The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-08 00:00:00

EXTRA STOCK.

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BEST PlG.—Silver medal to Mr. Samuel G. Stearn, of
Braudiaton, Suffolk.

SILVER CUPS.

A silver cup, value £4O, to the exhibitor for the best steer
or ox in any of the classes, to Mr. William Heath, Lind-
ham-ball, Norwich. A silver cup, value £4O, to the exhi-
bitor for the best heifer or cow in any of the classes, to Mr.
Charles Swaisland, of Crayford, Kent. A silver cup, value
£2O, to the exhibitor, for the best pen of Leicesters, Cots-
wolds, Lincolns, Kentish or other long-woolled breed, in
any of the classes, to Mr. G. S. Foijambe, of Worksop. A
silver cup, value £2O, to the exhibitor, for the bast pen of
one .year old South-Downs, Hampshire, or Wiltshire downs,
to Lord Walsingham, Merton-hall, Thetford, Norfolk. A
silver cup, value £2O, to the exhibitor, for the best pen of
Shropshire, Oxfordshire, cross-bred, or any other breed of
sheep (not specified in prize list) in any of the classes, to
Mr. John Overman, of Burnham Sutton, Norfolk.

GOLD MEDAL. •
A gold medal to the exhibitor, for the best pen of pigs in
any of the classes, to Major-General the Hon. A. N. Hood,
Cumberland Lodge, Windsor.
JUDGES OF SHORTHORNS, SCOTCH, WELSH, AND EXTRA
STOCK CATTLE.—Messrs William Sanday, John Brown,
and Thomas Parkinson.
JUDGES OF DEVONS, HEREFORDS, SUSSEX, NORFOLK,
LONGHORN, IRISH, AND CROSSBRED CATTLE.—Messrs.
Robert Smith, John Buckley, and John Coleman.
JUDGES OF LEICESTEItS, COTSWOLD, LINCOLN, Rom•
NEY Matsu, CROSSBRED, OXFORD, AND MOUNTAIN
SHEEP.—Messrs. Marshall Hanley, John H. Phillips, and
Francis Spencer.

JUDGES OF SOUTH-DOWN, HAMPSHIRE, AND SHROP-
SHIRE SHEEP.--Messrs. Henry Webb, J. S. Turner, and
C. Randall.

JUDGES OF PlGS.—Messrs. George Mann, John Moon,
and John Waters.

Extra Parliamentary Utterances.

LORD HARTINGTON.

On Saturday evening the annual meeting of the East Lan.,
cashire Union of Mechanics and Literary Institutions and
Evening Schools was held at the Town-hall of Haslingden
—Col. Patten, M.P., presiding. There were present Lord
Harlington, M.P., Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth, and a large
assemblage of perrons of influence in the district. More
than 1,000 people attended. Prizes were distributed to
about a score of young women and girls and about 100 young
men and boys belonging to the institutions of the union. It
was stated by the chairman that the books awarded as
prizes were selected by the recipients, and that'the choice
was most creditable to their intelligence. After an opening
speech from the chairman,
Lord HARTINOTON, M.P., was called upon to move the
following resolution : - -
" That the number of scholars attending the evening
classes throughout the union, notwithstanding the unpre-
cedented distress which has prevailed during the years 1862-
3, affords abundant proof of the permanent attraction which
a well organised and efficient system of instruction has for
the young men supported by manual labour in this district."
In the course of his speech he said it would not be more
idle and Quixotic to clothe oneself in an old suit of armour,
and ride about in search of adventures, as used to do the
knights of old, than to look within the limits of this country
for that person who would seriously contest the proposition
that education should be as widely diffused as possible.
(Applause.) But it has happened to me to travel in a

country where I have heard clever and educated men
throw grave doubts en the benefit which is conferred upon
a country by an extended system of education. In no
country is a good popular education more widely diffused
than. it is in the New England States; but I have
heard men—their enemies, certainly—clever leaders
of the Confederacy, gravely argue that a great many
of what they consider the faults and vices of the Northern
population have arisen from this so widely spread system of
superficial education. I hope it is needless for me to say
that I utterly disagree with those persons, or with any who
can argue that popular education, if not productive of all
that was hoped from it, can have been productive of evil.
Still, the fact remains that popular education is more com-
pletely diffused in the New England States than in any other
country; and yet,
without saying or wishing to say any-
thing hostile or which could be taken amiss, I think there
are very few Englishmen whose opinion is that the
national character of New England is exactly
what a patriot would wish the national character of
his own country to be. The
people are extremely clever
and energetic; but with the rapid and wide-spread civiliza-
tion of those States all travellers there who have taken the
trouble to make themselves acquainted with the condition
of society, have found that, while there is much to praise,
there is also much to regret and to blame. I do not wish
to bring a bill of indictment against the people of the
Northern States. Nothing could exceed their kindness and
hospitality to me, as I believe to all strangers, and I ac •
knowledge that there is much to admire and praise in that
people. But there is no doubt that in the Yankee charac-
ter—Yankees they call themselves, and Yankees we may
be allowed to call them—there is too great a tendency
to think too much of mone making,
and to carry perhaps
a little too far the cleverness and acuteness required in
trade. The people undoubtedly:possess a somewhat exagge-
rated idea of tha. merits, not only of their own country, but
of all the people who dwell therein ; undoubtedly they are
somewhat arrogant, somewhat intolerant of opposition, and
also they have not in this hour of their trial developed all
the virtues—such as atedfastness, patriotism, and spirit of
self-sacrifice—which have been sometimes found in other
less cultivated nations when put to a similar trial.
But Ido not for a moment believe that the widespread
popular education is the cause of any of these defects.

(Applause.) I think we may find the causes if we look for
them. The school education of American children is not in
all cases very judicious. There is, even while the children
are at school, a tendency to exaggerate everything, to make
them admire more what is large than what is good, and,
above all, what is Amercan than what is anything else.
But it is when the children leave school that the bad in-
fluence gets hold of the national character, which prevent

its being so great and good as otherwise it might be.
However widespread the education, I believe that
after boys hare left school the greater part of the
reading of ninety-nine hundredths of the people will be
the reading of the daily press ; and the daily press in
America, from reasons which it would take too long to
enter into here, is certainly not the intellectual food which
tends to make a people great, or generous, or good. I be-
lieve, then, it is because really the education of the people
has not gone so far as to lay a solid foundation of good sense
and good taste that they are, as a people not vigorous enough
to reject the unwholesome intellectual food which those nem-