Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 by Various

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But the Brahmin and the Sudra may both be converted to Christianity. In
that case, though it seems very odd to both, the distinction of caste
goes to the wall. And the "knot of parsons and such like," spoken of
above, having, very fortunately for the world, been born into the
Christian Church, made it, as we have seen, their business to face the
difficulty because of the necessity,--and the Working-Men's College is
the result of their endeavor. Mr. Maurice himself took the first step.
Before the College itself was opened, he undertook a Bible-class. He
invited whoever would to come. He read a portion of the Scriptures,
explained its meaning as he could,--and invited all possible
questioning. He testifies, in the most public way, that he got more good
than he gave in the intercourse which followed. "I have learned more
myself than I have imparted. Again and again the wish has come into my
mind, when I have left those classes, 'Would to God that anything I have
said to them has been as useful to them as what they have said to me has
been to me!'"

If now the American reader will free his mind from any comparisons
with an American college, and take, instead, his notion of this
"Bible-class," we can give him some conception of what the Working-Men's
College is. For there is not a clergyman in America who has not
conducted such a class, for the benefit of any who would come. And
such classes are considered as mutual classes. Everybody may ask
questions,--everybody may bring in any contribution he can to the
conversation. Very clearly there is no reason why chemistry, algebra,
Latin, or Greek may not be taught from the same motive, in classes
gathered in much the same way, and with a like feeling of cooperation
among those concerned. This is what the Working-Men's College attempts.
The instructors volunteer their services. They go, for the love of
teaching, or to be of use, or to extend their acquaintance among their
fellow-men. The students go, in great measure, doubtless, to learn. But
they are encouraged to feel themselves members of a great cooeperation
society. So soon as possible, they are commissioned as teachers
themselves, and are put in a position to take preparatory classes in the
College. A majority of the finance-board consists of students. Let us
now see what is the programme which grows out of such a plan. I have not
at hand the schedule of exercises for the current year. I must therefore
give that which was in force in the autumn of 1859, when by paying
half-a-crown I became a member of the Working-Men's College. As I
make this boast, I must confess that I never took any certificate of
proficiency there, nor was I ever "sent up" for any, even the humblest,
degree. For the Working-Men's College may send up students to the
University of London for degrees.

Remember, then, that to accommodate London working-hours, all the
classes begin as late as seven o'clock in the evening. There are some
Women's Classes in the afternoon, but they are under a wholly different
management. From seven to ten every evening, Lord Thurlow's house is, so
to speak, in full blast. Mr. Ruskin is the earliest professor. He comes
at seven on Thursday, to teach drawing in landscape from seven till
half-past ten. Work begins on other evenings and in other classes at
half-past seven. Four other teachers of drawing are at work with their
pupils on different evenings of the week. Monday and Thursday are the
Latin days, Monday and Wednesday the Greek,--all taught by graduates of
the Universities. The mathematics are Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry in
two classes, and Trigonometry. There was a class in Geology the winter I
knew the College,--there had been classes in Botany and Chemistry. There
were also classes in French, in German, in English Grammar, in Logic,
in Political Economy, and in Vocal Music, a class on the Structure and
Functions of the Human Body, and some general lectures or studies in
History. There were also "practice classes," where the students worked
with others more advanced than themselves on the subjects of the several
exercises,--there were preparatory classes, and an adult school to teach
men to read.

Now this is rather a rambling conspectus of a curriculum of study. But
it teaches, I suppose, first, what the right men would volunteer to
teach,--second, what the working-men wanted to learn. It is pretty
clear, that, if the plan succeeds, it will bring up a body of young men
who will know what is the advantage of a systematic line of study a good
deal better than any of them can be expected to know at the beginning.
Meanwhile here is certainly a very remarkable exhibition of instruction
to any man in London for a price merely nominal. After he has once paid
an entrance-fee,--half-a-crown, as I have said,--he may join any
class in the College whenever he wishes, on the payment of a very
insignificant additional fee. For the drawing-classes this fee is five
shillings. For the courses of one hour a week it is two shillings
sixpence, for those of two hours it is four shillings. The
drawing-classes are a trifle more costly, because the room for drawing
is kept open ready for practice-work every evening in the week. There
is also open for everybody every evening a Library, and the Principal's
Bible-class is open to all comers.

