right of the party obtaining it, endanger, and even destroy, the rights of other parties? If, by some mistake, a neighbouring estate, or part thereof, should be included in the title, without the consent, or even the knowledge, of its owner, would his right to his lands be gone for ever? What suggests this question to me is, that the Australian system, as I understand it, provides that in such a case the owner is to obtain indemnification in money, and that it is from the Government he is to obtain it—a guarantee fund being provided from which Government should make such indemnification by a tax being imposed upon all transfers of land. But is every neighbouring owner to be thus exposed to the risk of so losing his estates, even although he were sure of getting such compensation? And is there any certainty that Parliament would agree to undertake such a guarantee? Moreover, would not the personal or equitable rights of third parties to an estate, which may not appear on the face of the title, be extinguished without their consent or knowledge? This might properly be so, if such third parties had the means of publishing their rights, and had failed to avail themselves thereof. But are parties to be exposed to the risk of thus losing their rights without means for such publication being provided for them? Fourthly, Would entails, even of the temporary kind authorised by the statute of 1848, be consistent with these modes of rendering titles indefeasible? One other consideration is not without practical importance. According to the system of title by registry, a certain portion of each register book is set apart for each separate tenement. This being the case, the number of volumes which would be required for such a separate register, not only for every estate, but also for every house in the cities and towns of Scotland, would be so overwhelming as to ren der the system almost unmanageable. And this evil would be greatly increased if such separate register were required for the superior and the vassal, and for each mid-superior of every separate tenement. It would be still more aggravated by the division and subdivision of the tenements, and also by the union of different tenements-proceedings which are daily taking place. These and other difficulties may perhaps admit of being cleared away. But the statement of them shews how seriously any proposal to introduce these systems into Scotland would require to be considered. Before concluding, I now wish to say a few words upon the state of the rights to land, in a commercial point of view, in the colonies of Great Britain; and I am sorry that time will not allow me to

develop this subject so fully as it deserves. First of all, let me call your attention to the extent of these territories, and to the portions thereof which are still unalienated. From the documents issued by the Colonial Office, it appears that at the date of the last returns the extent of these lands in the three most important groups of these colonies was estimated thus:-1st, That in the North American group — viz., in Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland-there are upwards of 260 millions of acres, of which about 187 millions remain unalienated; the territories to the west of the Rocky Mountains-viz, British Columbia and Vancouver's Island-however, not being included in these returns. 2d, That in the Australasian group-comprehending New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, (exclusive of what still belongs to the natives,) there are more than 1280 millions of acres, all of which, excepting about 20 millions, still remain unalienated; and 3d, That at the Cape of Good Hope and Natal, there are about 128 millions of acres, of which about 70 millions still remain unalienated. Thus, in these three groups of colonies alone the extent of territory may be roundly estimated at not less than 1700 millions of acres, of which more than 1500 millions still remain unalienated. But besides these, there are the groups of colonies in the West Indies, Ceylon, on the coast of Africa, and elsewhere, as to the extent of which I have seen no return. There also remains to be noticed the crown lands in India which are lying waste, in the Neilgherries, Bengal, Oude, Burmah, on the slopes of the Himalaya, and in other parts of the interior, the extent of which is immense, but, so far as I know, has never been reported upon. These estimates, rough as they are, gave some notion of the vast extent of unalienated land in the British Colonies. Now, who are the owners of these large portions of our planet, so far as they are still unalienated? You, of course, answer that they belong to the British crown. So they do. But to what effect, and for whose behoof? They do not form the patrimony of the crown like some portions of land in this country, which are inalienably annexed to it. Nor is it held for behoof of the state in its corporate capacity. It is not under the management, or at the disposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as part of the wealth of the country, and cannot be sold or disposed of by him, for defraying the expenditure of the government, or even for payment of the national debt. The right is held by the crown as a trust, but who are the bene

ficiaries for whom this great trust-estate exists? The answer is, that it is held for each of us, and for each and all of the subjects of the British crown individually; and that each of us, accordingly, has a right to go to any of these localities and obtain a portion of it allotted to ourselves exclusively, on complying with certain very moderate conditions. This, I think, is now a settled principle in our colonial jurisprudence. Until modern times, this principle was perhaps not distinctly understood. The crown was in the practice of making gifts of large districts; and as, in many

