Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 326, 18 July 1879, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD

E have had occasion recently to deplore the utter extinction of the memory of the far-famed and truth to tell, somewhat thread-bare Jenny Geddes amongst our friends in Scotland, and we have been puzzled to account for it ; but enlightenment on the subject has reached us by means of the London Times, from whose Scotch correspondent we learn that it is no

wonder the good dame in question has faded out from the grateful recollection of posterity since her friend and champion the "deil" is found to be in a sickly condition, aad the beginning of the end has approached for him in the Land o' Cakes. He no longer reigns with undisputed sway, or maintains his kingdom unquestioned, as in those days of which Mr. Lecky informs us, when the Presbyterian ministers ruled despotically in his name. ' I bey maintained their ascendency over the popular mind by a system of religious terrorism, which we can now barely conceive Ibe i xmsery of man, the anger of the Almighty, the fearful power and continual presence of Satan, the agonies of hell, were the constant subjects of their preaching. All the most ghastly forms of human suffering were accumulated as faint images of the eternal doom of the immense majority of mankind. Countless miracles were represented as taking place within the land, but they were almost all ot them miracles of terror, disease, storm, famine, every calamity that fell upon mankind, or blasted the produce of the soil, was attributed to the direct intervention of spirits; and Satan himself was represented as constantly appearing in a visible form upon the earth." (nationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 127.) These days, however, are gone by, the ministers indeed, still adhere to the doctrine in a modified form, and it behoves them to do so, for says the correspondent of the Twits : " There is some reason to fear that if " hell-fire " is thus summarily extinguished, the occupation of the clergy will be in great measure gone. If they cannot make a legitimate use of the terrors of brimstone, how are the people to be driven into their fold and kept there?" But although this is true, and the doctrine of the larger Catechism speaks of " most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire for ever ;" a vast change has taken place, and a material hell seems no longer to occupy a fixed place in Scottish theology. The cat came out of the bag at the trial for heresy brought by order of the United Presbyterian Synod against the Eev. David Macrae, a minister who had declared his disbelief in the eternity of hell, and who, in consequence was condemned by a committee appointed to consider the case as deserving of being suspended from the ministry, a sentence that it appears, would have been carried out had it not been found that the private judgment of the minister in question was supported by that of a large body of the laity, so as to make it unsafe to proceed to extreme measures. The case, however, gave rise to an expression of opimon by various learned theologians and divines, according to which we learn that the future punishment of the wicked consists in spiritual pain of divers kinds only, and that the kirk of the past m holding a belief in « most grievous torments in soul and body without intermission, in hell-fire for ever," held a myth now finally dispelled by the light of the Nineteenth Century The ' deil ' is, then, evidently on his last legs in the land of Jenny Geddes and we need no longer marvel that prelacy may stand up there and speak in comically reproachful language. Scotch piety, now, onh utters it* time-honoured invocation in order to drive the timorous to sit under the kirk-pulpit, and for this no doubt maintains its belief in spmtual pains. Verily we by no means marvel at the necessity thus placed upon it for it is only as the lesser of two great evils that any one in his senses could consent to endure the dreary and oppressive worship of the sect in question

The Otago hunt besides providing a healthy method of exercise and amusement for numbers of people, has ftu advantage that per-

haps might not have been generally expected to originate with th ordinary hunting-field. It turns out to be most productive of poetry. Not even the contemplation of a green-grocer's establishment itself, which we were lately given to understand by a learned Professor must tend to teach the young idea how to shoot poetically, could possibly have a greater effect upon the imagination than that effected by the gallant company that follow the drag over the paddocks of our province. The columns of our morning contemporaries actually teem with the most delicious versification on the subject. Descriptive prose is mingled with verse in a manner that refreshes the intellect, and occasionally it would seem poetic terms are imbedded in the prose in a most cheering fashion. For example, in the middle of a list of riders and their horses, we find one gentleman spoken of as mounted on a " fleet-footed animal, which he rode with great pluck." Is " fleetfooted animal" a romantic way of saying 'horse,' or has there been discovered something else in the zoological line evolved into a peculiar fitness for carrying a man across country 1 We confess that when we find our reporters cantering about after the aniseed in this way on Pegasus, we are prepared for anything. What, then, is the nature of this "fleet-footed animal,"' and above all is it related to the " dear gazelle ?"