So much for the instruction side. Now to describe the social side, I
had best perhaps give the detail of one or two of my own visits at the
College. Walk into the front room on the lower floor of any house in
Colonnade Row in Boston, where the entry is on the right of the house,
and you see such a room as the present "Library" was when Lord Thurlow
lived there. Here is the office of the College. Here I found Mr.
Shorter, the Secretary, in a corner, at a little desk piled with
catalogues, circulars, "Working-Men's College Magazines," etc. There
was a coal fire in a grate, [_Mem._ Hot-air furnaces hardly known in
England,] a plain suite of book-shelves on one or more sides of the
room, and a suite of narrow tables for readers running across. There
were, perhaps, a dozen young men sitting there to read. This is
virtually a club-room for the College, and serves just the same
purpose that the reading-room of the Christian Union or the Christian
Association does with us, but that they take no newspapers. [_Mem. 2d_.
If you are in England, you say, "They _take in_ none." In America, the
newspapers take in the subscribers.]

I told Mr. Shorter that I wanted to learn about the practical working
of the College. He informed me very pleasantly of all that I inquired
about. It proved that they published a monthly magazine, "The
Working-Men's College Magazine," which was devoted to their interests.
The subscription is a trifle, and I took the volume for the year. It
proved, again, that I could become a member of the College by paying
half-a-crown; so I paid, was admitted to the privilege of the
reading-room, and sat down to read up, from the Magazine, as to the
working of the College. It appeared, that, after my initiation, I might
join any class, though it were not at the beginning of the term. So I
boldly proposed to Mr. Shorter that I would join Mr. Ruskin's class.
To tell the whole truth, I thought the experiment would be well worth
making, if I only gained by it a single personal interview with the
Oxford graduate, though I was doubtful about the quality of my impromptu
skies.

"Says Paddy, 'There's few play
This music,--can you play?'--
Says I, 'I don't know, for I never did try.'"

I could at least have said this to the distinguished critic, if I found
that his class was more advanced than I. But it proved that their
session was within quarter of an hour of its end,--and with some
lingering remains of native modesty, I waited for another occasion,--a
morrow which never came,--before putting myself under Mr. Ruskin's
volunteer tuition. But I tell the story to illustrate what might have
been. Had I been legitimately a working-man in London, whatever the
character of my work, I had a right to that privilege.

The Library proved to be one of those miscellaneous collections, such as
all new establishments have, so long as they rely on the books which
are given to them. I took down a volume of the "Reports of the Social
Association,"--an institution which they have in England now, for the
double purpose of giving an additional chance to philanthropists to
talk, and of saving the world from the Devil by drainage, statistics,
statutes, and machinery generally. But I looked over the edge of the
book a good deal to see who drifted in and out. As different classes
finished their work, one and another member came in,--and a few lingered
to read. The aspect of activity and resolute purpose was the striking
thing about the whole. The men were all young,--seemed at home, and
interested in what they were doing. Half-past nine, or thereabouts,
came, and a bell announced that all instruction was over, and that
evening prayers would close the work of the day. Down-stairs I went,
therefore, with those who stayed, into Lord Thurlow's wine-cellar,
which, as I said, is the chapel.

The arrangements for this religious service, if I understood the matter
rightly, are in the hands of Mr. Hughes, the well-known biographer
of Tom Brown at Rugby and at Oxford. In an amusing speech about his
connection with the College, Mr. Hughes gives an account of the way his
services as a law professor were gradually dispensed with, and says,
"Being a loose hand, they cast round to see what should be done with
me." Then, he says, they gave him the charge of the common room of the
College,--and that he considers it his business to promote, in whatever
way he can, the "common life," or the communion, we may say, of the
members who belong to different classes. In this view, for instance, in
the tea-room, where there is always tea for any one who wants it, he
presides at a social party weekly;--he had charge, when I was there, of
the drill class, and, I think, at other seasons, conducted the cricket
club, the gymnastics, or had an eye to them. In such a relation as that,
such a man would think of the union in worship as an essential feature
in his plans. And here I am tempted to say, that in a thousand things
in England which seem a hopeful improvement on English lethargy, one
catches sight of Dr. Arnold as being, behind all, the power that is
moving. Hodson, in the East-Indian army, seems so different from anybody
else, that you wonder where he came from, till it proves he was one
of Arnold's boys. Price's Candle-Works, in London, and Spottiswoode's
Printing-House have been before us here, in all our studies for the
Christian oversight of great workshops,--and it turns out that it was
Arnold who started the men who set these successes in order. The Bishop
of London would not thank me for intimating that he gained something
from being Arnold's successor; but I am sure Mr. Hughes would be
pleased to think that Arnold's spirit still lives and works in his
cellar-chapel.

