The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. / A Judge of the High Court of Justice

by Leslie Stephen

IV. EDUCATION COMMISSION AND RECORDERSHIP

Another employment for a time gave him work, outside both of his professional and his literary career, though it remained something of a parenthesis. On June 30, 1858, a royal commission was appointed to investigate the state of popular education. The Duke of Newcastle was chairman and the other members were Sir J. T. Coleridge, W. C. Lake (afterwards Dean of Durham), Professor Goldwin Smith, Nassau Senior, Edward Miall, and the Rev. William Rogers, now rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate.[72] The Duke of Newcastle was, as I have said, the patron of the editor of the 'Saturday Review,' and perhaps had some interest in that adventure as in the 'Morning Chronicle.' He probably knew of my brother through this connection, and he now proposed him, says Mr. Rogers,[73] as secretary to the commission. The commission began by sending out assistant-commissioners to the selected districts: it afterwards examined a number of experts in educational matters; it sent Mark Pattison and Matthew Arnold to report upon the systems in Germany, France, and Switzerland; it examined all the previous reports presented to the Committee of the Privy Council; it collected a quantity of information from the various societies, from the managers of government, naval and military schools, from schools for paupers and vagrants, and from reformatories; it made an investigation into the state of the charitable endowments, and it compiled a number of statistical tables setting forth the results obtained. 'The man to whom more than to anyone else the country owed a debt of gratitude,' says Mr. Rogers, 'was Fitzjames Stephen.... Though under thirty, he brought to the task a combination of talents rarely found in any one individual. To his keen insight, wide grasp, accurately balanced judgment, and marvellous aptitude for details, was due much of the success with which we were able to lay down the future lines of popular education. I have often thought it strange that this recognition has not in time past been more publicly made.'

The Commission lasted till June 30, 1861. It published six fat volumes of reports, which are of great value to the historian of education. The progress made in subsequent years gives an appearance of backwardness to what was really a great advance upon previous opinion. The plan of compulsory or free education was summarily dismissed; and a minority of the Commission were of opinion that all State aid should be gradually withdrawn. The majority, however, decided that the system rather required development, although the aim was rather to stimulate voluntary effort than to substitute a State system. They thought that the actual number of children at school was not unsatisfactory, and that the desire for education was very widely spread. Many of the schools, however, were all but worthless, and the great aim should be to improve their quality and secure a satisfactory teaching of elementary subjects. They proposed that provision should be made for allowing the formation of boards supported by rates in towns and counties; and that the national grant should be distributed on better principles, so as to secure more efficient results. As Mr. Rogers points out, the 'revised code' soon afterwards issued by Mr. Lowe, and the principles adopted in Mr. Forster's Act a few years later, carried out, though they greatly extended, the proposals of the Commission.

It is impossible to say precisely what share my brother had in these results. I find, however, from a correspondence with his old friend Nassau Senior, that he was an advocate of the view finally adopted by the Commission. He also prepared the report, of course under the direction of his superiors, and the labour thrown upon him during the three years of this occupation must have been considerable. He was, however, writing with his old regularity for the 'Saturday Review,' and was attending sessions and circuits with slowly improving prospects. In a letter written at this time I find him remarking that he is at work all the day and half the night. This is in reference to a case with which he was much occupied during 1858-9, and which is characteristic enough to deserve a few words. His articles in the 'Saturday Review' show the keen interest to which he was aroused by any touch of heroism. He is enthusiastic about arctic adventure, and a warm review of Kane's narrative of the American expedition in search of Franklin brought him the friendship of the author, who died during a visit to England soon afterwards. Another arctic explorer was Captain Parker Snow, who sailed in the search expedition sent out by Lady Franklin in 1850. The place in which the remains were afterwards discovered had been revealed to him in a dream; and but for the refusal of his superior officer to proceed he would have reached the spot. In the year 1854 Captain Snow was sent out by the Patagonian Missionary Society to the place where the unfortunate Allen Gardiner had been starved to death. His crew consisted entirely of 'godly' sailors, who, he says, showed their principles by finding religious reasons for disobeying his orders. Finally Captain Snow was dismissed by an agent of the Society, and, as he maintained, illegally. He published an account of his explorations in Tierra del Fuego, which Fitzjames reviewed enthusiastically. It was long, he said, since he had seen a 'heartier, more genuine, nobler book'; he was tempted to think that Captain Marryat and Kingsley had 'put their heads together to produce a sort of missionary "Peter Simple."' This led to a long correspondence with Captain Snow, who was trying to enforce his claims against the Missionary Society. Fitzjames strongly advised him against legal proceedings, which would, he thought, be fruitless, although Captain Snow had a strong moral claim upon the Society. Captain Snow, however, was not easy to advise, and Fitzjames, thinking him ill-treated, obtained help from several friends and subscribed himself to the Captain's support. After long negotiations the case finally came into court in December 1859, when Fitzjames consented to appear as the Captain's counsel, although he had foreseen the unsuccessful result. He continued to do what he could for the sufferer, to whose honourable, though injudicious conduct he bears a strong testimony, and long afterwards (1879) obtained for him a pension of 40l. from the Civil List, which is, I fear, Captain Snow's only support in his old age.[74]

