CEIMINAL STATISTICS. 21 



of figures from wMcli the results are obtained ; they are quite at 

 the service of the Society if the Council should see fit to print 

 them as an appendix to the paper, so that any inquirer may verify 

 the facts by the published returns from which they are taken. 



In the first place, I yyould observe that in the discussion of the 

 question as to the influence which education exerts in the repres- 

 sion of crime, one cannot help being forced to the conclusion 

 that much misapprehension has arisen from confusion of terms — 

 from treating mere instruction in the elementary arts of reading, 

 writing, and arithmetic as education, 



I may be excused, perhaps, if I say a few words on this matter. 

 Instruction then in its broadest sense — as it appears to me — is 

 merely the intellectual training by means of which the mind 

 acquires the power of discerning and correctly appreciating 

 things and persons, and the faculty of reasoning upon the things 

 obsenxd, while education may be said to consist of that moral 

 combined with intellectual training by which the mind is taught 

 to discern, and the heart is led to feel, the great object for which 

 man is created, and the duties which in this stage of his existence 

 he is called upon to fulfil. 



But there is a narrower meaning more commonly ascribed to 

 the term " instruction," whereby it is limited to an initiation in 

 the arts of reading and writing. It is obvious that in this sense 

 instruction is insufilcient of itself to repress criminal passions, 

 which are not the result of any action of the mind, but spring 

 from the secret impulses of the heart. This is the high attribute 

 of education, of which instruction is merely the handmaid — an 

 instrument, as it were, to prepare the mind for the reception of 

 the seed which education is to sow. 



Instruction does not necessarily imply the inculcation of know- 

 ledge calculated to give a right direction to the energies of the 

 mind — it may make a man learned, but not of necessity good — it 

 may store the head with knowledge and brace the mind for great 

 exertions, but may leave its possessor utterly ignorant of the 

 nature or of the value of virtue. 



For these reasons, it is a question how far the degree of instruc- 

 tion possessed by'an individual may be taken as evidence of the 

 amount of education which he has received. Applied to single 

 cases it would certainly not hold good, for such instruction may 

 have been imparted without any reference to the highest object 

 of his existence, or without the recommendation of a single 

 virtue, the acquisition of which is the proper end of all education ; 

 while on the other hand, moral discipline, the most precious fruit 

 of education, may have been acquired by oral communication 

 without any acquaintance with the ordinary instruments of know- 

 ledge. 



If this reasoning is correct, it follows that we cannot reasonably 

 look to secure immunity from crime by means of any form or 



