Surely it must occur to every one to ask why the noble philanthropist, entertaining such strong and generous views on the subject of national education, has delayed so very long reducing them to a practical form? Instead of consuming the last session in fruitless debates to carry through the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the provisions of which have already become a dead letter, to the gross scandal and positive detriment of the cause of Protestantism, Lord John Russell might have occupied himself wisely and profitably by promoting the general advancement of education throughout the country. We fear, however, that his present educational zeal is not one whit more earnest and real than his indignation against Papal aggression. We are getting used to these promissory notes of the noble lord, as also to his accommodation bills, which sometimes are drawn to supersede them. We know quite well what purpose is intended to be served by his hints of grand national improvements to be proposed "in another session of Parliament." The purpose is Whig supremacy, and the perpetuation of that family and oligarchical alliance which is the sole principle of the present Ministry. But, supposing him to be in earnest, what sort of a logician does he prove himself? If education is, or ought to be, one of the conditions of the franchise, what shall we say to the man who first gives the franchise and then proposes to educate? This certainly is the most notable instance which we have seen in our day of that process which is properly expressed by the metaphor of "putting the cart before the horse." Undoubtedly the question of the franchise is not alien from that of the education of the people--knowledge and power may very well go hand in hand together; but in this instance Lord John Russell proposes to give the power first, and to impart the knowledge at some more convenient season. In our view, it would be quite as rational a proceeding to intrust the conduct of a railway engine and train, to a party wholly ignorant of the nature of the machinery, on the understanding that, at some future period, he was to acquire a knowledge of its working!