the weapons, tried and confided in, were exercised against more powerful enemies. The embryo Orientalist, Lawgiver, Economist pursued their chosen line, and each met their due reward. But there would be several who, in spite of a strong natural good sense, and an inherent manliness of disposition, might shrink from entering in the race where so many of the strong and swift were contending. The atmosphere of thoughtlessness which surrounded them, perhaps the consciousness that their minds, though healthy, were not exactly fitted to become storehouses of learning, stifled any rising energy and rendered them content to pass on unobserved. Many of this class may now be lamenting that they did not take a deeper draught of knowledge, when the spring was within their reach: but we feel confident that the clear-sightedness which was barely remarked in the character of the youth, is now playing its part manfully in the ranks of our Judges of Sessions and our Revenue officers. Ready comprehension of truth, and a sound judgment, unfettered by prejudice or narrowness of views, is the greatest boon which the official can dispense to those who actually live or die according to his capacity: but these are qualities, which if not united with some honorary distinction, pass almost unnoticed in the crowd. The clever and idle form another class whose prospects it is equally difficult to foresee. The character which refuses to undergo the toil of competition, or shrinks from casting its stake where the game is doubtful, and the reward small, may yet cast off its fetters when transplanted to a wider scene. At the moment_of departure for India the whole fabric undergoes a change. Dormant energies begin to awake, capacity long hidden under a careless exterior, rises for the first time to the surface, and those who began to press on at an earlier period, are astonished to see themselves passed by others whose ability or whose will they had always doubted. It is not intended to urge that men are better for thus stifling their talents: that the intellectual garden if overrun with weeds, is invariably certain of producing a finer crop than if it had undergone a continuous process of cultivation. We merely wish to point out that under the present non-compulsory system of work at Haileybury, faculties are constantly suffered to rust and opportunities to pass away unused. Meanwhile the early fruit is prized, because it appears in the absence of competitors: the later, whose growth was repressed by chilling frosts and biting winds, is generally of a finer and more perfect kind. The one has been sooner exposed to the genial influence of the sun, and has quickly reached the furthest point of perfection of which it was capable. The other, on whom

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light and heat fell more unevenly, was slower in arriving at maturity, but that maturity was more valuable from the very absence of early promise. Hence it was difficult to foresee in England what characters would rise to eminence in India. Once there, and the mist of uncertainty soon cleared away, a few years showed whose peculiar turn of mind had fitted him for India, and how far he was likely to ascend. We would submit our rule for the corroboration of the Civil Service generally. Many can doubtless select from the ranks of their cotemporaries a living example of its truth. We have not here taken into account the varying chances of fortune. Many have enjoyed her favouring breezes from the first. A perpetual trade wind would seem to fill their sails wherever they shaped their course; but-setting apart all adjuncts of luck or connexion, or patronage-we contend that the Haileybury career is a very unsafe criterion to test the chances of future pre-eminence or even of common efficiency. We make an exception in favour of the conspicuous man of talent, about whom there can be no mistake, and we would draw the same line in the case of the slenderly endowed youth whom no stirring occasion can ever excite; but without these two extremes our rule will hold good. When steady and continued exertion shall be made a necessary title to Haileybury degrees, and when the whole course shall have been modified, we then may hope to define from the beginning what shall be the height to which each man shall ascend, and how at every step he will be able to acquit himself.

It

Our great objection to Haileybury is not on account of its active influence for evil, but for its negative power for good. is not there that the veil is first torn from the face of innocence, and the pure and spotless character first tarnished by the contact of pollution. The knowledge of good and evil has been imparted in all cases before the entrance into College. That dread period in which the daily change is only one of deep and deeper debasement has been surmounted, and the promise of better things may be looked for with something more than hope. But just at the epoch when the example for good is most desirable, when the soft clay might be ready to receive and retain a lasting impression, it is shaped in a mould of no better kind than what we are compelled to term the moral degradation of Haileybury. Some few perhaps have already gone further than this. The change with them is almost complete. They have emerged from the slough: they have passed through the worst portion of the fiery ordeal, and are resting on the metal which has been tried, and stood the test, not on the one which has shrunk from encountering a power so scorching. But even

they are unable to stem the torrent, which, without apparent violence, irresistibly carries along all who come within its attraction. Alive themselves to the evils with which they are surrounded, they are powerless to oppose any adequate check to their advance. They are themselves hardly clean from the universal taint, and we believe that few, however matured their character, have ever passed through Haileybury without feeling that their keen sense of evil has been blunted, and the edge of their sensibilities dulled. A choice of two courses is left to Haileybury Reformers, to reduce the misnamed College into a public School, or to raise it a step higher, and render it a College in deed as well as in word. The latter is the plan we would advocate. Haileybury gives the finishing stroke to English education, and beyond that nothing additional can be expected. Let it then be made a fit rehearsal for the great drama of life. There are able men set over the Institution, who might be capable of doing something towards a change so desirable: we do not doubt their earnest aspirations, but on considering the difficulty of inspiring all with a genuine spirit of co-operation, and the unequal fight which must be maintained so long ere any good effects be visible, we are at times tempted to lower our weapons in despair. Like the gallant Highlander whose heart, swelling at the torpor of his leader, burst forth into an appeal to the well-remembered name of Dundee, so whilst gazing on the equally fatal torpor of Haileybury, we are fain to cry out in the same hopeless accents for, "one single hour of Arnold."

