The education which prevents crime is that which has for its object the full development of the intellectual faculties; that education which draws off the thick veil from the mental vision, and allows the mind to see things as they really are; makes man reflect and anticipate-in a word, makes him "find books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing." Such an intellectual education, having for its foundation a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ, is the one which will prevent crime. On the subject of education Mr. Clay

writes :

"Public education,' then, is lamentably imperfect,' even if it were measured by the ability to read and write. Without that ability there can be no education; but (which is less considered) with it there may be none, or worse than none. The acquisition of reading and writing is only the acquisition of instruments by which education may be shaped out ;-tools with a keen edge, of the greatest value to those instructed in their use, but calculated to do enormous mischief in perverse or wanton hands. Instruction in reading and writing, may be carried, to a high point, without anything worthy the name of education being imparted. There may be no exercise of the perceptive faculties, no cultivation of the judgment, no discipline of the will, no training of the moral sense, no awakening of religious feelings, no instilling of religious principles.' No-very often have I found boys and young men, able to read fluently the printed charac ters, in the New Testament, though quite unable to comprehend the sense of what they read. That Book, desecrated by the system which makes it a lesson-book, is associated in the mind of the Sunday school child, and of many another child, with uninteresting, mechanical, and difficult labour; with confinement, weariness, and blows. Children are put into the Testament' as into a hard and barren field, in which they are to perform a piece of useless drudgery, instead of being led into it, as into a garden of the choicest flowers and fruit which they have been prepared to admire, and are now privileged to

hours, as the Chaplain must do, if he conscientiously discharges his duty? The physical health of the prisoner is not impaired granted. But is not the moral health of the unfortunate prisoner to be attended to. We positively assert, with all due deference to Dr. Rynd's professional stand. ing, that he is not the only person to be consulted in this matter, because he is not the only person interested.

Mr. Robert Netterville, the Governor, has designed an excellent plan of window, which can be open and shut by the prisoner when he pleases, affording when open sufficient ventilation, and so constructed that communication through the windows (now extensively carried on through the broken panes) is impossible. This gentleman engages to get these windows put up, at the trifling expense of 6s. 6d. per window-the total expense being a little more than £160. Let us hope, that the Govern ment will not allow a defect so great, in a prison erected at an enormous expense to the public, to continue any longer.

cultivate and enjoy. The tendency to regard the Holy Scriptures, as a depot of taskwork, and the reading or committing to memory a certain number of verses, as a meritorious labour, is evident even in prison. I have too often been disappointed when, on visiting the prisoner in his cell, instead of discovering some intimations of an awakened understanding or conscience, I have been met with a selfsatisfied announcement, that so many chapters have been read, or so many verses learned by rote. With regard to this mechanical reading, I have met with many boys and young men who, when the signs there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee,' were presented to them -uttered the corresponding sounds readily and clearly, but who, on being questioned as to the meaning of the word 'marriage' could give no answer. To one of these young men I expressed my surprise that though he could read so well he should be so ignorant of what he read. He replied, in a tone of indignation,-whether at what he considered injustice or imposition, I know not,- Why! they never learned me the understanding of the words! But this same young man, so uninstructed in the great and vital meanings of the Testament, could apply the mechanical faculty he had acquired, the instrument so dangerous when misapplied, to unlock the meanings of other books: he easily comprehended, assisted by coarse but intelligible engravings, the exciting stories of The Newgate Calendar Improved, and of Dick Turpin and his black mare! And so while the Book of Life has never been opened, to his understanding and affections, other books, fraught with ruin and death, are made level to his capacity and enticing to his imagination."

We would say with Mr. Arthur Hill

“Let it never, in addition, be forgotten, that the first object of education is not so much to impart knowledge, as to inculcate sound principles, form good habits, and to develope all human faculties, physical, moral, and intellectual. Better that a boy should leave school, with but scanty acquirements, than that his learning should have been obtained at the sacrifice, or even the risk of that bodily health, and of those intellectual powers and moral habits, on which his future welfare must mainly depead."

What teachers, may we ask, keep this, the first object of education, constantly in view, while discharging their duties as teachers, in their respective schools. We have no doubt, that this first object of education is never lost sight of, in those schools over which the Education Board have control. In the National Schools, the teachers are kept under wholesome restrictions, in the quality of the instructions imparted, and in the general management of the schools, through the frequent visits of their inspectors. But are there not schools into which an inspector of the Board of Education has no authority to enter officially. Why is this so? Has not the government a right to see, that the education imparted by private indivi

duals does not tend to create or foster crime, from inculcating unsound and mischievous principles? The government wisely takes every available means, in time of epidemic, to prevent physical disease. The government wisely prohibits a medical man to practise, lest he should injure the part he endeavoured to cure, until he had been duly examined, and had received his diploma. Now we do not see why our wise government should not take the same precautions to prevent moral diseases.

"It is through the neglect of society," writes Captain Maconuchie, "in not educating the children of the lower classes, that many of our prisoners are first made criminal, and it is by a further apathy and neglect, that they are allowed to continue such. And surely there is more than reproach there is even grave national delinquency in the double fact."

A school-master is a moral physician, and he should not be allowed to practise until he had been duly examined, and had received a certificate, from competent parties, appointed for that special purpose. This is no new or speculative theory— it has been in practice for years in Prussia and Germany. Let any man of common sense only read the reports of those gentlemen, who have made educational tours through Great Britain, and he will scarcely question the necessity for an examination of the school-masters in the great majority of private schools.

