It will be time enough, perhaps, when such a system of peremptory dealing is submitted to the Legislature by the Education Committee, for us to discuss its feasibility.....

The exclusion of the public, that is, of the payers of the rate, from all control and management, except the congé d'elire subject to the rector's veto, is another striking and most repulsive feature of the present project. No account is to be rendered to the public of either the proficiency of the scholars or the application of the funds. In this respect, less security against abuses is provided than already exists with regard to parish matters in general. The sole right of visitation being conferred on the parish minister, the ordinary, and the diocesan, that is to say, on persons uninterested, it may be, in the school itself, and, at all events, not accountable for either inattention or injustice,these institutions must be viewed as entirely withdrawn from the only effective superintendance, that of public opinion. One might have thought that Mr. Brougham would be of all men the last to fall into the egregious mistake of committing a charitable institution implicitly to official management. We are, indeed, at a loss to reconcile this part of his conduct with a sincere anxiety that the objects of his Bill should be carried into effect. It is not using too strong language to characterize it as 'altogether ' at variance with the experience which recent discoveries in cha'ritable abuses furnish, with good policy, and with common 'sense.'

Another most important consideration is this: The calculations of Mr. Brougham proceed upon the delusive notion that the projected parish schools will in all cases be so much added to the existing means of Education. We are, on the contrary, fully persuaded that they will be almost uniformly substituted for existing institutions. We will not say that this makes all the dif ference, but it makes a very material difference in respect to the advisableness of the scheme. Every plan for promoting the Education of the poor now in active operation, will be impeded and counteracted by the measure. The National Schools, indeed, will change only their name, while their supporters will cheerfully relinquish their voluntary subscriptions, in order that the schools may be put upon the establishment of parish schools, (for which an express provision is contained in the Bill,) and that the Dissenters may pay their due share towards their support, in the shape of a rate. This, to be sure, does look like a hardship on the Dissenters, but then they are told by Mr. Brougham, that it would be highly illiberal to complain of it, since the grievance is counterbalanced by the moral good which the Nation at large will reap from the measure..... The Edinburgh Reviewer tells us, that the British and Foreign School Society has not been properly supported, and that it never has at any time

had an income of 1,500l. a year even on paper..... If Mr. Brougham's old institution, the British and Foreign School Society, has not met with adequate support, it has been owing to other circumstances than the fickleness of private beneficence, or an indifference on the part of the public to the cause of Education. Into these circumstances we are not called to enter; but shall simply refer, in proof of our assertion, to the immense extension of the means of Education which has, since the formation of that Society, been accomplished in other directions by simultaneous and rival efforts. The National Society itself has grown out of the Royal Lancasterian Institution. But it has, of necessity, abridged very much the operations, by absorbing the resources, of the elder Society. We are not to look, then, at the narrow income of the latter as a detached circumstance proving the danger of trusting to private beneficence. We are to look at the sum total of exertion which has been brought to bear on the general object. And this, without taking into the account the rapid multiplication of Sunday Schools within the same period, has been amply sufficient to disprove the Reviewer's representation.

It is undeniable that National Schools have generally originated in the spirit of competition. They have seldom been established in places where no previous efforts had been made to educate the poor. We infer from this circumstance, the high probability that parish schools will be instituted, if the present Bill passes into a law, with precisely similar views. We fear that it will require some more cogent motive to induce persons to tax themselves with an extra rate, in addition to the tithe and the poor's rate, than a solicitude that the means of Education should be extended to their poorer fellow-parishioners. That motive may very possibly be supplied by the flourishing state of a sectarian Sunday School, to put down which the projected measure will furnish a seasonable expedient. At present, the only resource is a Church Sunday School, or a National School; but these involve private expense, voluntary subscriptions, some portion of labour, perhaps, on the part of its promoters, and more or less constant attention. But, by Mr. Brougham's Bill, the thing is done at once, and the sectaries are made to pay for it.*** The Dissenters in general-at least a large majority of them, would consider it as no objection, that the Church collects should form a part of the daily worship: on the contrary, they would, we think, much prefer the universal use of them in their own schools to the meagre recital of the Lord's Prayer. Mr Brougham's Socinian friends have on this point egregiously misled him. And as to the other grounds of objection taken by the Churchman, the National Schools, as at present constituted, interfere with the interests of Dissenters much less than the Parish Schools would do with such invidious rules and nugatory concessions.

Dissenters require no sacrifices from the Church; they ask for neither favour nor compromise. They are willing still to bear the whole expense of maintaining their own ministers, erecting their own edifices for public worship, educating their own children, and providing a cheap means of elementary instruction for all classes indiscriminately in their Sunday Schools. And all that they ask in return is, to be protected by the Legislature from fresh exactions and fresh insults, and not to have the promotion of Education made a pretext for an extension of the Test Act.

Dr. Butler writes well, and argues soundly. There is no fear that his voice will not be heard. There are scholars and gentlemen enough in the British Senate to secure from invasion the rights of learning, if not the rights of conscience. There was a time when the English Dissenters would have felt their interests equally secure in the hands of senators allied to them, not by party, but by conscientious principle, and not less competent than zealous to defend them. Dissent, except in the equivocal form of Socinianism, has long disappeared from among the higher classes; but the steady adherence of the Whigs to the grand principles of constitutional liberty, civil and religious, has hitherto commanded the attachment, and merited the confidence of that large portion of the nation who recognise those principles as their only safeguard. But this attachment is not to the men: it is an allegiance to the cause. Mr. Brougham may cheaply estimate the support, as he may despise the creed, of those he would term Sectaries and Methodists. But we earnestly recommend him to pause before he makes a deliberate sacrifice of their interests and his own principles. Should he persevere, we cannot but believe that he will draw down the rebukes of his own political friends: for how can they yield him their support, without such a virtual dereliction of their most distinguishing principles as would involve a forfeiture of character, and leave them, deserted by the nation, a powerless and disappointed faction?

