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[ ht to be taken 492 The Leader and Satu...
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CRIMINAL TRIALS. WE have recently had oc...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Teue And False In Education While It...
forth , as out of a rusty armoury , and furbished up for special occasions . It was , after all his pains , not the man that he had laboriously educiated , but the barrister . . We paint from life . Education has a natural proclivity to decline into narrow class-channels , and to provide , in the long run , for the mere trading or professional exigencies of the individual . Vulgar prejudice is , indeed , in favour of its being confined to these particular interests , and even thinks it dangerous the should
to Church and State , and family comfort , that young be inducted ' into knowledge supposed not to be suitable to the class to which they belong . Vulgar prejudice holds now , as it did in classical times , with the Sophists , and against Socrates . The great controversy was not decided by the hemlock-cup which the sage was compelled to drink , nor by the splendid dialogues which his pupils in his name were induced to write . Society still halts between the two opinions . Is it the man or the tradesman that we would educate ? If the former , has society
provided occupation for him , or the means of living . Now , it . might not be difficult to sermonise , and prove logically that the best way of ensuring a man ' s success in this world is to educate him for another . But there is an equivoque in the very word " si . ccess . " A man may succeed in his mission , and yetremain poor—his virtue maybe its own reward , andhe may even disdain any other . But this is not what is usually meant by the term . It is expected that virtue should leadto fortune , and if it may not , the natural mind is dissatisfied . There is , too , for this view a sufficient reason . The education of the man would , in fact , lead to both virtue and fortune , if all men were alike educated . But while one man is destined for an abstract and
universal purpose , and another to a concrete and limited pursuit , and the emoluments of business pertain to the latter , the odds are against the individual who is educated in true principles , and in favour of him who is educated i « false . It is _ manifest , moreover , that local and narrow appliances will not alter the state of affairs . Schools and academies are inefficient ; for when these have done their best or-their worst , the individual is thrown upon the vital forces of society at large , and is affected by a sphere of influences that escape * all . cqiitrol . It is only such an institution as afeE PitESS , ancTother similar institutions , capable of appealing to the public conscience , that afford tile slightest
ground for hope . To the working of such an engine as the former the utmost facility should especially . be given . But because the tendency of a Free Press is to work in the direction -we have indicated , therefore every attempt to enlarge its scale of operations is opposed by prejudice and authority . There are those , in high places as well as in low , who dread the ultimate issue , and shrink from an agency the results of which must , as they flunk , and perlTaprn ^ tTTJi ^^ of things . The change , though for the better , is intolerable to these speculatists , who would stand in safety on the ancient waysand conceive it perilous even to move . This , of course ,
, is by reason of the darkness of their minds j they see not which way they should go , and would not have their ignorance enlightened . They even delight to think that there may be a fatal precipice the very next step , since it furnishes an unanswerable excuse for their standing still . Such reasons as these probably lie at the root of the conduct of the House of Lords in rejeqting Mr . Gladstone ' s measure for repealing the paper duty . Cheap literature throws some people , who are not even in Parliament at all , into serious states of alarm . If the shopkeeper fears it , why not even more the peer ? Nay , it may be doubted if any of us has realized to his imndnation the state of society that would
ensue from a univeis . il education that was properly grounded in the truth of things ; and whether , with our present limited means of judgment , we should be prepared to approve such results thoroughly , whatever our Faith might assert as to the necessarily beneficial nature of the change , so far beyond our understanding and previous conception . Such educntipn , at any rate , is inconsistent with any but the principles of freedom . It excludes coercion of all kinds ; the influences it implies must have the . fullest liberty of co-working . Public means might * nevertheless , be adopted to assist their operations . Our press , for instance , substitutes the drama as it what
was in Eliznbethan times . Plays then were newspapers are now , Were the Stage under ^ proper regulation at this time , it might again be made one of the thost effective means of general education , jt would take next rank at least , with the Pulpit , and in some resnepts would serve to correct the errors into which Churchmen are apt . to full . It wouldffbr instance , expose hypocrisy , and perhaps prevent it , and might illustrate the best , doctrines by means ot " action and character , in a manner which unassisted eloquence would vainly attempt . Amusements of all kinds nre capable of being applied to similar ends . The casino , the dancing platform , the concert , the singing saloon , are not at present rated At ' their ' true value . They are loft to speculatists , who look to
nothing but their pecuniary profit , when they oug in hand , and might be , most effectually , by those who have a sincere desire to aid the individual in his aspirations after the good and the true , and the search for aesthetic beauty . Properly considered , these are the most available means of education , and were known to be such by the ancients , who acted on this knowledge , and provided them for the people ; and the people were really elevated by the means thus provided . Classical literature exists as the witness of the good thus accomplished . Let us regard , then , these things , which we have been accustomed to despise , with a more serious eye , and contrive means for rendering them contributory to a more perfect scheme of Education .
