political situation, I do not affect to form any judgment beyond what may be gathered from the journals on both sides of the channel, and the commentaries supplied by the editors on the intelligence found in their columns. Of its moral state, few satisfactory notices are circulated, except in the Reports of such societies as either in part or exclusively consider Ireland as the scene of their operations. The im pression produced by the evidence is, that the country is generally in a state of great moral and intellectual degradation. Many persons, however, have sanguine hopes that the Madras scheme will entirely transform this western wilderness; or, if this be expecting too much, that at least there will be effected a sensible, and in prospect a permanent, improvement in the popu. lation of the whole island. That much will be done we have indeed great encouragement to look for; but I own that, with every prepossession in favour of the mechanical process adopted in the national schools, I have many apprehensions that the value of the process will be in a considerable measure neutralized, unless every establishment be superintended by a MASTER OF MORALS, who, in managing the very powerful machinery of the new mode, may especially provide that (as far as human wisdom can ensure such a consequence) what is received into the understanding may influence the heart. After what has been said in your pages on emulation, I shall refrain from winding my way into that difficult subject, farther than by saying, that after every explanation in favour of the Madras scheme, it appears to me that the eager appetite of human nature for distinction and display will find much strong aliment furnished by the general discipline of the system in question. If the aliment be diluted or counteracted by a concurrent lowering regimen, this process will, in my judgment, not be found among the original arrangements of Bell and Lancaster, but must be superinduced by those masters of morals whose presence, as principals, is most devoutly to be wished for in each of the thousand or ten thousand schools erected either in reality or imagination throughout the British empire. An excellent correspondent, in your number for last November, appears indeed, in his reasonable jealousy on the subject under discussion, to disrelish altogether the grand project of national education, on the ground of its wholesale and superficial character being strongly at variance with any really moral object; and he would almost draw away the monitors, and their five hundreds, in order to educate well the remaining few. Perhaps I have exaggerated his meaning; but to me he appears in any event to have magnified the object of his jealousy. To myself, the case simply seems to be, that if it be our duty to educate the people, and if an immense engine is already at work capable of performing the mechanical part of instruction-and if this engine be set in motion by an impulse so powerful, and according to the calculation of the engineer so permanent, that no expectation can be entertained of its failure, either in energy or continuance of action-then we surely ought to avail ourselves of the opportunity thus placed within our reach, and endeavour so to direct the movements of the machine as to make its mechanism subserve the highest purposes of moral utility. Apart from metaphor-the national schools ought not, I conceive, to be diminished, even if they did nothing better then teach children to read and write; for the good effected by this stage of instruction is certainly better than nothing. Its tendency is civilizing, and it affords at least the means of obtaining some acquaintancewith the Scriptures whenever they fall in the learner's way. I do not suppose that your correspondent would by any means consent to the annihilation of the Madras system. If an evil, it is, even in his eyes, not an incurable one; and it is capable of being rendered more innoxious in proportion as it is purified by such considerate men as think more of children's hearts than of their understandings. This purifying process must and will be performed by any person of sound mind, as far as the general regulations of the school will allow him to pursue his object. The extent of his meliorating endeavours may even be very considerable. The superintendant or visitor is superintendant of the master as well as of the pupils. On the supposition that the master possesses an average share of right thinking and docility, and farther that he is generally dependant for his situation and prospects upon the visitor here is ground somewhat prepared both by principle and personal interest for the reception of good seed; and even the lowest produce has its proportion of value. Still, the master, even under these favourable circumstances, will naturally be influenced by the temptation of bastening onward his scholars, in order, of course, to gain the credit of every party concerned in the establishment. The temptation will assume the guise of duty: and, in truth, be must be an expert analyst who, in such a case, can tell where ambition and conscience may be definitely separated; for, if the boys are to excel, they must speed forward; and if they speed forward, they must be impelled; and the mechanical impulse of the Madras scheme, after all the labours of the apologist, is downright emulation: and by what super-human dexterity will the instructor push his pupils onward along the narrow path, where on one side is seen a moral peril, on the other the apprehension of censure or discredit, if the boys are defrauded of stimulus? Under these circumstances arises a case in which the visitor is called upon to teach the teacher; and to remind him that five hundred possessors of immortal souls are arranged before him, who, from the discipline employed in that room for the next few months or years, will in all likelihood receive impressions which will influence the remainder of their lives. Whatever is there taught should unquestionably be taught not so much to merely intellectual as to moral and responsible creatures; to those who are so to pass through things temporal, that finally they lose not the things eternal. If this be conceded, the master should in