THE

EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED BY JOHN JOHNSTONE.

THE SCHOOLMASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM.

No. 15.-VOL. I. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1832. PRICE THREE-HALFPENCE.

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.

wants of an increased and impoverished population, a large portion of the people have become "self-taught." They took the matter, which seemed nobody's business, into their own hands, and thus practically solved the difficulty of any government ever permanently or effectually enlighten. ing or ameliorating the condition of a people, save through their own agency. And such, on the subject of education, is the impetus now given to the public mind, that were the working people once set at ease, by the unfettering of trade, and lightening of taxation, it might become a question whether they should not, in gene

WITHIN the last twenty years there has been much writing, and interminable speculation and discussion on the propriety of the legislature interfering in the education of the working people, on the wisdom of establishments for national education, and also on the danger of giving the labouring classes any knowledge at all, save of their trades, and the sole duty of blind obedience to their civil and spiritual directors. Timid or prejudiced persons could see nothing but revolt in reading, and a general plunder in writing and accounts. Men of better intellects, and more philanthropic na-ral circumstances, be left to that great Schooltures, took a juster and more enlarged view of the question; and Mr. Brougham, above all other individuals, by his efforts in Parliament and through the press, gave a momentum to the public mind on this important subject which should ever be remembered to his honour. Many good men followed, and co-operated, however they might differ in opinion with the present Lord Chancellor, on the value of some of those objects of which elementary education is but an instrument. The patrons of the Sunday Schools, the Quakers and Phrenologists as societies, and many enlightened individuals from every class, came forward as advocates for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. Education was occasionally made the subject of Parliamentary discussion, and this had its uses, though the legislature did next to nothing. The Lancasterian system arose; the Madras or "Church and King" system followed; Dame Schools, those most useful of all seminaries, where properly managed, were somewhat improved, and a few Infant Schools were instituted in the large towns; while, in Sunday Schools, subsidiary to the main object, the general faculties of the scholars were improved by exercise, and a knowledge of reading was either acquired or perfected. And all this was accomplished by the people themselves, without aid or interference from the state, and little indeed from the aristocracy; and in this way, along with sundry concurring and favouring causes, though no general system of education had been adopted for either England or Ireland, nor that existing, extended in Scotland to meet the

master, the press, with its assistants of Mechanics' institutions, libraries, reading-rooms, and the other machinery of knowledge, which has been carried forward mainly by intelligent artizans themselves. These remarks have been suggested to us by having lately heard of a Mechanic's Hall of Science, projected in Manchester some months since by the artizans of that town; which, as we take it, is intended as a joint-stock seminary, managed by the artizans themselves, where every thing shall be taught necessary to the formation of a good man, and a useful citizen, and promotive of individual and social well-being: a system em. bracing, as we understand it, all a child ought to learn from the period it leaves the infant school till the human being is, as far as school education goes, perfected in intelligence and virtue. The design is worthy of all approbation, and the very idea is proof that education must already have made good progress among those with whom it originated. It shows what is pointed out by many other signs, that the thirst for knowledge among the people was never so strong as now. Nor is it either to shallow or impure sources they repair to allay it. As a sure test of the fitness of the labouring-classes to carry on the work of reformed and extended education which they have happily begun in Manchester, we would invite comparison between the cheap publications which circulate and are popular among them, and those which daily issue from the press for the improvement or gratification of the higher orders. Let us run it at all points, of good taste, style, reasoning, moral feeling, sound princi

"In the progress of the division of labour," says Adam Smith, "the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations; frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war, and the uniformity of his life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him egard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier." And the writer proceeds to contrast with this the superior condition of men in a barbarous society, where life is full of vicissitude and interest. His reasoning is worthy of profound attention. "In such

• We have been informed that there are in Sussex and Kent often

hundred readers for one copy of the Register,

A CHAPTER FOR MARTINMAS TERM.

MAID SERVANTS.

