The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-17 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 17, 1862.

were instinctively, that this preliminary labour of
revision will come with better grace from the Com-
mittee of Lords, particularly of some of the law
lords—before the measure can be laid upon the
House of Commons, where Sir HUGH CAIRNS. will
now await its advent, no doubt, in a mood worthy
in its serene impartiality both of himself and of
his own cherished legal improvement.
Scarcely will these remarks of ours have gone to
press when the Government Bill relating to the
Transfer of Land will be explained in all its bear-
ings by the Lord Chancellor WESTBURY. For that
explanation, therefore, we have but the briefest in-
terval to tarry—and we are certainly enabled to
do so with an equanimity all the more assured
from its being based upon the prevailing hopeful
expectancy. The subject is vast and vital,
no doubt, in its dimensions and in its
importance. It is, besides this, compli-
cated during centuries upon centuries almost
beyond the seeming possibility of disentanglement.
Yet is it now about to be scrutinised and handled
by one peculiarly qualified for the task he has un-
dertaken—that very wondrous task of its disentan-
glement. Here and there in the labyrinthine web
that Lord WESTBURY is this evening about to
manipulate with his dexterous touch and to thrid
and unravel with the skill won by long practice
to his masterhand—here and there doubtless a knot
may appear to be so Gordian in its fixity that it
would seem only capable of being unloosed
by the arbitrary sword-stroke of some legis-
lative ALEXANDER. Yet even here we
are sanguine that the consummate dexterity
of your skilled jurisconsult msy prove equal to the
occasion. Let but the Great Lawyers upon both
sides of each of the two Houses of Parliament co-
operate with each other dispassionately in dealing
with this most difficult Question as to the Facili-
tation of the Transfer of Land, and we may rest
perfectly assured that, the problem can be solved
before the close of the present Session, as effectually
as the tangled web in the old Fairy Tale was un-
ravelled for the bewildered Princess in a night, and
magically wound off upon a reel by the beneficent
agency of the Fairy Godmother.

Those who doubt the mercenary character of the
agitation against the excellent educational proposals
of the Government, would do well to look at two
facts mentioned on Thursday—one by Mr. LOWE
in the House of Conimgaia, the other by Lord GRAN-
VILLE in the House of Lords. Referring to the ab-
surd allegation of vested interests, the former said—
" The question had been chiefly discussed in refer-
ence to the public teachers—probably on account
of the large number of persons who were concerned
—otherwise he did not see why their case should
be more debated than the grants for drawing or
Welsh. Talking about Welsh, he had heard of
rather a tragical case, in which a person complained
that his school would gain no grant, because the
position of the schoolmaster was similar to that of
Hotspur—

' This is the deadly spite that angers me;
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.'

The master could not understand the pupils, or
the pupils the master; and so the school earned
no money." This was a teacher's case ; and if an
extreme one, it yet well illustrates the grand secret
of all the demands they have made—they want
public money, not because they can show service
for it, but because they have had it. The Govern-
ment has given them, at a heavy cost, a good
education, has qualified them to earn their living
as teachers if they like to do so ; but that is not
enough. The Government must also pay them
for being teachers, whether they teach or not.
The evidence may prove that they teach—that
is effectually—only one quarter of the children
whom the Government pays them to teach ; but
when the Government steps in and says, we shall
examine the children first, and pay you for work
done—instantly, there is a prodigious outcry
that they shall all be ruined. Surely the
public will rejoin, then ruined you ought
to be; for, if after gratuitously educating you,
and paying you large augmentations of salary,
you send away the children without the minimum
of knowledge required you have no title to the
money. The uneducated three-fourths have far
more of a vested interest in the knowledge you are
paid, to impart, than you in payments for imparting
nothing.

But the clerical managers show equally with the
teachers the motive which stimulates their opposi-
tion. Lord GRANVILLE'S anecdote related to them.
He told a story of one of those notable assemblies
termed Diosesan Boards. The Board had passed
seventeen resolutions all condemnatory of the
minute; a Conservative M.P., who happened to
be present, quietly asked whether, if the capi-
tation tax proposed by the Government for work
actually done, were augmented from a penny to
twopence a head for each attendance, the minute
might not prove unobjectionable. After some con-
sultation, not seeing the trap laid for them, the
sapient board agreed that double pay might remove
all objections!
To us, the case appears, and is one of the simplest.
If the masters would be worse off by being paid only
for work done, they have no claim to be heard.
Their complaint shows that it is they who must
alter their mode of teaching, not the Government
its proffered mode of payment. If the managers
want grants which they cannot claim, because
their teachers have not fulfilled the very ends and
objects for which Parliament voted the grants, they
are as little entitled to be heard. They must
look better to their subordinates. The Government
has, we think, been undeservedly merciful in the
alterations it has proposed. The negligent teachers
and managers are to have a full year to make up for
their past indiligence. They are to be paid on the
old and illusory system of inspection, instead of that
of individual examination of the pupils for yet an-
other year. if they cannot by that time get the
boys and girls they have neglected so sadly, up to
the minimum required by the Government for the
public money, what taxpayer can be found to pity
them.

The Government has made other and large con-
cessions. It has reprieved the very costly training
schools, which it was originally agreed should be
supported voluntarily, but towards the support of
which the Government has had to contri-
bute 95 per cent. It has allowed the
infants uuder six to become " little treasures" to the
masters, by permitting payment for them on attend-
ance only without examination, and conceded several
minor points. Indeed, we think for very shame
the teachers, managers, and clergy ought to be
silent henceforth, and if they be not, we trust the
taxpayers will enable the Government to reduce
them to silence.

THE GREAT EASTERN.—At 12.15 p.m. yesterday
the Great Eastern slipped her moorings at Milford, and
proceeded up the haven to be placed on the gridiron. It
was blowing strong from the east. At 8 p.m. last night
the attempt to put her on the gridiron proved unsuccessful.
The flow of the tide was insufficient, and the wind blew too
strong. All was ready last night, however, for this morn-
ing's tide.—MILFORD, Monday.—The weather having
moderated, the Great Eastern was safely placed on the
gridiron at 8.30 this morning.
SACRED HARMONIC SOCIETY.—Men delssohn
" Lobgcsang" and Rossini's " Stabat Mater" will be per-
formed on the 28th inst., Mademoiselle Titiens, Madame
Sainton-Dolby, Mr. Sims Reeves, and Signor Belletti being
the principal vocalists.