voluntary contributions. Hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries, for the treatment of every disease and ailment to which flesh is heir, exist in nearly all our towns, at an aggregate cost for their erection, furnishing, and support, which must be enormous.

9th. It is worth while for the two Doctors who are so despairing as to the power of the people to educate themselves, to consider for a moment what each has seen done under his own eyes. Dr. Hook has seen the parish church of Leeds rebuilt on a noble scale, at a cost of more than £30,000, raised by subscription. Dr. Vaughan presides over the Lancashire Independent College, built at a cost of £25,000, every farthing of which was paid off on the day it was opened. The former of these gentlemen has seen Churchmen raise £155,000 at one effort for schools in the manufacturing districts. The latter has seen the Independent body raise £109,000 for the erection of day-schools. Take heart, Gentlemen! the world is not going to fail you yet. Look at the proofs I have given of what the voluntary principle has done and is doing amongst us, and you will surely admit, that to despair of their supplying the paltry remaining deficiency in the means of education is quite ludicrous.

10th. I must not conclude my enumeration of examples, without reminding your Lordship of the many splendid educational endowments possessed by this country, and inherited by a remote ancestry. Some of these endowments were made by kings, but generally (I apprehend) out of their own property, not public property: by very far the greater number were bequeathed by eminent and wealthy persons. In this way nearly all the colleges and halls of Oxford and Cambridge were founded, as well as nearly all our grammar-schools. The annual income of what are called the education charities is supposed to amount to £500,000.*

It is imposible, my Lord, that you should glance at these splendid illustrations of the wellprincipled, enlightened, and sustained benevolence of the people, without your heart swelling with exultation at the character of the nation over whose destinies you have been called to preside. If we were to sum them up, the amount would seem incredible. Nor is it only the benevolence of the people that attracts admiration: but it must strike your reflective mind, that in the conducting of these numberless societies and institutions there is proof given of a capacity for administration, of a moral energy, of a power of effective and sustained organization, which is one of the most remarkable features of the national character, and distinguishes Englishmen from all other nations of the earth, except their own descendants across the Atlantic. Whence that unequalled capacity springs, and what is essential to its existence, it imports us infinitely to observe.

But I would invite your Lordship to look at other illustrations of the independent action of the English people, and to remark how constantly they anticipate, and how far they surpass, their Government in its operations. Whose enterprise is it that covers every sea, and penetrates every land, with the commerce of England, con

* Lord Brougham, in a note to his speech on education in 1835, says, "The sum of £301.000 ayear has been reported as the income of the Education charities. It must be £500,000 at least."Lord Brougham's Speeches, vol. iii. page 256.

ducting all its complicated business with a skill that seldom errs? By whose inventive talent were the miracles of modern manufactures wrought, which have multiplied the productions of our industry a hundred-fold? Who discovered and carried into effect the improvements in travelling-by the locomotive engine and the railway? Who have formed and are forming thousands of miles of railway in this kingdom? Who constructed our docks, our canals, our roads, and our bridges? Who lighted our towns with gas? Who have girdled the globe with lines of steam-packets? Who reduced the time spent in reaching our Indian empire from four months to one? By whose prudence and foresight is it that our buildings and our ships are insured? Who reformed our Post office? Who invented our telegraphs? Who are pushing the inroads of science into the very arcana of nature, and drawing down philosophy from the clouds to make her the daily companion of our workmen ?

Was it the Government? Had the Government anything whatever to do with these achievements? Was it not rather individual talent and energy, and the voluntary combinations of a free people among themselves? Do not the grandeur of their enterprise, and the rapidity of their execution, absolutely mock the timidity, irresolution, poverty, and delay of Government undertakings? Have not the people almost always shown themselves in advance of their rulers ? Have they not forced every reform of our laws and institutions on our reluctant authorities? Was it not they who, after many struggles, by their Societies and their Leagues, abolished slavery and monopoly? Was it not private enterprise that peopled the wildernesses of the new world and Australasia, and gave to England her colonial empire? Nay, was it not a commercial company that won our magnificent territories in the East? Is it not individual talent, without Government help, sanction, or control, that conducts the press of England-that fourth estate of the realm? Is there not in public opinion, which is merely the aggregate of individual opinions, a power and a majesty, before which Queen, Lords, and Commons bow?

