the Parish Schools of sectarianism, seeing that they were the warm panegyrists of these Schools only a few years ago. They then avowed, in their writings, that the Parish Schools were the glory and bulwark of Scotland-the main source of the national intelligence and morality; and that the loss of them would prove fatal to the Established Church. The more youthful members, both in the Church, and in that Dissenting body, who were brought up at the feet of the late Dr. Welsh-a name never to be mentioned without honour-will remember his eloquent, nay, his enthusiastic observations on this point, and how both his style and his manner grew warm as he approached it. Why, then, has the tone of the Seceders changed? The constitution of the Parish Schools has not been altered since the period to which we refer no important or perceptible change has taken place as to the persons holding the office of Schoolmaster; the teaching in the Schools has been improved, rather than otherwise. Whence then this attack upon them? We can only regard it, my Lord, as part of a keen, but not very scrupulous crusade against the National Church.

It may sound a little paradoxical, but we believe it to be profoundly true, that the ire of the leaders of the Free Secession is kindled against the Parish Schools, not because they are, but because they are not, sectarian. Had they been sectarian, the maxim would have been, Let them alone. For as their value, their popularity, and their usefulness would not have been so great, they would have imparted less strength and fame to the Church, and, therefore, have less provoked the indignation of the Seceders. The Greek clown ostracised Aristides, because he could not bear to hear him always called The Just; and the same feeling has instigated this impeachment, which is all the more hearty, because, at present, Aristides is giving the moral support of his character to the opposite party.

The charge of sectarianism has also been advanced against the Parish Schools by a few isolated individuals, on the outlook for theoretical grievances, but not by the people of Scotland generally.

If these Schools were felt to be sectarian, by the community, would the children, belonging to all sects and persuasions, be sent to them, often in preference to the schools connected with their own denominations. It is no uncommon circumstance in Scotland, so far as our own observation goes it is the rule rather than the exception, in those places, in which there is a Dissenting as well as the Parish School, for the children of Dissenters to attend the latter, and the children of Churchmen the former, without regard to any thing but the merits and qualifications of the respective teachers. And this is explained by two circumstances. In the first place, the religion taught in the Parish Schools is the same as that taught in all the Dissenting Schools in Scotland. They all teach the same catechism, and the same system of doctrines, and, what assimilates them much more to each other, they use, in regard to education generally, the same elementary books. In the second place, it is the interest of the Parish Teacher to conciliate the Dissenters to act otherwise would injure his School; he has, therefore, no inducement, but the reverse, ever to allude to sectarian topics. Indeed, my Lord, every candid person, sufficiently acquainted

with the country, will acknowledge, that the Parish Schools are the least sectarian of any in Scotland.

Another ground of interference-most unworthily broached,-is the defective literature of the Schoolmasters. They do not teach phrenology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, the new Chamberian cosmogony, and other sciences, of the same useful and entertaining class, and, therefore, the system which they represent is said to have become effete. My Lord, were the charge, that the scholarship of the teachers is defective, just, need the fact surprise us, when we consider the manner in which their learning has been rewarded. But the charge is most unjust. Never, we believe, in the history of Scotland, were the Parish Schoolmasters so well and variously qualified. That there may be exceptions to this rule is, of course, admitted, but the number is small, and daily decreasing; for the greatest possible care has, of late years, been taken, to select none but thoroughly educated and experienced men for the office. Besides the art of teaching is now far more carefully cultivated than it was formerly, while new and admirable facilities for acquiring it have been provided. To apply the word effete, then, to the Parish Schools, or, indeed, to any system, which can so easily be stretched and developed, to meet the new wants of society, is absurd. The Parish Schools are no more effete than the British constitution is effete. The thing they mainly require is, that the Schoolmaster should be better paid, and thus be enabled to hold up his head among the other learned professions.

