The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-14 00:00:00

is indispensable knowledge. Algebra, Latin,
theoretical English grammar, and other
things, like geography and history, more
essential, are not what the public should
pay to teach. Government education is, after all,
so far as it goes, pauper education ; charity at the
public cost. And surely public charity ought to
limit itself to taking precautions against educa-
tional starvation. But we take much higher ground.
We maintain that reading, writing, and arith-
metic, well taught, ought to be the grand object of
all our State-aided schools. The age at which the
majority of the children leave is so early that to
divert their minds from these needful things is to
do them, as a body, injustice. They need all their
time to acquire facility in these elements. If when
a working man's child leaves school, reading, writ-
ing, and cyphering, be not as easy to him as talk-
ing, he will be certain to lose them all in a very
short time. At ten years of age, a child in a
middle. class family does read, what is within
his comprehension, as easily as he talks
of what he understands. Hence we never
hear of his losing the power. For this is due,
not merely to his attending at school longer, but to
his finding at that age reading so easy and natural
to him, that he reads all which amuses him as na-
turally as he would listen to the same thing.
If, through the wise encouragement furnished by
the Government, the three elements are thus given
to the children, the key to all knowledge is given.
Whatever latent abilities there are in a child will
be self-developed if he has but the means of coming
in contact with that which would stimulate them to
action. The

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to extacy the living lyre "
may do it, if through the grand elements of al]
knowledge, the way to the rest be fairly opened
Now, to do this is the pith and marrow of the Go
vernment Minutes. The Government says—We
want, en behalf of the country, that every
child should have the well-known keys to all know-
ledge. We do not want that a few crack scholars
should be competent to perform all kinds of feats of
intellectual tight-rope-dancing ; but that no child
should want the power to read the newspapers
which tell him what is going on at home and
abroad ; to write to his absent parents or rela-
tives; and to make the ordinary calculations essen-
tial to his fulfilling the duties of half the posts he
may be called to occupy.
The objections raised against the Government
plan, we must say plainly, appear to us to resolve
themselves into two : That the minutes may inter-
fere with getting Government money without doing
the work wanted by the Government ; and that sec-
tarian religion may be placed at a disadvantage.
With regard to the first, we have often wondered
how the respectable teachers who raise the cry
can have allowed themselves to do so. They have
clamoured for " vested rights"—a cry always indi-
cative that it is for something of little worth in
itself—as if they had been cathedral dignitaries or
proctors. If the Government can offer employment
to no person without his converting it into a vested
right, why, then, the Government had need be
chary indeed of furnishing new employment.
At the time the present system was proposed, we
remember that Mr. BAINES, of the leeds Mercury,
was somewhat laughed at for predicting that it
would soon come to this, that we should have
an army of Government stipendiaries, who would
look on their pay as a vested right; but
certainly the event has justified the predic-
tions of our northern contemporary. It
by no means follows, however, that the
Government and the country are to heed the cla-
mour. We would not deal harshly with the
schoolmasters; but we do not think there is the
slightest harshness in saying to them—As you
take our money you must do our work, not the
work you may fancy. Now, well educated as you
are, you can, if you will, enable all your pupils above
six years of age to pass the examinations in the
elements which we require. Do what you like
besides, but this we must have, Do it, and we
will pay for each child accordingly. We cannot
well understand how any teacher willing to do the
work desired by the public, should lose a penny of
his capitation grant—and, if he be not willing, let
him renounce Government aid and conduct his
school on his own plan.
As to the religious, we should rather say, irre-
ligious outcry—we think it most discreditable to
these who raise it. In the first place there is in
reality no alteration in the procedure under the
new minutes in regard to religion. But the fear
alleged is that the masters may give so much atten-
tion to teaching the three elements, that religion
will be neglected. The objection is about of the
same value as if we were told that the grown
man found his time so occupied in earning his
daily bread that he must give up doing that to
attend oftener on prayers. The first things must
be done first. What can the poor young creature
learn, intelligently, of religion, who has not
yet learned to read well? Of what use to
him would be all the mysteries of the
Prayer-book, creeds, and articles, or of the
Bible itself ? The truth is, some of the objectors
fear, not lest the children should fail to learn from
any teacher fit for the office the two great com-
mandments, but that time should not be spared to
give them a parrot-like knowledge of creeds and
formularies, wholly beyond their understanding,
though not beyond the superstitious regard which
may be taught, even to children, for what they do not
comprehend. We are confident that those who are
in earnest about the really religious education of
the young, will heartily thank the Government for
a plan which will do more than any yet proposed,
to facilitate their efforts. Government proposes,
in fact, to till the soil for the religious seedsman.

The New Bridge at Blackfriars is still set aside
as a scheme in nubibus. Like the benediction of
man, apparently, it " never is but always to
be." After a good deal of discussion upon the
matter yesterday in the Court of Common Council,
the whole question was again postponed for "further
consideration." As if it were quite a n©w idea to
take the project thus into " further consideration."
Really reading of these postponements and post-
ponements usque ad nauseam, the only conlusion
to be arrived at in our bewilderment would
almost seem at times to be, by necessity,
that with which Lord DUNDPEARY night after
night now, amidst convulsions of laughter, in the
Theatre Royal Haymarket, closes his many logical
difficulties—" Ob, it's one of those things a
fellow 'll never find out !" Here is a proposition
in itself, one would think, quite simple enough—
\
namely—(a thing absolutely decided upon,recollect !
by the Committee of Inquiry after due delibera-
ti")— that the plan sketched out b-J *Mr THOMAS
•
PAGI'' 83/41"1,1 be carried into execution. Mr. PAGE'S
design,
rememb',r, was long since picked out
by preference from all the other designs sent
in by all the
various
thourasengineers and architects.
A design it was—or
are sanguine that even now,er we will say it is, for we
when all has been said
and done, that can yet by possibility be said and
done by a perverse opposition—a design this is, this
noble and beautiful and economical scheme of Mr.
'AGE'S suggestion, for a new bridle of east •
w Iron of
• P