The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-28 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28.
Tnmix has been a good deal of small dagmatam
elicited in the course of the late educational discus-
sions; but for flippant utterance of • tions,
fallacies, and blunders taken on trust at moron and,
the palm is unquestionably due to Mr. 018140 ENE.
Thu gentleman has hitherto affected the character
of a reformer, bat after the assertions respecting the
Bristol riots which he reiterated on Tuesday week, we
must hesitate before we admit his title to the appella-
tion. Good, honest, bigoted tones of the old school
hare gravely asserted, and doubtless sincerely be-
lieved, that the Reform BM was auvied by
the class which burned Bristol ; bat any
person really conversant with the origin sad
Mgt:of that measure knows how wide of the
that idea. Yet Mr. 018 BORNE deliberately
stated, and, when checked, reaffirmed, the statement,
that the Reform Bill was carried by the Bristol rioters ;
that the Bristol rioters were " good reformers." If
the thing was meant as a joke, it was a dull and silly
one at the best; and it would say little for Mr.
Greaomet's sincerity if his wits could go a wool-
gathering after such a stale commit in the midst of
an important discussion on the issue of which are
staked the poses of society and the kappinem of mil-
lions. If he spoke in earnest, the matter is still worse :
whatever the merits or demerits of the Reform Bill,
or its supporters, he steads convicted in that case of
having abetted a measure which he believed to be
sought for by ruffians through acts of inosndiarism—
of having been willing, in order to serve his party, to
ally himself with the refuse of society.
Mr. GUIDOZNE'S exhibition. the mate evening, on
the subject of Scotland, was quite en a par with the
figure he cuts in pact of Bristol. He undertook to
prove that Scotland had not been rendered more
moral by its system of education, but the reverse.
Mr. GIRBORNE knows all about it; for every year he
two or three months "in a glen."
spends
1;:d1}1 181,011111 t .
duly lands every year at Greenock,
spends a few hours there, and a few days at Glas-
gow, and then harries to his sequestered shooting-
box. He seas the tumult and irregularities of a
r.:l_,ess:Lpart ; he sees the squalor of a
town; and he converses withthaartrleel
w—ire--...Meeinies beg and gander two menthaßooofttLase
mmel mewls himself far the mat of it by •
mad meek flip. This he sells
Sethi m; and twee@ oat 'legitimation by
te the dist/thee which the Wiese person
at
Slital="mtles=Wa
free *eat am of the
sommer, memillmmimm
against the mommdmem. Mr. OnZsmmte Mr tamed Ids
notions et Scotland Ipen Irammbed ilimposer them
palm WA liars boo Amodsl boodle et Um air
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cat-lanai system. Sea-port towns, with their fluctuating
tad neglected sailor-population, can nowhere be taken
as spectitens.of the moral and intellectual standing of
a people. The towns which have sprung up to sodden
greatness by becoming the seats o our factory system
have throughout the nation outrun both the
means peovidcd for instruction and for the
maintenance of police. They are exceptional both
in Scotland and England. And the highlands
of Scotland were neglected, even as to spiritual
affairs, mail the efforts of the relief church lent a sti-
mulus to the drowsy cousins of the lairds who cum-
bered their pulpits, and had no care taken of their
educe ion until the late venerable and benevolent
Principal BUILD roused the general assembly end fro-
vernment to the necessity of providing them with
schools and teachers.

