be rightly held as fit or necessary for them to learn?* Let us beware how we concede more, when principles are under discussion. It cannot be rational, or wise, to force a general cultivation further than this,-particularly when everybody who has lent a helping hand to right instruction knows well how very much of this is actually thrown away, as it turns out in after life; not, as the centralists unkindly and unwarrantably hint or say, because it is not well directed; but by a force of circumstances which, as defying all control, is only to be made resolvable into the fiat of a Supreme Will.

And here is to be observed, by way of corollary, a further blindness of the censurers of all existing education to other palpable facts. As, on the one hand, that almost all of humbler degree to whom God has afforded the capacity, or given the desire to rise, whether within or beyond their sphere of birth, do in effect make their way, so far as mere sufficiency of knowledge is concerned, to an improved condition in society, as things now are; while, on the other hand, the very utmost cultivation is bestowed to little purpose on very many of a higher condition, who have no natural taste or turn for intellectual pursuits. Not that it follows, that such become for that the worse or more unprofitable members of society for practical purposes; but whether they become better or worse, they stand as living monuments of the inadequacy of mere culture to force a plant not rooted in a genial soil. In both these cases respectively, the technicalities of education shew themselves to be mere instruments subordinate to higher laws which actually regulate the course of life, and man cannot gainsay them.

4. Let me subjoin but one strange oversight more-the way in which these kind Utopians overlook the little real use that is, after all, in any knowledge or accomplishment that does not touch the heart, or, at any rate, its little real influence upon the welfare of society. Although "utility" is, to so great extent, the very object professedly aimed at, what is the real value of attainments in any branch of mere intellect or science, as affecting human happiness? It is not necessary, and it would be wrong, to undervalue such acquirements in any suitable or proper sphere; but our concern is now with facts. And looking to these, let any individual fairly ask himself-Is the best father that he knows a good chemist, or the best son a great adept in linear drawing? Is the best master and accomplished English historian, or the best servant, an astute geographer? The questions do not need an answer to display the childishness of the pretences set up. Yet let us, for amusement's sake, apply the argumentum ad hominem in the particular department of " geography"which is among the new accomplishments most generally insisted upon, and is perhaps the most plausible and least exceptionable of the enlarged catalogue of attainments. Does anybody doubt the

*The question of girls' schools, for needle-work and other like natural and undeniably useful instruction, as suitable as advantageous to the daughters of the poor, is not here touched upon, as not belonging to the intellectual province of education. Any thing but discouragement or disapproval of such instruction is meant, Its naturalness pleads its cause at once.

fact, that many even of our legislators pass laws largely affecting countries or places, of the localities of which they have not much more notion than "the man in the moon?" and these, too, very probably returned to parliament by the most boastfully enlightened and liberal constituencies! This is not instanced as a matter of reproach or blame, but only as an illustration of the absurdity of laying so much stress upon "geography" as an essential rudiment of universal education. The laws assisted by these senatorial dummies do not originate with, nor are they framed by them, nor do the unknown tribes whom they affect suffer at all from their inadequate acquaintance with the earth's surface. But that is not the thing to be observed. The noticeable thing is, that here is an alleged general necessity disproved at once by a ludicrously glaring fact. And if we meet with other kindred contradictions of the new philosophy at almost every turn of real life, what only is to be a just judgment of the unreasonableness of the entire pretences so confidently set up, and of the whole requirements made?

I have said nothing of a multitude of other points connected with the subject, which, nevertheless, though possibly of a subordinate import→ ance, present insuperable obstacles to any just or practicable carrying out of any uniform new scheme of encyclopediacal education, and most of all, of any compulsory scheme ;-such as, the cost, the phy sical impediments of very many localities, the folly of reliance upon "normal masters" (though they be thrice be-normalised) under the wear and tear of divers local discouragements, the difficulty of conciliating such liberals as he who styles himself JOHN TUAM,* and the like. If it be truly to be said of the whole scheme, in earlier and more essential stages, that it is at once at variance with nature and with the habits of the constitution of the nation, or in the Satirist's words, that

"Sensus moresque repugnant,

Atque ipsa utilitas"—

it were a bootless toil and weariness to enter into more minute details. Add to all which, it is a great mistake to fancy that the spirit of downright opposition to the instruction of the lower classes is laid, and set at rest. It may be true, there is at present no resistance, because so many parties are not called upon for contributions to the work. But even the occasional appeals, by royal letter, of the National Society, are far from generally welcome; and it would probably require no more than an attempt to levy education rates, to stir up very wide and powerful enmity to all instruction of the lower classes. Let government beware how it attempts any such thing, unless it be prepared to fight a battle which may involve an early and calamitous undoing of all that has been done already for the poor in this great branch of justice and of kindness.

