The Press.
London, England, 1853-07-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

of Christian fervour. His religion is emphati-
cally manly and reflective ; and his appeals to
the conscience, without the exaggerations of a
" terrorist," are well calculated to arouse the
apathetic. from the slumber of forgetfulness.
The sermon on " The Office of Memory"
pleased us most in the collection, though
perhaps that on " Suicide" is the most power-
ful, and, along with "Suffering Universal,"
might, as tracts, be yopularly circulated with
advantage. All who are interested in our
great educational foundations will read with
pleasure the defence of them in the discourse
called " The Blessings of Permanence," from
Nhich we will select the following passage
can scarcely now be denied that the old routine of a
public school education was adhered to with an unreason-
able rigidity, and that its progressive adaptation to the
exigencies of modern society was indispensable to its re-
taining any hold upon the respect of an enlightened age.
But this I maintain with the fullest conviction of its truth,
that it is an unspeakable advantage to have a check im-
posed upon such reformations by the existence of a long-
established custom. It is not desirable that every new
theory should be suffered to try its experiments upon the
heads and the hearts of the youth of England. We cannot
consent. to the sweeping condemnation of that mode of
classical instruction which has developed (or certainly not
prevented the development of) minds which have been
from generation to generation our national glory and our
national strength. It is impossible indeed to disprove the
assertion that such results might have been witnessed
equally under any other system. We are far from asserting
that there is on such a subject an absolute right and
wrong; one method alone beneficial, and every other mis-
chievous. We could conceive that some other languages
besides Greek and Latin might have served the purpose of
practising the memory, and forming the taste, and furnish-
ing the understanding, of the young : though we see pecu-
liar and incommunicable advantages (not admitting of
enumeration here) which have attended this peculiar
choice, and may justify it on a less superficial ground than
that of mere experience. But at all events we are per-
suaded that it has been an incalculable benefit to have
institutions, like these ancient public schools, interposed
between the invention and the application of more recent
schemes of education. They have attbrded ample oppor-
tunities for safe and cautious experiment. Studies which
could not have been substituted for those of our classical
schools without the utmost possible risk are gradually
finding their place amongst the other with the moat bene-
ficial result. While we continue to protest against those
utilitarian declamations which pronounce everything value-
less in education except that knowledge which qualifies
directly for the business of life ; while we maintain, on
the contrary, that the object of all youthful discipline is
not no muen the storing as the exercising of the mind, and
that, the less professional the early eduaition of a man has
been, the better will he be qualified in the end even for
professional as well as other pursuits: we are yet enabled,
on the platform of our old and long-tried system, to extend
in many directions the compass of our instructions, re-
moving by degrees the grounds of reasonable complaint,
without sacrificing thane less obvious but (as we believe)
most just principles on which the ancient fabric was
originally founded.
We may add that the turn of thought in all
these discourses is essentially that of a Church
of England divine, without reference to the
controversies within the fold of the Establish-
ment.

Thirteenth General Report of the Colonial Land
and Emigration Commissioners. 1853. Lon-
don : Eyre and Spottiswoode.
THE Thirteenth Report of the Emigration
Commissioners, last week published, is a
document of great interest as bearing on,
perhaps, the most important of the social
questions of the day. A simple summary of
the facts contained in it will probably be more
useful than any comment on their nature or
tendency.
It appears that in 1852 English and Irish
emigration had reached the highest point
vet known. In the thirty-eight years which
have elapsed since the war, computed down to
December 31, 1852, there have left this
country altogether 3,463,292 emigrants; of
whom more than one-half, or 1,791,446, have
emigrated since the year 1847. In round
numbers, we have emigrants from 1815 to
1852 inclusive, three and a half millions ; from
1847 to 1852, both inclusive, one million and
four fifths : leaving, from 1815 to 1847 exclu
sive, about one million and three-quarters.
The above figures give nearly 300,000 as the
yearly average since 1847. But last year's
emigrants amounted to 368,764; being to this
average in the ratio of six to five and upwards,
and exceeding the emigration of 1851 by nearly
ten per cent.
Of these emigrants, say the commissioners,
the great bulk are Irish—namely, " nine-