Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849

"I got your letter," said Lord James. "I was setting out for Italy, and it was not much off my road to come myself and settle the future destiny of William Meredith: so here I am. Mrs William? – "

"Mrs William Kysington still lives, my lord," I replied.

It was with a painful sensation that I saw this calm, cold, austere man approach Eva's chamber, followed by the haughty woman who came to witness what for her was a happy event – the death of her former rival! They entered the modest little room, so different from the sumptuous apartments of their Montpellier hotel. They drew near the bed, beneath whose white curtains Eva, pale but still beautiful, held her son upon her heart. They stood, one on the right, the other on the left of that couch of suffering, without finding a word of affection to console the poor woman who looked up at them. They barely gave utterance to a few formal and unmeaning phrases. Averting their eyes from the painful spectacle of death, and persuading themselves that Eva Meredith neither saw nor heard, they passively awaited her spirit's departure – their countenances not even feigning an expression of condolence or regret. Eva fixed her dying gaze upon them, and sudden terror seized the heart which had almost ceased to throb. She comprehended, for the first time, the secret sentiments of Lady Mary, the profound indifference and egotism of Lord James; she understood at last that they were enemies rather than protectors of her son. Despair and terror portrayed themselves on her pallid face. She made no attempt to soften those soulless beings. By a convulsive movement she drew William still closer to her heart, and, collecting her last strength —

"My child, my poor child!" she cried, "you have no support upon earth; but God above is good. My God! succour my child!"

With this cry of love, with this supreme prayer, she breathed out her life: her arms opened, her lips were motionless on William's cheek. Since she no longer embraced her son, there could be no doubt she was dead – dead before the eyes of those who to the very last had refused to comfort her affliction – dead without giving Lady Mary the uneasiness of hearing her plead the cause of her son – dead, leaving her a complete and decided victory.

There was a moment of solemn silence: none moved or spoke. Death makes an impression upon the haughtiest. Lady Mary and Lord James Kysington kneeled beside their victim's bed. In a few minutes Lord James arose. "Take the child from his mother's room," he said, "and come with me, doctor; I will explain to you my intentions respecting him."

For two hours William had been resting on the shoulder of Eva Meredith, his heart against her heart, his lips pressed to hers, receiving her kisses and her tears. I approached him, and, without expending useless words, I endeavoured to raise and lead him from the room; but he resisted, and his arms clasped his mother more closely. This resistance, the first the poor child had ever offered to living creature, touched my very soul. On my renewing the attempt, however, William yielded; he made a movement and turned towards me, and I saw his beautiful countenance suffused with tears. Until that day, William had never wept. I was greatly startled and moved, and I let the child throw himself again upon his mother's corpse.

"Take him away," said Lord James.

"My lord," I exclaimed, "he weeps! Ah, check not his tears!"

I bent over the child, and heard him sob.

"William! dear William!" I cried, anxiously taking his hand, "why do you weep, William?"

For the second time he turned his head towards me; then, with a gentle look, full of sorrow, "My mother is dead," he replied.

I have not words to tell you what I felt. William's eyes were now intelligent: his tears were sad and significant; and his voice was broken as when the heart suffers. I uttered a cry; I almost knelt down beside Eva's bed.

"Ah! you were right, Eva!" I exclaimed, "not to despair of the mercy of God!"

Lord James himself had started. Lady Mary was as pale as Eva.

"Mother! mother!" cried William, in tones that filled my heart with joy; and then, repeating the words of Eva Meredith – those words which she had so truly said he would find at the bottom of his heart – the child exclaimed aloud,

"I am dying, my son. Your father is dead; you are alone upon the earth; you must pray to the Lord!"

I pressed gently with my hand upon William's shoulder; he obeyed the impulse, knelt down, joined his trembling hands – this time it was of his own accord – and, raising to heaven a look full of life and feeling: "My God! have pity on me!" he murmured.

I took Eva's cold hand. "Oh mother! mother of many sorrows!" I exclaimed, "can you hear your child? do you behold him from above? Be happy! your son is saved!"

Dead at Lady Mary's feet, Eva made her rival tremble; for it was not I who led William from the room, it was Lord James Kysington who carried out his grandson in his arms.

I have little to add, ladies. William recovered his reason and departed with Lord James. Reinstated in his rights, he was subsequently his grandfather's sole heir. Science has recorded a few rare instances of intelligence revived by a violent moral shock. Thus does the fact I have related find a natural explanation. But the good women of the village, who had attended Eva Meredith during her illness, and had heard her fervent prayers, were convinced that, even as she had asked of Heaven, the soul of the mother had passed into the body of the child.

