The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-22 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 22, 1856.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON ON NATIONAL
EDUCATION.

THE RIGHT HON. SIR J. S. PAKINGTON, BART.,
M.P., on Wednesday evening delivered an address
on national education to the members of the Man-
chester Athenaeum, in compliance with an invitation
from the directors of that institution. Sir E. Armi
tage presided on the occasion.

Sir J. PAKINGTON was received with loud and con-
tinued applause. He said he doubted whether
it was at all generally known how immense
was the numerical proportion of our fellow-
countrymen who were interested in the ques-
tion of national education—that out of a popula-
tion of 18 millions in England and Wales, there
wtere only about 480,000 who derived, from any
source, a yearly income of 1001. or more. Taking
the number at half a million, and allowing five per-
sons to a family, there would remain fifteen millions
and a half of men, women, and children who were
dependent upon incomes of less than !Oil/. a year;
and he doubted not that all present would agree that
every man whose means were less than WO/. a year
must look to a cheap and good education for his
children as among, not the secondary, but the pri-
mary necessaries of life. The question of education
was clearly not, then, limited to labouring men.
Farmers and tradesmen as well, in matters of educa-
tion, paid dearly for a bad article, while, if every
existing school in England was what it ought to be,
the children of each would receive the blessings of
elementary instruction. The position and prospect
of this great question just now stood in the most cri
tical situation, and needed the support of public
opinion. In the debates an important issue had
been clearly raised between those who thought that we
did imperatively require extended means of education
and those who thought that we did not. It had been
contended by statesmen of eminence in the House
of Commons, by writers of great and known ability,
and more especially in two pamphlets that had de-
servedly attracted great attention—those of Mr. E.
Baines, of Leeds, and Mr. Unwin, the head of the
Homerton College—that no change was necessary in
our means of education; that we were going on per-
fectly well and ought to be satisfied ; and that to re-
sort to any means of extension, in the way of sup-
plying deficiences from any public fund, would be
too expensive, and that the country could not afford
it. Those arguments prevailed ; and Lord John
Russell's resolutions were rejected by a very large
majority :
He (Sir J. Pakington) had stated last session his ap-
prehension that this decision would cause great alarm
among the friends of popular education. He had seen
nothing which so strongly justified this fear as an address
issued to his constituents by Mr. Laing, a vary able and
very moderate member of the House of Commons. Mr.
Laing said :

Public opinion and the House of Commons, by an immense
majority, decided, not so much against any particular resolution,
faulty as many of them wera, as against the principle of attempt-
ing, under existing circumstances, to supersede local and private
efforts, by any grand, uniform, and centralised system of
national education. For the next ten or twenty years the ques-
tion is practically decided, that if we want education, we must
educate ourselves, and not trust to the State to do it for us.

After mature deliberation his opinion was that the
views put forth by Mr. Laing and others were erro-
neous, mistaken, and unsound :
The question for the country was on which side the
truth lay ; for this question must be decided by the truth.
There was no ambiguity or possibility of mistake in the
issue as raised. Sir James Graham, in a very able speech
in the house, and one which produced a great effect, said
on Lord John Russell's resolutions:—

My first objection to this proposal is that It is unnecessary.
I contend in the strongest manner that there is no country in
Europe in which the progress of education within the last
twentyfive years has been so rapid and so satisfactory as it has
in England.