Importance of Religious Element.

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anti-scriptural, any State interference with religious instruction, we look upon this principle which has lately emerged to form an element in the education question, as demanding a reconsideration of our position. We foresee that there will be much of controversy on this point, and can only trust that it will be conducted with the feeling that the object aimed at is common to all-a sound religious education universally extended, and that the only difference is, as to the means. With one set of educationists, who may enlist under Voluntary banners, we confess that we have no sympathy-those who, in a Legislative enactment, would not only not include, but would, on the ground that such exclusion is a positive advantage, exclude the religious element. In truth, we cannot exclude the spirit of this element in practice. We might as well attempt to shut out from our houses the influences of the atmosphere: build on airy height, or in noisome fen, through every chink and cranny creeps unseen, unheard, that which gives health or generates disease; and in the school-room, the teacher who is not actuated by religious principle, exercises a positively irreligious influence. Meanwhile, were it not for the awful importance of the subject, we would turn away wearied and annoyed from the brawl of discussion-the physicians squabbling, each intent on his own panacea, while there are sick and dying all around. "Ah! vous avez raison," says Gil Blas to the sanguinary Sangrado, "il ne faut point accorder ce triomphe à vos ennemis : ils diroient que vous vous laissez désabuser? ils vous perdroient de réputation. Périssent plutôt le peuple, la noblesse, et le clergé! Allons donc toujours notre train.

We were amused lately with reading, that a Scotsman abroad was accustomed to test the veracity of beggars alleging that they were his countrymen, by putting to them the question, "What is the chief end of man?"-a test as infallible as asking a sailor mendicant to box the compass. In the train of thought to which this gives rise, we see the end of a clue to guide us out of this labyrinth. We have reason to know, on what we deem ample authority, two things. The Lord Advocate was prepared, some years ago, to bring in a Bill for extended, unexclusive national education, of which the Bible and the Shorter Catechism were to be the basis. We have been told, that he regards such a measure as hopeless in present circumstances. And Government will not stir in the matter without a union on the part of the great dissenting bodies of Scotland. Yet the fact that hardly an adventure school in all Scotland is to be found where the parents do not practically demand for their children religious instruction, and that in the Bible and Shorter Catechism, is pregnant with meaning and comfort. Attempts, we learn, are mak

ing in various parts of the country to bring about a union of parties, on the basis of a measure which shall not exclude religion, but leave the question to be decided by the people themselves in their various localities. We have no doubt how that question would be settled by the Scottish people; but we have left ourselves no space to enter into particulars. To do so, indeed, would be premature, as much must be done by mutual concessions before the details of such a measure can be rendered either safe or generally acceptable. What we deprecate is, any rash or inconsiderate condemnation of its principle. We may in a subsequent Number discuss it fully. Now, we intreat all those who love our common country, not to turn hastily from any measure which promises to unite the friends of education';-and with one consideration we conclude. It is impossible permanently to leave Scotland as it now is. If the supporters of education combine at this time, they may obtain such a measure, not as each desires, but as shall secure religious training, on the guarantee of the habits and predilections of the people themselves, and these fostered by the vigilance of the Churches, in the fair exercise of precept and discipline. If the insensate grasping after educational control is to frustrate all schemes of improvement, or if with the vain hope of seeing the turbid stream of educational polemics abate, men are to wait like fools

we can have no difficulty in adopting as our own the language of one of our most distinguished philanthropists, and a most sagacious observer of the signs of the times, Dr. Guthrie, when he says-"Granting, for the sake of argument, that we have some risk to run, the blessings of a national education are surely worth it; and they who, magnifying dangers, are alarmed at the risk the proposed scheme exposes us to, forget what they ought to regard as the greatest danger of all. The sword of the State may cut the Gordian knot which the skill of Churchmen could not untie. Needing and demanding an extended system of education, the country may have its patience exhausted in the attitude of waiting till we settle our disputes; and leaving the different sects as they can to provide religious instruction, apart from the national schools, Parliament may pass a measure entirely and exclusively secular in its character."

Recent Military Literature.

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ART. VIII.-1. A Letter to the Queen on a late Court Martial. By SAMUEL WARREN, F.R.S. Edinburgh, 1850.

2. The Law relating to Officers in the Army. By HARRIS PRENDERGAST, of Lincoln's-Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. London, 1849.

3. The Military Miscellany. By HENRY MARSHALL, F.R.S.E. London, 1846.

4. L'Inde Anglaise en 1843-1844. Par le COMTE EDOUARD DE WARREN. Paris, 1845.

5. A Letter to the Right Hon. Sir John Hobhouse on the Baggage of the Indian Army. By SIR CHARLES JAMES NAPIER, G.C.B. London, 1849.

6. Brief Comments on Sir Charles Napier's Letter to Sir John Hobhouse. By LIEUT.-COLONEL BURLTON, Bengal Cavalry, late Commissary-General of the Bengal Army. 1849. 7. The Duties and Responsibilities of Military Officers. By J. H. STOCQUELER, Military Examiner, Hanwell Collegiate Institution.

