No More Learning

The reaction against the POETRY AND ITS ABSTRACT
formal gardens and parks; generalized old exaggerated contempt for uninhabited
PRINCIPLES.
descriptions; abhorrence of local colour ; places felt by dwellers in a sparsely popu- PROF. NEILSON has written a book which
and queer affectations and paraphrases, lated country reached its climax in our
such as “gelid cistern” for cold tub. eyes, not in the current of English poetry reveals him as a very sympathetic judge
But you cannot limit the nature poetry at all, but in the movements inaugurated of poetry, both by temperament and by
of the classical period within the bounds by Rousseau and Gilbert White. These two study of the best criticism : few books
of such a definition. The exceptions are between them were the major prophets could better justify the position of Pro-
too destructive. One of the special cha- of the simple life, back to the land, nature fessor of English which he holds at Har-
racteristics of the classical period is study, and curse of civilization movements. vard University. As well as temperament
narrow and uninterested observation of The new attitude towards nature in and a wide knowledge of poetry and
nature.
English poetry is therefore just merely one criticism, he has a clear mind, eager for
stretches the poet Gray, one of the small strand in the great rope of resent- lucidity and for the tasks of analysis,
With
minutest and most sympathetic observers ment against the accumulating artificiality simplification, and definition.
of nature and natural beauty that our of the new conditions which the eighteenth Bacon's division of human learning, in
literature has ever produced. There is, century was industriously weaving. Miss which history “has reference to the
too, the exquisite Collins. Another serious Reynolds may have felt that the narrow- Memory, poesy to the Imagination, and
difficulty is invited by narrowing the ness of her investigation somewhat limited philosophy to the Reason,” he proceeds
area of inquiry to England. Thomson the area of her appeal. At any rate, to consider“ imagination, reason, and the
and Dyer may in some respects have been when in 1909 she revised her original elements of poetry. He makes admirable
the evangels of the new nature poetry; essay of 1899 she added two illustrative elements of poetry. He makes admirable
but it is fatal to neglect the power of chapters on gardening and landscape use of this threefold foundation. For
Rousseau, who acted as focusser and painting. These will probably now be example, he illustrates the familiar terms
transmitter of the whole school of forces, regarded as two of the most interesting Romanticism, Classicism, and Realism
of which nature poetry occupied a mere chapters in the book. Nothing enables by showing how they correspond with his
us better to appreciate the formation in
Miss Reynolds hardly seems to realize England of a special taste for picturesque "If a correspondence between them and
what an enormous amount of work has and romantic scenery than the growth
threefold division of the faculties
been done in development of this par- of the great water-colour and topographical employed in poetry can be discerned, we
shall have made some progress towards
ticular field by students of Thomson and school. When men and mountains meet, definite conceptions. Such a correspond-
Rousseau, such as Léon Morel and Joseph great things frequently emerge. Miss ence is revealed by the theory that each
Texte. This enthusiasm for nature and Reynolds tells us a good many things of these three tendencies is definable as
the picturesque was called Anglomania that are worth hearing about the early the predominance of one of the faculties
by students of the gaiety and social ease landscape-painters; and their work is
over the other two. Romanticism is the
of our Gallic neighbours. Landscape was exhibited in some capital illustrations. tendency characterized by the predomin-
an aristocratic fetish. The French bor- She rightly attaches great importance sense of fact. Classicism is the tendency
rowed it, and experimented in country to Richard Wilson, of whom Ruskin characterized by the predominance of reason
house life under the encouraging glances wrote :
over imagination and the sense of fact.
of Rousseau. The English garden was
Realism is the tendency characterized by
deemed a school of virtue, the innocence who has got away out of all the camere, imagination and reason. "
Here at last is an honest Englishman the predominance of the sense of fact over
of flower - culture a corrective to the and the Loggie, and the Stanze, and
natural malignity of man. Thomson and the Schools, and the Disputas. . . . and has In coming to this conclusion he is moved
Gessner had a whole salon of French laid himself down with his own poor eyes chiefly by a desire for truth, hardly at
imitators. The attractions of town and and heart, and the sun casting his light all_by debating skill.
country became “inverted to students between ruins possessor he of so much of Excellent also is his examination of
of Cowper and Ossian. The mountains the evidently
blessed peace of things. . . Heine's conception of Romanticism as
and sea became magnets. Voltaire him he and the poor lizard in the cranny of the Mediævalism, and his conclusion that
self felt the solicitations of the nature
“ the elements in mediæval life and art that
school to be getting so powerful that he We also have an appreciative aceount of have provided stimulus to modern romantic
talked of abandoning the upright posture the earlier men in this landscape and writers have been those which, whether
altogether and going to grass on all marine medium, such as Monamy, Taverner, secular or religious, were marked by a high
fours.