cases, the donees could command neither the capital nor the labour which was necessary for reclaiming and cultivating them, they were allowed to remain in their natural waste state. But about thirty years ago this system was changed. Government published ordinances entitling any of the subjects of the British crown, whether they were natural born, or had become denizens, to purchase lands in any of these districts upon conditions which, besides being very moderate, were intended to operate for behoof of themselves. As the land could not be reclaimed and made available to the owners, and through them for the public benefit, without capital and labour being simultaneously employed upon them, and roads and other public works being formed, there was desiderated some plan by which all these objects might be effected. A series of ordinances accordingly issued for that purpose from the Colonial Office-particularly from the years 1830 to 1833—the import of which, speaking, of course, very generally, was that all these lands should be sold to British subjects, as a demand should arise for them, by public roup or private bargain, according to circumstances, on two conditions. One of these is, that they should be offered at upset prices (not rents, be it observed, but prices), rising from about half-a-crown upwards, but seldom reaching a sovereign per acre. The other condition is, that the purchasers should, within certain prescribed periods, have certain proportions of the lands cleared and under cultivation, under the penalty of forfeiting their rights, Then the money prices so to be obtained were not to come into the Exchequer as part of the ways and means of the mother-country, but were to be employed partly in making public works in the colony itself, and partly in assisting labourers to immigrate, so as to supply the labour market. Under the system so established, emigration to those colonies, purchases of land there, the accumulation of wealth, and the general prosperity of the colonies, have taken place at a rapid rate, and to an immense extent, and are

daily going on. And although the lands already purchased are of enormous extent, still, as I have shewn you, these bear but a small proportion to the practically boundless tracts which remain unalienated, and are waiting to be appropriated by any of her Majesty's subjects who may choose to acquire them, on conditions such as those to which I have referred. Then the tenure by which these lands are to be held by the purchasers is free and unconditional. The crown reserves no portion of the right of property or dominium as superior. No feu-duty or quit-rent is payable, except, perhaps, in some districts at the Cape of Good Hope. It is not improbable that the experiment of transferring the right to land by indefeasible title may be well adapted to these new countries; and it is no wonder if it has been successful hitherto in Australia. But I must not detain you with further details.. I shall only add, that we and our fellow-subjects are indeed highly favoured by having, in addition to our invaluable social and political privileges, such a vast patrimonial inheritance held for behoof of ourselves individually, and of our descendants on such easy conditions. I just add two qualifying remarks. One is, that looking to what is probably the future destiny of these districts, we should be very cautious against rendering any of them unfit for the civilisation which is gradually approaching to it, by peopling it with criminal inhabitants. This may, perhaps, be unavoidable; but surely it ought to be the last resource in our system of punishment. The other is, that although, looking into the distant future, we may reasonably hope that the effect of the lands in these vast countries being held for British subjects will be, that the inhabitants will be of British descent, we may, notwithstanding, lay our account with their ultimately becoming separate and independent nations-perhaps great empires. Be it so. But in the meanwhile, let us so deal with them, that when they shall, as it were, leave our family, and become independent states, they may ever retain the well-balanced institutions with which we shall endow them as their best patrimony, and may also ever retain and exhibit kindly and filial regard for their old mother country.

ADDRESS BY MR NASSAU SENIOR,

PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.

Ir appears to me that the duty of the President of this Department is not so much to state opinions or theories of his own, as to give a general outline of the whole subject of education, to distribute it into its many subdivisions and cross divisions, and to endeavour to point out the questions which, from their importance, their novelty, or their urgency, most deserve or require your attention. In the widest sense, the word education comprehends all the external influences by which the disposition implanted by nature in any animal is subsequently modified. In its narrower sense, the sense in which it is proposed as the subject of your discussions, it is confined to the influences which one person intentionally exercises over another by precept or by example. These influences are of two kinds-first, the imparting knowledge, which may be called teaching-secondly, the creation of habits, which may be called training. Teaching, again, may be subdivided into two kindsfirst, the statement of facts, which can be ascertained only by observation or by testimony. Such are the meaning and the proper pronunciation of words, such is geography, and, indeed, such are all the sciences called by the general name of natural history. This kind of teaching Archbishop Whately has called information. The second kind of teaching consists of statements, the truth of which is ascertained, not by observation, but by consciousness, or by inference from the pupils' previous knowledge. Such are all mathematical truths. The mathematician proves the equality of all the radii of a circle, not by measuring them, but by shewing that it is involved in the definition of a circle. The imparting this kind of knowledge Archbishop Whately has called instruction. The same statement, addressed to two pupils, may be information to the one who takes it on the testimony of his master, without working out the grounds on which it is founded; and instruction to the other who follows the premises one by one. The second branch of education, training-that is to say, the creation of habits,