Page:The Cornhill magazine (Volume 1).djvu/404

 to W. Cooke Taylor, in which he criticized very severely the habits of such societies, condemning them in the most emphatic manner, as fostering an absurd spirit of pride and dogmatism in youthful minds. If his views are sound, and if that vote of the Speculative Society may be taken as a specimen of the rest, then it must be confessed that the Scottish students are in a very bad way, for they work in these societies more perhaps than the students of any other country. Through the want of society they form societies, and sedulously set themselves to cultivate the great social faculties of speaking and writing. Perhaps Dr. Whately overrates the amount of dogmatism and precipitancy which come of these youthful debates, while he most certainly undervalues the mental stimulus and the advantage of early training in the art of expression. His remarks, moreover, had no special reference to Scotland; and even he would probably admit, that considering the unsatisfied craving of the Scottish undergraduate for student life, these debating societies render an important service which may well cover a multitude of faults.

In the educational system itself, however, there will be found compensations for the defects of the social system. Here I refer to the study of the human mind, which is pursued with great ardour in the Scottish universities. It is supposed in England, that Scotch students are fed on metaphysics, and the mistake receives a colour from the fact that there are so many professors of metaphysics. The title is a misnomer. The whole of Scotch philosophy is a protest against metaphysics as an impossible, or at least a useless study. What a professor, in the chair of metaphysics, teaches, is simply psychology—that is to say, the natural history of the human mind, the delineation of human character. All the processes of thought, all the motives to action are examined in turn. Ideas are traced to their origin, feelings are carefully scrutinized, words are weighed, character is dissected, and in its theory the whole of human life and of the human heart is laid bare to the student. Call this philosophy, if you please—just as a discussion on guano is called the philosophy of manure—but what is it in reality? It is generalized biography. It is a means of supplying in theory what the Scottish students have, at their time of life, few opportunities of acquiring in practice—a knowledge of men. Not enjoying the social advantages of English students, they have, as a compensation, educational advantages which are not to be found in the English universities. It is useless to inquire which is better—a knowledge of men obtained in the contact of society, or a knowledge of men obtained in the scientific analysis of the class-room. Neither the one nor the other is complete in itself; but the great advantage of studying character systematically in early life is this—that it is putting a key into a young man's hand by which afterwards, when he mixes with men, he will more easily understand them, and unlock the secrets of their hearts. Without that key, he will long knock about amongst his fellows, mistaking motives, misinterpreting acts, confounding affections, and failing to form a correct estimate of the persons he meets—*