of the district, and at the expense of the inhabitants. Where parishes or districts fall short of a population of three hundred, two may unite for education, or that which contains less than the necessary complement may take in a portion of an adjoining district of which the population is excessive. All schoolrooms so provided should be fitted up and supplied with materials of instruction, agreeably to a pattern approved of by the Committee of Privy Council; which should likewise define the books to be used as class books, leaving to local committees the right of selecting from the list those which appear most suitable to the condition and requirements of the scholars. A bill so worded may appear, at first sight, to threaten the rights of individuals as well as of incorporated bodies. There are more school-houses in England than scholars to fill them; some of which owe their existence, like that of Great Braxted, to the munificence of private persons: while of others, built by public subscription, the property is vested, for particular purposes, in trust. Are they to be pounced upon and confiscated, or shall the Legislature compel parishes to erect additional school-houses, when those already in existence stand empty? The objection is more plausible than real-for the Legislature is not bound to notice, and, of course, will not notice, existing school-houses at all. It will leave to parish authorities the care of settling how such edifices are to be dealt with-whether obtained by purchase or cession, or in any other way, from their present proprietors-the single point to which it looks being this: that no parish or district, containing more than a fixed amount of populatiou, shall be destitute of a school-house and teacher's residence throughout England. But as the proprietors of existing school-houses are exactly that class of persons on whom the building rate, if called for, must fall with the greatest weight, we are surely not impugning either their good sense or their liberality, if we assume that, in nine cases out of ten, they will prevent the necessity of a rate, by making over their buildings to the parish. And as to schoolhouses held in trust, the trustees can easily be relieved from the restraints under which they now lie, by a law which shall be permissive only. They may refuse to avail themselves of it, and endeavour to compete, both as regards school-houses and scholars, with the national scheme. But few, we suspect, will be tempted to embark in so desperate an enterprise: for the voluntary against the endowed principle is no fair match, particularly if the value of the instruction communicated be all on the side of the latter. The next thing to be done is to provide a fund for the main 1852. Proposed Plan. 355 tenance of teachers; which must be raised, like the poor fund or the church fund, by rate levied on all the property of the parish or district, without exception. It need not, in any case, exceed one shilling in the pound, and ought to be limited to this amount. For there is probably no district in England, inhabited by three hundred persons, which, when all are rated in a like proportion, from the lord of the manor down to the occupant of a forty shilling cottage,-will not support amply its local teachers, besides supplying its school with books, slates, and every other requisite for tuition. The school so built and so endowed must be open, free of charge, to the children of all parties alike who are rated for its maintenance. Of course the nature of the instruction will be pitched sufficiently high to render it an object with tenant farmers, and the middle orders of tradesmen and shop-keepers, to avail themselves of it. But there can be no harm in this, but the reverse; for the fact of having been brought together in their childhood, at task and play, will serve to engender a more kindly feeling among employers and their servants in after life than generally prevails at this moment. The general superintendence of each school should devolve upon a local committee, to be chosen by the rate-payers, voting according to the amount of their respective contributions. But it should be provided, that the clergyman of the parish, the churchwardens, and all ministers of religion officiating within the limits of the parish or district, shall be, ex officio, members of this committee. It should be the business of the committee to control the receipt and expenditure of the education rate; to see that the school is adequately supplied with materials; and to support and encourage the teachers by frequent visits to the school during hours of work; to suspend any or all of them for apparent incompetency, and to dismiss, should moral depravity be proved. In all such cases, however, the committee must report, without loss of time, to the Committee of Privy Council, which shall be authorised to confirm or reverse such sentence, according as the results of further inquiry may suggest. In order to provide competent teachers of both sexes, an adequate number of training colleges must be instituted and supported at the sole charge of the Committee of Privy Council; from one or other of which, local committees, acting for parishes, may select teachers suited to the wants and social and intellectual condition of their respective localities. All schools supported out of local rates, and furnished with teachers by Government training institutions, should be regularly inspected and reported upon by her Majesty's inspectors of schools; such report to be laid every Session on the tables of both houses of Parliament. With respect to attendance, we believe that, for the present, that must be left to the option of children or their parents. Neither would it be just to fix any one arbitrary standard of instruction, by which all schools are equally to be tried. This point, however, ought to be insisted upon in every instance; that, whatever may be the circumstances of a parish or district, to these the instruction communicated in the national schools shall conform. In manufacturing towns, for example, the ordinary attainments of reading, writing, and arithmetic will be judiciously followed up by instruction in mechanics, in the construction and uses of machinery, in design, and in chemistry as applied to the arts, and so forth. In the rural districts, natural history, agricultural chemistry, the properties of light and heat, horticulture, and even botany, may all be turned to good practical account. And, assuming that these subjects are well taught, we have the experience