Untitled - Electric Scotland

icS LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. iv.
to our regular work, for they were full of character, and the very
style of lecturing in those days served as a sort of moral link
between him and his pupils. This old style is now, I believe, a
thing of the past ; and I have no doubt that the new one, where
the number of hearers amounts to one or two hundred, is of a
much more learned and professorial character. But I may be
allowed to doubt whether, given a really able man, the lectures
in a tutor s own room to a class of some eighteen or twenty
pupils, who were sure to be well shown up if they had not pre
pared their work, were not a thoroughly effective style of teaching;
and I am disposed to agree with the dictum of a Conservative
friend and brother Dean, whose name would carry a great deal
of weight, and who is fond of : saying They may talk as they
like about their new styles of teaching, but my notion of a
good education is what we used to Scott.
get
"
from dear old Tait and
I don t know, my dear Dean, whether these remembrances, on
which I feel I have dwelt too long with an old man s fondness, will
have given you a true idea of the position which Tait had at
Oxford. But putting aside, as far as I can, the feelings of a
deep personal attachment, I should say that he was then a man
of marked character rather than of the genius which distinctly
influences others thoroughly Scotch in its independence, its
caution, and its reserve of expression, but also with a reserve of
to the man himself a character which
power which belonged
was sure to grow, and, in the best sense of the word, be successful.
I ought to add that he left Oxford before he was thirty, and that
on the only public occasion which called him forth (rightly or
wrongly), the protest against No. xc., he had shown great deci
sion. It was his quiet power, however, which I myself always
felt most strongly combined, of course, with other great moral
qualities for he always seemed to me to rise to the occasion,
whatever it might be ; and I felt confident, both when he went
to Rugby, and when he was made Bishop of London, that,
though he would make some mistakes, his force and dignity of
character, his quiet self-confidence, and his strong good sense
the great quality in which he most believed would ensure his
success. May I be excused for mentioning a conversation which
I well remember with Mr. Gladstone, on Tait s appointment to
London in 1856, when he was much annoyed at Tait s being
preferred to Bishop Wilberforce and of which he reminded me