ports of the most interesting Public Meetings, Lectures, &c., after
the New-York fashion, the popular interest in the daily papers would
become wider and deeper, and their usefulness as aids to General
Education would be largely increased. To a great majority of the reading
class, even here, political discussions--and especially of questions so
trite and so unimportant as those which mainly engross the attention of
Parliament--are of quite subordinate interest; and I think less than one
reader in four ever peruses any more of these debates than is given in
the Editorial synopsis, leaving the _verbatim_ report a sheer waste of
costly print and paper.--I believe, however, that in the aggregate, the
collections of the last year for Religious purposes have just about
equaled the average of the preceding two or three years; some Societies
having received less, others more. I think the public interest in
comprehensive Religious and Philanthropic efforts does not diminish.

For _Popular Education_, there is much doing in this Country, but in a
disjointed, expensive, inefficient manner. Instead of one all-pervading,
straight-forward, State-directed system, there are three or four in
operation, necessarily conflicting with and damaging each other. And yet
a vast majority really desire the Education of All, and are willing to
pay for it. John Bull is good at paying taxes, wherein he has had large
experience; and if he grumbles a little now and then at their amount as
oppressive, it is only because he takes pleasure in grumbling, and this
seems to afford him a good excuse for it. He would not be deprived of
it if he could: witness the discussions of the Income Tax, which every
body denounces while no one justifies it abstractly; and yet it is
always upheld, and I presume always will be. If the question could now
be put to a direct vote, even of the tax-payers alone--"Shall or shall
not a system of Common School Education for the United Kingdoms be
maintained by a National Tax?"--I believe Free Schools would be
triumphant. Even if such a system were matured, put in operation, and to
be sustained by Voluntary Contributions alone or left to perish, I
should not despair of the result.

But there is a lion in the path, in the shape of the Priesthood of the
Established Church, who insist that the children shall be indoctrinated
in the dogmas of their creed, or there shall be no State system of
Common Schools; and, behind these, stand th