Really Lord Derby is getting quite intolerable. Nobody has any
business to put so much sense into speeches as he does unless he puts in something else, which Lord Derby now-a-days seems to consider superfluous. He laid the foundation-stone of an infant-school near Liverpool on Wednesday, and told his audience that the success of the Education Act depended on the temper in which it was worked ; that in rural districts where the clergy are strong extra respect to the minority was both expedient and honourable ; that young children wanted play as well as work ; that "little legs easily got fidgetty with sitting still "; that " young brains could not bear tension without injury "; and that scholars appreciate "courtesy and justice in little matters." It is all true, as true as if it came out of a copy-book. If the poets of the day are hard to understand, it is quite certain the politicians are not. Everybody seems to be talking down to the householders. Lord Granville spoke to the people of Dover the other day like an engaging child, and his rival talks to Liverpool like a lad from a normal school. It is very nice, we dare say, but it is not very edifying, and it makes the papers very weary reading.
