prominently marked even in the most educated nations of continental Europe, are to be viewed partly in connexion with the prevalence of the military system. In Prussia, all males able to bear arms from twenty to twenty-five years of age belong to the standing army, and serve in it for three years: from twenty-six to thirty-nine, they are enrolled in the landwehr or militia; and all older men fit for arms

belong to the landsturm or levée en masse. In this way, with a population of some two-thirds of that of the British Islands, and about 2,000 square miles less of territory, Prussia has at command an army of 500,000 men.

In SWEDEN, again, under a military system of government, we find an almost universal spread of the elements of instruction. This country, however, is reported as being in some respects more demoralised than the worst districts of our own, and as having a criminal calendar of higher proportion than any other European state, even making due allowance for the vexatious minuteness of the Swedish criminal code. The author of "Notes of a Traveller" states that, in 1838, in a population of less than three millions, there were fifty cases of capital crime; and that, in other respects, the calendar was of corresponding amount. In proportion as such alleged facts can be verified as existing in connexion with a system of popular education, they may well caution every seventy-five of the female population of Prussia between the ages of sixteen and forty-five. It appears that, in 1837, when the population of Prussia was about 14,100,000, the illegitimate births were 39,500. For England and Wales, in 1830, they were 20,039, to a population of 13,900,000, nearly. The proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births is stated to be: for Baden, about two to eleven: for Bavaria, rather more than two to nine; and for Münich itself, half the births are given as illegitimate. These proportions are important, though they relate to but one aspect of social morals. It is presumed that Mr. Laing quotes from German documents, though he does not always name them. See "Notes of a Traveller," 2nd. ed., 1842.

* Mr. Laing gives the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births in 1838, for the town population of Sweden generally, as one to four: for Stockholm as one to two and three-tenths. For Paris one to five is given: for London and Middlesex, one to thirty-eight. The author makes other statements, from public documents, relative to Sweden to a similar effect; and he concludes that it is the most demoralised country in Europe; assigning as a main cause, the extent to which corporate rights, privileges, and monopolies, are carried. See "Notes of a Traveller;" and "Sweden." Count Biörstierna wrote a pamphlet in 1840, in defence of Sweden, against Mr. Laing; who replied in the second edition of "Notes of a Traveller (1842)," and maintained his former statements; in which he is, in the main, borne out by the testimony of others, though with some modification. See M'Culloch's Dictionary; art. Sweden.

us against supposing that it must necessarily raise the tone of the public mind, because the authority of government may have made it general. Its generality is obviously but a unit in the enumeration of the causes which may concur to influence the mind and habits of a nation: we must take into account the quality, the material, the spirit, and the external relations of the school system, the time it has existed, the surrounding circumstances advantageous or the reverse, under which it has to work, and the like, before we can in any case presume a reason for its apparent success or supposed failure in promoting good.

If we turn to FRANCE, we see illustrated the fact that a government with an extensively organized educational system under its entire control, may very much aspire to regulate the ideas of a people at its will. The order of things may vary, from the ghostly sway of a priesthood to the reckless licence of democracy; and from this to a military despotism: then back again to ecclesiastical domination; then to an accomplished doctrinarian juste milieu, based on a mixed bureaucratic and military system: and the whole economy of public instruction may vary, too, with the changing aspect of the political atmosphere. Under the old régime, all education was intrusted to the clergy, and the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, civil and spiritual, were the order of the day. The university-system was not then a stumbling-block to despotism over mind. Philosophy, always viewed with jealousy by arbitrary power, was hardly yet born in France: the University of Paris was still the "eldest daughter of kings;" and had not forfeited the title said to have been once given to her by a pope, paradise of delights." The Republic re-organized the educational system on a fashion anti-ecclesiastical, and subservient to the interests of democracy. The Consulate and the Empire again had new ideas, and in 1806 and subsequent years, education was moulded by imperial decrees and accommodated to a military despotism. The camp was the finishing school, and war was the great end of all education. Military glory was the idol to which the fiery ardour of all young spirits was directed. Napoleon was the god of war; and languages, mathematics,-all learning was nothing except as it tended to fit them for rushing in his train into the field of blood. The fountain-head of literature poured forth sentiments to cherish the spirit of the age; and Napoleon, at St. Helena, looking back on the past, is said to have exclaimed: "Ah my good University-she was an excellent arsenal for ideas!" It may be said that all France was a polytechnic school for the army, and the whole

