The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Our readers aro aware that a Committee of the House
of Lor,ls was arpo'n!ed in the last Parliament, " to inquire
into ti e progress and operation of the new plan of eiluea-
tifai in lit 1,,n'•." VSO have the results of the labours of
this Comm:it e now befere us, sired we °Leave hills cicco
satiet'ectien t! at the testintonice of the lest inrornied and
most et.] glitered witnesscs examined concur in stating that'
the success of the Fy tern (taking into dote ccroi h ration
the titereiole and vast ol;stael-s to its progress) has been
protligous. Of the enter prie of the Commissiooers it may
truly he said th,:t. it Las been " the pursuit of knowleil,te
under tilicul set`. Great meta ;I have been tl.c
di it have. met the cisn luctcrs of this tr..ly noble urdcrtal:-
log at ciery step. Tl:eir olijeet Leing the diffusion u n-
lightenutent and useful inlermation, they have had to con-
tend Aitii all the 111 y of that power:.til party wbicli dread;
the mareb of in:ei!ectual improvement. as the owl der's the
coming of ti.e ti y, or the tier the ele4ring of tl.e jtingle.
Their o jeet be jug to est al.Esh rational harmony in the p:a -c
wretchad ECCfArlan itehnosiies, sprineing from feelings
the most unclaisti n, an f Lading to results the most
autissocal, they have had to struggle with all the power and
nia'iguity of a faction to which papelar ilivi iemi are life, and
the unaitietity of Cethel.ie and Protest tnt would be sentenc
oft elm While, however, the c yidence before us illustrates in
the amplest tit:tuner the vatinus shapes that Orange op-
position has assumed in ifs rnileAvours to defeat this
panic tv-lietne of pubic instricti,m, (almost the only tritiy
nation rl institteioe that Ire'i,nd possesses) it abatinds also,
as we 11.. v t said, with numerous and irrgragable proofs of
the victories which truth and reason are daily gaining over
clamour, prajudice, and felsehood. The national system
of education appears to be etca lily and firmly establishine
itself in the confidence and affections of the people,
whose best interests it is so well adapted to promote.
Its advance may even be said to be rapid, when we
reflect, not only on the roegliness of the road which it
has had to travel, but also on the meagreness of the re-
sources which it has hitherto been able to command.
We cannot, of course, attempt any thing lire a
digest of the great mass of vvidence in these volumes ;
we shall nweely in this an subsequent articles present our
readers with a series of extracs, such as seem best calcu-
lated to show the degree of success which has attended the
undertaking, the n iture of the obstacles which bigotry and
fiction have thrown in its way, and the keen appetite for
education universally exhibited by the 16,10 people—an
appetite which we entteat the publii: to contrast with the
violent efforts of the O. anee aristocracy and clergy to re-
sist its gratification, and thus prolong the reign of igno-
rance, vice and misery. First, in evidence of the progress
of the system and its prospects of ultimate success, we
would solicit attention to the luminous statements of Mr.
Blake, one of the Commissioners, thoroughly converscnt
with the subject in all its details, and a min who
has obviously taken large and profound views ' of
the general question of popular education. Mr.
Blake says, in page seventy-three of the evidence :
" The system has been /dread, adopted extensively. We
had at the time of our last report about 1,200 schools attended
by about 150,000 children. It has been said that the Pro-
testants of Ireland repudiated us, big the fact is otherwise ;
we had in the most Protestant province of Ireland, in Ulster,
450 schools. The number of Protestants and of Roman Ca-
tholics in 373 of these has been ascertained, and there are, I
understand, in them about 14,000 or 15,000 Protestants, and
about 22,000 Roman Catholics."
