The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-13 00:00:00

calculated to increase the number of thosewho agreed with
his hon. friend, and to be against all national education ;
for in dealing with this question the Government had in-
volved itself in a series of difficulties and inconsistencies.
life did not see how this bill could come out of the dis-
cussion which it would have in that house and in Scot-
land. The Government start by saying in the bill that
education must be religious, and they go on to say that
no test of fitness in masters to teach religion should be
required. (Hear.) If there was to be no test of this fit-
ness, he wanted to know what religion was the master to
teach; and if he was to teach religion of all men he was the
very one who ought to be subject to some test with regard
to his religious teaching. Again, to make the inconsistency,
complete, notwithstanding all they were constantly hear-
ing in that house, and especially from the noble lord (.1.
Russell), the noble lord had repeated the other day at the
British and Foreign School Society, that you cannot and
ought not to separate secular from religious education ;
there was a provision in the bill that there should be secu-
ar instruction at one hour in the schools and religious in-
struction at another. If that was done in good faith you
had adopted the principle of separating religious and secu-
lar instruction. If so why not avow it, and say that it
could be done ; and if it was adopted, he could promise
that you would revive the hopes of the country, and pre-
vent his hon. friend the member for Rochdale from making
converts to his opinions in opposition to all national educa-
tion, and you would conciliate one-third of the peopleof
Scotland, who, as voluntaries, were opposed to this bill,
and the mass of the people of England and Scotland, who
now trusted to sectarian education,would be with you; for
he would vouch for it, that in all meetings held on the
subject, the mass of the people would give opinions favour-
able to the principle. Let there he one system.
n Butas
long as you said one thing at
the British Foreign
School Society, and another thing in this bill you would
be at a dead lock ; and while you stealthily inserted a
clause in the bill to evade the principle on which you pro-
fess to act, and thus played fast and loose with the ques-
tion, you would weaken yourselves in the promotion of
education, and give encouragement to the party of his hon.
friend the member for Rochdale. He (Mr. Cobden) would
maintain the Government could do nothing for educa-
tion until you separated secular and religious teach-
ing. The right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Napier)
said why not set up on a better footing all the parochial
schools- in Scotland as they are now constituted, and give
grants, to other sectarian. schools ? Now, he put it to the
right hon. gentleman if he did not believe that to be im-
,. -practicable, for the right hon. gentleman well knew that
r- ' there were religious parties in this country as earnest and
conscientious as the church itself, who renounce state
grants and would not pay rates for the purposes of religions
endowment, who would not receive endowments for religious
pur ?oses, and would not send their children to endowed
schools, or where there were endowed teachers. The cen-
sus showed that there were many of the same opinion in
Scotland. How was it in Ireland ? Would the right hon.
gentleman support a system by which Roman Catholics
should be allowed to teach their religion in schools, and
the Protestants to teach their religion in their schools ?
No ; and the right lion. gentleman knew that there had
been an attempt to escape from that dilemma, and an at-
tempt to separate religious and secular teaching by adopt-
ing those extracts from the Scriptures which both parties
could. read. He (Mr. Cobden; said that all you could do
for national education would fail unless you met the reli-
gions objection as it hail besn met in America, in Prussia,
and elsewhere, by separatiaig religious and secularteachine.
Do not let him. (Mr. Cobden) be called a secularist, or let
it be sail that he did not recognise the value of religious
teaching as much as any one ; out if you did notallow the
separation of religious and secular teaching and instruction
as had.been done in other countries, it was of no use pot-
tering over the question, for you would be at a dead-lock,
• and could not advance another step. You might pass
this bill, but it would cause another explosion in Scot-
land. Ho saw by the declaration signed by the Lord
Provost of Edinburgh, himself a voluntary, that no vo-
luntary will accept the bill unless you abrogate the
36th clause and the 27th clause, and that no voluntary
will place a child in the schools or send them to any teacher.
If you exclude one-third of the population of Scotland the
bill could not be operative. But not only did he (Mr.
Cobden) say that you could separate secular and religious
teaching, and cite your own clause to prove it, but he could
show that it had been done in America, where there was
originally one church and one set of schools, where the
catechism was taught, for every one, but in process of
time, and as dissent increased, it was found necessary to
relax the system and avoid teaching the Catechism where
it caused an obstacle to secular teaching, and it was found
necessary also to exclude the authorised version of the
Bible as used in the church from the schools. The hon.
- member for Elgin had quoted an opinion of Mr. Tremen-
heere, and no doubt Mr. Tremenheere had found some
eccentric person in America who stated that vital Chris-
tianity was perishing under the present system in that
coals try. But was that the opinion in America, or was it
the opinion of an intelligent Swede who had been recently
-travelling in that country, or was it the opinion of the de-
putation of the Congregationalists who went to America
and reported on tho state of religion, and stated that there
were two millions of communicants there, and that there
lad been no such pi:ogress in_evanelical zeligionesince the
time of the Apoitles as had taken place there. Compare
the religious feeling of England and America as evidenced
in the attendance in churches, the observance of the Sab-
bath, and the respect paid to ministers of religion,
and lie would venture to say that the state of reli-
gion in America was not second to that of Eng
land. Why could not what had been done in America be
done in England ? Why could not the experiment be
tried in Scotland ? He was told that you could not sepa-
rate secular and religious education in England, for if
you did no one would send their children to the schools.
