The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-20 00:00:00

sig
med. a bk wined, to revenue* his Maker,
by. knew acetates with kindness, to
teetlrdes graderality, ad to we k the redress of real
ee.egewr"-"---easeleetiesse el tarn? This was the most irre-
emeggiesse ea the Meat It WA clearly the duty of
is paten lilt wail property ; gram ignorance in
moods reduced danger; how, then, could it be
&ha tkat Salle:la/II belonged to the province of postern
poll (Near, hear.) What was the alternative?
mamiletasest protect society against outrage end plunder
• and, taking education away, what means
W are mem .
s Nene but such as necessity only would justify.
re• which hefieted en immense am mat of merry, and
disk *mild be confined to the lowest earthen, of human
sow Take away edocation, and there remained only
mid ealkon, nue solitary cells, the giblet, and the other
&gee apparatus of penal law. Of two ways of obtaining the
•
118:1"""Melle wig bound to obtain—elevating the
pod latellectual character of the people, or inflicting
wim them—who could doubt which way it was the
pt government to prefer? No proposition could be
than this: a power which was bound to punish
istareetating their duty, was bound to take every step
mbetbem keorr what that duty was. (Hear, hear.) Instead
allaying the plain truth, it would be infinitely lees paradoxi
pplaisay Oat government was hound not to punish those whom
kad utterly neglected to instruct. Could we reflect with-
al shams and remote:, that more than half the persons
someated in our time for capital offences, might now have
been alive, and in a condition of usefulness; that more than
half these in the gaols aid penal colonies might have been
es liberty, and honeursely and usefully employed on their
Witt se& bee the State expended, in forming hors at men,
▪ von small portion of who; it had expended in inflicting
on palms. (Hear, hear.) The tint report pre
to the committee on education, from the district
mead Newport, in Smelt Wales, where an insurrection
ea weaned, suited. that of 11.000 children who were of
pi see to co to school, sit at 8,000 attended no day-school,
tad those who did so, for the mmt part, might as well have
stayed at home; for the ec"eols were fil.hy and ill-venti-
lated, tie appanttue of education most deficient—come of
the wars were ruined tradesmen or misers, whose only
qulithition for the week was, that they were utterly on-
qsaliied fee anything elec. A. population, in such s district,
eared dim to grow up, listened, neutrally, to the first had
ma who attempted to excite them agairest the constituted
maborities. The government, having neglected the best
wee of eres••rving the puce of society, in the event of an
outbreak bed no alternative but f re, and was under the
semi armeey of shedding the blood of the pcnple,who would
pebibbly never here listened to the counsels of the ineen-
bey, had the state furnish...l Item with instruction.
(Hese, hear.) Not only, there:me, was education
a part 0 the province of gevernment, as an efficient means
of attaining that cud which :deny. must be attained, but
amuse it was the most humane a a beat means of attaining
that end. He was hotel A. in this opinion, remembering
that it bee been that of ell the great lc :iodate:, of political
philosophy of all ores and nations, it:eluding those who had
wee di Awed to reetict the fuevions of guy' lament.
It bad been the opinion also of the greeteie champions of
eke and religions liberty, end of none more so than those
whose memory was justly held in the highest reverence by
the Protestant nonconformists of England, who, in the de)*
el Arelibiehop Laud, left their country, and preferred
te "aide in a wilderness, wt.ere they miaht serve
Gel after their own fashion, rather than remain in
a civilised sod precperone land, denied the privilege
of free worship. 'lO those taen, the tittiedent of the state of
Xemachturtette there had speared nothing servile, nothing
contrary to civil or religions liberty, in the principle that the
into ought to take chorge of the education of the people.
• Hs refereed with peculiar pleasure to American authorities
on. this subject, as the advocates of the voluntary principle
ia religious mitten constantly referred to America as the
bust illustration of their doctrine. What Cad been the
opinion of the greatest and best men America bed ever pro-
duced ? Penn, Washingten, and Jefferson (than whom no
one wag more anxious to pure ~two the functions of govern-
- sent to the lowest poesible point, and to leave individual
action free), all eaid, " Educate the people." Against this
smanimmis expression of opinion only one eminent authority
could be cited. Beyond t: is there was nothing but the eta-
, moue which dated froml946,•clamour which was condemned
by all, even by the former selves of those who were loudest
in raisin; it. (Hear, hear.) This new theory of govern-
seat, if it had no other merit, might at least claim that of
originality. It was in effect this—all men' bad hitherto mis-
taken the proper functions of g merriment; gevernment was
simply a great policemfficer cud hangman. (Laughter.)
Its object wee to do nothing except by heed) and degnelitig
means ; it was excluded from the st is of all humane means,
which operated by elevating the moral and intellectual cha-
racter; its only means were physical forte and the terror in.
spired thereby. If the *talesman saw great manufacturing
towns emir up, where the population multiplied, and extended
to gigantic dimensions, though knowing perfectly well that on
the morel state of those great centres of population, the
•• =rity of the country and the welfare of the state mainly
de& he must not think of operating on their moral
condition. He might and down a regiment of cavalry to
overawe them, and to be ready to mow them down ; hut he
must not educate tbim. (Hear.) In the rural districts,
with a population as little sharing in the blessings of Mei.
libation r christianity as those of New Guinea, the Mates-
man must wait till the incendiary fire was lighted, till pro-
perty was destroyed, as in 1830.31, and then it was his
Meiners to insolisonetramporee and hang the offender'.