It is the glory of Englishmen, my Lord, that they have done all these things; and it is the glory of their Government that it bas let them.

It is no honour to a Government to go beyond its province, and to attempt things for which it is incompetent. Your paternal despotisms are eternally meddling,-treating their subjects as if they were children in the arms,-swathing, and coddling, and petting them,-feeding them with spoon-meat, holding them up with leadingstrings, and saving them the trouble not merely of acting, but even of thinking for themselves; -not knowing, or pretending not to know, that in all this they are drawing off the pith, and marrow, and life's blood of the people, and dooming them to perpetual decrepitude! And ecclesiastical despotism has too closely imitated civil despotism. It has provided nations with a religion; it has prescribed creeds, and forms of prayer, and ceremonies, and modes of worship; it has endowed priests for them, with a manystoried hierarchy; it has taken into alliance with itself the civil power, but all for the good of religion; it has secured for itself-though purely for the honour of God-dignities, prerogatives, and wealth; it has condescendingly informed the people what they are to read, and what they

are not to read,-what they are to believe, and what they are not to believe; and in its much pity it has often enlightened men's souls by the flames with which it has burned their bodies!

O! my Lord, when will these sad usurpations, so dishonouring to God and so degrading to man, have an end? When will Governments learn their true province? When will they cease to clip the eagle's wings? When will they trust Christ with the government of his own church? When will they take off their presumptuous hands from holding up the ark of the living God? When will they learn the sacred claims of conscience ?

When will they unfetter the human mind, and let it grow up to its own commanding stature ?

I am proud to believe that the English Government, whether by accident or design, has in some measure kept within its province;-not consistently, not thoroughly, but in some good measure. It has displayed a salutary negligence, a wise inattention. Whether from design or accident, it has left the nation in the main to develop its own resources and character. With some unhappy exceptions, it has permitted mind and industry to grow up in the vigour which nature gave them. I do not say that, thus left to themselves, they have branched forth with unvaried symmetry. In the matter of education and in other things there has been a want of uniformity distressing to the eye of a Dutch gardener. The plant of British freedom, like our native oak, has not been trained in the conservatory, but upon the mountain's breast. The winds of heaven have rocked it: the rains and dews of heaven have fed it: it has borne the drought, the frost, and the tempest: it has unquestionably its boughs of stubborn crookedness; but, after all, it has grown up into a majestic shape-the monarch of the forest, to rule over successive generations of feebler trees.

Have respect, my Lord, to this goodly growth of English freedom!

The facts which have been adduced, my Lord, seem to me to justify great and interesting conclusions. Here you have evidence of the grand fact, all-important in the present controversy, that means of education do actually exist in this country, very nearly, if not quite. adequate to the wants of the people. It is proved, that that educational machinery is all-with the insignificant exception of the grants since 1833-the product of the voluntary and independent action of the people. It is proved, that during the present century there has been an astonishing extension and improvement in the means of general education; and that the religious education of the humbler classes in Sunday-schools has within little more than that period been originated, and carried to an extent which the boldest imagination could never have conceived. It is proved, that the great impulse to education was given by private individuals, and carried on by societies for many years before Government paid the slightest attention to the subject; and that Government interference only began when the public were advancing with giant strides to the fall supply of their own wants. It is proved, that the voluntary and independent action of the people in the cause of education, morals, and religion, is transcendently more powerful than would be required to perfect the means of education in England.

These points being established, there does not

remain the shadow of a ground for demanding any further interference on the part of the Government, still less for any general scheme of State education.

But, my Lord, there are other and still broader conclusions which a statesman might draw from the facts that have been established. Those facts seem to me to throw a flood of light on the principles of Government. They show the unspeakable advantages of freedom. They show that it is greatly wise for Government to keep within its own province. They show that a free people are not only fully competent to provide for themselves all the means of religious and educational training, but that they can do it far better than any Government could do it for them. They show that freedom is the source of nower, of virtue, of industry, of enterprise, and of benevolence. They show that a nation thrown upon its own energies and resources grows stronger, wiser, and more prosperous than nations nursed by paternal despotism. They show, therefore, by irresistible inference, that one of the greatest evils which can be inflicted on a people, is to relieve from the discharge of those duties which nature and Christianity impose upon them.