Mr. Blake considers that the proportion of Protestant
to Catholic children in the national schools of Ulster is as
sleigh as the proportion of the Protestant to the Catholic
population in the ecclesiastical province of Armagh, accord-
ing to the returns oft he Commissionersof Public Instruction
in 1834. We have thus the clearest indicatioa that can be
imagined of the success of the system in one of its most im-
portant features, that of bringing together and training in
habits of early attachment the youth of the two persua.
sions ; and we see this success attending it in the very pert
of Ireland where the efficient working'of the system upon
this principle was most desirable, and is most calculated to
do service. The number of Protestant children attendant
on the national schools in the other provinces is apparently
considerably below what we should, perhaps, at a first view,
expect to find it ; but this is most luminously and satisfac-
torily explained by Mr. Blake.
" In Leinster, Munster, and Connaught," he says, " Pro-
testants are principally to be found amongst the higher and
middle classes; there are in general very few Protestants of
the class foi which our schools are intended, etc, pt in Dublin
and other cities and towns where there are Protestant schools
supported by endowments, contributions from the clergy, col-
lections after sermons, and so forth. The mass of the poor,
particularly in the rural districts, is composed of Roman Ca-
tholics; therefore in these provinces our schools are princi-
pally composed of them. In Ulster the proportion of Prc-
teatants to Roman Catholics approximates to what is in the
mass of the population ; but in the others it does not ; and
the reason is that in Ulster there is an extensive poor Pro-
testant population, whereas in the other provinces this is not
the case."
Mr. Blake states what is indeed welrworthy of notice :
" The system works more equitably upon the whole than
any previous system supported by public grants ever did. The
proportion of Protestalite to Catholics in oar schools is nearer
the proportion of Proteitants to Catholics in the mass of the
population than was the case of any of the pre-existing schools
that were supported by public grants—
And he adds—
" The proportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics in oar
schooie is much nearer the proportion of Protestants to Roman
Catholics in the mass of the population than was the case in
the Kildare-place schools." ,
It also appears that the new system has the advantage
of the old, or Kiidare-pl.tce system, in the absolute number
of Protestant children attending the schools. Thus abso-
lutely, as well as relatively, the superior working of the
new plan may be considered as triumphantly established.
We shall soon and repeatedly return to the valuable body
of evidence before us.—Morning
The message of the President to Congress arrived yes-
terday, and copious and verbose thought it be, there is
but a single topic touched upon by the writer to which in
the present state of affairs we deem it at all necessary to
invite the public attention. That topic is the long post-
poned and still unsettled question of the north-west
boundary of the British province of New Brunswick,
%Ton which this country has for years been carrying on a
sort of half-slumbering litigation with the Republican
State of Maine. Front the tone and spirit of so much of
the mess ige now alluded to as is connected with this
New Brunswick controversy, it appears natural to predict
that it will not be suffered by the present Government of
the United States to remain much longer madded. By
General Jackson this question had been twice or thrive
glanced a', and merely glanced at, in the course of his
eight years' administration. It was talked of, but in a
very cur,ory and hasty manner, as a point of which the
arrangement ought to be provided for at some it:defi-
nite, perhaps not distant, time ; but was never in any in-
stance put forward or dwelt upon by that circumspect and
expetiNteed politician as one which ought to be forced into
immediate discussion, or upon which it was becontiegonueli
more necessary, to employ any strong or peremptory lan•
guage towards Great Britain. The boundary litigation, as
most of our readers are aware, was to be decided by. the
construction of a treaty, the treaty of Ghent, itt 1813,
which professed to leave the conterminous litni:s of the
British province and the State of Maine in a fitir way for
amicable adjustment. But the materials for such adjust-
ment, which had been somewhat loosely and easily assumed
front data furnished by old maps or surveys, were fund un•
fortunately by more recent and sedulous exatninaf on to bare
in the geoerephicai feature of the country eithera very doubt-
ful existeece, or none at all. Engineer,: on both sides w ere ap-
pointed to make trigonometrical surveys of the whole district
witch ha 1 heenclainied by either party—men of high cha-
racter for ,cience and integrity. But th y could come to
no satisfactory nereement as to the tree line of demarca-
tion ilitendiel by the negotiators of the definitive treaty. A
chein df highlands, refiercd to very positively, could no-
where he docovered. The whole question was thee, undar
