It is unnecessary to multiply further examples of a fact so perfectly apparent, of the total inadequacy of educacation to check the progress of crime in the British islands. But a very singular and most interesting confirmation of the same principles has been afforded by the criminal returns of France, in the whole eighty-six departments of which, it has been found that, with hardly one single exception, the amount of crime is just in proportion to the degree of instruction which prevails; and that it is no where so prevalent as in those towns and departments where education has been carried to the highest pitch. This extraordinary fact, which, as Mr Bulwer very candidly admits, has fairly bound down our highly pre-conceived ideas on the subject, has been more than once already alluded to in this Miscellany, and its authenticity called in question only by that numerous class who will believe no facts which do not fall in with their own preconceived ideas.

Returns of exactly the same character have been obtained from the statistics of America, and are to be found in M. Beaumont and Tocque

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ville's able work on the penitentiary system of that country; but we have not room to insert these details, and shall content ourselves, therefore, with the following quotation from that work" It may seem that a state having every vent for its industry and agriculture, will commit less crime than another which, equally enjoying these advantages, does not equally enjoy the advantages of intelligence and enlightenment. Nevertheless, we do not think that you can attribute the diminution of crime in the North to instruction, because in Connecticut, where there is far more instruction than in New York, crime increases with a terrible rapidity; and if one cannot accuse knowledge as the cause of this, one is obliged to acknowledge that it is not a preventive."

There are, however, Tocqueville tells us, some institutions in America in which instruction does produce the effect of reforming even the most abandoned criminals. But mark the kind of education which, according to his high authority, has this effect. "The education in these houses is a moral education; its object is not merely to load the memory but to

elevate the soul. Do not lie, and do as well as you can, are the simple words with which children are admitted into these institutions. Their discipline is entirely founded on morality, and reposes on the principles of true philosophy. Every thing is there calculated to elevate the minds of the persons in confinement-to render them jealous of their own esteem and that of their equals. To obtain this object, they make a feint of treating them from the beginning like men, and as already the members of a free society."

These facts, which are to the Whigs a stumbling-block and to the Liberals foolishness, can easily be explained by those who are practically acquainted with the character of human nature, both as it appears in its actual working around us, and as it has been unfolded by the greatest and best of men in every age. The capital error of the secular education party in this matter, is the opinion that the main end of education should be to communicate or give the means of acquiring knowledge; whereas its real and most important object is, to form the habits and elevate the character. This is the vital point of distinction between the two parties, and it runs not merely through their opinions in regard to education as a political or social improvement, but as a means of domestic reform and cultivation. The intellectual educationists uniformly think that they have done enough, if they have given to mankind the means of reading, and communicated to them a great variety of facts in physical or political knowledge-not considering that this power of reading may be given, and these facts instilled into the mind, without either producing any beneficial effect, or preventing the formation of the most depraved and detestable character. They uniformly suppose that the taste for science and the love of philosophy is to combat and counteract in the minds of the masses the tendency to vicious habits, and the attractions of sensual indulgence; forgetting that it is to few only of the human race, in any rank, that nature has given the power of feeling an interest in scientific inquiry or literary enjoyment, while to all, she has, for very obvious reasons, instilled a ready thirst for the gratification of the senses. The remedy, therefore,

which the secular educationists propose for the progress of evil, can, by the laws of nature, affect only a few, while the masses are swayed entirely by objects of present desire, or immediate physical gratification. And hence its total and universal failure to arrest the progress either of actual crime or of general depravity.

In arguing thus, we are far from supposing either any intellectual inferiority in the working classes, as compared with those more elevated in rank or riches, or any greater tendency to depravity in them, than exists in any other class of society. We suppose them to be, both in point of intellectual capacity and moral disposition, just the same, so far as original disposition is concerned, as those born to more elevated fortunes. But can it be seriously affirmed that in any rank of life, education has been found capable of enabling men to combat the impulses of the moment, or the attractions of sense by distant considerations or the pleasures of knowledge? Can it be affirmed that any class of men in the state, the Peers, the Commons, the Church, the bar, the medical profession, the mercantile community, have generally found in the attractions of science or the study of philosophy any effectual antidote to the stimulus of the senses? A certain proportion, no doubt, of all these bodies do find such a counterpoise, and, by the habits of reading and the pleasures of literature and philosophy, are gradually weaned, especially in middle or declining life, from the more impetuous suggestions or immediate gratification of pleasure or excitement. But can it be affirmed that this is generally the case? Docs it obtain with the majority? such habits ever to be found except in a small minority? No man, in any rank of life, ever yet found a fifth part of his acquaintance, in whom intellectual cultivation or studious habits formed any counterpoise whatever to irregular or vicious habits.

