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    Untitled Article

    comes on next session . . Hovr , is the country prepared for it ? Clearly , we have a large population , who can set a value upon law and property , but who are , still debarred from ; enacting . the first , in order to preserve the second . There are thousands who have a large stake in the country , and therefore can appreciate the blessings of good government : it is time that they should have some share in its preservation . But it is not property alone which makes men politicians .

    Property may constitute a reason for the possession of the franchise , but education only can prepare a man for its exercise . Our workmen will see to this . In former days , the other members found fault with the belly . The head will soon put in a claim for more support . So strong is the opinion of the working-classes in favour of education , that , we are convinced , a national suffrage alone is wanted to give us public education ; and the suffrage cannot long be denied to " men of substance , " such as those who now make conditions with their employers on terms of mutual courtesy .

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    COMPULSORY EDUCATION OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS . In a country where there is a national church , rivalled , but not opposed , by a voluntary system , there ought to be a vast deal of religious education ; and in England , we are informed , there is . To be sure the Reformation nobility have diverted from " pious" into secular uses much of the property that used to be called the patrimony of the poor ; but in return for it they are excessively protestant , and take very great pains to guard from Romish error the intelligent working classes whom they are incessantly striving to elevate into fitness for the suffrage in this world , and for the Communion of Saints in the next . Their spiritual lordships , also , it might be murmured , are expensive , and subtract somewhat extensively from those revenues which should go towards the amelioration of the condition of the people , and the extension of Christianity in this land ; but then their wealth symbolises the respect which the country entertains for their characters , and is spent principally—though , from the highest motives , rather privately—in the culture and development of their admiring flocks . Dissent , too , as we all know , is violently active in propagating enlightenment and—which it believes to be the natural result—its creed .

    Accordingly the State meddles not with the instruction of the poor , for whom , with Christian emulation , so many pastors are holily contending . There is no need of Government interference ; for there are no Topsys in Great Britain , where original sin has only , on showing itself in a juvenile , the short-lived satisfaction of choosing which of the competitors for its destruction shall have the pleasure of demolishing it in the very germ . This is the agreeable faith in which Parliamentary debates upon the interposition of the State in matters of education leave who did not road be

    would naturally one - yond . The establishment says that it is national , and will educate us all ; but at last comes the question , —does itP Voluntaryism repudiates support , and demands only-free action and fanplay to t » ke upon itself the duty which , certainly , at present , both combined do not discharge . For look from talk , from windy speeches about disembodied principles , to the harsh facts which stare us in the face . This week , every week for years past , there have appeared in the police reports , cases of children , vagabonds and thieves from their cradles , brought up to bo

    admonished for the ignorance in which we have left thorn , and the crimes in which—as duties and almost as virtues , they luivo been systematically roared . Little wretches , sent out in the morning by the criminal parents to whom wo entrust their education , to live through tbo day upon such gaflbage as the flogs reject , and to return at niglit , under penalties , with booty , begged

    or stolen , arc brought witli all solemnity boforo the court , and if it bo a first offence , arc there admonished , and discharged with police virtue ringing in their cars , and sickness ' and starvation bearing at their vitals . They don't at onco roform , remarkablo to Hay , and sometimes they ovon thievo again . They aro not mot ni . f 1 , o door of Bow-street by , the pariah clergyto

    man or the sleek minister of Little Bethel , Do led into , puro associations , and tempted into goodness , out of Christian lovo and charity . The national ' church knows , liko Mr . Disraeli , that

    there are " two nations" in this land , and somehow prefers attending to the upper . Voluntaryism does not , in their case , volunteer ; for voluntary is an adjective which somehow always couples itself with a substantive these juveniles cannot supply— -we mean , contributions . The court is closed , and there is nothing for it but home , sweet home , with its examples of ruffianism and debauchery , and its stern enforcement of

    vagabondage and thieving ! Could not the State do something in such cases P There is nothing to censure where there is no knowledge of good or evil , no volition as to the crime committed . The magistrate may talk for once , but the father is bullying and setting his hideous example always . Then why not throw St . Athanasius aside , if but for an experiment , and agree to try the effect of a moral culture and a useful education , at the national

    expense , on some of these unconscious little criminals , whose majority , else , will see them at the gallows ? It need not be objected that this would be a premium on parental neglect , for the magistrate might have the power , as in cases of bastardy , to order a weekly payment by the father in support of the expenses of his child , and ; in default , to commit him as . for a misdemeanour . Compulsory education , under such circumstances , would not interfere with any of the good old principles " which Hanvpden died on the field , andHussell on

    the scaffold ; " neither would it interfere with the more immediate question of the rate of pew-rents , and the perquisites of " voluntary" deacons . And we would consent , if financial difficulties were honestly avowed , to begin on the most limited scale , leaving to the judgment of the bench to select those on whom our proposition would be most likely to work beneficial results . We do not ask a boon so great as even to excuse delay ; but we do think > that in justice , in charity , and as a matter of policy , the experiment should be

    tried . The juvenile offender , we are afraid , maybe found in all classes ; the confirmed criminal , as a generalrule , butinone . Letusmake dueallowance for idiosyncrasy and race ; but do not let us forget that our common clay is plastic , and that , according to Jonathan Wild , they are the same faculties differently trained that make the prig and the prime Minister . By the way , at one time , before the Ecclesiastical Commission was required , eligible converts to Christianity were sought , not of course by bishops , among publicans and sinners

