was intended to further this end, but in vain. It would fail, we believe, even were the money all given to the parents. That it has failed when it is applied, as it commonly is, except perhaps a certain portion, to increase the pay of the teacher and to augment the general funds of the school, can be no subject for wonder.

Free instruction has been proposed, but clearly does not apply a remedy at all, because, as the Registrar-General remarks in his report on the census of 1851,

"It is not for the sake of saving a penny per week that a child is transferred from the school to the factory or the fields, but for the sake of gaining a shilling or eighteen-pence per week; and the mere opportunity of saving the penny by sending the child to a free-school would not restrain the parents from making a positive addition to their weekly income, if the absence of the child from school could insure it."

An education-rate has been suggested, with educational relieving officers appointed to give relief for this purpose to necessitous persons. But, even if this remedy were not hopeless for precisely the same reason as that just given,-since it would merely amount to a free education, and people too poor to pay for their children's schooling would scarcely be more likely than those better off than themselves to sacrifice their earnings for that purpose,-it would fail, unless the rate were compulsory, from the niggardliness of those who would have to vote the supplies. If, on the contrary, it were made compulsory, it would be the most objectionable and unpopular form of an approach to compulsory education. Moreover, who that knows the jealousies, squabbles, and follies of Bumbledom in general, would wish to delegate the care of popular education to a Committee of Council of parochial authorities?

Various prize-schemes, and the presentation of certificates to pupils attending a school after a certain age, may have had some partial effect among the more honourably ambitious of pupils and parents, but not one of them has yet proved a specific for the disease. All are quack medicines of greater or less harmlessness, but all are impotent to cure. The only bribe which would be likely to have a general effect is one impossible on account of the expense, and undesirable in many ways. It is to pay not only the school-fee, but also the earnings of the child after a certain age. Of course such a proposition, seriously made, would be absurd. We mention it chiefly to show our estimation of the hopelessness of overcoming by fair means,-if bribery in this cause may be called fair,-the neglect of ignorant parents. We can well believe that even this measure would fail in many cases. We can conceive that, even on such terms,

many a parent would rather send his child to work than to school, on the ground that, though he would not lose his present wages by sending him thither, the child would lose that practice in hand-labour which would enable him to earn better wages in the future.

There is but one remedy, and that one to which we are almost unwilling to give our assent. Until we can teach parents their duty, and open their eyes to their real worldly interests, we are convinced that a thousand plans of persuasion may be tried, and tried in vain. Perhaps a later generation may see the fruits of the labours of this, in a population wise and forecasting enough to sacrifice a present paltry gain for an incalculable future good to their children, and therefore to themselves. Until that generation shall see the light, until such a sentiment as this shall pervade all classes of society, we fear that compulsion alone will educate the masses around us. Several of the inspectors seem to have come to the same conclusion, and acknowledge that they find the notion spreading more and more. It is not to Englishmen a very pleasant idea, but the good of the commonwealth stands above sentiment. It would be premature to discuss at present the methods in which such a result might be brought about; perhaps the Commission now sitting may have turned their attention to the subject, and may throw out some useful hints. Meanwhile, we must state our own opinion emphatically, that it must come in the end to a comprehensive enactment, compelling all classes to have their children educated up to a certain age. Better this than progressive measures and half-measures. Let the law be that the British people be no longer a bye-word for ignorance, and let good subjects obey the law. The Times, indeed, in a leading article upon a former Registrar-General's Report, says that the way to make people send their children to school is to teach them the necessity of doing so, and that when once they see that it is necessary, they will do it of their own accord. True: but how can we make them see the necessity? It is improbable that an illiterate generation ever will see it. We must teach people before they can see the need of teaching. And, at all events, there seems to be no sound reason why a nation which makes vaccination and the removal of nuisances compulsory for the prevention of disease, and which makes tolls compulsory for the maintenance of highroads, should not, by the same right of self-government, make it compulsory to check the contagion of ignorance, and to mend the ways of knowledge.

A A

ART. IV.-ROMANCE IN JAPAN.

Sechs Wandschirme in Gestalten der Vergänglichen Welt. Ein japanischer Roman im Originaltexte, sammt den Facsimiles von 57 japanischen Holzschnitten, übersetzt und herausgegeben von Dr. August Pfitzmaier. Wien. Wien. Aus der kaiserl.-königl. Hof- und Staats-Druckerei, 1847.

