Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-27 00:00:00

be traced to a state of ignorance and
lethargic indifference on the subject among
parents generally ; but the root of the evil will,
he suspects, be found to extend into that field
on which the political economist exercises
his activity—the Labour Market—supply and
demand.

Agreeing with his Royal Highness, as to the
general correctness of this idea, and admitting
that there is also great ignorance and lethergy
on the part of the parents, we cannot help
thinking that the Conference could not have
taken up a more important and interesting topic
for investigation, than the causes which have
produced such universal and unfavourable effect.
Nor would it have required any lengthened
argument to prove that the vast majority of cases
of parental indifference to the education of their
children arises from the imperfect character of
the education—rather mere instruction imparted
in the schools for the working classes. The
tea:thers of these schools have not been properly
fitted, prepared, and trained •for the multifarious
duties of the school-room; hence they have been
unable to leave a mental and moral stamp of a
permanent character upon their pupils. In
nothing has more empiricism reigned than in
the wide domain of Education ; and in no
department of the public service—for we hold
that it belongs to it, and what is more, that it is
the most important of the whole—has there been
less care to render it equally useful and
efficient.

Education, worthy of the name, trains its
recipients in a three-fold aspect—body, head,
and heart ; but each branch of that training is
in harmony with the other. Any other course
is positively detrimental to the future happiness
of the creature—male or female--subject to its
influence. The student of that beautiful subject,
man's constitution, knows that He who created
the body knows His own work best, and having
made it improvable, He has imposed upon us
the duty of improving it to the utmost. This
view is still more apparent when we consider
that the body is the instrument of the operation
of the intellectual, and moral, and religious
faculties; and that in proportion as that
instrument is in a sound and healthy state, in the
proportions are those operations the freer and
and more perfect. It follows, therefore, that
any scheme or plan of Education which neglects
any one of these three-fold powers, is pursuing
a dangerous course, and must fail in
raising up a race of educated beings.
We could write page upon page of
this journal in vindication of this view,
and of its paramount importance in the settling
of any plan of national instruction. Yet,
strange to say that it was almost overlooked,
and merely blinked at in the deliberations of
the Educational Conference.

We have been spending large sums of money,
public and private, to instruct the working
classes. Since 1839, nearly twenty years,
2,000,0001. sterling has been spent in building
school-houses, and about 1,250,0001. annually in
supporting such schools—yet, Prince ALBERT
declares that the parents of the working
claases are ignorant, and, as a matter of
course, indifferent to the spread of Education.
What is this but a proof that the very Educa,
tion which has been going on has been
imperfect in quality and deficient in quantity ?
Well, indeed, may the poet exclaim—

" Ignorance is the curse of God ;
Knowledge, the wings wherewith we fly to heaven."
The teaching in our Elementary Schools has
had for its immediate object the cramming of
the intellect with words, without any study of
the "things" which those words contain. The
immortal MILTON, in his ancient treatise on
Education, tells us, " though a linguist should
pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel
cleft this world into, yet if he have not studied
the solid things in them, as well as the words
and lessons, he were nothing so much to be
esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or
tradesman competently wise in his mother
dialect only."

Considerations such as these induce us to fear
that little or no benefit will immediately arise
from the deliberations of the Conference. We
see that the defects complained of arises from
the imperfection and non-philosophical character
of our mode of imparting Education to the
working classes. The first step to remedy the
evils of existing plans, and get rid of their
results, is the creation of a proper race of
teachers—males and females—trained in all that
relates to the cultivation, development, and
practical exercise of the physical, mental, and
moral faculties, planted in man by an all-wise
and beneficent Creator, for the most glorious
and holiest of purposes, To the consideration of
this branch of the subject we shall return on
another occasion.

A SHORT time ago this country was visited by
an eminent French gentleman, M. LEssePs, for
the purpose of calling the attention of the British
public to the project of the Suez Canal. He
visited Manchester, Liverpool, Dublin, Glasgow,
&c., eliciting the views of commercial and prac-
tical men on this great speculation. His plans
were generally approved, and resolutions passed
in support of them M. LESSEPS himself is very
sanguine of the complete success of this under-
taking. He calculates the cost would be about
8,000,0001. The interest on that capital, at 5
per cent., would be 400,0001. Add an equal
sum for working expenses and keeping it in
repair, and we have 800,0001. of annual expense.
The probable income, however, is estimated at

