The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-06-20 00:00:00

Corrczponbente.

_
CRURCH FUND.

To the Edit or s.

Sea,—I 1 is proposed by some of the leading workers
-in the Free Church movement, that an endeavour should
be at onoe made to raise a Fund for the purpose of
aiding in the erection of Free and Open Churches, as
well as in the restoration to freedom of the existing
Churches. The advantages of the proposed plan, and
• the reasons which have moved its originators to lay it
before the Church public, may be briefly stated as
follows :-
1. We have now amongst us—as we thankfully be-
lieve —a considerable and daily increasing number of
Churchmen more or less favourable to Free Church
principles. It is thought they will gladly aid in carrying
out those principles in the best and most practical way.
The natural end and aim of those principles must be the
erection of Free Churches, and the restoration of existing
Churches to legitimate Freedom. It is farther believed
that very many Churchmen at the present time decidedly
object to bestowing one single penny on the erection of
any church which is not designed to be wholly Free and
unappropriated. We may confidently reckon that
Churchmen of this description will be ready to assist in
the erection of the only sort of church in which they
Aare much faith.
2. It may perhaps be objected—" Why add another
: society to the already enormous number of societies,
which tend to distract people's minds, and to starve
. one another out of the great field of Christian exertion?"
To this we would say that this is an entirely new sphere
of work; this • portion of the great field as yet num
espied. The Church Building Societies do not profess
(so far as the present writer can discover), to give
any particular encouragement, or to afford any special
aid to Free (Auraeo as such. (Hereford Diocerau So-
miety is an -honourable exception.) They merely take
ttheir .olianee amidst • host of competitors of
aurions lona. itlshough it might be well supposed
that the only kind of church which gives the poor man
,as good,* chaste as the well-to-do end wealtAy, would
'be recogoised as possessing very strong and peculiar
Claim' on moieties instituted mainly for the benefit of
:the humbler chows. Indeed, it would almost appear
that a Free Church can only obtain a grant from the
Inoorporated Church Building Society by some happy
Inconsistency, for it is clear from the printed rule of
.that society that thesatings act apart as free, as churches
.assisted by its funds, are still liable to allotment
.or apprOpriatiola A free churchman subscribing
to a Church Building Society is placed in this poeition :
—A portion of his contribution may go towards the
extension of that free and unappropriated system, in
which he has entire confidence; but another portion
goes to the exbinatiois awl perpetuation of what his soul
detests; namely, pewdom, exclusiveness, class-monopo-
iliss, in those places which ought to be Houma of prayer
and praise for the people equally and alike.
3. We are only reverting to the original ideas
and principles of some of the best and most far-
seeing churchmen newly fifty years since. It
cannot he too widely known that when the
Incorporated Society was originated, it appeared at first in
tbel fiery andcorrespondeneeof Mr. Joshua Watson as the
'Church-room or Free Church Society Another of the
originators of the Society was she excellent Archdeacon
Danbeny, a munificent Free and Open Church Builder,
—ere of those fax-sighted men who anticipate the move-
merits of the age which is to sueeeed them. Whilst we
aim, therefore, at the establishment of • Free Church
rand, we are but humbly treading in the footprints of
some of the best Churchmen of the last generation; and
inlay we nature to hope), recalling Church Beeilitisag
Societies as their own true principles. Whilst we
acknowledge the services rendered by those Societies in
a period when perhaps Churchmen were not prepared
for the tree "patent pure and simple, we cannot but
think that the time Is now come that they should
return to their first love. Had they shown gins of
such • purpose the present appeal would, perhaps, have
been scarcely to be justified.
4. The peculiar and great difficulties encountered by
Free Christi builders and restorer', demand that they
should have peculiar and additional assistance& They
do not obtain help from that class of persona who
merely gin to that which is popular and fashionable.
Free Churebes and Mission Chapels are also most of all
needed in the poorest districts, where little pecuniary
aid can be obtained. A bepewed or appropriated church
easily
.guppert from the wealthy and 'respectable'
classes, who Wend to Monopolise it, when erected.
5. Dui most populous cities are now laudably doming
forward With their large schemes of Church building
said Chuseb el:Motion. Now is therefore emphatically
the time to pram the shims of Free and Opsa Chanties.
Surely, no other wet a &ninth, save that which gives
the poorest as good a right and as fair • chance of
accommodation sa the wealthiest, can for a moment be
*apposed of mush use for the restated'', of our neglected
masses in populous places. Let Churchmen look well
to this: otherwise they may hereafter find that these
large and promising schemes for the evangelization of
the pretermitad' classes, will have honed mainly in
the more fuer' antennas of Church-room and
prlvlleg qclamee which have all along poisoned
shoo* 0- of them. No one denies the im-
portance ' • the upper and middle, as well
or the lower flees; but that surely is not the main
and to be kept be view, when churches are to be reared
by genend charitable contributions, and professedly for
the special benefit of the humbler majority.
I saa, Sir, yours faithfully,
T. P. BROWNING.
Nevrton-ou-Ouse, near York, June 12th, 1366.