"She was so good," said they, "that God could refuse her nothing." This artless belief took firm root in the country. No one mourned Mrs Meredith as dead.

"She still lives," said the people of the hamlet: "speak to her son, and she will answer you."

And when Lord William Kysington, in possession of his grandfather's property, sent each year abundant alms to the village that had witnessed his birth and his mother's death, the poor folks exclaimed – "There is Mrs Meredith's kind soul thinking of us still! Ah, when she goes to heaven, it will be great pity for poor people!"

We do not strew flowers upon her tomb, but upon the steps of the altar of the Virgin, where she so often prayed to Mary to send a soul to her son. When taking thither their wreaths of wild blossoms, the villagers say to each other – "When she prayed so fervently, the good Virgin answered her softly: 'I will give thy soul to thy child!'"

The curé has suffered our peasants to retain this touching superstition; and I myself, when Lord William came to see me, when he fixed upon me his eyes, so like his mother's – when his voice, which had a well-known accent, said, as Mrs Meredith was wont to say – "Dear Doctor, I thank you!" Then, – smile, ladies, if you will – I wept, and I believed, like all the village, that Eva Meredith was before me.

She, whose existence was but a long series of sorrows, has left behind her a sweet, consoling memory, which has nothing painful for those who loved her.

In thinking of her we think of the mercy of God, and those who have hope in their hearts, hope with the greater confidence.

But it is very late, ladies – your carriages have long been at the door. Pardon this long story: at my age it is difficult to be concise in speaking of the events of one's youth. Forgive the old man for having made you smile when he arrived, and weep before he departed."

These last words were spoken in the kindest and most paternal tone, whilst a half-smile glided across Dr Barnaby's lips. All his auditors now crowded round him, eager to express their thanks. But Dr Barnaby got up, made straight for his riding-coat of puce-coloured taffety, which hung across a chair back, and, whilst one of the young men helped him to put it on – "Farewell, gentlemen; farewell, ladies," said the village doctor. "My chaise is ready; it is dark, the road is bad; good-night: I must be gone."

When Dr Barnaby was installed in his cabriolet of green wicker-work, and the little gray cob, tickled by the whip, was about to set off, Madame de Moncar stepped quickly forward, and leaning towards the doctor, whilst she placed one foot on the step of his vehicle, she said, in quite a low voice —

"Doctor, I make you a present of the white cottage, and I will have it fitted up as it was when you loved Eva Meredith!"

Then she ran back into the house. The carriages and the green chaise departed in different directions.

NATIONAL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND

The subject of the Parochial School System of Scotland claims some attention at the present moment. Following up certain ominous proceedings of other parties high in authority, Lord Melgund, M. P. for Greenock, has given notice of a motion for the appointment of a select committee of the House of Commons to consider the expediency of a fundamental revision of that system. The question here involved is one of national importance; and the family and other ties by which Lord Melgund is connected with the Government, are likely, we fear, to secure for his proposed innovations on that institution which has been hitherto, perhaps, the pre-eminent glory of Scotland, a certain degree of favour.

It may be of some use to preface the few observations we have to offer on the Scottish system, and the proposed alterations of it, by a brief recapitulation of some of the more prominent methods and statistics of popular education in other countries, taken chiefly from a very carefully prepared and important Appendix to the Privy Council committee's Minutes for 1847-8. The information was obtained through the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, from the Governments of the principal states of Europe and America.

The cost of public instruction is defrayed by different means in different countries – means varying, however, more in detail than in principle. In Prussia, a regular school-rate, varying from 3d. to 6d. per month, according to circumstances, is levied upon all who have children; but this is supplemented by a grant from the state budget which, for elementary schools alone, amounted in 1845 to £37,000. A similar practice prevails not only in the other countries of Central Europe, but in Pennsylvania, where it was introduced by the German emigrants, and, of late years, also in some other parts of the United States. The income of schools in the Austrian Empire is derived from a variety of sources, of which school-money constitutes little more than one-third; the remainder, as far as we can understand the technical phraseology of the report, being partly derived from old endowments, partly from provincial revenues, and partly from the imperial treasury. In Holland, the governments of the towns and provinces are charged with the cost of maintaining their own schools, aided by grants from the state. On the first year that separate accounts were kept for the northern provinces, after their separation from Belgium, the sum raised in this way amounted (in a population of 2,450,000) to no less than £76,317. In Belgium, where the funds are derived from old foundations and local endowments, aided by the government, two-fifths of the scholars received, in 1840, their education gratuitously; but the provision seems to be not very complete, for in that year, out of 2510 communes, 163 were without any school.

