The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-15 00:00:00

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Lord STANLEY said he rose in accordance with the vast
majority of the petitioners who had sent in petitions to almost
an unexampled extent, and in accordance he believed with
the great majority of the enlightened population of this
country, nut to meet the Government proposition by any
doubtful or ambiguous course—( Hear, hear)—not to get
rid of it by any side wind, or to avail himself of any Par-
liamentary form for the purpose of obtaining that which
he durst not boldly and manfully meet, but he came for.
ward openly to grapple with the sources of the evil of
that plan, or of those plans, which had been introduced by
the Government for the purpose of what they called a
scheme of national education.—( Cheers.) He rose for
the purpose of objecting to give the direct control and all
but legislative authority over the moral and religious edu-
cation of the people of this country to a Board, or Com-
mittee, or a body of men—call it what they might—ex-
clusively political in their character—necessarily and of
course fluctuating in their composition, and in the persons
of whom they were constituted, and in whom there was no
one element of fixed and defined principle occurring
throughout all changes, namely, that by no possibility, and
by no chance, could it happen that into that Board so pre-
siding over the moral and religious education of the people
of the country could there be admitted one single person
from those to whom the law of the land entrusted the re-
ligious education of the people. He might have allowed
this question to have gone into the Committee of Supply,
and there have objected to the grant of 30,0001. for the
system, but if he had done so he knew well the accusations
that he would have been subject to, and the charges of il-
liberality that would have been heaped upon him. It
would have been said that he had resisted an object of pa-
ramount importance, and that he had stood in the way of
educating the people out of the national funds. He might
have taken another course and might have introduced a
motion directly condemning the plan proposed by
her Majesty's Ministers. He thought at one time
that that would have been a desirable course, and
one not open to objection. He rejoiced that further
consideration had made him abandon that course as too in-
definite. From what the Noble Lord had said, it would
have been easy for him to have slipped away from the
plan of yesterday—( Hear, hear)—and when he had beeo
informed that his plan bad been scouted almost by the de-
rision of the country, the Noble Lord would have to-night
consoled himself, and consoled his friends, by saying, in a
triumphant voice, Oh I its true, all this cry was raised
against eur plan of yesterday, but this is our plan to-day.
So long as they had this Committee of Privy Council to-
tally irresponsible, that Committee would remain the fruit-
ful source of plans, each successive plan embodying the
objection which had been urged with irresistible force to
the one that preceded it. And so long would there be
another and another scheme in violation of those principles
they contended for, extracting from the people a grant for
that which they felt it impossible to support. He objected
to the source from which these plans, in such rapid
succession, and with so little deliberation, went forth.
He objected to the irresponsible authority vested in her
Majesty's Council, and from that irresponsible and despo-
tic Council he appealed to the deliberate judgment—the
constitutional authority and the legal control of the Bri-
tish Parliament.—( Hear, bear.) If the proceedings of
this Committee, or if the constitution of this Committee,
had been of a nature restricted to purely Executive and
Ministerial purposes--if it had been, as perhaps it might
be represented now, a mere change of the authority, which
was formerly vested in the Lords of her Majesty's Trea-
sury—a mere transfer for superintending and executing
purposes clearly and definitely laid down by Parliament—
for granting, on certain conditions, known and recognised
beforehand, a system for the education of the people fixed
by the two Estates, whosebrinciples were:known and un-
derstood, and not capable of being acted on partially by
those administering the grant, he should have taken no
objection to a Ministerial authority of that sort
passing from the Lords of the Treasury to the
Privy Council ; but the House was now called
upon to delegate by one branch of the Legislature powers
to an uncontrolled and irresponsible body—powers the
House itself knew not how extensive to a Committee of
the Privy Council who might execute those powers with
perfect impunity.—( Hear.) The Noble Lord upon open-
ing his scheme at the commencement of the Session stated

that he thought it better that they should form that Board
or Committee, not of persons belonging to one party or
another, by which he meant to speak, not of political
parties, but of those who adhered to the Church or dis-
sented from it.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL—No.

Lord STANLEY—By a reference to the Noble
Lord's speech on that occasion it would be found that that
was so, and that he said it should depend on that House
whether their system should be supported or not. From the
Noble Lord's statement on that occasion he took the li-
bel ty of dissenting altogether. He thought it most objec-
tienable that a system of such vital importance as the
systematic education of the people of this country should
necessarily be made to depend upon, and to fluctuate with
every change of Government, that it should necessarily be
mixed up with every party question—( Hear, hear—that
the support of this or of that system should be made to
depend, not upon the merits of the system and the way in
which it was conducted, but upon the political feelings of
parties, and that a bare majority of that House might
have the effect of altering it.—( Hear, hear.) He thought
it most objectionable that funds for that purpose should be
placed in the hands of Government unfettered by any con-
condition of applying them to the furtherance of their own
political objects and friends. He would ask the Hon.
Gentlemen opposite, and. lie would ask those who dis-
sented from the doctrines of the Established Church,
whether they, upon their part, would consent to
such a trust in a Government, entertaining the con-
scientious opinion that the National Church, and
the National Church alone, should be the vehicle of
education of those to whom the national funds should be
administeredi?—( Hear, bear.) He would ask whethetrhoatf
such a Government they would not feel the greatest pos.
sible jealousy—a jealousy founded on the principle,
not being restricted by Parliament, they might apply it to
their own views--( Hear, hear)—and if there was a dan-
ger of entrusting funds of this description to any Govern-
ment, without specifying the principles on whichi that Go-
vernment should apply them, he would ask f it were not
doubly dangerous to entrust them to a Government, in a
state of things that might arise, where the Government
was so weak as to be struggling for existence—( Hear)_.
and anxious to lav hold, fur its existence, upon half-a-
dozen persons upon any occasion—( Much cheerio;;)—and
upon any matter—and where, if they should, in violation of
a condition imposed by Parliament, have applied the great-
est part of those funds in supporting their Parliamentary
supporters thoughout the country, the only check on such a
Government should be the not very formidable check of
a censure of the House for not having exercised the
powers with which they had been entrusted, in furtherance
of the views of that very majority itself ?—(Cheers.) But
the Noble Lord said he thought it desirable that the
Board should have the confidence of that House, and that,
upon that confidence it should be made to depend from
time to time, whether the system introduced by the Boar,-1
should be continued or not. Now, did this not of itself
introduce a system of constant change ?—( Hear, hear.)
Was it a system in which the nation country could place
the sEghte,t confidence ? The British arid Foreign School
Society had impiessed upon thu Government the para-