183'2.] Political Education. 



opinions of all the people? Not a sentence is uttered but a unit is added 

 to that sum : are we well informed, we add truth ; are we misinformed or 

 uninformed, we add falsehood or folly ; then the nation casts up the 

 account : if the truth exceed the falsehood and the folly, it is well ; if the 

 excess is on the other side, a balance is struck against the general weal ; 

 some foolish war is embarked in ; some mischievous tax laid on ; some 

 patriotic effort defeated ; some monopoly confirmed ; some great prin- 

 ciple of constitution or commerce, forced to wait half a century more, until 

 the tide of intelligence is high enough to carry it over the perilous reefs of 

 prejudice and error. 



As to the opinion so often expressed, that politics is something with 

 which the people in general have nothing to do, and that to turn their 

 attention to it is to divert it from the pursuits of industry and those occu- 

 pations on which their livelihood depends, we have the authority of Grat- 

 tan for holding it very lightly. " I disagree," says that eminent statesman, 

 " with the vulgar and courtly notion that political discussion idles a 

 nation ;" and he gives the following admirable and deep reason for thus 

 differing from the ordinary way of thinking upon this subject: " politics/' 

 he observes, " are the trade of the few, because they are a mystery to the 

 many." Lord Bolingbroke, in the essay on parties, has a fine passage to 

 the same effect: " the preservation of our free government in its purity 

 and vigour is the interest and duty of every man ; there is no one who 

 cannot contribute to the advancement of this great point ; the old may 

 inform the young, and the young may animate the old." But what need 

 to multiply authorities on a point so clear as to be level (to borrow an 

 illustration once used by my Lord Brougham) even to the faculties of a 

 Goulburn ? Until we have been shewn a man who has no political tie or 

 political interest, we shall never be persuaded there is any one who has 

 no need otpolitical education. 



With gross, but not very surprising, inconsistency, the self- same party, 

 which uniformly arrays itself against every plan for diffusing that kind of 

 useful -knowledge we contend for amongst all classes of the people, is 

 ever the foremost and fiercest in inveighing against them for every breach, 

 how slight soever, of their duty as citizens. They will not suffer us to 

 explain to the labouring classes upon what principles governments are 

 established, upon what grounds property should be respected, and how 

 just, and reasonable, and advantageous a thing it is to yield obedience to 

 the laws and constituted authorities of the country; yet they are ever 

 branding them with disaffection, and accusing them of schemes of spolia- 

 tion ; nay more, let the slightest excess be committed, let the people 

 swerve in the least degree from those rules of citizen-like conduct which 

 they will not permit us to inculcate on their minds by books, by news- 

 papers, by lectures, or by any method whatever, and straightway they 

 invoke justice to unsheath her sword, and call upon parliament to give it 

 a keener edge by new and more severe enactments. The people must be 

 loyal and obedient, and of all things they must be religiously regardful of 

 the rights of property ; but to teach them these good lessons, no other 

 proposal will be listened to but special commissions and county gaols, and 

 no schoolmaster be suffered to go abroad amongst them but the exe- 

 cutioner. As to education, it is the established creed of noble lords and 

 right reverend prelates, that to instruct a man in his duty is the surest 

 way to make him violate it, so widely does the philosophy of the here- 



