The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-03 00:00:00

EDUCATION IN THE HOUSE OF LORD'.

Though Lord Russell has many qualifications
by descent and career for dealing with the subject of edu-
cation, the Times thinks he comes too late to be the
originator of a national policy: Nothing was more pain-
fully evident last night than the want of support he
received, and everyone saw probably that he had not
mastered the present position of the question. But the
Timm does not apprehend that this premature attempt
has done injury to the cause, or that, with so many com-
plaints against our educational system, the matter will
be shelved.

The House of Lords, the Daily News observes, appears
increasingly inaccessible to the vital and energetic ideas of
the age which give an impulse to legislation in the House
of Commons ; and a consciousness of this state of things
appears to have weighed in solos degree upon Earl Russell.
The effectiveness of his speech no doubt suffered from the
extent of surface which it covered, and perhaps it had
hardly the firmness and elevation of his resolutions ; but
he must h►ve felt from the first the dispiriting influence
of an audience disposed neither to support nor oppose
him, and not containing so much as one member ready to
speak to the great question of the day for its own sake.
Certainly it would be unfair to ministers who have given
notice of an education bill to assume that they agree with
the Duke of Marlborough that we are already in posses-
sion of a system which promises to overtake the wants of
the people, and make the country "great, glorious, and
happy." The demand for [time is a fair one ; but at the
proper period the government will be expected to produce
a plan recognising and satisfying much larger necessities
than the Duke of Marlborough dreams of.
The Herald criticises Earl Russell's speech on the whole
in a friendly manner, though it considers his resolutions
' of a somewhat intangible kind, and his statistics Hot so
conclusive as ho himself seems to have supposed. His
lordship must be content at present with having venti.
lated his opinions.
The Standard is much less complimentary. The latter
says that when the Duke of Marlborough declared he
would never do anything to disturb the denominational
system he struck a chord which will be responded to by
public opinion. In the present condition of England the
denominational system is the only one that can secure
religious education. Lord Russell's most intimate associ-
ates did not even pay him the compliment of coming to
listen to his speech. Lord Granville was not there to lead
the cheering, and the ex-premier could boast of no more
illustrious supporters than two ex-whig ministers, "pitch-
forked " into the upper house.
The Te/rproplt insists that the noble earl's resolutions are
the trumpet-note to the liberal party. They will be main-
tained in their integrity till every principle shall have
begotten practice and result; and the alternative for "the
party of the previous question" is this—again to attend
Mr. Disraeli's school, and learn what must be done, or to
introduce a ridiculously petty bill next year, and be incon-
sequence summarily dismissed from power.
The Star believes Earl Russell's speech, though it
merely resumes the progress of intelligent opinion, will
do much towards fixing and advancing the general con-
viction, on this great subject.

)US TOPICS.

If 2,000,000/. is wanted to start an expedition which is
necessary to avenge ourselves and our countrymen, it
must be had ; but the Times asks why honour should be
the only motive to prompt to enormous expenditure and
sacrifiees ? This 2,000,0001. so jauntily thrown into the
interior of Africa, what could we not have done with it?
We could have wholly or partially rebuilt most of our in-
firmaries and workhouses ; or have placed ourselves on •
par with Paris by providing receptacles for treasures of
art and science multiplying on our hands ; or have aided
the 5,000 parishes in which the schools for the poor
struggle on without recognition ; or have done something
to carry off into the surrounding seas the mass of water
that drowns half the soil of Ireland. If we can do so
much to maintain our honour, may we not do ea much for
the good of our fellow-creatures, the improvement of our
country, and the mutual reconciliation of religions and
races at home?

