"My dear Friend,
"The late Professor George Long (my predecessor in University College), editor of the Penny Cyclopaedia was originally professor of Greek and a student of Sanskrit. He maintained that German, studied as it ought to be, prepared the mind for other work as effectively as could Greek, and, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson (and I too) independently alleged, that the study of modern languages and learning to talk them ought to precede the study of Greek. To make Greek the basis of an entire school and force it on all is with me cruelty as well as folly. Five out of six women and men would not learn it enough to retain or use it. If you place ancient languages and all that cannot be learned by talking at the END, only those will study who have a special object, and these will duly use them. I think that is the only wise and just way. Further, I think it a grave mistake to teach the scientific side of any language first, and try to proceed through science to practice. The popular side should go first. Greeks talked rightly before Protagoras, but Protagoras first taught that Greek had three genders…. After a full acquaintance with the substance of a language, its laws and relationships come naturally and profitably. In a dead language we are forced to bring on the science earlier: that is the reason for deferring such study till a riper age; and best if delayed until after learning several modern languages (by talking, if possible), the more different from one another the better. English, German or Russian or Latin, and Arabic would be three very different in kind.
"Our English Professor Latham used to talk much error, in my judgment, of the supreme value to the intellect of studying FORM. This word was to include the 'accidence' of language with the fewest possible words; algebra with the least possible arithmetic … Logic without real proposition…. Now, in my belief, and that of De Morgan and the late Professor Boole, nothing so ruins the mind as to accustom it to think that it knows something when it can attach no definite ideas to the symbols over which it chatters."
To-day, what educational strides should we not make if we could but bring our present systems of teaching into line with these of Newman's!
It will be remembered that in March, 1886, Gladstone caused great dissension in his own party by bringing in his measure for giving Ireland a statutory parliament. The bill was rejected at its second reading, and when Gladstone made his appeal to the country, the general election showed he had lost its confidence. He had based his belief that Ireland was ripe for some measure of Home Rule, on account of the fact that the election under the new Reform Bill had proved that out of 103 Irish members 87 were Nationalists.
"5th May, 1885
"My dear Anna,
* * * * *
"The Irish question, as now presented, is in a very sad imbroglio. After our monstrous errors of policy and the infliction on Ireland of miseries and degradation unparalleled in Europe, to expect to bring things right without humiliation and without risks of what cannot be foreseen, seems to me conceit and ignorance. Evildoers must have humiliation, must have risks, when they try to go right. Opponents will always be able to argue, as did Alcibiades to the Athenians: 'We hold our supremacy as a despotism; therefore it is no longer safe for us to play the part of virtue.' In so far, I may seem to favour Mr. Gladstone's move; and I think I do rejoice that it has been made. Probably those are right who say, 'Henceforth it becomes impossible to go back into the old groove.' I do not believe that a Parliament elected on new lines will endure it.
"But neither would the Democratic Parliament in any case have endured it. A new civil war against Ireland seems morally impossible. Therefore Mr. Gladstone is ruining a measure which might have been good, by his preposterous dealing with it. Lord Hartington said (as indeed did John Bright) the very truth, that the Liberal Party cannot so disown its own traditions, and its wisest principles, as to allow an individual, however justly honoured, to concoct secretly from his old and trusted comrades, a vast, complicated, and far-reaching settlement and make himself sole initiator of it (as I have kept saying, reduce Parliament to a machine for saying only Yes and No)…. It is a vile degradation of Parliament. But that is only a small part of the infinite blunder. He pretends that everything has been tried and has failed, except what he now proposes…. In 1880 no one forced him to bring in an Irish measure: he chose to do it, and did it in the worst possible way, by treating the Irish members as ENEMIES, and refusing to consult them. [The Scotch members have never been so treated on Scotch questions.]