A.s a further recommendation of our friends the Chinese, we find those interesting settlers amongst us doing their best to spread the most pernicious, it may be, of all tkeir practices thro»gh the white population of the colony. It has been discovered that they are in the habit of selling cigarettes composed, amongst other things, of opium, and that these mischievous compounds have been considerably run upon by children, at least in Dunedin. When the seductive nature of the drug is c&nsidered, its use once adopted being rarely left off, the seriousness of the offence will be perceived, and people will see that they cannot take too many precautions in insuring their families against the introduction into them of the nefarious articles in question. But, perhaps, it may be urged that the Chinese have a right to dispense their drug amongst us : we must recollect that it ii England that has forced it upon them, and the claims of reciprocity must not be forgotten. It is, however, unfortunate that the settler* in these colonies are to bear the penalties of the method in which the Imperial Government has dealt with China. It is for us a heavy illustration of the visitation upon the children of the sins of tha fathers ?

Now-a-days, when it is fashionable to consider that religion is a bugbear, and that without its inconvenient presence, it would be much more easy for folk to live in the enjoyment of every pleasure, with all morality, prosperity, and sobriety, it is especially useful for us to keep before us the state of things in those countries where religion is under a ban, and where in consequence, were the philosophy of the day just, we might expect to find a much improved state of affairs. Let us then first take the condition of things in what used to be the kingdom of Naples, but is now part of that enlightened, prosperous, and happy realm the kingdom of united Italy—enlightened because atheism is rampant there ; prosperous because free, and rejoicing with an empty stomach and moneyless purse to warship a liberty like what a great writer calls the liberty ot water that cannot flow to the sea ; and happy because life is not worth an hour's purchase, ■uch property as is still left to the people is every minute in jeopardy, and a lot of unprincipled, conscienceless, adventurers hold the fate of the nation in their hands, and threaten continually totally to ruin them. In the kingdom of Naples, then, as it exists in its present illuminated condition, and set free from the " trammels of Popery." We find the London Times describe the state of society as particularly delightful. Says the Times correspondant— " I have too often been compelled to report the want of public security in thfc city, and yet I have been only acting on the statements and repeating the complaints of almost every journal in Naples. In fact, such is the absence of public security here that, unless things are greatly changed, intending visitors will do well to hesitate before they extend their visit so far south." Again, in enlightened Prussia, a model of progress and advanced ideas, we find that drunkenness is largely contributing to fill the lunatic asylums, and that the insaa* amount to one in every 450, facts, both of them, that do not point out any special blessedness as the accompaaiaeat of iiwligw*, *

say the least of it. Apropos of this insanity in Prussia,' we may Remark that its cause amongst educated people is often found to originate in forcing on the education of children. Nature has not intended their brains to be overworked, and insanity frequently results. This is particularly worthy of notice here, where we find so much nonsense occasionally talked— mischievous nonsense, were it put into practice— with regard to what children should be made learn.

