The Press. — London, England, 1854-05-13 00:00:00

04 article of consumption. Already the duty presses so heavily as to prevent any expansion of the revenue. Mr. GLADSTONE may not improbably overload his camel. The House of Commons has on several occasions formally resolved that the existing duty is too high to be maintained, and, as the enormous increase will be the more sorely felt from the reflection that it is dictated by malevolent party feeling, it is little likely to be patiently borne The unfairness of the proposal is one of the strongest arguments against it, and this unfairness is the' more glaring as the reduction of the tea duties is to continue in progress. A million sterling will be sacrificed by the next reduction of 4d. per lb., or one farthing per ounce. It is desira ble that the country should have its tea as cheap as possible, but on what sound princi ple of finance is the malt duty to be oppres sively increased that tea may be cheapened ? A. war like that in which we are engaged may truly be called national, and calls for national sacrifices. It is but just that every class of the community should contribute to its cost ; and if the increased taxation required be fairly apportioned it will be ungrudgingly borne. But the Legislature cannot possibly sanction a worse principle than that class interests and motives shall influence fiscal policy, and that the party which happens to be in power shall frame its financial proposals, not on broad grounds of justice, and from enlarged views of public interest, but from the contemptible desire of pleasing its political friends, and mortifying and injuring its political oppo • nerds. MR. SIDNEY HERBERT AND THE WAR-OFFICE. ..... IT does not require any gift of prophecy to foretell that the public, during the ensuing year, will often discuss the personal qualifica tions of the various members of the official staff charged with the practical conduct of the campaign in the East. The fact of Mr. SID NEY HERBERT having Russian connections is one amongst many reasons why his aptitude for the particular office now filled by him should at present become a topic for dis cussion. The office of Secretary of War is more la borious than showy. For a great number of years it was ably filled by Lord PALMERSTON, whose characteristic energy found appropriate employment in its recurrent toils. Peculiar readiness in arranging matters of dull but most important detail, and rapid capacity for mastering voluminous reports from trusted subordinates, are amongst its most prime re quisites. A sonnetteer (though a good one) would be felt to be ridiculously out of place at the Board of Trade ; a humanitarian (and a sincere one) must feel strangely out of his element as Secretary at War. Poetry and politics alike have their Della Cruscans—too sensitive for epic performances. The more amiable parts of political life the member for South Wilts is suited for adorning ; but he has scarcely that sinewy strength of will, that conquering energy, which grapples with obstacles. Generals demanding their artillery, colonels of cavalry without horses for their troops, sergeants and privates mur muring against the commissariat, will not be calmed in their irritation by being blandly assured that the Secretary at War can proudly recollect that he originated and superintended the great movement on behalf of distressed neediewomen. The requisites for serving in the War-office and for shining at Willis's Rooms at a meeting of humanitarians are cer ly very different. Surrounded by a tender thence of fair philanthropists with small 'smelling-bottles and large purses, and sup ortkd by a semi-tractarian bishop, the member I Tor South Wilts is seen to perfection. His tatistics are there felt to be pathetic and Ph-resistible. He is admired as a highbred humanitarian, deserving to have a list of sub lacriptions as long as his pedigree ; for our philanthropic plutocracy likes to be appealed Ito by a gentleman with an historical name. He ;leaves behind him, amongst his fair listeners, l'a delightful recollection suggestive of some Loark thing very fashionable and philanthropic, as it THE PRESS. if he were a superior being compounded of the graces of " Pelham " and the orthodoxy of Sir ROBERT INOLIS. But when the question is one, not of semp stresses but aoldiers—when the emergency requires strenuous exertion, not mere syps pathy—doubts will occur as to whether W. SIDNEY likatagit? has the special qualities re quired. The Omar is not to be crushed by a perfumed cant, nor his gun-boats sunk by a bunch of violets from Wilton. Great, not graceful, talents are necessary ; armies must he provided for by capacity for affairs, and not by pleasingly pathetic aspirations. A very elegant person, wanting the vivida via anima inspires a man of action, has but doubtful utility when hard work and vigorous plans are demanded by the times. As we have intimated, the fact that Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT has high Russian connec tions is probably an additional reason why the Secretary of War is so often alluded to in discussions on the Eastern expedition. His mother was the daughter of a Russian noble, and the member for South Wilts reckons the Counts WORONZOW amongst his ancestors. Our Cabinet is rich in curiosities. In foreign politics " old friends" make war against each other, and embroil Europe. In Parliament old enemies suddenly forget the antipathies of a life, and fall into each other's arms, and into office, in a simultaneous burst of sym pathy. Lord ABERDEEN burlesques the part of Falkland and cries " Peace !" while his Foreign Secretary talks of " a war against bar barism," and, hard alternative for a man of sympathies, the Secretary at War has to take some part in the militant preparations against that country with which he is connected by the tenderest ties and most affecting asso ciations ! Ili NATIONAL EDUCATION. Tng educational statistics of England are before us, and making allowance for the inevitable inaccuracy of all such calculations, and for their occasional tendency to substitute generalisation for fact, we still find in these pages a most interesting and, on the whole, sufficiently encouraging record of the social state of our countrymen in this year, 1854. Stated generally, the result of the inquiry is as follows : Total of Sunday schools Day schools, public and private 46,042 Evening schools for adults 1,545 And the number of scholars (a much more conclusive test) may be reckoned at— Sunday scholars . 