The chapel is but one of the recitation-rooms,--and, like all the
others, is fitted with the plainest unpainted tables and benches. Two
gentlemen read the lessons and a short form of prayer, prepared, I
think, by Mr. Maurice himself,--and so adapted to the place and the
occasion. Thirty or more of the students were present.

I dare not say that it was a piece of Working-Men's College
good-fellowship,--but, led either by that or by English hospitality, one
of the gentlemen who officiated, to whom I had introduced myself with
no privilege but that of a "fellow-commoner" at the College, not only
showed me every courtesy there, but afterwards offered me every service
which could facilitate my objects in London. This fact is worth
repeating, because it shows, at least, what is possible in such an
institution.

After an introduction so cordial, it may well be supposed that I often
looked in on the College of an evening. If I were in that part of the
town when evening came on, I made the Library my club-room, to write a
note or to waste an hour. I am sure, that, had it been in my power, I
should have dropped in often,--so pleasant was it to watch the modest
work of the place, and the energy of the crowded rooms,--and so new
to me the aspects of English life it gave. I felt quite sure that the
College was gaining ground, on the whole. I can easily understand that
some classes drag,--perhaps some studies, which the managers would be
most glad to see successful. But, on the whole, there seems spirit and
energy,--and of course success.

My travelling companion, Chiron, is fond of twitting me as to the
success of one of the "social meetings" to which I dragged him,
promising to show him something of working-men's life. We arrived too
early. But the Secretary told us that the garden was lighted up for
drill, and that the working-men's battalion was drilling there. It was
under the charge of Sergeant Reed, a medal soldier from the Crimea. At
that time England was in one of her periodical fits of expecting an
invasion. For some reason they will not call on every able-bodied man to
serve in a militia;--I thought because they were afraid to arm all their
people,--though no Englishman so explained it to me. They did, however,
call for volunteers from those classes of society which could afford
to buy uniforms and obtain "practice-grounds three hundred yards in
length." This included, I should say, about eleven of the thirty-seven
castes of English society. It intentionally left out those beneath,--as
it did all Ireland. Mr. Hughes, however, seized on it as an admirable
chance for his College,--its common feeling, its gymnastics,--and many
other "good things," looking down the future. In general, the drills
which were going on all over England were sad things to me. This idea
of staking guineas against _sous_, when the contest with Napoleon did
come,--staking an English judge, for instance, with his rifle, against
some wretched conscript whom Napoleon had been drilling thoroughly, with
his, seemed and seems to me wretched policy. But--if it were to be done
this way--of course the best thing possible was to work as widely as you
could in getting your recruits; and,--if England were too conservative
to say, "We are twenty-eight millions, one-fifth fighting men,"--too
conservative to put rifles or muskets into the hands of those five or
six million fighters,--the next best thing was to rank as many as you
could in your handful of upper-class riflemen. However, I offered my
advice liberally to all comers, and explained that at home I was a
soldier when the Government wanted me,--was registered somewhere,--and
could be marched to San Juan, about which General Harney was vaporing
just then, whenever the authorities chose. So it was that I and Chiron
stood superior to see Sergeant Reed drill thirty-nine working-men. Mr.
Hughes was on the terrace, teaching an awkward squad their facings.

