ART. XI.

SELECT LITERARY INFORMATION.

In the press, edited by the Rev. Thomas Young, of Margate, a Collection of Texts of Scripture, with short notes, and some other observations against the principal Popish Errors. Written by a Divine of the Church of England, A.D. 1688.

In the press, On the Advancement of Society in Science, Civilization, and Religion. By James Douglas, Esq. of Cavers. 1 vol. 8vo.

In a few days will be published, a volume of Plain Sermons, chiefly for the Use of Seamen. By the Rev. S. Maddock, Vicar of Bishop's Sutton and Ropley, Hants.

Mr. Maund, of Bromsgrove, well known as a practical disciple of Flora, will commence on the 1st of January 1825, a Monthly Publication, to be entitled, The Botanic Garden, or Magazine of Hardy Flowers, intended as a Manual for Botanists and Florists.

Preparing for the press, in 8vo., A Treatise on Gout, Pathological, Therapeutical, and Practical, in which an attempt is made to elucidate and establish the nature and causes of that disorder, and to deduce definite and correct principles of treatment for its prevention and cure, consonant with just pathological views, and confirmed by observations and experience. By A. Rennie, Esq. Surgeon.

In the press, a new edition of the Elements of Pathology, and an Experimental Inquiry into the Arteries. By Caleb Hillier Parry, M.D. &c. &c. Also an extensive collection of the unpublished Medical Writings of the same Author; together with a Preface and several Introductory Disquisitions, by the Editor.

In the press, A Discourse on the Prophecies concerning Antichrist, delivered December 9, 1824. By Joseph Fletcher, A.M.

The Discourses delivered at the settlement of the Rev. William Orme, at Camberwell, October 7. By the Rev. Joseph Fletcher, Greville Ewing, and Robert Winter, D.D., will appear early in January.

In the course of January will be published, Memoirs of Moses Mendelsohn, the Jewish philosopher, including the celebrated correspondence between him and J. C. Lavater on the Christian Religion.

The second volume of Mr. Wiffen's Translation of Tasso, which was destroyed in the late fire at Mr. Moyes's, Greville-street, is again at press, and will make its appearance in the course of April or May ensuing.

Early in January will be published, Part I. of a New Topographical Work, entitled, Delineations of Gloucestershire, being views of the principal seats of nobility and gentry, and other objects of prominent interest in that county, with historical and descriptive notices. The drawings to be made, and the plates engraved by Messrs. Storer. The historical notices by J. N. Brewer, Esq.; and dedicated, by permission, to His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Lieutenant of the County. It is intended that this work shall consist of 100 engraved views, quarto size, each to be accompanied upon an average with four pages of letter-press. The publication will comprise 25 parts, forming two handsome volumes.

In the press, Christian Letters to a Physician at L. Also, an Expostulation against Ashdod-phraseology; and some Thoughts on the inaptness of the Christian believer's costume. By Epsilon.

In the press, Thoughts on Antinomianism. By Agnostos, Author of Thoughts on Baptism.

ART. XII. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Decision. A Tale. By Mrs. Hofland, Author of Son of a Genius, &c. 1 vol. 12mo. 6s.

A View of the Present State of the Salmon and Channel Fisheries, and of

the Statute Laws by which they are regulated shewing, that it is to the Defects of the latter that the present Scarcity of the Fish is to be attributed. Comprehending also the Natural History and Habits of the Salmon. By J. Cornish, Esq. 8vo. 6s. 6d.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR FEBRUARY, 1825.

Art. I. 1. An Outline of the System of Education at New Lanark. By Robert Dale Owen. 8vo. pp. 104. Glasgow, 1824.

2. Observations on the Anti-Christian Tendency of Modern Education, and on the Practicability and Means of its Improvement. By John Campbell, of Carbrook, F.R.S.E. 12mo. pp. 142. Edinburgh,

1823.

3. A Plea on Behalf of a Christian Nation, for the Christian Education of its Youth. Addressed to various Classes of Society. Abridged from the larger Work of the Rev. George Monro, M.A. Vicar of Letterkenny, Ireland, in 1711. 8vo. pp. 112. London,

1823.

4. A Practical Essay on the Manner of Studying and Teaching in Scotland: or a Guide to Students at the University, to Parish Schoolmasters, and Family Tutors. 12mo. pp. 302. Price 5s. Edinburgh, 1823.

5. The Church of England Catechism. By Jeremy Bentham, Esq. A new Edition. 18mo. pp. 96. Price 2s. 6d. London, 1824.

Α

LL these publications, though of widely different character, bear upon one common topic, the grand subject of National Education. We mean to say something about each of them, but our chief reason for bringing them now before the attention of our readers is, that they will afford us a fair opportunity of offering a few remarks on the present state of the controversy.