[ Ht To Be Taken 492 The Leader And Satu...
[ ht to be taken 492 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . May 26 , 1860 .
Criminal Trials. We Have Recently Had Oc...
CRIMINAL TRIALS . WE have recently had occasion to refer to some very extraordinary criminal trials . Indeed , within the last three years we have had more which deserve the name than during any ten years preceding that period . Atid this circumstance has had its natural effect . In ordinary cases , the ordinary machinery of justice does well enough . Evidence is generally satisfactory , either one way or the other , and the jury may be tolerably certain that they have come to a right decision . It is probable that very lew incorrect verdicts are delivered in this country ; and these are more commonly in civil than in criminal cases ' . But when an instance occurs in which a singularly calm and dispassionate judgment is required , iu which all prejudice must be foregone , and care and pains taken lest any should creep in unawares , then a jury , as juries are now constituted , displays its fallibility , and gives rise to the
feeling , unhappily niuch on the increase , that a jtnige without a jury would form a preferable court . Indeed , c <> uld we be sure always to have a Mansfield , a Denman , a Gockbukn , or an Eble on the Bench , we believe there is no man who would not trust liberty , fortune , or life in the hands ' of'such , men , rather than commit them to the judgment of twelve small tradesmen , however respectable in their walk of life . The fact is that the common jury is not what it was in the times of pur Anglo-Saxon ancestors . It is one of those institutions of which the form remains intact , while the spirit has largely evaporated . If it be intended to bring it . into of its foundationand the
accordance at once with the object , exigencies of the times , it nltlst undergo no small change . The great principle for which the jury was established , was that every man should be tried by his peers . Now , this does not imply that a farmer " should be tried by farmers * a surgeon by surgeons , and a costermonger by costerniongers ; but that no man should be tried by a class of men SeZoK ? him . The higher the condition and position of botli judge and jury , the better lor the person to be tried The more educated the juror , the more is he qualified to sift and examine evidence , the . more free from prejudice , and , generally , the more humane and just in his feelings and conduct .
In the Anglo-Saxon times , jurors were taken from a much higher class than they are now ; and we regret to observe tliat ^ JTereHis «^ gi' < '" £ ? --- <;< : H > dftiit ! y— to . Jinpaimel . juries , from a lower and still lower section of ihe people . We are told that there is a straightforward practical common sense in the mass of'the nation , which makes it a matter of very little consequence from which layer we take pur jurors ; but while we grant the premises , we altogether deny the consequence . It may not matter in the ninety and nine commonplace trials ; but in the remaining * one , the result is frequently most pernicious . Let a professional man be on one side , and a tradesman , on the other , and the old leaven of class feeling will be almost sure to break out . We have seen tables , constructed with grout care , in which the decisions of petty juries in such canes huve been rtc > i-ded , and it is
astonishing bow ranch the small jealousy alluded to has been able to overcome all the considerations of common sense as well as common justice . Legal anecdote abounds with sneers at petty juries . We all know the story of the two famous Tuunton juries . One of these found a prisoner guilty , but recommended him to . ruerey ; and being asked on what ground they based their recommendation , they replied , "If it please you , my Lord , we believe he didn't do it !" The other acquitted their prisoner , und added a caution that they hoped he would never do it again ! But these stories are harmless ; mere incompeteney is not often found , and whez * e a common jury go wrong , it is usually either because there was an extreme difficulty in the case , and which furnishes their excuse , or because there was something more and something worse than mere incompetunoy at the bottom of the error . It is now by no means of rare occurrence to hoar the observation , " If I were accused of crime , I whould bo 1
vei \ y sorry to bo tried by a common jury . ' Over and over again it was said with respect to the trial of Mr . Hatch—the first trial , the result of which has been reversed by the recunt verdict—" Hud he been a small tradesman , heijrnsthnve been acquitted . " liefleotions such as thewe uro in the highest degree to be lamented . Trial by jury is indeed one of the great safeguards of the English popular liberty , and whatever tends to bring it into coutempt tondt * to the downfall of our Constitution . Aud yet it is nmnifewt thut the objections which we huve named must increase rather than decrease , unless some measures are taken to obviate the evils out of which they arise . The general tendency of recent legislation on the subject has been rather against the principle on which trial by jury was based thun in favour of it . Lord CAMrBEiiTi—a good man , no doubt , but the most unconstitutional lawyer that has ml in the House of Lords since Jeffkies—haa openly avowed his desire thut
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26051860/page/8/
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