CHAPTER IX.

POPULAR EDUCATION AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.

A.D. 1819-1830.

Marriage Elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University-Edinburgh Banquet-Anecdotes of Brougham's Versatility and Capacity for Work-Appointed King's Counsel-Bill for National Education -Foundation of the London Mechanics' Institution-Dr. Birkbeck -The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge-Partial Departure from its First Programme-The University of London. We have omitted to record in its proper place an important act of Brougham's life. Like two other English Lord Chancellors of our century, Lord Brougham ran off with his wife and married her across the Border. In his case, it was no blushing maiden whom he induced to fly with him. The fair runaway was a widow, having already been the wife of John Spalding, Esq. She was the granddaughter of John Eden, Esq., and the sister of Lords Auckland and Henley. Mrs. Spalding became Mrs. Brougham in an inn at Coldstream—a small town just across the Tweed-in the year 1819. Two daughters

were the fruit of this marriage, but they both died many years ere the decease of their parents. By a gracious act of Queen Victoria, a new patent of nobility was conferred on Lord Brougham, by which his title descends with his property to his younger brother and his male issue. That we may not again interrupt the course of our narrative of his public labours, we may here state that Brougham's

mother, who was "a woman of talent and delightful character," lived on until some years after her son had reached the pinnacle of his popularity. Mrs. Brougham, senior, died in 1839. We have already recorded the death of her husband in the year in which their son first entered Parliament.

In 1825 Mr. Brougham was brought forward by some youthful Scottish admirers as a candidate for the Lord Rectorship of the University of Glasgow. Others of the students supported Sir Walter Scott. Two of the four "nations" voted for Brougham; two for the Tory minstrel and novelist. The outgoing Lord Rector had to decide between the two parties by his casting vote. Sir James Macintosh, who was the retiring academic dignitary, decided that Brougham was the preferable competitor. The address which he delivered on the occasion of his installation is of great merit, and its excellence is the more wonderful that it was composed at intervals snatched from the engrossing legal labours of the Northern Circuit. Many stories are current of the extraordinary manner in which Brougham prepared some of his most popular and estimable literary productions under circumstances of similar difficulty. In one night, after a hard day's canvassing among the freeholders of Westmoreland, he wrote a complete article on (we believe) a somewhat intricate scientific subject, for the Edinburgh Review. On another occasion, when he contested the county of York, he addressed eight meetings in one day, posted to York by night, and, having travelled a hundred and twenty miles within twenty-four hours, conducted an important case at the assizes in the morning. Again we hear of him residing with a peer for a few days, and devoting appa

rently every hour to political business that he could spare from the study of a load of briefs which he had brought with him; yet, all the while, writing long letters on subjects connected with the higher mathematics to a younger brother then at college. From another, and a reliable, source we learn that during the busiest period of the circuit, he not only gave full directions for the agricultural series of publications issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, but actually wrote himself the treatise on sheep-shearing and wool, as a practical exemplification of his general injunctions.

The old friends and admirers of Mr. Brougham in his native city took advantage of his presence in Scotland to invite him to a complimentary banquet. "Harry Cockburn," as his fellow-citizens loved to call him, to whose "Memorials," and "Life of Jeffrey," we have been so much indebted for many of the facts contained in our earlier chapters, presided. He thus handsomely and felicitously gave expression to the common sentiment of those who had assembled to do honour to their townsman. After alluding to Brougham's departure from Edinburgh, Cockburn said :

From that day to this, our accomplished friend has gone on in the display of successive achievements, of such brilliancy that the preceding one seemed so great that it was deemed impossible to be surpassed, until the succeeding one eclipsed it with its glory; until, at last, he exhibited, in his pregnant history of mental progress, one of the noblest and most cheering spectacles which a free country could present in her annals-the spectacle of a young man going forth into public life, supported by his principles and talents alone, and triumphing in their independent success. So advancing, without the advantages of a great private fortune, or hereditary connections, but merely by innate worth, by a sagacious selection of his objects, and the abilities with which he pursued and enforced them; acquiring in this pure and gratifying way

an influence over his countrymen greater, far greater, than was ever obtained on any previous occasion, merely by the single aid of the resources of a single man.

The statement of one further incident in Brougham's personal-or, rather, professional-life, will permit us to return to the more important sphere of his public labours. His appointment of Attorney-General to the Queen had given him precedence at the bar in the same rank as King's Counsel. This he lost when his regal client died. It would have been an act of common justice to have called him within the bar in the ordinary way, when he was thus reduced to the stuff gown. Not, however, until 1827-long after the amount of his practice had entitled him to the position-was he made a King's Counsel. For this recognition of his professional claims and position, he was indebted to the generosity, or rather the justice, of Canning.

The years between 1820 and 1830 witnessed Brougham's unsuccessful endeavour to establish a gratuitous system of education; but also the establishment of the University of London, the London Mechanics' Institution, and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1820 Brougham-who within twelve months had lashed so mercilessly certain of the established clergy in his speech in defence of Ambrose Williams, at Durham-introduced a Bill for "the education of the poor in England and Wales," under the provisions of which the absolute control of the system would have been handed over to the clergy. His famous committee had reported that ten per cent. of the population ought to be under instruction, whereas only six per cent. were at school. This

information had been exclusively derived from the clergy, and it would seem as if they had had much to do with the concoction of the remedial measure. The proposed national schools were to have schoolmasters recommended by the incumbents of parishes, and every teacher was, upon his appointment, to take the sacrament at the hands of a minister of the national religion. It may be fair to accept the extreme desire of Brougham to provide a national system, with whatever restrictions it might be hampered, as a substantial condonation of the intolerant provisions of this measure; but no one can regret that —thanks to the resolute opposition of the Nonconformists-the Bill was withdrawn ere its second reading. About this time a belief began to grow in many quarters that school training is but a part of the education of the man; and that there was a great need of some device by which adults, especially of the artisan class, might pursue their youthful training, or remedy the want of it, and receive in the intervals of their labour scientific instruction, which should at once expand their minds and cultivate their faculties, and be turned to practical account in their several vocations. More than a score of years before, in a distant city of the empire, one philanthropic man of science had laid the first humble foundation of Mechanics' Institutions. Dr. Birkbeck was Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Andersonian University of Glasgow, an extra-academical but most excellent school of physical science and medical education. In 1800 he commenced a course of popular lectures on two evenings in the week, and also " 'a series of lectures on the mechanical properties of solid and fluid bodies, abounding with experiments." Both courses were solely