Sergeant Reed paraded his men,--and wanted one or two more. He came and
asked Mr. Hughes for them,--and he in turn told us very civilly, that,
if "we knew our facings," we might fall in. Alas for the theory of the
_Landsturm!_ Alas for the fame of the Massachusetts militia! Here are
two of the "one hundred and fifty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty
non-commissioned officers, musicians, artificers, and privates" whom
Massachusetts that year registered at Washington,--two soldiers for
whom somebody, somewhere, has two cartridge-boxes, two muskets, two
shoulder-straps, and the rest;--here is an opportunity for them to show
the gentlemen of a foreign service how much better we know our facings
than they theirs,--and, alas, the representative two do not know their
facings at all! We declined the invitation as courteously as it was
offered. Perhaps we thus escaped a prosecution under the Act of 1819,
when we came home,--for having entered the service of a foreign power.
Certainly we avoided the guilt of felony, in England; for it is felony
for an alien to take any station of trust or honor under the Queen,--and
when Mr. Bates and Louis Napoleon were sworn in as special constables on
the Chartists' day, they might both have been tried for felony on the
information of Fergus O'Connor, and sent to some Old Bailey or other.
None the less did we regret our ignorance of the facings, and, after a
few minutes, sadly leave the field of glory.

My last visit to the Working-Men's College was to attend one of Mr.
Maurice's Sunday-evening classes, and this was the only occasion when I
ever appeared as a student. It was held at nine in the evening,--out of
the way, therefore, of any Church-service. There gathered nearly twenty
young men, who seemed in most instances to be personally strangers to
each other. Mr. Maurice is so far an historical person that I have a
right, I believe, to describe his appearance. He must be about fifty
years old now. He looks as if he had done more than fifty years' worth
of work,--and yet does not look older than that, on the whole. His hair
is growing white; his face shows traces of experience of more sorts
than one, but is very gentle and winning in its expression, both in his
welcome, and in the vivid conversation which is called his lecture. He
sat at a large table, and we gathered around it with our Testaments and
note-books. The subject was the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the
Hebrews,--the conversation turning mostly, of course, on the "rest"
which the people of God enter into. This is not the place for a
report of the exposition, at once completely devout and completely
transcendental, by which this distinguished theologian lighted up this
passage for that cluster of young men. But I may say something of the
manner of one so well known and so widely honored among a "present
posterity" in America, for his works. He read the chapter through,--with
a running commentary at first,--blocking out, as it were, his ground
notion of it. This was the first _ebauche_ of his criticism; but you
felt after its details without quite finding them. In a word, the
impression was precisely the uneasy impression you feel after the first
reading of one of his sermons or lectures,--that there is a very grand
general conception, but that you do not see how it is going to "fay in"
in its respective parts. One of the students intimated some such doubt
regarding some of the opening verses,--and there at once appeared enough
to show how frank was the relation, in that class at least, between the
teacher and the pupils. Then began the real work and the real joy of the
evening. Then on the background he had washed in before he began to put
in his middle-distance, and at last his foreground, and, last of all,
to light up the whole by a set of flashes, which he had reserved,
unconsciously, to the close. He dropped his forehead on his hand, worked
it nervously with his fingers, as if he were resolved that what was
within should serve him, went over the whole chapter in much more detail
a second time, held us all charged with his electricity, so that we
threw in this, that, or another question or difficulty,--till he fell
back yet a third time, and again went through it, weaving the whole
together, and making part illustrate part under the light of the comment
and illumination which it had received before,--and so, when we read
it with him for the fourth and last time, it was no longer a string
of beads,--a set of separate verses,--Jewish, antiquated, and
fragmentary,--but one vivid illustration of the "peace which passeth all
understanding" into which the Christian man may enter.

With this fortunate illustration and exposition of the worth and work of
the Working-Men's College my connection with it closed. It seems to me a
beautiful monument of the love and energy of its founder. Perhaps we are
all best known through our friends, or, as the proverb says, "by the
company we keep." Let the reader know Mr. Maurice, then, by remembering
that he is the godfather of Tennyson's son,--

"Come, when no graver cares annoy,
Godfather, come and see your boy,"--

that Charles Kingsley has a Frederic Maurice among his children,--and
that Thomas Hughes has a Maurice also. The last was lost, untimely, from
this world, in bathing in the Thames. The magnetism of such a man has
united the group of workers who have formed the Working-Men's College.
We need not wonder that with such a spirit it succeeds.