Relieve men of their duties, and you rob them of their virtues. It is the duty of parents to provide education for their children, as they provide them with food and clothing. It is the duty of the rich to help the poor. It is the duty of every patriot and every Christian, and especially of Christian communities, to diffuse the light of religion and knowledge among the ignorant and the depraved. These are the clear dictates of Christianity and of reason. Leave Christianity and reason to do their own work; and they will do it in the right way, that is, by working on the understandings and hearts of men, not by coercion and compulsion, which produce only an outward and mechanical obedience.

Government interference to educate the poor would destroy voluntary efforts for that end, and by destroying those efforts, would destroy the principles which sustain them. Would the nation be a gainer, even by the utmost conceivable perfection of the machinery of education, if you attained that end by suppressing the greatest school of national virtue-the spontaneous organization of patriots and Christians for the enlightenment of their fellow-men?

This question of State education, my Lord, is so wide that I am compelled to trespass on you at a greater length than I could wish. But I must not do injustice to the cause I have taken up, by treating it superficially and hastily. Those who are driven from their ignorant assertions as to the quantity of education in England, will now take refuge in assertions as to its quality. I shall therefore in my next discuss that question. I shall also show the strong, the natural, not to say the irresistible tendency of Government interference to destroy voluntary effort. And there will still remain behind the important and interesting question, whether we are to purchase Government interference at the necessary price of separating entirely between secular and religious education ?

I have the honour to be,
My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient Servant,
EDWARD BAINES, JUN.

Leeds Mercury-office, August 21, 1846.

EMMANUEL DE FELLENBERG.

By Professor De Felice.

EMMANUEL DE FELLENBERG was born at Berne, in 1771, of a noble and very distinguished family. His relatives occupied eminent places in the state. His father was governor of Aargau, which was a dependency at that time of Berne. His mother did not belong to the Helvetic nation; she was the grand-daughter of the illustrious Dutch admiral, Van Tromp. This woman was a model of mothers; she sought to awaken in the soul of her son a love of all that was elevated, and no doubt she contributed much to his intellectual and moral progress.

It is remarkable that in almost all my biographical notices of illustrious men, I meet with a wife, a mother endowed with high faculties; and this mother would seem to be the first and principal instrument of their celebrity: so true it is that mothers do more than fathers for the education of their children. Christian mothers, never forget this important truth! I will mention some examples of the instruction which Mrs. de Fellenberg gave her son. She said to him often: "The great and rich men of the world have friends enough; do you, my son, be the friend of the poor." Who can tell how much this precept of a beloved and respected mother contributed to the philanthropic labours of this benefactor of mankind?

One day, young de Fellenberg saw his mother shedding tears. He inquired anxiously the cause of her grief. She at first refused to answer her son's questions, saying that he could not comprehend it; for he was then only eight years old. But he persisted; and Mrs. de Fellenberg, yielding to his urgency, told him that she wept because the Americans had lost a battle against the English, and were in great distress. Then, she explained to him what was the war of independence, and kindled within him that enthusiasm for liberty which could never be extinguished.

At another time, Mrs. de Fellenberg led her son to visit an insane asylum. There, she turned his attention to the sight of human misery, and seeing that the youth was moved with compassion, she said to him: 'My child, promise God that you will be all your life long the support of the weak, the protector of

the unhappy." Then, this worthy woman fell upon her knees, and begged earnestly that the Lord would grant her son strength to be faithful to his promise. Mr. de Fellenberg often related this fact, and even in his old age he never could mention it without strong emotion.

He resolved to devote his whole attention and efforts to the melioration of the

poorer classes. When hardly sixteen years old, he voluntarily led a life of austerity, to accustom his body to privations. He ate only bread and some vegetables, and drank nothing but water, though he sat at sumptuous tables. This regimen gave him vigorous health. He dwelt retired, not associating with young men of the aristocracy who were dissipated and immoral. They laughed at him, and said sneeringly that his life was that of a monk or a fool; but Mr. de Fellenberg paid no attention to their scoffs, and spent his time in making solid acquirements in learning.