, The Dunedin election has come and gone, and the result is that Mr. W. D. Stewart is our new representative. We manage these things remarkably in these antipodes of ours, and the upg and downs of life amongst us are more striking than elsewhtre. A w«ek or two ago, we think we may safely say, there were a great many of those who now find themselves the constituents of Mr. W. D. Stewart who did not know that there was such a person in existence, and now he is their M.H.R. Let us hope that in his new capacity he may develope some talent or another that has hitherto remained latent ; although of what that talent may be we have not the least idea. A lawyer, in fact, who has long resided amongst a community, and managed to remain in obscurity enough to be unknown to very many of them, is not likely to have any talent to develope. Gentlemen of his cloth generally come to the front in some way pretty soon, if there be any stamina in them, and when we find them hanging in the rear after a fair period of years, we are justified in coming to the conclusion that however respectable they may be as members of society, their abilities are, to say the least of it, not of the most brilliant nature. We are, in rfiort, accustomed to think the privates of the " Devil's Brigade" a very humdrum set of individuals indeed. —We respect the prejudices of Miss Lucretia Tox. We hava all heard the old quotation vox etproeterea nihil, but such a gentleman we should say would be hardly entitled to be described by it ; he would be simply nihil But Mr. W. D. Stewart has one qualification it seems, we can hardly call it a talent, it exists in such extremely empty people and forms their only fulness. He is pious, a pious attorney ! There shall never be written over his tomb the famous epitaph to the effect that he had followed the Jaw, but that, presumably in consequence, on his demise had been addressed with a most undesirable familiarity by an unpleasant personage :— " Jack, give us your paw." If he can do nothing else, he can at least vote for such an alteration to the present educational laws as would enable committees to provide for Bible reading in schools, and as our Biblical member he goes to the Assembly at Wellington. It is most fortunate for him that his tastes lie in the peculiar line alluded to, for they have gained him distinction to which he could not otherwise have attained. He maybe looked upon as the Presbyterian member par excellence and as nothing else, and we find it a little suggestive that in the original Presbyterian settlement of New Zealand so moderate a genius and little prominent a personage could only be obtained to be sent up as representative of Presbyterianism to the Legislative Assembly. We know that in Scotland, as the advance of culture goes on, the upper strata of society are forsaking the kirk and seeking " fresh woods and pastures new," as more suitable to their increased refinement; but herein Otago, where the rough if honest sons of labour are but beginning to ascend from life below stairs, we should have expected to find that their very pick and choice would still be offered to the manes of John Knox. Is our Presbyterianism then running down before the advance of refinement has time to begin amongst us ? It would seem so ; at least Dunediu, its chief stronghold in this hemisphere, can do no more for it than send a Mr. W. D. Stewart to Parliament. Meantime we all may rejoice that we have as our representatives two gentlemen remarkable for nothing on earth.

'_' None butthe^brave deserve the fair." This is a very fine idea, but like a good many other fine poetical ideas of the kind we doubt if it has any firm foundation in truth. It is true that there have been men in whose companionship " the fair" have had a prosperous time of it ; indeed, we have heard of cases in which under certain circumstances " the fair " had it all their own way, and led " the brave " the life of a dog. For instance, we have been told of a certain military man who had distinguished himself in the Peninsular war ; he was described to us as a fine strapping fellow, six feet in his socks aad stalwart in proportion. Yet " the fair " who had matrimonially obtained a right over him used to thrash him mercilessly and he never said a word, but " giinned and bore it." We may add that on his death the lady in question manied a man who had not distinguished himself in any war ; he was a little bit of a clerk in somo public office— but when she tried the thrashing process with him, he turned round and gave her such a drubbing that she never after dared to lift her finger at him, or what is still more marvellous so much as to wag her tongue. But what kind of a life would •' the fair " have, or how would it serve her to be deserved by a man who was only " the brave," but could not be described as the honourable ; we fear she would come off very badly, and therefore we doubt the complete justice of the line we have quoted. For it cannot be denied that bravery is not always accompanied by the other traits that make the perfect man ;^wc^ are admonished of this by having seen in m

northern contemporary a paragraph relating a series of dishonest actions, performed by a man whose name we forbear from mentioning, but whom we recognise by the description given as having been in the memorable days of the Crimean war a gallant young officer, who reaped abundant laurels on that bloody scene of battle. It is one of the gloomy moments of life when you come across a paragraph which justly says of such an one that he has become a " habitual swindler. Fortunately, however, this is the exception and not the rule. We hope after all that "the brave," although we deny their right of monopoly, are generally deserving of " the fair."

