These, we grant, are unpopular truths, but they, nevertheless, are truths, which it is worse than idle to deny. Everybody sees it, feels it, but few have the courage to avow it in face of an intolerant and tyrannical public opinion. For ourselves, we believe the peasantry in old Catholic countries, two centuries ago, were better educated, although for the most part unable to read or write, than are the great body of the American people to-day. They had faith, they had morality, they had a sense of religion, they were instructed in the great principles and essential truths of the Gospel, were trained to be wise unto salvation, and they had the virtues without which wise, stable, and efficient government is impracticable. We hear it said, or rather read in the journals, that the superiority the Prussian troops have shown to the French is due to their superior education. We do not believe a word of it. We have seen no evidence that the French common soldiers are not as well educated and as intelligent as the Prussian. The superiority is due to the fact that the Prussian officers were better educated in their profession, were less overweening in their confidence of victory, and maintained better and severer discipline in their armies, than the French officers. The Northern armies in our recent civil war had no advantage in the superior education of the rank and file over the Southern armies, where both were equally well officered and commanded. The _morale_ of an army is no doubt the great thing, but it does not depend on the ability of the common soldier to read, write, and cipher; it depends somewhat on his previous habits and pursuits--chiefly on the officers. Under the first Napoleon, the Prussians were not superior to the French, though as well educated. Good officers, with an able general at their head, can make an efficient army out of almost any materials.