The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 3, 1857.

and vast knowledge, but true and enlightened
patriotism; and as each day brings with it
its fresh events, its striking incidents, and its
tragic episodes, all attesting his foresight, and
confirming his predictions, he can well look
with disdain upon the calumnies by which he
is assailed, whether they proceed from stu-
pidity or are attributable to malice.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND
EDUCATION.
IT has been said by some great man that a
person with only one idea in his head is
always worth listening to. What is true of
individuals is doubtless to some extent true
of nations. When a people are violently ex-
cited about any great domestic or foreign
event, all that is said or written upon that
topic will in all probability be fresher, more
earnest, and more racy than upon any other
subject. But, unfortunately for those who
merely look to public affairs for amusement or
excitement, there must always be a certain
number of other questions of which even in the
gravest imperial emergencies we cannot afford
to lose sight. And after all, even in the
most rousing crisis, when, in the language of
newspapers, the country is seething from
John O'Groat's to the Land's End, how small
in comparison is the number by which this
immense agitation is sustained.
Of all the ills that human kind endure,
How small the part that kings can cause or cure.
And of all the sorrows, hopes, fears, and
anxieties by which the twenty-six millions
who inhabit these islands are at the present
moment harassed, " how small the part,"
when allowance has been made for every
species of indirect influence which is roused
by our disasters in India! The daily struggle
of domestic life must still go on—poverty kept
from the door, and vice from the family ; sons
and daughters must still be provided for ;
and lin the harassing anxieties which await
upon such duties as these, we can under-
stand the ease of chose by whom even Delhi
and Cawnpore, murder, torture, and dishonour
are but topics of transient interest. The Times
of Thursday says, truly enough :—" Below or
" beside the classes which take an interest in
" public affairs are, we are sorry to say, large
"classes of our countrymen on whom the
" fluctuations of politics, or the successes and
" calamities of nations, make but little im-
" pression."
The above remarks sound very like truisms,
we are aware ; yet they constitute in our
opinion a valid justification of the speech
delivered recently by Lord JOHN RUSSELL
at Sheffield on the subject of education. Eng-
land, we hope, has hands and brains enough
for all her requirements; and it would be sad
indeed if her foreign embarrassments should
be pleaded as an excuse for neglecting her
duty towards those who in another generation
will have to preserve what she is now engaged
in reconuering.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL has seldom or never
been accused of timidity. When he has, we
think his conduct was probably attributable
to other causes. And on the subject of
national education he declares with his accus-
tomed boldness that the religious faculty
cannot be neglected in any sy stem of educa-
tion. We entirely agree with him. We are
perfectly convinced that the religious party in
this country need not be alarmed at the
efforts of the secularists, for their scheme
would defeat itself. It would be found so
much worse to have peculiar tenets inculcated
by inuendo than by open preaching, and so
impossible to invent a system of teaching in
which that should not be done, that a few
years would convince the most obstinate
secularist of his error. While, however, we so
far agree with the Noble Lord as to repudiate
the non-religious theory, we fear that the
feasibility of his own scheme is almost equi-
distant. A scheme in which what some people
call the " fundamentals" of Christianity shall
be taught to all children alike without re-
ference to theological differences, seems to us
quite as Utopian as Mr. COBDEN'S, and we
cannot see how at present any better scheme
than the denominational can be carried out.
We, however, for our part, fully sympathise
with the frame of mind which induced the