and college, which enables a man to enjoy with some relish the graces of letters, and the activities and results of thought; and this, I maintain, aids men to be moral.

I need only in the meantime, as a support to my argument, to note that men have in general regarded education as a preservative against many evils, that it is always spoken of and written about as a something requisite for man's moral elevation. In fact, culture bas come almost to signify not only education, but the refinement and moral amiability it produces. To this let me add but one other fact. Whenever any offence against society, or in opposition to the general duties of man to man is committed; whenever any one sinks into a sensualist, a drunkard, or a debauchee, it is considered an aggravation of the offence to say-and yet "he is a man of culture, a fine scholar, a person of a good education."

It seems to be plain, then, that if we have understood the question properly, education has the tendency to make men conquerors over sense and the vices of sense, to fortify them against temptation by occupation, and to strengthen them for self-restraint. It overcomes the eagerness of the senses, by exciting a taste for higher and nobler pleasures, and by making a man less dependent on the senses for his pleasures. B. L. K.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-1.

PHILOSOPHICAL questions in general are very vague in their form; but the topic announced under the head of Philosophy for debate during the "present half" is surely more vague than ordinary. It is not to be doubted that the subject is not only arguable but important. The main difficulty seems to be to get a common starting point, where so many words, each requiring accurate definition, are employed. "High education," for instance, is a phrase which is capable of being tortured into a great many meanings, according to the view taken of "education" itself, and of what may be denoted by "high." "Counteract," again, may signify things so opposite, as "countervail, or destroy the effect of," or form a just equivalent for." "The Eagerness of the Senses" is a round about form, it may be, of saying "man's addiction to sensuality," or, it may imply the much more harmless idea of man's "acuteness in using the ordinary powers of sensation with which he is endowed." Altogether, while we do not see very well how it would be possible to express the same idea in other terms, we may safely affirm that a great number of different ideas may be formed about the topic of discussion, each having some justification in the vagueness of phrase with which the subject is stated. We shall endeavour to fix upon one which may be usefully debated, if fairly engaged in.

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Before doing so, however, we may be allowed to lay before ourselves for guidance, and our readers for its suggestiveness, the following quotation :

“In framing a definition, the principal question to be considered is

always a question of fact. The person who defines gives, or ought to give, not his own view of the subject which he defines, but the nearest approach that he can obtain to an account of what is passing in the minds of his neighbours. The art of constructing a definition consists in finding a sufficiently large and well-marked class of facts answering pretty correctly to a word in popular use, and in appropriating the word for the future to that class of facts apart from all others. It is thus obvious that, to construct a definition of common popular phrases, is a very different thing from enunciating a complete theory of the subject to which the definition refers." 19 *

The above paragraph should put us on our guard against supposing that any very recondite and mysterious question is couched under the phraseology which stands at the top of this debate. I dare say the common matter-of-fact question would resolve itself into this-Does high, classical, literary, and intellectual training hinder men from falling into the vices which prevail among men P

The philosophical question before us would thus contain in itself such topics of practical morality as these-Does education tend to the diminishing of crime? Is education the best remedy against drunkenness? Does education control passion, and enable men more strongly than without it to resist the temptations to which human life is subject? Looked on as involving the grounds or reasons for answering these questions affirmatively or negatively, the philosophical considerations which may be brought before the mind may be very interesting and valuable. Taking the question in this light, I must confess that I am bound by the law of honesty to say that I do not think it will be found true as a fact of experience, or probable as a matter of theory, that " high education can counteract the eagerness of the senses.'

The chief of our temptations probably come to us from or through the senses. We find joy in the gratifications they afford, and we readily yield ourselves to those indulgences to which they entice. When we give ourselves up too fondly and immoderately to the gratifications of the senses, we are said to be vicious; the eagerness of our senses has overbalanced our minds, and we prefer following ur inclinations to giving devoted attention to duty; we are unwilling to ponder the path of our feet, to consider our ways and be wise, to restrain ourselves within the limits, sometimes of human, sometimes of divine law.

We note, in the first place, as affording ground for believing that high education cannot counteract the eagerness of the senses, that certain vices are almost wholly characteristic of the higher classes, those, therefore, who have had all the chances and advantages of high education. Nay, so much is this the fact that they have come to be known as the fashionable vices. It would perhaps be unwise, just at the present stage of the debate, to specify these in all their fulness. Those who know the vices which are popularly denomi

"Essays by a Barrister," p. 299; reprinted from the Saturday Review.

nated fashionable, will at once agree that high education has not tended to lessen the frequency of these. We may instance gaming and habitual drinking only as specimens. It is certain that, though drunkenness in all its grossness may not so largely prevail in the social life of the upper classes, the consumption of intoxicating drinks has not diminished. The habitual use of them has enabled the drinkers to disguise the fact better, and the constancy of habit has enabled them to bear, as it is called, their liquor more bravely, but education has not counteracted the eagerness of the senses for them, nor lessened their use.

There are other vices, which fashionable people gild and refine as to their concomitants, but in which they indulge as profusely_as their uneducated fellows, who are compelled to take them under the rude form in which they are catalogued as the "brutal vices ;' indeed it may fairly be alleged that the highly educated roués of society are the purveyors for the "brute masses of those who are their victims, and the tempters of those who, in the eagerness of enticed senses, follow the better educated classes to do evil.

