The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-06 00:00:00

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PRICE sd.

greatest respect for religious Dissenters, to whom this re-
mark applied, although he conscientiously felt what he
stated. As for political Dissenters he had no respect what-
ever for them.—(Laughter and Hear, hear.) A measure
such as the present which proposed the religious instruc-
tion of the people, should be discussed and considered by
the united wisdom of the two Houses of Parliament—
( Hear, hear.) He would conclude by moving the first
Resolution—the Resolution had been already laid on their
Lordship's table—which was to the effect " That this
House has had under its consideration the various docu-
ments laid before it by her Majesty's command, in eon.
nexion with public education; including the application
made last year for the building of school-houses in con-
nexion with the National Societyand the British and Foreign
School Society, and also the letter of the Secretary of State,
and the papers of the Privy Council of the 4'h, sth, and
9th of February ; the Order in Council of the sth of
April, appointing the Committee ; the minute of the
Council of the 13th of May; the Report of the Committee,
and the approbation of the report of that Committee,
dated the 3d of June." The Most Reverend Prelate sat
down amidst loud applause from the Noble Lords oppo-
site him.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE said that as he was
one of the Committee alluded to by the Most Reverend
Prelate, he felt bound to obtrude himself upon their Lord-
ships at this early stage of the debate. He was sure that
in the appointment of that Committee there was nothing
meant in the least degree offensive towards the clergy, but
his appointment referred to his political position as Presi-
dent of the Council. He had listened to the speech of the
Most Reverend Prelate with the greatest anxiety, not an-
mixed, however, with satisfaction. He was concerned to
bear that the Most Reverend Prelate differed from the pro-
position that had been approved of by their Lordships ;
but his satisfaction arose from hearing the Most Reverend
Prelate state his objections to the measure in a
manner entirely free from the exaggerated lan-
guage—the unexampled licence of misrepresentation which
in which this question had been spot en of out of doors
( Hear.) Still there remained much misapprehension in
that speech, as he would presently show. The Most Rev.
Prelate seemed to concur in a great degree with those
opinions held oat of doom, as to the connexion which
ought to exist between education and the Church. He
would state, that while he differed greatly from the
opinions circulated out of doors, he concurred in a good
deal of what had fallen from the Most Rev. Prelate. No
man believed more sincerely than he (the Noble Lord)
did, that the Established Church should make the religious
education of the people its chief care ; he trusted that that
care would become general, that it would be rigorously
exerted, and he sincerely hoped that it might be success-
ful.—( Hear.) But when he saw it stated elsewhere—
when he found it asserted at public meetings—that the
Church of England in this country had the charge, and
should have the charge, of the religious education of the
people at large, he bad a right to ask an explanation from
the Most Reverend Prelate, whether the Church of
England had a right to exercise a control over the re-
ligious education of the people at large, including
that portion—which unfortunately was no inconsiderable
portion, for it amounted to millions, which were not mem-
bers of that Church ?—( Hear, hear.) This claim had
been put forward with emphatic prominence elsewhere, and
before they proceeded to the pecuniary part of the ques-
tion, it was indispensable that they should have a clear
and distinct understanding on this point. Did then the
Church of England churn the right of instructing that
portion of the people of tale country which was without
the pale of the Church itself? He wanted a distinct an-
swer from the Most Rev. Prelate on this point. There
was another most essential point, upon which he de-
manded a distinct answer. It had been said elsewhere by
a Right Rev. Prelate, a Member of that House, that the
Church of England claimed of right the controul, not
' only over the religious education, but also over the secular
education of the people at large. This was a most im-
portant point, and he was most anxious to hear what the
Church had done, and could do, for the secular education
of the people, if the State were not to undertake, as he
conceived it was bound to do, to supply them with
education of the best quality adapted for their
advancement and cultivation. And if the Church
did not propose to educate that large mass of the people
which was without its pale, he begged leave to ask the
Most Rev. Prelate whether he did not consider it to be
lawful, becoming, and useful for the State to exert itself
to provide and supply to those people that kind of educa-
tion best adapted to their condition ? He had already
heard from one Right Rev. Prelate that he had no
opinion to give on this important subject.—( Hear, hear.)