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The mere acquisition of knowledge, without the simultaneous formation of habits, is very often not only of no use, but absolutely pernicious; because it accustoms the mind of the young to intellectual gratification and mental excitement, without the industry and labour by which it should be acquired, and of which it is the appro

priate reward; it habituates them to look for the harvest without having sown the seed or laboured the ground, and consequently disqualifies them for the actual business of life. The whole efforts now made to make science easy, and strip the acquisition of knowledge of all the difficulties with which it has been invested by nature, are founded upon an erroneous principle, and tend to divest science of its best and noblest effects.

It is this which renders the general instruction, to a certain extent, of the great bulk of mankind a most perilous experiment. They can easily acquire the craving for excitement and superficial information, but can they acquire with equal facility the patient habits, the distrust of self, the respect for others, which constitute essential elements in a well-informed and rightly constituted mind? It is evident that they cannot. Necessity chains them to physical labour, long before the period has arrived when scientific knowledge or philosophical information can be acquired to any useful purpose. Hence the bulk of this class never acquire philosophical or political knowledge to any useful purpose at all; and the power of reading which they have acquired does them little but mischief, because it immediately throws open to them excitement, and the means of obtaining every gratification from immoral publications, whether sensual, romantic, or political, which can be acquired with. out study; while they are precluded by physical circumstances from acquiring the habits requisite to enjoy useful information, or judge with propriety on the matters, which, either as individuals or as members of society, are brought under their consideration. "General ignorance," says Plato, "is neither the greatest evil, nor the most to be dreaded." A mass of ill-digested information is much more perilous.

There can be no mistake so great as to imagine that, if a human being is taught to read, and then turned into the world with every book, good, bad, or indifferent, equally within his reach, he will naturally betake himself to the good works and shun the bad.

Many years of painful study, and no small amount of compulsion, is necessary to impress upon all, except a few gifted spirits, the previous ideas re

quisite to any appreciation whatever of the pleasure derivable from the higher branches of literature and knowledge. By the working classes these years of laborious study cannot be spared. Necessity impels them to physical labour for their own maintenance, before the intellectual labour can have been undergone requisite to acquire the information or the ideas indispensable to deriving pleasure from the higher or useful branches of literature or philosophy. Generally speaking, therefore, they can never be any thing but superficial readers, and promoters of superficial literature. We speak of mankind as a whole. Doubtless there are numerous and brilliant instances of persons whose powerful talents have at once surmounted all these obstacles; but they are the exception, not the rule.

The theory of the intellectual educationists is, that the moment the operatives are taught to read, instantly, and as if by instinct, they will acquire a taste for the best branches of literature, that they are at once to plunge into Bacon, and Newton, and Milton, and that the attractions of the works of these great men are to form a complete counterpoise to the pleasures of intoxication or the seductions of sense. We have seen what an enormous circulation despicable works have had, and how completely, for a time at least, they have interrupted the sale of works of sterling merit and utility. Why have they done so? Simply because they appeal to topics obvious to the meanest capacity, and conjure up, in a diverting form, images with which everybody is familiar. Doubtless their run will at length come to an end, and their reputation will be as short-lived as their sale has been extensive. But what then? Other works of the same character will succced, and others, and others. A superficial and ephemeral generation will never want superficial and ephemeral works to divert the passing hour.

As a practical commentary on the theory of the working classes going straight to the study of Bacon, and Euclid, and Milton, we here subjoin a statement of the number of books found in ten small circulating libraries in the parishes of St George, St James, St Anne, Soho, London, which we strongly recommend to the consideration of our readers.