The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-14 00:00:00

14, 1846.

nowhere more strictly observed, than in the parts
where priests were worst treated during the French
revolution Spain has exhibited some frightful symp-
toms of similar re-action ; and the spirit of inquiry,
which might have led to dissent, was unknown among
the followers of Timm of Canterbury. The fact is,
we impose upon ourselves by the most simple juggle
of words. We imagine that a negative term implies
an absolute non-existence; we suppose that " igno-
rance" means a want of knowledge, and nothing
more ;—but it also implies the presence of something
which the possessor mistakes for knowledge ; on
which he will act as if it were knowledge ; and of
course, in consequence of his error, will and must act
wrongly and mischievously. To say that " ignorance
is better than false knowledge," is to talk non-
sense ; for ignorance is itself false knowledge. The
ithholding of education is itself "a gigantic system
of godless education."

The belief that while we are doing nothing,
nothing is done, is a palpable blunder, which
we never make in any other circumstances of
life. If we neglect our gardens, we know that weeds
will spring up where we have omitted to plant
flowers; if we do not attend to machinery, we
know that it will be consumed with rust ;—but the
mind, the youthful mind, so susceptible of impression
and so retentive of impress, we leave exposed to every
thing that is dangerous, and everything that is in-
jurious; not only withholding positive good, but in-
flicting positive injury. We are guilty of more than
not doing right—we are conniving at wrong. When
we keep back WILDERSPIN, we set forward FAGIN.
It is not until people thoroughly understand that
ignorance is a positive thing; that it is a mischievous
substitute for useful knowledge; that it is false, not
true principles of morality ; evil, not good motive for
action; a dangerous something, not a neutral nothing ;
—it is not, we believe, until people have mastered this
very plain and simple truth, that they will regard
ignorance as a nuisance which ought to be abated.
But we may be told " all this is very well ; we
agree that people ought to be educated, but who are
to have the charge of education ?" The answer is
simply, " Those who are most interested in having
education rightly conducted." The State is interested
in having good citizens; localities are interested in
having good neighbours; and the several religious
denominations are interested iu having worthy pro-
fessors. Here are three interests not only easily re-
concilable, but naturally concurrent. With the State
education is a question of police ; with localities, a
question of society ; and with ministers of religion, a
question of doctrine. Morality is common to all three ;
for each has its separate system of duties, often coin-
cident, bat never clashing, except when perverted in-
genuity is exerted to bring them into collision.
There is no reasonable ground on which any one of
the three interests can claim to absorb all the rest;
there is no plausible excuse for the neglect of the in-
terests confided to its charge, in any one of the three
parties.
In the application of these principles to professional
life, we are all pretty well agreed. No one contends
that the College of surgeons should be superintended
bythe bench of bishops, or that a synod should regulate
the College of Physicians. Dr. Mc HALE stands alone
in demanding that professors of anatomy should be
provided with certificates of orthodoxy from a pre-
late. It would be deemed a monstrous thing if theo-
logical scrutiny were exercised by the Inns of Court
before young men could be called to the bar; and
though there was a time when such follies were per-
petrated, we find no one asking for their revival. It
may be said that this only refers to professional
education ; but all education that is worth a straw
must, to a certain extent, be professional ; that is, it
must have definite relations to the pupil's future
career in active life. Were we as thoroughly con-
vinced of the necessity of having citizens educated,
as we are of having physicians and lawyers educated,
there would not have been any real difficulty about
the matter.

So far are we from regarding the controversy
respecting education as evidence of earnestness in the
cause of education, that we look upon it as a proof
of the very reverse. Had we been in earnest about
the matter, we should, instead of talking, have been
long since up and doing. But as the sage declares,
" the slothful man saith there is a lion in the path, a
lion in the streets;" and so great is our slothfulness,
that we act as if we had to face a whole menagerie.
We can of course complain of difficulties, and dwell
upon objections; for, as SOLOMON says, "the sluggard
is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can
render a reason." Sluggards in this instance we
undoubtedly are, or rather something worse ; for we
give more authority to some obstinacy, real or sup-
posed, which we ourselves stigmatise as irrational,
than to the seven or seventy-seven men who can
render a reason.

