CHAPTER XIV.
England appeared to Mr Primrose quite a new world. He had sixteen years ago sailed down the river Thames, which presented on its banks at that time quite as much picturesque beauty as now. But he did not then observe these beauties. His heart was full of other thoughts, and his mind was moved by widely different feelings. There had not been in his soul the sentiment of moral beauty, nor was there in his heart that repose of pleasure which could admit of enjoying the external world in its manifestations of beauty or sublimity. But on his return homewards his thoughts were far different. He had left England in forlorn hope, but he was returning under brighter auspices. He had sailed from his native land, bearing a deeply felt burden of self-reproach; and though he could not forget or forgive his former self, and though still there were painful scenes to be witnessed, and melancholy information to be received, yet the aspect of things was widely different from what it had been at his departure. And he expressed himself delighted with all that he saw. The little boats and the lighter craft upon the river spoke of bustle and activity, and of human interest; and in them he saw the flutterings of business and prosperity. Though it was winter, and the trees on the rising grounds were leafless, and the fields had lost their greenness, yet the very pattern and outline of what the scene had been in summer, and of what it would be again in spring, were all very charming to his eye, then active with imagination. His own bright thoughts gave verdure to the trees and greenness to the fields; and he thought that England indeed was a blessed land. And as the vessel made her way up the river, and as at a distance a dense black cloud was seen, he knew that that was a manifestation of their vicinity to the great city, and that dark mass of floating smoke, which rustic eloquence so glibly reprobates, was to his soul a great refreshment and a most pleasing sight.
As soon as he disembarked, he first directed his steps to the office of his agent in the city, to make enquiry respecting the speediest mode of arriving at Smatterton: for he knew not that his daughter’s residence was now in London. There is a great contrast between the appearance of the banks of the Thames and the inside of a city counting-house; but they are both very pleasant sights to those who are glad to see them. Mr Primrose was indeed very glad to see his native land, and to walk the streets of its busy metropolis; and with very great cordiality did he shake hands with the principal in the office, and very politely did the principal congratulate him on his return to England. Mr Primrose did not notice the great contrast between his own joy-expanded face and the business-looking aspect of the agent; but he thought that all London looked as glad to see him as he was to see London. After transacting at the office of his agent such business as was immediately important, and without waiting to observe what changes and improvements had taken place in the great city since he had left it sixteen years ago, he made enquiry after the readiest and quickest mode of reaching Smatterton, and finding that the stage-coach was the most rapid conveyance, he immediately directed his steps thitherward.
There are in the course of human life many strange and singular coincidences. Now it happened that the very day on which Mr Primrose was preparing to start for Smatterton, Mr Kipperson also was going to travel the same road, and by the same conveyance. Little did the former imagine that he was going away from his daughter; little did he think that, in his way to the White Horse cellar in Piccadilly, he had actually passed the house in which his beloved child and only hope lay sick and ill. The days in December are very short; and it was nearly dark when, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Mr Primrose and Mr Kipperson, unknown to each other, took their seats in the coach. They had the inside of the coach to themselves.
Mr Primrose, as we have said, was in good spirits. He certainly had some cause for grief, and some source of concern; but the feeling of satisfaction was most prominent. He had shed tears to the memory of Dr Greendale, and he hoped that the worthy man had so instructed the dependent one committed to his care, that no permanent cause of uneasiness would be found in her. The intelligence which he had received respecting her alleged and supposed fickleness came from Mr Darnley, and the father, therefore, knowing Mr Darnley to be a very severe and rigid kind of man, and withal mighty positive, hoped that a premature judgment had been formed, and trusted that, when all was explained, all would be right. We must indeed do the father of Penelope the justice to say that, with all his failings, he was sincere, candid, and downright. He never suffered any misunderstanding to exist where it could possibly be cleared up. He was plain and direct in all his conduct.
We need not say that Mr Kipperson was in good spirits. He always was so. He was so very happy that by this last journey to London he had saved the nation from being starved to death by a superabundance of corn. What a fine thing it is to be the cleverest man in the kingdom! What would become of us all were it not for such men as Mr Kipperson starting up about once in a century, or twice a-week, to rectify all the errors of all the rest of the world? And what is the use of all the world beside, but to admire the wisdom of such men as Mr Kipperson? Our only fear is that we may have too many such profoundly wise men; and the consequence of an over supply of wisdom would be to ruin the nation by folly.