It is one thing to refine vice and palm it off in the guise of honourable life, and another to withdraw from it and abstain from its indulgence. It is a well-known fact that vices of several classes, and crimes of some heinousness, and sins of a most flagrant nature, are habitually indulged in by those who have had high education and the severest polish training could effect. But the spreading of a thin veneer of respectability over certain sins does not abolish them, or transform them into virtues. It is in their unpolished state that they "to be hated need but to be seen." The pallia tory environments with which they are surrounded make them more deadly to the soul and more contaminating in their effects.

The prevalence of gluttony, epicurism, love of finery, sexual sins,' and personal indulgence in the use of liquors, tobacco, snuff, &c., among the educated classes is undeniable evidence that education does not dull the appetite or stale the greed of sensuality that stirs the frame which has not been subjected to the governing restraint of conscientious motives and been brought under the sanctifying influences of a renewed nature.

High education, too, very frequently adds the charm of the association of old legendary mythology, gracefully expressive classical poetry, and the glitter of felicitous phrase round the indulgences of sense. Memories of Hebe, and Venus, and Bacchus, and Jove, quotations from Horace, Catullus, and Juvenal, incidents from the classical drama, and ideas derived from the statues of the olden or the paintings of the modern time. These, while they conceal the sinfulness under a cloak of seeming virtue, increase the eagerness of the senses for the Circean cup of pleasure, till indulgence, "unmoulding Reason's mintage charactered in the face," brings the polished and educated sinner down to the level of his less trained and humbler imitator. No, education does not coun teract, it often intensifies, the eagerness of the senses. G. P.

National Education.

OUGHT EDUCATION TO BE SETTLED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE OR THE UNION?

"The Education movement is going forward with a rapidity which justifies the most sanguine hopes; and the two great principles of the League-that Education should be compulsory, and that State Education should be undenominational-are striking root deeply into the mind of the nation. Having held the first opinion for many years, and the last always, I heartily rejoice at the progress both are making towards general recognition."-J. S. Mill.

THE LEAGUE.-I.

THE principles of the National Education League are plain, simple, and thoroughgoing. The object is to agitate for "the establishment of a system which shall secure the education of every child in the country;" and the means are briefly these:-that local authorities shall be compelled by Law to provide sufficient school accommodation for every child in each district; that the founding and maintaining of the said schools shall be provided for by local rates, supplemented by Government grants; that these schools shall be managed by the local authorities, and be under Government inspection-be unsectarian-be free to all-and children may be compelled, if necessary, to attend them. This scheme is practical, straightforward, and adapted to the times. The League asserts that education is as necessary to the proper vitality of man as food is. It affirms that here and there education may be had if it be taken out of a sectarian feeder; but in almost all cases it cannot now be had apart from the sectarian condiment. The League is of opinion that education pure and simple may be provided with as little sectarianism in it as there is sectarianism in a soup-kitchen or an hospital. Besides, it sees that sectarianism works fitfully, wastefully, and for the effecting of a purpose beside or beyond the main object. It is set in operation to gain converts, not to make scholars competent for the duties of this life.

In looking upon the educational machinery now in existence no one can fail to recognise its want of permanency, its dependence on the life of some good old Lady Bountiful, the yearning for notoriety of some young clergyman, or the zeal of some chapel deacons; that it is not originated with the distinct and definite design of preparing pupils for the work of life, but of biassing them towards a particular creed. That where sects are contentious, schools abound, and where a truce of God is held among the sects, or the adherents are only lukewarm, education languishes and fails. It expands,

not according to the requirements of a district, but in proportion to the energies of sects; it is founded on the free will of individuals, and is therefore liable to fluctuation instead of being established by law, and made permanent by the will of the nation. The education of the country has hitherto been provided by us as a charity or a bribe-a charity in support of which brazen-faced mendicancy has been practised by clergy, deacons, and tract distributors, and a bribe held out to secure the influence in one parish of the Church of England, in another of the Wesleyans, and in another of the Independents. Education is a right-a right which ought to be provided for in the arrangements of the State, and it ought not to be given as a charity, nor used as a bribe.

There is thus a great waste of educational effort the competition of sects causing competitions of schools, two or three being set up where only one can be adequately supported, and the result being that while the teachers are nearly starved, the children are enticed into one or other school, not so much for the education to be got, as the favour, the clothes, or the parish relief, which is to be gained by going to one party in preference to another. Besides the waste in building expenditure and in teaching power, we have the waste of inspectoralism. Then in other places, where zeal is worn out, or the parties are so evenly pitted against each other that there is no chance of changing the percentages by the institution of schools, or where the poverty is so great that money cannot be raised to comply with the government regulations, schools are not to be found. There is neither completeness nor universality, a proper purpose, nor a trustworthy basis, for schools as they are now. Besides, the denominational system is a fallacious one. It implies that schools are for the inculcation of doctrines, and that education is only a half-way house to some religious body; whereas education is the means of making men useful and happy, profitable to themselves and beneficial to the State. Too often the school is looked upon as a foundation of, or an adjunct to, the church or chapel.

Why should churchism and pauperism be always branded on education? What relation is there between the Alphabet and the Articles, the Multiplication table and the Communion table, the copy-book and the Creed, the uses of slate pencil and the habit of church-going? Why should the perusal of the Abecedary be regarded as constituting a good claim on the clergy for charity, the learning of the art of writing be combined with the receipt of dorcas-flannel, or the acceptance of instructions in geography be considered as a stepping-stone to the soup-kitchen. Now a great many of the present schools are kept up from motives no better or more enduring than these, that they shall be avenues to the church or chapel, and are nourished upon charity because it flatters the vanity of the squire, gives interest and occupation to his daughters, brings all the possible fruit-stealers, poachers, &c., under the eye of some one in the interest of the squire, and makes children spies