The Press. — 1853-07-30 (London, England)

THE PRESS.  of Christian fervour. His religion is emphatically manly and reflective ; and his appeals to the conscience, without the exaggerations of a " terrorist," are well calculated to arouse the apathetic. from the slumber of forgetfulness. The sermon on " The Office of Memory" pleased us most in the collection, though perhaps that on " Suicide" is the most powerful, and, along with "Suffering Universal," might, as tracts, be yopularly circulated with advantage. All who are interested in our great educational foundations will read with pleasure the defence of them in the discourse called " The Blessings of Permanence," from Nhich we will select the following passage can scarcely now be denied that the old routine of a public school education was adhered to with an unreasonable rigidity, and that its progressive adaptation to the exigencies of modern society was indispensable to its retaining any hold upon the respect of an enlightened age. But this I maintain with the fullest conviction of its truth, that it is an unspeakable advantage to have a check imposed upon such reformations by the existence of a longestablished custom. It is not desirable that every new theory should be suffered to try its experiments upon the heads and the hearts of the youth of England. We cannot consent. to the sweeping condemnation of that mode of classical instruction which has developed (or certainly not prevented the development of) minds which have been from generation to generation our national glory and our national strength. It is impossible indeed to disprove the assertion that such results might have been witnessed equally under any other system. We are far from asserting that there is on such a subject an absolute right and wrong; one method alone beneficial, and every other mischievous. We could conceive that some other languages besides Greek and Latin might have served the purpose of practising the memory, and forming the taste, and furnishing the understanding, of the young : though we see peculiar and incommunicable advantages (not admitting of enumeration here) which have attended this peculiar choice, and may justify it on a less superficial ground than that of mere experience. But at all events we are persuaded that it has been an incalculable benefit to have institutions, like these ancient public schools, interposed between the invention and the application of more recent schemes of education. They have attbrded ample opportunities for safe and cautious experiment. Studies which could not have been substituted for those of our classical schools without the utmost possible risk are gradually finding their place amongst the other with the moat beneficial result. While we continue to protest against those utilitarian declamations which pronounce everything valueless in education except that knowledge which qualifies directly for the business of life ; while we maintain, on the contrary, that the object of all youthful discipline is not no muen the storing as the exercising of the mind, and that, the less professional the early eduaition of a man has been, the better will he be qualified in the end even for professional as well as other pursuits: we are yet enabled, on the platform of our old and long-tried system, to extend in many directions the compass of our instructions, removing by degrees the grounds of reasonable complaint, without sacrificing thane less obvious but (as we believe) most just principles on which the ancient fabric was originally founded. We may add that the turn of thought in all these discourses is essentially that of a Church of England divine, without reference to the controversies within the fold of the Establishment.  Thirteenth General Report of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. 1853. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode. THE Thirteenth Report of the Emigration Commissioners, last week published, is a document of great interest as bearing on, perhaps, the most important of the social questions of the day. A simple summary of the facts contained in it will probably be more useful than any comment on their nature or tendency. It appears that in 1852 English and Irish emigration had reached the highest point vet known. In the thirty-eight years which have elapsed since the war, computed down to December 31, 1852, there have left this country altogether 3,463,292 emigrants; of whom more than one-half, or 1,791,446, have emigrated since the year 1847. In round numbers, we have emigrants from 1815 to 1852 inclusive, three and a half millions ; from 1847 to 1852, both inclusive, one million and four fifths : leaving, from 1815 to 1847 exclu sive, about one million and three-quarters. The above figures give nearly 300,000 as the yearly average since 1847. But last year's emigrants amounted to 368,764; being to this average in the ratio of six to five and upwards, and exceeding the emigration of 1851 by nearly ten per cent. Of these emigrants, say the commissioners, the great bulk are Irish—namely, " nine

Article type: NotIncident