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nation was trained to regard itself as the matériel of war. A posthumous writer, who resided thirteen years in that country says, "I have heard Frenchmen confess, twenty years after their education was over, that although they did all they could, they had not been able to get rid of the fatal educational impressions they had received under the empire." * After the Restoration of 1814, every effort was made to re-establish the old régime, and put back the dial of the intellectual and political world half-a-century. The spiritual direction of education was once more restored. Mass and confession were enforced in schools and colleges; and education so given and accompanied was the passport to place and emolument. Whatever was calculated to promote free inquiry and raise the tone of the public mind, was held in check as much as possible for sixteen years; till at last, by a fate not inappropriate, in connexion with other causes the government was wrecked by collision with the press, and the dynasty was changed to another branch. Soon after the Revolution of the Three Days, in 1830, the present system of public instruction was organized by M. Guizot on the general plan adopted in Prussia, but more rigidly, if possible, under governmentcontrol. The Minister of Public Instruction, who presides over all the education in the country, from the university downwards, has under him a phalanx of at least 25,000 teachers. The minister determines what is to be taught. In the primary schools, the children are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In the secondary schools, they learn the elements of Latin and Greek. Higher schools are established in every chief town of the arrondissements. No private schools independent of government-control are allowed. Count de Montalambert, and some other gentlemen, attempted to establish a free school in Paris early after the late Revolution; but they were immediately prohibited, and fined 100 francs each. As now organized in France, education seems fully to sustain the character it has always maintained, amidst all changes, as a machine of the existing government for answering its own private ends: and it appears, at this moment, to be a more masterly instrument for ramifying the influence of the cabinet over an immense country, than ever before existed.†

According to the report of some, the French system, in many places, works very well; but the uniformity of its character over so wide a

* Reasons against Government-Interference in Education, 1843, p. 20. † See "France: her Governmental, Administrative, and Social Organization." Part I.

field, appears to prevent it from fully adapting itself to the wants of the people, and to the variety of local ideas and interests. This formal unity of organization, if not suitably modified in its actual appliances and details, would seem to be a feature of extensive governmentschemes, in general, which may be apt to interfere with their practicability and usefulness, whatever be the object in view. That a highly centralised government-organization may go on long and yet be of an inefficient character, may be seen from the reports of the French government, as digested by Professor Lorain, when M. Guizot, then minister of Public Instruction, sent out nearly 500 inspectors to visit all the primary schools in France, after education had been under the direction of successive governments and dynasties for forty years. The state of ignorance that revealed itself was deplorable. In hundreds of parishes, the only persons who were able to sign their names were the priest and the mayor, sometimes only the former. Many of the schools were wretched buildings, full of filth and dirt: and many of the schoolmasters were grossly immoral. Sometimes a keeper of a low cabaret, or a liberated convict, was found nominally sustaining the office. One example recorded in the Reports, is that of a schoolmaster who was accustomed to leave the children to themselves during thunder storms, while he went to ring the church-bell, in order to protect the from hail! If any credit is due to more recent and repeated evidence, the educational system of France has work enough before it, even in teaching the commonest rudiments of learning. The last returns gave the population as 34,400,000; and according to the tables there were not very far short of 17,000,000 who could neither read nor write. The number of those who could read but not write, was somewhat less than 7,100,000. A still more recent testimony relates more immediately to the South of France, in different parts of which the writer states that he has resided during five years. He affirms that in the towns, and especially in the rural districts, "popular education is little more than a name : in some places it resembles machinery not ill-arranged, but destitute of a motive power; in others, and those forming the great proportion of the country districts, it is totally defective both in principle and arrangement." Great ignorance of the French language is stated to prevail in the ancient principalities of Languedoc, Provence, and Bearn; and also among the population of the Cevennes. In the

* Rapports sur l'Instruction Publique, par M. Lorain.

crops

*

† France: her Governmental, Administrative, and Social Organization; part I.

more rural districts, the modern French is scarcely understood at all, but only the patois; and the women, almost without exception, know nothing else. "A large proportion of the people are unable to read, and are in a state of semi-barbarism. Most of the men have attended primary schools; but as the children are not obliged to speak French, and their whole exercise in it is confined to the lesson they read in the school, which they go through without knowing the meaning of the words they repeat, they have no pleasure in reading, and soon forget what they have learned hence you meet with numbers of young men, and those not above middle age, who cannot read." The writer states that bad as is the intellectual condition of the Protestant population, that of the Roman Catholics is far worse. The frères and sœurs who teach are generally very ignorant. In the girls' primary schools, it is said that much of the instruction consists in inculcating homage to the Virgin. The time of the boys, also, is considerably taken up with the ceremonies of religion; but their minds are not at all trained by sound instruction. Even at Lyons, several respectable working men complained that though their boys could read with sufficient readiness, they did not understand the meaning of what they read. said that “the frères took no pains with them."*

The parents

In HOLLAND, the direct interference of the government in the matter of education involves the exclusion of incompetent teaching both in public and private schools, the regulation of the mode of public instruction by a system of inspection, and the refusal of relief from the public money to such parents as may neglect sending their children to the primary schools. Education is here so generally appreciated, however, that no difficulty appears to arise in securing attendance at school. In the present crisis of education in our own country, and amidst the conflicting opinions which are current on the subject, we should seek to derive instruction from all quarters. Holland furnishes an example of one of the theories of national education which are now contended for; that is, of the separation of religious education from that which is secular. M. Cousin, in his account of the Dutch schools, states that there is a total absence of all special instruction either in religion or morals. The educational arrangements are altogether independent of any church, and the schools are ma

* Letter, dated Sept. 7, 1846, from the South of France, to E. Baines, jun. Esq. "In a private note he gives us his name and address, but we omit them, as the freedom of his remarks might expose him to annoyance."-Leeds Mercury, quoted in Patriot of Sept. 21, 1846.