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OUR retrospect of
Scotland would not be complete without a more distinct notice than
has yet been given of her ancient universities and her great
periodical reviews and magazines. The two channels of influence may
be appropriately brought together into one view by reason of their
intimate connection, and also of their important bearing on the
intellectual and moral development of the people. As sources of
knowledge and as exponents of public opinion, scarcely anything can
be more essential to the growth and advancement of an educated
people than its schools of the higher culture and its public press
for the utterance of opinion. The one is the institute of the young
from generation to generation to secure for them all the advantages
of discipline in virtue and culture in science and literature; the
other is the institute of adult minds to give them a vehicle of
public thought and bring them into contact with all other educated
minds of the period. As centres of intellectual and moral light, and
as the moulding, and even creative, agencies of public opinion and
national character, the university and the press in every free land
have had an important history through all modern times, and, in the
present condition of the world, they hold a position of supreme
importance.
Scotland has had the
full benefit of each agency —the periodical press in its higher
forms for nearly a century, the university in its various depart-ments
of science and the humanities, or of theology, the arts, law and
medicine, for about four centuries. Of her four great universities,
which from the first were fashioned on a plan not unlike those of
Germany and Holland, the three most ancient, St. Andrews, Glasgow
and Aberdeen, date back to about the middle of the fifteenth
century, whilst that of Edinburgh, the youngest, owes its foundation
to James VI. The three elder institutions were founded during the
times of the Roman Catholic ascendency. One of them, Glasgow, was
nearly annihilated during the Reformation period, but it was
restored by the exertions of Queen Mary and James VI. The University
of Edinburgh, founded after the Reformation, had but little of the
ancient university character, being a professorial seminary on a
royal foundation rather than a society of graduates or students. The
royal charter of foundation placed it in the hands of the
magistrates of the city of Edinburgh, who remained its patrons till
Each of these universities has its bursaries, or scholarships,
though with much smaller endowments than those of England.
In no part of the
world has the value of university education been more thoroughly
tested and more strikingly illustrated than in Scotland. Through all
the centuries of their existence there have been found gathered into
these schools the very elite of Scottish youth from every class of
rich and poor, sons of the nobility, the gentry and the common
people. In a large degree they have had the training of the people
and the formation of that public sentiment, even among the laboring
classes, which has made the Scottish parent look upon scholarship
with respect and desire it for his sons as the highest passport to
distinction, usefulness and honor. The universities have thus been
an open door through which successive generations of talented and
aspiring young men have pressed their way to the highest positions
in the service of the country, and have perpetually filled up the
ranks of law, divinity, medicine, teaching and successful
authorship. The brightest lights of the Scottish pulpit have been
those at every epoch that were kindled at the universities. The
result has been that through all its history the Church in Scotland
has been eminently blest with a learned and godly ministry fully
abreast with the advancing science and literature of the age. A
large proportion of the best British authorship, not only in
theology but in science and literature, has been connected with the
Scottish pulpit and has come of the fostering influences of the
Scottish universities. This has been abundantly illustrated in the
annals of the American churches in all the earlier periods, when our
pulpits and our college-halls were adorned by eminent divines—like
Charles Nisbet and John Witherspoon, John Glendy of Irish birth,
John Mason, and his still more distinguished son John M. Mason, of
New York—born or educated in Scotland.
What is true of the
universities in Scotland as the source of a highly-educated and
influential clergy is equally true as it regards all the other
learned professions. In an eminent degree the leaders of the people
have been trained to thought and activity in these ancient and
renowned schools Much of the intellectual and moral power that has
given life and character to her home-population, and then gone forth
to make that influence felt in other lands, may be traced back to
the universities as the primal well-spring. Statesmen, jurists,
orators, divines, physicians, educators, discoverers, eminent
scientists, great merchants, bankers, publishers, manufacturers and
engineers, as well as soldiers and artisans, have caught that
inspiration which useful knowledge gives to the mind and prepared
themselves for their life-work at these great seats of learning and
religion. Christianity is the world's greatest civilizer.
Christianity can do nothing better for a country after it has once
converted its inhabitants to Christ than when it founds and opens
for youth its permanent institutions of the higher learning. This it
did in Scotland at an early day, and thereby gave the guarantee of
progress and set the seal of its power over an educated people for
all time to come. The Scottish universities have been the centres of
light and influence not only to the educated youth of Scotland, but
in an unusual degree to the young men of England, Ireland and
America. Even to this day, when universities and colleges have been
so multiplied in our own land, it is no uncommon thing for our
talented young men of wealthy families to obtain a part of their
educational finish as students at these universities, especially
that of Edinburgh.
