"What constitutes a State?

Not high raised battlement, or laboured mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate,

Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports

Where laughing at the storm rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride;
No-Men, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,-
Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain :
These constitute a State !

And Sovereign Law, that State's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill."*

Instead, then, of seeking national education, -a figment, hopeless as the secrets which darker ages frivolously pursued,-let us gird ourselves for the glorious enterprise of educating more extensively, and, above all, more perfectly, the people of our land. Let not any factious statements, any ill-pondered charges, induce us to take up the flattering extreme. There

Sir William Jones. The thought he confesses to be taken, and the poem imitated, from Lycæus.-Cicero has a similar idea in his Letters to Atticus: "Non est in parietibus Respublica."-Lib. vii. 11.

is evil in the city, and throughout every region round about. Much is to be done. Liberal things must be devised. Personal exertions must be engaged. Our country grievously falls below its true altitude. By its privileges it is exalted to heaven. Why, then, the many recesses into which heaven's splendour has not pierced? Why, then, the many wastes upon which heaven's verdure does not bloom? Have we not suffered to grow up among us an anomalous state of things? We may find some excuse in the want of precedent. History holds out no light. Experience suggests no rule. But still, has the evil dilated itself before us! It is two-fold: the disparity of old means to meet new combinations, and the constant degeneracy of a certain number of the population into pauperism and recklessness. The plague must be stayed. Education does not stand alone: it marches on with a glorious fellowship. Yet more or less formally it enters into every remedy. Man must be made his own friend and healer. Melioration can alone proceed from himself. But how can this be, save as he becomes a creature of intelligent and virtuous aims? How can he become this, "except some man shall guide" him?

Let us ransack the purlieus of misery and squalor : let us plead the cause of the outcast poor. In all our towns and cities there is a fearful deterioration going on. There sinks away a mass of human beings in indescribable degradation. They have reached, through rapid descents, the lowest point. A moody despair sits

upon their spirit, or a fierce recklessness awakes it. Revenge is in their hearts. It may be succeeded by sullen apathy. Decency is defied. Shame is lost. What educatory means, though built before their doors, can avail them? The simplest stipulations would preclude the attendance of these children. Demand of them cleanliness and the plainest clothing, to say nothing of payment, and they are hopelessly debarred. It will be impossible to associate them with the offspring of the operative. Yet must they perish? Honour to those who call them together in their tatters and their rags! Honour to the delicate woman, the heiress of title and opulence, who is seen, by her smile and her accent, winning the ruffian child into order and consent! Does earth contain a more angelic spectacle of disinterested grace? Why should not these asylums be multiplied? Is there only occasion for them in the crowded town? In the village population, there is the same lawless indigence. Families, from whatever cause, are bowed to the earth. They have witnessed their last dilapidation. The tempter stands at their side. They can dare the worst. The poacher, the rick-burner, the felon,--their prowl is like that of the wild beast. They are dreaded of all. Not to the neat and peaceful school-house can their little ones be allured: into it they could not be allowed to pass. Let education

become a servant to all." Let it learn every art of accommodation. "To the weak, let it become weak." None must we neglect who share an immortal lot with

Y

us of none of that race must we despair for which a Saviour died!

In the neighbourhood of Hamburg, there exists an institution, called Rauhe Haus, which is a model for such a humbling charity. Mr. J. H. Wickern is its founder. It is a school for the children of the lowest class, those who have been trained in infamy, and have never known the domestic relation, save in the most brutal, or in worse than brutal, form. The system is that of a family, or of families. They are taught to learn every thing by labour. They are well instructed in general knowledge. They are encouraged in all independent feeling. Great confidence is reposed in them. Nearly every thing is left to their honour. And well have they merited and repaid this generous consideration. In the recent fire, these pupils were the most daring adventurers in arresting the conflagration, and the most assiduous comforters of the distressed.

Very determinately should we put away from us all the chafings of party strife. Let us devote ourselves to the momentous duty in its own spirit. Be not accusation met with accusation. Return not suspicion for suspicion. Let past recriminations be forgotten. Dc that which is right, whomsoever you imitate. Act for the greatest good, with whomsoever you coalesce. Thoroughly sift and cleanse and apply the question. Blot out the past. Forget reproach and indignity. Prove that you have at heart the education of the country; and that no danger shall daunt, no sophistry shall

divert, no labour shall weary, no failure shall depress, you in carrying it into effect.

Still we feel that the mind of the nation is misunderstood. The moral worth which it contains is credited not. The habits and tastes of its truly influential classes, are not comprehended. Our statesmen stand afar off. They are too well expounded by that most ignoble and pestilent principle of the late George Canning, avowed by him before the multitudes of his Constituency, that his "idea of the true domestic policy was to do every thing for the people, but as little as possible by them." They do not associate and sympathise with those they rule. They seldom speak of them without gross error. They know almost nothing of the

inner life of society. Chiefly are they wrong in their own selfish nature, and in the estimate which they have formed of human nature, as only selfish. Their maxims are all like this. They scarcely see any but the courtier, the sycophant, the pensioner. They, therefore, cannot conceive the spirit of Christian benevolence. They dare not commit any cause to the spontaneousness of popular support. Their distrust of private, voluntary; agencies, is angry and scornful. Oh they know not the nation's heart! They blind themselves to that force of principle which, instead of running itself to waste, only increases in strength as it expands in compass! If they will but give the people credit for qualities, which are no estrangement from national character, which are no redundance to Christian pro