The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-13 00:00:00

—( Hear.) I3ut had they not raged for half a year at
least—had they net had free play—had they not had all
the pulpits where nobody could answer them—bad they not
had all the means and appliances for working. en tree, s
minds—and what had they done? The menicipal elec-
tions answered—nothing.—(Loud applause.) He would
not attempt at that late hour to say anything more. Mr.
Blackburn's arguments remained unanswered, and un-
answerable.
Mr. COG LA N delivered along and able speech in defCnee
of the system of education which had been adopted by the
Council. He had foreseen the ()blow and excitement
which the system would raise, but knowing that they would
be only temporary, and that the advantages of the system
would be general, permanent, and lasting, he was proud and
happy to be one of those who had supported schools thigh
were calculates; in a very high deg-roe to promote the best
intern is of society. He was aware that all they did would
be narrowly watched ; he was aware that no plan could be
proposed which would receive the section of the great po-
litical body opposed to them ; he knew well that if an angel
from heaven had come down to illuminate the members of
the Education Committee, the violence of party rage and
religious bigotry would have been called in to darken their-
radiations of even celestial benignity.—( Hear.) He was only
surprised that any respectable portion of the Tory popula-
tion of this town could still be found to swell the ranks of
indivisluals so lost to every gentlemanly feeling—( Loud cries
of " Order")--so lost to every sense of gentlemanly feeling
as still to persist in maintaining falsehoods connected with
the schools, and with the education cf the people, which
had been so often refuted and exposed.—(Hear.) It was said
that they should have established separate schools for all
classes, iacluding the Roman Catholics. If they had done
so, that memlfer of the Council who had attended the Ro-
man Catholic school would have been denounced es an in-
fidel and idolater—as a supporter of the Old Lady of Ba-
bylon—as an emissary of Stonyhurst or Douay—and if it
bad been deemed necessary to represent him as an agent of
the Pope himself, there would have been no difficulty. in
finding evidence to prove the fact. He strongly deprecated
the idea of selling the schools, and hoped that that plan
which had been so long tried—which had already done so
much good, and would do so much more, would be perse-
vered in. Mr. Hodgson had said that this question was a
bone of contention, but who had made it so ? Why, the
Tories, to serve their own political ends, had used it to
operate on the fears and prejudices of the weak, the timid,
and the ignorant.—(Hear, hear,) It was to damage the
Reformers that the Church was said to be in danger, and
the Bible sacrificed. If the gentlemen had been actuated
by a sincere desire to promote the cause of Christianity,
they would have visited the schools. One of them had
asked what boon the system had conferred on society ? It
had conferred a great boon. The old system was exclusive ;
it was confined to one class only, and the boon was the
throwing open the portals of the schools to all classes of the
community.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. BLACKBURN said that, in replying, he had two diffi-
culties to contend with ; the first was, that there was no-
thing to reply to—(Laughter)—and the second, that the
point of discussion had already been very ably dealt with
by the gentlemen who had preceded him. He must con-
fess that he had not expected such a plentiful lack of ar-
gument on the subject after all the sound and fury that had
been expended upon it. He had expected that gentlemen
would come forward with something more than the naked,
bald assertions which they had heard ; for he would ven-
ture to say that no gentleman had at all attempted to grap-
ple with the plain and simple statement of facts and ar-
guments founded upon those facts which he had
adduced. It was said that the members of the Esta-
blished Church were united,in opposition to this system ;
why, a majority of the gentlemen in that room, sent to re-
present the great Municipality, were favourable to those
schools, and would give them their support when it came
to a division ; and, with regard to the Rev. Baptist Noel,
were there no other Clergymen, were there no Bishops on
the Bench, in addition to the Archbishop of Dublin, who ap-
preyed of this system ? There were many in various parts
of the kingdom.--(Cries of " Name" from the Opposition.)
There was no occasion to name, the fact was well known.
Something had been said as to the Rev. Baptist Noel's testi-
mony referring only to Ireland : now he apprehended that
morality was not a question with which geography had any
thing to do.—(Applause.) If a system were good on the
other side of the water it must be good on this ; if it were
right in Ireland it must be right in England : and, there-
fore, the argument of the Rev. Mr. Noel was perfectly
unanswerable, for that gentleman was a decided and at-
tached member of the Church of England. He did not
exactly understand Mr. David Hodgson's allusion to base
money. If it were intended to insinuate that there were any
books used in the schools which might be compared to
bad money, it was an untruth,—the assertion was un-
founded,—for there were no such books in the schools.
Mr. DAVID HODGSON—The Roman Catholic Cate-
chism is there.
The MAYOR—Mr. David Hodgson was not interrupted.