Some years after, he began to travel, and visited Switzerland, France, Suabia, the Tyrol, and all Germany. His mode of travelling was quite different from that of wealthy lords. He did not pass rapidly over countries in an elegant post-coach, observing nothing, interrogating nobody, and conversing only with men of his own rank. Mr. de Fellenberg went often on foot, with knapsack on his back, examining everything on his way. He seldom stopt in large cities, but in villages, and his intercourse was with peasants and labourers. He partook of their frugal repast and their toils, and studied their opinions, manners, customs, and prejudices. By this means he acquired a practical knowledge of the human character, which was of great service to him, at a later period, in effecting his philanthropic plans.

At this time, his religious opinions were not yet well established. He had adopted Kant's philosophy, and tried to practise his rigid maxims. Kant was the Stoic of modern times; he laid down the principles of duty, or of the categorical imperative, to use his own expression. He had established this formula: "Act always so as you would wish all men to act in the same circumstances." His philosophy was elevated, pure, but dry and cold it was addressed only to the head; the heart had no part in this system of morals. Mr. de Fellenberg be

came aware at a later period that the rigid theories of Kant are unsatisfactory, and that man has need of a living, real, and compassionate God,-the God announced in the gospel; he felt that Christianity, with its realities, is essential to a good education, and to guide us to eternal life.

When Mr. de Fellenberg returned to his country, political events had taken a threatening turn. All the old institutions were shaken, the revolutionists of Switzerland, seconded in their designs by French demagogues, had raised the standard of insurrection. Mr. de Fellenberg was appointed commander of a district in the canton of Berne. Having met the revolted peasantry, he promised them a redress of their grievances; and these peasants returned quietly to their homes. But the government of Berne refused to make the least concession to the country people, after the victory. This denial of justice disgusted him with political office; he resigned, and returned to private life.

But when the French invaded Switzerland, in 1798, he resolved to defend, at the hazard of his life, the national independence. He traversed the mountains, haranguing his fellow-citizens from village to village, and electrifying them by his vehement eloquence. The French, however, were victorious. Mr. de Fellenberg ran the greatest dangers : a price was set upon his head, and he made preparation to go and settle himself in America, when his friends interposed and had his proscription removed.

From this moment his resolution was formed. He abandoned for ever his political career. In vain his fellow-citizens offered him repeatedly high offices: he refused them. His whole attention was turned to agriculture and the instruction of the people. He purchased, in 1799, the farm of Hofwyl, two leagues from Berne, and there he passed the rest of his days.

This tract of land, which is now celebrated throughout the world, was then in a poor condition. The soil was covered with stones and weeds; some meagre cattle grazed in the neglected pastures; the stagnant waters rendered a residence there unhealthy. Mr. de Fellenberg, with diligence and perseverance, soon gave a new face to this large farm. He drained the marshes, employed the best agricultural instruments, inventing some of them himself; he constructed one called the extirpator, to clear his fields from stones and roots. He changed his

crops skilfully; and after some time, the ground at Hofwyl yielded ten times more than before.

The neighbouring peasantry at first viewed with distrust and scorn the innovations of Mr. de Fellenberg. They predicted that he would soon be ruined; in most parts of the world, farmers adhere obstinately to their old habits, and believe that all change will be a means of impoverishment: but when they saw that Mr. de Fellenberg obtained abundant harvests, that his cattle were wellfed, that his farm became every year more flourishing, they began to open their eyes, and adopted themselves some of his improvements.

He

Mr. de Fellenberg had, besides, every quality to gain their confidence. His manners were simple and frank, his countenance commanding, his conversation engaging; he had that physical strength which, in the judgment of villagers, entitles to commendation. did not resemble those gentlemen-farmers, who are afraid to touch any instrument of labour, lest they should soil their clothes. Mr. de Fellenberg worked in the garb of a labourer; he shared the fatigues and hardships of his workmen ; he was happy in a farmer's life, which he regarded as the noblest employment of the human faculties. Often distinguished visitors, who came to Hofwyl to see Mr. de Fellenberg, would meet him in his humble garb, and, not recognizing him, would ask him to lead them to the owner of the farm. They were surprised to see re-appear before them, in a few minutes after, with the polish of a noble patrician, the man whom they had taken for a simple labourer.

