The Sun.
London, England, 1829-07-25 00:00:00

it not rather palpable that the more fitted lie is for a
higher station in society—the mare talents he has
acquired, the greater the effort of mind must be to
keep him happy and contented in that to which for-
tune has fixed him. A few minds of heroic strength
and elevation will stand such trials as these
triumphantly. Granted; but what comes of the
great, the immense, the miserable majority ? Is it
right to tamper with the happiness of mankind in
this fashion ? Ask any physician what classes of
persons are most largely represented in the mad-
house : he will answer, unless we be sadly mis-
taken, private tutors, and (still more wretched)
governesses."

- In the above two things are dearly demon-
strated—first, that all education is bad ; and,
secondly, that it is the cause of madness. There
is a greater proneness in human nature, quoth
the writer, to evil than to good ; and as know-
ledge is power, every addition to knowledge is
mischievous in proportion to its extent, as the
power to do evil rather than good is increased.
This depravity of human nature settles the ques-
tion at once. Messrs. Rawlinson and Dyer
and other Magistrates narrowed the question un-
necessarily, when they supposed education only
an evil in the case of persons, .in destitute cir-
cumstances, who are under an inevitable neces-
sity of thieving, as it made them more dextrous.
But the Quarterly Reviewer holds, that in all
cases knowledge is an evil, and consequently
that the savage of New Holland is in a more
desirable condition than the Savant of Europe.
This is, to be sure, not a new doctrine—it is but
a new edition of the famous discovery of the phi-
losopher of Geneva, that the nearer a man is to
the ourang-outang, the nearer he is to perfec-
tion. To be sure he qualifies the position by
the word unassisted. It is unassisted know-
ledge that is mischievous in proportion to its ex-
tent. But how are we to know who is assisted,
and who unassisted? Knowledge is an evil—
that is certain ; and the greater the knowledge
the greater the evil. But, with assistance in
certain cases, the proneness to evil may be coun-
teracted. But we can never be certain who is
assisted, whereas we know that knowledge gene-
rally speaking is an evil. To make sure then
let us proscribe all knowledge, and return to the
condition when—
" Wild in the woods the noble savage ran."
The argument against education, from its ten-
dency to produce madness, is, we believe, origi-
nal. If the writer of the article were our friend,
we should endeavour to withdraw his mind as
much as possible from a subject which seems to
have engrossed too much of his attention. A
man ought to possess a mind of a peculiarly
strong texture to be able to bear up long against
the gloomy consideration, that in civilized com-
munities, whichever way we turn, we behold
madness at work. The great cause of the ad-
, vancement of societies is the desire almost uni-
versal of bettering one's situation. As the Poet
sings, " Man never is, but always to be, blessed."
From the moment we enter on the stage of the
world we are dissatisfied with the part we happen
to be acting, arid desirous of trying another.
Connected with this restlessness is the wish to
scrape together all we can for our children, and
to give them the best education within our reach,
under the impression that a higher station than
our own will confer greater happiness on them.
But this, it seems, is a dreadful mistake. The
parent when he has begot his child, and
filled his belly till he has completed his
growth, has done his duty. He who looks
forward through the delusive medium placed
before the mind's eye by Hope to the ad-
' vancement of his son—who when his own career
is nearly run, feels a prolongation, as it
were, of existence in a child, and believes he
can never do too much for that child—is a
wicked father. Fool that he is—his kindness
will only open to his child the gates of Bedlam.
The only happy persons are those who, instead
of being educated for stations above those of
their parents, are educated for lower stations.—
, Thus the son of a barber is sure to become mad
if educated for a Barrister, but the son of a Bar-
rister will be supremely happy if educated for a
barber. From the commencement of life the
latter is always descending ; and therefore having
been thwarted betimes, he cannot be taken by
surprise by the vicissitudes of life. What a pity
that these great discoveries were not made a
little sooner ! The system of our education has,
it is to be feared, taken already deep root. We
have now no alternative but to build additional
Bedlams. We have heard other evils ascribed
to education. The Town Magistrates maintain
that it multiplies thieves ; the Country Magis-
trates, that the number of bastard children has
regularly increased with the number taught to
read and write. And to think that the very pub-
lisher, from whose shop such valuable truths
emanate, is at this very moment engaged in an
extensive speculation for diffusing knowledge at
a cheap rate among the people—in one hand
.he
holds the picture of a Madhouse, with an in-
scription over it, " Behold the end of learning—
Receptacle for Private Tutors and Governesses;"
and in the other a cheap Life of Bonaparte, with
beautiful embellishments, to lure the people to
their doom.—lbid.

The verdict in the case of Rogers v. Tyler
will have the effect of overthrowing the self-ap-
pointed junta called the " Select Vestry" of St.
Giles', Bloomsbury. Mr. Rogers deserves great
credit for bringing this matter to a legal issue.
He had attended a meeting of the " Select
Vestry" on a particular occasion, under the ex-
pectation that they would expel him from the
room. They did order him out ; and, as he in-
sisted on his right to be present, as a rated
parishioner, they forcibly ejected him, whereupon
he brought his action of trespass and assault,
which involved the question of the exclusive
powers of the Select Vestry. Now, it so hap-
pens that this Select Vestry was not one which
claimed to derive its existence from any Act of
Parliament, but founded its pretensions upon the
more uncertain tenure of immemorial usage.—
Such usage as evidence of a custom existing
since beyond the time of legal memory, is, in-
deed, as high an authority as an Act of Parlia-
ment, when, once satisfactorily proved. No
custom can be said to be beyond the time of
legal memory which cannot be traced back as far
as the reign of Richard the First, either by posi-
tive proof, or by reasonable inference when there
is no proof to the contrary. It appears to us
from the evidence, as it did to the Jury, that
there was no ground for presuming that this
Sel:4- -Vestry existed by any other " right" than
that of modern usurpation, which is the case with
a great many others, which we hope will be also
nut to the proof of their legality. In fact, it
was clear that the parish had been always ma,
naged by an open Vestry until, as the Counsel
for the plaintiff contended, the Vestry appointed
a Committee, when the parish had become more
populous, for the purpose of arranging the busi-
ness of the Vestry, but not for monopolizing its
powers. That Committee continued to act as
such down to the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury, having never done any parochial acts but