Their opinions mustbe distinctly proclaimed by Parliament,
because although an individual Legislator might say he
would give no opinion on the subject, the Legislature it-
self' must give an opinion—( Hear, hear)—had given an
opinion--( Hear, hear)—had acted on that opinion ; and
he would show their Lordships, if they entertained the
opinion which hal the countenance of the Most Reverend
Prelate, namely, that it might be proper to make such
grants under special circumstances, that they might then
proceed on that opinion ; but if, on the contray, they were
prerared to lay down the maxim, that having, what he had
heard in some places called, " a state conscience" on the
subject of religion—having chosen and selected from the
conflicts of different religious opinions one particular rule
of faith, they thought it reconcilable with their duty, hay.
ing pronounced that particular rale to be the best, to grant
aid or assistance under any circumstances to those por-
tions of their fellow-subjects who entertained what they
might conceive to be more or less grave errors on the sub-
ject of religion, but who were nevertheless members of a
great Christian Church—if they were prepared to withdraw
from them all countenance he undoubtedly admitted, not
only that they must not proceed with that limited amount of
assistance to be granted to those persons under the pro-
ceeding that had met with the sanction of the Privy Coun-
cil, but that there was not one year in the course of the last
twenty, in which they would not have votes of Parlia-
ment under the responsibility of various administrations, to
recall votes which have been passed on no other basis than
this, that it was the duty of a State—first, to take care of
its own Establishment, but not to overlook the interest of
particular classes, who might be good subjects of the State.
—( Hear, hear.) Before he sat down he would show that
every Government had acted on that principle, and, if he
was not mistaken, would continue to act upon it. If they
determined to act upon a contrary principle, they had only
then to place in the hands of the Prelates of the Church
of England so much as they might think proper
to allot for the improvement of education, but confining
it to the Established Church, and to relieve themselves
from all care as to the education of the remainder of her
Majesty's subjects. But he had a right, until all these
votes were recalled, to assume that such was the principle
on which Parliament was acting. The Most Rev. Pre-
late had referred to certain statements, for the purpose of
showing that, in his opinion, education was in a more sa-
tisfactory condition than was supposed by many. But the
Must Rev. Prelate had not st-ted that education was in a
satisfactory eonditi eti.—( Hear, hear.) He had admitted
the fact, that there was a deficiency ,n the education of the
people, which called for the attention of ever) religious
man, and especially the attention of the Government and
the State. The opinion he (the Marquis of Lansdowne)
had stated, would find confirmation in the progressive
condition of other parts of the world, more especially
the central states of Europe. During the twenty
or thirty years that had elapsed since the peace,
there was not an enlightened Government in Europe that
have not made the general education of the people the
chief object of its care. It had been done by all Govern-
ments, Monarchical, Constitutional, and Republican. It
was undoubtedly difficult to obtain an accurate account of
the actual state of education, but at this moment he be-
lieved England, in point of education, was behind Ger-
many, Switzerland, he was almost inclined to believe, be-
hind France, but especially behind Holland. England,
as she now stood, would be last in the scale as to the
quantity, and still more as to the quality, of secular
instruction given to children of other States.—(Hear,
hear.) As to quantity he would observe that in
Wirtemburg there were educated about one in six, in Hol-
land one in six or seven, in England one in eleven or twelve.
Then the quality of instruction in this country was inferior,
for in the countries to which he had referred large provi-
sion was made for securing a good schoolmaster for every
school in the country. Scarcely a year had elapsed since,
in a part of the country near to London, where schools
were supposed to exist—described in the returns as
existing, within reach of those influences which it might
be expected would be most salutary—in some parts of
Kent there had been an exhibition of folly—of absence of
all instruction—of ignorance of all true religion—of want
of all knowledge—dupes of one of the most absurd and
ignorant fanatics that ever sought to practise on *the
passions and absurdity of the multitude. The fanatic
Thom actually succeeded in the course of a short
time in inducing those persons to receive him first in
the character of Rothschild—then in the character of the
King of Jerusalem, then as the Earl of Devon.—
( Laughter)—and then in the sacred character of the
Saviour of mankind, which he was implicitly believed to be
by a considerable portion of the population.—( Hear, hear.)
