The Press.
London, England, 1857-06-27 00:00:00

JUNE 27, 1857.

EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE.
ON Monday last the first of the three general Con-
ferences to be held with a view of fully discussing
the Educational question in all its bearings, espe-
cially in relation to the early age at which the
children of the working classes are removed from
school, was held at Willis's-rooms, under the pre-
sidency of his Royal Highness Prince Albert and a
number of distinguished noblemen and gentlemen.
Long before the hour fixed for the Prince to take the
chair the room was completely crowded, and the
reception accorded to his Royal Highness on his
arrival was most warm and flattering. Seated near
his Royal Highness, on either side, were Earl Gran-
ville, the Bishop of Oxford, the Bishop of St. Asaph,
Bishop of London, Bishop of Durham, Bishop of
Sodor and Man, Bishop of Winchester, Bishop of
Manchester, Lord Brougham, Lord Ward, Lord
Calthorpe, Sir John Pakington, Lord Kinnaird, Mr.
Robert Owen, Rev. Canon Moseley, Major-General
Grey, Miss Carpenter, Rev. W. Rogers, itc.
His ROYAL HIGHNESS, who on his rising was
received with prolonged cheering, immediately pro-
ceeded to address the meeting as follows:—
Gentlemen, we have met to-day in the sacred cause of
Education—of National Education. This word, which
means no less than the moral and intellectual develop-
ment of the rising eeneration, and, therefore, the national
welfare, is well calculated to engross our minds, and opens
a question worthy of a nation's deepest interest and most
anxious consideration. Gentlemen, the nation is alive to
its importance, and our presence here to-day gives further
evidence (if such evidence were needed) of its anxiety to
give it that consideration. Looking to former times, we
find that our forefathers, with their wonted piety and
paternal care, had established a system of national educa-
tion, based upon the parish organisation and forming part
of parish life, which met the wants of their day, and had
in it a certain unity and completeness which we may well
envy at the present moment. But in the progress of time
our wants have outstripped that system, and the condition
of the country has so completely changed even within these
last fifty years that the old parochial division is no longer
adequate for the present population. This has increased
during that period in England and Wales from, in round
numbers, 9,000,(X)0 to 18,000,000, and, where there for
rnerly existed comparatively small towns and villages, we
now see mighty cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Hull,
Leeds, Birmingham, and others, with their hundreds of
thousands, springing up almost, as it were, by enchant-
ment, London having increased to nearly two and a half
million of souls, and the factory district of Lancashire
alone having aggregated a population of nearly 3,000,000
within a radius of thirty miles! This change could not
escape the watchful eye of a patriotic public ; but how to
provide the means of satisfying the new wants could not
be a matter of easy solution. While zeal for the public
good, a fervent religious spii it, and true philanthropy are
qualities eminently distinguishing our countrymen, the
love of liberty and an aversion from being controlled by
the State in matters nearest to their hearts, are feelings
which will always most powerfully influence them in action.
Thus the common object has been contemplated from the
most different points of view, and pursued often upon an-
tagonistic principles. Some have sought the aid of Govern-
ment, others that of the Church to which they belong;
some have declared it to he the duty of the State to provide
elementary instruction for the people at large, others have
seen in State inter'erence a check to the spontaneous
exertions of the people themselves, and an interference
with self-government ; some, again, have advocated a plan
of compulsory education based upon local self government,
and others the voluntary system in its widest development.
While these have been some of the political subjects of
difference, those in the religious field have not been less
marked awl potent. We find, on the one hand, the wish
to see secular and religions instruction separated, and the
former recognised as an innate and inherent right, to which
each member of society has a claim, and which ought not
to be denied to him if he refuses to take along with it the
inculcation of a particular dogma to which he objects as
unsound; while we see, on the other hand, the doctrine
asserted that no education can be sound which does not
rest or. religious instruction, and that religious truth is too
sacred to be modified and tampered with, even in its
minutest deductions, for the sake of procuring a general
agreement. Gentlemen, if these differences were to have
been discussed hero to day I should not have been able to
respond to your invitation to take the chair, as I should
have thought it inconsistent with the position which I
occupy and with the duty which I owe to the Queen and
he country at large. I see those here before me who have
taken a leading part in these important discusions, and I
am happy to meet them upon a neutral ground ; happy. to
find that there is a neutral ground upon which their varied
talents and abilities can he brought to bear in communion
upon the common object; and proud and grateful to them
that they should have allowed me to preside over them for
the purpose of working together in the common vineyard.
I feel certain that the greatest benefit must arise to the
cause we have all so much at heart by the mere free ex-
change of your thoughts and various experience.
His Royal Highness then briefly congratulated those
interested in the question upon the fact that in this
century, while the population has doubled itself',
schools, public and private, have been multiplied
14 times; while the proportion of scholars to
population in 1818 was 1 in 17, in 1851 it was 1 in 8.
These were great results, but much remained to be
done. In the first place, out of 4,9,696 children
between the s o agef three and fiftee08
n, it was suer-