"MAN must live," and he lives even in Japan. The Japanese is cradled amid earthquakes and hurricanes. A conflagration of some of the slight wooden houses which he inhabits is of nightly occurrence. He feeds mainly on rice, and his only liquor is rice-beer of a very fiery and unwholesome quality. His highest sartorial effort has only achieved a dressing-gown without pockets, and he has no shoes for himself or his horses, except such as are made of straw! But as Pinto found that the Japanese, who had never seen a musket before his arrival, had made a considerable number of such fire-arms before his departure, so, in later times, they have fabricated first-rate horseshoes of iron for Europeans. We are told that seven-eighths of the entire surface of his native islands are naturally barren and mountainous. Until yesterday, and for the last 200 years, to leave his country was a capital crime, and to prevent his escape all ships must be left open at the stern. Then he is subject to an omnipresent espionage. Nobody knows who may not be "wanted," and nobody is free. For example, the Nemesis of absolutism seems to have won its greatest success in the person of the Emperor of Japan. He is styled Mikaddo, or Sublime Porte. He is the fountain whence flow all Japanese honours and titles, both lay and ecclesiastical. He is the lineal descendant of a chief who founded the insular monarchy nearly seven centuries before Christ! Nay more, while all the Japanese claim kindred with the gods who once ruled in visible presence in Japonia, the "Great Door" is the direct representative and heir of the supreme sun-goddess herself! While he lives, all the prayers of the faithful are supposed to enter the unseen through the Sublime Door; and, at his death, he receives honourable apotheosis. Nevertheless, so long as he occupies the mortal body, the Mikaddo dwells in a charmed circle, environed by inexorable ceremonials-as idle as a painted Jupiter in painted clouds, and launching only painted thunderbolts. In traversing his palace courtyard he is not allowed to touch the profane earth with his sacred foot; but is borne shoulder-high in a palanquin. To remind him continually of the sanctity of his person, every dish

out of which he eats is broken immediately, lest any one less holy should make use of it; and the subtle spirit of control affects to be so reverent that it will not cut the august father's nails or shave his head unless he is asleep. Poor imperial Gulliver is pinned down through excess of worship, and may not stir hand or foot except as the worshipers please. When will Italy have done as much for the Roman Mikaddo?

Nor has the so-called secular emperor-the Taycoon-in reality any autocratic power. At highest he is the mere organ of the supreme council, and at the meetings of that council two super-vigilant spies, who are ready to swoop down upon any innovation, always "assist." For it appears that the decisions of even this privy council are not final. We have read that the ultimate authority in the country is lodged with a committee of three. This triumvirate-the heir apparent being always one of the three-when a disputed case is handed up to it, can set aside even the finding of a majority; but woe to the councillor who mooted the proposal rejected by the committee! He is ordered immediately to become his own executioner; and should the unhappy Taycoon have expressed his approval of the reprobated measure, he too must die, or, at least, forfeits his throne. The sixty-eight great feudal barons are no less strictly looked after. They must reside in Jedo every alternate six months. Their wives and families are never allowed to leave the metropolis, but are detained there as hostages for the good behaviour of the lords when the latter have gone down to their provincial estates. Then, as we descend lower in the social scale, we find arrangements for carrying out the most thorough-going inquisition. Not only is registry made of the usual domesticities, but the movements of each humblest person are honoured with the publicity which, in this country, is reserved for the migrations of Belgravia, or the frequenters of our watering-places. The agents of the demon of suspicion are every where, and assume all kinds of disguises. For aught that you can tell, that meeklooking gentleman who is presiding over the institution in which you can regale yourself on a slice of whale (sic!) is a functionary who is duly and daily sending his reports to head-quarters; and that stolid-looking palanquin-bearer, who is sitting on his heels opposite the whale cook-shop, is very possibly taking diligent notes as to how the mammal-fishmonger is managing his trust. In fact, there is around every man in Japan a thread of the one vast spider-web.

Poor flies! we exclaim, and certainly not without reason, for Japan is not quite the paradise, either physically or morally, which it was represented to be some two years ago in the newspapers. On the other hand, there are not a few contrasting.

and compensatory elements in Japanese existence. In the first place, in the matter of the espionage itself, the reader will have remarked that there reigns a grand equality-an impartiality of pressure, like that of the atmosphere. In the intervals of the earthquakes and deluging rains, there is a glorious sunlight shed over the majestic mountains,-wooded most of them to their summits,-over the deep blue lakes, the noble rivers, the green rice-fields or slopes of purple barley, and gardens exquisitely cultivated and replete with growths both rich and rare. And notwithstanding his "heavy laws," the Japanese himself is wondrously gay and good-humoured,-jolly, we might say, if the expression be allowable. In industry he is surpassed by no member of the human family. There are some thirty millions to maintain in Japan; yet Japan is quite independent of the harvests of other countries. Nor in other respects is the empire less sufficient unto itself. Indeed, Japan is so rich in mineral and vegetable possessions, and so ingenious and dextrous in working these up into both the useful and ornamental, as to stand in less need of foreign supplies than almost any other country with which we are acquainted.

Since the extirpation of Christianity, Buddhism has been increasingly leavening all Japanese thought and feeling. But side by side with the grossest superstition the highest science takes a place of its own. The more abstruse mathematics, astronomy, and geography, have their diligent and successful cultivators. It is, for example, to a Japanese geographer that we owe the discovery that Sagalin is an island, and not a peninsula. Again, every body in Japan is taught to read and write, and the literature of the country is at once abundant and various. There are encyclopædias, scientific treatises, translations of European works on science, histories, almanacs in thousands, poetry, and prose fiction.

What the Japanese really thinks concerning God, the universe, and the human soul, we can but vaguely guess. We suspect that not a few are haunted occasionally by a doubt as to whether Christianity and Japan have finally closed accounts with each other; and, judging from the quality of the objections urged by the priesthood against the Christianity of Xavier, we cannot but believe that a more comprehensive gospel than that proclaimed by "the Apostle of the Indies" would be cordially embraced in Japan. But on this subject we need not enlarge here.

In the absence of information as to the deeper Japanese convictions or aspirations, there is lying beside us a Japanese romance by a native author, from which we seem to have gained a better acquaintance with every-day life in "the land of the