of Mr. Dawe's school to convince us, that education will not only become popular, but that it will soften the manners as well as elevate the tastes of the rising generation. Finally, on the subject of method, and the best and most effective means of founding all knowledge on the religious principle, we have nothing to add to what has already been stated at the beginning of this Article. The schools of our regiments and the Training Institution at Chelsea, offer models which cannot be too faithfully imitated. For it is a gross insult upon the Church of England to assume that she will lose ground on a fair trial with other sects; or that children who are not dosed, ad nauseam, with catechisms and liturgical formularies, every day of the week, must, when they grow up, pass of necessity to the conventicle. Such are the views which we entertain of what is not only required but practicable in this country. We believe,also, that when accomplished, all parties would approve of it; and we are certain that unless this, or something like it, be done, the evils of an overgrown and grossly ignorant population will soon force themselves upon the attention of the most careless. Nor let us be told that ours is a German scheme; and that the present state of Germany furnishes few proofs of its excellence. The present state of Germany is bad enough, thanks to the breach of promises made by Kings and Emperors so long ago as 1814. But it would be ten times. worse than it is; even worse than in the darkest times of 1848, had not the people learned, through the influence of a liberal education, to put some restraint upon their 1852. Farini's Stato Romano. 357 passions, and to make a law to themselves amid anarchy. Compare all our recent European revolutions with that of 1794 in France, and say whether education have not a tendency to restrain from the commission of at least the wildest crimes; but do not lay to the door of the school, revolts which began and succeeded long before the school existed. But it is needless to argue against a point that few reasonable persons would defend. The great question, after all, is this; to whom shall England be indebted for the boon of a really national system of education? Will the minister who now guides the councils of the Crown earn this harvest of glory to himself, or, shrinking from obstacles which the slightest show of firmness must overbear, will he leave it to be gathered in by another? ART. III. -1. Lo Stato Romano dall' Anno 1815 al 1850. Per LUIGI CARLO FARINI. Vols. I. & II. Torino: 1850. Vol. III., 1851. 2. The Roman State from 1815 to 1850 By LUIGI CARLO FARINI. Translated by the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. Vols. I. and II. London: 1851. 3. Memorie Storiche sull' Intervento Francese in Roma nel 1849. Di FEDERICO TORRE. Vol. I. Torino 1851. 4. Histoire de la Révolution d'Italie en 1848. Par JOSEPH NAPOLEON RICCIARDI, Ancien Deputé au Parlement de Naples. Paris: 1850. 5. Gli ultimi 69 Giorni della Republica in Roma. Napoli: 1849. 6. All' Europa. Annotazioni storiche retrospettive dei Costituzionali Romani. Italia: 1851. (Privately printed.) 7. Gli ultimi Rivolgimenti Italiani. Di F. A. GUALTERIO. Vol. I. Firenze: 1851. 8. Ai Signori Tocqueville e Falloux, Lettera di G. Mazzini. Losanna: 1849. WE E are not aware that Mesmerism, in any of its successive developments, has as yet undertaken to foreshadow great political contingencies. It is a task so difficult, and so far transcending the ordinary range of human judgment, that the higher and the lower classes of minds seem almost to run equal chances when they approach it. The multitude of disturbing circumstances that cannot be foreseen, and their play, alike powerful and capricious, commonly derange the best calculations which the care and wit of man can devise; and a knack of lucky conjecture, an order of faculties resembling that which solves conundrums, often seems to be more successful in its hits than comprehensive mental grasp or the closest logical continuity. Yet, although the forms which are to emerge out of a crisis are thus difficult to predict, such cases have often happened as satisfy the common understanding of the world, that the crisis itself must shortly come. One of these, for all who have given their minds to it, is, unless we are much mistaken, the present case of the Roman or Papal States. As, when we see a ship about to be launched, with the downward slope before her, and the props or stays about her, we need no prophet to acquaint us that, so soon as these hindrances are knocked away, the mass must move, and that pretty briskly; in like manner the slide lies prepared, down which the temporal power of the Popes is rapidly, and perhaps precipitously, to descend, so soon as its artificial and purely mechanical supports shall be withdrawn. Nor is it less plain in this case than in the former, that the effect will follow upon its cause when the latter is permitted to operate with freedom. But the ship descends to ride proudly on the waters: that vessel of state, with which we are comparing it, will sink like lead into their unfathomable abyss. A course of historical traditions in a conservative sense, derived from the period of the last war, has imbued us Britons with predispositions so favourable to the temporal power of the Popes, as to counterbalance, pro tanto, the strong Anti-papal sentiment of the country. The downfall of this power is linked in our recollections with the sanguinary propagandism of the great French Revolution: its restoration, with the triumphs of British arms and the return of general peace. Ugly tales, indeed, reached us, though piecemeal, during the reign of Gregory XVI. But in politics the English are a forgiving people: their wrath rises slowly, and, when risen, it is easily turned away by any indication of a desire to amend. In this point of view it is pleasant, in another it is almost ludicrous, to look back upon the reception which was generally given in this country to the reforming measures of Pius IX. Warning voices might, indeed, be heard the voices of those who perceived, in the measures of the Pontiff, by far too much of what the Greeks called To popтikóν; a resolution, or a tendency equivalent to a resolution, to have a maximum of credit for a minimum of performance, a maximum of show, with a minimum of substance: and at the same time either an utter ignorance or a very culpable recklessness as to the consequences likely to attend upon ostentatious and theatrical, not to say charlatan and mountebank, |