indignation, to the sympathising audi- "In a dissertation on the progress of chemical philosophy, written by Mr Brande, and prefixed to the Supplement to the fourth and fifth editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, it is asserted, that, excepting in the schools of London and Edinburgh, chemistry, as a branch of education, is either entirely neglected, or, what is perhaps worse, superficially and imperfectly taught.' And it is added, that this is especially the case at the English universities, and that the London pharmacopoeia is a record of the want of chemical knowledge where it is most imperiously required.' As Professor of Chemistry in the University of Oxford, I am, to a certain extent, necessarily implicated in the charge here brought forward; and I naturally feel desirous of defending myself against it; though, in the opinion of some, I may be thought to compromise the dignity of the University, in answering an accusation made by an individual not educated among its members, and probably, therefore, an incompetent judge of the scope of an academical education. But I respect Mr Brande, both on account of the honourable rank he holds as secretary to the royal society, and still more on account of his industrious exertions in the promotion of practical chemistry; and I shall be happy if, in convincing him that he has advanced an assertion not warranted in fact, I may remove from his mind a prejudice, the existence of which I have perceived with much regret." Now, we really must not hesitate to say, that, in our humble opinion, Dr Kidd has here fallen into the very error which he alludes to in his next paragraph, as a distinguishing one of the times. Wherefore all this mighty respect for that most absurd and pompous of all lecturers and essayists, Mr William Thomas Brande? If he be not one of those obscure and illiterate sciolists whom the easy courtesy of the present age would dignify with the name of philosopher," who, we should like to be informed, are the persons so described by Dr Kidd? Had any serious charge been made upon the uni versity of Oxford by Sir Humphrey Davy, or Professor Leslie, we could have pardoned a zealous academic for some impatience to wipe off the stigma. But really the smooth gentleman who talks to the fine ladies at the Royal Institution,* about primitive rocks, and secondary rocks, granite, porphyry, syenite, and serpentine, in a style of rumbling solemnity, compounded of the worst things about Darwin and Pinkerton,—and amuses and delights the same enviable audience with the leaps of dead frogs, and the other awe-inspiring wonders of the Galvanic battery,-this important person, even though he has been permit *To give our country readers an idea of his manner, we quote a few sentences from Mr Brande's very self-complacent essay "on the Rise and Progress of the Royal Institution." It is "Nor of less importance are the popular lectures delivered weekly in our theatre. It is here that we behold a sight not to be hither that our countrymen flock to give paralleled in the civilized world. their all-powerful countenance to pursuits which ennoble the mind. While beauty and fashion continue to patronize mental improvement, it will ever be unfashionable to be uninformed; while the female classes exert their influence to keep alive a love of instruction, it will be doubly disgraceful for men to be ignorant. And while we acknowledge with gratitude the benefit which science derives from a patronage which is as irresistible as it is extensive, justice calls up, on us to rebut the charge of fickleness. Since the first foundation of the institution, the female part of our audiences has never deserted us. Long may the ladies of Lon don continue to derive that healthy and refined amusement, which results from a perception of the variety and harmony existing in the kingdoms of nature, and to encourage the study of those more elegant departments of science which at once tend to exalt the understanding and purify the heart." ted to write one of the introductory dissertations in the Supplement to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, need not, we think, have been treated with quite so much respect by a learned and grave functionary of the University of Oxford. The illustrious chemist of the institution is, to be sure, himself a very liberal person. Hear with what amiable condescension he talks of the lectures which such men as Thomas Campbell and Coleridge have delivered within the walls of this fashionable seminary. One would almost be inclined to imagine that Mr Brande did believe, genius may be well employed out of the laboratory. "In favour of the fine arts, we blush not to say that we sometimes relax the academic strictness of our laws. We consider it no disgrace, that the first masters of poetry, eloquence, and music, have been heard within our walls; and we cannot blame the taste which has drawn overflowing crowds to listen to the charms of such attractive sounds. Even the most rigid critic, we may be allowed to hope, will not condemn the policy of laying under contribution the pleasures of the lighter muses to enliven the severer studies of their graver sisters.” There is something in all this so utterly ridiculous, that we wonder Dr Kidd could treat any assault upon the university or its professors, coming from the same quarter, otherwise than with good-humoured indifference, or, at the most, with silent contempt. But granting that some reply was expedient, Dr Kidd was certainly the most proper person to make it; and we think he has done so very effectually, although at somewhat too much length. "It is evident," says he, "to those who reflect on the subject, that the whole tenor of an academical education, so far at least as intellectual endowments are concerned, regards the general improvement of its members, rather than their qualification for any particular profession: and hence the trite objection, so often even now brought forward, that the physical and experimental sciences are here neglected, can only proceed from want of candour or of information. For a candid and enlightened