The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1853.

The inferiority of Ireland to the sister country
has been a subject of frequent regret and reproach,
but never of controversy. Try it by what test
you will—apply that test to any class—compare
the wealth, the industry, the order, the diffusion
of property, the social habits of the people in the
two nations respectively, and the result is still
the same. The difference between the state of a
rural district in Ireland and the state of a similar
district in England would be inadequately mea-
sured by half a century of improvement. In one
respect alone this general law does not hold good.
In a single branch of social progress, and that no
unimportant one, the lead has been taken and
maintained by the poorer, the more turbulent, and
the more bigoted community. We speak of
education. Even admitting Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S
sanguine statistics, and putting aside all ques-
tion of the quality, apart from the quantity of the
teaching given, we believe it can be demonstrated
that a larger numerical proportion of the Irish
peasantry attend some school kept by a competent
master than is the case with the corresponding
class in England. And the reason is plain.
While we have been digputing our neighbours
have acted. The very circumstance which at first
seemed most calculated to impede the educational
movement--the existence, namely, of a population
divided in religious opinion, and of which only a
small minority belonged to the Established Church
of the United Kingdom—has proved in its results
most beneficial. For when the question of a
really national teaching came to be entertained by
Lord GREY'S Cabinet, it became obvious that a
departure from traditionary practice was inevi-
table. To instruct the mass of the people through
the medium of a Protestant clergy was manifestly
impossible. To instruct them through the medium
of their own priests was possible indeed, but
manifestly inexpedient. Yet instructed they
must be, and that through the operation
of a single combined system, otherwise the
Protestants of the south of Ireland scat-
tered few and far between—would be wholly
excluded from the benefit of the proposed grant.
Neither could a separate vote for the establish-
ment of purely Roman Catholic schools have
been carried in the then temper of the public
mind. One alternative only remained. Sectarian
differences, incapable of being reconciled, must
be utterly disregarded. Au educational system
must be framed, not indeed hostile to clerical
influences, but independent of them, and in
which the strictest neutrality should be enforced
between the claims of contending religionists.
Such a system was devised by Lord GREY'S
Ministry, and submitted to the Legislature by
Mr. STANLEY, now Lord DERBY. It met, as
might be expected, with bitter and sustained
opposition. Session after session, from the hour
of its introduction, the same charges were re-
Peated with the same acrimony and the same
ill-success. No words which the proverbial
asperity of theological hatred could de-
vise were too strong for the indignant and,
as they thought, betrayed Protestant party.
The National Board was " anti-Christian"—it
was " anti-Protestant"--its recommendation of
Scripture extracts was " mutilation of the Word
Of GOD"—its general teaching "an attempt to
break down the principles of relirrion." Every
Bishop whose support it received ;as denounced
as a traitor to his order. The more liberal of
the Irish clergy, who accepted, if they did not
altogether approve, the regulations of the Board,
were threatened and calumniated.. The •zrcitt,
held. aloof ;• and ill 'their
majority unfortunately
cca.L.:ion they were countenanced by a large
sec-
tion of the Protestant gentry, especially in Ulster.
Rival establishments were founded, on principles
exclusively sectarian, with the avowed object of
outbidding, and thus discountenancing those
which Government had patronised. Twenty
year have passed since this quarrel began ; and.
though it has lost something of its original asperity,
and though, through all kinds of discouragement, the
schools have made their way steadily, the opposi-
tion still continues, backed by a powerful party
in Parliament, and insidiously fomented by the
Roman Catholic priesthood. It would seem, at
first sight, that this latter class had everything to
lose, and nothing to gain, by the extension of a
system so detested by their own bitterest enemies.
And they themselves, by the apparently cordial sup-
port which they gave it, have favoured the idea.
Some, indeed, threw off the mask, and openly de-
clared that, so far as their influence extended, no
school should
be frequented by Roman Catholic
children which was not exclusively and professedly
under clerical control. But the larger number
shrunk from so hazardous an avowal preferring to
submit, for a time, to restrictions' which they
evaded, rather than by open hostility to pre-
judice
the people of England against their
cause. They even seemed to throw them..
selves heart and soul into the
,movement. Early
and late they were to be found in attendance
ou the schools. Every opportunity was taken by
shok organs in the press) and their representatives

ever, those rough children of nature sent after
him a token of their devotion ; And it is worthy

of record, that the value of the gift accepted-
-300 guineas—is not one-tenth iart of the amount

subscribed and proffered by the generous Bee-
ooches. This,; then, Mr. CUILALLNO B 3170; iS