THOSE who complain of English (and Scotch) servants, do
it in ignorance, having none other to compare them with;
and it must be remembered that all good and evil is by
comparison. I have rambled half over the earth's surface,
and beg to assure the good ladies, who labour under the
delusion about the badness of servants, (if I may be allowed
to parody Alfred Tennyson's beautiful song,) that

"There are no maids like English maids,
Such working maids as they be."

as if they were not of the same creation as themselves; and endeavour, on all occasions, to draw as broad a line as possible between them. The foreigners, on the contrary, treat their servants as human beings, and there is a great interest mutually felt in each other's affairs. "Keep the servants at a proper distance, my dear," is the lesson of an English mother to her children; and after that, she too frequently leaves her children to be managed and brought up by the despised servants. Unfortunately, too great is the necessity for keeping the children apart from the servants; for the mode in which the latter are treated begets many vices, which would be perpetuated in the children; for nature is fond of types, and readily takes a lesson of In the United States, good servants may be had, but they evil as well as good. Even external appearance has some must be paid at a much higher rate of wages than in effect; and were I the proprietor of a family of children, I England, and they must be treated much more like human should insist on all the nursery maids being as handsome, beings. The black slaves of the American continent and as well as good, as they could be got. Jealousy, the same isles are not so obedient, so humble, as the free English passion which impels Mrs. Grundy to keep her servants at domestics. The Indians who compose the servants of Peru a distance, also impels her to select them of the most ugly are virtually, though not legally, slaves; and they are kind, and, consequently, her children take after them. stupid and sulien. In most of the countries of Spanish Poor unfortunate woman! how she suffers for her shortAmerica, the domestics are divided into two classes, cria-sightedness.-Junius Redivivus. das and servientes. The former are negresses, either slaves or free; they are occupied in coarse labours, such as cookery, &c. The latter are whites in appearance, though from some tinge of black or Indian blood they rank as mulatas or chinas. With the exception of sitting down to the same table, and intermarrying, they are treated precisely as if they were part of the family, and their duties are confined to the lighter parts of household work, sewing, &c. An English maid-servant going to those countries, as she is of white blood, if she be at all educated, becomes a lady in rank, unless she is obliged to continue a menial, which is rarely the case, especially if she happen to be pretty, for she gets married; but she rarely acquires the grace and sweetness of modulation, in the sound of the voice, pecuHar to all Spanish women; and of which the very negresses seem half to partake. In Buenos Ayres, where servants are scarce, I have known a negress hired by an English family in the morning, at the rate of thirty shillings per month, and in the evening present herself in the sitting room, caparisoned in china crape and silk stockings-not to ask leave-but to give notice that she was going to mass. The English family being greenhorns, refused permission, and quarrelled ere I could interfere.

The consequence was, that the dark-skinned lady gave warning, received her day's wages, and quitted her place, all in five | minutes. The family grew wiser subsequently. Two ungainly, gawky, boarding-school importations, who arrived at the same town with "Pa," after duly taking lessons in housekeeping under a maiden aunt, were delighted with the idea of keeping Pa's house; and as soon as he got one, they hired a servant, a mulata woman; to whom the first order they gave, in broken Spanish, was-to scour all the floors of the house. The mulata, who had never heard of such doings, was horrified, and flatly refused; the damels insisted, and the dingy lady quitted her new situation. She spread the report of the strange ways of the strangers far and wide, and not a servant could they get for love or money. Nothing daunted, these lengthy patterns of good householdery resolved to perform the scrubbing in propria persona. Aprons were made, and they " downed on their knees" to the task of shaming the handmaidens of Buenos Ayres. The result was, they caught a violent cold each, and after three days' futile labour they discovered, thattiled floors were better without scrubbing. They also grew wiser in time. There is one remarkable difference between the servants of England and the servants of the Continent, both of Europe and America. The former are for the most part merely hirelings, whose interest, as they themselves conceive, is in direct opposition to that of their employers. The latter are, with few exceptions, attached by a stronger bond than their mere wages, to their masters and mistresses. In many cases they have been known to peril life and limb in their service; and even with slaves this has frequently been the case. Why is this? Because the English treat their servants with all possible hauteur,

