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

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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
utility inherent in secular edtication,u
Car-
dinal's flock that this is not because of any real substan-
tialtill]
b Catholics
priesthood.
,Tb ite but simply to
Pvethraentuhtoßemseofagreater .mouhnant hands
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
giv; s to education has a tendency to increase the import-
soce of worldly knowledge, if not to the disparagement,
at least to the consequent depreciation of religious kern-
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 fur the
attainment of this object are the extension and comple-
tion of the organizAtlon of a certain " Poor School
Committee," to take measures for withdrawing the at-
tentioa of the pupils from merely secular studies, and
promoting the appointment of teachers, who, disregard-
ing such profane pursuits, shell devote themselves to
training their s
•cholars exclusives as stanch Rutuabists.
The secular schools of the Cardinal are meant to pre_
vent the young c
f 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 improvement which tends to raise the standard
of your education, and let there be no preWncestenable
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 to fear, 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-
lating to educatiou have been inspired by a conscious-
ness that a very different spirit is making progress
among them. They show unequivocally that the Ro-
man Catholic laity are beginning to feel 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 oar Protestant
brethren, we
would have deemed our time and labour
more profitably employed in exposing 'the of
fragments
this old Romish leaven which still continues to corrupt
their own Protestantism. The s •
l
yly opinion that know-
ledge is inconsistent with piety,
narrow-minded pro-
pagandist spirit that would isolate members of any one
communion from all who dissent from its standard, are
still too prevalent among Protestants, and
most baneful influence over education. From
metxbe Sercise a
num of Saturday last we learn that a Free Church kirk-
sessioncots-
iu the north of Scotland has refused baptism to
the child of one of its communicants, solely because his
children attended the parochial school. The decision
of the kirk-session has, indeed, been reversed
appeal to the Presbytery, but the latter body did
on 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 be-
cause it is the most recent on record; not because we
believe that communion to be more deeply tainted with
them than others. The straggles of the National School
Society against the Management Clauses, and the advo-
cacy of what has been called the voluntary system of
secular education by a numerous body of 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.
Tho facts to which we have been adverting
ought to be enough to convince any dispassionate
and candid mind, that neither with Roman Catholic
nor Protestant can secular education really have fair
play until the State takes it under its own management.
The ministers of religion—in all communions—are us a
body a pure, a sincere, a well-meaning class. But they
are still men, and therefore liable to view matters from
their own standing point. They are men of precise no-
tions moving in a limited sphere, and therefore apt to
be narrow-minded and dogmatical. The circumstance
of their whole time being directed to watching and ex-
horting their flocks gives them an influence 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 Christianity recognised rights in the State—attri-
buted to it a sphere of action upon which the Church had
no warrant to encroach. When St. Paul inculcated on
his disciples obedience to the powers that be, he did not
(asservile sophists have interpreted him) preach im-
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 Christianity,
and would continue to be one afterwards; that it was
their duty to respect and o bthe • il laws of their
ey
country. The business of the Church is to purify and
elevate the dispositions and sentiments of its members,
and strengthen the devotional spirit within
tr
to.define
business of civil government—of the Stich other, and
the relations in which citizens stand t
t °these definitions.
compel them to act in conformity -os
members of the
Men require to be educated
bothto bay trained to the dis-
Church and citizens of the Staeibissaetora. The Church
charge of their duties in both 0
k f religious education, the
alone is competent to the t.sseiv_.
education; neither, can
State alone to the task I
°Nisi duty to the other. The
safely delegate its owitii etsfs
i head prevalent in modern
confusion of ideas
°result of accident. The first Chris-
Europe has been the part of Europe, except Italy,
• in every
fish missionaries
I were more civilised than the people
and perhaps Gaul
oiled. As with the missionaries in
P
to whom they
sot; own day, their advice and aid was
the Pacifio inht in
secular as well as in ecclesiastical
eagerly
setstom confirmed the practice, and the sepe,-
matters•
diono n of Church and State became confounded
jar's
rate
rods. It is indispensable to the well-being of
in that the -distinction pointed out by
Boyle St. Paul be-
. ty
h uthority of the Church and the State be con-
tween lee a in • w In the languageof
tly kept vie Cromwell's
stall
Council, the civil authorities must teach the clergy that
„they too aro ordained of God." The bearing of this
10111 • ciple 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 State to teach,
and the second how it may best be taught.

A ELE TV 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
not easy to recover. As I walked round the
top of
of
Radcliff Library, and looked down on the
pinnacles, the tall spires, the beautiful quadranglesberiver with its
in-
terspersed with gardens and groves, which
the
bridges, and the beautiful woodland
cloudless sky, I was
to the horizon in the clear light of.rnitglowing
lost in admiration. The modern 1 P
exquisite things in Oxford
extensive. One of the most
e,
which was restored
r el tary
ledm'ceanPt se are
is the chapel of Magdalen
representing College. ~ The Last Judg-
in 1833. The window - representing " Our Lord
which, having been once
the memory for ever. The
metternrytcngahnids
Cthroessa;l,taarrs-eptothenings
seen, grave themselves
the spot by English workmen.
iwnere done
eorne left in 1841 by Dr. Mason to
n's,
books;3o,ooa
this sum has been raised by sub-
scription tlnoariadt toounts
001. 1 think they told us; and the whole
scription to
applied6o' to the formation of the present beautiful
library. The
c o Botanicesp_
ondent of The Biteder. ,
has been
lately.— _ .

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The Morayshir_e &Away, a single line about 6i
is co.ppleted at a total cost of 30,649/., or leas
this includes 5,0001. which was the
the and this
The locomotives are what ar
on six wheels, and weighing 14
tons with coke and water. The engineer of the line is Dir.
costthal called ne so sfl
:' °ink: La
inai
engines,nimile
running
,Samuel, of Loudon.--North 13ritish /tail-

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