EDUCATIONAL MAGAZINE; AND JOURNAL OF SCHOLASTIC LITERATURE. EDITED BY WILLIAM MARTIN. NEW SERIEST LONDON: LONGMAN AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. PREFACE. Ir is with some satisfaction that we are at length able to congratulate our readers upon the increased popularity of the cause of Education. If we compare the advances made at former periods, with those of the last two years, we have abundant reason to rejoice; all sects and parties have testified their concurrence in the great practical truth, that Education is needful, that it must go on, and that it is folly to attempt to stop it. Education is at last identified with the progress of the human mind—with popular opinion-and with the advancement of every physical, intellectual, and moral good. It gives us peculiar pleasure to record the new impetus which is at this moment given to instruction, by the active exertions of the Clergy, in many parts of the empire, in their establishment of Diocesan Normal Schools, and schools for the middle classes. Nor are we less pleased with the exertions of other public bodies. The British and Foreign School Society has seen the necessity of abrogating the absurd law which bound its schools to use no other reading-lesson book but the Bible; and are making exertions in the full spirit of British liberty, to introduce books of literature and scientific information into their schools, with a view to intellectual advancement; the improvement of the taste, the feelings, and the habits of the people. Nor are other parties without commendation. We owe something to the exertions of the Central Society of Education. Although the foundation upon which it would impart Education, is, we believe, an unsafe one, it has brought forward a large amount of most useful |