As to management, there appears to be no country in Europe in which public instruction is not directed by a department of the government. No regular system of superintendence, however, has yet been established in the United States. In Prussia, there is a minister of public instruction, who is also at the head of church affairs, and under whom are local consistories and school inspectors, one of the latter being always the superintendent or bishop of the district. In Würtemberg, each school is inspected by the clergyman of the confession to which the schoolmaster belongs, and is subject to the control of the presbytery. In the Grand-duchy of Baden, the minister of the interior has charge of the department of education. The local school authority is commonly a parochial committee, consisting of clergy and laymen combined. The parish clergyman is the regular school inspector, but where there are different confessions, each clergyman inspects the school of his own church. Certain functionaries, called "Visitors" and "County Authorities," are also intrusted with special powers. In Lombardy, the direction is committed to a chief inspector, with a number of subordinates, and the parish clergy. (By clergy, of course, throughout these details, must usually be understood Roman Catholic priests.) In Holland, every province was in 1814 divided into educational districts, with a school inspector for each district, and provincial school commissions chosen from the leading inhabitants, to which were afterwards added provincial "juries." In Russia, public instruction is superintended by the government.

The details regarding religious instruction are not so full as we should have wished. The great difficulty as regards this appears, however, in most of the European states to be met by the establishment of separate schools for the different sects. In Würtemberg, "if, in a community of different religious confessions, the minority comprises sixty families, they may claim the establishment and support of a school of their own confession, at the expense of the whole community." The ecclesiastical authorities of the various sects are not, however, independent of, but merely associated with, the state functionaries, whose sanction is indispensable for the catechisms and school-books in use in every school. Such, at least, is said to be the case in Würtemberg; and, as far as we can judge from the not very precise statements made on this subject, the rule appears to be universal. Roman Catholic, Protestant, Greek Church, and Jewish schools are, in the Austrian empire, alike established by law, according to the necessities of each province and district. But in the state of New York (and we believe a like practice prevails in other parts of the Union) the sectarian difficulty is overcome in a different way. By a recent act of the legislature, it is provided that "no school shall be entitled to a portion of the school-moneys, in which the religious sectarian doctrine or tenet of any particular Christians, or other religious sect, shall be taught, inculcated, or practised."

The only other particulars we shall notice relate to school attendance. It must be premised that, in the countries of central Europe, the attendance of every child at the elementary schools is compulsory – the only alternative being private instruction. Fines and imprisonment are employed to enforce this regulation. Free education is also provided, at the general expense, for those unable to pay the school fees.

In Prussia, the proportion of those enjoying school education was to the population, in 1846, as 1 to 6.

In Bavaria, in 1844, nearly as 1 to 4.

In the Austrian empire, as 1 to 9 for boys, and as 1 to 12 for girls; but in Upper and Lower Austria, as 1 to 6 for boys, and as 1 to 7 for girls.

In Holland, 1 in 8 received, in 1846, public instruction.

In Sweden, in 1843, the proportion was no more than as 1 to 165 of the population.

In Belgium, in 1840, it was as 1 to 9.

In Russia, the number attending schools of all kinds, including the universities, amounted, in 1846, to 195,819, which, in a population of 60,000,000, gives a proportion of less than 1 to 300 of the inhabitants.

In Pennsylvania, in 1840, 1 in 5 of the population had the advantage of instruction in common schools; in New York, on the first of January 1847, nearly 1 in 16; in Massachusetts, about 1 in 6-1/2 of the population.

It is impossible to read these details without two reflections especially being immediately suggested to the mind. One of these is the necessary connexion between the success of any system of national education and the special circumstances of each individual state to which it may be applied. To introduce the Prussian system into Scotland, with any prospect of its working here as well as it does there, one would require to change the whole character of the government, and the whole habits, nay, the very nature of the people, to make Scotchmen Prussians and Scotland Prussia.

But there is a still more important reflection forced upon us. How little mere secular education, apart from that which we hold to be an indispensable accompaniment to it – sound religious education – avails for the elevation of the people, let these statistics, read in the light of recent events, tell! The murderers of Count Latour were all well-educated persons, after that fashion which it has been proposed to introduce into this country as the national system. They had all been at schools – at schools from which religious instruction, however, was either excluded, or worse than excluded.