The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-11 00:00:00

Vitt prog.

MAILS.
The West In, %is malls, except there for Mexico, Honduras, and
nay., will t 3 , ral'e up on the morning of the 17th inst.
The mails for 0 WOrina, Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and
Gibraltar, will betlade up on the morning of the 17th inst.
The mails for Bi aaish North America, Bermuda, and the United
metes, will made vg.oo the evening of the 18th inst.
The malls for Gibral MC. Mills, Creme, the lonian Islands, Egypt,
Aden, Ceylon, India, h Wag-Kong, and China, via Southateptcm,will
he made up on the mom 1.4, of the 21st :mgt.
The overland closed m %SA. eta Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt. Aden, Ceylon, India, • Moog-Kong, ite., will be;made up on the

TO CORRIV.PC)NDENTB'
We cannot nnum in any way, any Aa.nantaniestlon that Is nest to as
anonvmoosly ; Witham who ohoo, • t' ad us in omindence will
End ,I,,iireonfidenixrespec,,i fon TrOtit CAN WE UNDERTAKE
TO RETURN ANY MANUSCRIPTh WiTATEVE3"
•. Advertisements intended for T7ie WO Most be at the few by
Two o'clock on the day of put:dire=

HIGH WATER AT LONDON-,‘EID°E-
Tins DAT.-11=4,33 art. par 5: Afterr NA, 54 rla. rat 5.
TO-310110Vf. , 17 min. pot 6; Afternoon;• 41 min' W 1 6.

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBL‘RII.

THE Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the b'vitish
Association has been worthily opened by Sir Roln
RICK MURCHISON ; the original thinker, who hats
given a new form, and completeness before unknown,
to geological science; the English gentleman, who,
like his precursors of the Elizabethan age, combines
in his own person the patron of science, and the
aspirant to intellectual eminence. His instructive and
eloquent addres.s will be found in our report.
It is not the least pleasing feature of our age
that the autumnal meeting of this Association for
the Advancement of Science, should now be as
regular, and scarcely less attractive, ,qtalt the annual
meetings at Newmarket or Goodwood. Whether
e.'e Association congregate beneath the' smoky
canory which overhangs our great manui*turing
mites, or in the less dusky atmosphere off the
banks or Cain or Isis ; whether it take up its Vlll-
porary abode at Glasgow, where the Romans once
reared the ba.-rier-wall between civilisation and
barbarism, or in the region where Cunobelin, first of

his race, assimilated himself to the genius of Rome ;
it is sure to be attended brilliantly. The attractions
of science rival the attractions of field sports.
Though we speak lightly, our meaning is
not to undervalue the importance of these
meetings. Only fifteen years have elapsed
since they began ; and already we can trace their
influence for good, both in the extended field of scien-
tific research and the higher spirit is which it is cul-
tivated. Comprehensiveness and system are as
essential to the science of observation and induction
as to that of abstract speculation. Minute and isolated
observations and experiments are but the efforts of
individuals amassing materials out of which master
minds build up new systems. In proportion as
the facts of detail accumulate, each has its proper
place assigned, by the instinct of superior intellects, in
an organic whole. To direct and rectify these efforts,
observations and experiments on a more extensive
scale than individual means can institute, are
required. The State must co-operate with men
of science. The British Association has been
happily instrumental in concluding such an alli-
ance between power and reflection. To its influence
and representations are owing the simultaneous
scientific observations instituted in England and
I British America, at the Cape of Good Hope and in
Van Diemen's Land, by the English and the Anglo-
Indian governments, extended over a range of years.
Nor have the results of the efforts of the Association
stopped here. The example of the British Govern-
ment in this respect has already been followed by
most of the continental powers.
With respect to the manner in which this widening
field is cultivated, the inßuence of the Association is
not less obvious. The number of earnest and enthu-
siastic cultivators of natural history and natural
science throughout England, has long been con-
siderable.
But all who have had occasion to
consult their writings, have been obliged to con-
fess that most of them, self-taught thinkers,
isolated from scientific converse, have been cha-
racterised by slovenliness in their modes of
induction, bad logic.in their exposition of inferences,
and a deficient acquaintance with general science,
favourable to crude and untenable generalisation.
The British Association has carried the scientific
world into the districts where these gigantic but un-
couth intellects have been, with disproportionate
efforts, working out valuable but one-sided results.
The latter have been taught to feel the superior
facility and elegance with which the educated thinker
and observer conducts his inquiries. The contact has
been mutually beneficial. Our scholars have been
brought into more familiar contact with practical
applications of principles on a large scale ; our self-
taught naturalists, mechanicians, and chemists, have
acquired the easy processes, and neat, finished mani-
pulation, of those bred in the schools. During the
last fifteen years an immense change for the better is
observable in the mass of English publications on
natural history and mechanical science, both in respect
of matter and style.
Such results are not the less certain, because the
annual meetings of the Association have proved
attractive, and are meant to prove attractive to many
who neither are nor can become efficient labourers in
the vineyard of science. These meetings arc to our
HERSCHELS and FARADAYS seasons of relaxation
from severer study; the times when they meet kin-
dred spirits, or at all events miudsengaged in kindred
pursuits, for social intercourse. Not a few there are,
doubtless, among those numerous assemblages, who
mistake the relaxation for real business ; just as
many mistake the music and outward forms of public
worship for the essence of devotion, or the turbulent
excitement of political demonstrations for statesman-
ship and legislation. It is a law of nature that in
religion, politics, and science, there should be always,
apparently, a disproportionate waste of effort when
compared with results. It is in the moral and
intellectual as in the physical world. Nature, re-
dundantly
rich in power, seems to take pleasure in
its wilful display ; as the high spirited courser, not
contented with carrying its rider to his destination,
indulges in a thousand wanton bounds and curvets by
the way.
We are not blind to openings which the Associa-
tion has at times fairly given for jokes at its expense.
Nor do we object to a good natured joke at a folly as
it emerges and explodes, provided the enduring and
substantial good be not overlooked. But it is revolt-
ing to hear common-place indolence flattered year
after year, by the attempt to fix exclusive attention
merely upon the foibles of this great, active, and most
useful body. True wit will have its laugh at wis-
dom ; but it is a short one, and subsides into reveren-
tial sympathy ; the laugh of vacancy and folly is an-
other matter. The author of Canaille was the first
who taught his countrymen to appreciate NEWTON.
A Nan WARD could see nothing but matter for jokes,
some good but more indifferent, in the pursuits of the
Royal Society.

