The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 1839.

that he listened to the representations ok the Bir-
mingham Magistrates.

We are much pleased to see that the admirable
speech delivered by the Marquis of LANs DoWNE, in
the House of Lords, on the subject of national educa;•
tion, has been printed in a separate form, and pub-
lished by RIDGWAY. This is an honour which
few speeches—Jew late ones, at least,—better de-
serve. Not only is the subject itself important,
but the views of the Government had been so stu-
diously and grossly misrepresented by designing
men, actuated by the worst of motives, that the
public mind had become greatly perplexed as to the
real merits of the question at issue between the
advocates and the opponents of education. The fac-
tious motion which the Archbishop of CANTER-
BURY was—we believe much against his will--
induced by a mitred brother, who is as far his
inferior in every quality that constitutes the Chris-
tian character, as he is his superior in what is
called ,worldly wisdom, to bring forward for an
address to the Throne to stop further proceedings
on the education vote, afforded the President of the
Council an excellent opportunity to set public
opinion at rest on this much agitated topic. Of
this opportunity he availed himself so well that he
scattered to the winds the objections which had
been made to the Government plan, by showing
that they were founded on mistaken or dis-
torted conceptions of the plan, and on mis-
' representations of the objects of those who
had framed it. Nothing in short could be
more complete' than the discomfiture which the
Noble Marquis gave to the hopes of the factions,
by his clear development and able defence of the
principles on which the Government had acted in
this matter.
It is not, however, in the nature of faction to
rest from its labours, although it may have been
overthrown by the weapons of reason and truth.
It returns to the charge armed with all its old instru-
ments of falsehood and chicane, re•asserts with un-
blushing impudence what has been again and again
confuted, and basely persists in perverting state-
ments which it dares not openly attack. Such has
been the course pursued by some of the Tory Jour-
nals with respect to the education question. The
Morning Post and the Herald have been particularly
active in this part of their vocation of late, and as
the speech before us furnishes a complete answer
to all their petty cavillings, we shall make a few
extracts from it for their especial benefit.
One of the objections conjured up against the
Government plan is, the usurpation of which the
Privy Council has been guilty in taking upon itself
the regulation of all matters affecting the education of
the people. The Marquis of LANSDOWNE having
shown how far this country is behind most of the
Continental States in regard to popular education,
and alluded to the effects of this inattention to the
instruction of the people, as exemplified in the
conduct of the followers of the madman THorr—in
the immediate neighbourhood, be it remembered,
of the oldest and amplest establishment for
religious instruction in the kingdom, where, it
might be supposed, from the number of holy men
maintained solely for disseminating the Gospel, the
very air would possess a religious influence—pro-
ceeds to combat this objection in the following
manner :

I come now to consider the manner in which the authority
of the State should be exerted in furtherance of education, and
this brings me to the particular consideration of the motion of
the Most Rev. Prelate, in reference to the Order in Council
which has been laid on the Table, and which has excited so
much animadversion. I feel, in adverting to the objections
which have been made to that document, with great respect to
the Most Rev. Prelate, that I must borrow the aid of the Most
Rev. Prelate's magnifying glass to be able to handle them, and
to discern with any plainness the grounds on which they rest.
In the first place I must say, that the Most Rev. Prelate's mo-
tion, though professing to be drawn from the document on the
Table, and to be a recital of facts, is, unintentionally, no doubt,
on the Most Rev. Prelate's part, as incorrect statement of the
facts. In the second resolution their Lordships are invited to
declare
" 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, for the purpose of
considering all matters affecting the education of the people,
and of superintending the application of any sums which may
be voted by Parliament for that purpose."
Now where, I ask, does the Most Rev. Prelate find this in-
formation? It is not in the Order in Council. I will tell
the Most Rev. Prelate where he has found the latter part of
his resolution, or rather where it has been found for him, for 1
am sure that the candour which always marks the Most Rev.
Prelate's conduct would not have allowed him to insert the
words if he had found them himself. They were contained in
a letter of Lord John Russell's, and have been trans-
ferred from that letter to the Order in Council, which the Most
Rev. Prelate affirmed to be the Order appointing the Commit-
tee. The words are not to be found in the Order in Council, ,
but in a letter written long before the Order was made ; and in
the interim, when the propriety of appointing the Committee of
her Majesty's Ministers came to be considered, it struck me
that the words were of too vague a character, liable to be mis-
interpreted, and involving the Committee in a scope of action
too wide for such a body. The advice 1 had the honour of
giving to her Majesty on this occasion was, to confine the func-
tions of the Committee to superintending the distribution of the
grants made by Parliament. Those words, therefore, " all
matters affecting the education of the people," were purpoiely
omitted in the Order. Is it then fair, is it just, for the sake of
raising an argument against the Order in Council, to ascribe
to it a proposition, which not only does not form a part of it,
but which has carefully and scrupulously been excluded from it.
Confining the Order in Council to that which it really contains,
I would ask the Most Rev. Prelate candidly to declare to me,
what difference there is between the appointment of three or
four of her Majesty's responsible servants, including the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, to superintend the distribution of the
money voted by the other House, and the leaving the distributon
Of that money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone ? lam
ready to admit, that if a Board had been established by
Act of Parliament to take into consideration the whole subject
of education, one of the first things would have been to place
one or more of the Right Reverend Bench upon that Board.
But, at the same time, it cannot escape your Lordships' atten-
tion, and the attention of the Right Reverend Bench, that the
moment that was done—the money that was voted for the pur-
pose of education, being the money of the whole nation—being
the money of the three millions, or four millions, of persons
who are separated from the Church, as well as the money
of the members of the Establishment--the moment that was
done—the moment that one of the Right Reverend Bench was
placed upon the Board, a claim would immediately arise to place
some Dissenter upon it also. Does the Most Reverend Prelate
think that this would have advanced the cause of education—
does he think, that it would not have given rise to many differ-
ence! and to great difficulties ? The Crown pursued a different
course. Instead of leaving the duty to one Minister, assisted
by a secretary, and one or two clerks, it is now intrusted to two
or more responsible Ministers of the Crown. These Ministers,
I need not say, are annually accountable to Parliament, and it
in any one instance the public money is proved to have been
misapplied, it will be easy for Parliament to rescind the resolu-
tion of the Committee of Council. Anything like a permanent
settlement of everything connected with a question like the pre-
sent I have not yet seen attempted either in this or in the other
House of Parliament. When I state that it would be an at-
tempt made in a case delicate in the extreme, surrounded b)
difficulties on every side imposed upon the Government and the
public with a full sense of all the obstacles which political and re-
ligious feeling would oppose to their progress, I think that I have
said enough to show that a permanent settlement is at present
quite out of the question; and if there be anything more than
another to recommend the present arrangement, it is this, that
it is of a temporary nature, that it can be modified at pleasure,
that it can be revised at any moment, and that it can be enlarg-
ed on any future occasion if it shall be found to work well for
the benefit and improvement of the people. So much for the
objection against this plan, founded on the fact that a temporary
Committee of the Privy Council is to distribute the funds granted
by Parliament.

The point upon which the Tory Journalists have
particularly exercised their snarling propensities, is
the unconstitutional nature, forsooth, of the educa-
tion grant. "Itis a thing altogether without pre-
cedent, as well as quite contrary to the letter and
spirit of the Constitution," yelp out these sagacious
bipeds, " that the House of Commons should take
such a step as this without the concurrence of the
Lords." Hear how triumphantly this point is dis-
posed of in the speech :
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