III. We trust, my Lord, that we have now shown, that it is the duty of the Government, neither on the one hand to wrest the Schools from the Church, and establish them on a purely secular basis, nor on the other, to permit them to continue in their present state, and, therefore, that the last of the three courses, which we said were open to Government, is the one that ought to be adopted. To preserve the Parish Schools on their present basis, and improve them, in the way we have recommended, would rank among the brightest services which your Lordship has rendered to your country. It is so far satisfactory to us, to see that the regulations of the Committee of Council are framed with this intention, but their object is completely frustrated by the impracticable conditions with which they are clogged. The objections to which these regulations are liable, have been clearly and temperately stated, by the Schoolmasters themselves, in their Remonstrance, and, therefore, it is unnecessary to repeat them in detail. But the mere fact, of all the Parish Schoolmasters, without, we believe, one solitary exception, pronouncing the Government plan, however well-intended, to be inapplicable and futile, should convince your Lordship that it ought to be modified. And if, in doing so, your Lordship would examine the question for yourself, and rely upon your own judgment and personal enquiries, it would afford great satisfaction to the Schoolmasters and the Church.

It is clear, my Lord, that if the principle on which the Minutes of Council are founded, is not to be altered, the income and position of the Parish Teachers cannot be improved unless their present salary is regarded as a subscription. And why should it not be so taken? The

main objection is, that if this were done, the Government would be bound to aid every endowed school in the Empire. But with all deference, my Lord, that would depend very much on whether the School was endowed adequately or inadequately, for if the School was not properly endowed, it would have as strong a claim upon Government as any other. It does not seem to be a sound argument against the endowment of a School by Government, that the duty has been partially performed already by the piety of some private individual. But, my Lord, were it even otherwise, there is a broad distinction between Schools privately endowed, and the Parochial Schools of Scotland. The former are voluntary bequests, their constitution may be faulty, and they may be necessary or not, in the places in which they are established; but the latter form a National system; they are under proper control, and are supported by a local and compulsory assessment. The cases, therefore, are not parallel. In these circumstances, it appears to us that this assessment, nine-tenths of which is raised by Churchmen, is as much entitled to be regarded as a local subscription for the Parish School, as are the sums raised by the Church of England and by Dissenters for their Schools. It is not only a subscription, but a large subscription. If we take the interest of the money expended upon buildings, and the salary of the teacher together, they will amount, on an average, to L.60 a-year, and it is only after the Scottish Parishes have raised this large sum, that they are placed on a level with Parishes in England, which have raised not one single farthing. The former must raise, in addition to this sum, as much as the latter raise altogether, before they can make the same claim upon the National Exchequer. It is scarcely reasonable, however, to suppose, that the landed proprietors of Scotland, who are already assessed for education, will subscribe as liberally as the English proprietors, who are burdened with no such assessment. The entire arrangement, then, is evidently neither just towards Scotland, nor fair towards the Parish Schools; and, therefore, we trust that your Lordship will reconsider the whole question, and recognise the propriety of these recommendations, which we have ventured to offer.

We have only to say further, my Lord, that if the Minutes of Council are not modified, they will inflict, indeed they are now inflicting, very serious injury on the Parish Schools. While not giving any support to these Schools, they are supporting rival institutions.

We have trespassed at great length upon your Lordship's attention. But the subject of popular education is of unusual interest at the present moment. Scotland is the only part of the empire that has long been able to boast of a National system; and, related as we are to that system, we have felt it to be our duty, at this juncture, to submit to your Lordship the measures which we think necessary for preserv ing and improving it.

12th May 1848.

ON THE AFFAIRS OF EUROPE.

(Continued from our last.)

At the peace of 1815, which effectually curbed French military ambition, democracy was believed to be the only remaining element pregnant with danger to the repose of Europe; and Napoleon being safely shipped off for St. Helena, the diplomatists of that period made their arrangements accordingly, but tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis. New and unforeseen combustions smouldered under these arrangements, which have at length burst forth with irresistible violence, so as to give a character to the combativeness of the nineteenth century peculiarly its own.

In the 16th century, Catholic was arrayed against Protestant.

In the 17th, we find the struggle still theological, arising partly from the great contest of the Thirty Years' War, and partly from the debates of the subdivisions: Jesuit against Jansenist, Episcopalian against Presbyterian, Arminian against Calvinist. All were indifferent to nationality except in subordination to dogmatic theology.

