The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-21 00:00:00

2itit

.i)NDON, FRIoAY DECEMBER 21. 1849.

Our Cowes correspondent recorded yesterday the I
visit of a very poor and very aged woman to her MA-
JESTY, and the kind reception of the venerable dame by
the Royal Lady, who bade the little Prince of WALES
shake hands with her. This trifling incident, insig-
nificant as it may seem, is only another corroboration
of what we have already said with regard to the
momentous question—" Who shall educate the Prince
of WALES ?" namely, that his Royal Highness is at
the present moment receiving the best possible
education. He is every day acquiring that species
of knowledge which best developes the mental and
moral growth, and is likely to render the in-
dividual a blessing to the community. Would
that we could say as much of the majority,
of English children ! The gentle teaching and al-
luring example of an excellent mother furnish the
young prince with the only " royal road " to wisdom,
but very dissimilar is that course of instruction by
which the future men of England are being fitted for
their coming duties. Even dame Nature herself is
transformed, for them, into a harsh stepdame.
Shivering; with cold and hunger, stupified by stolid
ignorance, or sharpened by premature craft, they are
driven to the grave, or brought up for the gal-
lows or the hulks. Only we are inured to
it by constant repetition, or few could pass
along the crowded thoroughfares, or peer into
the narrow by-lanes of the metropolis, without
a heart shudder at the picture thus presented of our
English children. There are few sights so truly
melancholy (to those who, pause to think of it) as
the sharp cunning visible in many an infantile visage
in every street in London—the haunts of innumerable
pickpockets. Children, it is said, are " the germs
from which may spring angels," and again, they are
" the trustees of posterity.". Fallen angels, indeed, are
those trained in the courts and alleys of London. A

gloomy future will that be ►hose destinies

are in such bands. Yet who cares ? Who
troubles himself about it ? True, their existence will

endure for eternity, and the earthly lives of these
infants may influence the future welfare of their
country, but we let them struggle on their helpless,
hopeless way, less tended, less cared for than the beasts
of burden. Should we commend the wisdom of the hus-
bandman who suffered a large tract of fertile ground
to lie uncultivated year after year when a little labour
might enrich him with an abundant harvest, nay
more, if instead of leaving it barren, he allowed it to

bear noxious weeds whose foul exhalations poisoned
the surrounding country ? Preposterous as the suppo-
sition appears, such is literally the conduct pursued
by those to whom is confided the education of the
people. What thousands of pounds, and how much
trouble and anxiety, are yearly spent on the trials
and punishments of criminals, and the building
of prisons and fitting out of convict ships,
which might have been spared to the benefit of the
community and the inestimable blessing of indivi-
duals, if schools had been built instead of prisons, and
that golden rule bad been acted upon—prevention is
better than cure—besides being immeasurably more
practicable.
Among the numerous important and much re-
quired reforms which we confidently anticipate for
next session, the subject of Education must not be
omitted. It is difficult to imagine a better invest-
ment for public money, or a more effective
system for protecting life and property, and improv-
ing the moral and commercial condition of a country,
than the general diffusion of knowledge. "By edu-
cation," truly said Lord Bitouonam, "men become
easy to lead and difficult to drive—easy to govern and
impossible to enslave." It is impossible to overrate
the efficacy of a power which is the nursing mother
of all that is great and good in man. We boast of
our human intellect, but without education where is
it ? What distinguishes the illiterate clown
from the beast of the field f We are
proud of the virtues of human nature, but
without education (for they grievously err, who
confine the term to mere book learning,) what is the
condition of the human heart? worse than barren—
fertile with evil weeds. No wise parent will suffer
his children to want for teaching ; any personal pri-
vation is willingly endured, in order to provide them
with education. The State should follow the same
course. The education of the helpless little ones of
the community should be the care, as it is the duty
of the Legislature. Some steps have already been
taken in the right direction, but nothing has yet
been done worthy of the character, or adequate to
the necessities of the British people. The State
considers itself obliged to protect the lives and
property of its citizens. Thieves and murderers are
sought out, tried, and punished at the public expense,
and not seldom at a very great expense 1 The reason
is obvious. Every one willingly bears a share in
such expenses, because every one is thereby bene-
fited—his life and property are thus indirectly
secured. The same arguments—absolutely the same
arguments—support, the claim of public education.
It is not only of individual but of universal benefit.
As such it cannot much longer be treated with
neglect. In the meantime, while awaiting
the long-required interference—that is, an
effectual and suitable interference on the
part of the State—the efforts of individuals to bestow
on the poor this best of blessings cannot be too highly
commended or too mach encouraged. Of all such
efforts the establishment of Ragged Schools is one of
the most benevolent and the most efficacious. We
have again and egain commented upon these institu-
tions, which have always enlisted our best sympathies.
Their very name is their noblest eulogium, and their
excellent nature is so well known, and their Value is so
generally admitted, that to commend Ragged Schools
is now altogether superfluous. In another column
our readers will find a very interesting history of
fie founders of Ragged Schools (taken from
Eliza Cook's Journal—a periodical conspicuous for
its advocacy of all such popular benefactions). We
commend the narrative to all who may be unac-
quainted with the public benefactions of Jolts POUNDS,
the poor cobbler who established the first Ragged
School in England. The life of this humble, and,
seemingly, insignificant man, is another proof of
what great things an individual—no matter what
his rank or riches—may achieve, if he vigorously put
his shoulder to the wheel. The life of JOHN
POUNDS might furnish a happy theme for a moral
lecture to high and low, rich and poor, learned and
unlearned, who content themselves with cen-
suring the ill conduct, or compassionating
the miseries of others, instead of individually
doing their best to reform the one and relieve the
other. We especially call attention to the little
memoir of the first Ragged School teacher at the pre-
sent moment, because, at, the present moment more than
ever, there is abundant opportunity for the beneficial
exertions of individuals, either alone or collectively.
The example is singularly opportune, and worthy of
conscientious consideration. Many a possessor of ten
talents will be put to shame when he contrasts bis
own conduct with that of the humble Cobbler.