It is certain that
the universities may claim the honor of having trained in almost
every branch of literature and science the men who have made
Scotland illustrious. At these seats of learning they have been
educated, and here, in maturer life, they have lived and taught and
carried forward their profound investigations. The literary,
scientific, philosophical, and even religious, life of Scotland has
gathered around these schools. There could be no complete history of
the Scottish people without taking them into the account. The
periodical literature of Scotland, as represented by the leading
reviews and magazines, belongs to the present century. Through them
Scotland, and especially her little capital, Edinburgh, has uttered
a voice on all the high themes of criticism, philosophy, art,
education, religion, politics and general literature which has been
heard with respect around the globe. In Great Britain there had been
periodical literature of various types during the preceding century,
even back to the times of Johnson and Addison. It was reserved to
the opening years of the nineteenth century, and to the Scottish
metropolis, to inaugurate a new order of publication. The first of
the great organs of opinion made its appearance at Edinburgh in
October, 1802, in the form of the Edinburgh Review. It was the
beginning of that brilliant and popular school of writing which has
gone on increasing its volume and widening its channel of influence
to the present day. Fifteen years later, in the same city, it was
followed by Blackwood's Magazine, the most important of modern
monthly magazines as being, like the Review, the precursor of a long
and famous line. The Review owed its origin to a little coterie of
young men of brilliant genius, some of Scottish and some of English
birth, but mostly lawyers who were then residing at the Scottish
metropolis, where they had pursued their classical and legal
studies.
Prominent in the
number were Henry Brougham, who became lord chancellor of England,
James Grahame, poet of the Sabbath, Mr. Horner, Lords Seymour and
Cockburn, Sydney Smith, the famous wit, a clergyman of the English
Church, who was the first to propose the setting up of the Review
and wrote a large number of its earlier articles, and Francis
Jeffrey, who became identified with it as its chief editor and its
"arch-critic." The first number of the Review startled the public by
its originality, its ability, its vigor and its tone of
independence. "It is impossible," says Lord Cockburn, "for those who
did not live at the time and in the heart of the scene to feel or
understand the impression made by the new luminary or the anxiety
with which its motions were observed. It was an entire and instant
change of everything that the public had been used to in that sort
of composition. The learning of the new journal, its talent, its
spirit, its writing and its independence, were all new; and the
surprise was increased by a work so full of public life springing up
suddenly in a remote part of the kingdom." No one of its
originators, or any one else at that day, could have foreseen or
imagined its long continuance, or the immense results in the
progress of public opinion and the diffusion of intelligence which
were destined to flow from such a publication. It was the
unconscious inauguration of that full, free and fearless discussion
of all matters worthy of inquiry and affecting the public interests
which has now become one of the essential institutes of the
nineteenth century.
The brilliant monthly
magazine originated by William Blackwood of Edinburgh in 1817, and
bearing his name, was as remarkable in its early issues, and created
as profound a sensation on the public mind, as its precursor, the
Review. Its great success, both financial and literary, was largely
due to its versatile and sagacious publisher, Blackwood, who took
the whole risk of the new venture in literature. But his remarkable
powers were fully equal to his task. Never did proprietor and editor
hold the reins with a bolder and a steadier hand, and never did any
publication more surely win its way to popular favor until it became
a living power in the land. Like its great predecessor, it was also
the joint-product of a band of highly-gifted and brilliant young
men, who thus, under the masterly direction of Blackwood, found a
fitting organ for the expression of their original and powerful
thinking. Of this number were John Gibson Lockhart, son-in-law of
Walter Scott, Professor John Wilson, author of the Nodes Ambrosian
and Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, and Sir William Hamilton. A
more brilliant band of critics and writers could not have been found
in the British isles. They at once by their wit and genius gave
character to the magazine. "Its success," says Mrs. Oliphant, "was
immediate. Four thousand copies of the witty organ were sold in a
month. Thus Edinburgh was once more the scene of one of the great
events of modern literary history. All the magazines of more recent
days are the followers and offspring of this periodical, so
audacious in its beginning,, so persistent and permanent in its
influence and power.
This writer, in her
recent work The Literary History of England, has given an admirable
account of the origin and success of these two great Scottish
periodicals. Though they had to contest the field ere long with many
able successors and rivals in England, such as the London Quarterly
and Wertmilzster Reviezv, and the yet abler monthlies of our own
tine, they have still maintained their around in the ancient
capital, and to this day exert no inconsiderable influence on the
opinions of men in both Great Britain and America.
The whole story,
however, is not yet told. In 1844. still another of these great
organs made its appearance in the scholarly and elegant pages of the
North British Review. It grew out of the demands of public opinion
created by the memorable disruption of the Church of Scotland and
the inauguration of the Free Church the year preceding. It became to
a certain extent, though not exclusively, the exponent of the
opinions of the Free Church party, and ranked among its contributors
and supporters the many eminent men, divines and civilians, who had
taken part in the movement. No great review ever sprang into being
under more auspicious circumstances or was sustained by abler men.