EMANCIPATION IN RUSSIA.

Two great nations are peculiarly entitled to be considered modern
in their general character, though each is living under ancient
institutions. They are the _United States_ and _Russia_. Neither of
these nations is a century old, regarded as a power that largely affects
affairs by its action, and into the composition of each there enters a
great variety of elements. The United States may be said to date from
1761, just one hundred years ago, when the American debate began on the
question of granting Writs of Assistance to the revenue-officers of the
crown. The struggle between England and America was then commenced in
the chief court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and the Declaration
of Independence was but the logical conclusion of the argument of James
Otis; but that conclusion would not have established anything, had it
not been confirmed by the inexorable logic of cannon. The last resort of
kings was then on the side of the people, and gave them the victory.
The fifteen years that passed between the time when James Otis spoke
in Boston and the time when John Adams spoke in Philadelphia belong
properly to our national history, and should be so regarded. The
grandson and biographer of John Adams says that Mr. Adams "was attending
the court as a member of the bar, and heard, with enthusiastic
admiration, the argument of Otis, the effect of which was to place him
at the head of that race of orators, statesmen, and patriots, by whose
exertions the Revolution of American Independence was achieved. This
cause was unquestionably the incipient struggle for that independence.
It was to Mr. Adams like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal.
It is doubtful whether Otis himself, or any person of his auditory,
perceived or imagined the consequences which were to flow from the
principles developed in that argument. For although, in substance,
it was nothing more than the question upon the legality of general
warrants,--a question by which, when afterward raised in England, in
Wilkes's case, Lord Camden himself was taken by surprise, and gave at
first an incorrect decision,--yet, in the hands of James Otis, this
question involved the whole system of the relations of authority and
subjection between the British government and their colonies in America.
It involved the principles of the British Constitution, and the whole
theory of the social compact and the natural rights of mankind."