[Monthly Review-March, 1821-on the 2d, 3d, 5th, and 6th publications at the head of the preceding selection from the Eclectic.]

The celebrated Edmund Burke is the chief writer who has attempted to decry the maxim of attending to measures, and not to men. Certainly, it is a rule which has its limitations; and a public character ought, as well as every person in private life, to enjoy that consideration which approved integrity and past services cannot fail to bestow. On the introduction of any new measure, therefore, a man who has already conferred essential benefits on the public has a right to claim, not only a VOL. III.

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fair hearing, for that is due to every one, but something of a predisposition on his behalf, and a favourable presumption; for it is not to be supposed, but can be admitted only on clear proof, that he who has entitled himself to be deemed a patriot can be anxious to overturn his former efforts, and to undermine those foundations on which his fame as well as his importance must rest. Still, such liberal indulgence is not to be carried too far; and no presumptions of good intention can be brought to repel the mischievous tendency of a particular measure, when that tendency is clearly established: nor can any character for previous services alter or counteract the nature of present conduct. Mr. Burke's example is, in this as in many other instances, the best answer and antidote to his own reasoning. He urged to all, and persuaded some of his admirers, that the advocate for the independence of America could never be an enemy to the extension of rational freedom, or the strenuous friend of economy become a Quixote in unnecessary wars; yet Mr. Burke, whether honestly or dishonestly, whether wisely or injudiciously, (for this is immaterial to our present purpose,) so entirely altered his principles and views of policy, that it is difficult to recognize the same individual when we look at his early and his late conduct and writings together. It is, indeed, the nature of genius to be liable to quick transitions of thought and feeling, and the very condition of genius to be prone to aberration. When great fervour and warmth of imagination are possessed, and the temperament is enthusiastic, the mindseems to be inevitably more susceptible of sudden impressions; and the reasoning faculty, though it is frequently subtle and powerful almost in proportion to the vivacity of the fancy, is seldom so steady and determinate in its conclusions as in persons of inferior powers and of a more sedate disposition.

Through life, as far as it has yet passed, Mr. Brougham has displayed the same ardour, intensity, and impetuosity of character which he now exhibits. His very early production on "The Principles of Colonial Policy" showed an extraordinary capacity: yet it was written with vehemence in favour of opinions which he has long since repudiated, and now cannot mention without inveighing against them with equal ardour. His exertions on the subject of the "Orders in Council" deserved unqualified applause, and gave proof of perseverance and energy almost without parallel, which established the estimate of his talents in the minds of all commercial men throughout the kingdom. Next, his inquiries into the "Abuses of Charitable Institutions" manifested the same indefatigable industry, applied to the cause of humanity; and on both these latter occasions Mr. Brougham came forward as a friend to free and liberal policy, while he evinced that he was deeply versed in the prin

ciples of Adam Smith and of Malthus. He considered the promotion of industry as the great secret of trade; that individuals, if left to themselves, would find the mode of employing their own capital most successfully; and that all restrictions and monopolies were an injury to the community, not only by suppressing the enterprise of others, but by checking the incitements to exertion of the privileged bodies themselves, and thus serving as a bonus to inaction and torpor. He seemed to lay down the principle that individuals are the best judges of their own wants, and the most likely to discover means for remedying them, if unmolested and unfettered; that, in all exertions by associated bodies, for any general benefit, the component members are the most competent to ascertain who are fittest to be intrusted with the conduct of their concerns; and that, where, from ancient laws or established practice, public societies were under the guardianship of functionaries provided by other appointments, there it was advisable that the acts of such functionaries should be open to the utmost inspection possible, and that trustees for the public should be subjected to the control of public opinion.

Now, as another illustration of the inconsistency of talents and the variations of genius, the present Education-bills of Mr. Brougham appear to run counter to all the political opinions which he has maintained since he sat in the House of Commons. We shall set forth the details which we regard as objectionable, from an Abstract' of the Bills, (published, as we understand, under their author's own directions,) after having premised a few words on the state of national education in this country, when Mr. Brougham undertook his labour of legislating on that subject. Throughout the kingdom, ancient endowed schools were existing, of two very different descriptions; the one, parish-schools for the exclusive education of the lower orders in reading, writing and arithmetic, generally taught by the parishclerk; the other, grammar-schools, for the instruction of all classes in the learned languages, with scholarships or exhibitions for a certain number to some college in one of the Universities, under the superintendence of masters having qualifications according to the will of the founder, and usually required at least to be graduates in one of the Universities. Beside these, were schools of more recent establishment, commonly supported by voluntary subscription; and which, like the old parish-schools, were intended exclusively for the lower orders. The more

ancient of them were Sunday-schools, which the different congregations of Christian worshippers maintained for the young of their own denomination; and the latest were those which eventually classed themselves under the denomination of the National Schools, and the British and Foreign Schools: the first adopting the system of Dr. Bell, and instructing the chil