The week has produced a good many Educational speeches, a
species of speech which is probably the least read, though not by any means the least practically influential, of any, for they are made usually in places where a pecuniary effort is required, and one which would not be made without a spurt of local enthusiasm. Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary, made a very Liberal speech at Orrell, near Wigan, on Monday, keeping up well in it the character which we have elsewhere given him as one of the most Liberal members of this Conservative Cabinet. He was speaking in aid of a fund for building a new church and school, and he told the people of Wigan very frankly that from year to year they would have to spend more and more on the cost of education, as better and better teachers would be required. He made a strong appeal to parents to deny themselves the luxury of extra wages earned by their children during the years when the children should be at school, and told them that no form of self-denial,—no lodging of money in the savings-bank,—would bear such good and lasting :.fruit. He prophesied a speedy resort to compulsion ; and he delivered himself of a maxim which we wish he would try and impress on his colleagues and followers :—" The sufficiency of to- day is, really and practically, in this age of progress, the insuffi- ciency of to-morrow." Surely Mr. Cross is destined to seize Mr. Disraeli's mantle when that great leader passes "sublime to the stars of Heaven," and like him to "educate his party." They _have still ample need of it. '
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