Commenting upon the clumsiness with which the
Reform Act was framed, the Daily News illustrates it by
the bill introduced last night by the Attorney-General to
complete the disfranchisement of the four corrupt
borough. and by the disappearance of the sacred
principle of the personal payment of rates. The
measure once bristling with securities, of which the
Wks discarded one half and the liberals refused the other,
is left as naked as the bead of the bigamist from which one
wife plucked all the black and the other all the white
hairs. Household suffrage, pare and simple, is the unin-
tentional gift of a tory cabinet to the boroughs of England.
The question of compounding cannot but be re-opened, for
the abolition is one of the elements of the existing distreas in
London and in other large towns. Everywhere those who
are most directlyconcerned protest spinet the late change,
and the political pretext advanced for it having been aban-
doned further persistence in the prohibition will only
show that the conourpropre of the ministry is stronger than
their regard to the well-being of the poor, and to local
rights and convenience.
The Tekgraph advises the Home-office to strike out for
the time the clause in the Metropolitan Traffic Bill which
decrees that cabs shall carry lamps, and at once refer the
whole question of London conveyances to a parliamentary
committee, with the view of legislating es soon as possible
on a matter which so intimately concerns the comfort and
convenience of the public. Mr. Hardy's attention may be
at present engrossed by subjects of weightier import, but
the government has in Sir James Ferguseon, the under-
secretary for the department, an official fully capable of
handling this business with tact and discretion.

It is now pretty well undentooti, the Stawdarti says,
that the conference will not come off ; nor Is it very 'easy
to perceive the pressing reuons for its convocation by the
Emperor of the French, or for the persistence with which
he still clings to a project which all the world has set its
foes against.

The ease of the railway engine-driver in England, com-
pelled to perform his duties h►lf-frozen by the searching
storm, with only a piece of glue before his face, is taken
up by the Times, which observes that there is no pretext
whatever for this inexcusable abuse of good working power.
The Americans enclose the driver and stoker in a little
glass house, through the windows of which they may see
perfectly all that lies before and around them, and at the
same time be sheltered from a storm. There has not been
found a single disadvantage from this device. The win-
dows slide back at the aides, so that the driver may sully
look out, but u a rule there ie no necessity for this. The
same principle, with some alterations, ban been adopted on
our railways in India, and the British North American
Colonies.

TH3 Naw BISHOP OF LtCHTIELD.—WO have
great pleasure in announcing that the Bishop of New Zee-
land, George Augustus Selwyn, has accepted the bishopric
of Llcbfield. It had been offered to him as soon as it
became vacant, but he at first thought the claims of his
distant see required him to decline the more comfortable
position of an English bishop. Upon more mature con-
sideration, the prospects of increased usefulness prevailed,
and we may congratulate "the Black Country " on having
obtained a missionary bishop who, though a brilliant scho-
lar and the ideal of a British gentleman, has proved his
ability to deal with men and to command their sympathies
in one of the most difficult fields of Christian enterpries.—
Thou.—The Rev. Dr. G. A. Selwyn is a son of the late
Mr. William Selwyn, of Richmond, Surrey, and is •
brother of Sir C. J. Selwyn, M.P., the Solicitor-General,
and of the Rev. Dr. W. Selwyn, the Margaret Professor
of Divinity at Cambridge. He sou born in 1809, and was
educated at Eton, whence he proceeded to St. John's
College, Cambridge, where be took his B.A. degree when
he was second in the first-o'ses in classics, and twenty-first
junior optima in the mathematical tripes. He became
pastor of Eton and curate of the parish church of Windsor,
and in 1841 was created fist Bishop of New Zealand. At
that time the diocese embraced the whole of ?few Zealand,
I but it has since been subdivided, and there are now
Bishops of Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Otago,
Warapa, and the Missionary Bishop of the Milanesi•a or
South Pacific Islet.

WIIITYINSTIR PLAY. —The AdelpAi of Terence
will be performed in the Dormitory on the evenings of
Thursday, the 12th, Tuesday, the 17th, and Thursday, the
19th inst., with proloiee and epilogue as in firmer years.
On Thursday evening the Earl of Derby is to
move that the House of Lords concur in the resolution
respecting the charge for the Abyssinian expedition, which
has been communicated to it by the Hours of Commas&