In the 18th century, the Bohemian forgot his language and his history. The Hungarian Germanized himself to avoid being thought a barbarian. Frederick the Second, one of the greatest of men, was one of the most unpatriotic of Germans. He despised the mother tongue of Guttenberg and Luther; of Albrecht, Durer, and Rubens; of Gluck, and of Sebastian Bach; and the Academy of Maupertuis preceded the splendid era of Goethe and Schiller! Poland fell, because the nobility, instead of cultivating a national spirit, placed the summit of their ambition in successfully copying Parisian manners and fashions, while the peasantry were kept in a state of brutish subjection, and were isolated from all national communion or friendship, which might make them feel that they had a country to lose. Italy allured the European lounger to a splendid waste of time. A polemic on cameos, a paper war on the merits of a tragedy of Alfieri, a comedy of Goldoni, or a picture of Raphael Mengs was the only agitation in the land of the fierce Guelf and Ghibelline, and nowhere was the German Emperor more popular than in Lombardy.

The fabric of feudalism remained unbroken by the wars of the Reformation, but at length, sapped by encyclopedism, it fell before French democracy and French warfare; the kings and ministers of 1815 thought, that with democracy vanquished, Europe had nought else to dread; but the year 1848 will take its place in future history, not so much as a political struggle, as one of antagonist nationalities, and now that the avalanche is gone forth, the most truly Conservative statesman and forefender of revolution is he that rebuilds the European fabric, so as to place the great principles of Order, Authority, and Legitimacy in happiest unison with national sympathies.

Austria, the most heterogeneous of all continental nations, is necessarily the most exposed to the first shock of anarchy, and if she were

composed of only two nations or three, she would unquestionably be riven asunder, never to be again resoldered, but the great variety of her population is at once the incentive to a recohesion of nationalities which, too powerful to be refused local self-government, in their mother tongues, are yet too weak to produce respect beyond their own confines, except through a re-union. Such are the Germans of Austria, the Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia, the Slovack Czechs of Hungary, the Magyars and the Illyrians. As for the Pole and Lombard, their permanent sympathy can never be secured, by a re-united Austria, or a Danubian confederation.

We begin with Bohemia, where the project of an ultra Teutonic empire, has called forth, on the part of the Czech or Slaavic population of this kingdom, a most furious opposition, and it would really not surprise us to see the most sanguinary scenes in that kingdom. Whether the aboriginal inhabitants were Celts, driven westwards by Germans, who were, in their turn, compelled to make way for Slaavs from the East, no one seems to be able to say, with precision, but certain it is, that for full 1200 years, they have been Slaavs. Not only Bohemia, but a great part of Northern Germany, including Brandenburg, was inhabited by Slaavs, called by the Germans Wends. The whole of old Prussia was Slaavic, the only portion of which nation now to be found in Northern Germany, is a few towns and villages in Saxony, termed the Lausitz or Lausatia.

After the division of the Frankish Empire in the ninth century, Bohemia formed part of the German Kingdom, and their kings paid tribute and homage, but their own language remained; and it was the union of Bohemia with the Archduchy of Austria and its Nebenlander, by Rudolf of Habsburg, that constituted the germ of the Austrian States, but up to the period of the Thirty Years War no attempt was made to substitute the German for the Czech language; and Bohemia attained as high a civilization as any other State out of Italy, the University of Prague being the most renowned of central Europe. The first country of Europe to embrace Protestantism, in a mass, it sent forth its John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, to set the example of martyrdom for the reformed faith, and at the Hradshin of Prague were kindled the flames of the Thirty Years' War, which ended at length with the joint prostration of both Czechism and Protestant

ism in Bohemia.

The Bohemian provinces number eight millions of souls, that is to say, four in Bohemia Proper, two in Moravia, and two more in the Slovackey, the two former provinces belonging politically to the Austrian States, in the German Confederation-the last to the kingdom of Hungary. As for Silesia, which was formerly Czech, it is now nearly all Germanized, and must be considered as a German province.

About a third of the population of Bohemia Proper is German, and they are highly incensed at the refusal of the National Committee, (which has almost superseded the Government in its political functions,) to send representatives to the German Parliament. The leaders of the Bohemian people at this moment, are Count Leo Thun, the