Apathy, not reluctance ; insincerity, not oppo-
sition; are the evils which we dread. So soon as a
man begins to stickle about the conditions on which
he will support National Education, we are led to fear
that his heart is not in the matter; ad unless he
gives us his heart, we are content to leave him his
head at his own disposal. Them is a vagueness
about those propounders of conditions which is per-
fectly intolerable ; we cannot find out what it is they
really want, or what are the limitations which they
mean to propose. But before we discuss the con-
ditions, we must see that the main object is honestly
sought. We must not have the old juggle of Catholic
Emancipation played over again, and years wasted in
wrangling about securities by those who never de-
signed to make any concession. We have had too much
delay already, and this delay is in itself proof of the
weakness of our convictions. Even now we fear that
the want of a national system of education is rather
acknowledged than felt ; it is the subject of otiose
assent rather than of living faith; and the object of
philanthropists should be to change imperative opi-
nion into vigorous principle,—to show that the subject
is not speculative but practical,—that it is one in
which every Englishman has a direct and personal
interest.

GERMAN Y.— (From the Saale.)—We have already
stated that the negotiations of the Danish court with some
courts of Germany, relative to another marriage of the
Crown Prince of Denmark, are said to have entirely failed.
It is to be observed, besides, that a new marriage of the
Crown Prince with the tacit consent of the reigning
Grand Duke of Oldenburg Schleswig-Holstein, would not
have the effect of rendering the future descendants of the
Crown Prince qualified for the succession. According to
the family laws of Schleswig-Hoist/4r, the senior of the two
principal lines descendent from Frederick 1., that is to say,
the Gluckstadt and the Gottorp lines, is the head of that
house, as the Grand Duke declared in his late protest.
The head of the family has the well-known right to give
his consent to the marriages of the members of the house,
that they may be valid, as contracted according to the laws ,
of the family. Now the senior of both lines is the Grand
Duke of Oldenburg. IHe was born in 1783, whereas Christian
VIII. was born in 1788.

THE RHINE, Ocr. 2.—The divorce of the Crown
Prince of Denmark and his consort is already accomplished.
The Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz has resumed the title
of Crown Princess and every apanage. A new marriage
will be immediately contracted-6n it is still hoped in this
manner to put an end to the dispute respecting the woes-
sion to the throne of Denmark, except at the last extremity.

STUTIGARDT, OCT. I.—We can state, on good
authority, that the report of the convocation of an extraordi-
nary Diet is well founded. It is supposed that it will, in ail
probability, meet in January next, and have to discuss tho
question of the scarcity of provisions, and the means of re-
medying it. It is said that the commissioners havo already
been sent to Hungary and to America to buy up corn ti the
amount of three millions of florins. It is proposed to resell
it in our kingdom at a lower price, by which half a million or
florins may be sacrificed.

BERLIN, OCT. s.—Respecting the refusal of the
government of Saxe Weimar to permit the association of
German Literati to meet in that capital, we learn that this
resolution has been adopted in oonaluonce of an agreemout
hetween the German governments, by which such permission
shall not be granted unless the Pres;deot of the association
or meeting in question engages, or gives a promise, that the
dis,:sussion shall be confined to the proper object of the asso-
ciation, and all political matters be wt. Aly avoided, or in no
case made the subject of pubhe discawion.

TRIESTE, OCT. 3.—We cannot ab3olutely joio in
the zeneral iamentition reepec•iug the appreh, wird ,wareit,'
of corn, since we base radii the journal of the Au.triau

Lloyd, inn letter dated Geiser, Sept. 9, that nearly 700
favoured by a south wind, had sailed from the Bos-
phorus, bound to the several ports of the Entine and Sea of
Azoff and the Danube. What a vast quantity of corn must
be accumulated there, may be judged from the fact, that this
extraordiu..ry number of ships is not sufficient, so that many
m're vessels will be required, and on very advantageous
terms. A great deal of bnjoes% has been transacted in our
market, and the sales during the last week have been very
considerable.