I will not dwell further on the improvements which he introduced into agriculture: I will only add, that the envious (what prosperous man is not envied?) dared accuse Mr. de Fellenberg before the Swiss Diet! And what do you think was the charge? You could never guess. They said that the improved agricultural system of Mr. de Fellenberg would create an excess of production, and would bring so great abundance, that the people, not needing to labour, would live in idleness and vice, to the great damage of the state! Was ever such perverseness of judgment? Mr. de Fellenberg despised these absurd accusations, and far from abandoning his plans, he instituted an annual festival, where the farmers of Switzerland were invited to meet and receive premiums for the best specimens of their harvests and

flocks. This idea is imitated in France, and produces the happiest results.

Another institution of Mr. de Fellenberg, well worthy of being mentioned, is the School for the Poor, founded in 1814. He collected foundlings, or orphans, received them gratuitously into his house, and gave them an education adapted to their condition. His principles were very simple: To rescue from physical suffering and moral depravity children without a home; to train them up in the vigorous and healthy discipline of agricultural labour;-to prepare them, lastly, to be at once pious men, good fathers, useful citizens, laborious husbandmen:-such was the aim which Mr. de Fellenberg pursued with unshaken perseverance. These children were fed, clothed, supported, not in luxury, but in a suitable nanner. Their recreations consisted especially in a change of work; they passed from the fields to their books, and from their books to the fields; for Mr. de Fellenberg believed that entire idleness is never good for man.

He was seconded in this excellent work by an- instructor named Werkli, who, in, his humble sphere, displayed real genius. Werkli loved children; he ate, laboured, studied with them. He possessed in a remarkable degree, the difficult art of gaining their affections; he was to them a father, brother, and friend. For twenty years Werkli superintended and instructed these poor children. He attended to their rising up and their lying down; he never left them; and even during their repasts he found means to cultivate their minds, by explaining to them the phenomena of the physical world, or the great things which the Lord doth for the good of man. Honour to Werkli! His name will be indissolubly associated with that of Mr. de Fellenberg, and will remain in the memory of all those who try to do good to their fellow men.

Mr. de Fellenberg was the first to show, by his School for the Poor, how the fearful scourge of pauperism ought to be combatted. He was not afraid to admit into his school young criminals, and to him belongs the first thought of nipping in the bud the first germs or immorality. It is not surprising then, that Hofwyl, with its School for the Poor, became a place of pilgrimage, to which the most intelligent inen resorted to examine with their own eyes this new institution. Soon similar. establishments were founded in almost all the countries of Europe, and even in the East Indies and in New Holland.

A third kind of institution was owing to the indefatigable zeal of Mr. de Fellenberg. This was a classical college, or boarding-school for the sons of opulent and aristocratic families. His aim was this:-He would give to the sons of the great a more manly, more complete education than that which they usually receive. He placed this college by the side of the School for the Poor, in order to inspire all his pupils with feelings of equality and fraternity. He proposed also, by bringing under a common discipline, and under the same course of studies, youth from all parts of Europe and the world, to destroy that narrow, exclusive feeling which makes us despise foreigners, and to strengthen, the ties between nations.

The methods of instruction adopted by Mr. de Fellenberg were borrowed from the system of the celebrated Pestalozzi. He sought to cultivate the reasoning faculty more than the memory, and the heart more than the understanding. He inculcated upon his pupils the habit of thinking for themselves, for he was persuaded that this is the most important element in intellectual culture. Our classical institutions are, in general, defective in this respect: instead of encouraging original thinking, they check it, and undertake to stamp upon all their pupils the same impression, to cast them into the same mould, without taking account of what is distinct and peculiar in them. Hence it results, that young men learn everything but the best of all learning; namely, the art of thinking for themselves; they become copyists, imitators, mere parrots, repeating by rote their lessons, and bear through life the marks of this passive education.

Mr. de Fellenberg viewed the matter very differently, and the college which he founded soon prospered. Pupils flocked from all quarters. At one time, there were at Hofwyl seventeen young princes, who came to learn, better than in courts, how to govern nations. Twenty-two professors, of whom some are now in the inost celebrated universities of Germany, gave lectures in this classical seminary, and statesmen came to see it and report to their sovereigns, Count de Capo-d'Istria, among others, was sent to Hofwyl, in 1814, by the emperor Alexander, and gave so satisfactory an account that the Muscovite czar appointed Mr. de Fellenberg knight of St, Waldimir.

But this prosperity did not last long. Its highest point of splendour was at