These views are strikingly borne out and illustrated by the small work before us, which, though professedly treating on the subject of education alone, furnishes more information on the actual state of things in France than many ponderous volumes of statistics, certainly than the volumes of many laborious travellers. The author is M. Emile Girardin, of whom we made mention in a former article. M. Girardin was formerly a deputy; but the unfortunate issue of his duel with the celebrated Armand Carrel brought upon him such a storm of unpopularity that he has returned, we believe, to his original occupation of journalist. There is nothing, however, in this unhappy event, which seems to have darkened the prospects of the ex-deputy, to make us mistrust his statements, or decline his apparently sound and patriotic advice on his present subject. With the state of one leading portion of la jeune France, with the host of adventurers which crowd from all quarters to the metropolis, and by their bold activity and vehemence represent themselves as the organs, the voices of public opinion and sentiment, he must have, unless we are mistaken, great practical acquaintance-quorum pars ipse fuit. On the miseries thus self-inflicted by individuals on themselves, on the political and social dangers inseparable from the existing order of things, he may be, as far as we can judge, an honest and unimpeachable witness; and we shall assume his general veracity on the facts which he produces as of general notoriety, in a work which, by aiming at general diffusion, invites and defies contradiction. The book, we may add, is in many respects extremely well written, always lively, occasionally eloquent. This may be but the practised pen of the journalist; but we are inclined-we trust not through too much charity or simplicity-to attribute much of its merit as a work to the sincere and earnest convictions of the writer. At all events, it is a man of a certain station and position in the world, demanding to be heard in a statement, certainly not flattering or inspiriting, as to the existing condition of a most important political problem. We might have accumulated a mass of other works on the subject, reports of the successive Ministers of Public Instruction, and publications on education, almost as numerous, though less contentious and controversial than with ourselves; we have preferred, however, the simple promulgation of M. Girardin's views and opinions.

M. Girardin considers the present state of education in France as in an unsatisfactory and dangerous state, partly from its insufficiency, partly from the erroneous system upon which it is conducted. His work, it must be clearly understood, by no means confines itself to what is called popular education-to the instruction of the lower orders: the larger part of the volume

relates

relates to the schools, academies, and colleges of the higher classes. He commences with the following principles :

"The best institutions, where the education of the people is not sufficiently profound and general to develop their principles, are only elements of disturbance cast into the bosom of society: for they create wants which they cannot satisfy; they are lavish of rights and duties; they weaken governments, which, by the multiplication of laws, render their execution impossible; they concentre to excess in a few ardent minds those ideas which ought to be imperceptibly absorbed by the whole population. These ideas ferment and explode for want of vent. It is thus that institutions which produce more power than they can usefully employ, perish by the excess of that which it becomes necessary to compress. The instruction of the people endangers absolute goveruments; their ignorance, on the contrary, imperils representative governments for the parliamentary debates, while they reveal to the masses the extent of their rights, do not wait till they can exercise these with discernment; and when a people knows its rights, there is but one way to govern, to educate them... . The evil of our present times is this: the general ignorance perpetuates and renders necessary the centralisation of the executive power-the extent of one constitutes the force of the other. Every premature attack on this centralisation will be vain or dangerous. Though the tradition of monopoly may be destroyed, the ignorance of the great majority of the voters (contribuables) is so great that it would be impossible to substitute municipal (local) government. . . . By the public education I mean the primary education adequately endowed-the university education judiciously completed.'-p. 15.

M. Girardin proceeds, in a few pregnant paragraphs, to show the natural workings of the present system :

'What is the result of the primary education with an insufficient annual endowment?-The disorganisation (déclassement) of the population, the impoverishment of agriculture, the encumbering of manufacturing industry, -the agglomeration of a floating mass of turbulent men, who besiege the avenues of power, destroy all respect for the government which uses them, and rise in insurrection against that which repels them.' (p. 16.)

A man who can read and write a little is still, in the country, a privileged being, who, in fact, possesses an incontestable superiority. It is rare that he does not abuse the elementary knowledge which he really possesses, by making it pass for that much larger share of knowledge which he still wants. Hence, he in general exercises and accumulates upon himself the functions of family secretary and counsellor, of advocate and notary of the village, which tends not a little to increase the number of law-suits.

If one child in a family has learned to read and write, from the time that he possesses that advantage over his father, he concludes that the occupation of the parent is incompatible with his knowledge: vanity misleads him as to his vocation, and makes him abandon the village for the

town. In place of a good husbandman, which he might have been, in a condition to substitute with judgment more perfect modes of cultivation for the erroneous processes which prevail, he goes-according as his parents can make greater or less sacrifices for his future prospects— to increase the number of artisans without work-or to swell the multitude who, little considering whether the industrial or liberal professions are overcrowded, while the land wants men of intelligence and vigour, await the destiny to which they aspire from a social revolution.'

M. Girardin asserts that this, without exaggeration, is the consequence of the present imperfect system of education; but, if this be the case, either reading and writing must be a more rare accomplishment in the French communes than in our country villages, or the education, whatever it be, which is bestowed on our peasantry, must be of a sounder character. Our small farmers may aspire to apprentice one of their sons to the village attorney, and so hope to make reprisals on society for their losses in law; but we have never heard that this elementary instruction has been productive, to any extent, of this small restless ambition, or this discontent with their condition as labourers in husbandry.

