The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-17 00:00:00

EARL GRANVILLE ON THE PROGRESS

OF EDUCATION.

Earl Granville presided at the annual meeting of the
British and Foreign School Society, held at the Institution,
Borongb-road, on Monday morning, and, in moving the
adoption of the report—which made special reference to
the death of Earl Russell, who was connected with the
society since AN—spoke as follows

I heard a distinguished member of the House of
Commons the other day lay great stress on the high
privilege enjoyed by the Speaker of the House of Com-
mons because, he said, as a speaker he was not ex-
pected to speak at all. (Laughter.) That is a
privilege not accorded to the chairman of this
meeting; for your committee have directed me
to move the first resolution. Not only has an
east wind arrived to deprive me of a voice
which I wished to place at your service to-
day, but the excellent and exhaustive report to which
we have just listened has somehow managed to con.
sume and exhaust the straw which would have enabled
me to make a few bricks. Nothing could have been
more touching in that report than the allusions to
the friends which the society has lost during the
year—nothing more graphic or more true than the
descriptions of the great loss which the society sus-
tained in the death of that eminent statesman who,
Imitating the example of other members of his family
who had been associated with this society since its
commencement, during a long and busy political
life never for one moment wavered in his allegiance to
the Mee.] of this institution. I will not attempt to
weaken by rer etition the descripti,n that has been
given by the c. minittee of the services which Lord Rus
sell rendered to the cause of education. (Cheers) I
have had an opportunity during the past year of ex-
pressing my appreciation of his charming private and
other great qualities, and of the services he rendered
to his country. I had the melancholy satisfaction of
being present at the last tribute of respect paid to him
in that beautiful village where his body was interred,
was there an uninvited guest; for, by his own desire
and in accordance with the singular simplicity which
was one of the features of his character, the funeral
was strictly private and confined to his family. But it
struck me as a somewhat characteristic inoident that
the only exception made to that decision—an exception
which was gladly acquiesced in by his family—was
in favour of the attendance of a deputation of
this society—a deputation representing principles
he had adopted when those principles were exposed
to animosity and obloquy, but principles which
before his death he had seen acknowledged by
the great majority of his countrymen. (Cheers.) It
is now some forty-three years ago that I entered the
House of commons. What was the state of national
education at that time? IN education was not
entirely ignored. This society had been working at it
since the beginning of the century. The National
Society had had a not much shorter existence, and
there was that great and grand intellectual man (Lord
Russell) passionately devoting himself to the cause
of national reform, and who was before long in Parlia.
merit, and at meetings of this society. But it was with
shame and indignation that we think of the state of
national education in this country at that time—of
how we lagged behind foreign countries, of how
scanty were the schools, and how deficient this
education given in them. Some ten years after-
wards I entered the House of Lerds. .Things then
had very much improved. The Minutes of '4fi were
being passed.- Progress had been made both with
regard to schools and to pupils; but still there was a
lamentable deficiency in the education offered to the
people of this country. More than that, there were
differences of a religious character which seemed at one
moment almost fatal to the chances of esta4l lug
anything like a ml system of natiotal Orr:
(Hear, hear.) On the one hand, we had the tiatronal

Society backed up by a large proportion of the clergy
of the Established Church, who held to certain formu-
laries, who objected to a conscience clause, and who
insieted on a system, which naturally excluded a
great proportion of the youth .of this country,
On the other hand, there were those who were
in favour of secular education, and who comprised
some of the most earnest and most religious men in
the country, but whose principles then, ai now, were
not acceptable to the majority of the people. Then
we had this society, with its well-known principles,
which even at that time was taunted with being