In August 1859 Fitzjames was made recorder of Newark. The place, which he held till he went to India in 1869, was worth only 40l. a year; but was, as he said, a 'feather in his cap,' and a proof of his having gained a certain footing upon his circuit. It gave him his first experience as a judge, and I may mention a little incident of one of his earliest appearances in that character. He had to sentence a criminal to penal servitude, when the man's wife began to scream; he was touched by her grief, and left a small sum with the mayor to be given to her without mention of his name. The place was, it seems, practically the gift of the Duke of Newcastle; and Bethell, then Attorney-General, wrote to him in favour of Fitzjames's appointment. I am not aware how Bethell came to have any knowledge of him; but Fitzjames had formed a very high opinion of the great lawyer's merits. He showed it when Bethell, then Lord Westbury, was accused of misconduct as Lord Chancellor. He thought that the accusations, if not entirely unfounded, were grossly exaggerated for party purposes. He could not persuade the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' for which he was then writing, to take this view; but upon Westbury's resignation he obtained the insertion of a very cordial eulogy upon the ex-chancellor's merits as a law reformer.

The appointment to the recordership was one of the last pieces of intelligence to give pleasure to my father. Fitzjames had seen much of him during the last year. He had spent some weeks with him at Dorking in the summer of 1858, and had taken a little expedition with him in the spring of 1859. My father injured himself by a walk on his seventieth birthday (January 3, 1859), and his health afterwards showed symptoms of decline. In the autumn he was advised to go to Homburg; and thence, on August 30, he wrote his last letter, criticising a draft of a report which Fitzjames was preparing for the Education Commission, and suggesting a few sentences which would, he thinks, give greater clearness and emphasis to the main points. Immediately afterwards serious symptoms appeared, due, I believe, to the old break-down of 1847. My father was anxious to return, and started homewards with my mother and sister, who had accompanied him. They got as far as Coblenz, where they were joined by Fitzjames, who had set out upon hearing the news. He was just in time to see his father alive. Sir James Stephen died September 14, 1859, an hour or two after his son's arrival. He was buried at Kensal Green, where his tombstone bears the inscription: 'Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.' The words (from Joshua i. 9) were chosen because a friend remembered the emphasis with which my father had once dwelt upon them at his family prayers. With the opening words of the same passage my brother concluded the book which expressed his strongest convictions,[75] and summed up his practical doctrine of life. What he felt at the time may be inferred from a striking essay upon the 'Wealth of Nature,' which he contributed to the 'Saturday Review' of September 24, 1859.[76] It may be considered as a sermon upon the text of Gray's reflections in the 'Elegy' upon the 'hearts once pregnant with celestial fire' which lie forgotten in the country churchyard. What a vast work has been done by the unknown! what must have been the aggregate ability of those who, in less than thirty generations, have changed the England of King Alfred into the England of Queen Victoria! and yet how few are remembered! How many actions even, which would be gladly remembered, are constantly forgotten? 'The Indian Empire,' he says characteristically, 'is the most marvellous proof of this that the world can supply. A man died not long ago who, at twenty-five years of age, with no previous training, was set to govern a kingdom with absolute power, and who did govern it so wisely and firmly that he literally changed a wilderness into a fruitful land. Probably no one who reads these lines will guess to whom they allude.' I can, however, say that they allude to James Grant Duff (1789-1858), author of the 'History of the Mahrattas,' and father of his friend Sir Mountstuart. Fitzjames had visited the father in Scotland, and greatly admired him. His early career as resident of Sattara sufficiently corresponds to this statement. It is well, as Fitzjames maintained, that things should be as they are. Fame generally injures a man's simplicity; and this 'great reserve fund of ability' acts beneficially upon society at large, and upon the few conspicuous men who are conscious of their debt to their unknown colleagues. It would be a misfortune, therefore, if society affected to class people according to their merits; for, as it is, no one need be ashamed of an obscurity which proves nothing against him. We have the satisfaction of perceiving everywhere traces of skill and power, proving irrefragably that there are among us men 'who ennoble nearly every walk of life, and would have ennobled any.' A similar tone appears in the short life of his father, written in the following year. True success in life, he says, is not measured by general reputation. Sir James Stephen's family will be satisfied by establishing the fact that he did his duty. It was an instance of 'prosperity' that his obscurity 'protected him, and will no doubt effectually protect his memory against unjust censure and ignorant praise.'

The deaths of two old friends of his father's and his own marked the end of the year. On December 20, 1859, he hears of the death of John Austin, and proposes to attend the funeral, 'as there were few men for whom I had more respect or who deserved it more.' His admiration for Austin was at this time at its warmest.[77] Macaulay died on December 28, 1859; and on January 5, 1860, Fitzjames writes from Derby, where he has been all night composing a 'laudation' of the historian for the 'Saturday Review.'[78] It is 7.45 a.m., and he has just washed and dressed, as it is too late to go to bed before court. 'Tom Macaulay,' as has been seen, had been a model held up to him from infancy, and to the last retained a strong hold upon his affectionate remembrance.

Fitzjames was now completing his thirty-first year, and was emerging into a more independent position. He was in the full flow of energetic and various work, which was to continue with hardly an intermission until strength began to fail. At this period he was employed in the Education Commission, which for some time was meeting every day; he was writing for the 'Saturday Review' and elsewhere; he was also beginning to write an independent book; and he was attending his circuit and sessions regularly and gradually improving his position.[79] The story thus becomes rather complicated. I will first say a little of his professional work during the next few years, and I will then mention three books, which appeared from 1861 to 1863, and were his first independent publications; they will suggest what has to be said of his main lines of thought and work.