chairs. And should the scheme succeed so as to include two thousand subscribers, it is lowering no man's reputation to say, that his being invited to lecture by the election of so large a body of his fellow-citizens, would be a public acknowledgment of his merit, likely to make his students more numerous than they would otherwise be.

It has been objected to our scheme, that it would tend to increase the number of candidates in the learned professions, which are already overstocked. I beg to give this point a patient discussion; and to inquire, first of all, on what grounds it is assumed that a new college would over-increase competition in law, physic, and divinity. It could only do so by increasing the diffusion of knowledge. But those who object to a college on this account are acting inconsistently, if they have not been opposers of every improvement in education, which has taken place in our own times. If improvement is to be stopped, because it may injure particular callings, the Bell and Lancaster system of teaching ought never to have been adopted; for surely the business of the poor amanuensis and banker's clerk must be now sadly impoverished by overstocked competition, when every pauper can be instructed in writing and cyphering. Is not the monopoly of horn-book erudition, once enjoyed by the village schoolmistress, also encroached upon by the establishment of national schools on the new system of tuition, which the aged dame has great difficulty to learn, whilst every urchin of ten years old is becoming her rival in learning? Now if education is to be discountenanced for the protection of this or that vocation against overcompetition; society owes its protecting interference quite as much to the humble school-keeper or copyist, as to the lawyer, and priest, and physician.

But the evil of particular professions being overstocked, is one which has a natural tendency to cure itself; and the more education is diffused, and the great body of the people enlightened, the more readily will common sense direct men to abandon overstocked professions, and, laying their pride and prejudices aside, to embrace industrious vocations where the competition is less intense. There was a time when proud families, though very poor, thought themselves degraded by their sons entering into trade. Better notions now prevail, and, as long as England is a country, trade and commerce will be the main highway for the bulk of her middling classes to enter into wealth and competence. The profession of the law, nevertheless, receives a great many superfluous pupils. who prefer it solely from an aristocratic liking for its gentility. Many men enter on the profession, who, prone as men are to overrate their own abilities, know themselves quite well enough, to be conscious that their prospects of rising to legal honours and emoluments is a forlorn hope. Yet they prefer this forlorn hope to businesses which bring humbler associations to the mind with regard to precedence in society. This is, at least, one great cause of the profession of the law being overstocked; and connected with this aristocratic predilection, there may be also a more pardonable pride, in a young man choosing a profession that may lead him, more than an unlearned vocation, into intellectual companionship and society. But if a college is to favour the general diffusion of knowledge, it will certainly tend to emancipate men's minds from a great deal of the f 'se pride which prevails on the score of professional dignity. Looking at much of its business, the law is one of the meanest

and most servile vocations that a man can follow-a vocation of hireable zeal of eloquence to let, indifferently, for the purposes of justice and chicanery-a profession tending to give apathy, sophistry, and contractedness to the human mind. On the other hand, the increase of commerce, and of the intercourse of civilized nations, must continue to give new importance every day to the mercantile character; and in proportion as manufactures flourish, the successful manufacturer will cease to be a plodding and mechanical speculator, and will derive his success from scientific improvements and inventions. Perhaps the knowledge either becoming or requisite in a finished mercantile man is really more liberal, though less technical, than what goes to constitute a mere lawyer. The knowledge of foreign languages-of domestic and foreign statistics-and of political economy, ought to enter fully into the education of a British merchant of superior grade; and the manufactures of England have been the most important springs of national glory in the arts and sciences. As to the literature of taste and imagination, there is no reason why a merchant or manufacturer should not have as much time and leisure to addict himself to it, as the lawyer or any other professional man; and, in fact, there may be seen in that part of our community which lives by trade, a general fondness for polite literature, distinctly marked by the books which fill their libraries, and by the literary institutions which they support. The establishment of a college would promote the literary and scientific character of all that portion of the community-it would raise their respectabilityit would occasion the young man, who is choosing his vocation for life, to anticipate no illiterate companionship, if he should go from his college to a counting-house-it would dissipate many prejudices about the comparative gentility of professions; and, instead of tending to overstock the profession of the law, would rather tend to diminish the number of its candidates.

