The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 2, 1858.

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called training institutions into existence ; and the
efforts of private and local benevolence were
largely seconded by Government and Parliament,
until at last the Education grant, having mounted
up gradually, forms a far from insignificant item
in tlie budget of the CHANCELLOR of the Exam-
ucEu. For much of this we have reason to be
thankful. Much permanent good has been
effected, though not without considerable alloy.
It was, doubtless, a misfortune that the originators
of the educational movement, and those into
whose hands its direction as a Government mea-
sure fell, belonged to that school of social philo-
sophers with whom religion is generally at a
discount,—in whose eyes doctrine is a mere matter
of private opinion, and all positive and authori-
tative religious teaching a sectarian inroad upon
the liberty of conscience. Experience, how-
ever, even more than the hot controversies to
which they gave rise, exposed the unsoundness
of these notions. It was found that spelling and
reading, writing and arithmetic, the measurement
of angles and the extraction of roots, outline
maps and geometrical drawings, with a smat-
terin of " ologies," had but little effect in
forming the character or influencing the conduct.
The importance of the religious element in edu-
cation was acknowledged ; nor, in the face of the
returns presented to Parliament, could the con-
viction be resisted that, after all, the National
Church was the great instrument for the improve-

ment of the masses.
The Church was not slow to respond to the
call made upon her. But her machinery was
sadly out of order. She was much straitened for
room ; her gear was much worn in many places,
her wheels grown rusty ; she was short of hands
and short of funds. The importance of her in-
fluence, the most potent of all for the improve-
ment of the masses, was, however, felt ; and the
feeling, once called forth, would not be satisfied
without an effort. Church Commissions were
appointed, Church-building Societies, Pastoral
Aid and Additional Curates Socieies, Home
Missions, and Scripture Readers Associations
established, parishes subdivided, special services
and street preachings resorted to. The popula-
tions were parcelled out between incumbents,
sought out by parochial visitors. Clergymen
were sent forth to tend spiritual flocks on wages
for which no one could be got to look after a
stud or a kennel. And all this almost entirely
by dint of voluntary contributions; for Church
Estate Commissions consumed, not only their own
smoke, but the better part of the estates they
were set to manage ; and a grant of public money
for the aggrandisement of a "favoured sect" was
what no Minister could dare to propose in Par-
liament. Still, in spite of difficulties, much was
achieved, and another great stride made in ad-
vance, in furtherance of the great work of social

improvement.
Presently, a fresh discovery is made. The
hour now and then spent in joining public wor-
ship or listening to a sermon, the half-hour or
quarter occupied by an occasional visit from the
clergyman or some of his parochial staff, bears
but a very small proportion to all the hours of
the busy week and the idle Sunday ; even the
school hours of the children form but a small
portion of the entire day ; and the fleeting sounds
that fell upon the ear, the impressions they have
left upon the mind, the feelings they have kindled
in the heart, are found too feeble to cope with a
mass of living influences inseparable from the
daily existence of the labouring poor. A room
or two in a low cottage, if in the country, or, if
in a town, in some crowded lodging-house, ill-
ventilated, ill-drained, scantily supplied with
water, filthy even to squalor, reeking with all
sorts of nameless odours,—such is the home to
which the labouring man returns from his work,
and his children from school ; where the wife,
even if she does not herself go out to work,
vainly endeavours to overtake the daily require-
ments of a growing family, in the way of cooking
and scouring, washing and stitching, in the ab-
sence of any of the appliances—most probably,
too, of the necessary knowledge—for making and
keeping things clean and tidy, decent and com-
fortable. It is no place, evidently, for the deve-
lopment of domestic affections, the formation of
proper habits, the cultivation of religious feelings.
The husband, after taking his meal, sits sulky in
a corner, solacing himself with his pipe, the fumes
of which qualify, hut do not improve, the do-
mestic atmosphere ; or, more likely, he betakes
himself to the beershop, where drink and tobacco,

jolly songs and coarse jokes, help him to forget
that he has a home to go to and a family to sup-
port. The wife, whose physical powers are
heavily taxed by her various occupations, indif-
ferently supported, it may be, by insufficient
food, and imperceptibly impaired by an insalu-
brious atmosphere, feels the need of a stimulant,
and repairs to the dram-shop to recruit her
flagging spirits. The children are left to run
about the streets, or to tumble about on the floor,
under the discipline of now and then a sharp
word or a smart cuff. As they grow older, their
home becomes every day more unfit for the
healthy growth of either their bodies or their
souls. Order and cleanliness are utterly unknown
to them ; the sense of modesty, that instinctive
guard of virtue, is crushed before it has had
time to ripen into conscious chastity. Their
associations and their appetites are becoming
daily grosser and more carnal; as they grow
beyond parental control, they sally forth in
quest of gratification ; and after many a rude
shock to self respect, they settle down at last to
perpetuate their race and its habits.
This is no exaggerated picture. There are
exceptions, no doubt ; but they are exceptions.
The comfortless, squalid, indecent home which
we have described is—commonly in towns, and
not unfrequently in rural districts—the scene in
which the days of the labouring poor are spent.
Is it surprising that against such a combination
of adverse, of hardening, debasing, polluting
influences the School and the Church are alike
unable to contend successfully ? thst neither
teaching nor preaching avails to raise the moral
tone and to ameliorate the condition of popula-
tions so circumstanced ? It is no undervaluing
of the advantages of education, no disparagement
to the ministrations and ordinances of religion, to
say that the success of all our endeavours tbr the
improvement of the lower orders of society
depends materially upon the measures which may
be devised and adopted to provide for them roomy
and healthy dwellings, placing comfort, cleanli-
ness, and decency within their reach. That efforts
arc being made, both by individuals and by
associations, to promote so desirable an object, we
hold to be one of the most cheering features of
the time ; and it is with great. pleasure, therefore,
that we call attention to the operations of a
Society 'recently formed under the title of "The
Cottage Improvement Society." From a com-
munication addressed to us by the Hon. Secretary
of the Society, to which we gave insertion in our
last week's columns, it will be seen that the
Society has ready, for issue to the public, plans
on which good convenient cottages, with a suffi-
cient number of sleeping apartments, may be
built at an expense so moderate as to render
their erection a remunerative investment. This
is highly encouraging. if the "radical reform,"
so much needed, of the dwellings of the poor can
be made a self-supporting movement, we may
reasonably hope that capital and public spirit
will combine to remove one of the chief and
most grievous causes of moral and physical
deterioration.

CARDINAL WISEMAN AND THE CHARAC-
TERISTICS OF PAPAL WARFARE.
IF England were a century younger than she is,
Or if Prince CHARLES EDWARD'S union with
LOUISA of STomiEito had perpetuated the race
and the pretensions of the STUARTS, we might
possibly at this time hear of some Privy Councillor
of a soi-disant Potentate taking a tour through
the three kingdoms for the purpose of securing
allegiance among the subjects of Queen VICTORIA.
What might have been the course adopted by
the British Government and Parliament on any
such emergency, it is not, perhaps, easy to say ;
but we hardly think that he would have been
allowed to go at large, and to play his part
without let or hindrance.
The question how such a case should be dealt
with is not, however, altogether as idle as the
reader may imagine. The gross absurdity and
still grosser impertinence which no STUART is
living to commit, is actually being perpetrated
lunder our very noses by an individual who osten-
tatiously and audaciously sports himself amongst
us as the representative of a foreign potentate,
although he has not, and, indeed, by the law of
the land cannot have, any mission to the Sove-
reign of these realms, but pretends that he is
charged with the commands of his spiritual
Sovereign to; the subjects of the Queen to