mind would readily allow, that though the discipline of classical and mathematical studies is well calculated to form the groundwork of excellence in the physical and experimental sciences, the converse of this is by no means true; witness the deficiency, both with respect to taste and reasoning, in the literary productions of individuals, whose fame in other points deservedly ranks high in the scientific and professional world. "The physical and experimental sciences then are not neglected in this place. They are not cultivated, indeed, to the same extent as in some other schools; but they are views of a system of general education: and cultivated so far as is compatible with the hence the object of the lecturers in the several branches of those sciences is, rather to present a liberal illustration of their principles and practical application, than to run into the minutiae of a technical, or even a philosophical, detail of facts. These branches of science, in this place at least, may be considered with reference to divinity, classics, and mathematics, in the same light as chariots; which were destined to assist, but the supernumerary war-horses of Homer's not to regulate, the progress of their nobler fellow-coursers. "With respect to Chemistry, indeed, it is the opprobrium of that science, if science it may even yet be called, that though it has at once dazzled and ameliorated the condition of the world by the discoveries of phi losophers like Davy, Scheele, and Wollaston, it has in some respects debased the character of Philosophy itself. It has been the means, that is, of elevating to the title of philosophers a host of individuals, whose talents were just equal to that species of inductive reasoning, the nature of which has been of late years so egregiously mistaken, and its importance so absurdly maintained. That man, in truth, must be possessed of but ordinary abilities, who cannot draw a general conclusion from a number of analogous facts continually passing before his eyes; while, after all, it must be genius alone that can penetrate beyond the limits which apparently confine it, and connect at once the distant or hidden links in a chain of philosophical reasoning. It was genius in its fairest form and happiest hour, which nexion between the cooling power of a mediscovered to Sir Humphry Davy the contallic surface and the extinction of contiguous flame; which taught him to extend the application of an abstract principle to the preservation of human life; and added thus a more lasting wreath of honour to his temples, than the decomposition of potash or of all the alkalies in nature could ever have conferred. "And undoubtedly Lord Bacon did not look forward to those easy triumphs over the mysteries of the material world, which some seem to expect from the inductive method. He only maintained, what I believe no one is now disposed to deny, that without induction founded on experiment or observation, no advances could be reasonably expected in the physical sciences: but a mind imbued so deeply with the spirit and matter of ancient learning, was not likely to overlook the advantages to be derived from the discipline of a classical education. And if superiority of intellect be shewn in the choice of those experiments or observations on which induction is to rest, and this I think no one will attempt to controvert, it is in the highest degree probable, that the same mind will be more or less successfully exerted in the prosecution of any particular branch of science, in proportion as its powers have been previously exercised by the discipline of general educa tion: not indeed that education can communicate new powers to the mind, but that it improves those which it naturally possesses, and enables it to direct them at once to the most appropriate points of observation. In saying this, however, I do not mean to disparage those self-elevating powers of extraordinary talents which occasionally are found to supersede the necessity of any education, being at once the master and scholar of themselves. "If indeed Mr Brande had asserted, that chemistry was imperfectly cultivated by the generality of the members of the English universities, he would doubtless have as serted a truth, and a truth of which the reason is sufficiently obvious; since nearly ninety-nine out of every hundred there educated, are destined not for the profession of medicine, nor for commerce, but for the church, or the bar, or the diplomatic departments of the state. I would ask therefore any reasonable person, not whether it is likely, but whether it would be desirable, that the preparation for such grave and important duties should be interrupted by more than a passing attention to pursuits, which can only be hereafter cultivated as a liberal relaxation from severer studies and engagements. But if in after life the intervals of the more important duties should afford sufficient leisure for the cultivation of natural science, there is no reason why it may not be cultivated; and there are those among the members of the university, and I am proud in reckoning some of them in the number of my nearest friends, who have thus contributed to the advancement not only of chemistry, but of other branches of natural knowledge." Chemistry is a science (if indeed that name can as yet be rightly applied to it) which can give no man any title to eminence, unless he devotes to it the whole of his time, and increases its boundaries in some remarkable manner, by the united efforts of genius and labour. They who are really ambitious of the name of chemists must not expect to obtain their object by attending the lectures either of Mr Brande or Dr Kidd, or of any other teacher. All that these men can do for them, is to give them the elements of the art of making experiments; and unless they apply what they have thus learned, immediately and indefatigably, to the purposes of solitary study, they might just as well have never entered the doors of the lecture-room. Of what benefit is it to the mind of any man, to have a few superficial notions of the properties of oxides and alkalies? And even Mr