General Education. ' 223 



the annual expense of cultivation and management, and the certainty that 

 the confined and smoky air of the situation will in a year or two destroy 

 most of the species. We say nothing of the wild schemes of waterfalls, 

 breakfasting-rooms, a library, and a Swiss cottage, excepting that we never 

 before heard of or saw such a mad and ungovernable exercise of fancy, so 

 much doing and undoing, and such an utter regardlessness of expense. 



The lesson to be learned from the Colosseum is, that, in regard to all 

 works of importance by public companies, these companies would be bene- 

 fited by allowing the public a full and free opportunity of criticism. An 

 opportunity should be afforded for criticising the design of every public 

 work before it is commenced, by exhibiting the proposed plans and descrip- 

 tions, and by inviting remarks on them. Indeed, before any great public 

 work is commenced, a free competition should be allowed among artists for 

 the plan, and then the plan made choice of should be submitted to public 

 criticism. When the plan is decided on and the work commenced, the 

 public should also be admitted to inspect and criticise it as it goes on. This 

 mode of conducting public works'would be much safer for the proprietors ; 

 and the public, and more especially the press, would soon acquire both a 

 knowledge and taste, which would increase their usefulness in this descrip- 

 tion of criticism. There is, in short, no safety for public works, but in the 

 public press ; and, had this principle been acted on, we should not now have 

 so many architectural productions unworthy of the present day, nor the gar- 

 den of the Horticultural Society, those connected with Buckingham Palace, 

 that at the bottom of Park Lane, nor that of the Colosseum. — Co7id. 



Art. VIII. General Education. 



If any arguments were wanting, in addition to those we have from time 

 to time advanced, to show the importance, and even the necessity, of meet- 

 ing the wants of the times by a general diffusion of education, the most 

 powerful that could be desired might be drawn from the late expressions of 

 public opinion on the subject of Catholic emancipation. There is evidently 

 an immense mass of utter ignorance and darkness among the lower classes 

 of the people of the three kingdoms, and there is as evidently a disposition 

 in a portion of the higher classes to render this mass subservient to their 

 views, without much reference to public peace or prosperity. How are the 

 evils, that might in this way be produced, to be prevented ? Either by an im- 

 mense standing army, to be made use of by Government to check the 

 expression of party opinion, or by enlightening all classes, as near as 

 practicable, to an equal degree, so as that public opinion might be all on 

 one side. With respect to the influence of a standing army in suppressing 

 public opinion, Ireland, and what has taken place there, may be referred to, 

 both as a proof of its insufficiency, and of its great expense. The habits of 

 a professional common soldier are by no means calculated to unite him in 

 views and interest with the fixed domestic population ; but, with the pro- 

 gress of things, even common professional soldiers become more and more 

 men : they will only act at present up to a certain point, and the time will 

 come when they will only act from opinion. The great object, then, of 

 all who have the good of their country and of mankind at heart, ought to 

 be to raise opinion to one high and enlightened level, by the universal dif- 

 fusion of knowledge and education, and by its especial diffusion among the 

 lower classes of Britain. 



It is by a regular education and a systematic discipline, alone, that men 

 can be taught to produce effects according to fixed principles, and not by 