English servants abroad, notwithstanding, the comfort they enjoy, and though travelling as it were en famille, must be struck with the ease and familiar footing on which foreigners live with their domestics, compared with the distance and reserve with which they are treated. The housemaid (la bonne) sits down in the room, or walks abreast with you in the street; and the valet, who waits behind his master's chair at table, gives monsieur his advice or opinion without being asked for it. We need not wonder at this familiarity and freedom, when we consider that those who allowed it could (formerly, at least, when the custom began) send those who transgressed but in the smallest degree to the Bastile or the galleys at their pleasure. The license was attended with impunity. With us the law leaves less to discretion; and, by interposing a real independence (and plea of right) between the servant and master, does away with the appearance of it on the surface of manners. The insolence and tyranny of the aristocracy fell more on the tradespeople and mechanics, who were attached to them by a semblance of feudal ties. Thus an upstart lady of quality (an imitator of the old school) would not deign to speak to a milliner while fitting on her dress, but gave her orders to her waiting-woman to tell her what to do. Can we wonder at twenty Reigns of Terror to efface such a feeling?—New Monthly Magazine. TEMPTATIONS TO WHICH SERVANT GIRLS ARE EXPOSED.-We copy the following observations, written by a lady, and, as we think, of great importance to those who have the well-being of such young persons so much in their power-almost at their mercy:-"Servants have, in common with the rest of the world, the vanities and desires natural to humanity; but while they administer to them in others, they are compelled to control them in themselves. Under such circumstances they do not surely need the aggrave. tion they often meet with from arrogance and irritability. Goaded humanity often bears much ere it falls from virtue; many and bitter are the pangs of hunger often felt before the hand is extended in an act of felony. Many a young and pretty girl tries the effect of a ribbon at her mistress's toilet, and sighs to think how little she can command to aid the beauty with which she seeks to charm her lover. Many living in families in which they enjoy plenty, have parents, sisters, brothers, perhaps children, wanting the common necessaries of life. None but stoics will deny that theso are trials-trials of no common order, and let it not be forgotten, of continual recurrence-the appealing want or wo, the temptations are perpetually present. What then, is there to assure virtue thus vibrating between contending impulses? What but kindness and consideration, which will twine stronger cords around the heart of the dependent than suspicion and penalty ever fabricated to bind the delinquent."

BREVITIES.

For sale, waste paper lying in a loft,
Perceval's speech—particularly soft!

THE BAROMETER.

It is a common notion that the indices of the barometer are as easily to be understood, at a glance, as the handle of a clock; and men who do not understand the instrument, or ladies who have a great washing, or a party of pleasure depending upon what they reckon its flattering faithless promise, are often ready to vent their indignation at bad weather by smashing the barometer, and delivering up its maker a sacrifice to that Prince of the Powers of the Air, whose caprices, he seems so ill to understand. About this season, when the weather becomes so fickle, the barometer lies under peculiar odium, but no one stops to enquire whether the instrument suspended in his parlour, be one constructed upon scientific principles, or a bauble, with a gaudy outside to catch the vulgar, and give rise to what learned people call,

VULGAR ERRORS RESPECTING THE BAROMETER.

We shall see what Dr. Lardner says of these mistakes, and of the misleading directions engraved on the hawked cheap instruments.

Rules

has justified. There is no rule respecting these effects which will hold good.

He began

THE THERMOMETER. FAHRENHEIT.-The first who succeeded in constructing thermometers with adequate skill was Fahrenheit. This ingenious man had been a merchant at Dantzic, and through misfortune failed in business; but having a good taste for mechanics, he removed into Holland, and settled as a phi losophical instrument maker at Amsterdam. with spirit of wine thermometers, which he formed much smaller and neater than had been attempted before. But he soon preferred quick-silver; and having found it to ex pand from freezing water to blood heat, about 60 parts in 10,000, he assumed the number 64, and obtained the de grees by repeated bisections. In this practice he was confirmed, on observing what he considered as extreme cold, to descend just through half that space, or 32 degrees. From a mixture of water, ice, and sal ammoniac, the scale commenced; 32 degrees were allotted for the interval to ice-water, and 64 more for the ascent to blood heat. But he afterwards enlarged the range, and assumed another point from the limit of boiling water, which he placed at the 212th degree in the mean state of the atmosphere, though liable to some variation from the change of barometric pressure. Such was now his confidence in the delicacy of the construction, that he proposed the thermometer as an instrument for ascertaining the heights of mountains from the depressed temperature of boiling water; a very simple method, which has been lately revived by the Rev. Mr.