Bellers, the Smiths, and the Cozenses: degree of ideal aspiration ; in other words,
Miss Reynolds is too partial, and These men and their compeers may be by ruling conceptions, in which the dominant
;
perhaps too timid in the handling of her said to a large extent to have discovered
and,
theme, to have recourse to anything like a the beauties of rural England, of Derby-
broad and ultimate analysis. In an age shire, Cumberland, Westmorland (Miss by virtue of this, the revival of certain
of rapid urbanization men at all out of Reynolds levels a dire affront at Appleby aspects of Mediævalism, when genuinely
the common conceive a passion for the by calling it a village), and Wales, and sympathetic and not merely external and
eclogue and the pastoral
. At first it the joy of their discovery is reflected in imitative, may be regarded as a true phase
of Romanticism. ''
may take them no further than the their work. One of the characteristics
Georgics and fables of Gay or the gravel of the love of nature which these men
Yet this lucidity is deceptive, and in the
paths of Shenstone. But the spirit of fostered is the new delight in wide end almost wearisome, and certainly dis-
man in its craving for poetical refreshment views such as those from the Castle at
Essentials of Poetry. By William Allan
is in a state of perpetual unrest. The Edinburgh, the Beacon at Malvern, the Neilson. Lowell Lectures, 1911, (Con-
hollowness of old phrases is discovered, Reservoir at Launceston. The cutting stable & Co. )
our


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700
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
as a
appointing. We might consent to ignore
tion of the Islands of Providence, Hen-
the fact that Prof. Neilson's threefold
A GREAT PARLIAMENTARIAN.
rietta, and the Adjacent Islands ” (in the
essentials are essentials in some degree of
Bahamas)-in which Pym had large
all prose that is not purely occasional and MR. WADE is amply warranted in holding holdings and was Treasurer, and, towards
informing, though that is a weakness not that there has been no more vivid period the end, Deputy-Governor. As the period
atoned for by many vague, if respectful, of English history than that of which for of the Company's operations was 1628-40,
references to the importance of rhythm. several years John Pym was one of the the summary record of its board-meetings
His real weakness is in the treatment of central figures. The warmer welcome and business throws light on Pym’s inter-
imagination. His lucid method is such as should be assured to a book which aims at ests and personal associations during the
not to excuse him when he comes to say “setting before the general reader a clear eleven years when there was no t'arlia-
that Coleridge's line about icicles,
account of a great man who has been too ment. To Mr. Wade these pe sonal
Quietly shining in the quiet Moon,
much forgotten. " Unfortunately, in associations are of thrilling interest and
though, “taken word by word, it seems
achieving the work the author has lost sinister significance. For in the roll-call
sight of his aim, and the result is an
of the Adventurers he finds the names of
to be perfectly literal, yet, taken as a line, interesting disappointment. The book Saye and Fiennes, Hampden and Croma
touches us imaginatively in a fashion too
subtle for analysis. ”. The words taken obligations to, the erudite, sane, and Mandeville
, Pym and Rous-braces of
shows knowledge of, and confesses full well, Holland and Rich, Warwick and
line are a testimony to his feeling ; broad-minded' historian who devoted kindred, it will be observed, and most of
but touches us imaginatively,” if suffi-
cient in conversation, is not so in his book.
to Pym's period the labour of a life. Yet them men who were to come into promi-
it presents a reversion to a degree of sheer nence on the Parliamentary side in the
Conscious, perhaps, of this weakness, he antipathy for the great Parliamentarian years ahead. To Mr. Wade their associa-
has to add a fourth fundamental,“ pecu- which is blind rather than old. It is tion during this historic recess is an
liarly related to the imagination,” which
he calls Intensity, the fire that “ melts and written by a man of ability, with the ominous conjuncture of disastrous stars,
fuses the other three. In this chapter
confident intelligence which legal training and one wonders, after a time, that the
business, with its
on ‘Intensity' he is able to introduce gives. But the personal note is so sub- whole “Plantation
on ‘Intensity,' he is able to introduce ordinated to the reactionary tune of the meetings now in Brooke House, now. in
power of preparing the reader to realize time that we soon find ourselves taking an Warwick House, and now in the lodging
the content of the poem more intensely. " interest in the book as a social symptom of Mr. Pym, is not explained outright as
Thus he ends by convincing us that, had rather than as a contribution to its subject. a curtain for a conspiracy. At any rate,
he been more patient, he would have done Nevertheless, Mr. Wade does bring they are all conspirators for Mr. Wade
without Intensity, except as a quality of contributions of some value. Regarding henceforth. He sees them at work every-
where : partly a revolutionary secret
Imagination, in which he would have seen Pym's career after 1602, when he was
the fire that “melts and fuses” memories called to the Bar, we know nothing,
society, partly the managers of a vast and
and impressions into poetry.