Had Mr. OISBORNE sincerely desired to know
what education has done for Scotland, he week' have
visited and examined its rural parishes and landward
burghs, where population has not yet outgrown the
statutory means of instruction. Even there his fasti-
dious habits might not have found the peasant's
menage quite according to his taste. But if he deal-
derated the tidy cleanliness which is the proud charac-
teristic of the English peasant in good circumstances, he
would not, on the other hand, have encountered the
dismantled habitations, pig's-meat, and broken spirits
of the pauperised peasantry of one-halt of our southern
counties. And had he inquired more narrowly he
would have found that the parochial schools of Scot-
land, and that cultivation of logical divinity at which
be sneers, by developing the intellects of the humblest
tillers of the soil, had enabled them either to emerge
from poverty or to preserve the image of their
creator unobliterated from their minds by its de-
I pressing influence. It requires a wider range of
thought and observation than Mr. OISBOBNE has
brought to bear upon the question to enable •
man to estimate what education has done for Scot-
land. Let him look to the moral and intellectual
condition of Scotland and England at the time of the
reformation; let him make allowance for all other cir-
cumstances which have retarded or advanced the civi-
lisation of both countries; and let him then compare
their relative positions now : thus only can he decide
which has made the most progress, and how much of
that progress is owing to education.
In a still worse spirit than his remarks on Scotland
were Mr. OISHORTIE'S allusions to Prussia. There
was no doubt at one time a great deal of exaggera-
tion afloat about the Prussian system of education.
It was be-praised by some who knew it only as it
appeared in legal enactments, and by some who
were ignorant that mach of what they called Prussian
was in reality German—that all the best features of
the system, stripped of a great deal of its pedantry,
were to be found in other German states. These
exaggerations raised the Scotch spirit of contradic-
tion inherent in Mr. LAING, a clever writer of travels,
who jumps at general conclusions ea a short residence
among a people almost as rashly u Mr. OISBORNE.
And Mr. OISBORNE, because it snits his purpose,
adopts at second hand all the opinions and assertions
of a writer who spent too short a time in Prussia to
know its moral and intellectual condition of his own
knowledge.
We have said sufficient to show upon what insufficient
inquiry rest Mr. OISBORNE'S broad and sweeping
criminations of Scotch and Prussian morality. It
would be waste of time to vindicate the characters of
these nations from such aspersions. Enough that we
have shown the evidence upon which Mr. OISBORNE
has called in question the moral and humanising in.
(thence of education to be utterly unworthy of belief.
Perhaps even this is a piece of supererogatory labour;
for, after proving to lus own satisfaction the inutility
or danger of education, Mr. OBBORNE concluded by
advocating the voluntary system, because it was, in
his opinion, the best adapted to impart education to
the people%
Yet Mr. • GraBORNE is a well-informed, sharp
man of the world. He spoke nonsense on Tues-
day evening with an eye to the general elec-
tion—became he knows or believes that on such a
topic a portion of his constituents Reefer nonsense to
sense. He may find himself out in his reckoning.
With all it faults and weaknesses the present age is
more in earnest —more exigent on the score of
sincerity than the age which preceded it. The
SHERIDAN age of political morality has passed away :
perhaps as great faults may still be tolerated, bat
avowed playing fast and loose with principle will not
now be endured. The impression produced by Mr.
GIBI3OE/UN speech of Tuesday is, that he will affect
to be desirous of promoting education to catch one
class of voters, and will decry its influence to gain
another; that he will support a reform bill, because
it is the policy of his party, yet indulge a lordly con-
tempt and ignorance of the classes who demand it ;
that from the hill-top of his rank the whole country
beneath appears to him an nnvaried level—respect-
able shopkeepers and industrious peasants on an
equality with ruffian incendiaries and the luckless
lazy class used by the gentry as assistarts in their
sports, and when thus disused to regular toil, cal-
lously thrown off to support themselves by any dis-
honest courses that may offer.

IT was a singular eight, that which the House of
Lords presented on Monday night: the Duke of
WRLLINGTON standing up in favour of reform in the
army and the introduction of limited enlistment,
whilst Lords BROUGHAM and STANLEY stood up. per-
tinaciously with all the old stagers against any Inno-
vation. There were old gentlemen in France plus
royalist. que le Bui. Lord BROUGHAM professes to
understand and interpret the true feelings of the
Duke of WELLINGTON better than the Duke
of WELLINGTON himself. Did he think, Lord
BROUGHAM declared, that the noble duke really
approved of these changes,he should, of course,
support them. The noble might say that he
did approve them, but he (Lord Sem:Tot:mu) could
not believe it. Our army was the best army, its
officers the best efficers, its soldiers the best soldiers
in the world; they were incapable of imp!overnent.
So said Lord Bitouottesz, though starving; and
though he had eaten nothing since an early hour, he
determined to starve on, in order to have a fling at
Lord GREY, for all whose words and propositions
Lord BROUGHAM has a singular aversion.
We cannot say that the Duke of WELLINGTON
displayed any great comprehensiveness, of argument.
The chief anxiety of his grace, and a very natural
one, was for the old soldiers. He insisted that the
carrying the Sikh guns at Feroseshah could only
have been done by old soldiers. But he did not tell
us whether he meant veterans who had been under
the fire of the enemy and were veterans in that
sense, or whether he meant those who had grown old
merely in drills and guard-houses. To the latter
species of old soldiers we should prefer young ones,
even on entering a campaign.
Some of the noble speakers possess a great horror
of recruiting the army from a better class than at
protect. A probable influx of hankers' clerks mimed
to affright them. But no reformer ever dreamed o
recruiting from such a class. The object is to induce '
the sons of respectable peasants to enlist in the army,
as they do in the Guards, thus making the military
profession more respected. We are sorry to
say, that we agree with the objectors to the
bill, in thinking that it will not effect this
ch Nor do we think that it will be
poeaMs to recruit from better classes, unless
the military career be made a profession to those who
enter the ranks, es well se to those who gird them-
selves with a sword. No rational youth at present
will invest the best years of his life in the army. He
can only be betrayed to such a step by reckless coo_ I
duct and misfortune, or by that strong tendency to
military life which exists, and which constitutes
the true soldier. It is this latter class we would
encourage, and it is not short enlistment
that will encourage them, bat the Natural pre-
miums of the profession. As to the former class,
the reckless, short enlistment will not enter into
, their calculations either.

We doubt, therefore, the !Mosey of the
except the French and Prussian system be ZE:edm,
of peering greater numbers of the population through
the army, and making of those who retire, a reserve
for the defence of the country in case of need. The
Duke of Wmturcrrote is evidently adverse to any
such plan, and it has its inconvenience.
Prnsera is said at this moment to exenoe one of
them inconveniences in an alarming &give. It has
entered into a period of great political excitement
Great hopes, diroontents, effervescence,
c=toall
clams. The army is looked to, to •
But the army is com of boys, young
recruits • the ows of tire-arms ; whilst
theniation, w these boys are called to leep
as vets= soldiers, who have served easy
sod irks Wised of respecting or fesringthe