the fereign Ministry of Lord Aberdeen, and with the con-
currence of the Unite.' State,, referred to the arbitration
of ti e King of Holland. His Majesty, about the year
1831 or 15;32, prasented as Ii s decision a line of boundary
wh'elt was a nted;us icrininits betecen Great B-itain and
the United Stitteo transferring to the latter a considerable
portion of the territory theretofore occupied an:l ruled
over by the Klee. of England, but abridging likewise the
pretensions of' the State of M tine, by preserving to this
country a broader stripe of I and, in the neighbouruood
of the Saittt Lawrence, than would have been allowed
by our Republican eompetitote, and, therefore, with-
betiding from them that elnelt it is not uncharitable to sup-
pose may has a constituted the chief value of their de;
sired otter -aeliment—viz., a great and es-ential fat i'ity in
vexing and embarrassing, :Is occa inn right prompt, our
ti ilit try. ter comm reiel conimenicatione, ,dues that
riser. With the judenteet of the King of Holland, which
curtailed the II 11.1S:4.11):1,4 of both parties, both declared
theinselvee ilvelar,&on hereafter they
may each alike repent. Front that day to the pre sent
there has, we . believe, not been any fnrtber step taken to-
wards an adjustment ; at least no official correspondence
between the Government.; has yet been laid before Par-
liament here, or before Congreas on the other side of the
Atlantic-. It will not be denied that this is a state of
things fraught is ith uneatieess, and with the seeds of mia-
chief, We do not venture to pronounce who, according to
the letter of treaties, may be right or wrong ; although as
to the bout: fide understanding and intent of the British
negotiators in 1815, it must be obvious that no Engli,h-
matt in Itia senses could knowingly have set his hand
to an instrument which would justify any foreign power
in seizing, ft r the first time since the original settle-
ment of North America, an extensive line of country,
running from north-cast to south-west for upwards of an
tundred miles, and on many points of the same course

withia less than ten miles of the St. Lawrence ; command-
irg therefore, it may he said with truth, the navigation 01
that vita) river, and cutting off altogether the ordinary Lind
communicatien of St. John's and Prederickton, that is e)
Great Britiin with Quebec, the mater-key to both tlt
Cat ml s. We fear it must. be inferred, by any irapartiel
reveler of the Presid. nt's Message of' sih inst. the
re way have existed somewhere an active coasc'ousee,
at. the perplexing state of things which our blessed Knis
tors have, by i.e-picable indir set ness and incoesistency, the
icsult of the meanest
.and mo:it selfish cowardice, contrived
bring about he:wce.t this country an f her subjects
in Lower Canada. Such a moment might - possibly
appear the mist conveident and seasonable for pressing
a prepo: Non which in less unto .eard circumstanees
for Eighind would have been allowed to slumber on.
We neverehelees' agree in many sentiments expressed
by Mr. Van Buren, who it must be admitted, abstains
fi-oin every, even the slightest approach to unfriendly.
much les; offensive language, unfittiez the general pre, e.-
1, rice of those ande.iltle and kindly dispos:fons whit h he
declares to exist hetween the two Governments, and in a
eroater degree than at any former period between the tao
consanguineous nations. We fully coincide with the Pre-
sident in regretting that the above irrita'ing question has
bisen left open a great steal too long, anal with General
Jackson, his respected predecessor, in the anxiety which he
manifested to have some conventional line of houadary
ngcesi on between the two Governments, failing that other
lice, ascertained, as it would seem, to be undiscaverable Ly
any re:"ereace to a common usage, to acknowledged I ind-
anarks, or to the texts of treaties. In the mean time every
one must be alive to the fact that however distinct in prin-
ciple and origin are the two'qtrestions of a territorial con-
troversy with the United States, and a political strife with the
disaffected of Lower Canada, they are closely allied in those
considerations and results which affect the general saeuri;y
and power of-Great Britain throughout the whole of North
America. That continent being the. portion 'of the world
which has long pre.,ented the most urgent ;poen& of soli-
citude and apprehension to a British Government, it wits
the business of a Ministry true to the honour and welfare
of their Sovereign, to have provided vigorously and inde-
fatigably against the explosion there of danger or disaster,
from whatsoever source. The same demonstrations of
timely foresight and sagacity which would have deterred a
band of domestic traitors front rebellion would also have in-
culcated a wise respect for Great Britain upon those whose
allegiance she cahnot any longer claim. Both duties, how-
ever, have been discharged with equal punctuality, for both
have been alike neglected. The whole of our North Arne-
. 'kart possessions, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, no
less than the Canadas, are at this moment, and have been
for the last year, so full of menace, intrusted to the guar-
dianship of less than 3,000 troops ! What an admirable
Govenament !—Times.