One of his devoted followers was the mistress of one
school; another was the husband of the mistress who suc-
ceeded her, and the third the mistress of another school—

t was in such hands the education of the people was en.
.rusted.—( Hear, hear.) It would be in vain to say that

. _
, ... ....___
was a single or peculiar case. He_ believed thrre were
facts within the reach of his own immediate observation in

which nothing would be wanting but the appearance of
another Thom to call out 1h same degree of credulity and
perhaps the same disorder, from 'he want of a more im-
proved system of education.—( H •ar, hear.) But when
he stated his belief that, natwitht•tanding the efforts of ti it
clergy, and of many enlightened and benevolent inch-
diduals, that such wastbe state of the agricultural districts,
with how much more apt r:hension did be look at
l
the situation of those great manufacturing
whom it was the nature of their social` systemmasses'
masses
to accumulate, but for whom it had not heen,unhappily,
been
hitherto the nature of their social system to provide in-
ii.enm a
n compelledeh
etsot,drcip eLkidv
corn-
s tr u et i o n . Here again they were
But
ystoartkis,tictahlerdeethaaild.
vFaled kti amount of
ignorance and of deficiency, not
pirnoople,rl aenc dt
only in the means of pro-
curing the comforts of life, but ' in the means of bettering
the most pitiful instruction far
most desponding , exceeding any thing the
person would expect. It had been
shown that in four or five only of those manufacturing
towns, 80,000 children
were growing up without the
shadow of education. I
one-fourth only ' In Manchester and some other towns
write—the
remainder beingin of the inhabitants could either read or
der
less ignorance Iwhich prepared the way for those
ebullitions of • •
passion which were the result of ignorance
and whi •
ch threatened h
t Q very peace of society. rickee.

events of the last year or two contained fearful evidence
of this. In those 80.000 uneducated persons they bad the
rising Chartists of a future age, and Parliament would not
have done its duty if it neglected to train them in the way
they should go, and making them useful members of so-
ciety. He admitted the Church had a right to look after
the religious educations of it. own body, but he could cot
admit it bad any such right to sup.einteird the igious edu-
cation of those not belonging to its own body. There
were in this country min ions of persons, unhappily not
members of the Church, but who submitted te taxation,
and were represented hi the other House of Parliament,
and he was led to the conclusion—first, that it was the
duty of Parliament and of the Government to interfere en
behalf of education ; and secondly, that it was their duty
to interfere in such a way, that leaving to the Church
undisturbed the whole religious instruction of its
own flocks, yet nevertheless the rights of con-
science on the part of hthers should be respected—
( Hear)—so as to secure to them the whole benefit of any
improvement they might introduce in school education.
The Most Rev. Prelate had stated something—and most
gracefully it came from his lips—in favour of the Protes-
tant Dissenter. He bad, however, made a distir,ction
between what he conceived to be a religious and a political
Dissenter. But had their Lordships a right, or had the
Most Rev. Prelate a right, to tell any man that his
opinions were political, and not religious ?—( Hear,
hear.) They had no more right to do that than any
Dissenter had a right to come into that House, and
lock found the benches and say, I see so many poli-
' deal and so many religious Churchmen.—( Hear, hear.)
He claimed the right of every subject of her Majesty giving
expression to their conscientioutnopinions without motives
being imputed to them by persons of any other religion.
He trusted that, upon reconsideration, the Most Reverend
Prelate would retract that one expression he had used, and
having done so, it was his (the Marquis of Lansdowne's)
opinion that his sentiments did honour to his high character
and to his lips. He, would say, therefore, that they were
agreed upon many points in the consideration of the subject
—subject unquestionably to the particular means to be em-
ployed in applying public funds appropriated for that pur-
pose to the education of the people, and which was impe-
ratively required at the present time. And that led him to
the consideration of the motion made by the Most Rev.
