The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-19 00:00:00

/17
.IP\
motor of secular education—Cardinal Wiseman among•
the rest. But his patronage of secular education bears
a wonderfully close resemblance to the Derbyite patronage
of free trade. It is not unlike the tender fostering by
beggars of children hired for the day—pinching and
starving the poor creatures to make them look emaciated
and suffering, while affecting to caress and soothe them.
" Prefer the establishment of good schools to every other
work," says the synodical letter of the Cardinal and his
bishops. " Our education," it adds," must be up to the
mark of modern demands; in other words we must take
advantage of the means afforded us to render the secular
part of our education as effective as that which others
offer." But all care is taken to impress upon the Car-
dinal's flock that this is not because of any real substan-
tial utility inherent in secular education, but simply to
prevent Roman Catholics seeking it from other hands
than those of the priesthood. " The greater amount of
worldly knowledge" is described as " a snare; such a one
as deceived and ruined our first parents in Paradise."
Again: " We cannot conceal from ourselves that the en-
couragement which the state or the policy of the age
gives to education has a tendency to increase the import-
ance of worldly knowledge,
depreciation
eipf rnoita ton to th
of e
religiousdispar disparagement,
em ent
i
at least to the consequent
learn-
ing." The practical application made of this doctrine is,
that: "It is our duty to find a counterpoise for this un-
due preponderance." And the means proposed for the
attainment of this object are the extension and comple-
tion of the organization of a certain " Poor School
Committee," to take measures for withdrawing the at-
tention of the pupils from merely secular studies, and
promoting the appointment of teachers, who, disregard-
ing such profane pursuits, shall devote themselves to
training their scholars exclusivels as stanch Romanists.
The secular schools of the Cardinal are meant to pre-
vent the young of his flock from attaining to too much
secular learning; they are in his eyes; not agencies for
imparting instruction of which he approves, but for re-
ducing to a minimum that instruction which he finds his
wayward flock will seek elsewhere if he does not give
it; they are bribes to prevent Roman Catholics from
allowing their children to associate with young here-
tics. " Make your schools (he says) equal in every re-
spect to those which are opened to allure away your
children. Avail yourselves of every encouragement
and every
of your education and let there be no pretence tenable
improvement which tends to raise the standard
for sending Catholic children elsewhere." In short,
the portion of the -synodical letter devoted to the subject
of education, is an insidious development of a scheme
for minimising the secular knowledge of Roman Ca-
' tholics, and for isolating them from their Protestant
fellow-citizens, in order that they may
be brought
up tofear, distrust, and hate them. So far from be-
lieving that the rabid spirit of priestly domination which
animates the synodical letter is participated in by all
Roman Catholics, we see clearly that the passages re-
eery different spirit is making progress
'sting to education have been inspired by a conscious-
ness that a
among them. They show unequivocally that the Ro-
man Catholic laity are beginning to teel and assert
their rights ; that they are determined not to be de-
barred access to knowledge which their Protestant
neighbours enjoy ; that they will not allow themselves
to be prevented from associating on friendly and fami-
liar terms with men whom the business of life necessarily
brings them into contact with, or having their children
educated in the same schools. The Cardinal feels that this
spirit is too mighty to be arrested by an open exercise of
authority ; and therefore he seeks to turn it aside while
affecting to yield to it. It is not to Protestants, but to
the enlightened Roman Catholic laity, and to the liberal
and well-intentioned of their priesthood, that our expo-
sure of the Cardinal's Jesuitry is addressed. Had it
been our cue at present to address our Protestant
brethren, we would have deemed our time and labour
this old Realist&
more profitably elemapvelonyewdbiiTnehbexeptonslingthe fragments of
continues to corrupt
their own Protestantism
spirit that would isolate e silly opinion that know-
ledge is inconsistent with • the narrow-minded pro-
pagandisttef members of any one
communion from all who dissentoa
protestarom its standard, are
still too prevalent among
most baneful influence over educationn.ts, From
exercise a
mthe Scots-
man of Saturday last we learn that a Free Church,
kirk-
session in the north of Scotland has refused
bebeafutesembtio
The decision
the child of one of its communicants, solely
children attended the parochial
of the kirk-session has, indeed, been reversed
on appeal to the Presbytery, but the latter body did not
take upon it to declare that the man was entitled to
have his child baptised ; they merely remitted the
case to the session to be dealt with de novo. And
though none of the reverend speakers positively defended
the conduct of the kirk-session, fully one-half of them
extenuated it, and treated it as a venial error. One of
them went so far as to express a fear that if the decision
of the session were reversed, " a number of would-be
Free Churchmen would say these schools were all the
same, and they might all go helter-skelter, wherever
their fancy or interest might lead them." We have ad-
verted to this instance of educational intolerance and
sectarian exclusiveness in the Free Church, simply bee
cause it is the most recent on record; not because we
believe that communion to be more deeply tainted with
them than others. The struggles of the National School
Society against the Management Clauses, and the advo-
cacy ot what has been called the voluntary system of
secular education by a numerous body ot Dissenters, have
their origin in the same mischievous and narrow-
minded bigotry. They are each and all of them attempts
to control and limit secular education by a congrega-
tional agency with a clergyman at its head.
The facts to which we have been adverting
ought to be enough to convince any dispassionate
and candid mind, that neither with Roman Catholic
nor Protestaet can secular education really have fair
play unit the State takes it under its own management.
The ministers of religion—in all communions—are as a
body a pure, a sincere, a well-meaning class. But they
are still men, end therefore liable to view matters frets
their own standing point. They are men of preci+e tio-
tioes muting in a limited sphere, and therefore apt m--
be narrow-minded and dogma:lea. The circumstance
of their whole time being directed to watching and ex-
horting their flocks gives them au kfluence no mere
private individuals can possess. The deference paid to
their sacred functions increases this influence. The ex-
tension of secular knowledge often troubles them and
puts them out. Though ultimately all discoveries of
modern science have been found perfectly reconcileable
with the truths of revealed religion, yet there has fre-
quently been at first view a discrepancy which clergy-
men have not found it easy to explain away. Again,
men accustomed to think for themselves on other
matters are apt to demand reasons from their
spiritual directors, instead of resting contented with
authoritative dicta. Such being the case, it is not to
be expected that any body of mere men should be
very hearty promoters of that secular instruction which
involves them in troublesome arguments, and inspires
into the laity a sense of their equality with the clergy.
It is at best but a half-hearted, stepmother kind of fos-
tering that secular instruction is likely to receive at the
hands of any clerical body, or any congregational or-
ganizations over which clergymen preside. The founders
of Clitistaanity recognised rights in the State—attri-
buted to it a sphere of action upon which the Church had
(haiss,.dseisrcviipolessoopbhedisietsncheatloothieutpoorwp
no warrant to encroach. When St. Paul inculcated on
interpreted
that
him)be,
preach
adoi
hd
inmo
_t
plicit unresisting obedience to monsters like Nero: he
merely reminded his converts that they were citizens or
subjects of the Roman empire; that civil government
was a necessity before the promulgation of ChristisnitY'
and would continue to be one afterwards; that it was
their duty to respect and obey the civil laws of, their
d
country. The business of the Church is to parlifan
elevate the dispositiens and sentiments of its members,
business of civil government—
and strengthen the devotional spirit within
I:ther, and
the relations in which citizens stand to ea
definitions.
ero.define
compel them to act in conformity t° these
rnembers of the
Men require to be educated both
:trained to tho dis-
of the State--ebti?
Church and citizens of the State, to be
Th Ch
s. e
charge of their duties in both charactere
us education,urc the
alone is competent to the task of
erelivducation; neither can
State alone to the task of civilI duty to the other. The
safely delegate its own °Mese head prevalent in modern
confusion of ideas on
Quttlit,
of accident. The first Chris-
tian Europe has been the result
part of Europe, except Italy,
missionaries is every
more civilised than the people
and perhaps
Getiel'aChed. As with the missionaries in
to whom they r- own day, their advice and aid was
the Pacific inhtoinur
secular as well as in ecclesiastical
eagerly
se
eucastom confirmed the practice, and the sepa-
matters.
; tion of Church and State became confounded
rate junee,F
ds. It is indispensable to the well-being of
in mcn'" min the distinction pointed out by St. Paul be-
- ty that
SOCIC
tee authority of the Church and the State be con-
twee Y
kept in view. In the language of Cromwell's
coupe'
Retntl•
- '1 the civil authorities must teach the clergy that
a they too are ordained of God." The bearing of this
principle upon secular education it is our purpose to
elucidate in two articles, the former of which shall con-
sider what it is the right and duty of the Stet
to teach,
and the second how it may best be taught.