Another work of a politico-religious character has
just appeared from the pen of the author of " Pan-
slavism and Germanism ;" and, remembering the cor-
rectness of his predictions as to the probable result of
the Hungarian movement, predictions made suc-
cinctly and explicitly in that remarkable volume, we
cannot but regard his present effusion as a book of
very considerable importance. In alluding to it,
however, we are compelled, if by no other reason, by
our character as a journalist, to refrain from all re-
ference to what would amount to nothing less than
polemical controversy, a theme in no respect suited to
the columns of a political newspaper. Nor will the
avoidance of all theological discussion denude the

arguments of Count VALERIAN KRASINSILI of their
intrinsic value, seeing that their principal object is to
enforce the necessity of introducing among the

Slavonic races reforms similar to those infused into

our own institutions. Although, therefore, the volume
before us announces upon its very title page that it

assumes to be an elucidation of the ecclesiastical

history of the Slavonians,* it will be at once com-
patible with our immediate intentions, and with our
position as a publicist, to examine exclusively its poli-
tical, and to avoid altogether its religious, reasoning
and deductions.

Animated by a pardonable, or we ngght even say a
laudable preference of his own nation or those of all
the other territories of the European continent, in-
spired with a confidence in the ultimate predominance

of the Slavonic over all the other races of the eastern

hemisphere, Count KRASINSLI avows at once his im-
plicit belief in the ulterior victory of his compatriots,
as %ell as in their final reconciliation and combina•

tion. Hitherto his predictions have been singularly
verified, and hence we are disposed to treat his vatici•
nations as no mere idle flights of fancy,
but rather as the logical results of the reasoning of
a really tenacious and sagacious intellect. How far
the Slivonic races are empowered to exercise a au-

