The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

EDUCATIONAL FRANCHISE.

COULD there possibly be a severer satire upon
Liberal opinions than the argument recently
adduced by a Liberal journal in opposition to
the Educational Franchise ? We are not to
give the right of voting to an educated class
because liberal p►inciples do not as a rule
recommend themselves to educated minds!
Magna est veritas et prevalebit. Spirits of
ELDON and SIBTKOSPE ! If newspapers pene-
trate to the abodes of the blessed—if ghosts
talk politics, and conduct shadowy debates, in

~'=~=..~

the shrill, weak accents of

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sensation must that leader have created in
your unsubstantial society ! We are not alto-
gether supporters of that measure of Reform
to which so many able and eminent public
men have declared their adhesion ; but we
certainly cannot bring ourselves to believe
that an educated claws is more likely to miss
political truth than an un educated one—that
a man who has had the most opportunities of
acquiring facts, and the most leisure to reflect
upon them, will arrive at more erroneous con-
clusions than ho whose sole notion of poli-
tics is drawn from the tap-room of his native
village, or the journal of his market town.
A more barefaced support of the worst evils
of democracy we have never met with in
modern literature than the argument now
under consideration. " The people " possess

certain crude notions on various subjects com-
monly dignified with the title of popular prin-
ciples. And the study of history and philoso-
phy is to be discouraged in the governing
classes for fear the results should clash.
Liberalism, then, will not bear the light of
historical inquiry, and shrinks from the appli-
cation of a logical test. But, out of deference
to popular prejudice, the truth is either to be
silenced, or at best represented as the crotchet
of a few mistaken enthusiasts. What more
could Popery itself have desired in the pleni-
tude of its power than a similar suppression of
free thought and inquiry? The Church for-
bade the study of classical literature lest a
knowledge of antiquity should expose certain
profitable delusions. The Times would debar
our scholars from the exercise of political
power for a reason, as it seems to us, of a pre-
cisely similar kind. Against this popular
Popery, as it may well be termed, we cannot
protest too strongly. It has often been proved
that the spirit of intolerance is as strong in a
mob as in one man—that the tyranny of the
people is just as oppressive in another shape
as the tyranny of the prince. In England we
have hitherto avoided either. We sincerely
hope the time will never come when we shall
have to choose between them. But a Stuart
is better than a Cleon, and a despotism of
knowledge than a despotism of ignorance.
We have said that we ere not unqualified
supporters of the educational franchise. There
is, we must admit, another side to the ques-
tion. We are not afraid that educated men
should be bigots to any set of opinions; but
we do fear ono thing, and that is, lest they
should be bigots to education itself—that is
to say, refuse to recognise the force of any
arguments not draw.' from books, and not
harmonising with rigid theory. There is, to
be sure, a strong practical element in the Eng-
lish character which might go far to counter-
act this danger ; but undoubtedly the danger
exists, and is to some extent aggravated by
certain circumstances peculiar to the present
- -

time. The patronage o f art, science, and lite-
rature is nut exactly in the hands where we
could wish to see it The doctrinaire is daily
insinuating himself into the management of
affairs. It has been seriously proposed to
give painters and pebble-hunters a seat in our
hereditary Legislature. Novell views of his-
tory, whether past or present, are becoming
rife, and the "enlightened despot" is held up
to admiration for his own sake, and not
merely as a refuge from something worse. All
these are bad signs, and at the same time
equally good reasons why we should be cau-
tious about giving power to a class who, how.
ever just their views, may possibly lack dis-
cretion.

We must remember, too, that the class in
question has more compensatory powers than
belong to any other class which conceives it-
self unjustly excluded from the suffrage.
Through literature and journalism an immense
amount of private and sectional opinion is
brought to bear upon the nation. The scholar is
enfranchised by his pen. The vote thus given
may be secret, and the voter himself is free
from the visits of the canvasser. When we
add to this that it is, after all, but a fraction
of the educated classes who do not also pos-
sess a property qualification, we shall see
that the hardship is not so great as repre-
sented.
On the other hand, the property qualifica-
tion has a vast deal to be said in its favour.

The phrase " a stake in the country " has
been much laughed at we know ; but in spite
of HORACE, ridicule is not always conclusive.
The present property qualification does ine-
vitably result in this—that the large mass of
voters are thoroughly national—full of all
those good old honest English prejudices
which, however ridiculous separately, have
somehow or other in the aggregate done us no
disservice. Whether it would be wise, or how
far it is necessary, to temper this element bv the
admixture of a new one, is a very delicate
question. On the one hand, it is scarcely
expedient to oppose a measure which might
serve as a counterpoise to the overwhelming
materialism of the day. On the other, we
dread the effect of lending any stimulus to the
purely theoretical school of politicians. As
this is a question in which intelligent public
opinion is a good deal interested, and is one
that may be discussed without warmth, we
hope on some future occasion to recur to it,
and that in the meantime it may receive a
more candid consideration in other quarters
than was accorded to it by the leading
journal.