A would-bk liberal parson has been chatting agreeably at the reunion on the 12th of Orangemen at Ohristchurch. .He is called the Rev. C. Fraser. There was too one Rev. Mr. Watson there, who seemed desirous to make the company, if they had not already done so, cast in their lot with himself and " certain lewd fallows of th« baser sort," and to him we recommend as a most congenial study the lectures delivered in abuse of Rome by the filthy criminal, Widdows, so finely exposed by a canny Scotch editor in Dundee lately. This reverend person's bigotry made no attempt at disguise— it was blatant, repulsive, and idiotic, according to its kind. The Rev. Mr. Fraser it was who distinguished himself by an attempt at liberality. And by the way, shall we ever be allowed to rest from our wonder at the rubbish that people will listen to if only it be spoken by a man who styles himself " Reverend ; " it is to us one of the strangest phenomena of human nature that it will delight people to sit still and listen endlessly to such silly jargon. This minister then informed his hearers that the battle of the Boyne made Catholic emancipation possible; he did not inform them that the guillotining of Louis XVI. led to the restoration of the Bourbons, but this was probably a fault of memory — he evidently meant to say it, and a good deal more to the same effect. Poor man, he is short in his recollection, or somethiDg else of a useful nature, but he is more to be pitied than blamed. He said—" He would refer to the complaints made here, that it was not sufficient for men to be allowed to teach their children in their own faith, yet, not long ago, the Pope bad complained of the existence of schools near his own, where different doctrines were taught. The very freedom which was complained of as too f great in Rome was here complained of as too little. No it is not, that is not it at all, thia worthy memory is again defective. He does not remember that what the Pope complains of in Rome is precisely what Catholics complain of here. Neither the Pope nor New Zealand Catholics complain that Protestant children are being educated in a Protestant way but both complain that impudent or tyrannous attempts are being made to educate Catholic children as Protestants and atheists. Our rev. gentleman is out in his reckoning here too. It seems, however, that he has made a discovery that actually has a good deal of truth in it. Listen to this : he may recover after all—" He dwelt upon the need of properly instructing the young in the principles of their own religion and of other religions, and deprecated mis-statements being made as to the tenets taught by the Church of Rome. Many of the conversions to that Church had been caused by people finding that she did not teach what they had supposed that she did." There is not the least doubt of this ; many conversions have taken place in this very way, and we doubt not many more with the blessing of God will so take place, for if all the parsons in the world were of the same opinion as this one t the Father of Lies would not allow them to tell the truth about the Church. Here is proof positive of it ; this rev. gentleman with the very words of his warning hardly passed over the " fence of his teeth," began a course of whoppers himself :—": — " Children," said he " should be told that she (the Church) introducd a fourth person, so to speak, into the Trinity, and of her errors in the points of baptism and purgatory." Children should be told a parcel of stuff, then, and filled with falsehoods from their infancy, in spite of the danger of their finding out a trace of the truth and following it up. Our worthy has absurdly contradicted himself. He then alluded to thft good done by the Rev. Father Hennebery in the cause of temperan^fli and with a sensible word for once on his lips we take our leave ox him.

That gentleman in Dunedin who sends news by telegraph to the New Zealander in Wellington is not particularly chary of hia character for veracity. For instance, we find him telegraph from Dunedin on the 9th inst., as follows : — " Some Tery intemperate language was used at the Catholic meeting last night." This ia a distinct and deliberate falsehood, as may be seen from the very full reports of the meeting in question, which appeared in our columns, and those of our daily contemporaries in Dunedin. If, however, our contemporary the New Zealander prefers to be misinformed it is a matter of taste, we have no desire to interfere in it.

