Moral Improvement of Gavdeiiers. 677 



" Again, in a country where free institutions prevail, and where public 

 opinion is of consequence (especially when the government of the country 

 lends its aid and sanction to it), every man ought at least so far to prepare 

 himself as to place him on his guard against those obvious and popular falla- 

 cies which lie across the threshold of this, as well as of every other subject, 

 with which human reason has any thing to do. Every man is called upon to 

 obey the laws ; and therefore it cannot be superfluous that some portion of 

 every man's education should consist in informing him what they are. On these 

 grounds, it would seem to me that some knowledge of the principles of political 

 economy, of jurisprudence, of trade and manufactures, is essentially involved in 

 the notion of a sound education. A moderate acquaintance, also, with cer- 

 tain of the usefid arts, such as practical mechanics or engineering, agriculture, 

 draughtsmanship, is of obvious utility in every station of life; while, in a com- 

 mercial country, the only remedy for that proverbial short-sightedness to their 

 best ultimate interest, which is the misfortune, rather than the fault, of every 

 mercantile community upon earth, seems to be, to inculcate, as a part of edu- 

 cation, those broad principles of free interchange and reciprocal profit, and 

 public justice, on which the whole edifice of permanently successful enterprise 

 must be based, 



"The exercise and developement of our reasoning faculties is another 

 grand object of education ; and this is usually considered, and in a certain 

 sense justly, as most likely to be attained by a judicious course of mathemati- 

 cal instruction ; while it stands, if not opposed to, at least in no natural 

 connexion with, the formal and conventional departments of knowledge (such- 

 as grammar, the so-called Aristotelian logic). It must be recollected, how- 

 ever, that tliere are minds which, though not devoid of reasoning powers, yet 

 manifest a decided inaptitude for mathematical studies; which are estimative^ 

 not calculating ; and which are more impressed by analogies, and by apparent 

 preponderance of general evidence in argument, than by mathematical de- 

 monstration, where all the argument is on one side, and no show of reason can 

 be exhibited on the othei*. The mathematician listens only to one side of a 

 question, for this plain reason, that no strictly mathematical question has 

 more than one side capable of being maintained otherwise than by simple 

 assertion ; while all the great questions which arise in busy life, and agitate 

 the world, are stoutly disputed, and often with a show of reason on both sides, 

 which leaves the shrewdest at a loss for a decision," (p. 433.) 



Effects of Education on Society. — Society, such as it is at present, will 

 not long continue to exist. As instruction descends to the lower classes, 

 these will discover the secret cancer which has been corroding social order 

 ever since the beginning of the world ; a complaint which is the cause of all 

 popular discontents and commotions. The too great inequality of conditions 

 and fortunes has been able' to uphold itself so long as it was hidden, on the 

 one hand by ignorance, on the other by the factitious organisation of the 

 city ; but no sooner is this inequality generally perceived, than a mortal blow 

 is given to it. Enforce again, if you can, the aristocratic fictions. Strive to 

 persuade the poor man, when he has learned to read — the poor man, who is 

 daily prompted by the press, from time to time, from village to village, — 

 strive to persuade this poor man, possessing the same knowledge and under- 

 standing as yourself, that he ought to submit to all privations, whilst such a 

 one, his neighbour, possesses, without labour, a thousand times as much as 

 he needs : your efforts will be useless. Expect not of the multitude virtues 

 that are beyond nature. The material developement of society will advance 

 the developement of mind. When steam communication shall be brought to 

 perfection; when, jointly with the telegraph and railroads, it shall have anni- 

 hilated distance ; not merchandise alone, but ideas also, will travel from one 

 extremity of the globe to the other with the rapidity of lightning. When 

 the fiscal and commercial barriers between different states shall be abolished, 

 as they already are between the provinces of one and the same state ; when 

 wages, which Ls but a prolonged slavery, shall have emancipated themselves 



Vol. XII.— No. 8), ' 3 p 