The cause of cis i! and religious liberty was successively,
on Monday and Tuesday night, maintained by Lord
Brougham in the House of Lords, on the motion for going
into Committee on the Municipal Officers' Declaration
Bill, and on bringing up the Repo: t. His Lordship's pro-
test against it will be found elsewhere. The discussion both
nights presented some curious features. The amendment
which Lord Brougham proposed was for including Jews,
as well as Moravians, Quakers, and Separatists, in the pro-
visions of the Bill which perinits their declarations to ha
taken on their appointment to Mnnicipal offices, instead of
oaths. Lord Brougham happily -ridiculed the " bit and
bit" legislation and contradictory clauses, by which the mea-
sure of religious liberty is dealt out to such British subjects
as are conscientiously opposed to the tenets of the Established
Church. The::: is no earthly reason why the Jews should not
be equally privileged to make their declaration as the other
sects indulgedin by the Bill ; but the Bisliopof London letout
the secret. The persecuting spirit of the Church mustbe re-
tained as a bonne bouche. The privilege is denied to those who
are not Christians, but not to those who acknowledge
Christianity, although they may differ from the Church.
The moral brand and burning faggot of persecution
cannot be given up. It was gratifying after this now cru-
sade against infidelity by the Right Rev. Father in God to
find a Noble Tory (the Marquis of Bute) concurring with
Lord Brougham in the honest expression of his belief that
" the Bill did not go far enough, anti that it ought equally
to embrace Jews as well as the Dissenting sects of Christi-
anity." This is a gratifying testimony that liberal opinion
is making some progress where obstruction is most ex-
pected ; and that the great tide of improvement is break-
ing through the artificial bariers of aristocratical exclu-
siveness. No human authority is competent to inquire
into the religious belief of any subject of the c'tate. The
State is not constituted for the propagation of this or
that form of religion, but for the security of persons
and of property. To affect patronage of Christianity,
and to shew it by persecution, is as ridiculous as it is
injurious to it. If it be true, it does not want human
violence to maintain its truth.
_Those who invoke the aid
of force only parade their own internal atheism, and dis-
play their covert disbelief in the self-sustaining divinity of
the creed they overtly avow. The Church, in excluding
the Jews from civil offices, in reality attacks its own
friends. Its bigoted exclusiveness has indeed always been
suicid..l to its own interests. The Jews are as firm friends
to the Church of England Establishment (paradoxical as
it may seem) as any subjects of the realm. In saying this
we are only expressing a known declaration of some of
the most eminent of the Jewish persuasion. They are
favourable to the Establishment as one of the elements of
social onler. The idea of injuring Christianity, the reli-
gion of troth and justice, by do;rifs justice to the Jews, is
a strange proposition. , The Hebrew persuasion neither
encourages proselytism with regard to others, nor at-
tracts it with regard to itself. It is for that especial.