says S. R. Gardiner, “till he entered the vague political machine having Pym for
We should have gladly seen him using House of Commons as member for Calne its“ boss," a “ boss” whose only scruples
more intensity in his cultivation of the in 1614. ” Mr. Wade proves that he was
are supplied by his fanaticism. If we
not in that Parliament, and does some-
would take Mr. Wade's view of it, the
chosen field. He might have taken a
single poem, and by intensive cultivation thing to fill the gap between 1602 and entire series of events leading on to the
have produced a more nourishing wrop. He has also dug into the Commons' is but the intended outcome of the sinister
Pym's appearance in the House in 1621. Civil War and the execution of the King
seldom met a critic more likely to be Journals” for traces of Pym's activity in machinations of these Adventurers. Yet
successful in a study of the power to the six Parliaments preceding the Long it must be added at once that Pym's own
humanize many things which are incon one, and has deposited the skeleton record single capacity in that regard is great
gruous to the mind and to make poetry in an appendix. The entries make dis- enough to absorb, and, we should have
of them—the power shown in 'Lycidas continuous reading, but emit flashes of thought, to have dispensed with, that of
all his colleagues.
and in Swinburne's Ave atque Vale. ' interest and even awe. For instance :-
He might have shown us why we do not
On what a flimsy foundation such a
-
object to an atheist, who regarded life commendeth Mr. Pymme's Speech and charge is built can be quickly shown.
after death as an entirely incognizable Advice yesterday to do Things nicely and Peers and other persons who were influ-
matter, writing a memorial poem full of temperately and not tumultuarily. " ential enough to secure for themselves and
fantastic surmises, and beginning :
“ June 25, 1629. Pym to bring in and friends a colonial Patent were fairly likely
Shall I strew on theo rose or rue or laurel. . . . . .
leave with the Clerk To-morrow morning, to play a part of some consequence in the
all the Writings he has concerning Religion. great national events of their time. Also,
He might have shown how “Ave atque
they would consider themselves fortunate
Vale,' to those who can become “ all ear,'
But more characteristic of the man and in being able to secure the directive and
is a perfect poem, unless they pause where the time
are many passages of this organizing assistance of a man with Pym's
the poet speaks of laying on the tomb, description :
great-probably at that time unmatched
Orestes-like, a curl of severed hair. " “ April 28, 1629. Reports from the Com- knowledge of business and finance; or
With what Prof. Neilson has given us mittee for Religion concerning Montague the co-operation of a gentleman of Hamp-
we cannot be content. At the same time, and Burgess, Vicar of Witney, and Com. den’s urbanity, persuasiveness, and wealth.
we must praise the pervading combination [= on a committee to go to the Archbishop Likewise, it was merely natural that the
of sympathy and lucidity, of which it is of Canterbury and ask him about Popish initiators of the project and the first Ad-
impossible to give adequate examples, expressing the Substance of the Statutes of venturers should have brought into the
though the lucidity has been too easily Magna Charta, and of the other Statutes, concern relations of their own, both for
content with new names, and the sym- and of the Resolutions made in this House the sake of the capital they would provide
pathy with old ones. It is not enough concerning the Liberty of the Subjects in and that they might share in the expected
that a professor of English can their Persons and Estates appointed upon advantages. Thus Hampden accounts for
thoroughly prove his judgment and the Question without one negative.
his cousin Cromwell, Pym for Rous,
power to stimulate, but the circumstance
New matter of more importance is Holland for Fiennes, and so on. Further,
is sufficiently rare to be recorded with drawn from vol. i. of the Calendar of that a group of eight or ten public men,
pleasure. His “ imagination, reason, and State Papers (Colonial),' issued so long engaged for some years in a common
sense of fact” will become little better ago as 1860. This is the story of a char business enterprise, should afterwards be
than cudgels in the hands of lesser tered company—“The Governors and found working on the same side in politics
critics ; because they are so like cudgels, Company of Adventurers for the Planta- (as some of them had been working before)
they are likely to have few attractions
is nothing intrinsically mysterious. For,
for the greater.
John Pym. By C. E. Wade. (Pitman & Sons. ) besides the fact that kinship would imply
6
66
)
66
SO


## p. 701 (#523) ############################################

No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
THE ATHEN ÆUM
701
fain to cry
accuser.
kindred minds in most cases, there is the Additional Instruction” on November They obtained plenty of birds as well-
more comprehensive fact that over a 5th, yet passed it in amended form 2,200 skins, representing about 235 species,
great part of the period here treated on November 8th-our author turns aside of which ten proved to be new to science.
until emphasis thrown on the religious to discover a reason more congruent with But they did not get the phonix; whereas
question brought the sundering hour and the notion of Pym as a man of mystery, what the phenix would be amongst
gave Charles a party at last-practically dark and arid, going in and out of Parlia- birds, that, or very nearly that, is the
all thinking England and both Houses of ment with a supply of scares in his pocket Pygmy amongst the types and races of
Parliament were on that side, the side of to herd the members whither he would mankind. Somewhat unkindly, Mr. Wil-
an historic nation against a despotic king, have them go.
