The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

We may have again to recur to this impor tant subject, for it is impossible to do it justice in the cursory form of a single article ; but we are quite content to rest the case of the Civil Service upon the able, unanswered, and unanswerable speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Cockermouth, whose intelli gent exertions in so good a cause will, we are sure, be amply recompensed by their success. THE PRESS, AUGUST 1,1857. jealous. Their opinions are entitled to just that consideration which we award to all honest and candid men, for such we believe them to be ; but. it is no less our duty to pro test against their version of a subject of which their inexperience is only surpassed by their prejudices. Secondly is to he enumerated the pedantic bureaucratic class, who look with dislike on the old, free, national system of England. The misfortunes of the Russian war supplied this party with a handle they have not been slow to work. Hitherto, however, they have only found in it the "cow with the iron tail." Their milk-and-water orations in favour of military pedant), have not been palatable to the nation. They gaze with a wistful eye on the isolated masses of trained soldiers which are alternately the terror and the wonder of continental kingdoms. A vast establishment of military schools, and a strict professional class of dependent officers, would reali-e their ideal. The increase of patronage thereby accruing to the Government, and the slur thrown upon our ancient constitutional sys tem, cannot fail to be agreeable to a certain class of mongrel politicians. But our old feelings on this subject are still strong amongst us, and for many a long day the bureaucratists would be condemned to remain in an odious minority did they not make catspaws of that lower middle class we have previously described. The country may depend upon this. The present outcry against our military organisa tion is a masked attack on the position of the English gentry. It is earnestly desired by some that the word " gentleman" should be come an official designation—a thing that can be bought, sold, or given away, and so ren dered destitute of either social or constitu tional significance. At present an English man is an officer because ho is a gentleman. May the day never come when he is a gentle man because he is an officer. MILITARY EDUCATION. A WELL-KNOWN anecdote of the Duke of WELLINGTON has lately been going the round of the papers containing an expression of his opinion on the value of public school training But it is useless to relate such anecdotes in a merely sentimental or a merely jocose spirit. It is worse than folly for a party of old public schoolmen to dine together in celebration of a system the effects of which they are doing their best to stultify elsewhere—to pour libations of claret to the honour of Latin hexameters, and straight bowling at the Thatched-house Tavern, and then to listen quietly while the fruits of cricket and classics are being sneered at in the Houses of Lords and Commons. Noblemen and gentle men who have felt the benefit of the old Eng lish system of education must do something better than sneer at the want of it in others if they would not see it driven from the field. And as we are in the number of those who firmly believe in its excellence, we would sincerely recommend our readers not to trust merely to the via inertia, but to speak and act boldly if they would save us from an army of clerks, pedants, and prigs. The argument that because lawyers, divines, and doctors are specially educated therefore officers should be so too, is all very well when not pushed too far ; but, as usual in such cases, it almost invariably is. Persons who talk in this way are apt to forget that the special training of the curate or barrister does not begin till the general training of the gentleman and man of the world is concluded. He would be a madman who should grudge to the ensign or cornet a course of engineering, or strategy, or what not supplementary to his general culture. Build whatever superstruc ture may be thought best, and as much of it as the ground will bear, but lay your founda tions first. The priest who knows nothing but the Fathers, the barrister who knows nothing but law, can never succeed us either advocates or preachers. Chamber counsel may be content with knowledge alone, but there are no such things as chamber captains or colonels. The point, then, to be kept steadily in view is this—to preserve the earlier years of the future subaltern from the dwarfing effects of an exclusively professional training. But, considering the early age at which our young ensigns commence their career of glory, it is difficult to see how both the man and the soldier can each receive the culture he re• quires. This is the problem to be solved. Is it, we would ask, qiiite impossible that men should obtain their commissions a year or two later than is now the custom ?—we feel as if we had given utterance to some frightful heresy. But is it really impossible? At all events, this, it appears to us, will be the main difficulty to be con luered before " military education " becomes popular with the British people. Those who object to our present system may te divided roughly into two classes — those who do so from want of knowledge, and those who do so from want of sympathy. The first consists of that numerous, influential, and daily-increasing body who owe all their prosperity in life to the modern diffusion of education—self-made men, who, taking advan tage of the opportunities afforded them by mechanics' institutes, libraries, and lectures, have risen from a humble position to one of wealth and power. Such persons naturally look with distrust upon everything which a man has not acquired for himself. Of the peculiar qualities developed by good birth, refinement, and the habit of superiority they take no cognisant e, for they have had no opportunity of estimating them. They only feel that the phrase " an officer and a gentle man " points to certain qualities which they can never hope to acquire for themselves, and of which, of course, they are proportionably VISCOUNT CANNING. THERE is not at the present moment 'a single public character so much discussed as Lord CANNING. Tlks crisis in which the Governor- General has to act, the immense responsibility of his situation, the novelty of his position to a statesman bred up