(Hear, beer.) In every large city there were seminaries of
• crime, where the young were trained to every
lawless art, and where fraud and robbery were a call-
ing; and though, by wholesome instruction, a large propor-
tion of the victims of this system might be drawn away to
boast pursuits, the statesman must look on, and suffer them
• to become the caulkers of a state, of which they might have
• been the strength and vitals; he must wait till all those
vices, easily chs eked in the bud, were fully developed, then
he must bang one, imprison another, and gene another to the
• antipodes. Such was the new theory of government; and it
.waseermeitly difficult to understand how men of undoubted
• • ability mad excellent intentions had become attached to so
Waage tbdory. The only way in which it could be 'z-
ee weis tkie,—in a n oast contest, from whice we had
isee woh had hem said, and truly, of the &dean-
le., oft memieternotioneand free competition, with
eesenllmeitleas, *5 simply of food; and after govern,
ant —bit been driven from the
exercise el al
• karat/saes hs a metier where ngb isiterferetiee was is-
, imam, some •well-iataatiossed 1111•10 w sought to dries
from a proviso which was its day lad Its right to file.. Ose
every hand heiseasi-repeatak-. Teat to free oempention7,
47:26i° " _tory eteel-•
_ M .mea7imilkllie e
awl ttseastlesaigtpl, *idea eemplyTh"—FX•ele. lon
s • a flea ties amongst grown( would 'apply the piddle '
• withMoir cm more reasonabbeeami then if' the government
was to ems ‘argrooer's shop in easy parish ; because every
• indleiduel Itledef had a much stmega interest in doing
a • his hem Si Abe pableo wattage than the government
tm, maid pomil* ilsays.• But - what• slam of men had the
Illae=7 es 18weitatimg Mama wappleing the poor with
Led the poem in supplying good iniger
tallsraltedly there were benevolent pafaons who contributed
‘• their miteey and time to give ed to the pone; there
might be said te he a benevolent emeepaition amongst them,
bat it was nothing like the Iteremolomotitioa of find
'"•'' ibltdae, whose self interest wee at **bottom of emir move-
el amuse. Would it not he strange if Ray one should ode:seat.
, . jibe abolition of the poor-rate, on the (pound that tbo eager
"Mimpetition of the benevolent would give the poor a great
deal more than was raised by compulsory rates? The &e-
-lement woe no better in the case of education. It Mast
be perfectly clear, therefore, on a moment's consideration,
that institutions for the education of the common people were
on every ground institutions with which the government ought •
to interecremne which it ought to encourage. The line hed been
draws with the meet exquisite clearness by the late David
Home, who said there were certain forms highly useful and
necessary to the state, which, not giving the requisite degree
of pleasure and advantage to the individual, could not safely
be left to individual enterprise; these the state must name-
rue by money, by distinctions, or by both. If there was a
calling in the world to which that description precisely ap-
plied, it was that of the schnolmaster, whose business was
aerie and necessary, but who did not, and could not obtain
en adequate remuneration without the interference of govern-
meat. (Hear, hen:.) Adoptiug the obvious and excellent
rule of Hume, the came was distinctly made out,—not by
a priori remonine, but by the actual fact that the
principle of nonenterferene could not supply a good
education. (Hear, hear.) The system had been tried
in England from time immemorial ; and If it bad been of
like potency in waters of education as in matters of trade,
education would have prospered under it the Name as trade.
'lt had been tried through a very long time with perfect
liberty, and in the riehest country under heaven, where the
people knew the sweets of freedom. Here, if anywhere, the
iLleiple of free competitioa should have shown its power.
The common schools of the people ought to bare been the
most perfect institutions of the kind to be found anywhere •
every school ought to base had its excellent library, and
well-appointed apparatus for public inatruetion. A grown-
up person, unable to read or write, ought to have been a
thing to make people stare, and of sufficient rarity to entitle
it to meatier' in the newspapers. (Laughter.) The
schoolmasters ought to have been as expert in their
business of imputing knowledge and manning the minds
of the youne, as cutlers were in making knives, or engineers
in repairing machinery. They ought also to have here
amply remunerated, end held in that high respect to whieh
they were entitled. Was this the truth ? Look at all the
reports teat had been made on any subject at all bearing on
the state of education. 'lake those, for instance, of the
registrar of prison+. In linefeed gaol and house of toren-
Con there were 700 prime ers, one-half of whom were unable
to read or write, and only eight could read end write well.
In 'kited-tone gaol there were 3,000, of whom 1,300 were
unable to read, and only 50 could nut and write well. In
Coldbath-deltitiprieon, there were 8,000 prisoner:, not one of
whom could read and write well. Go fronethat tit the registers
°l:erne...rinse. Of 1811,000 couple* married in 1834, more thee
ee.ooo men, and morn than 60,000 women, were unable to
write their ownetarnas--nearly one-third of the men, and
nearly one-half of the women. And theso were destined is
be the meats of a large proportion of the next generation.
(Hear, tear.) Of the existing day school., the state of many
was mast deplorable; perhaps a heap of fuel no one side,
and a breed of obickens on the other; the whet. literary
Mantas maiming of half a testament. a doe's-eared
spelling-book, and a broken elate. (Laughter.) Amongst
the maieen were many se:eel...eructed mid deeerving men,
while home were the rod. eof .11 other classes—men who
could not week a ruleetethree sum, sotto could not write
a letter without false Split ee, who did not know
whether the world was a ,phere or a cube, who
were ignorant whether Jerusalem was in America or
Asia, an-I who were not ev et to be trustee to e trey out a
pare. 1. (Ile .r. beer.) Te men as these seat i mewed the
lest: uctem of the youth or the country, epos e hem her
future :trimness &peeled. (Hear, hear.) If it was thought
lie was taken too dark a view of the state of education, he