“Instruction in our schools is generally faulty and incomplete, and little merits the praise which has been bestowed upon it. _The best thing that can be said in its favour is, that it is better than no instruction at all_, and that it is more satisfactory to see children sitting on the benches of a school, even although they be doing nothing to the purpose, than to behold them working mischief on the streets. They are taught to read, write, and figure a little; _to teach them less is scarcely possible_. We speak here of primary schools in general, and affirm that those who attribute a moralising influence to the majority of these schools, deceive themselves in a manner the most strange and prejudicial to the interest of the class whose children are the pupils in these seminaries. A degree of instruction so limited, so meagre, is nearly equivalent to none whatever; and it is impossible that things should be in a better case, seeing that the education of the _teachers_ themselves is of the most imperfect kind. Barely do these persons know the little which they undertake to impart, and they have, generally speaking, the most superficial notions of those methods of instilling knowledge, which they impudently attempt to apply in the case of those only a little more ignorant than themselves.” The experiment of education on both systems has now had an ample trial in Belgium; first in fifteen years of government protection, and now in ten years of “free trade.” The result has been a convincing failure, and those most clamorous for the latter system in 1830, are now the most urgent in their demands to revert to the former. The provincial deputations, in their reports, recommend the same course, and the legislature have so far subscribed to their views, as to propose a projet de loi for carrying them into effect, by restoring a modification of the system, as before the revolution. We dined with Count d’Hane at three o’clock in the afternoon, and as usual, the party broke up between seven and eight o’clock. NOTE.--As the comparative cost of machinery in Belgium, and in England, is a matter of much interest at the present moment, a list of the prices of that manufactured at Ghent, with the English charges for the same articles, contrasted with each item, will be found in the Appendix No. I. CHAPTER IV. GHENT AND COURTRAI.