absurd to talk of the mere increase of schools, as if such increase implied education in the proper sense of the word. At the schools a boy is taught to read and write, but he is not taught, and never can be taught, what he ought to read, and what he ought to abstain from reading hereafter. His mind is simply made photographic. He can take in and retain the ideas of others; and, unfortunately, the expressed ideas which come most naturally, easily, and perhaps most palatably within his reach, are precisely those which are most dangerous to his morals, and most likely to give him false views of society, and to unfit him for a proper discharge of his duties alike as a Christian and a subject. Lord John Russell, we are thoroughly convinced, is at this moment entirely ignorant of the kind of literature which is current among, and greedily devoured by the operative classes. It is no wonder that such should be the case. We confess, quite frankly, that our attention was drawn to the subject, not much more than two years ago, by certain representations made by publishers on the subject of the paper duty as affecting popular publications. Being unable to reconcile their statements with certain facts which came under our own knowledge, we thought it advisable to institute an inquiry, and in the course of that we collected copies of such works as were most generally circulated among the working classes. We are most happy to admit that some of them were entirely unexceptionable in their tone and doctrine. Many men are working among the operative classes with a true knowledge of their calling, and a sincere and devout intention to dedicate themselves to the task of raising the minds of the people, by inculcating sound principles of economy, morality, and healthful and religious feelings. But these constitute the exceptions, not the rule. The political journals which have the largest circulation are something more than Radical; they are, if not avowedly, at least in spirit, republican. The Peerage and the Established Church are the institutions which they assail with the most undisguised ferocity; and no means which falsehood can suggest are left unemployed to turn both into contempt, and to inflame the minds of the people against the aristocracy and the clergy. Personality, vituperation, and ignorance, are the characteristics of those journals. Lord John Russell, we suspect, would hardly have ventured to lay so much stress upon this educational argument, had he been aware of the manner in which he is habitually mentioned by those oracles of the lower orders. We have read descriptions of and commentaries upon himself, his character, and his measures, which assuredly were the reverse of flattering, as they were clearly calumnious and wicked. Several of the works of fiction, which are most greedily bought up, are utterly loathsome and depraved. The public appetite is not to be sated, as in days gone by, with mere melodramic romance, and tales