The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-25 00:00:00

°Seers ; and we are disposed therefore to concur
with the Commissioners that 16 should be the
earliest limit for entrance into a Military College,
and 19 the latest, thus making the average age be•
tween 17 and 18. _

If, therefore, there is any truth in the rumour
that Sandhurst is to be reorganised, we trust that
this point with respect to the age of the candidates
for admission will not be forgotten. At present we
know that for admission into the scientific corps of
the army patronage hasheen altogether abolished, and
young men are admitted by an open competitive exa-
mination. These candidates must be between seven-
teen and twenty when they present themselves. It
appear', therefore, that so far as the scientific corps
—the Artillery and Engineers—are erawersed, •
youth may, before entering that branch of the
profession, enjoy all the benefits of a general
education ; he may exercise himself in those ge-
nerd and preparatory studies which meditate
what is emphatically called • liberal °dandies, and
by remaining at a public school till boyhood merges
into adolescence, he may take advantage of that
salutary training which those great institutions can
alone confer, and the advantages of which are most felt
during the latter stages of pupillage. But if the limit
of age fined for admission into reformed Sandhurst be
assimilated to that for admission into the scientific
corps, the same advantages will be placed within the
reach of the Cavalry and Infantry as are placed
within reach of the Artillery and Engineers. Nor can
we doubt the value of these advantages, for we are per-
suaded that young men entering upon now stadia
at an age when they can understand their bearing
on their profession, and having, as it were, a fresh
start, if they have hitherto been cankers, are likely
to pursue them with far more energy and interest
than if they had begun them at an early age, before
they became alive to their importance.
To those who have families to provide for, thew
things are not unimportant. If any man has a son
to whom he has been able to give a good education
until the age of 17, let him consider how various are
the careers now open to the youth. He may bossed to
an English University, and eo pass on into Oda% is
the bar, or to medicine. He may present hingelike
examination and obtain &civil appointment to India,
where there is scope for the highest abilities. In-
stead of this, he may present himself to the Civil
Service Commissioners as • candidate in those cora-
petitive examinations which we hope to see still fur-
ther developed, and obtain some respectable place
under Government. Or again, ho may challenge the
examiners for the Artillery and Engineers to test
his powers, and if ho can prove himself the
best of the competitors he will obtain a commission.
Finally, if be fail in all these he may enter the
proposed Military College, and obtain a commission
in the Cavalry or in the Infantry. It is the true
wisdom of a great country like England to make the
best use of the materials at her disposal—and of
these materials the talents and the energies of her
sons are assuredly not the least valuable. Let us,
therefore, do what we can to promote this system of
opening up the avenues to every public employment
so that they may be filled by the ablest men.

THE writer of the ministerial article in the Bdia.
burgh Review is beyond all question intimately
emaciated with Ministry. He pleads tie *use of
Ws-officials with a warmth and emphasis that leaves
little doubt of his being one himself. After enume-
rating the more remarkable and importantexcluaions
from the new Haase of Commons, he gives his
" special regrets" to Mr. Under-Seeretary BALL,
" an Irishman without faction, and a Roman Catholic
without bigotry." He is also, as in duty bound, filled
with admiration of his chief; and, while aspersing
Lord JOHN RUSSELL in every way that hie perverse
and mischievous ingenuity can suggest, be lauds
with hyperbolical extravagance the " consummate
skill," the " light touch," the " fine temper," the
" steady adherence to friends," the " generous for-
bearance to adversaries," and " the incomparable
manners" of Lord PALMEZETON. That the minis-
terial trumpet-blower in the Edinburgh is also either
a writer in or largely influences the columns of one
of our morning contemporaries, may be inferred from
the almost identical phraseology in which Lord lons
RUSSELL is therein bespattered, and Lord PALMER.,
RON and Mr. BALL eulogised. There were days
when the Bilashotegli Review held a very different
estimate of the past services and the political cape,
city of Lord JOHN RUSSELL just as there were
also days—not very far distant either—when the
journal in question regarded the presence of Lord
PALMA/STEN as the great blot in the Itu.sELL
Cabinet. It must be admitted, however, that the
exclusion of an Under-Secretary for the Colonies,
who never opened his lips in the House of Commons,
and whose failure in his own department has been
notorious and signal, is a somewhat original topic of
regret for the great and once renowned quarterly
organ of Whiggery.
Whether this absurd apotheosis of poor Mr. BALL
be intended to pave the way towards the preservation
of his place now that he has lost his seat,we shall soon
see. But if it be proposed that Mr. BALL, Mr. F. PEEL,
and Lord Moncx shall retain offices which are essen-
tially political, without seats in the House, and with-
oat the confidence of any constituencies, a new
rule will have to be introduced into the practice and
working of our constitutional system which will re-
quire the early ocnsideration of Parliament. For many
reposes members holding office are already too nume-
rals in the House of Commons, and of late years
there has no doubt been an increase in one direction,
which might in some respects justify a diminution
in other directions. The Presidents of the Poor Law
Board and of the Beard of Health, and the Vice-
President of the Committee of Council on Education,
have of late been added to the array on the Treasury
bench ; and it must now be asked, on constitutional
as well as practical and business grounds, whether
the services, official as well as parliamentary, of three
Lords of the Treasury, of three Lords of the Admi-
ralty, and of three Under-Secretaries of State, could
not be altogether dispensed with. While making
this suggestion, however, wo must protest against
any exceptional course being followed merely to cover
the parliamentary misfortunes of either Lord MoNcx,
Mr. BALL, or Mr. PEEL. If the time has come
for a re-consideration, on general principles, of the
exigencies of minor and subordinate office, it ought
is be gravely and deliberately entered on. Let us
bare no favouritism practised to keep Lord MmicE,
Mr. BALL and Mr. PEEL at the Colonial and War
napes and in the Treasury. Such a procedure
will not be in accordance with oar Perlis-
mentary system of government. If it is to be
bad indispensable that future Under-Secretaries
wad Lords of the Treasury shall have seats in the
House, there is no earthly reason for dispensing with
that qualification now. The three gentlemen we
have referred to ought, in that case, either to pro-
vide themselves with constituencies, or to resign the
offices which they first acquired because they had
seats in the House of Commons.
Passing over the well-meant attempt of one sub-
ordinate member of the Government in his quality of
an Edinburgh Reviewer to preserve their places for
other subordinate members of the Government—
passing over, too, his malignant attack on Lord JOHN
RCEELLL sod his parasitical eulogies of Lord PAL-