The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-07 00:00:00

following intelligence, printed as that given yesterday in the
proof in large type

"In the sitting of to-day (the 25th), the Members
adopted by a great majority the first article of the law pro-
posed by the Government, by which are recognia‘.d as
debts of the State all the Loans contracted by the Govern-
ment, both during the time of the Cortes, and since the year
1823, up to this day."
We need not point out the contradiction between the
proof and the text of the journal. It cannot be accounted
for, in our opinion, except on the supposition that the proof
was printed after the 'reports spread by the courier himself
at Bayonne, and the letters that he may have brought, and
the version of the journal itself sent back from Paris to
Bayonne by the telegraph, and communicated as official to
the journal by the office of the Prefecture. We invite the
frank and unreserved explanation of this important fact,
from the Sentinelle de Bayonne, which is most favourably
situated to obtain details on this subject.—Constitutionnel,
Oct. 5.

Among the many reforms contemplated by the
Spanish Government, we are gly.d to find that the im-
provement of the system of education which prevails
in the public schools has attracted some degree of
attention. In no nation in Europe is the education
of all classes more neglected at present than in Spain.
Properly speaking there is no education in that conn-
try, for what goes under that venerable name consists
in little more than the rudiments of classical learning,
with a superabundance of superstitious records of
miracles,, adventures of saints, and an acquaintance
with old traditionary legends. Science is all but un-
known, and as for political economy, or the science of
government, ninety-nine out of every hundred of the
people know nothing whatever about it. What we
most complain of is, that in taking steps for improving
the course of study in the larger schools, no plan has
been introduced for establishing a system of parochial
instruction for the benefit of the peasantry—a course
which we were prepared to expect, from the well-
known love of education which prevails among the
most distinguished members of the Cabinet. The
liberation of Spain may be effected in three months,
and the Ministry may enrich her with the freest and
purest institutions in the world ; but unless her people
are taught the real value and relative importance of their
liberty and their privileges, one generation shall not pass
away before she will be found loaded with chains at
the feet of a tyrant. This most important considera-
tion should ever be present to Kings and Cabinets,
when they prepare to break the bonds of an enslaved
people. Without education no man can preserve
liberty, nor enjoy its privileges. An ignorant people
cannot continue free, because freedom cannot be pre-
served without that knowledge which is gained by
reading, reflection, and an enlarged and liberal expe-
rience. Burst the bonds of authority, break the chains
of arbitrary power, and ignorance will substitute the
passions for the despot, whose sway has been abjured.
Liberty becomes licentiousness where reason is uncul-
tivated, and hence the whole of what is gained is a
worse species of tyranny for a better. To make a
people permanently free, let their emancipators begin
with educating them, which will constitute them the
guardians of their own rights. Still the following
decree is important, as it evinces a disposition to attend
more fully to the subject when the state of the country
will admit of it :

(From the Madrid Gazette of Sept. 28.)
ROYAL DECREE.

With a view to the formation of a general plan of public
instruction which may extend the sphere of learning and
contribute to the propagation of knowledge most immedi-
ately useful, I deemed it proper to appoint, on the 31st of
January last, a commission composed of learned men zealous
for the advancement of the public welfare ; but considering
that the labours of the said commission ought to have for
their foundation a practical knowledge of the present state
of public instruction in the kingdom, of the literary es-
tablishments, of the effects produced by the existing plan of
study, and of the means which may be relied on for rea-
lizing beneficial reforms in this important department,—that

these indispensable requisites are alone to be found in the
Board of General Inspection for Public Instruction and its
subordinate officers ; and that, without the aid of the said
requisites, it would be hardly possible to form a new system
of education adequate to the present wants of the nation,
and calculated to exercise an influence sufficiently on the
solid instruction of youth and the progress of knowledge, I
have decreed, in the name of my august daughter, the
Queen Donna Isabel 11., as follows
1. The Board of General Inspection for Public In-
struction is abolished.

2 A General Directory of Studies will be established in
its stead, composed for the present of five regular and two
supplementary members. The member first on the list
will be named President, and in each case of vacancy his duty
will devolve on the senior member according to the date of
the appointments.
3. The powers of the General Directory, and the pre-
rogatives and emoluments of its members will be fixed by a
special decree, as soon as, by the plan of studies being
formed and approved, the extent of their duties can be as-
certained and indicated. In the meantime the General

Directory will exercise the same attributes and powers
which were committed to the suppressed Board by the re-
gulations of the 25th of November, 1825, and the 13th of
March, 1826, tha Secretary and other subordinate officers
of that establishment being continued on the same footing
as they at present subsist.
4. The General Directory will immediately propose to
me, through you, the authors whose writings, in their judg-
ment should be employed as text-books in the Universities,
in order that the course which is to open in October next
may be read according to them, following in all other re-
spects the system and direction of the existing plan of
studies. _ _

Vv
5. The General Directory will take cognizance of the
state of the Universities and other literary establishments
which have been maintained at the charge of the Board of
Inspection, and supported by its revenues and dues, in order
that they may accurately calculate on ulterior reforms and
on the possibility of carrying them into effect. From this
inquiry the schools of primary instruction are for the pre-
sent excepted, the supervision of which is comprehended
under the special commission created by my royal decree of
the 31st of August last.
6. The General Directory will investigate the labours
effectuated by the individuals who were charged with the
formation of the system of study on the 31st of January,
and, aided by the fund of knowledge and information which
the existing state of education may afford them, they will
form that plan which they may consider the most con-
venient and practicable in conformity with the rules of
experience, transmitting the same to me through .you for
my examination, and for the sanction of my Royal appro-
bation.

_You will thus understand this decree, and will make the
necessary provision for the execution thereof.
Under the Royal sign manual, in the Pardo, Sept. 25,
1834.
To Don Jose Maria Moscoso de Altamira.

" Hear the other side," is an admonition as worthy
the observance of political judges, as it has ever been
of those occupying the judgment-seat in a civil or cri-
minal court ; and acting in the spirit of this impartial
rule, we direct attention to a letter in another part of
The Sun, repudiating our strictures on the baneful
effects of flogging in the army, more especially in the
recent case of Private Hutchinson. We have looked
in vain over the letter of our correspondent for a single
reason for the continuance of a system as degrading
in its infliction, as it has been proved ruinous in
its effects, and baneful in its consequences. The
writer does not attempt to defend the inhuman prac-
tice of military torture ; no, he merely considers
it " a bad sign of the times, that a soldier cannot be
punished by a Court-martial of his Regiment, legally,.
and according to the Mutiny Act, for a most unmili-
tary and insubordinate crime, the sentence of corporal
punishment having been passed upon him for that
crime, and because he was PROVED beyond all doubt
by the Defaulter records of the Regiment to have been
a decidedly bad character, without a cry being set up
instantly (and especially by those who are most cla-