Wk find a paragraph inserted by a contemporary, and which seems to us to have been originally written as a sneer at Irishmen. It runs as follows : The chief of the Chinese Legation in the United States was asked, it is stated, what would become of those of hi 8

countrymen who wished to live and work away from China in case of the United States deciding not to receive them. ' They will go to Ireland ' is the reply he is said to have given ; • that is the only country that the Irish do not rule." Whatever may have been the intention of whosoever it was that invented this, for we do not suppose the chitf of the Chinese Legation said a word of the kind, it certainly contains a great deal of troth, and what is more we are jtaable to accredit the journalist whose smartness is accountable for £.j paragraph with any remarkable originality, for like words have again and again been uttered. It is manifest, and has frequently acknowledged, that Irishmen in every part of the world have displayed singular abilities for carrying out the great work of government, and have conferred lasting benefits upon innumerable states, while at home they bave been declared by the selfish, tyrannical, and blind, policy of England incapable of managing their own affairs. The gentleman then who invented a witty saying for this Chinaman, did but compose from materials ready to his hand, and, whatever may have been his intention, he only repeated once more a truth that has frequently been told.

A little time ago we had occasion to allude to the good certain to result from some admirable Catholic works which now have for some time claimed the attention of the public, as well as from the study of men and things belonging to the middle ages which seems to be growing frequent. We now find two remarkable proofs of the justice of our opinions on this matter, which we hasten to lay before our readers. Mr. Harrison, then, writing the other day in one of the London magazines on the books it is desirable that people should devote their time to, spoke of the age of Dante, in the very thick of the mediaval " darkness," as the time when Christianity was purest. We by no means agree with the famous leader of modern thought as to the relative purity of Christianity, which we hold to be as pure, though not so widely and heartily practised, now as then, but so much we learn that a man of ability, unfettered by Protestant prejudices, when he examines into the condition of the Christian Church in a time that for more than three centuries it has been the habit to calumniate, finds there a state of things that evokes his admiration, and which he considers it would be profitable to the present age to study deeply. Again, a lady, Mrs. M. C. Bishop, who has written a paper in the Nineteenth Century for May, on " Mrs. Craven and her Work," and who is evidently a non-Catholic, has been won by the study of the writing of the admirable Catholic authoress in question into bearing very noble testimony to the influence of the Church. We take the following extract^ from this article to which we allude. Our first extract speaks of the beauty the Church bestows on human life :—": — " Most persons of advanced thought will allow that as guardian of conduct, as mistress and guide of the emotions towards nobler life, the great Christian Church could be ill spared from the world, if it is to remain a civilised world if beauty have its use — and what biologist would deny it ? Nor could we spare the goodly blossoms borne by the Roman stem 1 A chief element in beauty is its expression of pure passion, and when has passion found fuller expression than in the work most saturated with Catholic spirit? Thousands within the Ohurch have made and make of their lives a perfumed altar flame fed by love : and if it seem long since the authors of the Vita Nuova and the Imitation vindicated the Church's claim to be the mother of intensely passionate poetry , the exigencies of her defensive attitude must be considered. The revolutionary outbreak of the last ninety years set hearts beating, and if the nether fires of hate and lust broke forth, there was within the Catholic Church a revival of noble emotion, while, true to her tradition, its purest examples are found where the deluge swept by most fiercely. • . . And in Mrs. Craven's vrork there is a revelation of beauty not less than of truth." Again, we find testimony borne to the vitality of the Catholic religion, and the sanctification by it of daily life. " She ministers to the wide-felt yearning for news of the 4 kir-dom of God.' That it can exist within men and women of the 1« i s proved by her as by no other writer of the century. Til^Loly Grail is still carried to and fro in the world, and Sir Galahad, Sir Perceval, and Sir Bors, still are fed of it with great refreshment to their strength. The intense humanity Mrs. Craven does not fear to reveal reconciles us to the supernatural light in which the actors in h»r drama of life move, and indeed makes it seem more natural than any other. There is no divorce between matter and s^mt in her work of reconciliation. The passionate ardours of human loTS> f ,he tenderness of family ties, the very amusements and trifles of daily life become sacramental." The nature of a true vocation is then given. " Even in her last book, the life of a sister of charity who in youth had belonged to the De la i erronays' group of friends, Mrs. Crayon so sete forth the ardent affection, the sweet and faithful devotion of the nun to her friends and relations, rich and poor, that her readers muat needs perceive that a true • vocation. ' is a deepening and enlarging of all charities, and net a renunciation, of any one rcerthy affection.' 1 The superiority of Catholicism to the Greek Church and to Protestantism is next pointed out. . . •• Fresh from Russian influences it was easier for Alexandrine to appreciate the balancing force of Catholic Christianity, which securei progrea by the anta-

