The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—A general impression seems to pervade
the public mind, and especially that portion of the
community most conversant with the administra-
tion of the justice of the country, that the
time has arrived for the abolition of Grand Juries.
The Grand Jury of the last session of the
Central Criminal Court made a presentment to this
effect on appearing in Court at the termination
of their duties, for the purpose of being formally dis-
charged. With the option thus communicated,
the presiding Judge expressed his concurrence. The
Grand Jury of Surrey made a similar representation
this morning, on appearing in Court with their last
hills. The views expressed by the latter body were
expressed in the following terms :
"It is the opinion of the Grand Jury, in the present
improved mode of administering the justice of the coun-
try, that the institution of a Grand Jury, though at the
time of its introduction of great value, is now not only
unnecessary, but actually injurious to the public

interests.
" First : Because the careful investigation of the cases
by the committing magistrates, assisted by professional
men, who (where the cases are heavy) appear on the
part of the prosecution, and for the defence of the pri-
soner, has already sifted the evidence ; thus rendering
another intermediate inquiry wholly unnecessary.
" Secondly : The opportunity afforded by the inter-
vention of a Grata Jury between committal and trial
for tampering with the witnesses, often causes the
evidence given before the Grand Jury to differ from
that given by the witnesses before the magistrates. It
is thus frequently changed both in its terms and ten-
dency. The bill is, consequently, ignored through a
deficiency of evidence ; the operation of the law is
obstructed ; and the guilty party escapes by means of
the very institution which is designed to aid in the
administration of justice.
" Thirdly: The province of the Grand Jury is often
abused. Bills are preferred, and accusations made, the
grounds of which have not undergone previous investi-
gation by magistrates. Such proceedings are often
prompted by an expectation of extorting money from the
parties accused, or to subject them to expense and annoy-
ance for the purposes of revenge.
"For these reasons the Grand Jury consider their
functions as no longer beneficial; that they are often in-
jurious, and might be safely dispensed with."
The Chairman of the bench expressed, in strong
terms, an opinion, that the change alluded to is
worthy the consideration both of the Legislature and
the Government ; especially as similar views had
been recently expressed by other grand juries.
The institution of a public prosecutor—to whom,
or to his deputies, the evidence in each case should be
submitted previously to trial, and by whom the pro-
ceedings should be instituted and the prosecution car-
ried on— would be a salutary substitute for the Grand
Jury. The classes out of which the Grand Juries
are now taken might be most beneficially associated
with their fellow-citizens from whom the Petit Juries
are selected. Thus the intellectual elements of the
latter would be improved, and the public administra-
tion of justice in the Criminal Courts of the country
raised in character and improved in efficiency.
STANDARD.—The buildings designed for a col-
lege for the cultivation of " modern languages and
literature" have just been completed at Oxford, and a
prospectus of the plan and design of the proposed in-
stitution has been issued. We have not been so
fortunate as to see a copy of this prospectus,
which is made the subject of unfriendly cri-
ticism by the Times ; but IN e think that in the cri-
tique itself of our contemporary we find proof
that our contemporary is unjust. The principal
ground of the Times' complaint is, that " A rule is
laid down entirely prohibiting all entrance upon the
subject of religion in the academical study of these
[the modern] languages. Religion appears to be
considered—upon that easy liberal theory which has
severed the connection between religion and know-
ledge in all other branches—to have nothing to do
with modern literature ; and accordingly an ex-
press rule is inserted, involving very clearly this
principle." Now surely there is here a very un-
fair inference drawn from a rule which plainly
understood, appears to be unexceptionable. The
-" College of Modern Languages. and Literature" is
not a substitute for, but an auxiliary to, the estab-
lished system of University education, of which it will
not be disputed that it is properly careful of the reli-
gious instruction of the young men subjected to it.
