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write,-in order to believe that their similar degree of knowledge is to conduct to similar results, it is necessary to believe that they have the same abilities, the same temperament, the same strength of mind and body. If there be any difference between men which is as great, much more if there be any difference between men which is greater than the being able to read and write, and the not being able to read and write-how, in the name of Providence, are you able to decide that it is that especial difference of reading and writing from which you are to deduce the consequence of their conduct? In short, if we could bring our calculations to the nicest accuracy, as we now found them on the vaguest grounds, we should still, I fear, be as far as ever from the power of forming the accurate conclusion which all these Quixotic calculators are in search of.

It is not then merely on account of Mons. Guerry's figures that I think the conclusion at which he arrives probable, and likely to be just. No one ever yet pretended to say that in Italy, where there was the most civilization during the middle ages, there was the least crime; and I do not place much faith in the philosopher who pretends that the knowledge which develops the passions, is an instrument for their suppression, or that where there are the most desires, there is likely to be the most order and the most abstinence in their gratification. It is more candid and more wise for the advocates of knowledge to take a larger and a broader ground: to admit at once the existence of the two principles by which the world has ever yet been divided—to admit that the sources of power and pleasure are also the sources of crime and vicethat where there is good, there will be evil-to contend merely that that is good which is more good than evil; for nature is governed by one law, and the stream of civilization but resembles that mysterious river which folds the crocodile in the same wave that is also charged with the golden seed that shall fertilize the soil.*

I find myself in such harmony with the following passage, that I cannot help referring to it :-" Du reste, nous disons à cette occasion notre opinion toute entière sur l'influence de l'instruction. Les avantages nous paraissent infiniment supérieurs à ses inconvéniens. Elle développe les intelligences et soutient toutes les industries. Elle protège ainsi la force morale et le bien-être

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If education be an advantage, it is so, not because it prevents men from committing crimes, but because it adds to the enjoyments of mankind without increasing their vices, in the same proportion. But should education add to human guilt more than it adds to human happiness-should this be the case, the fault is very much in ourselves, and very much owing, let me add-to all education being insufficient-to the absurd belief that to teach reading and writing is quite enough, and that there we may halt and rest satisfied with the good work that we have performed. As well might we say, that if we could but turn the river into our grounds, it would be a matter of perfect indifference whether we led it to the mill, or allowed it to inundate the corn-field.

In giving instruction we create a power, which, if left to itself, may produce more good than evil-which will always produce good with evil, but which it is still our duty to govern and direct, in order to make it produce as much * good, as little

matériel des peuples. Les passions qu'elle excite, funestes à la société quand rien ne les contente, deviennent fécondes en avantages lorsqu'elles peuvent atteindre le but qu'elles poursuivent. Ainsi l'instruction répand, il est vrai, parmi les hommes quelques semences de corruption, mais c'est elle aussi qui rend les peuples plus riches et plus forts. Chez une nation entourée de voisins éclairés, elle est non seulement un bienfait mais une nécessité politique.BEAUMONT ET TOCQUEVILLE. Du Système pénitentiaire aux États-Unis.

* I was rather surprised the other day. at hearing Lord Brougham quote the very able and interesting volume of Messrs. Beaumont and Tocqueville, on the state of crime in America, as a proof of the preventive to crime that was to be found in the mere expulsion of ignorance. What do these gentlemen say?" It may seem that a state, having every vent for its industry, and its agriculture, will commit less crime than another which, equally enjoying these advantages, does not equally enjoy the advantages of intelligence and enlightenment." "Nevertheless we do not think that you can attribute the diminution of crimes in the north to instruction, because in Connecticut, where there is far more instruction than in New-York, crime increases with a terrible rapidity, and if one cannot accuse knowledge as the cause of this, one is obliged to acknowledge that it is not a preventive."

This is what Messrs. Beaumont and Tocqueville say of the effects of instruction in general in America. But there are institutions in America, where the experiment of instruction is made-not merely on the boy whom you wish to bring up in virtue, but on the boy who has already fallen into the paths of vice and singular to say, the education given in the houses of refuge to the young delinquents, produces an effect upon them, which education does not in general produce upon society. Why is this? because the education in these houses is a moral education-because its object is not merely to load the memory, but to elevate the soul, to improve and to form the character "Do not lie! and do as well as you can!" Such are the simple words with

evil as possible; and if we wish to make ourselves sure of its results-if we wish from afar to see, to regulate, and rejoice in its effects-we must not only fill the mind, we must form the character-we must not only give ideas, we must give habits, we must make education moral as well as intellectual-we must give men great designs and good desires, at the same time that we invite them to exertion, and make easy to them the paths of ambition.

But to turn from general dissertation to the more immediate subject that is before us-it now, I venture to presume, appears -as well from the very remarkable table I have given, as from the maps to which I refer, that in France, at all events, there seems to be some influence or influences superior to accident, independent of laws, independent of any existing system of instruction, regulating crimes-and the distribution of crimes -not merely in respect to their number, but also in respect to their kind.

How far the peculiarities of race, the habits resulting from old institutions, the differences arising from a rich or barren soil-from a level or mountainous district--from the communication of rivers, or the absence of rivers,-how far all these circumstances, each affecting the passions, the propensities, the pursuits, the wants, and consequently the crimes of a varied population, may extend their empire, M. Guerry, deploring the want of any materials on which to calculate, leaves us in doubts,* which I do not find myself qualified to dispel. Amidst these doubts we are only sensible that France, in spite of its system of unity, still contains a variety of distinct races, with different languages, different prejudices, different manners, and that neither the line and measure of Abbé Sièyes, nor the terrible policy of the Mountain, nor the centralizing genius of Napowhich these children are admitted into these institutions: no tale-bearing is allowed; all corporal punishments are prohibited-"La discipline de ces établissemens est toute morale, et repose sur des principes qui appartiennent à la plus haute philosophie. Tout tend à y relever l'âme des jeunes détenus et à les rendre jaloux de leur propre estime, et de celui de leur semblables: pour y parvenir, on feint de les traiter comme des hommes, et comme les membres d'une société libre." I sincerely invite my readers to pay some attention to this part of Messrs. Beaumont and Tocqueville's volume, page 206. -Du Système pénitentiaire.

* But what the statist has not done with his tables, the poet has done with his songs, and the people with their proverbs.

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