gonism of evolution and conservation. The continual fountain of revelation which vivifies the elder form of Christian law and faith is wanting in Russia, where, probably as a consequence, the old world of respectable custom is perpetually mined by extreme revolutionary doctrines. And even Alexandria's sentimental Protestantism could not prevent her perceiving that the negations of the sixteenth century would no longer content the reformers of the nineteenth. She was so placed that she could appreciate the vitality under crushing attacks of Western Christianity." The surprise of the non-Catholic at witnessing how the true Catholic bear* and sanctifies his grief is shown in the following passage — " From the letters and memoranda of the family during this their first bereavment there rises a perfume of the higher virtues. Hope, faith and charity not in these Christians mere words, but actions of cultured will abound in every page. A constant worship of sacrifice is the salient characteristic of the group. A pure oblation is perpetual for them, for they have in singular perfection the noblest instinct of redeemed humanity, the instinct which unites us to the victim of Calvary. Nothing is stranger to a reader outside the Temple than the obvious increase of happiness when such oblations of self are accepted. Each of these great hearts of Le Ricit became strong to face and conquer the coming shadow, and.even to see that it was cast by the greater light beyond the grave." The life of this family strikes the writer as a proof of their creed's truth, and of the blessings to b 3 derived from it. " The existence of Alexandrine and her companions goes far to prove in the report of it the reasonableness of their faith. The sweet uses of their life commend themselves to all who really desire the best progress of humanity, while at the same time on these people there falls so obviously supernatural a light that we must needs ask seriously from whence it comes, and what is the vision of which the reflection is so bright. When Death is the minister of reward rather than of punishment, all the aspects of life are transfigured, and if Death be greeted as a familiar friend the discords between fact and desire are all but healed. These bereaved Christians could be 'so in love with him' as to gain from him serene and even gay contentment. They drank from his cup, though it was in form a skull, and found in it the waters of the river of life. There is no need to remind our readers of how death is present in all the nobler literature of the world, the Recit puts our hand within the shadow hand, and teaches the uses of this reconciliation ; for in these memoirs is shown, perhaps more than in any other since St. AugnBtine's autobiography, how human energy is developed, and human progress is secured by a true perception of the place that death holds in the «rder;of our life. Those>ho stood round Albert's deathbed, each in his or her several way illustrated the tonic value of the doctrine of immortality. His widow grew to be a type of that broad charity to rich and poor which is so sorely needed in our overindividualised world. Eugenic, who seems to have felt a special attraction towards her ' high-born kinsman,' and who was early taken away by him, was a tender wife and devoted mother to sons who are now 'gospellers' among the working men of France, as their mother would have loved (and as we have never doubted her prayers in heaven, have largely helped to make them). Count Albert de Mun's name becoming known even to English newspaper readers as the young officer who had done so much good work among the blouses. Of Pauline (Mrs. Craven), the time is not come to speak, but of those she reveals to us it were hard to say whether Alexandrine or Eugenic, best illustates the beauty of holiness and that religion, which is the open blossom of universal law, and the effect of which, as was nobly said in a former number of this Review, is ' to suffuse with a divine light relations and duties which before were simply personal and social.' The writer most fully confirms our belief that this exquisite story of Catholic lives was destined to do endless good. ..." These records of religious life and its relations to morality are welcomed by a larger number of readers in all classes and of all shades of belief than would be readily believed by those who incline to think religious differences well nigh exhausted. These memoirs of a family essentially of the actual world are a revelation of Him who is to many the unknown, yet the desired God. That the De la Ferronay's family took high place in European society is almost a warrant that no fanaticism marred the aspirations of these elect ladies and finished gentlemen. Religion was for them an entirely healthy outlet for the nobler emotions, and from their reliquea we may see that as their piety grew so their sympathies were enlarged, while their widening culture strengthened and concentrated their aims." The writer then goes on to speak of the " failure of some among the best painters of manners to draw that special product of Christian civilisation, a gentleman," and thus testifies to the influence under which Mrs. Craven has written. " Mra Craven has in this, as in other respects, justified the claim of the Church to be the mother of universal and noble art." Of this work thus criticised, Le Ricit (Tune teeur, we may add that although it makes known to us the loveliness of lives gifted with genius, cultured, refined, and beautiful in an intense degree, it shows us their chief beauty and most noble light to have been the sanctity conferred upon them by the Catholic