Happily, it is no longer a question among us in Great Britain, whether the people ought to have education, or not. This is a great point gained; and we may forgive the National Society the assumption and fallacy implied in its designation, for the sake of the pledge thus afforded, that the nation at large shall have the means of education provided for Vol. XXIII. N.S.

K

them. Whether they shall be taught to read and write in national schools, or in schools for all,' is, in our view, a matter of little importance, provided that they be well taught,-provided that no deception be practised on the public, and that that do not ensne, which too often happened in our old Charity schools and free schools, that the only party benefited by the school was the master. No system can preclude the possibility of abuses; but that must obviously be the most effective, or the most likely to continue so, which affords the fewest facilities to abuses, by rendering it necessary that the public should be a party to them.

It is agreed on all hands, that popular ignorance is an evil. The converse of the proposition is not, perhaps, so generally assented to, that knowledge is a good. Indeed, the poetical axiom, that' a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' appears to have gained so firm a hold on the minds of some persons, that it goes far to neutralize the first concession. For, if this be absolutely true, seeing that a little knowledge is all that the lower classes can ever have the means of attaining to, there must be danger in their being taught at all. And this is the very conclusion, truly a most logical one, which a large class of persons have been led to adopt. The apprehension which formerly prevailed, was, lest the people should know too much : that which is now more generally expressed, is, lest they should be taught too little. But when this latter fear, instead of operating simply as a stimulant to benevolent exertion, is converted into an objection to plans of education, both come to much the same thing. The fear that they should be taught too much, or that they should be taught too little, springs alike from a jealousy of the effects of knowledge, as if its value wholly depended on certain conditions,-on the measure in which, or the channel by which it is conveyed. Now, in opposition to this notion, we are prepared to contend, on the one hand, that the measure of knowledge proper for the people to be put in possession of, cannot be defined, and ought not, were it possible, to be limited. And it is one of the most valuable properties of all knowledge, that it provides for its own increase, by constantly producing a desire to know

But, on the other hand, we do not shrink from avowing our conviction, that no danger or possible evil attendant on any measure or degree of knowledge, how partial or limited soever, can render that one remove from ignorance more dangerous, or in any respect less desirable, than absolute ignorance. In other words, we cannot admit that a poor man without the knowledge of religion, is likely to be the better member of society for being kept without any other species of knowledge; that infidelity and impiety ought to be punished with ignorance; or that it would be for the benefit of society, that none but the religiously instructed should be provided with the means of maintaining themselves by any labour which requires the knowledge of reading, writing, or arithmetic. That the knowing should forge, we cannot regard as a more likely or a worse consequence, than that the ignorant should thieve or utter forgeries. Indeed, it almost always happens, that the ignorant are the tools of the knowing in the commission of crime ; nor can any power of mischief conferred by knowledge on the vicious and the depraved, be so great as that which they derive from the ignorance of the untaught. For all the evils of knowledge, then, we maintain that knowledge is the only antidote.

We are quite aware that these positions may appear to many of our readers in the light of mere truisms. They certainly approximate very closely to the nature of self-evident propositions, but they are very far from being acimitted truths. And if the vague opinions of many of the half-friends of Education were analysed, they would be found to involve nothing short of a denial of the truisms we have set down. Nay, we have heard it boldly stated, that Education is an evil, if it be not a religious education ; a phrase so indefinite, that either it may mean a course of religious discipline and instruction such as no system can provide, or it may mean simply learning the Church Catechism and going to church. But, waiving this, while we will yield to no one in attachment to the Sunday School System, one great recommendation of which is, that it secures, to a certain extent, the formation of religious habits ; -while we are deeply persuaded of the danger arising from an irreligious population, and are ready to admit that the education which stops short of conveying religious instruction and promoting religious habits, is essentially defective,-we altogether deny that Education can ever assume the character of a positive evil. As far as it goes, its tendency is all in favour of religion, as well as of subordination and good order.

It was a convenient way of distinguishing opinions in former days, with all its disadvantages, to give them the name of their originator. Were it not that these stenographic symbols are liable to become terms of obloqny, it saved much circumlocution, to be able to distinguish the abettors of certain opinions as Platonists or Aristotelians, Scotists or Thomists, Jansenists or Molinists, Lutherans or Calvinists. As regards the various opinions which are at present maintained on the subject of Education, we feel the want of some such convenient mode of classification. First, there is the old Papistical School, at