liamson, in the excellent book on the
with only fine shades of difference in
Such a view ignores the existence of a
Mafulu of British New Guinea noticed
temper and tendency. Even within this nation, the qualities, beliefs, passions in these columns on May 18th, in a way
desperate band of Pym's, all the stalwarts of a generation of men — that national took the wind out of Mr. Wollaston's sails
were not of equal hardihood. Rous is of reservoir of moral power out of which by forestalling him with the announcement
no significance at all, Brooke was not of
even a man like Pym only issues as a of a similar discovery. But, Pygmy for
the school of Cromwell, and Rich was runnel with a name. The full-fraught Pygmy, we would venture to assert that
peace, peace,” when there soul of England in that day had in it the Mr. Wollaston's is the more perfect
was no peace. Finally, there are at least potentiality of ten thousand Pyms : but specimen. . The little men from the moun-
an equal number of original Adventurers,
one was enough. It is true that he has tainous hinterland of the Mekeo district
mentioned in the Patent, whose names been too much forgotten. But it is not of British New Guinea were of a strain in
have no prophetic import, and thus point in this way that he is to be remembered. which, even if the Negrito predominate,
the fallacy of giving backward and forward He is to be remembered as the man who, Papuan and Papuo-Melanesian elements
significance to a momentary grouping. more powerfully than any one before are likewise in some degree present, as
The “ Providence " adventure is inter in English history, brought the conception the photographs reveal clearly enough.
esting as an episode, but its discovery of the Nation, of the organic body of But the west-end Pygmies, who are to
has been the undoing of Mr. Wade’s book. English people throughout all its members, be known henceforth as the Tapiro,
Even without the misleading influence of forward into the centre of our politics, reveal themselves, by the same test, as
its dramatic and lurid suggestions, his and who enounced the conception of of purer stock.
view of Pym would have lacked entirety Parliament as the perceiving mind and Their stature is, of course, the most
and detachment, since the exoneration executive conscience of the body politic. striking of their peculiar features. The
and even apotheosis of Strafford, which
average for the Tapiro works out at
are here attempted, must needs have
4 ft. 9 in. , with 4 ft. 41 in. and 5 ft. 04 in.
carried a condign judgment of Strafford's
as the extremes of variation. Again, the
This is the most effective part
hairiness of their faces is at once notice-
of the book, but mainly through suppres. Pygmies and Papuans : the Stone Age able, there being likewise a good deal of
sion of the considerations which would To-day in Dutch New Guinea. By short, downy hair scattered about the
not have contributed to the desired effect. A. F. R. Wollaston. (Smith, Elder body. The colour of the head-hair, which
There is no need to deny that Strafford & Co. )
is short and woolly, is mostly black;
was a great man in his own quality, and
though it seemed to be brown in two or
one who might well, in a certain national The British Ornithologists' Union was
three cases. (Mr. Williamson, on the
conjuncture, have been the glory and founded in 1858, and, having flourished other hand, makes a great point of the
shield of his country. But as little need for half a century, resolved, four years ago, tendency to brown rather than black
it be denied that in the actual conditions to render its jubilee memorable by under- displayed by the hair of his Mafulu. ) The
he was wrong, and the more dangerously taking some great zoological expedition. skin, meanwhile, is of a lighter colour
wrong for being so great a man. The As Mr. Ogilvie-Grant explains in his than that of their Papuan neighbours,
burden of his death must be laid on King Introduction, the occasion served to bring some individuals being almost yellow.
Charles, not because the King signed to a head a scheme which he had long Finally, the cephalic index, on which
his death-warrant after promising that cherished of exploring the mysterious Snow criterion of race anthropologists are apt
nothing should make him do so, but be- Mountains, which the passing voyager far too exclusively to pin their faith,
cause it was Charles's complete trust- descries as a gleaming, cloud-capped range presents the most remarkable variations,
lessness that made the death - warrant standing some little way back from the namely, from 16:9 to 85:1; these figures,
seem the nation's only security against southern coast of Dutch New Guinea. nevertheless, yield an average of 79. 5,
despotism. What Strafford's influence The Royal Geographical Society having which, though lower than might be
had meant, and was likely to mean had proffered a request to share in the adven; expected, approximates to the general
he lived, is shown by the fact that a whole ture, a considerable and well-equipped norm established for the Asiatic Pygmies,
installation of reactionary machinery, party, led by Mr. Walter Goodfellow, took namely, something not far above 80, the
Star Chamber Courts, Courts of High the field towards the end of 1909, and, point in the scale where the medium-
Commission, and such menaces to free with the generous assistance of the Nether- headed end and the round-headed begin.
dom-went helter-skelter after him to lands Government, resolutely attacked this Let us add that the available facts bearing
unknown part of one of the least-known on the physical and cultural characteristics
It is in the period following Strafford's countries in the world. Mr. Wollaston, of the Negritos are admirably summarized
death, and apparently under the influence who plays historian to the expedition, in a valuable Appendix contributed by
of the bitterness generated in the author's attended in the capacity of medical officer Dr. A. C. Haddon.
mind by the recital of that melancholy as well as in that of entomologist and
It should, however, be noted that Mr.
enactment, that Mr. Wade gives himself botanist.