A FEW MODEB.N CURSES OF CIVILISATION
To ateliter&
There me maces antes than I an gang to Emden;
but of these some mould be removed by an eirilis
Anglo-French alliance, and the other ones by entitle
gamption. Among the former I place the curse of Italy;
then those of Poland, America, and Denmark, which all
have grown worse and worse through our specious, but
infigh 'Mem of nitotranty. When the good are left to
perish, then, of mune, thieves must be expected to
flourish. In ancient Egypt any man who did not help
his fellow creators in danger, was Punished am guilty of
manslaughter, mei even homicide, according Herodotus.
So must Flighted and ?ranee now suffer in their
prestige, mid even In their colonies. Few people are so
blind as to suppose that England and Franco united, are
sot a mach for all the test of the world. ant whew it
bedded that both would be booked by ail •
Injured nations, then oar mkt" seem guilty Of nine'
eowardiej.l ThAs Italy is getting imparts{ sti‘l im.
poverishtd, through her fears, espouses, sad briPWas ;
Poland is thrown many years back for her mesa*
diliveradee, sad Denmark Bk• the pose stolen donkey,
baa unwillingly sown the seeds of discord and discontent
among her thieves. A merica might have been settled
amicably mien miens, knead of which she now deltas
England nod Evans. severally, (though she would not
jointly), lindbelng sure of getting the Canada, sooner or
later, threatens solely Mexico for the present. No body
tea deny that these are curies of the first magnitude.
Let us sow look at three other camas, which I must
plate in their erder,of frequency sod urgency—railway
seidents, raid drags, and election bribery, each of
whin requires prevention, much rather than sum.
Railway 'indents are as plentiful as mad dogs, or as
bribery ears at the las* eleetiona, and it is difficult to
decide which are the most dreadful In their conic-
queues. The two former deprive us of Me or limb;
the Isit deprived us of political exinettes, and makes us
vegetate as infante. Moreover, bribery em neither be
santerised bee awed, and that nacre II still worse in
lb effere than hydrophobia. The mitered lawyer, Lord
Brougham, has just repeated, at a public dinner, bra
'Utopian sad Draconian scheme, that any briber should ,
be mestaiesd to the *readied{ which sounds very
stranp in the mos* of an m-Ohaneellor et Mislead,
who emit know that no English tribunal would ever
apply mash a law, which would be more bosomed in the
breach titan the oblervenoe: Indeed, as the elections
we Placed in Is bode of scram and pie Weigh Who area
OA Ferran in the British Conslitation, ittellows that

wily a few elms, 'unloose or.aner astini befiest to
the treadmill, without ever resetting the Vest sad
'ritual briber, who would remaia ,v*wa Sa
either the extended suffrage, doplimerrin mr Mderrarb
meld be sheltered from bribery, sad-there NOM to be so
remedy but the Benet, a. preitiffyeil wltieh
have adopted the representing* mystere, sad ereesially.
by the very avionics of ffirghtiid.•
Railway accidents too, might be rirresited in • great
meamire by appointing Gorenti•rillt RisPretenv who
would visit uavereenaily the Priarnil usd rile sie‘rrrlal
ci erelY,lioci ,ssebt:ebai anther is Oterworksd, sad
who would , Rho Lb. inewsotors of widens
sod measures. As to mei &gm • mrs7 golds Pon"'
rtilliatirs would egareat them allopther. Ivory dog
should weer a eons: with its owlier's name, without
which it ebould be destroyed, sad $ graduated tut,

it* P to
live on
Pit 7 to
Phobia

Mean
lath ag
Irail as

(Jcu, .

ktc:
.1 " BeileTlavt se Amiens Mae
• marleintof thin."

at the

To the Editors.