faith, which they obediently and closely followed. There are few who can hope to attain to their standard it is true, because nature made them of higher mould than most people can boast of being. They were the fit companion of Montalembert Lacordaire, and other men of great renown, but that which gave the most precious tone to their talents, and enabled them to bear with joy the severe affliction ardent Lr°V " ""^ "* reach ° f US a11 > it was their ardent faith. We are not "without the Temple," and recognise as nothing strange to us the source of their strength. Rf f°? J? ntem P Pony.u y. tfl e Lyttelton Times, does not think the State should attempt to « educate " ; it should only attempt to teach. >We have neither the time nor the inclination to enter deeply into the question mooted by our contemporary ; but so much we may say that a master who should attempt to teach without, at the same time endeavouring to educate, must be a very poor sort of a pedagogue indeed. Of what those capable of judging think of such an individual persons interested may learn by consulting the philosopher of Sartor Resartus." The education of the world, indeed, is in a very ,hn/ ay uwJ" PlaCCd ta the hands o£ men satißfied to furnish children with the means of educating themselves by-and-bye, when the humour takes them, and without any thought of influencing them to desire education properly so-called. Canterbury, we know of old, is the centre of the arigtocratic notions and pretentious of these colonies ; it has always afforded a most congenial atmosphere to the killing genteel, and therefore it was without peculiar emotions of any kind that we found m the columns of one of its leading journals the following words:-" That children of the lower class may be taught to speak like educated people, we have proofs of, both in this colony and at home. There are a few public schools in which the masters Si? T\ 7 blltb aDd educatio °> and the children in these ™SS 7°^ have .P assed throu e b schools form a remarkable contrast to the majority." We want to know what are the « lower ™T\ ne f .80. 80 - called > k these colonies. Does our contemporary mean the working people who have furnished, and who, no doubt, will continue to furnish, so large a contingent to the wealthy classes -we say nothing of the would-be shoddy aristocracy. Let our Education Boards, then, advertise for "gentlemen by birth" to and^L 'T* ° Ur J° Ung Choppers how to aspirate correctly, and perhaps a few "Mrs. Generals" could be obtained to impreS upon our growing damsels the necessity of repeating " Papa potatoes prunes, and prism." It would be very nice ? Mefntimt we should dirtf ff? de . 8C fftf tt ' wboshou3d capable of inclining in a right Sdtt T l° { theiF PUpilS ; e ™*Wh, inelegantcreatuL, to diction B hould not be faultless ; and rely upon it that, on this t^XXESE? of correct ~ depe ° ds