There is, and always must be, a tendency in the country population to drain off to the towns, more especially towards the metropolis. At one time this was proceeding in England by a diseased and irregular process. Before the establishment of the new Poor Law, and the consolidation of the smaller parishes into unions, it was not uncommon for these small country parishes, when in the hands of one or a few proprietors, to pull down their cottages, and so force not merely their pauper and burdensome inhabitants, but, where the town was at no great distance, their own labouring poor, who might become burdensome, into the neighbouring town, where there were always speculating builders ready to run up rows of smart-looking, but wretched, ill-drained, and ill-ventilated hovels. Our manufacturing towns, which formerly drew off such large swarms from our own agricultural districts, have probably ceased to do this to any great extent, the void in the north of England and Scotland being filled up by the constant immigration of cheaper Irish labourers; but in all the more flourishing and increasing towns there is a constant demand for domestic servants, and the lower classes of artisans, which are no doubt supplied from the rural districts. How much is yearly swallowed up in the great and expanding gulf of London! But whether the supply exceeds the demand, to any great extent, is a difficult question. Every avenue to fortune, every opening to employment, is instantaneously thronged with competitors. From the highest to the lowest, from literature and the arts, the learned professions, law, medicine, and the clergy with their multiplying churches,

churches, commerce in all its branches, from the merchant princes of the City down to the small grocer and hardwareman, there is a busy vehement emulation in which many must fail, and many drag on with but a precarious livelihood. There are no doubt many noble hearts which, from misfortune or want of opportunity for distinction, are pining in secret and extreme misery; many minds of lofty genius which have never been able to force their way to notice, and are maddening with disappointment, and perhaps hostility to the existing order of things; there are a vast many more who have mistaken the flattering whispers of vanity for the conscious inspirations of genius, and whose failure, being more complete and more unexpected, is more bitter, more galling, more exasperating; and in this fermenting mass of disappointment, discontent, and despair, there must be constant danger of explosion. Among such numbers, whom their blighted hopes or actual privations make utterly reckless, there must be men prepared for any change. The world is not their friend, nor the world's law-and they are ready to seize the first opportunity of making reprisals on the world, and accommodating the law to their own advantage.

But we conceive that the tide which sets into Paris is altogether out of proportion, in depth and strength, to that which flows into any other capital of Europe. All France comes to a head in Paris. While every English county town, except perhaps Winchester and one or two others, is stretching out on every side its rows of suburban houses, or is studded about with small villas, as full of comfort as they are usually deficient in taste, in France such changes are rare and uncommon. There is no appearance of generally increased condensation of population in the provincial cities. In the north of France, except Rouen, a few towns and villages on the sea-coast which are aspiring to be wateringplaces, and some cities where English settlers have either entered into building speculations or created a demand for new houses, the provincial towns appear not to have experienced any change since the days of Louis XIV., except that melancholy change which has converted churches and conventual buildings into stables, barns, or barracks. The total want of life and movement in a French provincial town, except on market-days, is almost melancholy-the utter stagnation of business, of interest, even of curiosity. The hoof of a horse is rarely heard, except when upon the high road the crack of the postboy's whip announces the arrival of some high-trunked and imperialed English barouche. To meet a gentleman riding, a carriage taking an airing of pleasure, or anything but now and then a lazy creaking cart, is a kind of event. Excepting perhaps the

south,

south, where one or two of the cities aspire to the dignity of capitals, and some of the larger sea-ports, it might seem that the whole life of France was flowing into and beating at Paris. According to M. Girardin, almost all who are even half instructed abandon their native fields, and collect in the towns, while, from town and country, there is a still more constant and vast influx of this reckless class of adventurers of all sorts into the capital, where it is impossible that they should find regular and profitable occupation. Nor can it indeed be wondered that Paris should exercise this powerful attractive influence over the greater part of France. Where everything is open to real talent, industry, and enterprise; where there is no aristocracy, either of birth or wealth, to throng up the avenues to power, wealth, or distinction; among the greatest names in political influence, in science, in literaturenames which are familiar to and commanding throughout Europe -there are few who have not forced their way by mere dint of intellectual vigour. The ready pen of the journalist, the bold and fluent tongue of the advocate, the rich or brilliant display of knowledge shown by the professor, have been their titles and patents. As in all countries, especially in one where want of self-confidence is certainly no national failing, for one man of real genius there will be hundreds of pretenders to it; for one who has the courage and industry to work his way up through the rude conflict of rival competitors, there will be thousands who think they ought to enjoy the reward without the exertion and fatigue of the strife-it can be no matter of astonishment that there should be so many eager to make a short cut to fame and opulence; that every kind of political, religious, and literary fanaticism should obtain its votaries; that everything violent, exaggerated, extravagant, should find a ready, greedy hearing; that there should be apostles of every strange doctrine, and proselytes to every creedless creed. It is here that Saint Simonianism found its disciples, the Abbé Chatel his few hearers; that Victor Hugo, and Dumas, and Balzac, have their ardent admirers and countless imitators, their heroes and their victims; that the gaming-table finds its maddening attendants, the Morgue its victims; the Fieschis, the Alibauds, and the Darmes, are drugged with the intoxicating poison of the revolutionary part of the press, and bewildered by the fanaticism of political faction to become the Ravaillacs of a king, who, since he ascended the throne, has exhibited qualities most worthy of the station-and whose life is far more important to the peace and real greatness of France than that of any of her former sovereigns ever was or could be. Hence those Ishmaelitish tribes who have been well named Emeutiers, who dignify, in some cases, a schoolboy love of riot

and