SWITZERLAND.—ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE
GENEVESE INBURRECTION.—On the night of the 6th the ope-
ratives rose en misuse, and established barricades on the bridges,
and on the 7th the militia attempted to carry them. After
about two hundred cannon shots, and a most determined resist-
ance, the barricades were destroyed. The insurgents, how-
ever, entrenched themselves in the Faubourg, and, although
the militia had bean successful in the first instance, it was
no easy matter to occupy that point. The militia made the
attempt on two points, but no sooner was that force per-
ceived at the entrance of the Faubourg than a deadly fire
was commenced front the windows and from the tops of the
houses, which were literally crowded with people. The mili-
tia fought resolutely, hut as the chiefs who had led the attack
were wounded, and some of them mortally, no alternative
was left but to retreat and recross the bridges. The militia,
however, retained possession of the lower town, the insur-
rection being concentrated in the faubourg. In the night of
the 7th the insurgents set fire to the bridges, and as the po-
pulation of the lower town was then increased, it rose in its
turn. The auxiliary force of the Canton of Vaud, com-
p,sed of liberals, which arrived about this time, and in
great numbers, then lent its rid to the insurrection, and,
as the militia was threatened on all sides, it surrendered,
and abandoned the contest. The crowning effort of the
day was the resignation of the Council of State, which
event was followed by the occupation of the arsenal,
and all public establishments, by the insurgents. A
Provisional Government has been organised ; but the
Liberals are so elated at the victory they HMI gained,
that some excesses are likely to ensue. The courage
with which the commanders of the militia faced every
kind of danger has been fatal to them. Several of the most
respectable families at Geneva have to deplore the leases they
have sustained. Amongst the dead may be mentioned the
names of Colonel Chateauvieux, formerly of the Royal
Guard, and of M. Pavie. The following is a translation of a
letter published in the Journal des Dchats : " Geneva, Oct.
B.—lt is, with the utmost melancholy that I inform you of
the fall of our worthy Council of State, which abdicated
this morning. I hasten to tell you that its conduct has been
throughout Siren and honourable. The Saint Gervais quar-
ter was yesterday cannonaded and mitrailli, for several
hours together; the militia, especially their leaders, behaved
in the attack with as much bravery as troops of the line;
but all the bridges had been so strongly barricaded by
the Saint Gervais people, that it required several hours
before an entrance could be oened. The militia
then penetrated into the island; but the fire kept up from all
the windows, and every noak and corner, was so murderous
that, in order to avoid a carnage, the cummandants ordered
a retreat. Night passed quietly ; but the inhabitants of St.
Gervais availed themselves of it to enter the town indivi-
dually, either by the breach or the lake, i 3 that this morning
most menacing popular gatherings took place on the Place
du Mulard, and in St. Gervais, whilst the government
forces held but the barrack and town-house. Thus situated
the government, dreading fresh calamities, and wishing to
put an end to bloodshed, preferred resigning en mouse,
and has entrusted its fallen authority to the admi-
nistrative council of the town. At this moment the
firemen are endeavouring to save the wrecks of the four
bridges on the Rhone. which the people of St. Gervais set
fire to last night. The militia have had several killed and
many wouuded ; as yet we know not what loss has been
sustained by the insurgents, who, despite the well kept up
cannonading and platoon firing, cannot have snared very
severely behind their works. The utmost consternation pre-
vails in our unfortunate town. The most respectable families
of Geneva have cruel losses to deplore; among the killed
are Col. Chateauvieux and M. Pavie."
An extraordinary courier, with despatches from the
French Minister in Switzerland, arrived at Parson Saturday.