Again, let us ask, how the establishment of a London college, including medical classes, would tend to overstock the business of the healing art. It lies with the faculty, and the Surgeons' College, and the Apothecaries' Hall, to limit the numbers of the three kinds of practitioners by debarring incompetent candidates from being physicians, surgeons or apothecaries. As it is not proposed that the new college should have the power of conferring medical degrees, the limitary power of the above examining bodies would not be in the least degree invalidated by its establishment. From what has been said, it is also evident that it is not the cheapening of London medical education, but the rendering it better, that is the main effect likely to result from a college. That amelioration will depend on the possibility of classes being collected in such numbers, as to make the payment of the same fees which are now paid, amount to sums that will offer a temptation to popular physicians to relax their lucrative practice for professorships. Whilst this object is contemplated, the idea of reducing the expense of medical education in London is out of the question, and thus nobody needs to apprehend a rush of new candidates from low life into the medical profession. On the contrary, the more multifariously the branches of medical knowledge are taught, the higher will the standard of common medical education be raised; and, consequently, the students unable to support the expense of numerous classes, will be driven to

abandon the vocation. At the same time, a College school of medicine, by enforcing discipline, attendance, and examination, would place the habits and attainments of medical students more immediately under the public eye; it would expose and discourage the lazy and frivolous; ignorance and empiricism would be discountenanced, and genius and industry would be called forth.

I shall now proceed to say something of the plan of education, which I humbly conceive to be most advisable for this establishment.

It seems to be agreed upon by the friends of the scheme, that it shall include examination, and such a system of discipline, as, consistently with mildness and liberality, may secure the regular attendance of students, and prevent disgraceful neglect of instruction. The College, it is understood, will consist of three departments; a department of Literature, another of Science, and a third of Arts. A Chancellor and Vice-chancellor will form the superiors of the establishment; and a committee, elected by the shareholders, will act as visitors and as a board of general control.

To the Literary department will belong the classes for Ancient and Modern Languages, Belles Lettres, History and Antiquities.

On the propriety of the Learned languages being taught in a great place of Metropolitan Education, I hold it unnecessary to enter into any long argument; for I think, if we appeal to the public at large, we shall find their opinion decidedly in favour of classical education. At the same tinie men only conditionally admit the advantages to be derived from it. If a man has leisure to accomplish himself in ancient literature, nobody denies the refinement and pleasantness of the accomplishment; all that people doubt is, whether its advantages compensate, to a man who must economize time in his education, for the heavy sacrifice of so many years as are commonly bestowed on learning Greek and Latin. A previous question, however, may well be surmised, namely, whether all the sacrifice of time commonly allotted to classical learning, be absolutely requisite to acquire it? Milton did not think so, and he is practical as well as high authority on the subject. He taught his pupils to read the classics, as his biographers inform us, with astonishing rapidity. Dr. Johnson ridicules their assertion, because, as he says, nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. But this objection either means nothing, or means that all modes of teaching are the same. It is therefore the language of mere sophistry; for every body can be taught faster by a proper method, than he can learn by an improper one. Locke also had an idea, that languages might be learnt by shorter processes than are generally used; and Mr. Hamilton has founded a system of teaching, which, I think, needs only to be examined to banish all doubt from every reasonable mind, that the labour of learning languages may be exceedingly abridged. The value of Hamilton's system consists in the kind of lessons that are given to pupils; the beauty of the Bell and Lancaster system lies in the contrivance of teaching any lesson to a large as well as a small number of pupils. Both of these improvements may therefore be easily united in any forthcoming plan of public education.

With such improvements in the art of tuition within our reach, it would be absurd to abandon the hope of imparting classical education to youth in a much shorter time than that in which it is now imparted.

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The very existence of a college, where teaching would be kept up during ten months of the year, would ensure to a youth as long a space of classical study in two years, as he now possesses at the University during three years, the time allotted for his acquiring a degree of master of arts.