fairness be apprized that an education properly religious may possibly be less visibly pro gressive than if his instructions began and terminated in merely human learning. The visitor will do well to assure him, that what is lost in point of time or fineness of effect, will be compensated by gain of principles;-I speak on the belief that, according to the usual economy of Providence, no religious labour will finally be in vain. I am aware that this is a kind of prospective education, which cannot be rightly appreciated by any master who does not pursue his object with some portion of Christian feeling: but as far as his moral perceptions reach, so far will the visitor direct them to the paramount importance of giving the children a moral or rather spiritual education; and so far, in the practical details of instruction, will the superintendant inculcate upon his inferior, the necessity of sacrificing the splendour of rapid success to insure the less sparkling advantage of training up the heirs of eternity for their high destination. But as the current of the world usually flows, who does not see that the patrons and subordinate managers of these schools must degrade, if they resolve to work the Madras engine by slow and measured movements, and of course without any degree of pressure on the safetyvalve. I mean, that when men or Christian principle check the for wardness of clever boys, and give their duller comrades time to come up; in which case the wits must in some measure stand still;-and when they not only effect this balance of power, but possibly retard, to a certain degree, the learned growth of both parties by frequent religious admonition and serious appeals to their consciences;-and when, on the other hand, men acting on worldly motives load the safety valve, by urging forward their hun dreds or half-thousands by all the popular and goading stimulants of emulation; in these contrasted cases, the spectator who may happen to visit both classes of schools will certainly see in the Christianized establishment less of vividness of character, less of general quick ness, brilliancy, and ardour, than in the secularized seminary, where quocunque modo human passion, in its varied exhibitions of ambition, vanity, selfishness, and willingness to rise by the fall of others, obtrudes upon the reflecting observer most unpleasant traces of our corrupt original. But, alas! as the majority of observers are unreflecting, few persons will understand what is intended by the degradation just alluded to. It must, however, be again and again insisted upon, that whenever the power exists of purifying, in what ever degree, the national schools from worldly motives of action, such power must be exerted, other wise its possessors will incur the heavy censure of leaving an allowed evil to produce its natural consequences. The introduction of the Madras system is regarded by many thinking persons as a grand but fearful experiment on mankind; and by all as the earnest of some extensive alteration in the structure of civil society. They who survive the next thirty years will be, of course, more competent judges of the question than ourselves, who speculate only about contingent good or evil. There is one subject which, in my opinion, and specifically with regard to Ireland, closely connects itself with the matter in discussion; namely, the Bible Society; and so connects itself, that I can scarcely view the two points separately. When all shall eventually be able to read, they will assuredly desire something which may satisfy the new appetite, and books will be found by themselves if not furnished by others. The pupils of Dr. Bell are generally in the way to procure Bibles and the accredited books of the National Society. But others are educated on what is termed the liberal scale; a scale so liberal, that I do not find that even the Scripture itself is among the established donations to meritorious pupils. If this be the fact, or if it be partially the fact, the deficiency will not be made up by the rival institution. Here, then, the Bible Society takes one of its many benevolent stations; and the thousands of young persons, who, as it is assumed, retire from the drilling of the Lancaster serjeants without the panoply of Inspiration, are met before their dispersion by the agents of an association, which scatters among them an antidote to the catechisms and legends of the Romanists, and to the ballads and seditious tracts of the anarchists. Is it possible, that, in the divided and uncultured kingdom of Ireland, should be found Protestant clergymen, who are anxious to annihilate this institution; who, having eyes to perceive the existing calamities of their country, seem resolved to incur the terrible risk of probibiting the circulation of the Scriptures, when to the ignorance of those records may, to an unknown degree, be attributed the unhappy spiritual state of the Irish popula tion? Is it not notorious that such sons of the Reformed Church are welcomed by the papal hierarchy of Ireland as allies; and that, whether they allow it or not, the Catholic clergy are pressing forward to meet them, with no very romantic hope of effecting their restoration to an infallible church? JUVERNA. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Report from the Select Committee on the Poor Laws; with the Minutes of Evidence taken be fore the Committee; ordered by the HOUSE of COMMONS to be printed, July 14, 1817. London: Clement. 