In the roll of disheartening circumstances in our social condition, it
would be unpardonable to omit the enormities of intemperance, which,
though groaned over day after day, remain pretty much what they have
been for years; and it is to be feared, that so long as reformers
confine themselves to attacking mere symptoms, instead of going to the
foundation of the evil--a deficiency of self-respect, growing out of a
want of instruction in things proper to be known, and for which the
education of the country makes no provision--all will be in vain. How
far there will prevail a more enlarged view of this painful subject,
is not discoverable from the present temper of parties.

The legislative conservation of ignorance in the humbler classes of
the community, to which reference has just been made, is surely a blot
on our social economy. It is seemingly easier to girdle the globe with
a wire, than to make sure that every child in Her Majesty's dominions
shall receive the simplest elements of education. Within the sphere of
the mechanic or the chemist, flights beyond the bounds of imagination
may be pursued without restraint, and indeed with commendation; but
anything in social economics, however philanthropic in design and
beneficial in tendency, falls into the category of disputation and
obstruction; and, worst of all, education, on which so much depends,
is, through the debates of contending 'interests,' kept at a point
utterly inadequate for the general enlightenment and wellbeing.

Thus, many matters of moment are either at a stand, or advancing by
feeble and hesitating steps, and the distance to be ultimately reached
remains vague and undefinable. At the same time, it is well to be
assured that improvements, moral and social, are really in progress;
and that, on the whole, society is on the move not in a retrograde
direction. Even with a stone tied to its leg, the world, as we have