The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-10 00:00:00

PERIODICALS.

The church of England Quarterly. Partridge—Art-Journal.
Virtue and Hall—The Commercial Travellers' Magazine.
Kent and Co.—The Quarterly Journal of Denial Science.
Walton and Maberly—The Bombay Quarterly Review.
Smith and Elder—The Werd of Scotland Magazine. Hall
and Virtue—The Sanitary Review. Hichards—King Henry
IV. Itoutledge.

PAMPHLETS'
The British Expedition to the Crimea. Routledge—Cicil
Service Competition. Stanford.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ON
CHURCH MATTERS.
THE Archbishop of Canterbury last Monday met a
large body of the clergy at Canterbury Cathedral,
when his grace delivered a lengthened address on
questions relating to the present condition of the
Church. Referring to the Divorce Bill which passed
through Parliament towards the close of the last
session, he remarked that it would be of little use to
open afresh the question of marriage and divorce,
which had recently been the subject of anxious par-
liamentary legislation. There were portions of the
measure which had become law in which he could
never concur, and he rejoiced that so many of the
clergy had agreed in protesting against the liberty
granted to divorced persons to claim again the rites
of the marriage office. He believed, however, that
persons under such circumstances would not be
anxious to present themselves at church, particularly
as there had been provided for them a legal resource
of which they could without difficulty avail them-
selves.
Adverting to the church rate question, his grace
remarked that it was in statu quo—a circumstance
not much to be regretted, since it had given time for
an inquiry which could not fail to be highly bene-
fisial, since it had tended to show in how small a
proportion of the parishes—only five in a hundred—
there was any opposition to church rates. It would,
therefore, be no less unjust than unreasonable to
abolish the impost upon the request of so small a
number of persons. He, however, advised that in
all cases where it was imposed the objects of the
rate should be plainly stated, and that nothing should
be charged upon it but things which were absolutely
required for the services of the
-Church and the sus-
tentation of the fabric.
He congratulated his reverend brethren upon the
fact that there had been none, or hardly any, of those
distressing perversions—he might call them aposta-
cies from the truth—to which, at previous meetings,
he had thought it necessary to advert, although there
were still portions of the Lord's vineyard where ten-
dencies were observable towards doctrines and prac-
tices which belonged rather to the Church from
which they had separated than to that to which they
belonged. It was a subject greatly to be regretted,
but he trusted that the grounds of complaint would
gradually decrease.
He regretted to say that of late some disparage-
ment had been cast upon the inspiration of the
Holy Scriptures. The subject was too important to
he discussed in a desultory manner, but it appeared
to him that to doubt the inspiration of Scripture, or
to sui pose that it contained anything not in accord-
ance with the mind of God, was to attribute to the
Almighty a want of foresight, which, not to speak
irreverently, could not be expected in fallible man.
It was as if the inventor of one of those wonderful
and complicated machines which the science of
these latter days had contrived were to deposit it
in some distant land, or so to adjust it that
persons might tamper with it to their own destruc-
tion.
His grace having next spoken of the increase of
churches and schools in his diocese, adverted to the
extension of the episcopate. Since IS-10 nineteen
new sees had been founded, and this he held to be
amongst the snbjects which the Church had for con-
gratulation. On the other hand, they had to deplore
the spread of Romish principles and of latitudinarian
speculation, together with the indifference and
demoralisation of the working classes, and the dese-
cration of the Lord's Day consequent ou the intro-
duction of railways. The archbishop concluded

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with some practical advice to the clergy on the
manner in which their parochial ministrations should
be conducted.