Brande, we presume, will not pretend that his auditors derive any thing more from their attendance upon him. Such learning may be a good enough preparation for the "Daily tea is ready' Smug coterie, and literary lady;" be ridiculed for not furnishing all its But truly, that any university should disciples with such "armour of proof," appears to us to be not a little amusing. If she provides an intelligent professor, who teaches regularly, to such as are inclined, the initiatory part of the science, and furnishes every adequate facility to those who wish to go deeper into its mysteries, we apprehend she does all that any man who has ever thought seriously upon the nature and purposes of academical education will suppose to be her duty. Oxford, we believe, does all this. Dr Kidd is a man of much eminence in all those branches of learning which belong to his profession; and he delivers every year within a trifle of as many lectures as are given even at Guy's Hospital. His course is numerously attended, and it deserves to be so. What more could the university do, unless she were to require specimens of chemical skill from her candidates for degrees? We hope the time is far distant when she shall adopt any such schemes, to gratify the capricious taste of such petulant admonitors as Mr Brande. I. K. POETICAL ACCOUNT OF AN OXFORD EXAMINATION. MR EDITOR, I AM happy to inform you, that your excellent Magazine is daily increasing in favour both with the graduate and under-graduate part of this university. I enclose you a poetical epistle, written by a young gentleman of our college some years ago. It was addressed to his father in the country, and accompanied by Dr Coplestone's first pamphlet against the Edinburgh Review. At the time the whole university was kept in hot water by that now forgotten controversy. If you insert this, I shall be happy to send you, from time to time, any jeux-d'esprit which may be circulated among us. I am, Sir, with much respect, your H. O. obedient servant, C. C. C., Oxford, May 14, 1818. To the REV. DR Their questions so strict are, their looks are so blue, He's a lucky young dog that can squeeze himself through; What peril, good Lord, modest merit.environs From four fiery young masters just hot off the irons! While ingenious youth appears humming and hammering, SINCE the cold-cutting jibes of that Northern No pity they feel for your stuttering and Review Have tormented and teased uncle Toby and stammering; They screw up their brows, and their eyebrows they knit, The more burning your blush is, the sharp er's their wit; At each attic retort, and each recondite pun, At last, they just hint, you may seat yourself And relinquish all hopes of a graduate-gown, Till you line with more Greek your unclassical crown. But if dismal the terror of PLUCKING appears, For a pleasanter tale you may prick up your mind; Every Catholic claim with some Scripture confounding; The unbroken succession of Bishops expounding; Abhorring, like hell, Mr Gibbon's impiety, And expressing a scorn of the Bible Society. In philosophy next they his bottom must search, And the creed of the Aristotelian church, By the worship of ages to Oxford endeared, And almost on a par with the gospel revered; But so brazen his face is, in vain do they bully, And harass him with Socrates, Plato, and Tully; He so heartily rails at the gardens obscene, And so lovingly talks of the dear golden mean; And so intimate seems with the stoical sage, That they all put him down for the flower of the age. 2 N Await the sweet blossom of merit so shining! What fumbling of Doctors! of Deans what caressing! At the routs of Jack B what squeez ing! what pressing! Of doctorial tabbies and blue-stocking nymphs, Of the prodigy's features to ravish a glimpse! If old Oxford proceed in the way she is in, Playfair may grin ! Ineffective rebounds, from her armour of steel, The venomous dart of the "wee reekit deil," Adhering to rules that by Alfred were plan ned, And rooting French principles out of the land, We through ages of glory shall still be the same! I for hours could go on, but my paper is done, THE OLD INDIAN AND ALPINA. MR EDITOR, WE have read the letters of the Old Indian, and of Alpina, without being proposed by the gentleman, or by the much edified by the plan of reform personal abuse, and flippant repartee, resorted to by the lady. It is much the fashion, indiscriminately to censure all the amusements of the young; but, while we lament the dissipation of the youth of the present day, we consider the excess alone as the error, and think it immaterial whether a country-dance or minuet claim the undivided atten tion of rational beings, during so many months of every year. We do not see any thing criminal in a ball, when it is only an occasional amusement; and we very much suspect that the young lady who would allow the too familiar pressure of her toe at a rout, might possibly be as willing to submit to the same indignity under the protecting leaves of a tea-table. From the happy occasional gaieties of their youth seem temperament of our countrymen, the in no way to unfit them for the fulfilment of their duties as wives and mothers;-in our Scotch metropolis, we see those very girls who, a few years ago, have appeared entirely engrossed with the effect of their own appearance at the last ball, and with preparations for the next, transformed by the magic torch of Hymen into sober heads of families, and considering it an exertion to pay an occasional visit to a country neighbour. We must confess, that husbandhunting seems more the propensity which induces mothers to the injudicious display of their daughters in every crowd during a winter's campaign, than any wish to see them distinguished as the votaries of folly. Indeed we have sometimes been unable to suppress a smile, when we have seen a country laird's wife renounce the superintendence of her pigs and poultry, fly to Edinburgh, and at once commence patroness of all fashionable entertainments; plunge, night after night, into every dissipation, with the sole view of bringing out and procuring an establishment for her daughters. |