Prelate with reference to the Orders in Council which had
been the subject of so much animadversion elsewhere. In
collecting the observations and objections made by the '
Mest Rev. Prelate, he must, with the utmost respect,
beg leave to borrow the Most Reverend Prelate's mag-
nifying glass, in order to see these objections in the
strong point of view in which he had beheld them. In the
first place, even the.motion of the Most Rev. Prelate, al-
though it professed to be drawn from the proceedings in
another place, were not correctly stated. In the second
resolution he found it stated, " That it appears from the
documents last mentioned, that a Committee of Council
has been appointed, consisting exclusively of Members of
her Majesty's Government, fur the purpose of considering
all matters affecting the education of the people." Now,
he would venture to ask, where did the Most Rev. Prelate
find that stated ?—( Hear, hear.) Not in the minutes of
the Committee of Council—they were not there —( Hear,
hear.) He would tell their Lordships where they were to
be found, or where they had been found for him; these,
or words ana!agous to them were to be found in a letter of
Lord John Russell, which had been laid upon their Lord-
snips' table, and the Most Rev. Prelate had transferred the
words from that letter, and had affirmed them to be in the
Order of Council.—( Cries of " No, no.") It was so
stated in the Most Rev. Prelate's resolution.—( The Noble
Marquis here read the resolution again,) He asked the
Must Rev. Prelate, whether it was meant to be asserted
that these words were embodied in the Order in Council ?
_.(e No, no.") No Committee in those terms had been
appointed. Now, he would tell the House frankly, why
these words were not, and were never likely to be, ifr the
Order in Council. They were contained in a letter written
long before the Order in Council was made, hut in tile in-
terval it struck him as being of too large a character, and
too wide a scope; and, therefore, in the a ivice he had
the honour to give her Majesty, he had confined the au-
thority of the Ministers of the Crown to the mere superin-
tendence of the grants made by Parliament. It was not
therefore quite fair in the Most Rev. Prelate to introduce that
passage, for the purpose of founding an argument against
the Orders in Council, and which, it turned out, was not
contained in the Orders in Council at ell. Confining the
Order in Council to that which it really was—namely,
Ministersamely,the
appointment of three or four of her elsjesty
far the purpose of superintending public grants for educa-
tion, he asked whether there was anything in that power
of dispensing and dividing the Parliamentary grants which
would call upon their Lordships to pass these resolutions.
Was it not a most preposterous thing to dwell upon the
selection of her Majesty's servants, who were responsible
to Parliament, for such a purpose ? It; indeed, it was in-
tended to appoint a Board, there might be some objection
to the proposition, although there were many circum-
stances which induced him to think that a Board would be
a much more useful establishment; but if that had been
the proposition of the Government, the first thing
would have been to appoint one or two Right
Rev. Prelates upon the Board; but their Lordships would
recollect that the moment that was done it would have
raised a claim for putting a Dissenter upon the Board.—
( Hear, bear.) Would such a measure have advanced the
cause of education ? Would it not rather have introduced
a principle of litigation, disunion, and division? There
was, then, nothing to do but to revert to the resoensibility
of the Crown, and instead of leaving the :nailer in the
hands of one Minister, to place it in that oc,, three responsible
,
Ministers, and who, so far from be:mg entrusted as the
expression of the Most Reve;,.nd Prelate was, with
the permanent settlement of the education of the
people, and the dietribution of the public funds
for that purpose, it was competent upon any in-
dividual to raise nn objection to the vote in Parlia-
ment, and destroy a permanent settlement by a single
vote. Nothing, therefore, could be less like an attempt
to take the education of the people, and the public funds
for that purpose, out of the hands of Parliament. On the
contrary, if there was any thing he considered more than
another, as a recommendatiou of that plan, or rather pro-
ceeding, it was its being of a temporary nature, recallable,
capable of being modified and revised, and as he trusted,
capable of being enlarged hereafter, when it had been
found to work for the general benefit of the public. Then
there came another objection, that certain words
were found in the grant for the present year,
which were not introduced in the previous ones.
In what did that difference consist ? First, in the declara-
tion that the parties who bad the distribution of the grant
were favourable to the establishment of normal schools ;
and then it went on to state that the greet should not
exclusively, as heretofore, be given to the National School
and British and Foreign School Society, that they were
to get a preference, but that in certain especial cases, and
where there was great poverty io the district, grants might
be made to schools not in ceonection with these Societies.
The great objection of t'ne Most Rev. Prelate was, that
that aid was to be giesen irrespective of religious opinion.
