Excerpt from The Popular Education of France: With Notices of That of Holland and Switzerland IN the following account of popular education in certain countries of the Continent, the State and its action are occasionally spoken of in a way which, if quite unexplained, is likely, I know, to offend some of my readers, and to surprise others. With many Englishmen, perhaps with the majority, it is a maxim that the State, the executive power, ought to be en trusted with no more means of action than those which it is impossible to withheld from it; that it neither would nor could make a safe use of any more extended liberty; would not, because it has in itself a natural instinct of despotism, which, if not jealously checked, would become outrageous could not, because it is, in truth, not at all more enlightened, or fit to assume a lead, than the mass of this enlightened connnunity. Accord ing to the long - cherished convictions of a great many, it is for the public interest that Govermnent should l)t' confined, as far as possible, to the bare and indis pensable functions of a police officer and a revenue collector. It is to always the mere delegated hand of the nation, nowr its origina'tting head. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.