privilege or immunity. On the other hand one who went without his fair quota of provisions, &c. to a public festival, such as were common in the temples of ancient times, was justly held to be deficient in generosity. So far all has been tolerably smooth. The chief difficulty presents itself when we come to the words munire, moenia, murus; and this simply because of the assumption that munire has for its primitive meaning "to fortify." Now the phrase munire viam, which by the way is one of frequent occurrence, meant rather "to make a (new) road than "to fortify (an old one)"; and we even find the original sense of "to divide" in this verb. When any large work, whether of a civil or military nature, is to be performed, one of the first duties is to divide it off into portions, on which the several labourers are to work. To divide in this way, we believe to have been the first sense of munire, and thus we see both why a plural mœnia should be employed to denote the whole of the work done, and why the word should be applicable to the fosses, embankments, &c., as well as to the walls. Still among fortifications a wall of course occupies a marked position, so that it is not surprising if moenia commonly denotes "walls," and murus always.*

But it remains to detect the verb whence all these derivatives flow. The Greek language at once supplies what is wanted in the obsolete verb μείρω, portion out,” whence μερος, μοιρα, ειμαρμένος. But in

the Latin also we find abundant traces of our verb. The very verb men-, measure," which we considered at the outset of the present paper, seems to have signified "to divide " before it obtained the other meaning, "to measure." At any rate metiri means "to mete or measure out, to divide ;" and if it be said that this is a peculiar meaning of metiri, we answer that all measuring implies dividing, and in proof we need only refer to the problem, whether geometrical or arithmetical, of finding the greatest common measure. From the same hase men- "divide" we also derive the word mem-bro-+ "a part, member or limb." The Greek μero- "divided, middle," is another related word, and consequently the two Latin words medio-, and dimidio- are also from this source.‡

The Latin adjective tener has been distorted as to meaning by Lünemann under the bias of an incorrect etymology. His article begins: Těner, a, um (teneo) I) was den gemachten Eindruck leicht behält, zart, weich, &c., "what easily retains the mark of an impression made

* The substance of this is from the Trans. of the Philolog. Soc. vol. iii. p. 205. †That membrana comes from membro- (nom. membrum) seems strongly supported by the form of the two words; and if we regard membrum as a division, we see how it is that membrana means a thin membrane. Lünemann however was not very nice in tracing the meaning of the word. Boldly following out his etymology from membrum, "a limb," he gives as the first translation of membrana," the skin or membrane that covers the limbs" (die Haut oder das Häutchen womit die Glieder überzogen sind); and in proof of this translation he quotes from Cicero :-" Natura oculos membranis tenuissimis vestivit." This is a bold jump from the ordinary skin to the delicate covering of the eye-ball.

In the last paper we dealt with the derivatives of the obsolete verb men- " mind." This also may be a secondary meaning cf men-, measure, survey," so that the three obsolete verbs, men- "divide," men- " measure," and men- " mind, notice," all fall together.

upon it." The word however has no relation to the verb teneo. A different view is given by Messrs. Liddell and Scott under the word Tεрηy, where tener is connected with the verb terere "to rub." Not a few objects by dint of rubbing or repeated pressure become soft or yielding, as wax, lemons, leather, &c.; and the change from a form ter-ero- or Tεp-Epo to ten-ero- and repɛv- was an excusable mode of avoiding the repetition of the r. Still we should be better pleased to find a verb signifying "to soak or to wet," which would be in keeping with the adjective repauwv "soft (as from boiling). Even Forcellini saw the identity of repηy and tener, and he further mentions, that the Sabines used to say terenum for tenerum, for which we have the authority of Favorinus in Macrob. Sat. II. 14. Of course the idea of soft must not be confounded with that of mere smoothness. Marble for example may be polished until it is thoroughly laevis, but it is still durus, the opposite of tener. The adjective, which is really formed from ten-, the base of tendo and teneo, is tenuis, where the notion of thinness is easily deduced from that of stretching. Unfortunately the true meaning of tenere is often lost sight of; people forgetting or not knowing that it means to hold with a tight grasp," and so essentially differs from habere, while it stands in immediate connection with tendere, " to stretch." CLAUDIUS.

66

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

No. II.

We were speaking, as the reader may remember, of such opinions expressed by clever men, as have, no doubt, from time to time influenced the public mind, with reference to the subject of corporal correction.

