The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Among zealous educationists, observes the Times, the hrs
feeling on hearing the Ministerial proposals laid before the.
House of Lords by the Duke of Marlborough will be one
of disappointment and regret. The paragraph in the
Queen's Speech led all parties to believe that the Conser-
vative Government, foreseeing the great political changes
which must follow the measure they accepted and carried
last year, had made up their minds to ask the sanction of
Parliament to a new and complete system of education.
Our contemporary holds that the Government plan falls
very short of efficiency, that it takes refuge in imbecile
optimism when grave defects are visible to all beside.
At the same time it will not deny that improve-
ments are suggested in the practical working el the
present system. The 'relaxation of the stringent rule
requiring a certificated teacher in every school that re-
ceives a Government grant is a step in the right direction,
and though the proposed limitation cannot be justified on
logical grounds, we have no doubt the concession will
prove a stimulus as well as a boon to the smaller pa.r-hes.
There is also a fair amount of liberality in the Govern-
ment proposals with respect to Nonconformists, and the
" Conscience" provisions seem honestly intended to
satisfy all parties, and to prevent any child from being de-
prived of an education by the scruples of the conductors of
the school on the one side, or its own parents on the
other. We may also express satisfaction at the prospect
of a thorough inquiry into the state of education tnd
the means which exist for it in various parts of
the country. This question cannot be dissociated from
that of the existing charitable endowments, the produce of
which the Duke of Marlborough, on the authority of the
Charity Commissioners, estimates at £1.10,000 a year.
" There ought," he observes, " to be no delay in inquiring
how far these charitable endowments may be applicable to
education." If such a revenue can really be acquired by
the State, a partial provision may be made for education
in many of the least advanced districts. Bat, with the
increasing needs of the people even this will be insufficient,
and either the present or some future Government will
have to undertake an initiative from which the authors of
the present measure seem to shrink.

We cannot affirm, says the Daily News, that the timid
and peddling Ministerial measure on education intro-
duced last night by the Duke of Marlborough in the
House of Lords' will disappoint the county; but assuredly
it marks an utterly inadequate sense of the public wants.
It is not surprising to find a Tory Minister underrating
the necessities of the occasion. They have an important
class to gratify by refusing to accept the consequences
which must follow from a frank admission of the public
exigencies, and perhaps they will not be fully convinced of
their errors until they hear the unmistakable language of the
new constituencies. The Duke of Marlborough's proposals
are altogether below the requirements of the day,
but some of his proposals are in the direction of
reform. Among the latter, however, we cannot reckon
the conversion of the Revised Code into an Act of Parlia-
ment in which no improvement, however desirable, could
be introduced without repeated appeals to Lords and
Commons. It is, moreover, a movement in a direction
the very reverse of that of another of his proposals—the
appointment of a Minister of Education, with the rank of
a Secretary of State. Upon the supposition that we were
indeed going to have at length a really national system of
education, the reasonableness of such an appointment
would be apparent ; but if the rules of the Privy Council
Office are to be rigidly fixed, and the chief business of its
officers is to be to conduct petty disputes with the
country clergy, the advantage of the change is not so
clear.

The Standard points out that the great and vital reform
proposed by Ministers is the appointment of a Minister of
Education. The new Minister will have more than
enough, for the next five or ten years, to occupy his atten-
tion in the measures which will confessedly be needed to
complete the present imperfect educational organisation of
the country on the voluntary system, and in the con-
sideration of the statistics which it is to be one of the first
duties of his department to collect. It is a most judicious
resolve on the part of the Government to give the Ministet
of Education the rank of a Secretary of State, which will
give him a fitting station and authority in the Cabinet
will render it impossible for his colleagues to treat him at
Mr. Lowe was treated, and will also enable the Prime
Minister to command for the post the services of a states-
man of the first rank. If they had nothing else to pro-
pose, the Government would have done enough to deserve
the thanks of all the friends of education, by insisting on
tl4. single and easy but most essential reform. Every-
thing else may well be left till the Minister of Education
has had leisure and study to master his business, and to-
furnish what never yet has been offered to Parliament,
and what no party is yet prepared to offer—a working scheme
by which we may retain the invaluable advantages of the
present system, while rendering its machinery complete
and adequate for the purposes of a really national
education.