We may add that his previous Wollaston's observations relate entirely
up completely to the " boss," conspirator, experience, gained amongst the crags of to the Tapiro males, for the sufficient
wire-puller, mob-ruler, bogey-man view Rowenzori, made him especially com-
reason that a sight of the females was not
of Pym which does injustice to his petent for this kind of pioneer work, the vouchsafed to the expedition. A white-
subject and his own intelligence.
For difficulties and dangers of which can
bearded ancient, wasted by disease, seemed
so much of all that happened from hardly be overstated; and we are glad to have his tribe excellently well in hand ;
day to day and hour to hour is credited to learn that he is at present in charge of for though the other men seemed willing
to the sinister management of Pym another expedition which hopes to return enough to produce their womankind
and his colleagues, that really nothing from New Guinea in 1913.
in response to freely tendered bribes, the
is left to any other factor, personal or As Saul went forth to seek his father's headman adamant. Even threo
moral. Even when there is an obvious asses and found a kingdom, so the British bright axes, which made his one eye
reason for a certain occurrence-e. g. , for Ornithologists' Union's expedition went glisten with greed—and well it might,
the fact that the House rejected Pym’s forth to seek birds and found Pygmies. for nothing is so characteristic of the Stone
the grave.
was


## p. 702 (#524) ############################################

702
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
manese,
Age as the desire to emerge from it-even
intricate and bewildering, and the ad-
these could not shake his indomitable will. Social Insurance in Germany, 1883-1911 : ministration is largely bureaucratic. The
It was not, as Mr. Wollaston is at pains
its History, Operation, Results, and a total cost, including the extensions of
to make clear, that the white men were
Comparison with the National Insurance 1911, runs to over 53,000,0001. a year.
suspected of evil designs. The Papuans
Act, 1911. By William Harbutt Daw. Mr. Dawson gives some interesting figures
who accompanied the explorers must be
son. (Fisher Unwin. )
of the amounts paid by leading firms
kept out of the way of temptation, because
in insurance premiums.
In 1907 the
they would seize any chance of abducting MR. HARBUTT Dawson is as industrious system cost Krupp's 176,8401. , but the
a Tapiro woman. Indeed, they boasted as he is useful. He knows Germany and great firm, not content with this, spent an
of having done so; and amongst them- the Germans look, stock, and barrel. It additional 264,0001. in the social service
selves the supply of wives seemed to be is one good result of the political contro- of its workers, the aggregate being equal
very scanty. We have here, by the by, versies of the last nine years that we have to nearly 5 per cent on its share capital,
an indication of the process whereby such been bidden to look at Germany. In the and 71. 158. for every member of its
a mixed race as came under Mr. William- business of examining and explaining the working staff.
son's notice might well be produced. great work that country has accomplished Of the economic incidence of these
The big man captures the small woman in the social and industrial sphere, Mr. huge sums there is, in general, no question.
more readily, one may imagine, than is Dawson has indisputably taken the first The insurance premiums become part of
likely to be the case when the proportions place. Twenty years ago people turned to the costs of production. Within the
are the other way about.
him in order that they might understand country, this matters little to individual
On the cultural side there is not much to volume after volume, he has kept English- same burdens. In competition in foreign
German Socialism, and ever since, in employers, since all are subject to the
be recorded as the fruit of a first en-
counter with these Pygmies. Like all German wisdom. When the national foreign competitors are free from similar
men in touch with German work and markets, the case is different so far as
and arrow, their bows, moreover, being attention was fixed on Germany in the or equivalent burdens. As, however, the
very long,
like those of the Great-Anda- knowledge and impartial investigations markets is a subject of complaint in all
cause of domestic controversy, his minute power of Germany to compete in foreign
must rely on stone to provide them with became an asset of first-rate importance quarters, and of consternation in some,
to that growing section of the public there is apparently a by; product of
worse off than the
Papuans of the adjacent which desires the best available guidance the social insurance system which counter-
on political questions. In a sense, his acts this result. It is usually thought,
swamps. The present reviewer has had
the opportunity of studying the contents ad hoc, like a laureate's ode or a public this compensatory action is to be found
Social Insurance in Germany' is a book and almost certainly with justice, that
of a wallet obtained by way of fair ex-
orator's speech.