Wollaston.

MANNERS. D'Archenholtz, in his Tableau de l'Angle terre, asserts that an "Englishman may be discovered any where if he be observed at table, because he places his fork upon the left side of his plate; a Frenchman by using the fork alone without the knife; and a German by planting it perpendicularly into his plate; and a Russian by using it as a tooth-pick." Holding the fork is a national custom, and nations are characterized by their peculiarity in the use of the fork at table. Umbrellas, in my youth, were not ordinary things; few but the macaronis of the day, as the dandies were then called, would venture to display them. For a long while it was not usual for men to carry then without incurring the brand of effeminacy, and they were vulgarly considered as the characteristics of a person whom the mob hugely disliked, namely, a mincing Frenchman! At first, a single umbrella seems to have been kept at a

The barometer has been called a weather-glass. are attempted to be established, by which, from the height of the mercury, the coming state of the weather may be predicted, and we accordingly find the words "Rain," "Fair," "Changeable," "Frost," &c. engraved on the scale attached to common domestic barometers, as if, when the mercury stands at the height marked by these words, the weather is always subject to the vicissitude expressed by them. These marks are, however, entitled to no attention; and it is only surprising to find their use continued in the present times, when knowledge is so widely diffused. They are, in fact, to be ranked scarcely above the vox stellarum, or astrological almanack. Two barometers, one near the level of the river Thames, and the other on the heights of Hampstead, will differ by half an inch; the latter being always half an inch lower than the former. If the words, therefore, engraved upon the plates are to be relied on, similar changes of weather could never happen at these two situations. But what is even more absurd, such a scale would inform us that the weather at the foot of a high building, such as St. Paul's, must always be different from the weather at the top of it. It is observed that changes of weather are indicated, not by the actual height of the mer-coffee-house for some extraordinary occasion-lent as a cury, but by its change of height.-One of the most general, though not absolutely invariable, rules is, that when the mercury is very low, and therefore the atmosphere very light, high winds and storms may be expected. The following rules may generally be relied upon, at least to a certain extent :-1. Generally the rising of the mercury indicates the approach of fair weather; the falling of it shows the approach of foul weather. 2. In sultry weather the fall of the mercury indicates coming thunder. In winter, the rise of the mercury indicates frost. In frost, its fall indicates thaw; and its rise indicates snow. Whatever change of weather suddenly follows a change in the barometer may be expected to last but a short time. Thus, if fair weather follow immediately the rise of the mercury, there will be very little of it; and, in the same way, if foul weather follow the fall of the mercury, it will last but a short time. 4. If fair weather continue for several days, during which the mercury continually falls, a long continuance of foul weather will probably ensue; and again, if foul weather continue for several days, while the mercury continually rises, a long succession of fair weather will probably succeed. 5. A fluctuating and unsettled state in the mercurial column indicates changeable weather. The domestic barometer would become a much more useful instrument, if, instead of the words usually engraved on the plate, a short list of the best established rules, such as the above, accompanied it, which might be either engraved on the plate, or printed on a card. It would be right, however, to express the rules only with that degree of probability which observation of past phenomena

3.

coach or chair in a heavy shower, but not commonly cal
ried by the walkers. The Female Tatler advertises, "the
young gentlemen belonging to the custom-house, who, in
fear of rain, borrowed the umbrella from Wilks' Coffee
house, shall the next time be welcome to the maid's pat
tens." An umbrella, carried by a man, was obviously thin
considered as extreme effeminacy. As late as in 1778, one
John Macdonald, a footman, who has written his own life.
informs us, that when he used "a fine silk umbrella, which
he had brought from Spain, he could not with any comfort
to himself use it; the people calling out, Frenchman!
why don't you get a coach ?" "
The fact was that the
hackney-coachmen and the chairmen joining with the true
esprit de corps, were clamorous against this portentous
rival. This footman, in 1778, gives us further information.
"At this time there were no umbrellas worn in London,
except in noblemen's and gentlemen's houses, where there
was a large one hung in the hall to hold over a lady or
gentleman, if it rained between the door and their car
riage." His sister was compelled to quit his arm one day
from the abuse he drew down on himself and his umbrella.
But he adds, that "he persisted for three months till they
took no further notice of this novelty. Foreigners began
to use theirs, and then the English. Now it is become
great trade in London." This footman, if he does not arro-
gate too much to his own confidence, was the first man dis-
tinguished by carrying and using a silken umbrella. H
is the founder of a most populous school. The state of our
population might now in some degree be ascertained by the
number of umbrellas.-New Monthly Magazine.