The detailed faults of the educational measure are suf-
ficiently obvious, in the opinion of the Star, toTtrike every
one who has ever bestowed a moment's thought upon the
subject. What is more important is, that the country
should clearly perceive tine consistency of this newest
Ministerial proposal with the general parliamentary policy
of the Government. Of the eight changes pl.opo:;ed, some
are futile, some are retrogade ; tile best of them is utterly
inconsistent with the principle of hostility to secular edu-
cation which the Cabinet still professes ; and the only
important proposition—that for the appointment of the
Secretary of State—clearly puts, as Earl Russell says, the
cart before the horse, and will not be accepted by the
House of Commons, except as part of that great national
educational revolution which the Government flatly decline
to initiate, and stoutly assert to be unnecessary. As the
Government relies upon wild " No Popery " and " Church
in danger" cries to save them from the necessity of healing
Irish disaffection, so do they now seek to avoid the obli-
gation of introducing a real educational scheme, by
appealing to the ignorant impatience of taxation, which
unhappily, has too frequently been exhibited in municipal
communities.

With the Government proposals the Telegraph has little
fault to find. They age good so far as they go. But they
are painfully insufficient. The plan has gOod points, which
must not be lost ; but the best thing that could be done
would be to incorporate the bill with that of Mr. Bruce's,
United, they would form one of the greatest measures
which, within the present generation, any statesman has
been privileged to bring before the Parliament of Enz.-
land.

The Daily News deals with the Bankruptcy Bill of the
Government as follows :—lt is framed on principles for
which our contemporary has frequently contended ; but
as a practical measure it must be judged of by the fitness of
its working arrangements. It weak parts relate to the
constitution of the courts, which are left much as they are
at present: Its recommendations are that it tends to pro-
tect the creditor by strengthening the debtor's sense of his
responsibility for his debt, which the legislation of the last
few yearq has undoubtedly tended to weaken. The un-
principled consumer will find a check upon his extravagance
in the creditor's new right to arrest wages and salaries,
and in his liability to pay old debts out of subsequently
acquired means. The mercantile community, however,
will look mainly to the promise of rapid and economical
administration of bankrupts' estates. A concession to
their wishes is made in the adoption of the Scotch plan of
trusteeship ;. it remains to be seen whether there is any-
thing in the organisation of the English courts to obstruct
its working.

Speaking of the case of the Earl of Jersey and his
leeches, the Post remarks that the law which governs cases
of this description is not the common or written law. It
is the unwritten law of equity, and is constituted of pre-
cedent decisions in Chancery by which certain principles
have been positively established. The two latest cases are
that of Cook v. Wyatt, and that of Croft v. Graham.
The last, which is the more important, is precisely on
all fours with that of Lord Jersey, and was tried in
1864. Mr. Croft, when a minor, obtained advances of
money from Mr. Charles Graham, a money-lender.
When he came of age, an account was stated, agreed
upon, and • signed by both parties. Fresh transac-
tions ensued upon this basis, a further account
was stated, and the amount had rolled up
so prodigiously that • Mr. Croft, like Lord Jersey,
put his back against the wall and made a stand. The
Vice-Chancellor decreed that the securities should be set
aside, and the amounts actually advanced, together with
5 per cent. interest, allowed to Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham
appealed to the Lords Justices, and the Lords Justices,
with- some very strong observations: upon Mr. Graham's
conduct, confirmed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor,
upon the ground " that the parties to the transactions
were never upon exact terms, Mr. Croft being always and
throughout in the power of Mr. Graham, and that in the
Absence of such equality, and in the presence of such
powers, there could be no equitable dealing." That is now
a recognised principle, and accepted Law in the Court of
Chancery. It has been since applied, and will, beyond all
doubt, govern that of Jersey V. Dicker and Yates.

The Herald draws attention to the fact that no less than
ten persons have stood their trial and received
condem-
nation for murder in the United Kingdom within the bast
three weeks. In nearly each case there were some remark-
able circumstances. The Manchester convicts, sentenced
for complicity in the assassination of Police-constable
Brett, were found guilty in the teeth of an alibi. The
Luton tragedy was complicated .by the fact that both
the accused persons made voluntary statements, though
not in a form rendering them available as
.confessions, and
whereas two men were engaged upon a highway robbery,
in which their victim was killed, the first is convicted of a
capital, and the seconsi of a minor offence—the first is to
be executed, and the second to serve a reduced term
of penal servitude. There was nothing more startling
than all murders must be in the crime of the Droylsden
miscreant ; and with regard to the Todmorden monster,
who scattered death through a household, he is chiefly
conspicuous among scoundrels as reminding us of .Rush
and Stanfield Hall. Frederick Parker, who slew his fellow-
convict for £4 10s. and a silver watch, belongs to the vulgr.r
and unnoticeable type. But Alexander Holmes, who slew
a boy " because he must murder some one," and John
lUapp, who killed a girl without apparent reason, stand
forth prominently, and astound us alike by the absence of
assignable motive. The first were found insane, but with
the latter this plea did not avail, and respecting it the
Herald remark's that it is a healthy sign of the times that
when murders are perpetrated in mere wantonness, the
plea ofpresumableinsanitywill hot 'avail to stand between
malefactor and his righteous punishment.