The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-07 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 7.

A GENTIEMAN travelling in Turkey has sent us
an account of what is called public education in that
country, neither unamusing nor uninstructive. The
subject and the hopes of education in Turkey form
in themselves a topic well worthy of being treated.
But in the present instance what first strikes us is
the broad caricature which the Turkish efforts or
non-efforts present of the attempt to monopolize and
stifle, under the plea of promoting and purifying,
education in Europe.
Turkish reformers are, of course, imitators ; eager to
adopt from the most advanced countries of Europe
their wisest institutions. A ministry of public in-
struction was, naturally, amongst the first creations
suggested. It was no sooner propounded, however,
than the Scheik EL ISLAM, the head of the Turkish
priesthood, interfered, and declared that education
meant religion, and was included in the duties of
public worship. He had no objection to govern-
meent and the people of the provinces contributing
conjointly to the founding of schools; but the ap-
pointment of masters and the handling of the funds
belonged by divine right to the church. Of course
there was no contravening the claims of a body so
powerful.
A decree nevertheless went forth, that a
school-house should be erected in every town, and
facilities of education opened to the rising generation
in the provinces. To do justice to the government
their part of the money was in general forth-
coming; and to do justice at the same time to
the Greek population, wherever there were sufficient
members in easy circumstances, their contributions
came also readily enough. But what was to be
taught? No sect or creed would go beyond the book
of its faith, which, in the Mohammedan case, is not
written in the vernacular tongue of the population.
Neither could Armenian and Greek agree better than
the members of any other educational society. The
Pashas did not wish to see the myah or unbelieving
population made wise at state expense, when the
young Moslem themselves could not be so; and the
quarrels of the several sects of Christians gave them
a ready pretext whereon to fling the blame of failure
or non-exertion. We need not, therefore, say, how
unpromising of success is the scheme of public edu-
cation in Turkey:, with the dominant church unable
to make use of it, yet unwilling that others should
profit, whilst those others cannot agree either about
the nature of the boon, nor the means of com-
passing it.
Yet, state education is due to no race more than to
the Turks. Personal ability, independent of birth or
fortune, has always been, amongst them, the great
claim to eminence—a claim shared by the rayah races,
whose young were taken per force, and reared
in the serails. Nor was advancement confined to
these; any provincial chief or individual endowed
with talents to command, acquired that command;
and indeed all Osmanlees enjoyed many of those
benefits boasted to have been obtained only by very
recent revolutions in Europe.
All this, however, is disappearing, and has become
impossible in Turkey. European institutions and
armies, and administration have been adopted there,
—unavoidably adopted. And more than European
acquirements are necessary for the Turk who admi-
nisters them. The Turkish paella, the Turkish bey,
is despotic as the Sultan. He must do all, and in
the present requirements of office he requires to have
obtained in a special school that knowledge which a
European official is left to pick up. Your pacha re-
quires to be a political economist and a financier : to
quote the Koran and cut off heads will not suffice.
And except in cases of corruption or imperial rela-
tionship, still too frequent,the cleverest and best edu-
cated men get appointed even to the highest offices.
Youths, to acquire much education, must be the
sons of the rich, or else be reared by the state in
public colleges, or perhaps be sent to England and
France to study. The uneducated Turks are thus
disinherited. They can no longer aspire to dignity
and to three tails. The cobbler no longer becomes
a vizier. High office becomes by degrees the appanage
of a narrow circle of families, and will conic to con-
stitute that bureaucracy so much detested in Prussia
and elsewhere.
If this exclusiveness, founded on new necessities
of education, is unjust to the lower orders of the
Turkish race, its effects upon the Christian and
subject races are equally remarkable. These
for many centuries monopolised the intellects and
intellectual offices which the Turks require. The
Greek Fanariot was the diplomatist of the Turk, the
Armenian was his banker and financier, the Greek
islanders manned the Turkish fleet, and the young
Christian, ravished from his parents, swelled into
the formidable though 'Mussulman janissary. But the
Turks have now determined to suffice for themselves.
They monopolise all offices, all duties. The Fanar
exists no more; its families are ruined or expatri-
ated. There is no soldier that is not a Turk. In
civil as in military duties the SULTAN depends on
his Mussulman subjects, and offers the Royal'
now nothing beyond toleration. The Turks are
thus more and more isolating themselves as the mus-
ters of a great empire ; and they require education to
enable them to exercise this mastery. Hence military
and engineering, and medical and naval schools are
as numerous and as good at Constantinople as at
Vienna or St. Petersburg. They arc amongst the
necessities of despotism. They fill the place of po-
pular education, of which, in truth, their existence
marks the utter absence.
The only chances for the SULTAN'S escaping from
the manifold difficulties of such a situation would be
the making such use of his absolute power as would
set him above the absurd claim of his own religion to
monopoly and supremacy. No doubt there is danger
also in policy of this kind. But after what .MAit-
MOVD has done, and done successfully, much more
might be undertaken to render the SULTAN the
father of all his people. If the Christians cannot be
taught to look to him, and to hope for something
more than toleration, they will look elsewhere, and
the reign of the SULTAN, at least in Europe, will
cease. It is on the question of education, of legal
procedure, and of local employ, that the first step
might be taken, not indeed to an amalgamation, but
to a more equable treatment of the different races. If
this cannot be done, it will be one day —Adieu,
Turkey.