preme influence over the destinies of adjacent states,
may be estimated without much difficulty by merely
taking into account the extent of their territories,
the force of their geographical position, and the
numerical strength of their population. Now, in
regard to the latter and more important branch of
the question, we may readily arrive at a conclusion,
seeing that the census of this extraordinary people
presents to the view a power of enormous magnitude.
Altogether the nations coming under the generic
title of Slavonic amounts to no less than 78,691,000,
or in round numbers little less than 80,000,000.
Separated as they are at present from each other,
and subjected as they have long been to a great di-
versity of governments-30,000 coming under the
authority of Saxony, 6,100,000 under that of Turkey,
2,108,000 under that of Prussia, 16,921,000 under
that of Austria, and 53,502,000 under the despotic
sway of the Russian AUTOCRAT—it is, of course,
impossible to work out anything for their common
advantage prior to some grand revolution, whereby
their scattered forces may be brought together. The
real question, therefore, at issue, is, whether this
concentration is to be effected pacifically, or by some
tremendous and disastrous explosion; whether the union
which must inevitably occur in the end, shall be turned
into a blessing or a curse to the continent. Count
VALERIAN KRASINSKI, at once a patriot and a cosmo-
polite, at once desiring to witness the advancement of
his fellow-countrymen and the general prosperity of
Christendom, is solicitous, of course, that the result
may be beneficial rather than destructive. His pre-
dilections are strictly of a Conservative character, of
the true Conservative character; he is Conservative
as we, the Radicals of England, are Conservative; 1-e
would secure the framework of society, and would
perpetuate the achievements of civilization by those
reforms and innovations which are as essential to all
political institutions as nutriment is to all
animal existence. As with our own bodies,
the mechanism of our governments is perpetually
undergoing a change, and what is termed by LIEBIG
and other philosophers in animal chemistry, the
" metamorphosis of the tissues" in regard to the
human frame, is the necessity for improvement in our
legislatures. Any attempt to obstruct the application
of reforms to our institutions would be productive of
nothing less than a state of political atrophy. Day
by day, year by year, the compensating aliment of
modification would be withheld, and gradually, it
may be imperceptibly, but still surely and inevitably,
the various laws of the land would become ineffective
and inapplicable, until at length the mechanism of
administration would be a skeleton of obsolete
ordinances. Nothing, however—actually -nothing
in this way can, by any possibility, be
attempted in the present position of affairs with-
out either a movement in the way of reform or of
revolution. Reform, moreover, has become more
than ever incumbent upon the western branch of the
Slavonic races, now that Russia has acquired a
gigantic preponderance over them by her interference
in the subjugation of the Magyars. Unless, indeed,
it be the intention of Austria, Prussia, Saxony, and
Turkey to succumb to the influence of the AUTOCRAT,
a vigorous effort must be made, and that forthwith,
through the agency of constitutional innovations to-
wards the resumption of a power which
will otherwise have escaped for ever from the
grasp of those states in consequence of the
commanding attitude recently taken by the Czen of
all the Russias. Nor can any effectual benefit accrue
to the cause of a Slavonic amalgamation, and through
that to the cause of European advancement, without
a scrupulous regard to the various temperaments and
contradictory religions of a family united together
only by their supple and sonorous language. In
testimony of the theological differences among the
Slavonic races, it is only necessary to observe that
amongst them are to be enumerated 800,000 Ma-
kometans, 1,531,000' Protestants, no less than
22,349,000 Catholics, and a total of 54,011,000 under
the jurisdiction of the Greek or Eastern Church.
As to the varieties of tastes, customs, predilections,
and prejudices that require to be consulted in the
Slavonic family, that is a fact easily demonstrable
by. the enumeration of its component parts or
branches those divisions including 44,000
Lower Wends, 98 000 Upper Lusatians, 800,000
Croats, 1,151,000 Cerynthians, 2,726,000 White
Russians, 2,753,000 Slovaks, 3,587,000 Bul-
garians, 4,414,000 Bohemians and Moravians,
5,294,000 Servians or 111yrians, 9,365,000 Poles,
13,144,000 Ruthenians, and 35,314,000 Great Rus-
sians or Muscovites. Here assuredly is ample testi-
mony of the diversities of opinions, of faith, and of habit,
requiring to be consulted by those who would secure
the union of the Slavonic race by means of political
innovations and constitutional improvement. Great,
however, as such difficulties unquestionably are, they
are nevertheless very far indeed from being altogether
insuperable. On the contrary, according to the
views of Count VALERIAN KRASINSK.I, a writer
not given to any very extensive soarings of
the imagination, and certainly not inspired
to the construction of those bewitching edifices bight
castles in the air, by any circumstances of a propitious
character in the recent
,history of the Slavonic races,
—according to the views, we say, of a man so situated,
and so constituted, the obstacles in the way of such
comprehensive reforms are anything but insurmount-
able. Filled with an unaffected anxiety to see his
most golden aspirations realised, we close our pre-
sent reference to the Count's latest production aid
earnestly commend the volume to the attention of
English politicians.
• " Lectures on the Religious History of the Slavonic
Nations. By Count Valerian Krasinski." One volume,
pp. 481. Olivier, London, 1849.

BLACK, WHITE, and GREY.
Mankind had long disputed at the Cape,
About the Devil's colour and his shape;
The English held that he was black as night,
The Hottentots contended he was white ;
But now all split the difference, and say
They feel quite certain that the Devil 's
—grey.
K.

COURT CIRCULAR.
OSBORNE, THURSDAY.
Her Majesty and his Royal Highness Prince Al-
bert walked early this morning in the park and
grounds at Osborne.
The Prince of Wales and younger branches of the
Royal Family, walked and rode as usual.
There was no addition to the royal dinner party
yesterday.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge and his Serene Highness Prince Frederick
of Ilesse visited her Royal Highness the Duchess of
Gloucester yesterday, at Gloucester House.
Sir William Winniett and Mr. W. 0. Sanders had
an interview with Earl Grey, yesterday, at the Co-
lonial- office.
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England had
a general meeting yesterday, at their office in White •
hall place.
Dispatches from the Governors of Hong-Kong,
Labuan, and Ceylon, were received yesterday at the
Colonial •office. Dispatches were also received yes-
terday, at the Colonial-office, from the Lord High
Commissioner of the lonian Islands and from the
Governor of Malta.

The Government contract for 100,000 gallons a:
rum for the navy, was again taken yesterday by Messrs
Lemon, Hart, and Sons, of 59, Fenchurch-street.