I hope he will see the propriety of not interrupting Mr.
Blackburn.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. BLACKBURN said the Roman Catholic catechism
was brought by those who came to teach the Roman Ca-
tholic children, and the Roman Catholics had as much right
to introduce- it as the members of the Church of England
had to introduce their catechism.—(Hear.) A good deal
had been said about the bitterness of spirit which prevailed
in relation to the schools; he was sorry to see that spirit
out of doors ; and he was exceedingly glad to see so little
of it in the Council room, and to see the comparatively
candid manner in which the question was discussed. He
was much obliged to one of the gentlemen for his opinion
of them. It seemed now to be within the compass of
possibility that their motives might be good ones, and even
that was a concession which he had hardly expected.
But that spirit of bitterness did not exist amongst the
supporters of the schools--(Loud cries of " Hear, hear")—
they cherished no animosity ; they lamented the existence
of, that spirit, as an evil one not likely to conduct to the
wise and equitable settlement of any question—why then
should those gentlemen seek to prollt by their own wrongs ?
After indulging in a spirit of denunciation and. condemna-
tion against all opposed, was it for them to come there and
say, " Because we are in a very had temper you must sub-
twit.''—( Laughter and applause.) The bad temper had not,
prevailed on their (the Council's) pert ; they. had no wish to
trample upon the prejudices of any one, and they were not
to be driven from their course because other persons could
not keep their tempers.—(Hear, hear.) They had never
expected to please all parties, and meet with universal ap-
probation ; in that sense it was not an experiment. The
experiment was to see whether all classes could be taught
together, in a way consistent with good feeling, morality,
and Christianity, and in that respect the experiment had
been completely and thoroughly successful. The system
had lived on opposition ; it was rising from day to day in
the estimation of those for whose benefit it was intended,
and he doubted not that there would soon be an equal
proportion of Catholics and Protestants, or that they
would grow up together, not in hatred of each other, merely
because they happened to differ in opinion on religious
matters.—(Loud applause.) He doubted not that in a short
period the system would shame its adversaries into silence,
if not into approbation. When the gentleman talked of
Protestant principles, he talked to them as though they
were not Protestants, as though they had no attachment to
divine truth, as if they were ready to sacrifice divine truth.
He repelled these insinuations. He was as much as Pro-
testant, and as much opposed to what he considered the
errors of the Church of Rome, as they were, but lie was
not for that reason to deny the Roman Catholic an op-
portunity of having his child educated.—(Hear.) He
believed that the very first step towards removing
errors of Roman Catholics was to present en". 'ile
gion
them, not as a source of contention—not as teade.e of to
dis-
tinction in civil society—not as the grogtit o
as n w7d
ih one
n .
man should be raised above noth^.„.__
onenul
cating general charity and goodv,:;11.
Such a sy s tbuom
fom sit
be favourable to truth wherevrr it wasto
He would not say whether, i Pro-
testantt was favourable ton' or Catholic—that he had no eight now to dis-
cuss—but he had a, tight to discuss, the truth, and he
had no fear that oven and fair discussion would ever do
any injury to 41" otestantism.--(Hear, hear.) That party
which had the truth must be successful. He believed
that
.he had the truth ; but he should be glad to be
"nv'eteed that he was wrong, and he should always be
!Trete. to embrace those priueiples which would best
year the test of close examination and rigorous inquiry.—
(Hoar-) The newly elected member for Exchange Ward
bad said thatifthese schools were under other manage-
ment, they would be
better conducted than they were. He
did not know whether anything offensive were meant, but
if it were, he mu
and would bear must
say that the schools were well conducted
close examination, and lie ventured to be-
lieve that
nrfuudwere now conduetlr,sould conduct them better than they
the Children or the d.
He believed they were now giving
poor
a svaluable an education, moral,
physical, ireiellectual, and religious, as could possibly be
given i.l-
or e
1 any schools, here
elsewhere.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr: sands was sorry to say thatseh e did not approve of
them ; but would it not have been as well if he had told
them why ?—(Hear and laughter.) " I don't approve of
there said he, " therefore let them be sold." Much laugh-
tor.) It was quite impossible to answer such an areumen;
/33 that, and he thought the Council would not be intlu-
enced by a statement made in that naked and blind man-
ner, because the schools might be very excellent though
the gentleman did not approve of them.—(Laughter.)
The Councillor for West Derby Ward hoped that some
modification would have been proposed. He was at a
liteeeto know to what he alluded. Could the gentle-
,:paaa:stipploseAat any modification would secure the ap-
tttobaCiorl-t,e community at large ? Could he sug-
Vstany'prari:th4-would close the doors of these school;
againstis largition of the community, and yet secure

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