DOCTOR WILDE is already advantageously known to the public by his highly interesting "Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, Tenneriffe, and the Shores of the Mediterranean"—a work which displays much accuracy of observation, an original spirit of research, and an extensive command of literature.

On Dr. Wilde's return to Dublin, and soon after the publication of the "Narrative," he was advised by many of his professional brethren to proceed to Germany, for the purpose of making himself acquainted with the most recent improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the eye. In compliance with this advice our author went to Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna, and frequented the most celebrated schools of ophthalmic surgery, not only long enough to render himself thoroughly master of the art, but to form an intimate and advantageous friendship both with its professors, and many of the most celebrated writers with whom Germany abounds. It is not our intention (and it would surely be distasteful to Dr. Wilde,) to pronounce an encomium on our author's practical acquirements; but as Irishmen we may be forgiven the pride we feel in being able conscientiously to assert, that no European metropolis contains more opthalmic skill than Dublin, whether we consider the well-known reputation and brilliant attainments of our many eminent surgeons who so successfully treat the diseases to which the organ of vision is subject, and who are constantly engaged in imparting their valuable knowledge to numerous pupils, or whether we refer to the learning, tact, and experience of Dr. Jacob, whose discoveries in the anatomy and diseases of the eye have acquired for that gentleman an European fame. As might be expected, Dr. Wilde's thirst for knowledge not only exhausted the strictly professional subjects which

he had proposed to study, but prompted him to engage in active inquiries respecting the manners, education, and institutions of the inhabitants of the countries he visited; and in the work before us he has published the results of his researches concerning the Austrian dominions. Our author's work is by no means prolix, not extending beyond three hundred and twenty-five pages; but as great pains have evidently been taken to arrange and condense his materials, he has been thereby enabled to compress a vast fund of information within this comparatively narrow compass.

Throughout the entire work Dr. Wilde exhibits a vast deal of research and critical observation, as well as an intimate acquaintance with vital statistics and the laws that regulate man's existence, his nativity and mortality, &c., and wherever it was practicable, has enriched his pages with very valu able statistical tables, drawn from various and often difficultly accessible sources. These tables have been ingeniously arranged, and from them all those concerned in the management of public medical institutions, may derive many useful lessons. Dr. Wilde describes all the various educating establishments in this great empire, from infant schools to those for the instruction of home and foreign diplomats and employés. Upon this all-important subject of education, he says

"At the present moment there is no topic of greater interest than that of public instruction; and though, with reference to it, Austria is somewhat inferior to her Prussian neighbour, yet the system pursued in the former country is well worthy of an attentive examination. How well this system is arranged, and with what skill it is conducted, is a source of natural wonder and admiration to the foreigner, who finds, upon inquiry, that among a population exceeding twenty-four millions and a half,

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(not including Hungary,) there are no less than 30,320 public national schools, with 2,338,985 pupils in actual attendance upon them: and this admiration is heightened, when he reflects not only upon the vast territorial extent of this immense country, but upon the apparently discordant elements of which it is composed, and the variety of nations and tongues-their different habits, peculiarities, customs, religions and manners -that are all brought under the benign influence of one great system of national instruction. Here we have the great Sclavonic nation, composed of the oncepowerful kingdom of Bohemia, a part of the ill-fated Poland, the great province of Moravia, the ancient territories of Styria and Illyria, the rude military frontier of Dalmatia, the southern countries of Carynthia and Carniola, and all Hungary; the Rheinish, or true German nation, consisting of the two archduchies of Upper and Lower Austria, the Tyrol, and a small portion of nearly all the other states; and lastly, the Italian, who inhabit the LombardoVenetian kingdom, and a part of the Tyrol; besides some Wallachian people, half-Christian half-Mahommedan, resident in Transylvania and on the Turkish borders; all these, variable as the climes under which they are placed, from the hyperborean regions of Russia to the warm Liburnian villas and sunny cities of the Adriatic-Catholics and Calvinists, Lutherans, Greeks, Jews, and Unitarians-all receive the same description of popular instruction, merely varied to suit the language or the religious tenets of each particular nation or country. In Austria, education is compulsory: it is not left to the option of the parent, whether he will or will not instruct his child, for he is compelled to send him, when of a certain age, to the national school of his parish; and the many disadvantages under which the uneducated labour are too many, and the laws against them too strictly enforced, to permit of general ignorance, even in the most distant country parts. All children, from five to thirteen, both males and females, come under what is called the "school age," and the description of education they are to receive is strictly defined, so that all, from the simple agricultural peasant to the highest university professor, must pursue the path of instruction in the manner marked out by the state. This, however, is not without its disadvantages ; for, though the instruction is general, yet the plan is one so conducive to the castecontinuing system, after the manner of the Chinese and ancient Egyptians, that it is opposed not only to political reformation,

but also to the steady progress of civilization itself, and the rapid development of the resources, both mental and commercial, that should have taken place in this empire during the present long peace with which it has been favoured.