in European politics, the fears and hopes of his personal friends, and the general anxiety to see whether he will enhance or impair the lustre of his hereditary name, all combine to invest Lord CANNING with great personal interest. When his Lord ship was elevated to his present lofty post, the appointment was received without opposi tion. Some asked in society whether he had given proofs of the energy and knowledge necessary for filling his situation. His friends pointed to his careful training, and to the good opinion entertained of him by eminent statesmen. Some shook their heads , others gave him faint praise, and the crowd were content to judge by the event. No positive reason, certainly, was named for the appointment of Lord CANNING. We treat as a joke the current anecdote, that when the Premier was asked why Lord CANNING had been chosen Governor-General of India, Lord PALMERSTON answered,—" Aw—aw—well—let " me see—aw—you know his father—aw—was " the first who ever gave me—aw—a place in " the Cabinet—aw—and I could not do less by " his father's son." If ever said at all, such a reason must have been given jocosely. Yet it is within the bounds of possibility that in choosing the Governor-General Lord PAL.. MERSTON may have thought of his own personal position; and isolated as he has always kept himself from " party," the Premier might have liked to take refuge in the associations evoked by the name of Canning. We know why the present Speaker of the House of Commons was selected. Absit omen. Whatever were the reasons on which Viscount CANNING was selected for India, there can be no doubt that his Lordship has been carefully nurtured for public life. His accomplished mother took the most devoted interest in his early education ; and Sir ROBERT PEEL, in his short Administration in 1835, offerred to Lady CANNING a Lordship of the Treasury for her son, who was then only twenty-three years of age.* "I do not make " (wrote Sir ROBERT) this offer with a view to 739 " political support, but on the impulse of " those feelings of regard, respect, and admi " ration for his father," &c. It was not, how ever, until August, 1836, that Lord (then Mr.) CANNING entered the House of Commons as Member for Warwick, defeating the brother of Lord BROUGHTON. In the politics of those days Lord CANNING did not particularly dis• tinguish himself. He gave no signs of original power ; and his speeches, short, sensible, and quiet in tone, reminded no ono of his paternal blood. It was understood that his ambition was to shine in diplomacy. He was connected by marriage with a diplomatic family ; he tasked here and there for a long time in a yacht voyage in the waters of the Levant, studying the Eastern question in its political aspects, under the guise of merely pleasuring in classic waters. He correspond( with the diplomatists of the Conservative party, and his kinsman, Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE, was of no small use to him. It is, we cannot avoid remarking, a singular proof how open the aristocracy of England is by its constitution, when we consider that there are now three ennobled families of the name of Canning. At Eton, nearly eighty years ago, young JENICINSON (afterwards the second Earl of Liverpool) had to deliver an oration in presence of Mr. PITT, then Prime Minister, and, with great good nature, JENHIN soN gave his place to his friend young CANNING, who first attracted Mr. Pyres notice on that day. His school expenses were de frayed by a relative engaged in commercial life, and Mr. HOOICHANI FRERE'S affecting epi taph truly records that CANNING was _Horn with an ancient name of little worth, And disinherited before his birth. The son of an unfortunate Irish gentleman, GEOROE CANNING rose to be Prime Minister. His widow was made a Viscountess ; he raised one of his Irish cousins to the Peerage (Lord GARVAGH); another kinsman he advanced in diplomatic service (Lord STRATFORD DE RED CLIFFE); and the son of " the landless orphan " kas described by Mr. HOOKHABI FRERE) is now Governor-General of India! _ _ That Lord CANNING should prove himself worthy of his name must be the wish of every right-thinking man. We observed his early career with some attention, but we confess to having for a time lost interest in him, as he (lid not much distinguish himself. It seemed an odd thing that one with his renowned name should become such a mere " Peelite," copying the manners and, adopting the tone of a limited clique. He did not strike out a line for himself ; ho never showed any marked individualism ; decorous, regular, conventional, he seemed bent on uniting the formalism of Lord ST GERMANS with a slight admixture of the austere finesse of Lord ABERDEEN. It is, of course, obvious why the followers of Sir ROBERT PEEL fondled and even fawned upon Lord CANNING. None but a novice needs explanation of the " reason why." When the Marquis of DALHOUSIE'S time was out. it was supposed that he would continue the Dal housie traditions, and be a supporter of the system. The East India Directors looked on Lord CANNING as " a safe man," who would not set the Ganges on fire, and whom they could easily manage. We hope, for ourselves, that Lord CANNING will remember that he is by law " Governor- General." At, his farewell dinner, the Noble Viscount uttered a generous and truly filial aspiration that he might show that he was worthy of wearing his hereditary coronet. We cordially echo that prayer. Some of his ad visers have broken down ; but, in such circum stances, a man of inherent vigour would rise with the emergencies, and we sincerely trust that Lord CANNING will prove a brilliant ex ception to the general rule that the sons of famous men are failures. He is of A nglo-Irish extraction, and Anglo-Irish names like those of Sir EYRE COOTE, Lord MACARTNEY, the two WELLESLEYS, the Marquis of HASTINGS, and others, shine brilliantly in the eventful annals of our Indian Empire. • According to the current number of •' Dud," toe tiovernot. General was born in 13ol—an absurd error. his worthy of re mark that when the House of Commons was voting the pension for two lives to the holder of the peerage of "Canning," it RIB proposed, with remarkable foresight, that the life of the second son (the present Governor• General) should be taken in place of his elder brother, the Hon. Captain Canning, who was exposed to risk in the navy. A few years afterwards Captain Canning wax drowned by accident a Brazil. • A