That a strictly national system of education is on many accounts desirable, no one will doubt, any more than that the connexion between the parish schools and the National Church is, in the present state of opinion in the country, an insuperable obstacle to any such material extension of the present machinery, as would constitute a strictly national educational system. But whether the necessity or propriety of an alteration of the present system be an inference from these premises is a different question. Our answer to Lord Melgund here is, that to remove the parish schools from the superintendence of the Church would not have the smallest effect in facilitating arrangements for the purpose which Lord Melgund and others profess--doubtless, sincerely--to have so much at heart, and that, upon the whole, a national system of education for Scotland, of a more general description than the one already in operation, is, at least in present circumstances, _wholly impracticable_ on any conditions or terms, after any fashion, or mode, or plan whatsoever. It is right that this should be distinctly understood. If Lord Melgund believes that the only or even the principal difficulty in the way of his utopian scheme of a strictly national system for this country, which shall unite all sects and parties, is the connexion between the parish school and the parish church, he must be extremely ignorant of the state of public opinion in Scotland, where, in fact, any such scheme is, on every account, notoriously out of the question. Whether, with all its defects, the present system is not better than no system at all, is therefore a question deserving the serious consideration even of those who are most inimical to it. We would venture here to suggest, that if the existing system is to be interfered with, that interference should not at least be attempted until a _strictly national substitute_ for it has been actually agreed upon. But it is vain to talk thus. The education system of 1696, already established, to which the people have long been habituated, and whose value they have had the best means of appreciating, is the only approximation to a national system which would now be tolerated for a moment, and, if it were set aside, could not be replaced by any other. In the first place, the Church herself would not consent to any scheme which deprived her of her present securities for the "godly upbringing" of the children of her own communion. Abolish in the parish schools the tests and rights of supervision which she now possesses, and she must seek, in schools raised by voluntary contribution, the means of carrying out her principles on the subject of education.