character of the country, the nation will remain liable to the reproach addressed to it from all quarters by those who repudiate the degradation thus inflicted through the neglect of its rulers. 66 "There is neither unity, connection, nor plan in our education," says George Long; "and experience shows that education is always slow in progress, unless the state, which alone can do it, shall give to education that unity and definite purpose, which it gives to other branches of administration." * England,” says H. Mann, "is the only one among the nations of Europe, conspicuous for its civilisation and resources, which has not and never has had any system for the education of its people. And it is the country where incomparably beyond any other the greatest and most appalling social contrasts exist. There is no country in which so little is effected, compared with the expenditure of means; and what is done only tends to separate the different classes of society more and more widely from each other." + In adverting to the degraded state of science and literature in England, Sir David Brewster declares that "their decline is mainly owing to the ignorance and supineness of the Government, to the injudicious organisation of the scientific boards and institutions, to the indirect persecution of scientific and literary men by their exclusion from all the honours of the state, and to the unjust and oppressive tribute which the patent-law exacts from inventors." "Given up to politics and novels," says another modern writer, § "and looking at literature like any other trade, for its selling price, we have let the Germans get as much ahead of us of late, in the higher ranges of classical learning, as the French in those of abstract science." || The time is passed when the superiority of a nation rested exclusively on its navy and standing army. Literature and science now rank foremost in the estimation of mankind: Shakspeare, Locke, and Newton; Montesquieu, Descartes, and Buffon ; Study of Antiquity. Central Society of Education, t. 3. Decline of Science in England. Quarterly Review, Oct., 1830. 2 Edinburgh Review, No. cxv. If free access to books is a test by which to estimate the degree of encouragement afforded by a nation for intellectual pursuits, these Islands stand very low indeed in this respect, comparatively with other civilised countries. It was lately remarked by a statistician that Denmark has 5 libraries opened gratuitously to the public, Saxony has 6, Tuscany 9, Belgium 14, Bavaria 17, Russia 44, Austria 48, the United States 100, France 107, Great Britain one, Ireland none. Goethe and Liebig; Dante and Galileo, are more highly venerated than great captains, or than the sovereigns themselves under whom they lived. And, when the present reigning monarchs are laid in the dust, their names will sink into insignificance comparatively with many literary and scientific men on whom some of them affect to look down from the lofty position in which they are placed by the exigencies of government. The aristocracy of rank, of birth, and of fortune, owes its existence to pride, ambition, and ignorance; the aristocracy of virtue, of talent, and of knowledge, is founded on nature and reason; the former is temporary, the latter immortal. The only imperishable glory of Athens and Rome is that which has been conferred by the exquisite refinement of their civilisation, and by the genius of their writers, orators, and philosophers. Modern governments should, then, attend to their educational and to all their literary and scientific institutions as they do to their naval and military establishments, if they wish their countries also to attain imperishable glory. 97 BOOK II. OF THE SIGNS OF OUR IDEAS, AND IMPORTANCE OF THEIR ACQUISITION IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES. cet art ingénieux, De peindre la parole et de parler aux yeux; Et par des traits divers de figures tracées, Donner de la couleur et du corps aux pensées."-BREBEUF.* "Languages belong to the class of means. In preferring one to another, we should be guided by the principle of its utility: that language, in which most knowledge is contained, is the most useful."-G. COMBE.† "Yes! Education reform will come, and conquer like every other." CHAPTER I. THOMAS WYSE.t DIFFERENT SPECIES OF SIGNS. SECT. I.-NATURAL SIGNS,-LANGUAGE OF ACTION. A LANGUAGE is a system of signs which represent our thoughts and sentiments, and serve for the interchange of ideas in social intercourse. God, having made man a social being, provided him with means of mental communication suited to his condition, The sensations which he receives through his physical faculties, convey, as we have seen (p. 16), impressions to the brain; this organ, in its turn, by an instantaneous reaction, prompts all the muscles of the human frame, and especially those of the face, to corresponding * Imitation de Lucain. VOL. I. † Lectures on Popular Education. Speech in the House of Commons, 19 May, 1835. H actions which declare the existence of inward feelings, and which, by the force of sympathy, communicate these feelings to others. The looks, smiles, laughter, tears, sighs, groans, gesticulations, motions, inarticulate sounds or cries, which follow as the immediate consequences of received impressions, are the natural expressions, the necessary signs of his thoughts and emotions. This instinctive succession of impressions and expressions, this double faculty of receiving and communicating ideas, constitutes the language of action. Every tone of the voice, every change of the countenance, every movement of the limbs, every attitude of the body which bespeaks a desire, a feeling, or a thought, belongs to this language of nature. Destitute of natural signs, neither man nor any of the gregarious species among the brute creation, could have conformed to the laws of their organisation. But with the language of action, sympathy awoke, and social communion began between our first parents from the moment they were placed by their Maker in one another's presence. Through its medium, men of all countries, civilised or uncivilised, can communicate with each other; the youngest child is made to understand those who approach him; the lower animals act under its influence in their mutual relations; they even readily obey the will of man which it conveys. Thus has the Almighty gifted his noblest creature with the means of exercising his sovereignty over the animal creation. Man never entirely divests himself of this innate language, even in the highest state of civilisation, and in the possession of the most finished articulate idiom. It is especially when he is under the influence of the passions, that nature supplies the deficiencies of art, that tones, looks, gestures, and attitudes give energy to the articulate expression of thought which they accompany. This natural eloquence, so well calculated to move and excite public assemblies, imparts life and meaning to a discourse, when, from the poverty of articulate language, obscurity of the speaker's words or ignorance of his hearers, the oral expression would often prove ineffective. Of this fact we have a remarkable example in the extraordinary enthusiasm to which St. Bernard roused the German peasantry, by preaching the Crusades, although he addressed them in French, a language which they did not understand. Cicero informs us that it was a contest between him and Roscius, whether he could express a sentiment in a greater variety of phrases, or Roscius in a greater |