2,407,642 Day scholars Evening adult scholars 39,783 The day schools, of course, furnish the prin cipal points of comparison between the pre sent and former times, as well as between our own and foreign nations. The existing popu lation of England and Wales is within a few hundreds of 18,000,000. We have thug an actual percentage of scholars to population of something above one-ninth. This, it must be remembered, was assumed by Mr. BAINEs—no mean authority—as being a proportion quite high enough for reasonable persons to be satisfied with in the actual state of English society. Mr. BAINES'S calculation is commonly considered too low ; but one-eighth, in lieu of one-ninth, is now habitually assumed as the point of practical perfection. This point is not yet attained; but we are less distant from it than the exaggerated language of many writers and speakers would lead men to expect. The census-takers estimate, we know not on what authority, that the population below the age of three, plus that above the age of fifteen, exceeds slightly 13,000,000, leaving in round numbers 5,000,000 within those twelve years. It may be reckoned that, with very rare exceptions, school-teaching does not begin before the first, nor continue after the latter, of these two ages. There are children attend ing school under three years of age, and boys remaining at school (as is common among the wealthier class) above fifteen ; but both these cases are exceptional, and need not be take' SATURDAY, into account in a general survey. Five mil lions, therefore, of human beings are all that, within the utmost limits of possibility, could be attending places of instruction at the same time. But even from this number a consi derable deduction must be made. Apart from the mere poverty of parents—apart from the expense of paying the school-fees, inconsider able as these usually are—the money value of children's labour tells heavily against their chance of getting a fair education. To a laborious family, as Mr. HORACE MANN truly remarks, the gain of ls. (Id. or 2s. per week is no slight inducement. In this respect it makes little or no difference whether the school be free or otherwise. The children are kept away, not on account of what it costs to teach them, but of what they can earn else where. Nor is it merely the present gain that operates on the parent's mind. " Some per " sons qualified to judge," says Mr. MANN, " are of opinion that the business of a farm " labourer cannot be thoroughly learnt if work " be not commenced before eleven or twelve." Education of one kind is discontinued that education of another kind may be commenced. Even where this is not the case, the feeling is natural that leads both child and parent to desire that the former should be independent as soon as possible. " Many obtain permanent " employment as early as the age of nine r and in mechanical occupations much earlier. Again, where actual remunerative labour is not performed, the child may be, and often is, made useful at home. This, too, is a kind of education, and one which school-teach ing ought not wholly to supersede, since, however desirable it may be to superadd other acquirements, the art of gaining a livelihood is to the mass of mankind that of most immediate importance. A further deduction remains to be made for a less allowable cause. The criminal or preda tory classes, of whom mention has often been made in these columns, are not to be left • out of sight. They cannot, as Mr. MANN sen sibly says, be wholly done away by any educa tional or reformatory system. Their occupa tion, while it lasts, is profitable, full of excite ment, and involves freedom from that drudgery which, distasteful to all, is more especially so to the young. There will always be many natures to which this kind of existence pre. gents an irresistible temptation, not counter balanced by any moral conviction (whatever their knowledge on the subject may be) of its wrongfulness and ultimate disgrace. Including all the above—children, or boys, working in the fields—children working in mills or at trades—children assisting their parents at home, learning their future life-work, or crimi nally occupied—Mr. MANN deducts from his total one-fifth, or 1,000,000 in all; thus reducing the number who may be expected to attend at school to something less than four millions. Some further subtractions must be made on account of invalids—of whom, even in early youth, the census-takers reckon as not less than 200,000—and of children in all ranks, more especially the wealthier, whose educa tion, during some part at least of the age of tutition, is carried on at home. Making all these allowances, " the residue of children " between three and fifteen, having no impe " diment of age, occupation, serious sickness, " or domestic education to detain them from " school, would be 3,663,281." Here our compilers leave their case ; but we must add - The estimate, grossly exagg' we come to k attendance exi labourers and • years of daily No rational th, an elementary ordinary day sei leave such a write with ease, with some km geography an'' reached whit expect. But years are not well as many even less than official comput . a remark on our own account. a, fair in all other respects, is ;crated, as it seems to us, when consider the length of school expected from the children of [ mechanics. Twelve consecutive lessons—and all to teach—what? pinker anticipates that more than y instruction will be given at an school. If the majority of pupils t school, able to read fluently, se, and cipher correctly, and also knowledge of the rudiments of ad history, the utmost point is ich sober-minded persons will f for such knowledge a dozen required; and many parents, as children, will be satisfied with han such knowledge. But the [ utation gives above three million 111111111111111111111111111111