change from the neck of a Tapiro, and can distinctly German subject was under worker, induced by the careful provision
But his silence when any in the increased efficiency of the German
testify that the numerous flakes of chert, public discussion would be unaccountable the insurance laws make for him. The
though well enough fitted to cut, scrape, as well as inconvenient. His book is system has not scotched Socialism. The
pierce, and so on, were in no single case
such that, if found casually on the ground,
no scissors and paste, no haphazard idea, said Bismarck frankly to Mr. Daw-
they could be confidently pronounced to farrago of chippings in the daily news son, was “ to bribe the working classes, or,
be human handiwork. Most interesting, paper style. It is at once complete and if you like to win them over to regard the
authoritative, useful to the politician State as a social institution existing for
perhaps, of all that concerns the arts and indispensable to the student.
of the Tapiro is the fact that they make | value
is enhanced by a multitude of It has not done this, and the slightest
Its their sake and interested in their welfare. "
fire by means of the split stick and rattan
foot - notes in
strip, a method, however, which is by no and diversities of the two systems of reveals the reason why it has so signally
which the similarities personal knowledge of the real Germany
means confined to the peoples of Negrito social insurance, German and British, are failed. The only enemy of German
stock.
fully, and even elaborately displayed. Socialism is just the one remedy that the
Of the social organization we learn It should be added that Mr. Dawson, here Bismarck school will not have respon-
nothing, for the simple reason that the and there, draws on recollections of consible, constitutional government. But the
explorers were unable to prosecute their versations he had with Bismarck when the social insurance system has improved the
inquiries in the Tapiro tongue. Indeed, Chancellor was laying the foundations of conditions of the workers, and this result
it is diverting to learn that they had, the system in the early eighties.
is its final justification.
perforce, to employ as makeshift inter-
We cannot pretend to indicate even the
preters those Papuans with whom, as they outlines of the social insurance of Ger-
slowly worked their way up from the coast, many. Last year the whole system,
their linguistic experiments had fared which had grown up piecemeal, was re- NOTES FROM CAMBRIDGE,
scarcely better. One supreme merit of organized and extended, and those who
Mr. Wollaston's book is that it is absolutely complain of the length and complexity AFTER many years of University life I
frank. His description of the difficulties of our Insurance Act would rejoice in the count myself exceedingly difficult to surprise.
attending the discovery of the name of brevity and simplicity of Mr. Lloyd George at two events this term : the request to Mr.
a place, or of the words for “father” and after an attempt to understand the Asquith for the appointment of a Royal
“mother,” deserves to rank as a locus German Consolidation Act, even when it is Commission to reform the University, and
classicus for the anthropologist. For it robbed of half its terrors by translation. the behaviour of the Council and the
points at least a twofold moral: first, The system covers insurance
insurance against Divinity Professors in their attempt to
that, to study a culture, a preliminary sickness, against accident, against in- throw open the B. D. and D. D. degrees.
acquaintance with the language is of validity, against death, for old age, and In the matter of the petition for a Com.
fundamental importance ; secondly, that for widows and survivors. It is on a mission, certain eminent men have acted
when a traveller knows nothing, or next contributory basis throughout. The
more like sulky children than responsible
to nothing, of the language, he should employers bear nearly the whole of the Senate refused to endorse their suggestions
members of a great Uni sity. Because the
honestly recognize his limitations as an cost of accident insurance, one-third of as to reforms, they have, so to speak, put
authority, instead of indulging in figments the cost of sickness insurance, and one-half their fingers into their mouths, and retired
that sooner or later must come back to of the cost of invalidity and old-age insur- into a dark corner. Because, say they, the
roost.
The State contributes only to the Senate does not like our reforms, we will
last - mentioned, in the form of a fixed try to burn the house down. The public
addition of 21. 108. to each invalidity or doubtless the answer expected is that they
may well ask what these reforms were, and
old-age pension. The modes of assessing would, if carried, have improved learning,
contributions are, at any rate on paper, opened up wider fields for research, and
ance.


## p. 703 (#525) ############################################

No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
703
as
are
enabled men who are real pioncors of Cam the list with twenty-three signatories, and On the question of the Divinity Degrees
bridge knowledge to obtain a competence though there are numbered among those little need be said. It will be decided by
without having to do their valuable work Dr. Ďalton, late Mayor of the Borough, Sir voto in the October term, and, if the pro-
at odd moments, and live by examining George Darwin, Mr. G. N. Watson, and posals are rejected, the blame will lie with
work, and college, or even private tutorial, other men of mark, the proportion to the the professors and the Council. A well.
drudgery. Or possibly it might have been total members of the Electoral Roll on the considered scheme would surely have passed,
supposed that the suggested reforms were books of the College is ridiculously small. as the co-operation of men of all creeds
inspired by zeal for making the University The fact is the whole agitation has been and parties interested in theology in Cam-
more accessible to the democracy, and little less than a fiasco. Two protests have bridge is truly remarkable. Everybody
restoring a condition of things which pre- been issued : a very temperate one by the regrets the resignation of the Master of
vailed in the Middle Ages and was revived Conservative party, and another by the Pembroke, who prefers ecclesiastical work
in the earlier years of the seventeenth Liberals containing these weighty words :- in the diocese of Canterbury to continuing
century, when a far larger proportion of
his academic pursuits. He has at all times
men in England were trained at Oxford or
"A statutory Commission to reform the Unii been a picturesque figure in the University,
Cambridge than are now being educated
the University was financially hampered by vested and his old-world courtesy made him a
at the older Universities, as well as the interests, if its revenues were squandered or charming host Vice-Chancellor, and
numerous modern ones which have sprung wastefully applied. This is at present
by no means greatly impressed foreign visitors.