MEMORABLE BATTLES.

THE BATTLE OF RONCESVALLES.

favourite attendants, to the farther extremity of the encampment. Even there, all was tumult, and horror, and despair; the obscurity of night increasing the terror of the Persians, who no longer doubted that the detachment conducted by Epialtes had been betrayed by that perfidious Greek; and that the enemy, reinforced by new numbers, now, co-operated with the traitor, and seized the opportunity of assailing their camp, after it had been deprived of the division of Hydarnes, its principal orna

ment and defence.

THE Pyrenees, extending in a continuous line from the Bay of Biscay to the borders of the Mediterranean, rise in a long straight ridge, the superior points of which are but a few yards lower than the summit of Mont Blanc. In the highest part of the chain there are occasional apertures; and from the main body of the mountains, long masses of inferior hills scene of carnage; but it also discovered to them, that their The approach of day discovered to the Persians a dreadfu are projected into the plain country on either side, decreas-fears had multiplied the number of the enemy, who now retreating in height as they proceed, till they become impercepti- ed in close order to the straits of Thermopylæ. Xerxes, bly blended with the level ground around. Between these stimulated by the fury of revenge, gave orders to pursue them; steep natural buttresses, narrow valleys, sometimes spread- and his terrified troops were rather driven than led to the attack, ing out into grand basins, sometimes straitened into de- by the officers who marched behind the several divisions, and files of a few yards in width, wind on towards the only compelled them to advance by menaces, stripes, and blows. passes from one country to another. The roads, skirting The Grecians, animated by their late success, and persuaded along the bases of the hills, which, to the present day, are that they could not possibly escape death on the arrival of those frequently involved in immense and trackless woods, have widest part of the pass, to receive the charge of the enemy. who approached by way of the mountain, bravely halted in the always beneath them a mountain torrent, above which The shock was dreadful, and the battle was maintained on the they are raised, as on a terrace, upon the top of high and side of the Greeks with persevering intrepidity and desperate rugged precipices. A thousand difficulties beset the way valour. After their spears were blunted or broken, they attackon every side, and nature has surrounded the path with ed sword in hand, and their short, but massy and well-tempered every means of ambush and concealment. Mounted on weapons, made an incredible havoc. Their progress was markheavy horses, and loaded with a complete armour of iron, ed by a line of blood, when a barbarian dart pierced the heart the soldiers of Charlemagne returned from their victorious of Leonidas. The contest was no longer for victory and glory, expedition into Spain, and entered the gorges of the Pyre- but for the sacred remains of their king. Four times they disnees, without ever dreaming that an enemy beset their foot-pelled the thickest groups of Persians, but as their unexampled steps. The monarch himself, with the first division of his talions were seen descending the hill, under the conduct of valour was carrying off the inestimable prize, the hostile bathost, was suffered to pass unmolested; but when the second Epialtes. It was now time to prepare for the last effort of body of the Francs, following leisurely at a considerable generous despair. With close order and resolute minds, the distance, had entered the wild and narrow valley called Greeks, all collected in themselves, retired to the narrowest the Roseida Vallis, (now Roncesvalles,) the woods and part of the strait, and took post behind the Phocian wall, on a mountains around them suddenly bristled into life, and rising ground, where a lion of stone was afterwards erected in they were attacked on all sides by the perfidious Gascons, honour of Leonidas. As they performed this movement, fortune, whose light arms, distant arrows, and knowledge of the willing to afford every occasion to display their illustrious merit, country, gave them every advantage over their opponents. obliged them to contend at once against open force and secret in tumult and confusion the Francs were driven into the treachery. The Thebans, whom fear had hitherto restrained bottom of the pass, embarrassed both by their arms and approaching the Persians with outstretched arms, declared that from defection, seized the present opportunity to revolt; and baggage. The Gascons pressed them on every point, and they had always been their friends; that their republic had sent slaughtered them like a herd of deer, singling them out earth and water, as an acknowledgment of their submission to with their arrows from above, and rolling down the rocks Xerxes. As they approached to surrender themselves, many upon their heads. Never wanting in courage, the Francs perished by the darts of the barbarians; the remainder saved a fought to the last man, and died unconquered. Rolando perishing life, by submitting to eternal infamy. Meanwhile the Laand his companions, after a thousand deeds of valour, were cedaemonians and Thespians were assaulted on all sides. The slain with the rest; and the Gascons, satiated with carnage, breaches. Their temerity was punished by instant death. 1 nearest of the enemy beat down the wall, and entered by the and rich in plunder, dispersed among the mountains, leav- this last struggle every Grecian showed the most heroic courage; ing Charlemagne to seek for immediate vengeance in vain. The battle must have been fierce and long, and the struggle and others who survived the engagement, the Spartan Dioneces yet if we believe the unanimous report of some Thessalians, great, though unequal; for, during the lapse of many cen-deserved the prize of valour. When it was observed to him, turies, tradition has hung about the spot, and the memory that the Persian arrows were so numerous, that they intercepted of Rolando and his companions is consecrated in a thousand the light of the sun, he said it was a favourable circumstance, shapes throughout the country. Part of his armour has because the Greeks now fought in the shade. The brothers Al there given name to a flower; the stroke of his sword is pheus and Maron are likewise particularized for their generous hown upon the mountains; the tales and superstitions of contempt of death, and for their distinguished valour and the district are replete with his exploits and with his fame; activity in the service of their country. What these, and other and even had not Ariosto, on the slight basis which history in a body, had already performed; but it became impossible for virtues, could accomplish, the Greeks, both as individuals, and affords, raised up the splendid structure of an immortal them longer to resist the impetuosity and weight of the darts, por, and dedicated it to the name of Rolando, that name and arrows, and other missile weapons, which were continually would still have been repeated through all the valleys of the poured upon them; and they were finally not destroyed or conPyrenees, and ornamented with all the fictions of a thou-quered, but buried under a trophy of Persian arms. Two And years.—James's History of Charlemagne.