Jonson was great as a poet, great as a scholar; like Milton, he condescended to write a grammar; as an amateur he delighted to contemplate the subject of education: on the subject of punishment he expresses himself as follows:

"Give me that wit whom praise excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves ; he is to be nourished with ambition, pricked forward with honour, checked with reprehension, and never to be suspected of sloth. Though he be given to play, it is a sign of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of their sports and relaxations. And from the rod, or ferule, I would have them free, as from the menace of them, for it is both deformed and servile.”*

Not to mention the somewhat loose and rapid transition from a genius of a certain order, who might easily be taught without castigation, to an apparently universal conclusion with regard to boys in general, who, we think, occasionally require it, he here allows of reprehension, which a page or two before in the same work he had condemned as follows:

"A youth should not be made to hate study before he knows the causes to love it, or taste the bitterness before the sweet, but called on, and allured,

* Jonson's Explorata.

and treated, and praised, yea when he deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, which I think the best."

Let any experienced man imagine for a moment the state of a public school conducted on the principles just enunciated. As, however, after writing one page he has granted us "reprehension," had he written many more on the subject, which he has not, he might have come to an agreement with Solomon, and with his own great cotemporary, whose opinion with regard to corporal punishment is perhaps indicated in the following lines:

"Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight

For terror, not for use, in time the rod

Becomes more mocked than feared, so our decrees
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,

And liberty plucks justice by the nose;

The baby beats the nurse; and quite athwart
Goes all decorum."*

We have made the above quotations from Jonson, to show how carelessly clever, but unpractised men, throw out their remarks on the subject of discipline. One more instance from the writings of a favourite of our own day, the author of "Sartor Resartus." After certain sneers at "mechanical gerund-grinders, the like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be manufactured at Nurnberg out of wood and leather," he tells us, that

The Hinterschlag professors knew syntax enough, and of the human soul, thus much; that it had a faculty called memory, and could be acted upon through the muscular integuments, by appliance of birch rods. Alas! so is it every where, so will it ever be, till the hodsman is discharged, or reduced to hod-bearing, and an architect is hired, and on all hands fitly encouraged; till communities and individuals discover, that fashioning the souls of a generation by knowledge can rank on a level with blowing their bodies to pieces with gunpowder."+

The latter part of the passage may appear somewhat unintelligible, but we will warrant that it is equal in sense to the former. By the Hinterschlag professors are of course typified schoolmasters in general, and, if we must view the question psychologically, we will do many of them the justice of saying, that they have not the slightest idea that either the memory, or the understanding, or the imitative, or imaginative, or any other faculty, is acted upon immediately either by ferule, rattan, birch, whip-cord, or leather; but they have a tolerably clear and well-grounded notion, that the will is; and to this decision Mr. Carlyle might probably come, if it were his calling, instead of enlightening the age in general, to superintend even forty boys in the decided acquisition of certain specific branches of knowledge, honestly, to the full extent of his own and their capacity—a conclusion to which we the more readily incline from the general tenour of this author's works, wherein he all but idolizes strong will, and determined authority, and dooms to swift

*Shakespeare, Measure for Measure.

Sartor Resartus.

precipitation over London Bridge* all those classes who refuse to allow themselves to be improved. Or is it demanded of us to assent to both propositions, that the obstinately idle man may be massacred, and that the obstinately idle boy may not be whipped?

Perhaps we ought not to omit mentioning that famous dinner party at Windsor Castle, where some of the greatest ministers and ambassadors of Elizabeth's court amused themselves with chatting on the subject of corporal punishment, much as the committee-men of a proprietary school might do, and often have done in the present day over their wine and walnuts. Cecil was there, and the great scholar Haddon, Petre, and Sir Richard Sackville (who had attained his honours, as he thought, in spite of the rod, rather than by its agency), with other men of note. Amongst them was Roger Ascham,† who records the occurrence. The fact that certain Eton scholars had fled from school" for fear of beating," had led to this discussion, into the details of which we have not space to enter-nor, indeed, are many of the arguments stated. Opinions were divided, but it is only fair to say that Ascham appears to have carried rather a majority in favour of some more lenient plan than that of the rod. For this, after the party broke up, he received the special thanks of Sackville, privately, who told him, that " he would not for a great deal of monie have been that day absent from dinner." Some of Ascham's subsequent remarks on the frequent abuse of corporal punishment, are certainly very excellent. He was not without experience, but his province was that of a tutor at college and at court, not of a schoolmaster to a collection of boys of all ages. We do not therefore bow to his opinion on the general question, nor to that of his partizans in the argument, whose very talents might in a measure prevent them from appreciating the difficulties of teaching, and of learning. We may just add, that the opinion ran boldly counter to the common court theory. The name of Prince Edward's (Edward VI.) whipping boy ‡ is recorded; he is quaintly called by Fuller the Prince's "proxy for correction," and when Barnaby Fitzpatrick was discharged from an office, which Edward's disposition probably made almost a sinecure, he was much distinguished by the kindness of the prince. Even English mothers had long been accustomed to speak firmly and somewhat sternly on this question. In the reign of Henry the Sixth Lady Agnes Paston writes as follows:-§