A VIEW OF OXFORD.
I have enjoyed the rich treat of a visit to Oxford. I
should think it must present immense attractions to a
student of the fine arts. To me it seemed like .the ful-
filment of some romantic dream. Though I went full of
expectation, I found it quite as beautiful as I anticipated.
The venerable monuments of antiquity, the exquisite
architecture, the windows all ablaze with scriptural
histories, the libraries, the galleries of pictures, the
museums, and, above all, the holy memories that come
around you as you behold the
portraits of England's
best and wisest, or walk in the footprints of the martyrs,
produce a species of sacred intoxication from which_itela
not easy to recover. As I walked round the top f the
Radcliff Library,pinnacles, the tall spires, the beautiful quadrangles
svirhl
terspersed with gardens and groves,the
and looked down on the forest °
.? f.
bridhin
sky, I was
ges, and the beautiful woodland
to the horizon in the clear light of a cloudlessove_is
are
Ter_
lost in admiration. The modern improvements
things in Oxford'
glowing
extensive. One of the most esq t
1151 which was restored
dscrape
is the chapel of Magdalen College, which „
The Last Judg-
in 1833, The window representing.representing " Our Lord
meat," and the altar-piece representing
which, having been once
carrying his Cross," are thingso
the memory for ever. The
seen, grave themselves on
the spot by English workmen.
restorations were done on
left in 1841 by Dr. Mason to
At Queen's, 30,000/..
wthis sum has been raised by sub-
he laid out in books,
i I think they told us; and the whole
has been apply
seription to 60. soodtoo
the formation of the present beautiful
library. The Botanic Garden has been greatly improved
I lately.—CorresP
ondent of The Builder.

The Morayshire Railway, a single line about 6+
miles long, is completed at a tutal cost of 30,6491., or less
and this includes 5,000/. which was the
tchosatn3
05/oVtaLinainnigile :
the Act. The locomotives are what ar
called tank engines, running on six wheels, and weighing 14
ton
of London,s with coke and water. The engineer a. of the line is Mr.
North British Ak
Samuel,