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLE.

Ir was now the dead of night, when the Spartans, headed by Leonidas, marched in a close battalion towards the Persian ap, with resentment heightened by despair. Their fury was errible, and rendered still more destructive through the defect of barbarian discipline; for the Persians having neither advancdguards, nor a watchword, nor confidence in each other, were apable of adopting such measures for defence, as the sudden emergency required. Many fell by the Grecian spear, but ach greater multitudes by the mistaken rage of their own ops, by whom, in the midst of this blind confusion, they t not be distinguished from enemies. The Greeks, wearied with slaughter, penetrated to the royal pavilion ; but there the best alarm of noise had been readily perceived, amidst the proLand silence and tranquillity which usually reigned in the tent * Xerxes; the great king had immediately escaped, with his

monuments were afterwards erected near the spot where they fell; the inscription of the first announced the valour of a handful of Greeks, who had resisted three millions of barbarians:

the second was peculiar to the Spartans, and contained thes memorable words: "Go, stranger, and declare to the Lacedæ

monians, that we died here in obedience to their divine laws."

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON, AND DEFEAT OF THE PERSIANS.

THE Continual dread of tyrants had taught the jealous republican of Greece to blend, on every occasion, their civil with their military institutions. Governed by this principle, the Athenians, elected ten generals, who were invested, each in his turn, with the supreme command. This regulation was extremely unfavourable to that unity of design which ought to pervade all the successive operations of an army; an inconvenience which struck the discerning mind of Aristides, who on this occasion displayed the first openings of his illustrious character. The day approach. ing when it belonged to him to assume the successive command,