somewhat of an irreligious character. But what did
Lord Russell see before his death? He say an ad-
vance, really gigantic, in the progress and numbers of
both schools arid pupils. (Cheers.) At the time I
first entered the House. of Commons the friends of
education were singing a song of great triumph over
the fact that they had extracted from Parliament a
few thousand pounds as a stimulus to private benefi-
cence; but Lord Russell lived to see thousands and
hundreds of thousands spent out of the local rates for
the purpose of advancing national education.
(Cheers.) The increase of schools of late years
has been such that I have heard it seriously
maintained that the reason why the building
trade was later in succumbing to the universal
depression was the large number of schools
being erected over the surface of the land ; and
with the multiplication of schools there must have
taken place a great increase in the number of teachers
and of those taught. I bongratulate the society on the
work which they have done, bIA I congratulate it still
more on the principles upon which schools have of
late years been established—those simple, comprehen.
sive principles from which this society has never
swerved. Those schools have been established in such
a way that I believe the complaint originally brought
against them have been very much weakened and
diminished, and they have certainly been generally, if
not universally adopted by the School Boards, who so
fairly represent the ratersayere of this country. borne
of us may have listened to, or read of, some scientific
opinions given at an industrial meeting held within the
last few weeks, when it was shown that we were daily
increasing the number of our discoveries by which fire
and steam, and gas and electricity, were made more
subservient to the comfort and advantage of mankind.
These are great powers—powers which sometimes have
been more formidable for evil than for good; but I
would ask, is not education a great power—greater
from being a moral power—and is there anyone here
who can calculate the advantages to be derived from
the extension of education now going on in the country.
(Hear, hear.) There is one passage in the report
which struck me as being somewhat of an apologetic
character—l mean that which referred to the limited
scope of the work of the British and Foreign School
Society. Perhaps you will excuse the comparison
which occurred to me in listening to it; but the
complaint seemed to me to resemble a little the
complaint of the great political party, with which
for many years I have been consistently connected.
(Cheers.) We during the last forty years have re-
moved so many grievances and relieved so many
classes, that we can hardly have the (same number of
clients clamouring—l may say howling—for our sup-
port, whilst it may be that the objections entertained
to our views are less formidable than they were at one
time ; but of this I am perfectly convinced, whether
referring to the results of that party or of this society,
that, so long as people are willing good work should be
done, there are plenty of men, both in political and
social life, to fulfil the aspirations of those who are
anxious to be useful to their fellow men. (Cheers.) It
Is gratifying to have connected with us such men as
Lord Lansdowne, and two such worthy representatives
of the liberal character of the Church of England as
the Dean of Westminster and the Bishop of Exeter;
but lam also struck with another fact. It has often
been my lot on post prandial occasions to return
thanks for the House •of Lords. Constant repeti-
tion of the circumstance, I find, makes it dill-
cult frequently to introduce any perfectly ori-
ginal defence of that illustrious assembly ; but in
the list of names contained in the papers of your
society I think I have discovered an additional argu-
ment in favour of hereditary descent. When I see
how the Russells, the Lansdownes, the Fitzmaurices,
the Stanleys, the Howards, the Buxtons, the
Forsters, and many others, have from generation to
generation—moved by public spirit and general
philanthropy—given themselves heart and soul, and
with unabated zeal, to the promotion of the objects
of this society, then I cannot help feeling that there
must be something in the example of our forefathers
which inspires in us a- desire to imitate, if not to rival,
them in their good works. (Cheers.) In conclusion,
let me say, I believe this society is doing a wise thing
in concentrating its attention upon that most important
object—the training of masters, upon whose efficiency
so much of both the quality and quantity of future
education must depend. (Loud cheers).
The Dean of Westminster was also amongst the
speakers. Following his annual example of endeavour-
ing to put forward some reason showing that the prin-
ciples of the society were in themselves just and ae,
ceptable to the country, and chat there was a common
basis of Christianity upon which men could work with-
out trenching on the peculiar religious sentiments which
separated them, Dean Stanley referred to a question
which Lord Granville had taken under his special pro-
tection—a question which he had taken up with the true
spirit of a Liberal and with the fine sagacity of a states-
man, and a question which commanded ths individual
sympathy of the Liberal party. It was a question, too,
which commanded the sympathy of all reasonable
Churchmett—(hear, hear)—and of all-Nonconformists,
reasonable or unreasonable (Laughter.) It was a
question, moreover, which to his mind contributed a
forcible argument to the principles of that society.
They all knew that Lord Granville had done what he
could to procure a relaxation of those legal barriers,--if
legal barriers there be—which prevented ministers of
various religious persuasions from meeting the wish of
departed ones with whom they had been connected,
on the occasion of the burial of those friends in the
national consecrated churchyards of the country. (Hear,
hear.) Now, the greatest difficulty which Lord Gran-
ville and others met with in advocating measures of the
kind to which he referred was the unwillingness on the
part of many to acknowledge that there could be any
common feeling of religion and humanity existing
amongst different classes of Englishmen. The argu-
ment put for ward by those holding such views
was that the moment of burial would be seized by
everybody of indulging in personal and party re-
crimination , and that, therefore, any sort of in-
dulgence of the kind proposed by Lord Granville
would be fraught with the most terrible conse-
quences. He ventured to say that the argument was
capable of being applied in an exactly reverse direc-
tion. (Cheers) He believed that the occasion of a
burial—the most solemn of all in life—was just the
occasion on which the common principles of religion
and the common feelings of humanity came most
visibly to the front. (Hear, hear.) There was a line
in Virgil that was quoted by Mr. Fox in the House of
Commons on the death of Mr. Pitt, with the view of
allaying any possible display of party animosity as to
the event :
" Bunt lacrymse rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt."
It was almost an untranslatable passage but a dis-
tinguished young poet had paraphrased it thus
"Tears waken tears and honour honour brings,
And mortal hearts are touched by mortal things."

(Cheers.) Again, in one of Walter Scott's novels
there was an incident of a Presbyterian and an Eng-
lish minister shut up in prison together. Very shortly
they were in fierce dispute as to the relative merits of
episcopacy and nonconfoimity. In the midst of their
argumen.t the executioner walked in and announced
sentence of death against both of them. The dispute
instantly ceased, and rushing into each other's arms
they cried, "My brother, my brother, I have sinned !"
He could not help feeting that that sentiment
was true of all the serious incidents of human
life; and therefore he thought that in the use which
Lord Granville had made of his position in the House
of Lords, by vindicating a relaxation ef the burial
laws, he had performed a direct service to the princi-
ples of the British and Foreign School Society.,
(Cheers.)
The Marquis of Lansdowne (the president-elect of
the society) Mr. Mundella, M.P., Mr. Blake, M. P.,
Sir C. Reed, the Rev. Canon Fleming, and the Rev.
Dr. Purcivall also spoke to the various resolutions sub-
mitted to the meeting.