knowledge are so unequal. Dr. Spalding may, and does, suppose what suits him with respect to the earlier period, for there is a wide field for the frolics of fancy, where there are few data, either to confirm or to contradict his views.

We are no better satisfied with his remarks upon the influence of the Catholic and Protestant systems upon literature. Suppose the table adopted by him from Cobbett to be correct, what does it prove? Certainly not what he desires. It shows, that in so large a country as France, there were more authors than in a small country like England. But, when we estimate the literature of the country, we should not judge per capita. It is not the number who may have written, who determine the literary station of the country, but the number and importance of those who have discovered new mines for the intellect, founded new sciences, renovated and remodelled others, and pointed the road in which others may follow. We consider Newton more than a counterpart for the whole of the French astronomers, La Grange and La Place included. And what names can any Catholic country place in competition with Bacon, Locke, Newton, Adam Smith, etc., and even Jeremy Bentham? Peradventure Descartes and Pascal-both great men indubitably.

Another deduction must be also made from the tables of Dr. Spalding. Several of the greatest among the Catholic authors were converts,-they were brought up, their minds disciplined, and their habits of thought formed under Protestant influences. Such were Winckelmann, Schlegel, Stolberg, etc. These cannot be justly included in the catalogue of Catholic authors, when any attempt is made to determine, by the counting of heads, the respective influences of Protestantism and Catholicism upon literature.

What we have here said, we have said hurriedly, our limits, and the character of this Review, precluded any detailed examination of Dr. Spalding's book, and we have, accordingly, done nothing more than barely indicate a few of the most prominent objections to the reasoning of his Fourth Part.

We would end as we began. We are truly gratified at the publication of this exposure of D'Aubigné,-we are pleased with it as a representation of Catholic opinions,-we approve of the gentlemanly spirit in which much of it has been written, and we commend it particularly to intelligent Protestants, hoping that it may be read as extensively as the

"History of the Great Reformation." It is necessarily onesided, as being a polemic, and to our Protestant vision, naturally unsound; yet it will be an excellent antidote to D'Aubigné, since it may be made to furnish the means of the "juste milieu."

VIII.-SYSTEM OF COMMON SCHOOLS.

First and Second Annual Reports of the Council of Municipality Number Two of the City of New-Orleans, on the condition of its Public Schools. New-Orleans: 1843-4.

2. An Address delivered at the request of the Directors of Public Schools of the Second Municipality of New-Orleans, on the 22d day of February, 1843, by THEODORE H. MCCALEB, Judge of the District Court of the United States for Louisiana. New-Orleans: 1843.

3. Rules and Regulations for the Organization and Government of the Public Schools of the Municipality Number One of the City of New-Orleans. Printed at the Bee office. 1843.

4. Seventh Annual Report of Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts. Boston: 1844.

5. Annual Report of the Superintendant of Public Instruction in the State of Michigan. 1842-3.

PUBLIC Schools, the instruction of children, elementary studies and discipline, do not, at first view, seem to be very brilliant topics of speculation. They are certainly hackneyed ones. A thousand theories have been broached upon education, and perhaps a thousand more may be. Parents, who are naturally anxious to train up their children in the way they should go, may be interested in such matters, but literary men, it is said, have far more serious and weighty considerations to occupy their attention. Besides, it may be asked, what new opinions can be advanced on the subject of education, of the least value? What remains, in our day, to be discussed and settled respecting schools or scholars? Reading, writing, arithmetic, and English grammar,—every one knows are as necessary to a man as air and bread and

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meat, and the mystery of them-how they are to be acquired, and to what purposes applied, is about as well understood as eating and drinking and the process of digestion. Whether a child should be sent to school at four years of age, or at seven or eight, is a matter about which Miss Edgeworth and Miss Martineau may differ, but no one supposes, that the business of learning the common and necessary branches should be postponed till twenty-one, when young ladies get married, and minors become citizens and exercise the great American privilege of voting at the polls. In a free country, people may speculate as they choose. Some parents prefer to erect school-rooms near the family mansion, and employ judicious and competent private tutors. Children thus receive more attention than they can do in a crowd, and they see nothing and hear nothing that they ought not to see and hear,-but the plan is expensive. Some prefer to send to the common schools, because they are more congenial with the spirit of our free institutions, and human nature may be found there in every variety, just as the man finds it in after life, and because one man, in the sight of God and the view of the government, is pretty nearly or quite as good as another. Others decide in favor of a select school, for although "all men are created equal," and all power rests with the people, and one citizen is as much a sovereign as another, yet public opinion and universal practice, even in a land of liberty and equality, sanction the existence of ranks and distinctions in society, placing some classes above others, the wealthy above the poor, the powerful and influential above the unknown and humble; and an honorable member of Congress, or an honorable member of the bar, or a pious Doctor of Divinity, whatever his regard for the beautiful theory of equality, or his fervent love of souls, is sometimes indisposed to send his promising son to a seminary where the children of Tom, Dick and Harry are brought together in vulgar and suspicious communion, and where it is impossible to say whom his uncontaminated and rightly-thinking offspring may meet, or what will happen to him. It is diffi cult, and if it were not so, it would seem to be wrong, in a land of liberty and equal rights, to compel such parents to pursue a particular line of conduct. The particular line,the method of teaching, the private tutor, the common school, the select school,-is to be determined by each citizen for himself. There is no room for dictation in such case. And