"The measures taken to enforce instruction among the lower orders are so much dependent upon the state of reli, gion, and so mixed up with the local government of the country, that their details would occupy more space than would be necessary to the present introduction. Suffice it to say, that accurate registries of all the children who have arrived at the school age' are kept by the curate and churchwarden of the parish, who, with the local executive, take means to insure an attendance.

"Public instruction in Austria is divided into the popular or national, the intermediate, and the superior. The popular consists of that afforded at the elementary schools, Trivialschulen ; the superior primary schools, Hauptschulen ; and the Wiederholungsschulen, or repetition-schools, for persons above the age of twelve years, analogous to the Ecoles de Perfectionnement of France.

"Between this last and the next class there are a number of very admirablyconstructed seminaries for the purpose of teaching the useful arts, and giving special instruction in particular tradesthe schools of utility, Ecoles Usuelles, denominated in Austria, Realschulen.

"The intermediate instruction is acquired in the gymnasiums, lyceums, and faculties or academies of different kinds; and the superior education is that attained in the universities."

To the passage which we have printed in italics we beg the reader's particular attention, for it announces the apparently anomalous fact, that education may be made the means of arresting the intellectual progress of a nation; and so in truth it does, when, as in Austria, it is confined to the mechanical acquisition of reading, writing, and arithmetic, a little smattering of some of the useful arts, and a dry catechetical formula of religion. Were the state to confine itself to ensuring to all its subjects even this limited quantity of instruction, they would have reason to be grateful, for the first rudiments of learning are the most difficult to acquire, and every individual might depend upon his own exertions for subsequently adding to his stock; but in Austria the state not only forces its subjects to receive an elementary education, but renders

it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for them to make any further advance in the acquisition of knowledge. This object the government effects by superintending the censorship of books, and preventing, with the greatest jealousy, the sale of all popular and cheap works. The learned may purchase what books they like, provided they contain nothing politically objectionable; but cheap literature, cheap books, calculated not merely to teach some process of art, or convey the principles of a practical trade, but capable of enlarging and enlightening the mind-all such publications, we say, are forbidden. This restriction will, no doubt, excite feelings in the minds of our readers by no means favourable to the Austrian government; but, in candour, we are bound to add, that their defence of this restrictive system is, to say the least, plausible. If forced to become its advocates, we would urge the following arguments in its favour :Experience proves that unrestricted freedom of education and publication is by no means conducive, either to the morality or happiness of a people. The United States of America exhibit the best example of education most extensively diffused among all classes of the community, and perfectly untrammelled in the department either of schoolmaster or bookseller. There every one may teach what he chooses, or print whatever speculation dictates. The great mental activity which pervades all classes of the Anglo-Saxon race, has not suffered any diminution among the descendants of the English settlers, but on the contrary, from the circumstances of their history and their location in a new world, it has been wonderfully augmented. These colonists left home accompanied by the newly invented powers of the press, and America is now the only free nation in the world which has been founded, and has sprung into existence, since the art of printing commenced its stupendous operations. In America education was called on to perform a new function, and was not destined, as in England, Germany, and France, to modify, to improve, or to deteriorate the character of a people formed during the preceding ages of a slowly developed civilization, but was destined, at once, to stamp with

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its impress, the soft and yielding materials of an infant society. In the United States the proportion of persons who can read and write, far exceeds anything we know of in Europe; books too are much cheaper, newspapers more numerous, the law of libel is a dead letter, and no such thing as censorship exists-every religion is tolerated, and consequently the moral and intellectual condition of the citizens of the republic may be considered as the product of an experiment never before made on man. has been the result? We fear, nay, we are certain, that every candid and unbiassed person who has watched the progress of the model republic, must confess that the result has been most signally unpropitious. Let us receive, on this point, the statement of the New York Daily Herald :-" This is the most original and varied country under the sun, and none other is worth living in Every element of thought, society, religion, politics, morals, literature, trade, currency and philosophy is in a state of agitation, transition, change Every thing is in a state of effervescence ! 50,000 persons have taken the benefit of the act, and wiped out debts to the amount of 60,000,000 of dollars. religion we have dozens of creeds, and fresh revelations starting every year or oftener. In morals we have all sorts of ideas, and in literature every thing in confusion. Sceptical philosophy and materialism seem, however, to be gaining ground and popularity at every step."

