In an excellent speech at Bristol last Saturday, on the
sub- ject of Intermediate Education, and in favour of a great Coun- cil of Secondary Education, upon which the Government should be represented, and whose duty it should be to inspect secondary schools, and assist their more complete organisation, Mr. W. E. Forster took occasion to refer to M. Jules Ferry's French Bill, and to express strongly his disapproval of its princi- ple. At the same time, he implied a censure on those English. men who had signed the memorial against it, as if such a proceed. ing were that of a political busybody, who could not keep him- self from interfering in matters that did not concern him. We fail, however, to see how it is any more convenient or respectful to express an opinion without a signature, than to express one with it. The English Press has been condemning M. Ferry's Bill anonymously for some months, and Mr. Forster condemns it, not anonymously, but in his own name. How does the fact that -the condemnation is in writing make it less decent than a con- demnation in speech P So far as the opinion of one people can influence the opinion of another at all in politics, we should think that the more deliberate the fashion in which that opinion is expressed, the better is it calculated to exert such influ- ence. Mr. Forster seldom draws a distinction without a differ- ence, but he appears to us to have done so in this case.
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