bable evils; though, were they simply possible, the sagacious and the provident of the future, would resist But But expe

a principle which could be so applied. rience is not silent upon these effects.

principle had been

The Executive Government of this kingdom, in taking up the matter of national education, has been severely blamed. We deem it capable of some defence. We are quite sure, save towards a certain department, that the blame has been too unmeasured. We ask, Was it not again and again urged upon the attention of the State? Was not the neglect of it as often laid to its charge? Was it not provoked into it by taunt and invective? Did not a moral impeachment hang over it? All sides, all parties, averred the duty of the government to interfere. Besides, it was the less blameworthy in that the already enacted. Compulsory education was recognised in the Factory Bill. That clause might be of very contracted power. The complaint was very general, not that the clause was legislated, but that it was so inoperative. All the while, that which we condemn was largely approved. The grievance was felt, not that it was done at all, but not done with a just efficiency. Our rulers might well rebuke us for suffering them to assume a false, as the public, opinion, for silently and unreproachingly beholding the germ of what we allege to be so immense an evil, for our inconsistency, or our cowardice. "We do remember our faults this day."

It may now be proper to expose, by facts, the reasoning which we have assailed in abstractions. National education does exist in many of the Continental States. It has operated long enough for decided effects to be seen. There is abundance of organization. There are grand Referendaries. There are portfeuilles and bureaux. Local check is unknown. Self-government is repudiated. All hangs upon one centre. Let us examine the great scholastic regimen of France. There is a Minister of Public Instruction. He is the Master of the University, which is the keystone to the whole edifice of education. It has dependent upon it, academies, royal colleges, communal colleges, institutions, pensions, primary schools. A Royal Council assists the Minister. The seven functionaries, of which it consists, divide the faculties and departments of education among them. Under them are inspectors-general. Then the Heads of the academies are constituted over their respective provinces. All is detail and surveillance. There is nothing which can elude the jealous care of the most balanced system. But freedom is sacrificed on the elaborate altar. Teacher and pupil cannot know it. The school is the ward of one great, panoptic, prisonhouse, with the keepers before the door. The work of Professor Lorain gives a deplorable account of the state of things. He was one of four hundred and ninety inspectors sent forth by Guizot to examine into the primary schools. He proceeds upon their general

*

reports. The tale is almost incredible of the miscreants who were called schoolmasters, and the hovels which were called schools. The incapacity, the vice, the squalor, the audacious dissimulation and deception, nearly surpass the power of belief. The moral influence is too apparent. It is the characteristic of the brave and free to rest upon themselves. The desire

of the true patriot is in every thing to circumscribe the province of government, where it can be done by extending the sphere of individual action. In our country, the loan of the State is generally deprecated. We would allow nothing of our commerce, or our undertakings, to fall into its hands. But when education is resigned to it, we are henceforth children. The mind is discouraged and debased. We consent to receive our ideas, and those only which are minted with a royal device. We are under tutors and governors. Self-reliance, the soul of virtue, the talisman of success, is beaten down. France is infidel or superstitious at a bidding. Generation is in conflict with generation as the educatory machine is set. The nation looks up for its direction to the existing ruler or government. It can, therefore, only be in bondage. It is not the people, but that power. That power is a great deputation to do every thing.

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And why is

* The original work is largely quoted from in a Publication of 1843: Reasons against Government Interference in Education: by an Observer of the Results of a Centralised System of Education during Thirteen Years' Residence in France."

this? Because the mind of the nation is made prisoner, and led captive, by the training which meets it at the outset of life,-which binds it to uniformity, impresses it with helplessness, and satisfies it with dependence. Hence, the absence of enterprise; the dearth of large and stirring views, of great and far-seeing principles. The quarrel of the people may be with the government; emeute may shake it, or revolution may overthrow it; but they keep to the one idea, the one idol, of the government still. The high-souled reform of the nation, the regeneration of the people, enters not into their thoughts. They think themselves free, but it is in the sale of their freedom. They capitulate to a system of egregious vainglory for empty honour and pageant, they lay down their arms and abandon their garrisons. They may find out in time their folly. It will not be long before they see how " men ride over their heads." They have bowed themselves to the despotism, and they must not complain that it tramples on them. Like other fortifications, they will at last learn that educatory bulwarks are for their own intimidation. All will be turned against themselves. We have a hundred governments in England; if they do wrong, the tribunals proscribe and punish: but, with one much grudged exception, (save that of the Registration, which requires a central safe keeping and archive,) centralization, that subordinate ramification which gives to a Parisian board its national ubiquity, is unknown to us.

R

The education which is established in Prussia, is a theme of very wide and vehement eulogy. It has been exalted as a model of perfection. The best, the only safeguard, of liberty, is hitherto withheld. That Constitution which was promised, when a popular spirit was to be awakened, which was the signal-cry for levies of youth and treasure, is still ungratefully and perfidiously refused. The last and the present monarchs have borne their faculties meekly, and have exhibited many amiable virtues. But poor, and to be accursed, are "the virtues which undo a country." The private excellence and domestic goodness of the despot are not uncommon. His nature must have some vent of tenderness. Wielding a mighty machinery of oppression, it is not likely that he will carry cruelty and violence into his home. It is a respite of self-torment, to find here pastime and caress. is relief from the heavy forms of State. It is only a variety of selfishness. Who commends the lion, as it devours its prey, that it is loving to its mate and playful with its cubs? No more dire misfortune has fallen on man, than this amiableness of tyrants. It often is pretence. Better were it to be so. Often it is real. It is then pleaded for excuse to crush millions of families, to send desolations through millions of households. A Nero and a Caligula could not do half the mischief of a William and a Nicholas. What is the country of which we speak ? this kingdom of boasted light? this land of uni

It