HANTS AND WILTS EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY.
THE annual conference of this society was held at
Basingstoke on Monday. The Very Rev. the Dean
of SALISBURY presided on the occasion, and pointed
out the necessity of improving the elementary educa-
tion of the people :
We ought, in the first place, to introduce a practical and
useful system of instruction, and one which bears directly
on the trading and agricultural pursuits of the locality ;
and then we ought to introduce as much as possible the
combination of industrial work, yielding wages, in con-
nection with school teaching. Now, it will never do to
shut up within the walls of the schoolroom all the day
long a boy who has to get his bread by the sweat of his
brow. He ought to be accustomed to give a portion of his
time to manual employment; he ought to be early inured
to hard work out of doors, and to the vicissitudes of the
weather. It therefore should be our object to induce the
employers of labour and parents to concur in some plan
by which school teaching shall be combined with industrial
employment out of doors.
The union of school teaching with industrial em-
ployment no doubt could be successfully carried out,
but in the present condition of the labouring classes,
with low wages and high prices, we could hardly
wonder that the labouring man should remove his
child from school as soon as he is able to earn a
trifle, or 2s. or 3s. per week, for his work :
Now, to ask a parent to keep his children at school be-
yond the age they are now allowed, and when by their
work he would make an addition of about one-fourth to
his own earnings, is something like asking a parent to pay
so much for his children's education. Now, let us be just
to a poor, hard-working man, and ask whether there ale
any persons in the middle or higher classes of society who
would like to pay so large a portion of their income to
education? We must therefore adapt our system of in-
struction to the circumstances of the poor. But, in fact,
we are, I fear, too apt to use an unreal and lofty language
in talking to the poor about the blessings of education.
Beyond all doubt we cannot insist too strongly upon
education exerting a lofty influence, and that it is of
immense importance to train up the young early in habits
of morality and religion. But the working man requires
something more than that. Be requires that the instruc-
tion to be given to his child should be that which would
bear on his future calling—that it should, in fact, be pro-
ductive of solid and tangible advantage.
The half-time system he thought the best :
The system of alternate days for work and school has
been strongly recommended, and we have the result of an
experiment tried by Mr. Paget, the member for Notting-
ham, who has carried out this plan with admirable success;
but this may have been under exceedingly favourable cir-
cumstances, and we must not fro:n this rashly deduce any
positive conclusions. We hear it constantly alleged that
the movement of the lialf-time system will be opposed by
farmers. No doubt they will, until they see the practical
benefit of it. Once satisfy the fanner of the superiority
of educated over uneducated labourers, and we shall have
all opposition cease, as the opposition did cease in the
remarkable instance of the parish of King's Sombre. We
all know the opposition the former excellent vicar—the
Dean of Hereford—received from the farmers, but when
they saw the success of it their prejudices died away, and
they became his heartiest supporters.
In conclusion, the dean referred to the brightening
prospects of education and the advantages of the
competitive system :
This system of examination into the qualification of
persons for public offices, although carried out but im-
perfectly at present, has already produced very important
results. Parents in the middle and upper classes of
society are now more anxious to give a superior education
to their children; teachers in all ranks are stimulated to
greater exertion ; the youths are incited to greater steadi-
ness and industry, now that they know that upon their
own exertions must depend their own advancement in
life. Only apply this principle in its full extent—only
let great public companies and employers of labour insist
on a certain amount of education as a condition of em-
ployment, and we shall have accomplished as much as
we can expect to do in the matter of education in a free
country like this. By such gentle, such judicious pres-
sure, we shall apply the only mode of compulsion which
England is ever likely to submit to in promoting the
education of the people.
The Earl of CARNARVON also addressed the meet-
, ing upon the practicability of applying the half-time
system to the rural districts :

They were bound to remember what the position of the
agricultural labourer was He started from no very high
intellectual level, and just at the time when he thought
he had done with the main expense of hie child, they
proposed he should pay for additional sohooling, and
also forego the labour of his child just at the time when
be was looking to be repaid. In fact, the plan seemed
to bring into collision two very important principles—
first, the principle of a love of knowledge; and, secondly,
the principle of marketable labour. And, much as one
would wish it to be the reverse, when they put these two
principles together, their strength was so disproportionate,
that, like the old fable, the earthern pot, when dashed
against the iron pot, would be the first that went to the
wall. At the same time he did not deny that there was
a difficulty in the case ; that there was a considerable

996

grievance, if he might so call it, on the part of labourers'
children to he remedied. It was shown that between
5,000 and 6,000 children, who were mere infants, were
employed in agricultural operations, and some hundreds
of thousands below fifteen. Also, it was shown that not
above one-half of those who could attend school did so.
and of that a half or a majority of that half left school
before eleven, and almost all had left it before twelve
years of age. He believed the real remedy, as far as
remedy could be found for this evil, lay in a succesQion
of small successes, such as night schools, book hawking
societies, attention of the clergy, Sze. If these plaits
were well carried out, he believed they would have pro-
ceeded a very considerable way in solving the difficulty,
which he admitted to be a very great and a very press-
ing one.

Other members aldressed the conference, after
which a large party dined together at the Angel
Hotel, when Mr. O. Sclater, M.P., addressed his
hearers upon the advantages of a local over a cen-
tralised system of education. In the evening the
Earl of Carnarvon delivered a lecture at the insti-
tution on the " Later History of the County of
Hauts."