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This is strong language, but perfectly correct, and consequently the picture of America contrasts very unfavourably with that of Austria, as witnessed by ourselves, and as drawn by Dr. Wilde and other travellers; and in addition to this, be it remembered, that no population in the world exhibit so little crime as the Austrian

in this respect Austria far excels America, Britain, or France. Space does not permit us to examine whether the records of history prove that the curse of modern France has been derived from unrestricted literature and uncontrolled education. We firmly believe in the affirmative, while with respect to England we fear that the same causes are beginning to exert their destructive agency; but this is

a subject we cannot now enter on.

Dr. Wilde's description of Vienna and its institutions is both instructive and amusing. The following graphic passage is a good specimen of our author's style:-—

"Amusement is cheap in the capital; dancing and smoking are with the students, as with the rest of the Viennese, their chief solace and enjoyment; from the Sperl and Goldenen Birn down to the balls at Marien Hülf, the Wieden Theater, the Volksgarten, the Redoutensaal, and the Eliseum, all offer for a few kreutzers recreation even to satiety. The latter classic, though not attic, land consists of a vast number of cellars excavated beneath several extensive streets, and fitted up so as to resemble the several quarters of the globe;-capable of holding some thou. sands of people, and far exceeding in the variety of its entertainments the merriest fête at Longchamp or the Champs Elisées in their most palmy days. The temperature, the decorations, and the dresses of the bands and attendants in each of these fairy lands being arranged in accordance with the originals; the millions of lights, the wit of the improvisators, the music of the troubadors, the native songs of the Tyrolers, the laugh and jest of the clowns, quacks, and conjurors, the clinking of glasses, and the honest good humour that beams in the faces of the many hundred light-hearted Viennese, with their ponderous Fraus, and bucksome daughters, make this scene highly attractive to foreigners as well as students, or indeed to all who would witness low-life below stairs in this gayest of capitals. Grotesque and mixed as are the characters one sees in the Elyseum, the admittance to which is but four-pence, I have seldom visited it without meeting there some of the highest of the Austrian nobility -nay, it is not without the pale of royalty itself, for both here and in other places of similar character and resort will frequently be found some two or three of the archdukes of Austria, mingling with unconcern and almost without observation among the artizans and shopkeepers over whom they rule: strange to English eyes-yet such is Austrian policy.

"And then as to dancing-Orpheus must have been a Wiener, or at least have once set the good people of the imperial city a-going; and should he return some twenty years hence, he will find they have never ceased during his absence. It is really quite intoxicating for a foreigner to look at so many things

turning round on all sides of him—men, women, and children-the infant and the aged, the merry and the melancholy -round and round they go, spinning away the thread of life, at least gaily, if not profitably. I do verily believe, that if but the first draw of Strauss' or Lanner's fiddle-bow was heard in any street or market-place in Vienna in any weather or season, or at any hour of the day or night, all living, breathing nature within earshot would commence to turn: the coachman would leap from his carriage, the laundress would desert her basket-and all, peeresses and prelates, priests and professors, soldiers and shopkeepers, waiters and washerwomen, Turks, Jews, and gentiles, would simultaneously rush into one another's arms, and waltz themselves to a jelly. In fact, this dancing mania, like animal magnetism or the laughing gas, is quite irresistible, at least during the carnival.

"With all this, I have never seen a blow given; I never witnessed a quarrel or a row amidst those varied scenes; and among the students duelling is almost unknown. But for the perpetual, never-ending taking off of hats Austrian politeness would be really charming. The Austrians are polite and obliging to strangers and to one another from good nature and kindness of heartthe French because it is the etiquette. Drunkenness is scarcely ever witnessed: during my residence in Vienna I never saw a person in a state absolutely drunk; and begging is neither tolerated nor necessary. But, I find I am running into a description of the domestic manners of the people, instead of writing about their statistics and sanatory institutions."

Dr. Wilde strongly advocates the cause of the long-suppressed Academy of Sciences in the Austrian capital, concerning which so much has been already written :

"While," he adds, "no capital in Europe can boast of finer collections or more extensive museums in both science and the arts than that of Austria, it is a fact equally certain and admitted, that there is less done to advance the cause of general science, or any of its higher branches, or to uphold the true philosopher in Vienna, than in any other city of the same extent and resources of the present day. This is no new theme of wonder,no hap-hazard conclusion formed in an hour or a day; it is the result of minute and anxious inquiry for several months-it is a tale in the mouths of all those who are capable of forming au