The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-04 00:00:00

NATIONAL EDUCATION.
The Bishop of LONDON, seeing the President
of the Council in his place, wished to observe with
regard to a minute of the Privy Council, dated
April, 1839, that 'he had looked with the most
anxious wish to find in that paper the indica-
tion of some scheme which might be calculated
to remove some of the chief difficulties that had
hitheito stood in the way of such a system of National
Education as would conciliate all parties. He can•
didly confessed he did not expect to find such a scheme,
because he had been led to believe, from the present,
state of religious feeling that such a scheme was im-
i- pracsicable, but he confessed he did not expect to see
such a scheme as was embodied in that paper, which ap
peared to Din], on the most mature and he hoped not
uncandid consideration, to imbibe all the vices or
the Irish system of education, without having that
justification or rather palliation of the scheme which
perhaps might be found in the very peculiar and un-
fortunate circumstances of the sister country. Any
system of education that was to compris. all classes of
Dissenters, (which was the principle contained in that
paper), if crried into practice at all would not be a
system of religious instruction, it would be a species of
instruction that would lead to indifference, to generalism,
' and perhaps to something worse. If that principle were
admitted by the Legislature it appeared to him that the
Church might as well, as far as her connection with the
State was concerned, at once abrogate her functions.
According to this minute, if the Privy Council thought
there was a sufficient number of children in a Dissent-
ing sohool to warrant the .appointment, a Dissenting
minister would be appointed, who was, in the document,
called a " licensed minister." If that principle was
adopted with respect to one class of religion, it might be
adopted with respect to others. Each class might
have its licensed minister, and there would be in
one insitution for religious education five or six teach-
ers of different religious opinions, diametrically opposed
to each other. The result would be that those children
would be brought up in the principles of the wildest
latitudinarianism.—( Hear:) It gave him infinite pain to
: speak in language that might appear to be strong, of a
system which perhaps the promoters of it might think was
for the benefit of the country, but it would be the heavi-
est blow that had been struck at the religion of the
country for many years, and they could aim no heavier
blow at the Church than by attacking. her through the
medium of religious education. When the paper is
question was laid on their Lordships' table, unless he
conceived further discussion was rendered unnecessary
by the turn the question might take in another place,
he should bring it in a more formal and solemn
manner before their Lordships. He felt it to be his
boundereduty to resist all attempts to force on the peo-
p.e a system ef national education which was not found-
ed on'the princip!es or the Es:ablislied Church. Ile was
convinced that ere long the tables of both Houses would
he loaded with petitions beseeching their Lordships not
to do that which the Committee of the Privy Council
bad recommended i and, in conclusion, he begged to
move that the minute of the Privy Council to which
be had 1 eferred be laid on their Lordships' table.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE said that if the
Right Rev. Prelate had contented himself with merely
moving for the production of this order, it would have
been granted as a matter of course, and it would not
have been necessary for aim to trouble their Lordships
with one word. But as the 'Right Rev. Prelate had
lent the sanction of his name and practice to a custom
frequenCy of late introduced into that House, of pro-
ceeding by premature discussion to endeavour to create
an unfavourable impression against a measure wi:hout
notice of any such discussion, he was bound to offer a
few words in explatiation. Ile would state distinctly
that whenever the Right Rev. Prelate brought this sub-
ject in a farinal and regular manner before the House,
he should be able to induce their Lordships to
believe that the character which the Right Rev. Prelate
had given of the systerr of education proposed to be in-
troduced under the Order in Council was the reverse
of what was intended, and what would be proposed.—
s( Hear, hear.) The Right Rev. Prelate had stated that
the proposed sylatem of education would produce all the
vices of the Irish systtin. Now he (the Marquis of
Lansdowne) denied a system which had been established
by Parliament and adopted by two Goverements, could
justly be called vicious. But he also denied that the
proposed measure could be said to resemble that Irish
system, seeing that the principle of the proposed mea-
sure was, that the doctrines of the Church of England
cannot be excluded, whereas, the principle of the Irish
system was, that those doctrines could not be included
—a small difference which the Right Rev. Prelate had
not noticed.—( Hear, hear, hear.) The school to be
established by the Order in Council was not one for
general education, but for the best means of training
schoolmasters—a distinction most important—for if it
were desirable that means should be adopted for perfect-
ing, as far as possible, a system of education, it followed
that the education should apply to the training of mas-
ters of all denominations. The Right Rev. Prelate
had contended that no assistance should by afforded by
the State, direct or indirect, to schools not founded oa
a connection with the Church of England. 'Why was
it to be expected that the people of this country would
submit to pay for a general system of training, to the
benefits of which none were to be admitted but those
who were in conformity with the Church of England ?
—(Hear, hear.) At the same time it should be no-
ticed, that the masters of Church schools would care-
fully be instructed in the tenets of the Church.—( Hear,
hear.) To the production of the Order in Council
there would be no objection, and he (the Marquis of
Lansdowne) hoped there would be a time for full and
fair discussion.—(Hear, hear.)
The Bishop of LONDON observed that he used ,