8vo. pp. 240. THE moral character of the poor is so much influenced by their external circumstances, that every question connected with those circumstances is an object of vital importance to all who have the true interests of society deeply at heart. We therefore offer no apology for a somewhat extended article on the subject brought before us in this Report. We know, indeed, that objections are frequently and vehemently urged against all attempts to occupy the minds of those engaged in the sacred function with subjects of this kind. It is said, "Their office is strictly spiritual; and topics of this nature would have a tendency to secularize their minds, and thus eventually to impair, not only their personal holiness, but also their general influence." It may, perhaps, be permitted us, for a moment, to touch upon the several parts of this objection. Of the accuracy of the sentiment conveyed in the former part of it, there can be no doubt. The function of a clergyman is, strictly speaking, spiritual; and any employment which has a real tendency to impair this spirituality strikes a vital blow at the perfection, dignity, and importance of the clerical character. We consider it as no mean benefit belonging to an established church that it enables the minister to pursue the spiritual objects of his profession without any of the distractions ordinarily springing from trade or other mercenary occupations. In this point of view, we cannot but express our regret at a clause in the Bill lately passed through Parliament, which has a tendency, as we think, to transmute our clergy into agriculturists. We should have heard with far more satisfaction of the intention of the Legislature to increase their incomes, where necessary, than to enlarge their farms. Cicero said of a senator who had engaged in trade, "inquinavit senatum :" and we are equally jealous of all such intrusions on the ministerial office. A congregation will find it difficult to believe that their ministers seek not theirs but them, when they are daily haggling with them for those trifles on which the profit of trade depends. It is of the first importance to adopt every measure with regard to the church, so as to keep the garments of the priesthood unspotted by the world, and to prevent any other flame from mingling with the pure fire which should burn in the censers of the Lord. But, admitting all this in its fullest extent, we cannot convince ourselves that studies of the kind brought before us by the present Report--of course, limited and controlled by proper regulations--have by any means the same tendency with trade, or its attendant occupations, to withdraw the mind from the spiritual engagements of the clerical profession. The object in this case is general instead of personal, social instead of selfish: it less easily admits of the operation of sordid motives, offers less excitement to angry tempers, and touches on all sides those great moral questions which are the specific subjects of ministerial attention. There can be no doubt, indeed, that a descent upon the common arena of life will,in this instance as in every other, in some measure increase the temptations of a minister. But this is a necessary tax upon publie usefulness in all cases, and should not drive the minister from the field of duty, but increase his watchfulness and stimulate his devotion when so employed. As to the supposed loss of influence connected with the pursuit of these objects, we should be disposed to maintain that an opposite effect would follow; for with the poor themselves, it would enable the clergy to increase their influence by enabling them to become more effectually their benefactors. With the rich also, it would enlarge their influence, in the first place, by giving to the clergy a new value and importance in society, and by conveying the impression that good men are not, in the pursuit of another world, enthusiastically disregarding the lawful concerns of this, especially the temporal comfort of their fellowcreatures. We are very far indeed from recommending that a clergyman should embarrass himself with the details of the administration of compulsory relief. On the contrary, there is reason to fear, that an interference with these could not fail to compromise his usefulness. What we would recommend to him, is the study and the seasonable inculcation of just principles of political economy, as well as of such practical plans for relieving the wants, and promoting the comfort of the poor, as would not aggravate the evils they pro fessed to cure. And we conceive, that few circumstances would more tend to raise the general estimate of the clergy, than their carrying into the public meetings of their parishes, that mass of information which their education and rank in society would enable them to collect; and that firm, yet gentle, candid, generous, temper which is the proper fruit of true religion. Their people would then see, what perhaps they have little opportunity of seeing elsewhere, real religion in action. The personal watchfulness of the clergy them selves would be increased, their tempers would be improved, their views enlarged, and their parish ioners would learn to listen with increased respect on the Sabbath to the man who in the week had been able to instruct them on points where they least thought themselves to need instruction. With the actual administration of parochial relief, we repeat, we do not think the clergy have much to do. It is rather their duty to think for their people, and to form a body of intelligent and active agents, than to do much in this way themselves. But, if we are thus disposed to blame any minister of the Gospel. who treats with inattention subjects such as those discussed in the present Report, we are also sorry to be obliged to condemn legislators for not endeavouring more largely to avail themselves, in coming to a decision upon these points, of the assistance of such of the parochial clergy as unite a familiar acquaintance with sound principles of political economy with much personal observation. Many of the legislative errors on these topics arise from the lawgivers being often men of mere speculation. They reason rather from what they hear, than from what they have seen and known. Nor do we speak of this as a species of defect which it is easy to avoid. It is difficult for any class belonging to the more intelligent orders of society, with the exception of one, to obtain that free and intimate access to the cottages and bosoms of the poor which can enable them to be accurate judges of their condition. The one class which we except are the resident parochial clergy. They literally "have the poor always with them:" they see them in all possible circumstances: they can trace the influence of every regulation upon their moral character and actual happiness. They look at the law or the institution, not merely in the abstract, and upon paper, but as surrounded by all its consequences.-Now, of such counsellors, |