Five Years at an English University. By Charles Astor Bristed [pp. 294-311]

Five Years in an English University.
gained by the delay, his work might as well have been written
at the beginning as at the end of the quinquennium. During
these five years he certainly should have learned the particular
points in English University life, which are most interesting to
Americans who have not enjoyed the same advantages with
himself, and in regard to which they would look to him for
information. Yet, as we have already hinted, the work is for
the most part written as if intended for circulation in Cambridge rather than New York. Occasional explanations indeed
occur, but they are not always as lucid as they might be, and
are never well arranged. Indeed Mr. Bristed himself confesses
that there is an entire absence of the "lucidus ordo," which
one of his favourite authors says will never be wanting in the
writings of those who have wisely chosen and thoroughly studied
their subject: and he endeavours to disarm criticism by the
statement that he never had any taste for mathematics. But
admitting the plea to be a good one, Mr. Bristed should have
considered that the whole tone of his book is such as to invite
his American readers to look upon himself as a sort of exponent
of the system of education which he so loudly praises, and to
measure its value by what it has done for him. In the strictly
narrative parts these volumes are very readable, but when Mr.
Bristed undertakes to discuss the topics involved in the comparison of the English and American methods of education,
while he still amuses us, he makes it very obvious that he has
never studied mathematics, and that he has but partially gained
the great end of classical training. He cannot reason. Before
we are aware, he is away from the subject in hand, arguing (in
his own way) with Mr. Horace Greely the question whether a
man can be considered educated who knows not how to plant
potatoes, or else showing up the follies of the Cambridge Camden Society, or those of Puseyism in general.
Many of our readers will perhaps be disposed to ask, Who is
Mlr. Bristed? In reply to the inquiry we may state that he is
a grandson of the late well known millionaire Mr. John Jacob
Astor. He was educated, as he himself informs us, with a view
to entering Columbia College, New York, but for some reason
was sent to Yale, where he resided four years. After graduat
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