The cheap and easy acquisition of living languages would, I humbly apprehend, be one, and not the least, of the advantages to be derived from the proposed College. I may be told, indeed, that there are both public and private teachers of these languages to be had, on easy terms, in the metropolis. The Oriental languages, so important for the numerous youth who are to pursue their fortunes in India, are taught, I am aware, even gratis, by the learned Dr. Gilchrist, to whom all who are interested in our Indian empire are indebted for having thrown a new light upon the study of the Hindoostanee tongue, and 'for having divided its court language from its vulgar dialects, by the most masterly research and the clearest grammatical illustration. I may be told, perhaps, that while there is such a teacher in London, and while he is largely attended, there is no need of erecting a chair in the new establishment for the same branch of instruction. But I contend, that it would be highly beneficial for the establishment, if Dr. Gilchrist could be induced to deliver his instructions within its precincts; and that his students would also derive an advantage from pursuing their studies in a place where they would find other classes open for their attendance, without loss of time, or the trouble of walking across a street from his class. And a young man preparing to go to India may very well be supposed to require several accomplishments, in addition to his oriental acquirements. As to the European living languages, there are, no doubt, multitudes in London who teach them both privately and in classes. And if a college were erected, the immediate consequence would be, that a swarm of teachers of French, Italian, &c. would establish themselves in its vicinity, for the sake of picking up private pupils, or forming classes. There would, of course, be both good and bad candidates for the stray custom of the college, and some would be likely to offer very cheap terms; but whether they would teach well or ill, either on cheap or on dear terms, would be very much a matter of chance. But by making professorships for those languages, you might put it beyond a doubt that the youth would have excellent as well as cheap teachers; for you would evidently sooner get a superior master to accept of a college chair, than to come and teach in the neighbourhood upon private speculation. The elected and appointed professor would draw a large class, and could teach, therefore, on lower terms than the private teacher. But I have heard it alleged, that the modern languages cannot be taught to large classes so well as to small ones, or to private pupils. I am confident that this is not the fact, and that the Bell and Lancaster system of teaching has practically demonstrated its being quite as easy to teach a language to hundreds of scholars at one time, as to a small number. Dr. Russell, of the Charter-house, illustrates this fact in tuition, with regard to Greek, which he teaches on the Bell and Lancaster plan. I have heard Dr. Russell's scholars, who had been only two years at Greek, translate Thucydides, the most difficult of classical historians, at sight, (if I am not mistaken) or, at all events, with very slight preparation; and he assured me that in a room

where there is nothing to prevent the teacher from seeing the whole of his pupils at once, it is as easy to teach effectively three hundred scholars, as to teach thirty.

About the practicability of instructing a large class, as well as a small one, in any language living or dead, I conceive it is superfluous, after what we have seen of the Bell and Loncaster system, to entertain a doubt; and an undeniable benefit resulting from a large class is to make tuition proportionably cheap. It can scarcely be conceived that any competent private teacher could give fifty lessons at a lower rate than four pounds a year. But a professor in the supposed College, if he drew some two hundred pupils to his class, might give them two hundred and forty lessons, or ten months' tuition in the year for the same price. You would, moreover, insure the likelihood of an able teacher; and it should be remembered, that several languages could be taught successively in the same class-room of a college; so that a few additional professors would not augment the expense of building it.

I have heard it suggested, that it would be better for a youth to be sent abroad at once for the acquisition of modern languages, than to learn them at home. But it should be recollected that many circum stances may make it utterly inadvisable, or impossible, for a young man to be sent abroad. Branches of education which he cannot learn so well out of England, must be abandoned. A youth must be intrusted to foreigners, among whom you know not what acquaintances or morals he may pick up; and before he could visit France for the sake of French, Germany for German, and Italy for Italian, an expense would be incurred, obviously much beyond that of paying a few pounds, a year, for acquiring each of these languages at home. Besides, the advantages of travelling at a ripe age, when the mind has strength and information sufficient to select and enter into all the proper objects of curiosity, are tenfold those of visiting foreign countries in a state of juvenile inexperience. Our intercourse with the Continent is increasing, and the moral benefits of travelling are now open to a large class of society, capable of turning them to good account. It is still, however, a general misfortune of Englishmen when they travel, to find themselves too little acquainted with modern languages.-A false belief of the difficulty of learning them is very prevalent, as well as false doubts of their usefulness. But when Englishmen go abroad, they are apt to pay dearly by their awkwardness for this mistake. I remember finding a German village highly amused with talking of the embarrassment of an Oxford doctor, who had just quitted it before I arrived; and when I heard who the Englishman was, whose ludicrous distress had excited so much mirth, I recognized the name of a scholar highly estimated in his own University for his Latin verses and erudition.The schoolmaster of the village had been summoned to decide upon a compact, which had been made by dumb signs between this English doctor and a blacksmith of the place, relative to shoeing the doctor's horses and mending the wheels of his carriage. But the different manner in which the German pedagogue and the English scholar pronounced Latin, had rendered that language of no avail to the former as an interpreter; and the negotiation had become a pantomimic scene of discord and perplexity, when an English party of travellers happened to arrive, among whom there was a girl from a boarding-school, aged fifteen, who by dint of French, which the German schoolmaster, not VOL. X. No. 55.-1825.

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