The Press. — 1857-10-03 (London, England)

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND EDUCATION. IT has been said by some great man that a person with only one idea in his head is always worth listening to. What is true of individuals is doubtless to some extent true of nations. When a people are violently excited about any great domestic or foreign event, all that is said or written upon that topic will in all probability be fresher, more earnest, and more racy than upon any other subject. But, unfortunately for those who merely look to public affairs for amusement or excitement, there must always be a certain number of other questions of which even in the gravest imperial emergencies we cannot afford to lose sight. And after all, even in the most rousing crisis, when, in the language of newspapers, the country is seething from John O'Groat's to the Land's End, how small in comparison is the number by which this immense agitation is sustained. Of all the ills that human kind endure, How small the part that kings can cause or cure. And of all the sorrows, hopes, fears, and anxieties by which the twenty-six millions who inhabit these islands are at the present moment harassed, " how small the part," when allowance has been made for every species of indirect influence which is roused by our disasters in India! The daily struggle of domestic life must still go on—poverty kept from the door, and vice from the family ; sons and daughters must still be provided for ; and lin the harassing anxieties which await upon such duties as these, we can understand the ease of chose by whom even Delhi and Cawnpore, murder, torture, and dishonour are but topics of transient interest. The Times of Thursday says, truly enough :—" Below or " beside the classes which take an interest in " public affairs are, we are sorry to say, large "classes of our countrymen on whom the " fluctuations of politics, or the successes and " calamities of nations, make but little im" pression." The above remarks sound very like truisms, we are aware ; yet they constitute in our opinion a valid justification of the speech delivered recently by Lord JOHN RUSSELL at Sheffield on the subject of education. England, we hope, has hands and brains enough for all her requirements; and it would be sad indeed if her foreign embarrassments should be pleaded as an excuse for neglecting her duty towards those who in another generation will have to preserve what she is now engaged in reconuering. Lord JOHN RUSSELL has seldom or never been accused of timidity. When he has, we think his conduct was probably attributable to other causes. And on the subject of national education he declares with his accustomed boldness that the religious faculty cannot be neglected in any sy stem of education. We entirely agree with him. We are perfectly convinced that the religious party in this country need not be alarmed at the efforts of the secularists, for their scheme would defeat itself. It would be found so much worse to have peculiar tenets inculcated by inuendo than by open preaching, and so impossible to invent a system of teaching in which that should not be done, that a few years would convince the most obstinate secularist of his error. While, however, we so far agree with the Noble Lord as to repudiate the non-religious theory, we fear that the feasibility of his own scheme is almost equidistant. A scheme in which what some people call the " fundamentals" of Christianity shall be taught to all children alike without reference to theological differences, seems to us quite as Utopian as Mr. COBDEN'S, and we cannot see how at present any better scheme than the denominational can be carried out. We, however, for our part, fully sympathise with the frame of mind which induced the