8. The Works of Charles Lever, Author of " Harry Lorrequer." London and Dublin. v. d.

9. Country Quarters. A Novel. By the Late COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. London, 1850.

WE have here but a small selection from the military literature of the last three or four years. The British officer cannot complain that he is neglected by the writers of the day. Authors of widely different classes and characters make him the subject of their discourse; barristers put him into a law-treatise; doctors compound essays about him; general officers pillory him in pamphlets; military examiners exhibit him in their lectures; ladies of quality parade him in fashionable novels; and magazinewriters prey upon him by the score. We ought to know something about his character and conduct by this time; we ought to know how he looks, how he dresses, what he says, what he doesaltogether, what kind of animal he is, what are his habits, what are his manners, what are his sympathies. It is no fault of our novelists if we are not familiar with military life of a certain class-with the symposia of the mess, and the memorabilia of officers' quarters; with the heroics of the camp, and the bucolics of country quarters. We have, at all events, enough of this kind of writing. If we have anything to complain of on the score of quality or quantity, it is not certainly on that of the latter.

To confess the truth, these pictures of military life are not by any means prepossessing. They may amuse us; but they

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do not please. It is only when we find the heroes of these novels and romances before the enemy that we can seriously bring ourselves to admire them. In barracks and country quarters they are, after all, but an idle, dissolute, unprincipled set of fellowsmen who would not cheat you at cards, but would sell bargain in horse-flesh; who would not tell a brother officer a lie, but would perjure themselves to a pretty girl without compunction; who would not demean themselves by associating with low people, but who drink like troopers, swear like bargemen, and indulge in practical jokes which would disgrace the marker of a billiard-table. Mr. Thackeray's pictures are, perhaps, the least disagreeable. We are compensated for the sublime selfishness of George Osborne by the heroic devotedness of dear old Dobbin; whilst the gawky ensigns, who swear allegiance to Mrs. George and the long cornet who competes with poor Pen for the virgin affections of the glorious Miss Fotheringay, are but very harmless simpletons, at the worst, a long way below the level of our anger. Mr. Lever's military heroes are of another stamp. There is a rollicking Irish dare-devilry about them, which does not altogether consort with our elderly notions of the character of a gentleman. They seem as though they were sent into the world only to drink wine, to ride steeple-chases, to fight duels, and to perfect themselves in the arts of seduction.* There is a notable want of dignity and decency about them all; the eccentricities which they commit are, for the most part, "tolerable and not to be endured." Their morals and their manners are equally bad. We should think but poorly of what Mr. Warren calls "the resplendent phalanx which guards the throne of Her Majesty, and the lives and liberties of their fellow-subjects," if we were to accept the heroes of the "Tom Burke" and "Charles O'Malley" school, as genuine representatives of the commissioned class of English soldiers.

There is this, however, to be said for them, that these pictures

* A single page of any military novel we take one from the very latest, Lady Blessington's "Country Quarters"-will suffice to show the conventional idea of the occupations of young "soldier-cfficers."-" When Colonel Maitland and Major Elvaston withdrew, the junior officers looked sadly at each other. Captain Melville was the first who broke silence, and drawing a deep sigh, he exclaimed, 'I fear we are doomed to die of ennui in this barbarous place. Can't we get up steeple-chases or races,' said Mr. Hunter; 'Or get the wild Irishwomen to run in sacks? it's such good fun,' observed Lieut. Marston; Or get up balls with some of the pretty girls we saw in the windows as we marched into the town?' interrupted Mr. Hunter. Hunter is for getting up some love affair already,' said Capt. Melville; 'but he must take care of what he is about; for Irish fathers and brothers are ticklish fellows to deal with, I am told.” This is an epitome of a military novel; it embraces all the incidents in which a legitimate military hero is engaged,

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are intended rather to represent the British officer as he was, than as he is. The character of our commissioned officers during the "thirty years' peace," has been gradually ripening into what "it ought to be." The greatest and most important change of all is now in course of consummation. The army is now, to a certain extent, becoming a "learned profession." It is one that now requires for all its branches certain definite qualifications. Not merely the candidates for the Engineers and the Artillery, but for the Cavalry and Infantry, are now required to present their diplomas of literary qualification before they can obtain Her Majesty's commission. The recent regulations upon this head constitute the most important measure of military reform which has received the sanction of Government since the passing of the Limited Enlistment Act. What that bill is to the private soldier, the new education-test is to the British officer. surely as the first will raise the character of the former, the second will raise the character of the latter. It was once the belief that "any fool would do for the army;"-the greatest blockhead, or the greatest scape-grace in a family was marked out from his childhood to become an item of the "resplendent phalanx" of Her Majesty's defenders. If a boy could barely read at twelve years old, and was eternally singeing his eye-lashes with gunpowder; getting under the heels of his father's horses at home; giving and receiving black eyes and bloody noses at school; robbing his master's orchard; bolstering his school-fellows, and delighting them with "apple-pie beds ;" or indulging in any other of those juvenile eccentricities, for which the "young troublesomes" of the age have been immortalized by Mr. Leech, he was immediately marked for the army. The requirements of the military profession were supposed to be a sufficiency of cash to buy a commission, and a sufficiency of courage to face the enemy. We are now endeavouring to secure for the army a better reputation. It is no longer to be, either in its higher or its lower departments, a refuge for those who cannot obtain honourable employment in other professions-for those who, in one class of life, are too stupid to be trained for lawyers or clergymen; or in the other class, too abandoned to make reputable agriculturists or respectable mechanics. Military education is as yet only in its infancy. The time is not far distant, we hope, when a much larger proportion of the officers of the British army will enjoy the advantages of professional training at public institutions, established for the purpose; but until that day arrive, the education-test now in force, though it may not do all, will do inuch to raise the intellectual character of the men who command our armies.

We do not mean to convey an impression that the military