reason the least dangerous of all the opponents
of the Cliiirsh Establishment. Finally, if it be absurd to
admit a Hebrew Sheriff, while we exclude a Helirew
Member of Parliament, it is a fortio i still more absurd to
exclude Hebrews from the lower municipal offices, while
we admit them to the highest. In such a mass of absurdity
does a false system involve all those who allow themselves
to be entrapped within its labyrinth. The Bill for relieving
the consciences of Quakers, Moravians, and Sepataratists
has passed its third reading. We presume another Bill
must now be brought in to relieve the consciences of our
Hebrew fellow-subjects. The whole affair, from the begin-
ning to the end—whether as regards our notions of' social
economy', of religion, or of legislation—is equally ridiculous,
and deserves the caustic satire of a Juvenal, a Swift,
or a Voltaire. First, the Church militant, in the pug-
n icious confidi nee of its strength, knocks down its
friends. Next, society " cuts off its own nose,", as
the phrase i 4, "to spite its face," by excluding its
most efficient members from doing that service to it
which they wish to do, and which they arc competent to
perform. Finally, see what a specimen of Laputun legi -
lation we exhibit in t' is tratisaction. On this head we
may conclude pith quoting the biting sarcasm of Lord
Brougham. " First, parties were allowed to break laws,
then there were Indemnity Bills to protect them. In this
Bill the •e was .a certain degrte of toleration to break ex-
isting law." But then it can only be broken to a certain
extent. Est modus in rebus. People must keep time in
doing it, a 4 swift once said, like burglars and [multi ins.
Again ; there nre laves requi.ing men to take certain offices,
on pain of beiag subjee:esl to certain pm tities ; then there
are laws precluding them from certain offices, and sub-
jecting them to penalties if they take them. Surely at
this time of day it is neither cisc yes creditable to go on
with this botching and tinkering legislation.—.3lorning
Advertiser.

We observe, fro:n time to time, in the O'Connell news-
papers Cie tuts'. ou!rageous t.onsense about the last Long-
ford E:ection Committee. That Committee undid the
work of the Itomacist conspirators. who have put a person
of conild.erable property, named Wa.ite, into the House of
Commons. The outrageous nonsen•e to which we allude
consists its the adrumption that the Committee disallowed
votes whieh arc tnyv notoriously good votes. There is
undoubtedly s';rne boldness in this lying, for of all the ex-
hihitions we ever itnersed of dewnright impudent fraud,
supported by no less impudent false swearing, that of the
had votes by which Mr. White was returned to the last
Pa-livment was, the most mohstrous. Far be it from us
to afil.m that Committees of the House of Commons are
good Judges of evidence, or always dee:de upon evi-
dence a-, they would do if there were no party fe:-I-
ing in the case ; but, with regard to the spurious
vot,-:s examined into by the last Longford Election
Committee, and disallowed, there could be no second
opinion by as body who witnessed the investiga-
tion. There was no room for doubt. Cases of more rank
imposture never employed the attention or excited the dis-
gust of any set of Judges or of Jurymen, regular or irre-
gular. 'rho public have a great fa,eility of forgetting ;
thereore it may be necessary to remind our rultitgs that
the Lou'ford Committee, through o%ertight, omitted to vee
so've ti.at the vot s proved to be bad should he struck off
the register. This was discos ercti after the report was
completed, and an atterup' was made to obtain tl,6lchve
of
the House to amend the Report, but it was unsaccebilitli
In the house the question, which ought to have heal one
of mere form, was made cne of party and it being the in-
terest of the Romania party that the bad votes should re-
main on the register for ai future occasion, the virtuctti
Ministerialists of course protected that interest. The
votes proved to be bad were left upon the register, in order
that ascertained fraud, though betilked for one turn, might
not he prevented from exerting it; infientte at the
next election upon the constitution of the Imperial be,
gislature. These votes which in the last Parliament were
found fraudulent, have been used in constituting • the pre-
sent Parliament. The Romanist hacks ignorantly allude
to these as re-registered vote. The votes never were un-
registered. We mean by " votes" the reeosd of the right
to vote in the county register. The votes were stiMeli
crow the poll-book, but not from the register. Something