"Pray Greenfield (the master) to send me faithfully word by writing, how Clement Paston hath done his endeavour in learning; and if he have not done well, nor will not amend, pray him that he will truly belash him till he will amend; and so did the last master, and the best that ever he had at Cambridge."

Whilst the dilettante conversation on corporal punishment recorded above was going on, it was perhaps with boys of Master Clement Paston's disposition that the master of Eton had to deal. That master was probably Nicholas Udale, a famous scholar, and declared by

* Latter Day Pamphlets.

+ Ascham's Works.

Introduction to the Schoolmaster.

Tytler's Edward VI. and Mary.

§ Paston Letters, vol. xxxv., I., p. 143. Clement Paston was of about the age of fifteen when this direction was given.

Mason, nemine contradicente at the dinner table, to be the best schoolmaster of his day.

*

So while Busby, whom the pious Philip Henry pronounces to have been a conscientious, as well as a clever man, was by his earnest labours, and by his fixed determination that his scholars should labour in earnest too, rearing in Westminster a greater number of distinguished ment than it has probably ever been the lot of any one school to produce, under one dynasty; he was earning from speculators on education the title of an unfeeling pedant; perhaps they thought that he was bent upon expiating upon his scholars' backs the sufferings of his predecessor Osbaldiston. We have before mentioned the case of Erasmus, and another eminent master, Lilly, of St. Paul's. Besides the ordinary objections to corporal punishment, it would seem that every looker-on in cases of this kind, is jealous of the agent, feeling in himself that power of measure and proportion, for which he will not give another credit. So it is often in the case of severity to the inferior animals. In fact, there are few matters of action in which, as lookerson, we are not disposed to interfere, and to check the too little or too much in the conduct of others which we either see, or anticipate, and we are often disposed to take away entirely that power of which we cannot ourselves regulate the exercise. Many a man has been made an opponent of corporal punishment from the mere dread of its abuse.

But to come more immediately to the sentiments of our own day on the subject of discipline. Never was there a period in which the intelligent classes have been more disposed to take an active part in educational measures. The result has not been on the whole calculated to increase our deference for public opinion in these matters. Probably the greatest educational movement ever made in their own behalf by the middle classes, was that which set on foot the proprietary schoolsa plausible and in some few instances a successful experiment; that is, where the governing body has been tolerably pacific, and where the neighbouring population has been large. In these schools the committees, for the most part, reserved in their own hands the right of occasional interference, i. e., the right of letting their common sense overrule that of the practical and responsible man, in various details, and in none more than those of discipline. The attempt on the whole has been a failure. In most cases the most ordinary boarding speculator, and the merest creature of scholastic technicalities, has been more successful than the proprietary school, with its warranted masters, and powerful and interested connection. More confidence

* Busby does not appear to have been an undiscriminating flogger. "Mr. Henry would say that, as in so great a school there was need of a strict discipline, so, for his own part, for the four years he was at school, he never felt the weight of his hand but once, and then he deserved it." Speaking of Busby himself, he says, "I believe I have as much reason to bless God for him, as any scholar he ever had." There was no part of his life which he did more frequently speak of with pleasure, than the years he spent at Westminster School.-Williams's Life of Ph. Henry. + The reader may refer to Johnson's Lives.

Osbaldiston, Head Master of Westminster, who with Burton, Prynne, Leighton (the Archbishop's father), and Bastwick, was mutilated, by sentence of the Star Chamber.