The Express.
London, England, 1858-10-14 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the " REPRESS,"
eantaining the results of the day's Reese, is pub-
lished every evening daring the Sporting Season, at
Eta o'clock.

LORD BROLIOTLAX has just delivered an excellent
adduce on a most important subject—popular, or
more strictly speaking penny, literature. The
address, which we printed yesterday, is another
among the many proofs we have recently had of the
surprising freshness and vigour, both bodily and
mental, of this literary and political veteran. Few
young men could have delivered an address more
energetic and essentially youthful in its style and
character. There is a daring in the tone, a genuine
patriotism in the spirit, a popular breadth as well as
novelty in the views, which remind us of Hume
Baciesmun, the popular idol of five-and-thirty
years ago. We were recently tempted to ask
" Whether there would never be any more young
" Whigs," and the experience of the last few days
confirms the propriety of the question, and suggests
an ad interim reply. The only young Whigs now
are the old ones. During the present week oar
oldest politicians are devoting themselves with
youthful ardour to elucilats the youngest of all
wieners social scienoe ; and to discuss the most
perplexing, but at the same time the most hopeful,
of all problems—those connected with the material
and moral welfare of the people. On Monday,
Lord Jonte Roseau. gave an excellent conspectus
of thus problems, interspersed with instructive
hints u to the direction in which the true solutions
meat be looked for. He was followed on Tuesday
morning by his old colleague, Lord BROUGHAM,
who, as we have said, betook himself to his favourite
subject, the elevation of the people by the infusien
of knowledge—in a word, popular education by
means of popular literature. The address occupied
more than an hour in the delivery, and was listened
to throughout with the greatest interest and atten-
tion. It must have been no small physical effort for
a man put eighty to excite and keep up the atten-
tion of a crowded audience in a large hall like St.
George's, Liverpool, for mush a length of time.
But this is not the only, or by any mesas the most
remarkable, feature of Lord BROVOHAM'S perform-
ance. The mental vigour displayed in the address
is far more surpriaing than the bodily strength its
delivery involved. This is NOG not so much in the
general ability and eloquence of the addreee, though
them are great, as in the novelty of its point
of view, the advanced position which the noble lord
has reached on the question of popular education.
The new views are far broader and more catholic
than the old.: loriKißaocionam no longer assumes
the position of patron in sedation to the people by
seeking to guide their studies into a single channel,
to develop their intelligence by a single agency—
the diffusion of what II arbitrarily termed useful
knowledge. lie is willing that they should be
educated in their own way, by agencies suited to
their special and varied requirements ; by entertain-
ing as well as useful knowledge, by works of fin-
bon and stories from life, as well as by mechanical
outlines and scientific dialogues. Instead of the old
watchword, "The schoolmaster is abroad," we have 1
the new and significant one, "The peony periodi-
" cal is published." The founder of the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is one of the first
to come forward and publicly recognise the educa-
tional value of such publications as the Family
'Jerald and the London Journal. This is an advance
which we could scarcely have expected from such a
quarter. Laudalor temporio acti is a maxim which
experience has affixed to grey hairs ; but Lord
BROCOLUX, NI the champion of program, comes for-
ward in his old age, not only to celebrate the most
recent popular publications, but to defend them
against the reactionary and retrogressive criticism
of younger men. He has investigated this cheap
popular literature, which is so mach decried, hu
endeavoured to ascertain for himself its real charac-
ter, and estimate its probable influence; and his
judgment is on the whole decidedly a favourable one.
It is not by any means so poor and worthless as it
is commonly reported and believed to be. So far from
having a demoralising tendency, its influence
is altogether the other way, being for the most part
not only innocent, but elevating. The effect of
these penny serials, both negative and positive,
has been, in fact, of a highly beneficial kind. They
have driven from the field a number of low publica-
tions, scandalous in their morel tone, destructive in
their political tendencies, and openly profane in
their references to religion. And they have created
• largo class of readers, and inspired numbers with
• taste for reading and a desire for self-improvement
which they would never have otherwise possessed.
We quite agree with Lord BIOVOHAW3 estimate
of the educational value of this °beep penny litera-
ture. The Family Harald and London Jour-
nal, it is true, are not by any means per-
fect model periodicals. The proportions of the
useful and entertaining are not balanced
on any nice calculation of probable moral
results. The tender and tragic scenes in the early
pages of each namber are not carefully weighed
against a definite moiety of mathematical problems
towards the end. The stories sot infrequently
abound with strong situations and startling effects,
and have altogether a considerable dash of the cloak-
and-dagger element in them. But in the main it
will be found by those who care to investigate, that