imparted to him, but which quality is not shared in by geography, and history, and drawing, and the natural sciences? Must calculation be taught because it is useful? why so is geometry, as the carpenter and mason will tell us; so is chemistry, as we may gather from dyers and bleachers. Where is the unit of measure by which we may determine the respective values of different kinds of knowledge? Or, assuming them determined, how can it be shown that a child may claim from the civil power knowledge of such and such. values, but not knowledge of certain less values?

A sad snare would these advocates of legislative teaching betray themselves into, could they substantiate their doctrine. For what is meant by saying that a Government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly to fit the people for social life -to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The Government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The Government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this-a Government ought to mould children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is, and how the child may be moulded into one. It must first form for itself a definite conception of a pattern citizen; and having done this, must elaborate a system of discipline which seems best calculated to produce citizens after that pattern. This system of discipline it is bound to enforce to the uttermost. For if it does otherwise, it allows men to become different from what in its judgment they should become, and therefore fails in that duty it is charged to fulfil. Being thus justified in carrying out rigidly such plans as it thinks best, every Government ought to do what the despotic Governments of the Continent and of China do. That regulation under which, in France, private schools cannot be established without a licence from the minister, and can be shut up by a simple ministerial

order," is a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough; seeing that the State cannot permit its mission to be undertaken by others, without endangering the due performance of it. The forbidding of all private schools whatever, as until recently in Prussia, is nearer the mark. Austrian legislation, too, realizes with some consistency the State-education theory. By it a tolerably stringent control over the mental culture of the nation is exercised. Much thinking being held at variance with good citizenship, the teaching of metaphysics, political economy, and the like, is discouraged. Some scientific works are prohibited. And a reward is offered for the apprehension of those who circulate bibles the authorities in the discharge of their function preferring to entrust the interpretation of that book to their employés the Jesuits. But in China alone is the idea carried out with logical completeness. There the Government publishes a list of works which may be read; and, considering obedience the supreme virtue, authorizes such only as are friendly to despotism. Fearing the unsettling effects of innovation, it allows nothing to be taught but what proceeds from itself. To the end of producing pattern-citizens it exerts a stringent discipline over all conduct. There are "rules for sitting, standing, walking, talking, and bowing, laid down with the greatest precision. Scholars are prohibited from chess, football, flying kites, shuttlecock, playing on wind instruments, training beasts, birds, fishes, or insects -all which amusements, it is said, dissipate the mind and debase the heart."

Now a minute dictation like this, which extends to every action and will brook no nay, is the legitimate realization of this State-education theory. Whether the Government has erroneous conceptions of what citizens ought to be, or whether the methods of training it adopts are injudicious, is not the question. According to the hypothesis it is commissioned to discharge a specified function. It finds no ready-prescribed way of doing this. It has no alternative,

therefore, but to choose that way which seems to it most fit. And as there exists no higher authority, either to dispute or confirm its judgment, it is justified in the absolute enforcement of its plans, be they what they may. As from the proposition that Government ought to teach religion, there springs the other proposition, that Government must decide what is religious truth, and how it is to be taught; so, the assertion that Government ought to educate, necessitates the further assertion that it must say what education is, and how it shall be conducted. And the same rigid popery, which we found to be a logical consequence in the one case, follows in the other also.

There are few sayings more trite than this, that love of offspring is one of our most powerful passions. To become a parent is an almost universal wish. The intensity of affection exhibited in the glistening eye, the warm kiss, and the fondling caress-in the untiring patience, and the ever ready alarm of the mother, is a theme on which philosophers have written and poets have sung in all ages. Every one has remarked how commonly the feeling overmasters all others. Observe the self-gratulation with which maternity witnesses her first-born's unparalleled achievements. Mark the pride with which the performances of each little brat are exhibited to every visitor as indicating a precocious genius. Consider again the deep interest which in later days a father feels in his children's mental welfare, and the anxiety he manifests to get them on in life: the promptings of his natural affection being ofttimes sharpened by the reflection that the comfort of his old age may, perchance, be dependent upon their

success.

Now, "servants and interpreters of nature" have usually supposed these feelings to be of some use. Hitherto they have thought that the gratification a mother feels from the forwardness of her little ones serves as an educational stimulus-that the honour which the father expects to derive from

the distinction of his sons acts as an incentive to their improvement and that the anticipation by parents of the distress which ill-trained children may one day entail constitutes an additional spur to the proper management of them. It would appear, however, according to the State-educationists, that they have been mistaken. It seems that this apparatus of feelings is insufficient to do the needful work. And so, in default of any natural provision for supplying the exigency, legislators exhibit to us the design and specification of a State-machine, made up of masters, ushers, inspectors, and councils, to be worked by a due proportion of taxes, and to be plentifully supplied with raw material, in the shape of little boys and girls, out of which it is to grind a population of well-trained men and women.

But it is argued that parents, and especially those whose children most need instructing, do not know what good instruction is. "In the matter of education," says Mr. Mill, "the intervention of Government is justifiable; because the case is one in which the interest and judgment of the consumer are not sufficient security for the goodness of the commodity."

It is strange that so judicious a writer should feel satisfied with such a worn-out excuse. This alleged incompetency on the part of the people has been the reason assigned for all State-interferences whatever. It was on the plea that buyers were unable to tell good fabrics from bad, that those complicated regulations which encumbered the French manufact*urers were established. The use of certain dyes here in England was prohibited, because of the insufficient discernment of the people. Directions for the proper making of pins were issued, under the idea that experience would not teach the purchasers which were best. Those examinations as to competency which the German handicraftsmen undergo, are held needful as safeguards to the consumers. There is hardly a single department of life over which, for similar reasons,

legislative supervision has not been, or may not be, established. Here is Mr. H. Hodson Rugg, M.R.C.S., publishing a pamphlet to point out the injury inflicted upon poor ignorant householders by the adulteration of milk, and proposing as a remedy that there shall be Government officers to test the milk, and to confiscate it when not good-police to inspect the ventilation of cow-sheds and to order away invalid cattle and a Government cow-infirmary, with veterinary surgeon attached. To-morrow some one else may start up to tell us that bad bread is still more injurious than bad milk, equally common, quite as difficult to distinguish, and that, consequently, bakehouses ought to be overlooked by the authorities. Next there will be wanted officials with hydrometers and chemical re-agents, to dabble in the vats of the porter-breweries. In the wake of these must, of course, follow others, commissioned to watch the doings of wine-merchants. And so on until, in the desire to have all processes of production duly inspected, we approach a condition somewhat like that of the slave-States, in which, as they say, "one-half of the community is occupied in seeing that the other half does its duty." And for each additional interference the plea may be, as it always has been, that "the interest and judgment of the consumer are not sufficient security for the goodness of the commodity."

Should it be said that the propriety of legislative control depends upon circumstances; that respecting some articles the judgment of consumers is sufficient, while respecting other articles it is not; and that the difficulty of deciding upon its quality, places education among these last; the reply again is, that the same has been said on behalf of all meddlings in turn. Plenty of trickeries, plenty of difficulties in the detection of fraud, plenty of instances showing the inability of purchasers to protect themselves, are cited by the advocates of each proposed recourse to official regulation; and in each case it is urged that here, at any rate, official regulation is required. Yet does experience disprove these