The Most Rev., Prelate complained that that vote had
been carried without enabling their Lordships to come to
any vote, upon it. If there was anything more established
the:a another in the practice of Parliament, it was
that resolutions of that nature were passed in the '
other House of Parliament, and carried upon the responsi-
bility of the Minister of the Crown. The Most Rev.
Prelate complained that the principle was a new one ; but
the first time the vote of 20,0001. was introduced for the
purposes of education, it was as novel a principle as could
well be introduced in Parliamentary legislation. Did the ,
Most Rev. Prelate, or any other Right Rev. Prelate—did
any voice oppose that grant year after year iii the House
of Commons? and yet nosy for the first tirne they were told.
that it was a novel proceeding. The Right Rem.
rend Prelate would not pretend that there was any
intention of withdrawing aid from the Church, which
would make it incumbent upon Parliament to put it in the
shape of a Bill. He could assure the Most Rev. Prelate
that precedents and high authorities were cot wanting for
the present proceeding. He would remind their Lord-
ships, that in 1829 the whole grant for education and the
establishment of charter schools in Ireland was placed at
the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant, to be distributed
without limitation at his pleasure. The ',erne principle
was applied to the colonial possessions. Their Lordships
would find en their table a most able, despatch from Sir
John Frankland, statieg the diffienlties he had found in
establishing a system of education, in the colony, in which
he commanded, and pointing out the beneficial results which
were likely to follow from a joint system of instruction
among the convicts. World to God that these unhappy
men had received proper instruction at home in time, and
they might never have been sent out, and they would per-
haps never have had occasion to send them, out of the
country. When their Lordships recollected the vast
amount of crime in the Metropolis, Manchester, Liverr,ool,
Birmingham, Bury, Salford, and other large town's, they
must be impressed with the conviction, that if those per-
sons had received a religious instruction, whether it was
that of the Established Church or any other religious de-
nomination, they might never have been sent out of their
native country. In the East India Charter their Lord-
ships would find asp articular provision `.or affording in.
struction to the vrious sects.—( Heor, hear.) Let him
not, then, be told that it was a, "ye,
principle,tar
that they should abstain
,fre,m including all sects
eelensteof yn s
hime e change
dn gi
nef
in their scheme of national eoucatioreewnatr'sr:lshtteedhnotnt
o
that had been made ;n forttnheorygNcreenrtes
the funds being entrusted to the Chancellor of the Ex-
the Council, the Lord
rreference to the National' So.
cfcci
u:ehertietui
jyvyriyieuanettesirhdteekaty'toinh:
ievia,distribution,oniputdhlrdittthhigsoehiv Hieaitroi
President
as i
cretary. And although in
particular cases ad
Foreign Society, they meant in
to admit of exeptions. One
sfpuretchteorrs pfooirnt was, that the Committee of Coun-
cil assumed
theto purposeitself
seeingright theof publicsend i n
nieny-
was usefully expended. Now ha would appeal to
the Noble Lords who had set with him on the Committee
upon Irish Education, whether at every step of that in-
quiry the importance of an inspection of the schools on
behalf of the public, did not strike them as indispensable
to the success of any system of education. He had the
authorities of the Secretaries of the British and Foreign,
and the National School Societies, men of great respec-
tability and experience, who both concurred in
stating that inspection was at the root of any
good system of instruction.—( Hear, hear.) He could
state, upon the authority of an individual occupying
a high station in this country, and who bad devoted
great attention to the subject, that the state of educationiu •
the schools was most unsatisfactory—that the insteuction,
if correct iu form, was in substance very deficient that
though there were many good books in the schools,
scarcely a single child knew the meaning of those words
which it was most essential that they should understand
in reference to religion—and that in some cases the Trea-
sury grants had been misapplied.---( Hear, hear,) But
the Most Rev. Prelate seemed to apprehend that there was
lurking—under this proposition of inspectors to We the
regulations properly enforced.—au intention to interfere
with the ecclesiastical instructiot of the children. Would
the Most Rev. Prelate believe him when be assured
him that it had never entered into 'she mind
of arty one Moneltees of her Majesty's Government
ilia; the inspection should be used for the purpose of iu-
terfering dirsectly or indirectly with religious instruction.