.But he wanted to have that question discussed.
in that house. Who would tell him that you could not
have that separate teaching—for in practice you did have
separate teaching—for religious teaching was mostly car-
ried on by the clergy and other teaching by the masters of
schools. As regarded Scotland, was there any country in
which there was less necessity for calling the masters to
help the divine, who had always had his share of the reli-
gious teaching of the country ? and 12 years ago, when
there was a disruption of the church, and 500 clrgymen
left it, their places were soon filled again Ho said that
Scotland might try the experiment whether the schoolmas-
ter could not be separated from religious teaching. Would
any one have supposed from listening to the debate that
night that its object was to improve the secular education
of Scotland, but would they not rather have thought that
it was a question between the old and the new churches of
Scotland ? With regard to the clauses of the bill, there was
one which he was glad to see, that which went to improve
the status of the schoolmasters. There never would be
proper secular teaching till there was a better class of mas-
ters, and that could not be until you paid them better,
and placed them more in the condition of the middle
classes of society. On looking to the Census, he found that
there were I,OJO masters, and the average of their salaries
was 461., and they were to have a garden and house of
only two room; besides a kitchen. That showed what
the notion of a schoolmaster was fifty years ago. A
salary of 46?.. to a schoolmaster gave him about halt what
a butler gets, and until they were better paid you
had no right to expect a better class of masters. As
to the clauses generally, as he intended to vote for the
second reading of the bill, solely with the view of dis-
cussing the clauses, he would not now go further into
the discussion of them. He voted for the second read-
ing also because the majority of Scotch members on his
side of the house were going to do so, and they ought
to know best what their country required, and because he
thought that education in Scotland, whatever it may for-
merly have been, was now defective. It was the opinion of
Mr. Horace Mann that there were a million of children in
England not at school, who ought to be there, and in Scot-
land the same state of things apparently prevailed. The
country had had lately examples of the necessity of giving
-working people a better education. Was it-not necessary
-that working people should be placed in a position better
to appreciate their social relations, and even their own in-
terests, and that they should be so informed that they
could carry out the more refined portion of our manufac-
tories ? Mr. Whitworth had published an account of the
state of this matter in America, and there it appeared in a
far more satisfactory condition. England ought not to
allow this to be so. If the Americans built a vessel which
made the voyage from there to this country in two days
less'than our vessels, we should immediately set ourselves
to work and tax our ingenuity to the highest to equal or
Surpass that vessel. Britwheh America obtained a better
educated and better conditioned set of workpeople, Eng
land was content to leave her in the enjoyment of her su
. .

periority. A better education would enable men to under-
stand and appreciate their own position and that of em-
ployers; to see what capital could and what it could not
do for them. The house might depend upen this, that if
the schoolmaster were left to do his part, and were enabled
to do it well, the clergyman would ba able to perform his
task and perform it satisfactorily. It was, therefore, be-
cause he believed that by separating them, the interests of
both would best be promoted, that he had therefore voted
and should continue to vote for the separation of religious
and seculer education. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. F. SCOTT, who was interrupted throughout his
observations by calls for a division, objected to the separa-
tion of the religious and secular elements of education.
Bel believed such a course was not adapted to produce
eitheri a good citizen or a good Christian. It was because
second
e e 11 attempted to do this that he should oppose the
reading
•
The LORD ADVOCATE said that he could not but feel
that the vote to which the house might come would be of
greater "'sequence than the acceptance or rejection of
this bill, inasmuch as it would involve the question of the
possibility
of a
system of national education in Scotland.
The rules under which a
system of national education must
be framed for Scotland were clear and distinct. The na-
tional system must either be both religious and secular, or
secular as distinguished
leinational. On the subject eaenart from religious or deno-
from religious education, there was system of secular as apart
observations of the hon. memberwfoaa no
needthe West Riding (Mr.
to follow the
b e
o. f
Cobden), because in Scotland thatrs
The people of Scotland would not 15:aavtaerait7aathiemHPaosuasie
was against i
pass its au,;(lltetha.e feeling
Commons, he believed, would not
wo
aside!, hTeahre.o)
of the country generally t.
That point, therefore, might be thro
there was the denominational system. In Scotland that had
been tried and proved, and it had been found wanting.
(Hear, bear.) In the first place, denominations must be
found willing to take up the matter. But even if that were
satisfactorily arranged, the system made education depend
on the will, the position, the feeling, perhaps even the
caprice, of the denominations in which the trust was placed.
The consequence was—it had always been found so—as it.
was found in England so was it found in Scotland—hut
while the country was subsidising denominations a great
mass of ignorance was growing up. If that were the case,
there was only the system followed by this bill to be
adopted. In regard to this the Government had been met
by a variety of arguments, some of
which
had been told that
hich were hardly to
be expected. He (the Lord Advocate)
he ought to have commenced this discussionl by giving
statistics. The hon. member for Rochdale (i r-
Miall) had
especially insisted upon this point. He
(theri Lord
with Advo-
cate) thought that at the present time he might the
greatest safety take it for granted that the facts of this case
were sufficiently patent without going into statistics.
What was it to him that a few more or a few less attended
school in one corner of the kingdom or another, so long as
he knew, and the house knew, that the general state of
education was defective. It was mere trifling to expect a
reference to statistics. Why, the hon. member for Roch-
dale himself, after saying he had no information, put his
finger upon the gist of the whole matter when he pointed
to the poverty and crime existing in some of the large
Scottish towns. But the hon. member said these mi-
serable beings want food and clothing. Granted, but they
wanted education also. If the hon. gentleman's argu-
ment were worth anything, a man ought not to be clothed
if he could not be fad, to.
and ought not be fed if he could
not be elothdd. (Hear, hear.) Then the Government:
were to gdfoA-ft ote day-to-clay-Soh-4 nothing because they
could not do all. (Cheers.) There must be a beginning.
He admitted that Government could not do everything,
but they at least could do a part, and being able to do it
ought to do it. (Cheers.) If the hon. -member, if any