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12 One word more on this subject before I quit it. I am not sanguine in the belief that what I wish will be done. Those who are concerned in the present system, and who have taken it up, are actuated by the best motives, and will be most vehement and urgent in resisting any change. The change will trench on their prejudices and feelings, and it is not unreasonable to suppose, without saying anything disrespectful of them, that they will think more of the disturbance of that which has cost them much pain and some money to establish, than they will of the larger public views I have endeavoured to explain to you. But while these people will be warm and earnest, I am afraid the friends of education will be comparatively lukewarm. A man acts with very different energy when he is striving for a particular thing he is connected with than he does when he is merely fighting the battle of the public at large. I will give you an instance of it. In the colony of Victoria, in Australia, recently, the Attorney-General—a gentleman of great influence—introduced a bill for the purpose of providing a national system of education, something of the sort I am describing. You know that there the Legislature is elected by universal suffrage; therefore you would think that the Attorney-General would have received the strong support of the people, because the people were invested with the power of electing the Legislature. As soon as he had broached his scheme—which was more necessary there than here, in consequence of the sparse population of the pastoral part of the country rendering it impossible for more than one school to be erected in a large district—the Roman Catholic bishop entered a formal protest, the bishop of the Church of England entered his protest, all the religious bodies entered their protests, while the people for whose benefit the scheme was designed were silent and apathetic, so that the Attorney-General was obliged to withdraw his bill, and the hopes of a real secular education in that country are postponed. We hear a great deal of the certainty that such a measure will be carried. I do not share in that expectation. I hope most sincerely I shall be disappointed. But whether it be