The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Lion very different from that of the provisional dictator,
whom three years ago we refused to congratulate.
The educated Republicans have more patriotism and
more honesty than any of the monarchical factions ; their
sympathies are with civilisation against barbarism, with
progress against reaction, with freedom against despotism,
with England against Russia; but they are swamped by
universal suffrage, and no one can even conjecture what
will be the foreign policy of seven millions of peasants
and two millions of artisans. We believe, therefore, that
our alliance would be dissolved if France were in the hands
of a Bourbon, and would be endangered if she were in those
of a democracy; and, therefore, that the best chance for its
permanence is the duration of the Imperial Government.

The foreign policy of Louis Napoleon is roviewed
very impartially, and justice is done him at the hands
of the reviewer. With the exception of the expedi-
tion to Rome, which was forced on him by the
Assembly, and the attempt to revive the pretensions
of the Latins in Jerusalem, which demand was
honorably withdrawn by the French Emperor, his
management of the foreign relations of France, says
the writer, has been faultless :
To England he has been honest and confiding, to Russia
conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and
he has treined Prussia with perhaps more consideration
than that semi•Russiau Cou►t and childishly-false and
cunning king deserved. He has been assailed by every
form of temptation, through his hopes and through his

. .. .
fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested. Such
conduct deserves the admiration with which England has
repaid it.

The MSS. memoranda which are quoted from in this
article contain curious details upon the armies of the
different European States ; but the opinions of
Polish officers on such matters must b. received cum
gran°. An able review of Finlay's " Byzantine
Empire" does full justice to the great experience
and extensive research of this historian, though at
the same time the writer does not omit telling Mr.
Finlay, with some justice, that his works are so
abstruse and so learned in detail as to appeal only to
the tastes of the select few, not to the sympathies of
the general reader. "University Reform," as applied
to Oxford, receives attention in the present number.
The writer considers that tutorism is the one thing
needful to be reformed. The act has made tutorism
dominant at Oxford :

Tutorism—that is, the monopoly of the public instruc-
tion of dr: students by the fellows of each college sepa-
rately—has swallowed up the University, annihilated the
faculties, destroyed all demand, all room for learning,
driven away the ablest men into other professions, extin-
guished the vigorousandindepandentpurimit of knowledge,
and made Oxford a mere aggregate of whoolinasters. To
exterminate these evils is to reconstruct tutorism ' • and
will a tutorial government be capable of such an effort?
We fear rather that the evils will continue ; and then, when
the disappointed nation perceives that a solid reform has
not been gained, the struggle will be renewed.
• • •
•

The bill has not attacked the malady which afflicts the
University. It has opened no career for learning, fur.
wished no incitements to the independent pursuit of know.
ledge, provided no great authorities to command the re•
verence of students in a single department of human
thought. It has done nothing to avert the flight from the
University of every man of superior talent and learning.
It has left Oxford dependent for her theology, her philo•
sophy, her history, and her scholarship, on London, Paris,
and Germany. It has not accomplished the grand object
of University Reform. That reform is still to come.
" The Census," " Old English Songs," Dr. Doran's
" Habits and Men," "The History of the Electric
Telegraph," and an article upon "Drunkenness,"
make up, with the papers we have noticed, the table
of contents of this number. The latter article,
which is full of suggestive matter, is ably and dis-
passionately written, and offers many suggestions,
the principal of which is "early closing."

Blackwood for February opens with a political in-
quiry upon the "Whence have come our Dangers ?"
and replies that they have come solely from that
inexplicable system of economy which has been
pressed upon all Governments for the last twenty
years, and which has reduced our forces and im.
paired the efficiency of every branch of the military
service :

An army (remarks the writer) is not made in a day.
It takes two years to make a horse•soldier; fifteen months
to make a thorough footesoldier. If hurried into the ranks
before thus instructed and trained, they may indeed be.
come chair au canon, or encumber hospitals, but it is in
vain to expect from them the efficiency of real soldiers.
They may tight bravely in the field, but they will melt
away under the severity of military duty : the dripping bi•
vouac, the stinted rations, the service in the trenches, will
prove fatal to their inexperienced strength. This has been
sufficiently proved in tbe. siege of Sebastopol. Tho troops
which suffered most from fatigue and bickness there were
the new regiments and the young soldiers. The idea so
common with civilians, therefore, that it is time enough to
raise soldiers when they are required, and folly to maintain
a costly peace establishment for the eventualities of war, is
an error of the most dangerous kind. If the army is not
raised and trained in peace, it cannot act with effect in the
first years of war. Early disaster is inevitable ; and this,
accordingly, has been invariably experienced in England
for a hundred and fifty years.