of a mistaken principle. Honest and zealous in his purpose,
his conduct was precisely analogous to that of all religious
persecutors--sparing no pain or bloodshed to accomplish what he
believed to be a good end. Let us grant that he was a monomaniac, the
question remains as to his general accountability. If he is to be
acquitted on the score of insanity, who is to be judged? Not so are we
to exempt great criminals from punishment and obloquy. Robespierre
knew thoroughly what he was about; and far as he was misled in his
motives, he must be held responsible for his actions. Before entering on
the desperate enterprise of demolishing all existing institutions, with
the hope of reconstructing the social fabric, it was his duty to be
assured that his aims were practicable, and that he was himself
authorised to think and act for the whole of mankind, or specially
commissioned to kill and terrify into his doctrines. Instead of this, there
is nothing to shew that he had formed any distinct scheme of a
government to take the place of that which he had aided in destroying.
All we learn is, that there hovered in his mind's eye some vague Utopia,
in which public affairs would go on very much of themselves, through
the mere force of universal Benevolence, liberated from the bosom of
Nature. For his folly and audacity in nourishing so wild a theory, and
still more for the reckless butcheries by which he sought to bring it into
operation, we must, on a review of his whole character, adhere to the
popular belief on the subject. Acquitted, as he must necessarily be, of
the charge of personal ambition, he was still a monster, only the more
dangerous and detestable for justifying murder on the ground of
principle.
W.C.
INFANT SCHOOLS IN HUNGARY.
The Austrian government has for some years been exerting itself, in
connection with the clergy, for the improvement and spread of
education in all the provinces of the empire, being anxious to do all in
their power to save the country from those excesses which are so often
found in connection with ignorance. As an Englishman, living in
friendly intercourse with members of the imperial family, and many
persons high in the administration, I am happy to avow my thorough
conviction, that such, pure and simple, is the object held in view in the
establishment of schools throughout the empire, and above all, in that
of the infant schools, which are now planted in every place where there
exists a sufficiency of population. I have all along taken a deep interest
in these little seminaries in the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, and
am highly sensible of the liberal and humane principles on which they
are conducted.
Each contains from two to three hundred children, between one and a
half and five years of age, all of them being the offspring of the
humbler classes, and many of them orphans. All are instructed in the
same room, but classed apart; that is, the girls occupy one half of the
apartment, and the boys the other, leaving an avenue between them,
which is occupied by the instructors. The boys are under the
superintendence of a master, and the girls under that of a mistress. Both,
however, teach or attend to the various necessities of either, as
circumstances may require. Infants too young to learn, and those who
are sent, either because they are orphans, or because the extreme
poverty of the mother obliges her to do outwork, are amused with toys
and pictures, all, however, of an instructive nature, and which the elder
children delight to exhibit and explain to them in their own quaint little
ways. I have frequently seen an infant, scarcely able to walk, brought in
for the first time, and left on one of the benches of the school-room,
surrounded by those already initiated. The alarm its new position
occasioned to the little creature, at thus suddenly finding itself
abandoned by the only person with whom it was familiar, in the midst
of a multitude of unknown faces, can easily be imagined. A flood of
tears was the first vent to its feelings, accompanied by a petulant
endeavour to follow its parent or nurse. It was immediately, however,
surrounded by a score of little comforters, who, full of the
remembrance of past days, when their fears and their sadness were in
like manner soothed and dissipated, would use a thousand little arts of
consolation--one presenting a toy or picture, another repeating what has
almost become a formula of kindly re-assurance, till smiles and
sunshine would succeed to tears and clouds upon that little brow, and
confidence and content to fear and mistrust. I have often seen the day
thus pass with

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