one million-and-a-quarter of pounds. Appor-
tioning the amount that would have to be raised
in the different nations to carry out this work,
the sum that England would have to furnish
would be a million-and-a-half. France the same
amount. The length of the proposed canal to
join the Mediterranean and the Red Sea would
be 92 miles. The greatest width would be 329
feet, and 262 feet the least ; the depth would be
26 feet. It was once said that the level of the Red
Sea was considerably higher than the Mediter-
ranean level. This is now found to be a mis-
take ; the level of both seas is almost identical.
The entire intervening space that joins the seas
has been surveyed by skilful engineers of many
nations, who all concur in the statement that
nature has placed no unsurmountable barrier in
the way of such a work.
If the money can be found the thing appears
practicable. Nature even appears to have
favoured the undertaking, for there is, midway,
a lake that could be deepened into a spacious
harbour and coaling station. There might be a
fleet of steam tugs to conduct sailing vessels
through this artificial Bosphorus. The naviga-
tion would be safe. Then, it would shorten, by
nearly one half, the journey to India, Australia,
and China. It is said that Lord PALMERSTON is
somewhat averse to this enterprise, and favour
rather the projected railway that is to run through
the Euphrates. For our own part we favour
both ; there is no incompatibility between them ;

they are grand enterprises, promotive of peace
and civilization, and worthy of being carried out
by the most advanced nations of the earth. We
can imagine no political reasons to discounte-
nance them

The project of the Suez canal has the earnest
support of the Sultan of Turkey and the
Governor of Egypt. In a financial and com-
mercial point of view England would probably
be the greatest gainer. A great impulse would
be given to Turkey, Egypt, and the eastern parts
of Africa, The land of the negro might be
quickened in its pace of improvement. We
should gain readier access to all our Eastern
possessions and colonies, and be better able to
defend India against Russia and all other machi-
It is politic to maintain the indepen-
dence of Persia as a check to Russian aggran-
disement in the East. By aid of this great work
we could better support our Persian ally. What-
ever tends to promote rapid communication
among men tends to promote peace, and to
expand industry. If there had been an electric
telegraph connecting Pekin with London we
should probably at this moment be at peace with
China. How many misunderstandings and
causes of war will be precluded when men are
able to communicate instantaneously, on the
wings of the lightning. These, then, are the
sort of works in which great nations should hold
rivalry—canals, harbours of refuge, railways,
electric telegraphs, &c. Far better spend millions
a year in such works than even in demolishing
Sebastopols, enforcing on the Chinese respect for
the British flag, or even in Aldershott camps
and military parades at home. At present we
are like children fond of gewgaws and bright
colours, enticed by the soldiers' red coat, and all
the pomp and circumstance of so-called glorious
war. The time will come for the NAPJLEONS of
peace; but when, we think it safest for our own
prophetical reputation not to specify. Only all
such works and enterprizes as we now refer to
will help forward that better state of feeling
when men shall recognize that they are made in
the brotherhood of equality, in order that they
may do good and not evil, one to another, all the
days of their life.

nations.

THE benefits and importance of the " Limited
Liability" Act are becoming every day more
and more apparent. Not only are the commercial
classes taking advantage of the provisions of this
law, but we find that it has been resorted to in
order to promote the moral and intellectual
improvement of the working portion of the com-
munity. Our readers will have perceived in the
columns of this paper, on Wednesday last, the
prospectus of a new company, entitled, the
" Liverpool Recreative Company," which has
for its object the providing of means for recrea-
tion and amusement to the industrious classes, at
a cost within the reach of every one not
actually a pauper. Believing that such a
company has within it the germ of much future
good, we have perused the prospectus with great
satisfaction, and heartily wish every success to

the undertaking.
Any one conversant with the condition and
habits of the working classes of Liverpool must
admit that there exists in the town a great want
of means of unobjectionable recreation. In this
respect, we are far behind our neighbours of
Manchester. There is no public park, with its
refreshment-rooms, Library, Museum, and a
School of Art, with gymnastic apparatus
attached, where all can go and instruct—rather,
educate both mind and body. It is true we have
a Public Library and a Museum, which, in after
years, will be a great intellectual resort; but in
Public Parks we still lag behind. Our friends
on the other side of the Mersey, although the
residents of an infant town—Birkenhead, far
outstrip us in this respect. Concerts for the
million cannot, as in Birmingham and Manches-
ter, be produced in Liverpool, unless at a ruinous
cost. To remedy these defects, and to rid
society of the numerous kinds of amusements got
up for the people by private speculation, all of
which partake more or less of an objectionable
tendency, is the grand design of the Liverpool
Recreative Company, Any one who will walk