There is not, we are happy to say, one college
or hall in Oxford in which a sound Scriptural
education, in the pure doctrines of the Church
of England, is not a principal, we may with
gratification say, the principal object of instruc-
tion in the undergraduate course. At Oxford,
therefore, no merely auxiliary instruction can be
charged with effecting that divorce between learn-
ing and religion which the limes seems to appre-
hend. The young men will go to the Col-
lege of Modern Languages and Literature in-
structed, and (as far as human teaching
can confirm them) confirmed Protestant Christians,
to learn, it may be the French, German, Italian,
Spanish, modern Greek, or whatever other modern
language may be there taught, and which they may
wish to learn, just as they might go to a school of
riding or fencing, or swimming or music, not to
receive religious instruction, or to learn to slight
religion, but to acquire an accomplishment with
which properly doctrinal religion has no con-
cern. Every Christian, no doubt, feels the force
of the apostolic injunction, that " whatever we do,
all must be done to the glory of the Creator"—
but this contemplates ends, not details, and
the best men daily do a hundred things with
which they would deem it a fearful irreverence to
associate a direct allusion to the truths of religion.
Now to us it appears, that between the philology of
modern languages and religious truth there is no ne-
cessary connexion, any more than there is between
religious truth and tiding the great horse, driving,
swimming, or fiddling. There is, therefore, no impro-
priety in excluding religious discussion from a strict
course of philological study, which, let it be constantly
remembered, is pursued concurrently with a separate
course of careful religious study, and in subordina-
tion to it. The Times, indeed, seems to feel that the
merely philological course of study proposed in the
College of "Modern Languages and Literature" will
not support its censure ; and therefore, by au artifice,
which we cannot help regarding as an unworthy one,
tries to enlarge the sphere of study at the new
college to the whole ,field of letters. " The
whole field of modern literature, it must be
observed, is a pretty wide ground entirely to
disconnect with religion in this „way; and the
misfortune is, too, that it does not stop with itself,
but drags other departments into the same scrape."
This is a poor fallacy. The College for the Cultiva-
tion of Modern Languages and Literature, plain!y
intends no more than such cultivation as is already
bestowed upon classical literature ; from which latter
cultivation it will, we presume, be admitted, religious
discussion is and ought to be excluded, for though
our contemporary may not understand the
distinction, our Universities have always sepa-
rated religious and profane literature as anxiously
in their study, as they have been careful to unite
them in the student. It is indeed the unhappy com-
bination of these two naturally distinct, and in value
immeasurably unequal objects of study, in one and the
same pursuit, which in early times paganised Christi-
anity into Romanism. May:we not fear that the Platoni-
cism made fashionable by the late eccentric Mr. Cole-
ridge, and mixed with religion by his followers, is
exercising through the Tractarians a like injurious in-
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genius. Who Avould illustrate the Pentateuch by
Ilerodotus and Lucretius, the Psalter by Pinder and
Horace, and the Prophets and the New Testament
by Plato and Cicero? As witnesses to historical
facts, the writers of Greece and Rome are use-
ful helps to religious education, but to allow them
to mix as teachers—to make their dogmata the
topics of " religious discussion," were a grievous sin.
The case of classical education, then, clearly
proves the possibility, and in particular instances the
necessity, of separating many branches of study from
an intermixture with "religious discussion ;" and the
only question that can arise is, whether "modern lan-
guages and literature" ought not to be so separated?
For ourselves we have no doubt upon the point. We
know of no single book in any modern language which
could properly be made the text book of religious instruc-
tion for members of the united Church of England and
Ireland. There are many excellent theological books
in the French language, from De Mornai to D'Au-
bigne, with which we, perhaps, might not quarrel, but
we should be slow to recommend them to an Oxford
college. As to the other languages of continental
Europe, they are, as respects theology, a perfect blank
to the English Protestant, except the crazy literature
of Germany, which, with its rationalism on one side,
and its platonicism on the other, and its cold-hearted
infidelity, the foundation of both, is worse than a
blank—it is a labyrinth of traps and pitfalls. There
is, therefore, an utter want of books in the modern
languages to supply topics of religious discussion ;
and if books were forthcoming, where are the
teachers ? The use of a college of modern lan-
guages is to teach men, not merely to read modern
languages, but to write those languages and to speak
them.