The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-28 00:00:00

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

On the motion being made for the second reading of this
bill, several petitions were presented in favour of and
against the measure.

-Mr. BLACKIiUEN moved that the bill be read a
second time that day six months. The people of
Scotland were fortunate in already possessing a sys-
tem of education that was supposed to work well,
and they should be cautions how they attempted to
disturb it. The system was first proposed by John
Knox 300 years ago, and by those men who were called the
fathers of the Church of Scotland. They did not at once
procure its adoption by the State, but in the year 1600 a
number of parochial schools were established by the Church
itself, and in 1616 the schools-were recognised by the Privy
Council. In the year 1613 an act was passed by the Parlia-
ment of Scotland in reference to them, and although that
act was repealed at the Restoration, it was renewed in
1696, and the measure passed in that year was the funda-
mental charter of the schools of Scotland. The silica-
tion to be given in the schools was to be a religious educa.
tion under the charge of the Church of Scotland, but the
principle onewhich they were established was proposed to
be entirely overthrown by the bill now submitted for the
consideration of the house. The schools had worked re-
markably well, and had done a great deal to raise the cha-
racter of the Scotch people. (Hear, hear.) In support of
his assertion respectinc, the utility of the system he would
quote the opinions of two persons to whose views the hon.
gentleman opposite would be inclined, he thought, to at-
tach importance. The first was the right hon. gentleman
the member for the city of Edinburgh, who stated that,
owing to the operation of the system, improvements such
as the world had never seen had taken place in the moral
and intellectual character of the people. The second per-
son to whose opinion he would refer was the Marquis of
Lansdowne, who stated in the House of Lords that he

would very much regret to see any system of education
adopted in Scotian,' the basis of which would not be
founded upon the principle of the parochial schools.
(Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Blackburn) did not deny that those
schools had their faults, but a bill had been brought iu by
the hon. member for Perthshire to correct those faults; but
nothing could be so distinct as Lord Lansdowne's testi-
mony in favour of the principle of the schools, which was
founded upon their connection with the Church. (Hear.)
He bad another witness to name in support of the system,
and that was the learned gentleman who introduced the
bill, and who told them that the present schools were more
efficient than they had ever been before. (Hear, hear.) It
was admitted by the preamble of the bill itself that for 200
years the schools had given instruction in religious matters
to the great body of the people, and had given secular
instruction to those who dissented from that religious
teaching. (Hear, hear.) The bill did not, it must be ad-
mitted, continue the present principle, because it would
sever the existing connection between the Church of Scot-
land and the schools. Therefore it would destroy the
principle that had produced so many good results up to
the present time, and would substitute another principle
for it. (Hear, hear.) Why had such a bill been brought
in, when it was admitted that the schools were working so
well? He should not like to give an answer himself to
that question, but he would quote the reason given for it
by a distinguished Scotchman in the House of Lords. That
individual said he need hardly say that the agitation that
had been raised to overthrow the parochial system was
caused by the feeling which all Dissenters bore to all esta-
blished churches, and especially to those they had lately
left. The individual who gave that opinion was no less a
person than a member of the present Cabinet, his Grace
the Duke of Argyll, who, on the 22d of March, 1850, as-
signed that as the reason for the agitation on which the
measure now before the house was founded. (Hear, hear.)
He thought the present proposal of those who had gone
oat of the Established Church was against their own prin-
ciples. It had always been an admitted principle that
schools should be attached to the Established Church.
Yet now it was proposed to take them all away, because
they no longer regarded that Church with approbation.
The whole principle of the bill was to transfer the manage-
ment of all the schools in Scotland to a board. The first
point to be looked to was, if the board was a proper au-
thority for such a purpose. He much doubted that, and
would prefer seeing the inspector of schools report to a mi-
nister of-education in London, or to some functionary more
particularly conversant with Scottish business. The con-
stitution of the proposed board was the most extraordinary
ho had over seen, consisting of seventeen members, eight
of whom were nominees r,f Government, four philosophers,
representing the four universities of Scotland, and four
provosts from the municipalities of Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Perth, and Aberdeen. To set such a board over the
whole educational institutions of the country appeared to
him. one Of the most monstrous proposals he bad ever
heard. The people of Scotland, members of the Free
Church and others, who were petitioning in favour of this
bill, had not the least idea of what they were asking for,
and thought it sufficient in order to stigmatise anything as
abominable to call it Erastian. The board was invested
with arbitrary powers of dismissing schoolmasters, which
would reduce them to a servile condition. He maintained
that the new measure would act very ill indeed, and thought
he had at all events shown reasons for the house to pause
before assenting to it. It was not as an exclusive test, but
as a test of qualification, that the advocates of the present
system wished the religious test to be maintained. Again,
it was said that the defenders of the present schools wished
to maintain a monopoly, but they were perfectly ready,
provided their own schools were let alone, to join the
learned Lord Advocate in establishing the most perfect
system of education that could be devised, and to support
any other schools that might be deemed requisite. There
were also fears that the schools might be sectarian; but
the fact was that the parochial schools of Scotland had
never been sectarian, and he had the testimony of a late
member well known and highly respected in that house
(Mr. Fiume), to the fact of their exemption from sectarian
character, and of the utter absence of class distinctions or
prejudices. By the Act of Union the schools were to be
secured in the management of the presbyteries, and he
thought it would be admitted, that, as in the case of the
Act of 'Uniformity in England, the greatest caution shonild
be used in altering such a statute. He denied that the
mass of sound public opinion in Scotland was in favour of
the measure. He found that 117 petitions with 5,570
signatures had been presented against the bill, and six
petitions with but six signatures in its favour. The
denominational clause was left out, and the learned
lord took credit for having done so in deference to the
opinions of the Scottish members ; but if they turned
to the 45th clause, they would find the same principle
in another form. Under this the Committee of Council
might continue their grants to denominational schools ;
and was the only body that was to be excluded from
the benefits of public grants hereafter to be the Esta-
blished Church of Scotland? He called on English mem-
bers to lend their aid to the representatives of Scotland in
resisting the attempt now made to upset a system that was
universally acknowledged to have worked well and con-
ferred benefits of the highest kind upon the country, in
order to replace it by a new and quite untried plan. It
was a fact well worthy the notice of the house, that already
—in the towns of Glasgow and Edinburgh-82 per cent.
of the children between the ages of 5 and 12 were at school,
and he apprehended that it would be impossible to obtain
a larger attendance than this, and that the expectation of
having 100 per cent. at school under the new scheme was
absolutely lie moved
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