WE regret to see the evident sincerity and determined
resolve with which many intelligent men seem disposed
to deprecate government interference with popular
instruction. They labour hard to make out that the
education of the poor is progressing satisfactorily ;
that the schools already come very close on the wants
of the community; that the quality of the teaching in
them is by no means so bad as has been represented ;
and that, from the increasing attention devoted to the
subject, we may venture to expect that individual and
local efforts will, in time, secure all the advantages,
without any of the mischiefs, of state interpo-
sition. But we must believe that this complacency
arises rather from fears of governmental control, than
from real satisfaction with the general elemen-
tary education of England. It must be as well
known to these reasoners as it is to the school
inspectors, to the clergy of all denominations, to the
gentry, to the magistrates, to masters employing
workmen, and to intelligent workmen themselves, that
elementary education in this country, as now con-
ducted, is a mockery.
Few national histories can exhibit more remarkable
instances of " the pursuit of knowledge under diffi-
culties " than our own. In none have lowliness of
origin and narrowness of circumstances less effectually
hindered men from the attainment of their true leveL
Thousands, every century, rise to station, fortune, and
. . .

influence, with no more education than the imperfect
reading, writing, and arithmetic of the national
i school. These are the men whom no obstacle can
check, no disadvantage baffle. For them the question
of education or no education need not be debated. If
their A, B, Cbe not taught them, they will learn it
for themselves.

Many of the elements which are active in such men,
form part and parcel of our national character. As a
people we possess an average of that perseverance,
energy, and clear-sightedness, which they, as indivi-
duals, enjoyed to a rare degree. As they, in their
histories, appear achievers of success with no advan-
tages of early culture, or but the lowest; we, in our
national history, may exhibit but slight traces of any
fatal deficiency of education. From a consideration of
I our commercial and political fortunes, strangers might
not unreasonably conclude that the English must be
au educated people. The conclusion, let us point
to our countrymen with what pride we may,
would be false. We are what we are, in spite of a
want of education ; which would have been destructive
to a people less industrious, foresighted, and energetic.
We are what we are, by virtue of those amongst us
who have been originally educated or have made up
for the want oT early instruction by subsequent self-
discipline. The development of the good which they
have planted in our institutions, no less than in our
trading and manufacturing systems, hzeheen impaired,
retarded, or prevented, by the want of educational
(raining among the mass less gifted than themselves.
It is not probable that the reasoners against
00,0111 Sent interference will find many powerful
gropportem Yew will share the horror of govern-