so with the important subject of government and discipline. Some parents still advocate corporeal punishment, and maintain, with Dr. Johnson, that no severity is too great which obstinacy renders necessary,—a rule which they are willing should be universal, except when it is brought to bear upon their own children; while others insist, that children are fashioned in the divine image, and that a blow given to a child is contrary to religion,-an impious flying in the face of the Creator. These are differences of opinion, to be sure, but they cannot be rectified, it would seem, as long as people think for themselves. Should rewards be offered to stimulate the mind, or the mere love of learning be implanted Should girls be taught Latin and logic and navigation and politics, and boys, who are intended for merchants or mechanics, be sent to college to obtain their degrees? Do languages or the mathematics afford the most eligible discipline for the mind, between the years of nine and sixteen, and are the dead or living languages to be preferred for the purpose? Are gymnastics and manual labor schools for boys to be encouraged by government, and should physical education, for both sexes, move pari passu with moral and intellectual? Should children be taught the catechism and creed of their parents at school, or elsewhere? Should vocal and instrumental music be taught, as an elementary branch of education? What are the particular advantages appertaining to the mutual or monitorial system of instruction, in which children are the tutors and teachers of children? And of the Normal school, in which teachers are taught how to teach? Should parents be compelled by law, as in Prussia, to educate their children in the public schools, or be punished by the courts for neglecting to do so? In a free country, should every individual, who claims the elective franchise, be required by law to exhibit a certificate that he knows how to read and write, and is acquainted with the constitution of the State in which he lives, and the constitution of the United States?

These are grave questions. In some portions of the civilized world, as in Scotland, in the German States, in the New-England States, and in some of the Middle States,where much attention has been paid to education, both by governments and the people, they are most of them no longer open ones. The experience of a quarter of a century, in which theories have been reduced to practice, has shed light

on the duties of statesmen and teachers in this respect. But in most of the Southern States, where the subject has awakened less interest, and where money has often been lavish ly, injudiciously or uselessly expended, without corresponding benefits resulting from the expenditure, the whole subject of popular education requires, at the present time, a thorough revision.

In the United States, generally, Common or Public schools, in which the children of all classes of citizens receive the benefits of a plain, substantial education, have been regarded with peculiar favor. Such institutions are economical, and are admirably suited to the genius of a people who are fond of liberty, power and equal rights. Nothing tends so much at once to equalize and ennoble the human race, as education; and although Nature may have distributed her intellectual endowments more liberally to some than to others, yet all men enjoy certain common rights and have certain common duties to perform, and it is the high prerogative of government, as it is also of Christianity, to bring men as nearly as possible together on common ground, and to cement their union by common bonds of expectation and interest, recognizing no distinctions except such as result from superior personal merit. The establishment of COMMON SCHOOLS ought, therefore, to form a fundamental feature in the policy of all republican governments. They serve to develope in a favorable light the principles on which such governments are founded. The art of self-government, whether it have respect to men as such, or to citizens merely, depends mainly on moral and intellectual culture. A man must learn to think right, before he can act right. Power and liberty are synonimous terms, but what is power without knowledge? How long will a government be likely to subsist, where those who direct its affairs are illy instructed in their duties? The durability of any government, especially a free one, in which the popular voice is heard, depends on the amount of intelligence of the people. Educate the masses-make men understand their rights-and you preserve their freedom, and make it worth preserving. An ignorant people are never a free people, because they do not know how to regulate their conduct from a knowledge of what is expected from them as citizens, but are, in all their actions, even in those where they consider themselves most. free, under the direction and control of those who are more