MR FROUDE ON UNPRACTICAL TEACHING.

Press, Volume XV, Issue 1948, 13 July 1869, Page 3

MR FROUDE ON UNPRACTICAL TEACHING.

Iα his address at the University of Sfc. Andrew's Mir ITrtSudi Md":^-Whatj I deplore in our present higher educa-j tion is the devotioii o| so ; mjichrefFort and so many precious years to subjects; which have no practical bearingjupon life. We had a theory at Oxford that our system, however defective in manyi ways, yet developed inhere some especi-j ally precious qualities. Classics and philosophy/, are there * literm humanizes. They are supposed to have an effect on character, and to be specially adapted'for creating ministers of religion. The training of clergy-j menJsj jf anything, the special objectof * Oifori AH ments are made with a view to it; The heads of colleges, the resident fellows, tutors, and professors are| with rare exceptions, ecclesiastics themselyes. rrWell, tfyen, if %they have hold of "the right idea, the effect ought to have been considerable. We have had r years pfj unexampled clerical activity among us; churchep have been doubled; theological books, : magazines, revjiew^s,,-newspapers hav&ifeett |>dured v biit by the of thousands: while by the side of it there has .sprung up., an .equally astonishing <ievelopmerit'of moral dishonesty. Prom the great houses in the City v pf Lonxlon, ,tp - toe- village grocer, i;he commercial life of England has been saturated with fraud. So deep it has gone that a strictly honest? tradesman can hardly hold his ground against competition. You can nio longed trust that inyiarticle that yoju buy is the thing which it pretends tp be. Wβ have false weights, false measures, cheating and shoddy everywhere. Yet the clergy have seen all siji in absolute indifference j and the great question which at this moment is agitating the Churchy pf England is the colour of the ecclesias-

tical petticoats. Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England, many a dissertation on the mysteries' of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on apostolical succession, on bishops, and justification, and the tiheory of good works, and verbal inspiration, and the efficacy of the sacraments; but never, during these thirty wonderful years, never one that I can recollect on common honesty, or those primitive commandments, Thou shalt not lie, and Thou shalt not steal. The late Bishop plomfield used to tell a story of his paving been once, late in life, at the TJniversity Church at Cambridge, and pf having seen a verger there whom he remembered when he was himself an Undergraduate. The Bishop said he j Was glad to see him looking so well at such a great age. "Oh yes, my lord," ;he fellow said, "-1 have much to be j grateful for. I have heard every ser-.i non\which has been preached in this | ?bureh for fifty years, and, thank God, [am a .Christian; still." Classical philosophy,, classical history and litera-1 lure, .taking, as they do', no hold upon jthe living hearts and imagination of in thisr modern age, leave their working intelligence a prey to wild imaginations, and make them incapable of really understanding the' world in which they live. If the clergy knew as much of the history of England and ! Scotland as they know about Greece ;and Eome—-if they had ever been itaught to open their eyes and see what !is actually round them, instead of groping among books to find what men •did or thought at Alexandria or Constantinople fifteen hundred years ago, they would grapple more effectively with 'the moral pestilence which is poisoning all the air. What 1 insist upon is, generally, that in a country like ours, 7 where each child that is born among every acre of land appropriated, a ! tiniversal " Not yours" set upon the rich things with "which he is surrounded, and a Government which, unlike those of old Greece or modern China, does not permit superfluous babies to be strangled—such a child, I say, since he is required to live, has a right to demand such teaching as shall enable him to live with honesty, and take such a place in society as belongs to the faculties which he has brought with him. And it ought to be the guiding principle of all education, high and low.