiplying these local centres
both of secondary and higher education, and encourag
each of them to fight its own battle, and do its work in its
own way. For my own part I look with the utmost dismay
at the concentration, not only of population, but of the
treasures of instruction, in our vast city on the banks of the
Thames. At Birmingham, as I am informed, one has not
far to look for an example of this. One of the branches of
your multifarious trades in this town is the manufacture of
jewellery. Some of it is said commonly to be wanting in
taste, elegance, skill; though some of it also — if I am not
misinformed — is good enough to be passed off at Rome
and at Paris, even to connoisseurs, as of Roman or French
production. Now the nation possesses a most superb collection
of all that is excellent and beautiful in jewellers'
work. When I say that the nation possesses it, I mean that
London possesses it The University of Oxford, by the
way, has also purchased a portion, but that is not at present
accessible. If one of your craftsmen in that kind wants
to profit by these admirable models, he must go to London.
What happens is that he goes to the capital and stays
there. Its superficial attractions are too strong for him.
You lose a clever workman and a citizen, and he adds one
more atom to that huge, overgrown, and unwieldy community.
Now, why, in the name of common sense, should
not a portion of the Castellani collection pass six months
of the year in Birmingham, the very place of all others
where it is most likely to be of real service, and to make
an effective mark on the national taste?1
1 Sir Henry Cole, O. B., writes to the Times (Oct 13) on this
suggestion as follows: — "In justice to the Lords President of the
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CRITICAL MISCELLANIES
To pass on to the more general remarks which you
are accustomed to expect from the President of the Institute
on this occasion. When I consulted one of your
townsmen as to the subject which he thought would he
most useful and most interesting to you, he said:' Pray talk
about anything you please, if it is only not Education.'
There is a saying that there are two kinds of foolish people
in the world, those who give advice, and those who do not
take it My friend and I in this matter represent these two
interesting divisions of the race, for in spite of what he
said, it is upon Education after all that I propose to offer
you some short observations. You will believe it no affectation
on my part, when I say that I shall do so with the
sincerest willingness to be corrected by those of wider
practical experience in teaching. I am well aware, too, that
Council on Education, I hope you will allow me the opportunity of
stating that from 1855 the Science and Art Department has done its
very utmost to induce schools of art to receive deposits of works of art
for study and popular examination, and to circulate its choicest objects
useful to manufacturing industry. In corroboration of this assertion,
please to turn to p. 435 of the twenty-second Report of the Department,
just issued. You will there find that upwards of 26, 907 objects
of art, besides 23,911 paintings and drawings, have been circulated
sinse 1855, and in some cases have been left for several months for
exhibition in the localities. They have been seen by more than
6,000,000 of visitors, besides having been copied by students, etc.,
and the localities have taken the great sum of £116, 182 for showing
them.
'The Department besides has tried every efficient means to
induce other public institutions, which are absolutely choked with
superfluous specimens, to concur in a general principle of circulating
the nation's works of art, but without success.
'The chief of our national storehouses of works of art actually
repudiates the idea that its objects are collected for purposes of education,
and declares that they are only 'things rare and curious,' the
very reverse of what common sense says they are.
'Further, the Department, to tempt Schools of Art to acquire
objects permanently for art museums attached to them, offered a grant
in aid of 60 percent of the cost price of the objects.’
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