IF the Spirit of the Time could with audible voice
make itself heard within the walls of St. Stephen's
as the Commons are summoned to the bar of the
Lords, there to receive their release for the rest of
the year from the lips of the Qt'EEN, we fear that its
accents would be those of sadness, not unmingled
with reproach. A session of the usual length, and
of more than ordinary activity, has come to a close
iwith as beggarly an account of unrealised hopes
land unezecuted schemes of improvement as ever
formed the subject of popular vexation and
regret in the days when boroughmongery
was unchecked and unquestioned in its monopoly of
power. The Reform Act of 1N32 was an attempt to
break up that system of legislative engrossing; and
to some extent it has destroyed the severity' of the
oligarchical preserve. But if anybody asks what
essential change has the partial Reform Bill of 1832
effected, let him look at the results of the present
session, and comparing them with those when Hug-
titssoN and CANNING and PEEL had the conduct of

affairs is an avowedly and unblushingly nominated
House of Commons, we apprehend that he will
be forced to admit that there is hardly as much
efficient good done now in the space of six
THE GREAT EXIIIBITION.—Yesterday the receipts I legislative months as there frequently was then..
for lea/011 tickets amounted to 221., and the payment at the , Just enough of the popular element has been infused
doors realised 2,633/. is. 6d., making a total of 2,8561.45. ed. I into parliament to make the dictatorial and high- II
Jhe
39number of visitors, according to the police report, was handed style of good law making no longer pos-
STRIKE OF LINEN WEAFERS.—BARNSLET, A. ,1.
sible ; but not enough to enable a minister, when
6.—ln Consequence of Messrs. Charles Tee and Son having rightly disposed, to stifle or crush resistance from
made an attempt to reduce the price of weaving some kinds the still powerful and compact phalanx of aristocratic
of drills twenty per cent., his weavers have struck, and opposition.
several meetings have been held during the week in this , Let us cast a glance over the list of government
WWII and the surroundiu; villages, at which the conduct of measures carried, mutilated, and abandoned during
the above firm was cativ.issed and severely censured. There
d
is every prospect of the weavers getting their old rate of the session now about to terminate its talkative an
wipe. troubled existence. We confine ourselves necessarily

to those which deserve the name of national in their
interest and imperial in their scope and aim.
The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill has been curried, and
the window tax has been commuted into a tax on
inhabited houses and—literally that is all. To
dignity such measures as that for the ap-
pointment of a Vice-Chancellor, or that for
the extension of the principle of county court
jurisdiction to certain matters in equity, or that
for the modification of the law of evidence,
into great legislative changes, would be preposte-
rous. Equally ridiculous would it be to ex-
aggerate the importance of the still doubtful alter-
ation in the patent law, or the very equivocal
changes which we adverted to recently in the local
administration of justice in Ireland. These may be
light or they may be wrong; but right or wrong,
they are subordinate measures, or rather adaptations
of existing measures of subordinate and varied de-
tail. But not one great thing of any kind or sort—
fiscal, educational, judicial, colonial, or political—has
been carried by ministers to completion. In church
reform there were high expectations, but nothing
was even attempted this session. In popular edu-
cation, it is true that a promise of some-
thing has been elicited for next year; but for
the present no plan has been broached—no
scheme of general adequacy has been forth-shadowed.
In the great abuse, the Court of Chancery, no effort
at cheapening the cost or equalising the approaches
to redress for rich and poor has been even whispered.
In colonial rule, not a step in the right direction has
been essayed. In organic change, one private mem-
ber has carried the principle of a rateable county
franchise by a coup de main, and another has carried
for the third time a resolution affirming the prin-
ciple of the ballot, by the sulky sufferance of the
house, while the valueless concession of a property
qualification for members of parliament has been
made by the Premier; but not a point of reform has
been this year actually carried. We are to all intents
and purposes as we were.
The list of wounded bills is equally brief. Instead
of a renewal of the property-tax, we have seen a
temporary bill keeping that measure in force for
twelve months longer, forced upon an obstinate
Chancellor of the Exchequer, because he would
not condescend to modify those justly obnoxious
portions of it which public opinion has irrevo-
cably condemned. The consequences of this will
be painfully obvious when parliament re-assembles.
The whole question will have to be debated over
again, whereby many weeks are one way or other sure
to be lost that might otherwise have been devoted to
other topics. The same may be said of other ques-
tions, especially that most interesting one the law of
'local self-assessment in counties. It is absolutely
impossible that the great deep of agricultural dis-
content should ever be dried up so long as this re-
mains as it now is. The occupiers of land wha pay
county rates must have a voice in their imposition
and expenditure, as the corresponding classes have
in towns. Without this they will never be satisfied,
and they never ought to be.
Foremost amongst the slain we lament the loss of
the Oath of Abjuration Bill. On this subject the
timid and time-serving conduct of the government
last session has wrought its baneful effects. As far
as the ministerial measure for the admission of the
I.lews into parliament is concerned the cause
seems rather to have retrograded. Nobody ap-
' pears to have believed in the bill as a reality,
and hence the diminished numbers by which
it was sent up to the Peers. Had it not been
fur what was done by the electors of Green-
wich, by Alderman SALOMONS himself, and by the
anti-ministerial minority, who, night after night, in-
sisted on debating the question—the whole subject
would have sunk out of sight and parliamentary re-
membrance, owing, we must say, to the half-hearted
and chilling tone of those in power regarding it. An
unhonoured crowd of little dead follow the Oath of
Abjuration Bill on its road to Hades. We shall not
vex our memory by trying to recall them.