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    EXPLORATION OF AUSTRALIA . Science is under a glorious incapacity ; it cannot submit to the trading spirit without losing its head and becoming not science . By this incapacity it preserves its nobility , and with that the breadth of view that really enables it to be the universal benefactor that it is . Trade can discriminate but dully , in the prospect of the benefits which commerce ' itself can bring to mankind ; and the intellect which lends itself to trading tests would at first reject even those glorious acquisitions which Trade itself ultimately sanctions . Tho commereialist , seeing Franklin at play with his kite , would havo smiled at the profitless trifling ; but willingly accepts tho many profits conveyed by the electric telegraph . Even in our own day , Trade has ventured to question tho " utility" of oxploratory expeditions , though it was to nothing . out tho disinterested wanderings of carious Science that wo owe golden Australia . It is men like Cook and Flinders , tho devotees

    of their profession , that precede tho settlor and tho trader ; men like Vancouver , or Lewis and Clarke , that bravo tho first difficulties of the desert , ' in the hope , not of gold or profit , but of renown , and still more , of adding to tho knowledge and happiness of their race , by exploring the resources which Divine Providence has ' placed within tho roach of man . To serve under God , and not under Mammon , is tho inspiration -of the

    true natural philosopher . This remark holds good , ovon in those- soiontme enterprises ' of which tho probable returns aro most immediate . Let Trade attempt to perform tho oflico of Science for its own lucre , and in most cases wo shall find it hugging some secret , chafferiiur to sell it for a price , and thon disclosing some empiriwil " maro's nest" which it has . taken for 11 wonder . There havo been avaricious

    artists and self-seeking philosopher *>; but when a man oflcra to soil scientific truth / you may safely suspect that it ; is nothing noblorthan a patent ' medicine . ' Bonjamm Irankhn did not

    ask a patent . for the . lightning , nor John Franklin a prize for the North Pole . The old spirit animates men even through these trading times . Many great countries watch to learn the fate of Franklin with anxiety ; men are found , more than are wanted , to brave perils equal to those by which , We fear , he has perished , merely for the honour of completing nis biography with the certainty of his death So also , the fate oP Leichardfc , lost in the Australian desert , awakens a noble curiosity ; and the hope of throwing some light on his fate is one motive to the proposed expedition for pursuing the survey of that continent in its unknown parts . But the chief motive is to extend scientific knowledge .

    It is true that , in this particular instance , commercial profit must tread very closely on the heels of scientific discovery ; for in Australia events follow each other with such rapidity , that the end treads upon the heels of the beginning ; and the region to be explored is certain to partake in the value of Australia at large , its land and trade . The continent has been explored , we may say broadly , in three-fifths of its extent ; of onefifth we know the character proximately ; the other is but a matter of conjecture . Thus considered in five parts , the continent may be very

    briefly described . As you look at the map , to your right lies New South Wales , with a backbone of highlands extending towards the Gulf of Carpentaria , rich in pasture , in parts fertile , strengthened by more than one noble harbour , and promising gold-fields . To the lower corner , the south-east , is Victoria , a fertile province , with magnificent harbours , and the head quarters of the gold ; South Australia completing the range on this side , with fertile lands , a lovely climate , a population intelligent above the average , a natural port for the Murray , which sweeps the back settlements of . the two other colonies ;

    and a constantly expanding commerce . lhe south-western corner consists of the colony called Western Australia ; less rich than the others , but beginning to recover from the effects of its bad system of colonization by the improving prospects of the whole . In the centre is a desert , the remains probably of an inland sea , not long since emptied , and still traced in barren sands and salt pools . The remaining portion is the north-western corner , still unexplored . This is conjectured to possess in its centre an elevated

    table-land , whence rivers flow to the south-west and to the north ; the latter rapid and full , bufc probably not of long course . Timber is floated down to the sea , and indicates a wooded country . If so , this region would complete the circle of Australian varieties , would add many valuable characteristics to its resources and products , and would bring its settlements to the shores of tho Indian Archipelago in the chain of that grand commerce which extends , by India and tho Mediterranean , from England to China .

    But by whom is this expedition proposed P Is it by tho traders who will draw their profit from it P No , it is by a man who has already given gage to fortuno of his noble and disinterested character , in forfeiting a commission in the Austrian army to take sides with the patriots in 1848 ; and it is a society devoted to science which , by the mouth of its President , lends its countenance to the proposal . The proposed leader of the expedition is General Ilaug , whoso name is well known to many of our readers ; and his plan has tbo sanction of tho Geographical Society and of

    Sir . Roderick Mnrchison ,-whoso name' is immortalized in Australian history by his predicting , on scientific calculation , the existence of the gold . Tho expedition is also strengthened by tho experionco and counsel of previous explorers , such as Mitchcl and Sztrelecki . it will avail itself of means of transit new to Australia—air boats for tho upper parts of tho vast rivers , mules and camels for the todious land journey . The plan is , to visit tho principal Australian cities ; to

    rendezvous at Perth ; to commonco the exploration at Shark Bay , tracing the Gascoigno river to its source ; thence to ascend tho heights which divide tho water-shed to tho south and west , from that to tho north ; to make for Cambridge Gulf , and thonco to the Victoria river , exploring that river to its source inland ; and to return to tho settled districts by a route which would connoct tho new discoveries with tho exploring surveys " of > tho three chief colonies . It was tho mind > of a Jefforson which enabled tho noble Lewis and Clarke

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    June 11 ^ 1853 . ] T R E L E A D ER . 567

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 11, 1853, page 567, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1990/page/15/