The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-21 00:00:00

and delay, as in the paramount subject of the time,
ethuntioa.
Even edecation itself has two existences, as a
word and as a fact. Energy and effort, practical and
controversial, have been wasted on the shadow that
might have been bestowed to ;purpose on the sub-
stance. It would be well if, until- the straggle is
over, at least, we could get rid of the term
altogether, and substitute what we mean to include
under it. Instead of raying "education is a good
thing," which may give rise to an argument, we
might say "a knowledge of reading, writing, and
arithmetic, with habits of order, industry, cleanlinees,
and eta-respect, are good things," which not even Mr.
BAINES would deny."
But it the naked substantive, " Education," has
distracted men from the realities it ought to represent,
the addition of an epithet or two has completely
paralysed efficient action, and turned into bitter
talkers those who should be harmonious workers.

" Religious education" and " secular education"
have been elevated into watchwords, inscribed on
party banners, tattooed on adverse breasts, trum-
peted from platforms, stack upon walls, and set to
all moaner of lay and clerical instruments, wind and
brass. The clash and clamour with which the
phrases have been bandied to and fro have completely
drowned the still small voice of humanity, or the
graver bass of crime and suffering.
The words " protestant education " and " catholic
education" have created the same confusion and dis-
traction in the strongest quarters. The onslaughts of
such reverend Drawcansirs as Mr. lawirr, or Dr.
MILLER, or the National Board in Ireland, might have
been anticipated. It would have been strange had not
Irish Protestantism, robbed of its ascendancy, vented
a parting curse against the spoilers and their educa-
tional representatives. We did not look for reason,
having long ceased to find justice, in a certain party
of Irish clergymen. But we were not prepared to
see the warfare of sectarianism carried into the ragged
school Here, at least, we should have supposed
there was a field neglected enough and wide enough
for all Christian beliefs to work in harmoniously.
Reclaimers of a great moss do not quarrel
about five-course or four-course systems of crop- I
ping. There seemed so much to be done with
the little pariahs of the street, before it became
necessary to give them orthodox notions on
transubstantiation and the supremacy of the Pope.
We had not heard that in Aberdeen, for example,
where the industrial school system had been carried
furthest, that any horrible results had followed from
allowing little protestant vagabonds and little Roman
catholic vagabonds to con the same lessons, dine oat
of the same porridge-pot, or weave their nets from
the same ball of twine. Nay, we are not aware that
a single " perversion" ever followed from these lati-
tudinarian freedoms. Both protestant vagabond and
Roman catholic vagabond have learnt the unfamiliar
rudiments of their duty to GOD and to their neigh-
bours. But hitherto the Council of Trent and the
Diet of Worms have not come on the topis.
Edinburgh avoids the laxity of Aberdeen. It is
true that when funds for industrial schools in that
city were first raised, in answer to the appeal of the
Rev. T. GUTHRIE, it was boasted that the work to be
done was not of sect or party, but belonged to all de-
nominations whatever. 'I do hope and trust," said
Mr. Fox MA ULE, at the meeting held for the winol
setting on foot of such schools in the Music-hall, at
Edinburgh, in May last, " I do hope and trust, on
this question of education, we may not hear in these
industrial schools of the appearance of sectarianism
at all. Did any one ever hear of crime being con-
fined to any sect? And inasmuch as crime is con-
fined to no sect, but extends over all, so must Chris-
tian education be extended upon broad bases and
general principles."
Easier said than done. The secretaries of this asso-
ciation for the reclaiming of "the neglected or pro-
fligate children of Edinburgh by affording them the
benefits of a good common and Christian education,
and by training them to habits of regular industry,"
soon contrived, with the sanction no doubt, of their
committee, to disable Mr. MAULE'S sensible hope.
Declaring "that they have no intention of excluding
Roman catholic children from the schools," they in-
sist, at the same time, on daily religions instruction
" according with the belief and understanding of
protcstants," with simple religious lessons, " doubt-
less those in use in protestant schools." On Sundays,
moreover, this religions instruction is to go much
further. In addition to religious protestant instruction,
the children are to attend one protestant service in
church or their own school-room. If, however, the pa-
rents of a child undertake to take charge of that child
daring the hours of worship on Sundays, and the com-
mittee see cause to be satisfied with the promise thus
given, they will generously allow the child to accom-
pany the parent, even though that parent be Roman
catholic.

It is hardly necessary to say that this announce-
ment of a strictly protestant tendency in the school
teaching of religion has divided the friends of ragged
schools in Edinburgh into opposing sections. A se-
cond association has been formed to carry out the
principle of non-sectarian schools, in which the for-
mal religious instruction is to be kept separate from
the non-religions. The strength of a united body has
thus given place to the weakness of two disunited
fragments, while another concession has been made
to the great begbear of religions difference, and that
under circumstances which rendered the exclusion of
that angel of discord comparatively easy.
The history of the ragged schools in Edinburgh
furnishes a typo of the state of • education in
this country. Sectarianism is e distracting agent
in the one case, u it is the main obstacle to all effi-
cient effort in the other. It appears in Edinburgh,
in the ragged school, where there would appear to be
no loop-hole for its entrance, and no food for it when
it had entered. It has never invaded the High
School or the Naval and Military Academy of that
city, where are congregated lads of all creeds,
and of that station in life which does feel
interested in sectarian questions. Just so with
England. The national school is the battle-ground
for sects, which combine harmoniously in the private
or proprietary school. This fact may go with others
to mark how completely the great sectarian battles of
English education are carried on with ammunition of
words ; how the combatants are beating the air, or
fighting, as Homes's heroes occasionally do, with a
cloud dressed out in portentous array of armour.
They resemble the great European battles in only
two particulars. They do infinite mischief, and they
are always fought, if possible, on ground lying out of
the dominions of either combatant The primary
school is the Belgium of educational warfare.

Trig Board for the Relief of the Destitution in the
Highlands and Islands, seem to be fully aware of the
causes that have reduced the Celtic population of
Scotland to a potato diet ; that have thinned their
ranks ; that have prevented them from becoming la-
bourers ; that have deprived them of all stimulus to,
and reward of, continued exertion ; and that have
made the Highlands a grouse-producing, sheep-rear-
ing, bat not men-maintaining country. As we said
in a previous article, they have touched but lightly
upon the remedy in their report. They seem to
think a total reform a hopeless matter, and recom-
mend
palliatives instead of a cure for the misery and
degradation of the people. Bat I. there never to be an
en to appeals to oar charity to keep the Highlanders
from starvation? Are the landlords of that region never
to do anything for the benefit of the people upon their
estates? Are they always to be allowed to keep
millions of cultivable land in a state of nature, and
cry out, at the same time, against the superabundance
of the population ? Are they always to be allowed
to clear their lands of the people whom they ought
to be compelled either to employ es labourers, or to
support as paupers ? Are they always to shift their
responsibilities upon Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool,
London, and appeal to public sympathy for the
relief of misery, which it is their paramount duty to
prevent? Can we, is a nation, much longer afford
to allow either the impoverished entailed proprietors,
or the rich Nimrod. of the north, to keep or make
hunting grounds of large portions of land that require
only the expenditure of labour to produce grain ? To
each of these questions, the reply is the same—a
reply which will become louder and more indignant
with time, and which, when we shall have added a
few millions to our population, will be uttered with
startling emphasis, unless a change of system be
adopted in the interval.
That our readers may see how little courage the
board have displayed in their statements of the
remedies for these evils, we present in their own
words the only suggestions they have to offer. They
state that, " independently of affording direct relief"
(i, e., from the charity of the merchants, manufac-
turers, and traders, of Great Britain), the wants of