The Sun.
London, England, 1858-02-03 00:00:00

THE EDUCATIONAL FRANOBISE.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
Having experienced that your columns are opsn
to the advocacy of fair and just principles, I ven-
ture to express my views upon the subject of the
new educational qualification for voters. Education,
impartially and efficiently effected, would form a
grand medium of suffrage ; but, partially and
inefficiently carried out, would fonm one of
the most dangerous instruments that a Go-
vernment could possess. This educational suffrage,
intended by this frail Government, is based upon
the Russian policy, where all are educated that are
not born serfs, in the way which suits the power of
despotism, by bringing the child up in the way which
the State requires it to go, the child ever associating
the State power with some hing sacred. Scarcely
ever possessing a thought that does not identify
the State with all that is righteous ; having some
purposely confused idea that the State is of some
divine potentiality. Implicit obedience and
reverence follow, where even iniquity abounds ;
the free education has bound the child, the youth,
and the man to another bondage ; leaving him a
little better than the instinctive animal, with one
: idea prevailing always, i.e., vassallage.
There would be no great objection to this kind
of state-bound man, were the state perfect—based
upon first principles—but since this immaculacy
does not exist in any state throughout the world,
there is danger in any kind of partial or political
education. There is still greater danger whore edu-
cation assumes a semblance of freedom ; where
education is to qualify any voter, unless it be lett
indefinite as to where educated—by what profes-
sion, persuasion, religion, or class. Any pre-
ference .of an university or college education
would not only frustrate the advantage, but
would augment the evils of partial suffrage.
Now no good can come out of the creation of new
constituencies under any class system, such as the
Church, the law, the army, professors of medicine,
science, and art, nor of Banking nor E Est India
Companies. Votes given in such classified forms
will be setting every man interestedly against his
neighbour. The national object of the statesman
will be overthrown : the member would be
bound not to give an independent, but a depen-
dent,
vote in the House of Parliament ; and when
a measure touching the interest of the Church, the
army, or the arts, or any of the classes be directly
under discussion for lawful enactment, the in-
terest of the class, not that of the entire nation,
must be considered. The law representative
would not fail t 3 uphold the law interest, for if he
did not, he would certainly not represent their
interest again, as would the other class repres,nta-
tives regard their respective interests. The result
would be that the law interest, the most crafty of
all and already too nneneroue and powerful in the
House, would soon enjoy other immunities,
benefittiug their class only while it injured and
punished the whole country besides. The Church,
also equally powerful and influential, would not
forget her loaves and fishes though the country
were starving by her encroachments : her command-
ment of love the neighbour would soon be effaced
from the requirements of the Church, substitutine
for it, love the Church above all things and wink
at all her corruption.
The Church, the Law, and the Army, are already
three powerful ministerial adjuncts, and to add to
the power they already possess is evidently only
the Russia❑ system attempted here, to enslave a
comparatively free people. Who:everlexpected an)
better kind of reform from Lord Palmerston ? He
is utterly incapable of real reform. Subtle
diplomacy is his forte, and lie will ever deal with
the franchise as lie would deal with an enemy,
evade and outwit a just claim, or punish the pre
sumptive expectant.
To encourage education is good, but to play a
trick of this kind with a country, under the specious
garb of reform, proves that something more than
education is necessary. Something more than the
education of the mind only is required ; the heart
and the conscience must form a part if education
hencetort rt.

A new system must be instituted among tLo
higher classes of education, for virtue must find its
place somewhere. Certainly the labouring people
of Great Britain exhibit a tendency to integrity
greater than do the higher orders. Do you find
the men of labour exercising undue and unjust in-
fluence over their employers because of their nume-
rical strength ? Do they not toil on in peace early
and late, day after day, year after year ? not in-
creasing in their substance even with frugality,
caution, and economy—their day of toil never
ending in life—their family wants increasing without
the commensurate increase of moans attainable in
their locality where all the surrounding ties of kin-
dred centre.

Yet numerous, almost general, are the hearts of
the higher orders hardened against their social
and political claims ; and Lord Palmerston would
certainly put aside their just claims as if he never
had received an education at all.
I recognise no education that has not inculcated
a sound integrity of purPose. I call no man great,
though he be Premier, if he be not good in heart,
Justitia cum core is my maxim.
It is also the higher orders that require the edu-
cation—that most essential part of it—which bears
upon first principles—that which no man can ignore
with impunity. Compromise is a subterfuge, expe-
diency a deception, and evasion an excuse, at-
tempted only by the vain ungrounded man in
virtuo.

There seems a disease of bo h heart and mind
among the influential and affluent men of this day.
Two thousand two hundred years back, better sen-
timents were promulgated than now. How comes
it that the sentiments of that great, good, and vir-
tuous man, which Eusebius "declared, of all the
Greeks, reached the vestibule of truth," are not
prominently taught and imbibed in our colleges
and universities. How is it this " Maximus Philo-
sophorum" has no weieht and influence in our day
that we would call a day of advanced civilisation
and education ? .

Thtt broad-shouldered man, which the Times
journal would have denounced unqualified fur the
English araty—bacause of the width of his shoulder?,
and unfit to mess and associate with the witless sons

of lords—is none other than Plato. How comes it

_ .
that the journal whioh WM once the first in Gnat
Britain, should have blundered so egregiously as to
have forgotten Plato But not only have the Col-
le4iates and the Times forgotten the shoulders of
Plato, but, what is much worse, the sentiments of
that great man are altogether and alike oblivious in
every utterance that journal fawningly brings forth

fir the Ministerial interest.
Plato was more deeply interested in a good form
of Government, having witnessed the corruptions

. _
in his own country—the Atheiran democracy.
Alio that of the desp3tic and absOlute rule of
Dionysius; had he lived in our day he would have
had more ample means of witnessing the corrup-
tion of a monarchy under a denominated constitu-
tional form—the whole of which were and.are alike
opposed to his exalted views.

His ethics require to be taught to the great
statesmen of this day, they require little revision
for this day. Neither does the advocacy of virtue
over require modification. Virtue is an abstract
pr:nciple which man n.:ver can modify, although in
thi= day various are the attampti to dres3 it in, o
corrupt semblance. Whereas Plito asserts ' vice
to be a discos') of the mind," but " virtue is pur-
chase,l as the true good of the soul."

My advocacy is to injureno class whatever. I seek
not the destruction of the posse3so!s of we ilth nor of
honours, but I sesk their funlimeutal ameliora-
tion in the thorough possession of happines3.
Happiness is never unconnected with virtue. If,
therefore, our members of State have disregarded
the line of reAitude, which should benefit the
majority of their country, they have simultaneously
disregarded that which shall ever benefit themselves I
the most—i e. virtue.

Plato ateA3 the fact when he siid that "virtu-
ous conuuct, apart from its benefits to society, is
advantageous to the individual practiing it, inas-
much as it ensures that regularlity of theimagination