MR. BENDIGO BUSTER ON OUR
NATIONAL DEFENCES AGAINST
EDUCATION.

WRITERS on birds tell us that feather makes
a bird much hungrier than flesh. The Germans
are all feather. That's why the Germans
are always hungering after something new,
and why they can't be satisfied with
ancient institutions. I'm not partial to
feathers; I 'm for flesh—flesh is the article
for me! I have bought M. Romien's book
upon the Era of the Caesars, and I like it.
Liberty, and progress, and education, are, as
he says, ' mere cuckoo cries.' Force is the
thing; the only hero is king Fist. I should
think so! I take in ' Household Words'—on
purpose to differ from it. I meet with a good
deal of puling in that journal. It annoys me.
I consider Izzy Solomon the strongest man
and the prettiest sparrer in England. I
have in vain looked for an article on Izzy
Solomon.

What I say is, the Germans are a
speculative people, and there's a deal too much in
this country of the German school. There's
a spirit of poring and pondering; whereas
the man ought to be knocked down who ruminates.
If ' Household Words ' is fair enough
to let a man stand up against a man, and see
a man fairly backed, what I say is, I 'll put my
fist into print and do a little execution. It will
put some vigour into that journal to admit a
Rustum. Rustum, being only a strong man, I
suppose you don't remember all his deeds? I
do. I 've read, that when he fought one day
with his brother Persians against the army
of Afrasiab, he killed, with his own sword,
one thousand one hundred and sixty enemies.
What do you think of that ? Two men a
minute, in a battle of nine hours! The sword
of Rustum has been made into steel pens, and
I 've got one of 'em. Look out!

I strike immediately at a vital part—I
go in at the School. Schools are intolerable
follies; and of all schools the most foolish
is the German School. England is acting,
in regard to schools, as becomes her
practical good sense. Her boys are in the
gutters, growing up to manly independence;
they swear well, fight like bricks, and
have game in 'em. By her boys, I mean the
multitude, the children of the people. I
know that in the upper classes there are children
more or less demoralized by education,
and that the same evil influence is sometimes
brought to bear upon the poor. But, England,
as a nation, don't trouble herself much
about the education of the masses; something
like forty-five out of a hundred of 'em
can't read and write. That's what I call
being practical. That's why I 'm partial to
my country, and shout " Rule Britannia,"
with a will.

If any man ever immortalised himself it
was Toomer. Who was he? says you. He
was a gamekeeper to Sir Henry Mildmay,
and he trained the black sow, Flat, into a
sporting pig. She used to point game as
surely as the best of dogs, and entered in
a spiritual manner into that kind of work,
took to it hearty. If I had the arrangement
of a Walhalla of all nations, there
should be a colossal Toomer in the front of
it, big enough to extinguish Schwanthaler's
affair; Flat should repose at Toomer's feet;
and, round his pedestal, we 'd group in miniature
your humdrum baby-trainers, Pestalozzi,
Lancaster, Vehroli, and such fellows. What
I say is, reading and writing don't make
shoes, and you can't work up A, B, C into
chairs and tables. Arithmetic won't make
beds. When people are born to be cobblers,
carpenters, or housemaids, they ought
not to have their minds distracted, and be
lifted up out of their calling. Ignorance is
nature; we are born ignorant, and we ought
to be kept so.

The Germans are nice men! Nice un-
English men! Why, it's painful—as my prize-
fighting friend the Chicken says, it's mean
to see how they sophisticate their children,
willy-nilly. They have got a word like
a Brazil nut, Schulpflichtigkeit, which means
the duty of instructing children as a sort
of moral law over a state and all its subjects.
Swiss, Swedes, Dutch, and French, follow
the German crotchet. There is not a young
Dutchman, sound in mind and limb, who can't
read, write, and cipher; nor a young healthy
German from fourteen to twenty, who cannot
do as much and something more. Your true
ignorant children are to be found out of England
only in Spain, Portugal, and South Italy,
or among Turks and Russians.

The diabolical deliberation with which these