Whether Mr Kipperson addressed Mr Primrose, or Mr Primrose addressed Mr Kipperson, we know not; but in a very short time they became mighty good friends. To some observation of Mr Primrose, his fellow traveller replied:
“You have been abroad I suppose, sir?”
“I have, sir,” said Mr Primrose; “and that for a long while: it is now upwards of sixteen years since I left England, and I am most happy to return to it. Many changes have taken place since I went abroad, and some, I hope, for the better.”
“Many improvements have indeed been made in the course of that time. We have improved, for instance, in the rapidity with which we travel; our roads are as smooth as a bowling-green. But our greatest improvements of all are our intellectual improvements. We have made wonderful strides in the march of intellect. England is now the first country in the world for all that relates to science and art. The cultivation of the understanding has advanced most astonishingly.
“I remember noticing when I was in India,” said Mr Primrose, “that the number of publications seemed much increased. But many of them appeared to be merely light reading.”
“Very likely, sir; but we have not merely light reading; we have a most abundant supply of scientific publications: and these are read with the utmost avidity by all classes of people, especially by the lower classes. You have no doubt heard of the formation of the mechanics’ institutes?”
“I have, sir,” replied Mr Primrose; “but I am not quite aware of the precise nature of their constitution, or the object at which they aim. Perhaps you can inform me?”
“That I can, sir,” said Mr Kipperson; “and I shall have great pleasure in so doing; for to tell you the truth I am a very zealous promoter of these institutions. The object of these institutions is to give an opportunity to artisans, who are employed all day in manual labour, to acquire a scientific knowledge, not only of the art by which he lives and at which he works, but of everything else which can possibly be known or become a subject of human inquiry or interest.”
“But surely,” interrupted Mr Primrose, “it is not designed to convert mechanical into scientific men. That seems to my view rather a contradiction to the general order of things.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied the other; “you are repeating, I perceive, exploded objections. Is it possible, do you think, that a man should do his work worse for understanding something of the philosophy of it? Is it not far better, where it is practicable, that a man should act as a rational reflecting creature, than as a piece of mere machinery?”
“Very true, certainly, sir; you are right. Ay, ay, now I see: you instruct all artisans in the philosophy of their several employments. Most excellent. Then, I suppose, you teach architecture and read lectures on Vitruvius to journey-men bricklayers?”
“Nay, nay, sir,” replied Mr Kipperson, “we do not carry it quite so far as that.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” replied Mr Primrose, “I had not the slightest idea that this was carrying your system too far. It might, perhaps, be a little refinement on the scheme to suppose that you would teach tailors anatomy; but after all I do not see why you should start at carrying a matter of this kind too far. The poet says, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing;’ and, for my own part, I can see no great liberality in this parsimonious and stinted mode of dealing out knowledge; for unless you teach the lower classes all that is to be taught, you make, or more properly speaking keep up, the distinction.”
Mr Kipperson was not best pleased with these remarks; he saw that his fellow-traveller was one of those narrow-minded aristocratic people, who are desirous of keeping the mass of the people in gross ignorance, in order that they may be the more easily governed and imposed upon. Though in good truth it has been said, that the ignorant are not so easily governed as the enlightened. The ingenious and learned Mr Kipperson then replied:
“You may say what you please, sir, in disparagement of the system of enlightening the public mind; but surely you must allow that it is far better for a poor industrious mechanic to attend some lecture on a subject of science or philosophy, than to spend his evenings in drunkenness and intemperance.”
“Indeed, sir, I have no wish to disparage the system of enlightening the public mind; and I am quite of your opinion, that it is much more desirable that a labouring man”——
“Operative, if you please,” said Mr Kipperson; “we have no labouring men.”
“Well,” pursued Mr Primrose, “operative; the term used to be labouring or working when I was last in England: I will agree with you, sir, that it is really better that an operative should study philosophy, than that he should drink an inordinate quantity of beer. But do you find, sir, that your system does absolutely and actually produce such effects?”
“Do we?” exclaimed Mr Kipperson triumphantly: “That we certainly and clearly do: it is clear to demonstration; for, since the establishment of mechanics’ institutes, the excise has fallen off very considerably. And what can that deficiency be owing to, if it be not to the fact which I have stated, that the operatives find philosophy a far more agreeable recreation after labour than drinking strong beer?”