In the summer of 1762, about seventeen months after Otis had made his
argument, the existence of modern Russia began. Catharine II. then
commenced her wonderful reign, having dethroned and murdered her
husband, Peter III., the last of the sovereigns of Russia who could make
any pretensions to possession of the blood of the Romanoffs. A minor
German princess, who originally had no more prospect of becoming
Empress-Regnant of Russia than she had of becoming Queen-Regnant of
France, Sophia-Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst was elevated to the throne of
the Czars on the 9th of July, 1762; and a week later her miserable
husband learned how true was the Italian dogma, that the distance
between the prisons of princes and their graves is but short. Catharine
II. founded a new dynasty in Russia, and gave to that country the
peculiar character which it has ever since borne, and which has enabled
it on more than one occasion to decide the fate of Europe, and therefore
of the world. Important as were the labors of Peter the Great, it does
not appear to admit of a doubt that their force was wellnigh spent when
Peter III. ascended the throne; and his conduct indicated the triumph of
the old Russian party and policy, as the necessary consequence of his
violent feeling in behalf of German influences, ideas, and practices.
The Czarina, like those Romans who became more German than the Germans
themselves, affected to be fanatically Russian in her sentiments and
purposes, and so acquired the power to Europeanize the policy of her
empire. She it was who definitely placed the face of Russia to the West,
and prepared the way for the entrance of Russian armies into Italy and
France, and for the partition of Poland, the ultimate effect of which
promises to be the reunion of that country under the sceptre of the
Czar. It was the seizure of so much of Poland by Russia that fixed the
latter's international character; and it was Catharine II. who destroyed
Poland, and added so much of its territory to the dominions of the
Czars. After the first partition had been effected, it was no longer
in Russia's power to refrain from taking a leading part in European
politics; and when her grandson, in 1814, was on the point of making
war on England, France, and Austria, rather than abandon the new Polish
spoil which he had torn from Napoleon I., he was but carrying out the
great policy of the Great Catharine. If we look into the political
literature of the last century, we shall find that Peter I.'s action
had very little effect in the way of increasing the influence of Russia
abroad. His eccentric conduct caused him to be looked upon as a sort of
royal wild man of the woods, rather than as a great reformer whose aim
it was to elevate his country to an equality with kingdoms that had
become old while Russia was ruled by barbarians of the remote East. He
was "a self-made man" on a throne, and displayed all the oddities and
want of breeding that usually mark the demeanor of persons whose youth
has not had the advantages that proceed from good examples and regular
instruction. Of the courtly graces, and of those accomplishments
which are most valued in courts, he had as many as belong to an
ill-conditioned baboon. A railway-car on a cattle-train does not require
more cleaning, at the end of a long journey, than did a room in a palace
after it had been occupied by Peter and his clever spouse. Some of his
best-authenticated acts could not be paralleled outside of a piggery.
The Prussian court, one hundred and sixty years since, was not a very
nice place, and its members were by no means remarkable for refinement;
but they were shocked by the proceedings of the Czar and the Czarina,
some of which greatly resembled those which are not uncommon in a very
wild "wilderness of monkeys." The last of Peter's descendants who
reigned _and ruled_ was his daughter Elizabeth, who died in 1761, and
who was a most admirable representative of her admirable parents.
Neither the manners nor the morals of the Russian court and the Russian
empire had improved during the twenty years that she governed; and as to
policy in government, she had none, and apparently she was incapable of
comprehending a political principle. Had her reign been followed by that
of some Russian prince of kindred character as well as of kindred blood,
and had that reign extended to twenty years' time, Russia would have
fallen back to the position she had held in 1680, and never could have
become a European power. Fortunately or unfortunately,--who shall as yet
undertake to decide which, considering as well European interests as
Russian interests?--the reign of Peter III. was too short to be worth
historical counting, and Elizabeth's real successor was a foreigner,
who not only was capable of comprehending Peter the Great's ideas and
purpose, but who had the advantage of understanding that world the
civilization and vices of which Peter had sought to engraft on the
Russian stock. The grand barbarian himself never could understand more
than one-half of the work to which he devoted his life, as there was
nothing in his nature to which Occidental thought could firmly fasten
itself. He knew little of that the effects of which he so much admired.
His mind was essentially Oriental in its cast, and the creation of his
Northern capital was a piece of work that might have been done by some
Eastern despot; and in the preceding century something like it had
been done by Shah Jehan, when he created the new city of Delhi. In no
European country could such an undertaking have been attempted. It
pleased Catharine II., in after-days, to say of Peter, that "he
introduced European manners and European costumes amongst a European
people"; but this was only a piece of flattery to her subjects, whom
she did so much to Europeanize by making them believe that they were of
Europe, and were destined to rule that continent. She it was who did
what Peter planned, and by making use of Russians as her agents. Her
statesmen, her generals, and her "favorites" were Russians; and it was
after her character and purposes became known that the rulers of Western
Europe were forced to the conclusion that a change of policy was
inevitable. But for the occurrence of the French Revolution, that
Anglo-French Alliance which has been regarded as one of the prodigies of
our prodigy-creating age would have been anticipated by more than sixty
years. By destroying Poland and humiliating Turkey, Catharine forever
settled the character of the Russian Empire; and her successors were
enabled to solidify her work in consequence of the course which events
took after the overthrow of the old French monarchy. Russian support
was highly bidden for by both those parties in Europe which were headed
respectively by France and by England; and it is difficult to decide
from which Russia most profited in those days, the friendship of England
or the enmity of France. One thing was sufficiently clear,--and that
was, that, when the war had been decided in favor of the reactionists,
Russia was the greatest power in the world. In the autumn of 1815, a
Russian army one hundred and sixty thousand strong was reviewed near
Paris, a spectacle that must have caused the sovereigns and statesmen of
the West to have some doubts as to the wisdom of their course in paying
so very high a price for the overthrow of Napoleon. It was certain that
the genie had broken from his confinement, and that, while he towered to
the skies, his shadow lay upon the world. The hegemony which Russia held
for almost forty years after that date justified the fears which then
were expressed by reflecting men. It only remained to be seen whether
the Russian sovereigns, proceeding in the spirit that had moved Peter
and Catharine, would take those measures by which alone a _Russian
People_ could be formed; and to that end, the abolition of serfdom was
absolutely necessary: the masses of their subjects, the very population
from which their victorious armies were conscribed, being in a certain
sense slaves, a state of things that had no parallel in the condition of
any European country.[A]

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