Pem-
into being. Such schemes may be regarded
the case.
The education given to honour men,
broke Lodge will be difficult to fill, unless
with suspicion, not only by those dominated especially in all branches both of practical and
one of the
theoretical science, is highly efficient.
esent society accepts the
by mere class prejudice, but also by some
Mastership. The college has long been
who see in attempts to democratize learning It is high time that the older Universities managed on principles which an outsider
a weakening of the demands of true scholar. boldly assumed the defensive on these lines. might easily fail to understand, though
ship, whether literary or scientific. But, An institution has generally to defend itself they have worked extremely well, and
while some may criticize, no one will deny against charges which were more or less given Pembroke a position of exceptional
that these reformers animated by true fifty years or more ago, but have long stability. I hope the college will be
generous motives, and are worthy of respect. become absurd. The Cambridge against as fortunate at the next election as it was
It might also be assumed that the new which our reformers are tilting is the Cam- when it seeured the services of this retiring
reforms would be directed to making the bridge of the early fifties. To judge from Master.
expenses at Cambridge less, and thus attract- what one hears and reads, one might reason.
ing a wider public. Had the Senate thrown ably believe that the University is a clerical
Jesus College has been conspicuous in
out proposals of such a character, a cry for corporation where dons spend most of the
two very different ways : by securing the
reforms would have at least
merited atten- Anglican Toryism, and a few scanty hours has produced a goodly crop of controversy,
a Commission empowered to make drastic day in scheming to promote the interests of headship of the river, and putting up a
tion.
in teaching the classics. Their nights are
whilst the Cranmer celebrations have aroused
But the Senate has committed no such
devoted to drinking old port. A few ardent
enormity, it has simply injured the amour
spirits are supposed to teach mathematics,
interest. The rowing world is divided
propre of certain persons responsible for
because there is a saying that “ Cambridge
between the supporters of the “Jesus
is mathematical and Oxford classical. '
style" and the majority, who are in favour
suggestions which have neither inspired the
enthusiasm, nor received the acquiescence
Only the other day I heard a really disa orthodoxy seems to consist in looking all
of orthodoxy. At Cambridge, as elsewhere,
of a majority.
tinguished man of letters, in proposing
the health of Cambridge, remark with his
right and doing very little, and those who
The first scheme which was recommended usual courtesy that the name of no Cam-
manage to win are blamed for looking as
by the Council of the Senate was, it may be bridge scholar or scientist was known
if they were not getting the boat along, yet
recalled, to create a House of Residents in in the universities of the Continent, as if contriving to make it go faster than those
place of the Electoral Roll, and allow it
whose methods are in accordance with the
German anthropologists had borrowed from
to pass measures, reserving a right of appeal Dr. Frazer in complete ignorance of his established order. Good, however, will,
to the Senate. It is to be regretted that existence, or Sir Joseph Larmor was not
I trust, come out of a somewhat unseemly
Jesus
the Conservative opposition defeated
listened to with even more respect by French squabble, as it appears that the
proposal so innocent. But they did, and mathematicians
is only serviceable in shallow water,
than by an enraptured and that, if the Cam is deepened, the club
there is no more to be said except that House of Commons. Absurd as such
nobody would have been the better, or for charge is, it is only too readily believed, and
will go down—not in the river, but in the
that matter the worse, for its passing, nor
list of boats. On the need of dredging
the wickedness of this premature demand
would the cause of education have been in for a Commission is that it induces people it is to be hoped that an appeal for funds
the river there is perfect unanimity, and
any way advanced. The
econd reform to believe that Cambridge is now what its
was an ingenious financial scheme devised traducers falsely represented it to be sixty
will meet with a generous response.
