312 Monthly Review qf Literature. 



meeting of directors, and cannot pronounce decidedly, without a further survey ; 

 that examination having followed, he makes a tolerably candid statement of 

 the nature of a doctor's reply to a sick patient, not cutting off hope entirely. 

 The directors still continue resolved that they will have a railway ; and, find- 

 ing that a certain sum of money may be gained, and'that if he does not get it 

 somebody else will, he determines to unite himself to the company ; and then 

 seriously begins business, by ordering detail surveys to be made. In fact the 

 cupidity of the public has thrown all sorts of temptations in the way of those 

 who are led to consider any legitimate professional means of making money 

 as perfectly fair and justifiable." 

 We recommend these " observations" to general perusal. 



EDUCATION. 

 Wyse on Education Reform. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 553. Longman. 



THE conductors of this Magazine have on many occasions expressed an opinion 

 in favour of national education. It is delightful to find that this great cause 

 has now such distinguished and able advocates as Mr. Wyse. As we shall 

 have occasion in some future number to consider this work more at length, it 

 will be sufficient for the present that we point out the general doctrines held 

 and inculcated by the author. 



The end of education cannot be happiness, for that is not a fixed quality, 

 and it exists only by comparison ; neither can it be confined within the narrow 

 limits of human usefulness and expediency : its end is higher, it is no less 

 than " the full perfection of our being in another world through the faithful 

 discharge of duty here/' and the means towards that end are " the full de- 

 velopment of our double nature." Mr. Wyse divides education into two 

 classes, 1st. Private or individual, 2nd. Public or national. It is of the 

 latter branch that he treats exclusively. 



In his preliminary observations he thus considers this great question, and 

 at their close marks out the divisions under which he examines the whole en 

 detail : 



" We live in an age and country in which the true principles of national 

 glory and security are no longer questioned. We place them on the only basis 

 capable of supporting them on the national liberties and happiness : these, 

 again, on the foundations of national intellect and virtue. 



" No portion of the education of a country, on these principles, ought to be 

 excluded ; for there is no portion which does not exert some influence on the 

 country. Private and public individual and national all are co-operating 

 causes, of more or less weight, in the one common result. 



" But peculiar obstacles may preclude the state from any immediate inter- 

 ference with private education. The sensitiveness of freedom, the fastidious- 

 ness of national habits, may shrink from such intrusion* Not so with public. 

 It is, or ought to be, the immediate object of its solicitude ; it belongs to all ; 

 it is, in the fullest sense, national. The nation ought to interfere in its esta- 

 blishment and management. 



"But what are the considerations which such an interference implies? 

 That the education should be perfectly well adapted to the important purposes 

 for which it is intended. An education counteracting these purposes, or not 

 in entire harmony with them, is an injurious or defective education. No state 

 is called on to protect, no state should permanently permit, the existence of 

 such an education. It would be a perpetual contre-sens on the largest scale. 

 The admission of the utility of intellect, of the necessity of virtue, and perse- 

 verance in measures adapted only to discourage both, is at once an error in 

 logic and morality. 



" The goodness, then, of education, is the first object to be looked to. The 

 diffusion of a bad system is the diffusion of an evil. Numbers here, so far 