To sum up all, with Mr. Dunn's good leave, "the question of

The letters addressed by this emancipated Ecclesiastic to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the subject of national education, are well deserving of attention.

questions" is not mere school education, be it of what character it may. The very nature of the case forbids that school should ever do more (although no doubt it may do this in different degrees) than teach its pupils how to handle the instruments of further instruction. Is not the very term of schoolboy life defined by being that antecedent to the human creature's arrival at years of competent reflection and discretion? It is for after processes to fix the value and the power of all attainments gained there. On whatsoever scale, up to the time of leaving school, all is but so much gained by rote and undigested-to be forgotten, or improved, or otherwise modified, by subsequent contingencies. Let every class by all means gain at school, as far as possible, the stores convenient for it. But as concerns the poor, let us have courage to take stand on nature's ordinances, and not perniciously demand, or foolishly consent to grant more. The "question of questions" is, to prevail on people (if it be possible) by means and motives of religion to understand and to discharge, each individual for himself, his own share in the work of real education. It is not "education," to cram any quantity of unripe knowledge into the heads or minds of young people in statu pupillari; the more material parts of it are those which follow after school is done with. Instead of apprehending this rightly, it seems to be the fashion to expect from school an adequate discharge of all the duties of parents, masters, or employers. It is their part to follow up what school has done, and to provide by sound domestic discipline for the due application or increase of really useful knowledge, according to the needs of each particular case; e. g., to give instruction in some special trade, or in whatever be the youth's calling. The boy comes stored from school with all the elements that it was fit for school to teach, and ready to take in these further stores. The rest must find its way according to the course intended by a higher will, through a correct discharge of individual duty; and it is evidently better that it should do so, establishing thereby fresh ties and new dependences and interchanges of regard for the cement and strengthening of social welfare. All that is generally necessary, good, or useful, in the way of preparation, is that which has been stated already, affording to the poor the elements of all acquired knowledge in the three gifts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. There is afforded (in the mere intellectual department) to all on whom the will of Providence has antecedently bestowed fit qualification, the means of making further progress, according to those several succeeding opportunities which are not under man's command. Where there is worth, or cleverness, or skill of any marked kind, it will find means of self-development, and work its way; where there is no peculiar bent, (which is the common case,) ten thousand artificial boyish attainments of forced and technical instruction will be forthwith forgotten in the common-place routine of daily occupation. The state of life requires it should be so, and so it will be. The only after-sort of knowledge to which a sure increase

See a reference in the British Critic before quoted, to an Essay by this gentleman, entitled, " National Education the Question of Questions," p. 370.

is promised, without regard to difference of temporal condition, is that which springs from disposition to do the will of God.

I am aware that this will seem to many but a very elementary and circumscribed view. It may be so, and yet not be the worse for that. As regards primary principles, the real and important work of life is much more simple than it accords with the prevailing humour to believe. He whom we still denominate "the wise man," has summed it up in very short compass;-"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; fear GOD, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." Our need, accordingly, is of a calm and Christian courage, content and resolute to rest on this foundation, in strength of which to set our faces as a flint against the wilful and presumptuous schemes of man, taking too much into his own hands. I do not speak of such resistance or of such zeal as finds its vent in the pious irreverence of asserting that Adam fell from being left to himself without a bias, and hence the origin of all our woes! * But of such views as men may entertain who deprecate all rashness of enthusiasm, and such resistance as they may offer to destructive theories, who notwithstanding are not only willing to assist, but actually engaged all the while, in the advancement of all reasonable education of the poor. and bent, moreover, on continuing such efforts for their benefit as can be fairly thought generally practicable, and in agreement with the only standards they can consent to recognise—the voice of a sincere and reasonably-instructed conscience, and the authoritative book of TRUTH.

