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

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mater of secular education—Cardinal Wiseman among

tie rest. But his patronage of secular education bears
a wonderfully closeresemblence to the Derbyite patronage
of ree trade. It is not unlike the tender fostering by
ggars 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
partoffer. o”f ourßu t
aleducationarei
is taken
e effective
ivemarsestshautpwon the which others
flock that this is not becausep of ary real substan-
ood.seeking,,rhe it from
er other
amount
hands
of
substan-
tial utility inherent in secular education, but simply to
than
R of the p
..rnan Catholicsriesth
worldly knowledge" is described as " agsreeeaet '
as di ceieed and :mired our first parents snare;
Ps'aereadniseee.e"
Ageir : "We cannot conceal from ourselves that the en-
couragement which the state or the policy of the see
gives to education has a tendency to increase the import-
ance of worldly knowledge, if not to the disparagement,
at least to the consequent depreciation of religions learn-
ing." Tee practical application made of this dearth° is,
that: " It is our duty to fled a counterpoise for this un-
due preponderance?' And the means proposed for the
attainment of this object are the extensiontaind 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, shalt devote the mse..2 ves to
training their scholars exclumvels as stanch Romenists.
The eeculer schools of the Cardinal are meant to pre-
veat 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 & 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 pretence tenable
for sending Catholic children eltewhere." Ia 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
feliew.citizane, in order that they may be brought
up to fear, distrust, and laate_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 education 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 tura 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
more profitably
employed in exposing the fragments of
this old Rornish leaven which sti •ll continues to corrupt
their own Protestantism. The silly opinion that know-
ledge is inconsistent with • the narrow-minded pro-
pagandist spirit that would isolate
te 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
exercise a
reel the Sc.
h ots-
men of Saturday last we learn that a Free Church, kirk-
session in the north of Scotland has refusedbaptism to
the child of one of its communicants, solely because
children attended the parochial school. Thedec 'his
of the kirk-session has, indeed, been reversedn
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 dc 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 struggles 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 mitenievaus 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 Protestant can secular education really have fair
play uatil 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, 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 rcconcileable
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 argument:, and inspires
into the laity a sense of their equality with the clergy.
It is at best but a halt-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 buted to it a sphere of action upon which the Church heliti
uo warrant to bneroach. When St. Paul inculcated o a
powersthat
did not
(estservile sophists have interpreted
him) be,
he
preach im-
plicit unresisting obedience to
monsters r koNero: he
merely reminded his converts that they were citizens or
subjects of the Roan :n 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 obey the civil laws of theirnd
country. The business of the Church is to rurifybaers
dettlee the dispositions and sentiments of
"s in
m The
and strengthen the devotional spirit within tiem.define
business of civil overnment—of the State—e, te
and
the relations g• h whic citizens stand to each other,..
f. these definitions.
Compel them to act in conformity -0
as members of the
Alert require to be educated
both
be trained to the dis-
Church and citizens of the
State,hcharacters. The Church
chsrge of their duties in bokt
ee religious education, the
alone is competent to the task
I education; neither can
State alone to the task cfec
8.
i 1 duty to the other. The
safely delegate its own esP
this
head prevalent in modern
confusion of ideas on
ert of accident. The first Chris-
the re-
Europe has been . art of Europe, except Italy,
a every p
tian missionaries were
more civilised than the people
and perhaps Gaul,e As with the missionaries in
to whom they tior-e own day, their advice and aid was
the Pacific inhe in
secular as well as in ecclesiastical
eagerly l'e
Custom confirmed the practice, and the sepa-
matters• action of Church and State became confounded
• isd
rater"' molds. It is indispensable to the well-being of
society that-I
i° °'n'sthe distinction pointed out by St. Paul be-
n the authority of the Church and the State be con-
stantly kept in view. In the language of Cromwell's
Cl, il the civil authorities mutt teach the clergy that
" they too are ordained tot God." The bearing of this
principle upon secular education it is our purpose to
elucidate in two articles, the former of which h
s all con-
sider what it is the right arid duty of the Stine 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 monumeats 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,i
produce a species of sacred intoxication from whiconflie
not easy to recover. As I walked round the top of
of
Radcliff Library, and looked down on the forest in_
pinnacles, the tall spires, the beautiful
bridges, and the beautiful woodland landscape
cloudless sky, I was
terspPrsed with gardens and groves, thclearivrerawloitwhinitga
1 to tho horizon in the clear light of
improvementsae are very
lost in admiration. 'rho modern isite
extensive. One of the mos! eqo
which
was reatcred
is the chapel of Magdalen College,otio,
things in Oxf,rd
~, 6. The Last Judg-
r•e- resreopresenting "Our Lord
ineut," and the altar-piece c
pttheinegs which, having been once
in 1833. The window P
arse
on
the memory for ever. The
on the spot by English workmen.
I restorations were donew
nno 1 ere left in 1841 by Dr. Mason to
At QuPen's'.3"— - k 08.• this sum has been raised by sub-
eselerZirg'grahvies tClar:m"s'elve
he laid out in booool.
I think they told lls ; and the whole
i scription to 69,0
to
d the formation of the present beautiful
has been app
of The Deader.
TI, eißle atonic Garden has been greatly improved
latel' library.
y.—Correspondent

The Morayshire Railway, a single line about 61
miles long, is completed at a total cost of 30,6491., or less
than 5,000/. a mile ; and this includes 5,0001. which was the
cost of obtaining the Act. The locomotives are what ar e
called tank engines, running on six wheels, and weighing 14
tons with coke and Water. The engineer of the line is Mr.
Samuel, of Lorldol3.--217-orth British 3141:1.