THAT our Grammar Schools are the moat popular
of all inatitutione we have ample proof. So popular

are they that they are now like spoilt children,
having too much their own way. Even that intolera-
ble satirist, " Martinua Scriblerns," praises publio
schools. Let as hear him a minute : "There is a
young lord in this town who, by an unexampled piece
of good fortune, was miraculously snatched out of
the gulf of ignorance, and confined to a public school
for a due term of years; he was well whipped when
he deserved it, and clad no better than his comrades;
he had no precedence in the school but what was
given him. "by merit," and he lost it when
negligent. It is well known how many mutinies
were bred at this unprecedented treatment. What
oomplaint" among his relatives of both sexes—that
his stockings with silver clocks were ravished from
I him ; that he wore his own hair; that his dress was
undistinguished, he was not fit to appear either at
a ball or assembly, nor ever suffered to go to either."
The above author wrote about 130 years ago, and
some believe "Martians Scriblerus" was the great
Dean of St. Patrick's. Whether it oomee from him
or not, the writer took the exact view taken at
present, by sensible men, as to a public education.
But let us hear " Martinua Scriblerns" again and
be will further enlighten us. He says: "Another
hindrance to good education, and I think the greatest
of any, is that pernicious custom in rich and noble
families of entertaining tutors in their houses. These
wretched pedagogues are enjoined by the father to
take special care that the boy shall be perfect in
his French ; by the mother that the muter must
not walk him till he is hot, nor must he be suffered to
play with other boys, nor be wet in his feet, nor
daub his clothe.; to see that the dancing master
attain& constantly and does his duty, and that he
be not kept too long poring on his book, because he
is subject to sore eyes, and bath a weakly constitu-
tion." So we observe that really the great Martinus
was in advance of his age as far as a public education
is concerned; and in fact, public education is, in
practice, now the only recognised system, because
public eraminaltom are the only recognised teat of
efficiency.
Let us now examine some of their abuses and some
of those questions absolutely requiring reform, and
this shall be done with a gentle and tender hand—
",more is sorrow than in anger."

What on earth has education to do with either party
or sect? It is simply ridiculous 1 Education is
the teaching of the rudiments of science, and has
no busigess with anything else. Their meaning is
human learning suited to their epoch. What
has arithmetic or geography to do with party
questions?

To make our public schools "what is specified as
select," the grand secret has invariably been the levying
"black mail." All aorta of extras have been dragged
in to drive away all thoee who oould not pay for
them. In many public schools it is especially laid
down that no masters shall receive any sum of money
or any solatium from their 'cholera. This is still
more absurd, and more honoured in the breach than
the observance, when, for every minor branch of
learning fees are levied in despite of their own laws,
and when beside they have ample means of satisfying
all the requirements of teaching from their own en-
dowments, is to say, with the greatest moderation,
great greediness and unblushing injustice.
The leading public schools of England must be
aware of the truth of these things; let them take
the initiative and reform themselves; if not, the day
and hour are too certain; some other public scheme
will inevitably foreshadow them, and leave them
"wrecks upon the land."
Another question much talked about, and a great
deal of cant vented, is the punishment of boys.
Papers and articles have been lately solemnly laid
before the public, headed somehow in this fashion:
" The villainous Schoolmaster," "Cruelty to boys at
a Public School," dm. Not one of these articles
could ever have been written by any gentleman who
had ever had the office of a schoolmaster. Had they
ever sustained that office for a month they would
have ardently written altogether the reverse. All
boys, without exception, endeavour, by means only
known to those who teach, to obtain the mastery
ovr their masters by every underhand way, and in
all that torment can suggest, they are admirable
exponeata; indeed, at the present day, masters have
to thank these excellent essayists in ironical
terms. Our boys will, pull out their gold and
silver watches and tell their masters the time of end
to their studies in the meet gentlemanly way possi-
ble. The silver clocks of "Martin= Seriblerna"
, are nothing to it. To flog a boy now is the height
of indecency and cruelty. "Very well, madam or
sir," as the 011113 may be, "you had a troublesome
son and expect a grammar school to be a panacea for
his ill behaviour without punishment—without cor-
rection I Pray why did you not keep him at home,
and punish him after your own fashion! You had
not, perhaps, courage to do so; and, indeed, it is
natural that tender parental fathers do not lay on
very hard ; and it is oertain now and then unplea-
sant coasequences may occur to even schoolmasters.
But whose fault is that? Not the master's, but the
ill-behaved child. It is, at all events, certain that
some boys at public schools are bad subjects and
mut be thoroughly punished, and consequently
reformed. The absolute setting down of them is
—cve oa every ruler of a school, and the

shortest way to do it is a sound flogging; it is the
fashion or the dictation at present that the master
must punish himself, and the punishment consists of
detsation in the school daring play hours —so the
master is punished equally with the ill-behaved boy,
and after working all the morning must remain with
his prisoner all the afternoon. Very pleasant and
very just, is it not, madam or sir ?"
Something more is to be said on this subject, and
14 words shall not be mere vain empty ones, nor
zeintpty theories too often taken up by those who
'Witte for want of something to write about.
Eduoation is a prolific theme—important no doubt
--and the wisest nations have ever given the subject
their most earnest and attentive consideration.

NAMELESS.