For the precise reason, that we would not desire to hinder, but to promote all beneficial instruction of the great body of the community, we ought to see the wisdom of a firm course, to the effect expressed in the conclusion of a former letter. We go on suffering principles and mere accidental practices to be mixed up together and treated of as if of equal importance-conceding this and that position to the theorist, to shuffle off some momentary imputation-till all clear sense of what is right and what wrong, in a momentous matter, becomes unsettled and perplexed. The nation needs to see the spectacle of calm determination-particularly on the part of its clergy-to withstand a system which would grant no more than toleration to the word of GOD, dethroning it from its supremacy. There need be no timidity as to the result of such a cause. Diseased as that erratic thing deno

There is something so strangely and mischievously extravagant in the subjoined specimen of platform eloquence, that it appears worth while to quote it for the hope's sake of pointing out how doctrinal truth may be confounded or endangered by overheated words, urged even in a good cause. It is an extract from the same speech, at the same Infant School Society Meeting already once referred to. "It has been contended against basing education on the Bible, and impregnating the minds of the young with sanctified learning, that thereby we tamper with the mind, and give it a bias; whereas, they say, it ought to be left to its own spontaneous action. We have an answer to this at every point. Adam was left to himself; he had no bias, and in circumstances too, far more favourable to his continuance in right than any of our most just and generous opponents can lay claim to-and Adam brought death into the world, and all our woe!" To say the least of it, this is very curious theology to be received with " great applause."

minated "the public mind" is, there is no really extensive wish, in any influential quarter, for wild new-fangled schemes of education. In that, as in political questions, (and this, unhappily, is little better, although more speciously disguised) a few designing meddlers make a great noise, and so contrive to pass themselves and their opinions off for something, when they are nothing. Those classes which may be considered as forming the ballast of the nation are, in their hearts and real judgments both, in favour of a quiet perseverance in the old ways. Let the experiment be tried of ceasing from compromise, and the result will be consolatory.

And now, if it be thought worth while to offer any observations in detail upon the bill of Lord Brougham, already virtually in a state of suspended animation, and without hope of recovery, the point is reached at which to do it. I fear that, all pains notwithstanding, there has been some small mixing up in the foregoing plea for principles, of the two several quackeries of new schools for the young,' and institutes' for the adult. But these are part and parcel of a common design, and it is hardly possible to keep them quite asunder. A point will have been gained if anything like solid cause has here been shewn to prove the wisdom and the duty of refusing both.

I am, my dear sir, yours very sincerely,

M.

TRACTS FOR PRISONERS.

A copy of a tract has been forwarded to this Magazine, which, as is alleged, is circulated by direction of Lord Chichester, chairman of the Sussex Quarter Sessions, in the gaol at Horsham. What authority chairmen of the quarter sessions have to interfere in the religious instruction of prisoners, the writer does not know, and cannot now inquire. The tract in question, called "Four Dialogues in a Prison," is a very miserable one; but it is so common a thing to find miserable tracts circulated with great zeal, that it would not be worth while to waste a line or a minute on the tract in question on this account. The reason for noticing it is this: it settles, without hesitation, that regeneration does not take place at baptism, and throws unqualified censure on the clergy who say that it does. Now, without entering into the question of Lord Chichester's competency to decide in a matter of "dogmatic," it really seems necessary to ask, whether chairmen of quarter sessions are, by virtue of their office, to assume the right of circulating not merely their own opinions on disputed points among the prisoners, but censures on the large body of clergy who presume to hold a different view, and may possibly have had as good opportunities of examining the question as any chairman of any quarter sessions whatever. The chairman, too, of the sessions on the other side of the county, has at least equal rights with the noble Lord. What would be said if he were to pour in a supply of Bishop Mant's tracts, which raised such a storm some years ago? The passage is subjoined :

"Adams. My mother, when she could catch me in a serious mood, would tell me what she heard you say at church. At one time she mentioned a great deal of what VOL. XIII.-May, 1838. 4 D