It will, no doubt, be said, is this a true representation of the place where the character of so many civilians receives a lasting impression? Are those who should present the spectacle of Christian Judges Christian not in word alone, but in spirit and in reality amongst an unbounded population of the heathen, who are to be the salt which is to impregnate the mighty mass in which it is known-are they subjected to the tainting influence of an atmosphere where so little of a truly healthful character is to be found? On the scene where the first act of their lives is concluded, shall we seek in vain for any higher incentive than an eager thirst for College honours, and that only in a few cases? Our task would have been more congenial, could we in all conscience have described it otherwise. But it were indeed a wonder if a place so constituted did not abound largely with the spirit of Ahriman. We have indicated the early age at which entrance is permitted, as one of the most fertile sources of harm. Liberty which is turned to lawful ends at the age of nineteen or twenty, is certain to be abused at that of sixteen: at the former epoch it is an equitable privilege granted in virtue of

the power to enjoy without excess: at the latter, it is a concession which is presumed on to the uttermost limit. The man views it as a right incidental to his position: the boy is bewildered by the novelty, or dazzled by the glare. The consequences of this and other incidental evils are what, with unfeigned regret, we have felt it a duty to describe; idle, careless habits, hatred of application, dull hardness of character, conventional morality, selfish extravagance, and at times worse. The body of the professors do not seem to be sufficiently aware of this state of things, and make no efforts to counteract it. If their co-operation were unanimous, earnest and uninterrupted, the danger might be mitigated, if not entirely removed. We exhort them to turn their attention to this neglected point, one of far more importance than mere attendance at lectures, or mere rank at the examination.

Meanwhile we would hope that the Court will not be backward in availing themselves of the best stamp of material at hand. We have forborne touching on the subject of private patronage, and but for one circumstance would have refrained from it altogether. An admirable example was set a short time ago, by one whose long residence in India well qualified him to judge what kind of ability was there most required. We allude to the Haileybury nomination presented to Eton, by the late Deputy Chairman of the Court. It was to be tried for by all, without partiality or favour, whose acquirements gave them the least title to hope for success. Why should not this plan be followed in respect of other large public schools? The result could hardly be other than an infusion of ability, and even of talent, genuine, diversified and sound. A certain number of appointments might be reserved for this especial purpose, and private patronage still be no loser. To require that all nominations to friends and connections should give way to this truly patriotic object, would be to demand far more than human nature could bear. Whilst the power is so close at hand, men will ever provide for their sons and relations, but this regard for natural ties might still be joined to a due provision for those places where a fair proportion of good metal may reasonably be supposed to lie. We do not, however, wish to discourage the practice of giving appointments to the sons of Indian residents. Those bestowed on men whose forefathers have toiled away their existence in the East, are, in our opinion, judicious and equitable. Such is the case with those immediately, or even remotely, connected with members of the Court. Their sympathies are in a certain measure transplanted to the East. They look on India, where their fathers or friends spent the better part of their lives,

if not exactly as a second home, still not as the hated land of exile. They feel a natural inclination for the soil in which they have an hereditary title to labour, and they start with a healthy determination to welcome all toil in a service where few can say that their sphere is too contracted, or their means of doing good too small.

Let it not, however, be supposed that Haileybury is a concentration of all the powers of evil, unmixed with even the least partial good. In the course of study, there is ample room for amendment, but even as it stands, no one will deny its great practical utility. Many of the subjects are unattainable elsewhere. Oxford itself cannot promise such facilities for useful knowledge as the lectures on law and political economy. Those studies which attracted the speculative mind of a Malthus, and those to which the matured experience of a Macintosh was devoted, apart from all consideration of the great masters themselves, have a claim on the attention of all those who would carry the book learning of College into the visible realities of life. The whole field of education wants but a judicious reform to make it one of the best and most perfect conceivable. To raise the Haileybury standard of morality will be a harder task. We do not cry out against gross and unsightly forms of vice. Drunkenness and debauchery, which once were of daily occurrence, have almost passed away before the dawnings of a better spirit. The Augean stable would seem to have been partially cleansed; and but the lesser, though unceasing labour of Tantalus to remain. The fight against evil must however be unremitting in order to hold out any hopes of victory; by ceaseless vigilance alone can the conquest be achieved, and the enemy will only retreat when continually assailed by all parties united in one great common cause. Court, professors, studenthood, we would invite them one and all to combine their endeavours, and be divided no longer. The question of the abolition of Haileybury has been canvassed at different times, and but lately the prevalent feeling of the Directors leant visibly towards such an extreme measure. Its great expense, and the non-fulfilment of cherished hopes, were dwelt on as the reasons for such a vote of condemnation. Of the various schemes which rose up in its place, an Indian education at either university, or a searching examination at the India House preparatory to departure, we here say nothing. They are all open to endless objections, and are inferior to what may, and, we will add, will be made of Haileybury. We leave it to others when carried forward to the hopeful future, to picture to themselves their fairest vision of a College, liberally endowed, and cordially supported, under the guidance of men whose heart