ON A WINDMILL. A blank unkindly land! where Autumn's gales To strip-where birds lack homes, and dare not sing; THOUGHTS ON EMULATION. "Suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus The existence, whether recognized or not, of moral habits or practices, which float hither and thither in a sort of pliant neutrality between the boundaries of wrong and right, is one of the evils arising from the necessities of an over-complicated state of society. As we cannot be content with the broad and strongly marked lines by which our forefathers were guided, we acquiesce in the conventional devices which form the staple of casuistry and spouting clubs. To condense the misty ambiguities of many prevalent sentiments and principles, so that they might be open for judgment in a more definite form would be an undertaking worthy of the boldest and manliest philosophers. But perhaps its accomplishment is hardly within the range of man's will. One great moral "Idoloclast" has confessed his bitter sense of powerlessness to effect this. He failed-and yet his failure was heroical, and his words have survived him to inspirit others for the same life-long wrestling against the idols set up in the high places of our society. But when shall be found a name for his "tombless epitaph?" when shall a man be found as "eloquent for truth," as keen, as brave, but less scornful, and more humble in waging war against the false allies of virtue? One of these parti-coloured idols-these untrustworthy hirelings of truth-I may with diffidence venture to single out for reprobation, because it is one with which my meagre experience has made me familiar in that place with which our contributors and our readers are alike concerned. Could I without ruinous presumption contrive to suggest to some that take up these pages in idleness or curiosity the propriety of making emulation no longer a mainspring of our studies, I might have hope for the prosperity of our slight literary undertaking, on the ground of its commencing with at least one semblance of a good effect. I can bring no authority of moralists to help me. I can quote no paragraphs of Locke, Milton, or the Privy Council Committee, for support in assailing the system of stimulating boyish minds by the mere excitements of ambitious rivalry. I am not aware that writers on education (except the late Mr. Babington,) have paid much direct attention to the instrumental motives employed in it. Indeed I am not aware that those who are now-a-days most listened to in these matters, have been much in the habit of testing their schemes by that which is the touchstone of all theories and inventions relating to human improvement. But surely it behoves the practical trainers of boyhood to ask themselves whether they are justified in continuing the exclusive use of what will, I trust, some day appear in its true colours as a secular and an unsound principle. I understand emulation to consist of such a desire of improvement as is fostered by a comparison of one competitor with another. This, it will be granted, is not a simple, although it may be a natural, habit. If it be natural without being simple, I make no doubt that it is natural in the same sense that uncleanliness or greediness are. It must belong to our corrupt and vitiated nature. If it made its appearance in a child of tender years, would it not be repressed by a wise parent, and the tendency to advancement diverted into a purer channel? And are we to adopt in the school room a motive which we banish from the nursery? Are we to change our sets of moral feelings as we would change our clothes? Must the ministers of discipline yield to the growth of corrupt inclinations, and shape their system to conform with the phases of the disciple's morality? Practically I may assert that it is so. A boy comes to Eton, gifted more or less with faculties for improvement, with his parent's wish that he may" distinguish" himself, that is, acquit himself in such a manner as to leave his equals behind him. If he be only home-bred, he falls into machinery which entirely supersedes the checks and levers by which he has been hitherto controlled. If he be fresh from the transitional state of a private school, perhaps he may have to put off, rather than add to, habits of constantly measuring himself with his class-fellows, and doing his duty not simply but relatively. I believe there will be found very few of those gifted with the necessary qualifications, who do not learn in this way to look upon diligence and obedience as inferior in abstract value to successfulness in daily or weekly contests with their equals. To go through his task alone,--merely for conscience sake,-and without regard to others engaged in similar tasks, is not at all what a school boy thinks expected of him. The obligation to industry on the grounds of bare single-minded obedience is seldom held up to his observance. Responsibility for the use of his time, and other talents may be perhaps now and then the theme of a perfunctory admonition in the fly-leaf of his father's letter, but it is not impressed on him as the one awful reason against idleness; it is not by his delegated ruler half so frequently or stringently applied to his daily conduct, as is the exhortation to aim at distinctions which he is taught to value more as ends than means. I from daring to assert that the moral and essential motives of good conduct are neglected by those to whom parents entrust their own authority,-how many would gainsay such an assertion with the jealous words of gratitude, and bear witness to the good they have felt in heart as well as in mind, from the occasional warnings of their instructors! But nevertheless, one may safely appeal to the recollections of home, and the lingering echoes of the catechism, from the ambiguous code of school ethics, by which even the most gifted of our "alumni" are for a time unconsciously enslaved. Far am Hardly with due reverence could I venture to treat of the Scriptural grounds of educational principles. It is enough for my purpose that neither party in a controversy about emulation, can claim direct warranty for their opinions from any unquestioned declaration of the Wise Teachers. It is enough to rely on what nearly every one will confess-that it is almost impossible to separate the idea of rivalry from that of envy-that even the most generous, and sober-minded find it difficult to compete for distinctions without over-estimating the joy and honour of reaching the first place-that the rebellious blood will often, in spite of forced magnanimity, run warmer in resentment of the slights and defeats to which the ambitious are liable. Can any one say that his feelings towards his school-fellow, or even his friend, are not altered for the worse, by competition with him? Is there any one, who, on a review of his Eton life, does not remember how often he fell into, or but narrowly escaped, the defilements of unkind and unlovely thoughts, about his antagonists, his superiors, and himself, very alien from that single-hearted dutifulness which wise men take as the lantern for their feet? And what if these thoughts are not subdued, before they find utterance? What if they are the sources of words and actions, when coming in collision with those of the rival, who is their object, or in unwholesome sympathy with those of a companion, who is not their object, only because he is not an equal in age or attainments? Does it not thus become a contagious disorder, of which the symptoms are estrangement, evil surmises, mean craftiness, bitter though paltry jealousies-all, it may be, veiled under the contortions of a precocious hypocrisy ? If we do not see or hear much of this outwardly, may we not be sure that it does exist from so frequently hearing the defeated take credit to themselves for bearing no grudges? Does it not work itself out in groundless complaints of the umpire's partiality-in countless petty forms of "the pride that apes humility?" |