From the first it commanded public attention by its weighty mat--ter
and by its moderation and fairness in the discussion of all
important questions. It was learned, dignified, racy and
discriminating, conservatively liberal in opinion, independent in
tone, and yet unreservedly Christian in principle. It became the
exponent of sound philosophy, and the staunch defender of the
Christian faith as held by the Presbyterians of the Free Church of
Scotland. After a brilliant course of more than a quarter of a
century, it gave way in 1871 to the British Quarterly of London, an
able periodical dating from 1845 and advocating substantially the
great Christian principles which had been maintained by the North
British.
These widely-read
periodicals, especially the first two, have unquestionably played a
conspicuous part in the literature of our century. They have been
almost oracular in their influence. While they have contributed much
to give intellectual life and character to Scotland, they have
perhaps contributed still more to awaken the thought, stimulate the
inquiry and form the opinions of thousands of young men in other
lands. They have been the medium through which many of the ablest
writers of the age have addressed the great reading public, and
their utterances, coming; from men of thorough scholarship and
clothed in attractive style, have not been in vain. As organs of the
educated thought of our century, and as exponents of that
influential public opinion which in modern times has so much to do
with the practical administration of the world's affairs, it would
be difficult to name any three great journals which have had a wider
reading and a more potential and decisive influence on
English-speaking men. Through the wide domains of Britain and
America they have never ceased to find thoughtful readers, not only
among intelligent youth, but among representative men in all the
higher classes of society. Nor is it any hesitating and uncertain
voice on the momentous questions of the times which the Scottish
capital has thus sent around the globe.
Before closing this
account of the Edinburgh periodical literature, it is proper to add
that for more than a century the Scottish capital has been the
publishing centre of several of the most widely-known encyclopaedias
of modern times. By its encyclopaedic literature this classic city
of the North has been almost or quite as much a pioneer and a leader
in the advancement and diffusion of useful knowledge as in the
higher criticism it was a guide to open the road and blaze the way
by its reviews and magazines. The universal encyclopaedia, which
aims to condense, classify and publish to the world all that man
knows on every subject, is one of the latest, as it is one of the
most important, forms of literature. It belongs mainly to the latter
centuries of modern history. It has reached its maturity within the
last hundred and fifty years. Though Scotland was not the first to
enter this field, and must yield the precedence here to Germany and
France, still the Scots were early in the field, and Edinburgh in
advance of all other British cities. The first editions of the
famous Encyclopedia Britannica were brought out in ten volumes at
Edinburgh as early as 1776-1783, followed by nine successive
editions to the present day, in which it has grown to twenty-two
volumes. From first to last, this encyclopaedia has been executed
and published in Edinburgh, the literary reputation of which it has
helped in no small degree to increase.
This important work,
which still holds its place in all libraries, public and private,
was followed by the Edinburghi Encyclopcedia, edited by the
distinguished scientist Sir David Brewster, which appeared in 1810,
and was finished in 1830 in eighteen volumes. In all departments of
the physical sciences it was more complete than any preceding work
of the kind. Following this, in 1841-1850, there was also published
in Edinburgh Chambers's Encyclopedia, in ten volumes, founded on the
German Conversations-Lexicon of F. A. Brockhaus, though
substantially a new work. This has been received with favor
throughout Great Britain and America, and in our own country is
found in nearly all libraries.
It is impossible to
estimate, from an educational point of view, the value of this
encyclopaedic literature. No library is now complete without these
compendiums of universal knowledge. By them the world has been
filled with the treasured wisdom of all ages. In them is illustrated
the fine sentiment of Tennyson:
"Yet I doubt not
through the age-, one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of
men are widened with the process of the suns."
Whatever of good has
come to the world by the accumulated stores of learning, Edinburgh
has certainly had much to do in the publication and dissemination of
it by means of the great encyclopaedias. Nor have these been the
only means. Her enterprising publishing-houses have long been known
to the reading world as standing side by side with those of London,
Leipsic and other great centres of literary production, and during
the century the teeming presses of the Ballantynes, Constables,
Nelsons and Clarks of Edinburgh have stood among the foremost in
sending forth in book-forma a pure and elevated literature of the
first order. One generation can scarcely leave a better legacy to
another than the written and published thoughts of its ablest
authors. When the great publishing-house has put these thoughts into
the permanent form of books and given them the widest possible
diffusion, it has done for mankind a service not to be forgotten.
Such a service many of the Edinburgh publishing-houses did for our
own country through much of our earlier history. In science,
philosophy, history, theology and general literature many of our
ablest and most enduring works have emanated from the Scottish
press, and still stand in all their substantial dignity on the
shelves of our libraries. |
