EDUCATION OF GREECE.
ME. MACFARLANE, to whose interesting work on Constantinople we owe much of the knowledge we possess concerning the present state of the Turks, has published an address to the public on the sub- ject of education for the Greeks.* We advert to it merely for the pur- pose of putting our readers in possession of the facts it contains. Schools, it appears, have been established in the Morn. and Isles, by various missionary societies, both English and American ; and we are happy to state, that these humane endeavours to return to the people of a country from which almost all the light of the world has gone forth, a portion of the illumination that we and our brethren of the United States have derived from it, have been received in the best possible spirit. The people • have displayed the utmost eagerness to be insti ucted ; and the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, far from manifesting any jealousy of foreign interference in so delicate a point as the instruction of youth, have given to it every facility and encou- ragement. At Syra, Dr. KoRcx, an agent of the Church Missionary Society, has established a school of three hundred children, which he himself superintends. The American missionaries have organized schools at various points ; and a subscription of 1500 dollars was very recently made at New York for the purpose of enabling them to continue and extend their operations. Those constant, kind, and unpresumptuous benefactors of mankind, to whom no distress ever appealed in vain—who ask for no recommendation to their sympathies but the complaint of the sufferer—who know no distinction of clime, or creed, or hue, but stretch forth their relieving hands wherever there is a downcast brother to be raised up, or a sorrowing spirit to be com- forted—the Society of Friends, truly so called—have in the case of Greece acted in their wonted spirit. In addition to large pecuniary succour to the survivors of the massacre at Selo, they have, in con- junction with the managers of the British and Foreign School Society, undertaken the education of several Greek youths, with a view to the management of schools after the excellent method practised by that Society ; and they have .printed and distributed a large stock of , ele- mentary hooks. No want, even of masters, is indeed more felt in Greece than the want of school-books. In many instances of schools of forty children, there are not above a couple for the whole number.i. The Reverend Mr. LEEVES, an agent of the Bible Society, who is at present superintending at Corfu a translation of the Old Testament into modern Greek, has visited the whole of the Ionian Isles, and has investigated the state of education there. He describes the people and their pastors as everywhere anxious for instruction. A committee of ladies in Edinburgh have planned the introduction of female schools ; and the measure has not only been gratefully hailed by the inhabitants, but approved by an ordinance of the Bishop of .Corfu.
We learn from Mr. MACFARLANE, that a Committee is already formed in London, for the purpose of communicating with Mr. LEEVES : but we consider such a plan as much too narrow for any useful puipose. We would suggest, before Prince LEOPOLD leave England, the calling of a public meeting, and the organizatiOn of a society for the education of Greece. The measure is not so extended that means may not he found in our great metropolis for going into it effectually, and carrying it forward to completion in a very few years. It is one in which the future Sovereign of Greece is deeply con- cerned; and we have no doubt that to the utmost of his power he will be ready to forward it.
* Understanding that this creditable production is from the pen of Mr. Macfarlane, we take the liberty to use his name, althoiNh it appears not in the title-page. The pam- phlet is published by Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly.
t Mr. Macfarlane mentions, that in the University of Corfu, the lectures are rite voce; but we do not think that a subject of much regret. Lectures are given viva voce in all the Colleges of Scotland.
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