by the Bursar of Trinity, spreading the years ago. Clericalism is indeed a feeble Cranmer's monument was unveiled on
payment of degree fees over the whole of a plant; it requires a brave man to proclaim June 13th in Jesus Chapel by the Bishop
man's course instead of exacting it in two that his sympathies are conservative, whilst of Ely, Visitor of the College, who made a
lump sums, when he is admitted a B. A. port wine is no longer a symbol of the peculiarly happy address on the martyred
and a M. A. How this would have really don. Any one who knows Cambridge must Archbishop, avoiding thin ice with remark-
met the need for reform no one can clearly know that it is a place where a great deal able skill, and dwelling on Cranmer's ser-
Yet, because these petty reforms of hard and unselfish work is done for a vices to liturgical reform and to the English
have been rejected, men who really ought scanty competence, in which progress since language. Cranmer was certainly no poet,
to know better clamour for a Commission. the last statutes came into operation in but he had the merit of knowing that he
This is what they say :
1882 has been truly remarkable, where new had not that gift. The music in the Chapel
was by Tallis and Martin Luther, and was
"In the five years. . . . various proposals for studies are welcomed with ardour, and
Constitutional reform have been brought before endowed as liberally as possible out of the conducted by Dr. Mann. Mr. Bruce Joy's
the Senate of the University of Cambridge by the meagre resources of the University and the likeness of Cranmer was universally com-
Council of the Senate : but they have been without Colleges. This progress has been secured mended.
exception rejected by the Senate; and it is clear to
us that no further attempt of the kind is likely of events. To take a single example: in a
not by legislation, but in the natural course
I must strike a sad note in alluding to
to be successful. We, therefore, make our present college which had in 1882 two classical and
the death of the Master of Caius. Mr.
appeal for the appointment of a Commission. "
five mathematical lecturers and one in rallied, and passed away suddenly on
Roberts was taken ill at the Boat Races,
The names of those who signed for a theology, and eight of the fellows were
Commission supply food for thought. The occupied neither in teaching nor in the Sunday. Of him it may be said that the
better he was known, the more he was liked
list opens with twenty-three professors or work of research, instruction is now pro-
ex-professors. Of
of these no fewer
than eight vided in the subjects already mentioned, devotion to his college, which, in numbers,
and respected, and that he showed a lifelong
are not Cambridge men, and four of them and in history, anatomy, chemistry, modern learning, and general tone, thanks greatly
are comparatively recent importations. Of languages, mechanical science, &c. , and
the remaining sixty-nine, thirty-nine are
to him, now stands in the very forefront
every single fellow is engaged in active in Cambridge. His honest, strenuous life
members of two colleges Trinity and King's work as a teacher, University official, or
-and four colleges contributo only one
will long be remembered in the University,
research student. Yet this has been effected
name each. Six collegesClare, Pembroke, entirely from within, and in a society which
and especially in the College he served so
Queens', Jesus, Magdalene, and Sidney-
J.
has by no means a reputation for zeal for
well.
have held completely aloof, and these all reformation or progress.
i Of almost every
bear a good reputation for being wisely college as much, if not more, could be said
and cautiously administered. Trinity hoads with perfect truth,
8
a
see.


## p. 704 (#526) ############################################

6
on.
THE
AND
FOR THE
priests " ; the God of Israel, and also dots. The key - note of the book is struck
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. Christ, are the sun ; Moses, Aaron, and in the first four lines :-
Miriam are
celestials”; the kingdom
I have dreamed the dream of the unknown mens
INotice in those columns does not preclude longer of heaven is the “ celestial zodiac,? ? and so And stood on the sightless shore ;
review. )
We are invited, as the title suggests,
I have looked in the eyes of reality. . . .
And I am young no more.
Theology.
to adopt these values as the final truth
about the Bible.
There is some slight humour in the address
Drews (Arthur), THE WITNESSES TO THE
HISTORICITY OF JESUS, translated by Scripture Teaching in Secondary Schools : has escaped the attentions of a shark; and the
(in imitation of Gray) to a young lady who
Joseph McCabe, 6/ net.
Watts
PAPERS READ AT A CONFERENCE HELD author achieves a sort of triumph in his poem
Prof. Drews, in his Preface, explains that IN CAMBRIDGE 10–13 APRIL, 1912, To the Absolute,' where the appropriate
this volume is a new version, abbreviated edited by N. P. Wood, with a Preface by atmosphere of incomprehensibility is pro-
and amended, of the volume which formed
F. C. Burkitt, 1/6 net.
duced with complete success.
the second part of The Christ-Myth, a
Cambridge University Press
work which, with others written in the same
Bibliography.
sense, has, as is well known, aroused immense Three points are emphasized by the
excitement in Germany, and of which an
various well-known contributors of these
English translation was published by Mr. papers : that the Scriptures must be edited Bibliography of Works by officers, Non-
Commissioned Officers, and Men who
Fisher Unwin in 1910. The author issues for the young, that the results of historical
have ever Served in the Royal, Bengal,
this version, it appears, as a challenge to and textual criticism should be communicated
Madras, or Bombay Artillery, compiled
English theologians—to see whether they to pupils, and yet that spiritual teaching
and verified by Major John H. Leslie
can adduce better proof of the validity of should not be subordinated to literary
and Capt. D. Smith: Part IV. COLOMB-
the Christian faith than German theologians and historical culture.