Having thus," writes Mr. Kay, "described the character and social position of the great profession of Prussian teachers, I shall now show, what education the law requires each of them to have received, before it allows him to engage in the work of instruction; for it must be remembered, that no person, whether he be a foreigner. or a native, is allowed to act as a teacher of any public or private school, in the kingdom of Prussia, until he has passed a very rigid examination, in all the subjects of school instruction, and has obtained a diploma from his examiners, stating that he is fit to be a

teacher."*

We have been credibly informed, that in ourown city there are private schools, which are attended by tradesmen's children, and which are taught and managed by men who smoke, drink spiritnous liquors, and curse and swear in the presence of their pupils. These men, in order to cloak their villany, become members of religious societies have prayers and catechism during the greater portion of the day, and spend their Sundays

124th page, The Social Condition and Education of the People, by J. Kay, M.A., Vol. II. London, Longman, Browne, Green, and Longmans, Paternoster-row.

collecting for charitable purposes. In this way they are able to impose upon the people, by taking advantage of their natural reverence for religion.

"A few years ago," writes Mr. "Kay, any one used to be thought clever enough to be a teacher. Even now, in many parts of our country, any poor fellow who can read and write decently, is thought fit to teach in a village school, so low is the idea of many, of the education which should be given to the children of the poor, and of the character of the men who ought to train our citizens !55

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Two classes of children receive education, those at school and those in the streets. If our views are carried out, we have no doubt that the first class-those receiving education at school, will be judiciously attended to. We shall next turn our attention to the second class, those receiving an education in the streets. Thanks to our charitable countrymen, and particularly to our fair countrywomen, who largely subscribe to those admirable institutions, which have for their object, the feeding, clothing, and education of our unfortunate little ragged children who in most cases are the offspring of drunken parents, our streets have been largely thinned. Be it remem bered that it is in the streets the art of thieving is practised, which latterly is assuming, more and more every day, the dignity of a professional science. Our ragged schools, and kindred institutions, invaluable as they are, can never reach the child who remains outside their doors, preferring the street and his "chances" to the discipline, and, in his mind, the comparative few advantages held out to their inmates. Here we see the necessity for compelling such children to attend..

We earnestly beg the reader's most serious attention to the following extract, which we have taken from a published letter to C. B. Adderley, Esq. M.P. by that practically experienced gentleman, the Rev. Sydney Turner, Resident Chaplain of the Philanthropic School, Red Hill, Surrey :

I cannot conclude these remarks, without expressing my fervent hope, that our educational agencies will ere long be so extended and improved, as to make the demand for reformatory schools less general and pressing. However necessary and satisfactory it is to have first rate hospitals, free dispensaries, and able surgeons and apothecaries, for the cure of disease, it is far better, far more rational, and in the end, far cheaper to take such measures, as may maintain and protect the general health, and keep sickness at a distance. So as regards juvenile crime, certainly more than half of the youthful delinquency, that we now have to punish, and are here and there trying to remedy,

is the growth of circumstances, the result, in fact, of our own social neglect and indolence. One single measure alone, at once compelling the attendance at school of the thousands of idle children, now left to ruin and depravation, in our low streets and alleys, and making the instruction and training of such schools really useful and efficient, would do more to thin our prison ranks than a hundred reformatories put together. So long as we allow the depraving agencies that are so busy in our large towns and cities such immunity, nay almost encouragement, as they now have, so long we may be sure, that juvenile vice and crime will be far ahead of all our efforts to rescue and reform. Of course it is much easier to subscribe to a reformatory, than to grapple with the real difficulties of the preventive system. But as to the real suppression or effectual diminution of crime, we but spend our strength for nought, and our labour for that which profiteth not, so long as we are content to let thousands be infected, while we cure hundreds. We cannot slay the monster while we are continually feeding and supporting him. Make it compulsory that the child attends school, and is not found idling in the streets. Make the parents, when there are any, responsible for the proper training of the child, and to some extent for his maintenance, in a good school, if they cannot keep him out of vice and crime at home. Make the parish he belongs to responsible for this, if he be an orphan and destitute. Make your schools really effective, teaching in them the science of life, the common daily business of well-being and well-doing, social and personal economy. Make them, therefore, not merely intellectual but industrial, and bring your laws home to the abettors and receivers of crime, the lodging-house keeper, and the penny theatre and saloon owner, and we shall soon, I believe, see our calendars shortened, the juvenile wards of our prisons more thinly peopled, and reformatory efforts made thoroughly effectual to the great end for which they are directed. When shall these things be? When, I believe, statesmen will give our great social questions their true importance, and feel that the moral and religious training of the coming generation is more really urgent than all the more political or commercial questions, that now divide parties or agitate constituencies."

It has been said, "that the government which governs least governs best;" but let it not be forgotten, that this refers only to the interference of government with private enterprize. A gov ernment has for its grand object, the protection of life and property; and no government is worth supporting which does not do this, or at least endeavour by every available means to do it. We shall conclude our remarks on education by giving the following extract from a paper in Meliora, entitled "Immortal Sewerage," and written by the Hon. and Rev. Sidney Godolphin Osborne, Rector of Durweston.

"There have been, and may yet be, seasons when popular commotion shall disturb the very depths of our population." Then were