“You may be right, sir, and I have no doubt you are; but, as I have been so long out of England, it is not to be wondered at that my ideas have not been able to keep pace with the rapid strides which education has made in England during that time. I am very far from wishing to throw any objection or obstacle in the way of human improvement. You call these establishments ‘mechanics’ institutions:’ but pray, sir, do you not allow any but mechanics to enjoy the benefit of them? Now there is a very numerous class of men, and women too—for I should think that so enlightened an age would not exclude women from the acquisition of knowledge;—there is, I say, a very numerous class of men and women who have much leisure and little learning—I mean the servants of the nobility and gentry at the west end of the town. It would be charitable to instruct them also in the sciences. How pleasant it must be now for the coachman and footman, who are waiting at the door of a house for their master and mistress, at or after midnight, instead of sleeping on the carriage, or swearing and blaspheming as they too frequently do, to have a knowledge of astronomy, and study the movements of the planets. Is there no provision made for these poor people?”
“Certainly there is,” said Mr Kipperson. “There are cheap publications which treat of all the arts and sciences, so that for the small charge of sixpence, a gentleman’s coachman may, in the course of a fortnight, become acquainted with all the Newtonian theory.”
Mr Primrose was delighted and astonished at what Mr Kipperson told him; he could hardly believe his senses; he began to imagine that he must himself be the most ignorant and uninformed person in his majesty’s dominions.
“But tell me, sir,” continued he, “if those persons, whose time and attention is of necessity so much occupied, are become so well informed; do others, who have greater leisure, keep pace with them; or, I should say, do they keep as much in the advance as their leisure and opportunity allow them? For, according to your account, the very poorest of the community are better instructed now than were the gentry when I lived in England.”
“Education, sir,” answered Mr Kipperson, with the tone of an oracle, “is altogether upon the advance. The science of instruction has reached a point of perfection, which was never anticipated; nay, I may say, we are astonished at ourselves. The time is now arrived when the only ignorant and uninformed persons are those who have had the misfortune to be educated at our public schools and universities: for in them there is no improvement. I have myself been witness of the most shocking and egregious ignorance in those men who call themselves masters of arts. They know nothing in the world about agriculture, architecture, botany, ship building, navigation, ornithology, political economy, icthyology, zoology, or any of the ten thousand sciences with which all the rest of the world is intimate. I have actually heard an Oxford student, as he called himself, when looking over a manufactory at Birmingham, ask such questions as shewed that he was totally ignorant even of the very first rudiments of button-making.”
“Astonishing ignorance,” exclaimed Mr Primrose, who was rather sleepy; “I dare say they make it a rule to teach nothing but ignorance at the two universities.”
“I believe you are right, sir,” said Mr Kipperson, rubbing his hands with cold and extacy; “those universities have been a dead weight on the country for centuries, but their inanity and weakness will be exposed, and the whole system exploded. There is not a common boys’ school in the kingdom which does not teach ten times more useful knowledge than both the universities put together, and all the public schools into the bargain. Why, sir, if you send a boy to school now, he does not spend, as he did formerly, ten or twelve years in learning the Latin grammar, but now he learns Latin and Greek, and French, German, Spanish, Italian, dancing, drawing, music, mapping, the use of the globes, chemistry, history, botany, mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hydrodynamics, astronomy, geology, gymnastics, architecture, engineering, ballooning, and many more useful and indispensable arts and sciences, so that he is fitted for any station in life, from a prime minister down to a shoe-black.”
Before this speech was finished, Mr Primrose was fast asleep; but short is the sleep in a coach that travels by night. The coach stopped and woke our foreigner from a frightful dream. We do not wish to terrify our readers, but we must relate the dream in consequence of its singularity. He dreamed then, that he was in the island of Laputa, and that having provoked the indignation of some of the learned professors by expressing a doubt as to the practicability of some of their schemes, he was sentenced to be buried alive under a pyramid of encyclopedias. Just as the cruel people were putting the sentence into execution, he woke and found his coat-collar almost in his mouth, and heard the word ‘ology’ from the lips of his fellow traveller. He was very glad to find that matters were no worse.