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

hon. member, chose to bring in any sanitary measure, he
promised not to meet him by saying " Oh, you have not
g
educated the people." (Hear, hear.)WY
matter to be discussed on the question of
the h
relativeoughrt thet
rights
of this or that man to the government of schools ? The
hon. member for Dublin seemed much to misconceive the
bill. It was not adapted to a country of mixed religionists,
but to a country where the system was uniform. The
measure had now been before the country two months,
and he (the Lord Advocate) admitted that it had met with
a variety of opposition on a variety of grounds. One man
opposed because religion was excluded, another because
it was included in the bill. He had read a pamphlet signed
" T. C. Colquhoun," written with the purpose of proving
that the measure was a mere copy of the American system ;
the hon. member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden) held
up that system as a model, and said Government had not
followed it closely enough. (Hear, hear.) Even Dr.
Muir and Lord Dunfermline had agreed in opposing the
bill. Yet with all this there was a large amount of support
in Scotland ; not from the free church, as had been in-
sinuated, but from the moderate and philanthropic men of
all denominations. He had presented a petition from the
town council of Glasgow in favour of this bill, which con-
tained more members of the Established Church than any
other town council in Scotland. He had also presented a
petition signed by upwards of a hundred of the first men
in Glasgow, all of whom were members of the Established
Church. This petition had been exhibited at the Ex-
change, and within a short time had received these signa-
tures. What was the reason of this? Why the men of
Glasgow saw the evil of ignorance increasing from day
to day under their eyes, and they found that the
time for squabbling had gone by, and that of honest co-
operation was at hand. (Cheers.) He would now ad-
vert shortly to the provisions of the bill itself. It proposed
to deal, in the first place, with the parochial schools. It
Proposed to double the salaries of the schoolmasters, to give
them 501. instead of 341. for a maximum, and 251. for a
minimum. It also provided for an educational survey in
Scotland, which had never yet been attempted, the result
of which was to be reported to Parliament. Hon. gentle-
men complained that this was a final measure. It was
never intended to be so. It provided for obtaining infor-
mation for future legislation, and in the meantime it legis-
lated so far as the present information justified. Not only
so, but the bill had a third clause which he thought was
important. They wished to establish reformatory schools,
but that hon. gentlemen opposite proposed to put an end to
by voting against the reading of the bill. Let them con-
sider on what ground it was that these provisions, which
were considered beneficial, were to be sacrificed on the
second reading of this bill. The objections were two-
fold, and singularly inconsistent. Ono was that it was
proposed to do away with the test which limited the choice
of the schoolmaster to those who were of the established
church ; and the other was that they were dealing with a
religions question, and leaving power in the hands of the
ecclesiastics. With regard to the last of these objections,
it was not necessary for him to speak. He did not speak
of individuals, but ho knew well that among the volun-
tary party in Scotland he had many good friends. He
had only to name one, than whom a more kind, worthy,
and stout-hearted liberal never breathed ; he meant Mr.
Adam Bl mk, who had boon the leader of the voluntary
party for many years, and he came boldly forward and
said that however he might wish to see this bill modified
is certain particulars, still he was too good a friend to his
country to think of opposing it. (Hear.) But the real
reason why they proposed to sacrifice this bill was that it
proposed to take the exclusive power out of the hands of
the Established Church. (Hear, hear.) There was no other
reason. It was not because there was not sufficient security
for religion. Security for religion could be given without
making the members of the established Church exclusively
eligible to the office of schoolmaster. They (the opposition)
did not like any security but one, and that was a security
that secured a monopoly to themselves. If they were ready
to surrender limiting the right of choice to a particular
class he was ready to meet them. He was not wedded to
any particular mode of carrying out his views, but this he
saw that unless the test was dune away with it was utterly
impossible to carry a measure of education. He had been
attacked for not quoting statistics. Now, the religious
census had disclosed a state of things, which he for one did
not expect. Look at the position of the Church of Scot-
land. The Dissenters in Scotland belonged nearly to the
same denomination as the established Church. One set of
them went off in 1730 on the ground of patronage, and the
other in 1843 on the question of the interference of the
courts. The majority of the people did not belong to the
established church, but no one could be a master of a paro-
chial school who (lid not belong to the Established Church.
Now, if they were to pay Government money for maintain-
ing these schools, Parliament must consider the ground on
which these schools were established. Take the five north-
ern counties, and it would be found that 6,000 belonged to
the Established Church, and 41,000 to the Free Church.
Was it possible that they could with the slightest success
keep a national system where the parties were in the pro-
portion of 6 to 41; those who made up the 6 being eligible,
and those who made up the 41 being not eligible. But they
told him that these were exceptionable cases. They were
most unfortunate exceptions. Take thelarge counties, where
there was a million and a half of people, making one half of
the population, and there again the persons not belonging to
the Established Church were in a large majority. It might
be said that he wished to attack the Church of Scotland.
He was quite sure that by sweeping away these subjects of
contention he was doing a most friendly act to the Church
of Scotland. He now came to the superintendence of the
church. He stated in introducing the bill that he did not
consider this question of superintendence of the same im-
portance as that of the test. He did not know, if the mat-
ter of the test had been given up, that he should have con-
sidered the superintendence of so much importance, but he
felt it necessary to make a few observations, in conse-
quence of the remarks of the hon. member for Perthshire.
It seemed to be supposed that the preamble of this bill
was a slight on the Church of Scotland, and that the ob-
servations that he had made in bringing in the bill were
intended as a slight. No doubt his former speech was a
little highly-coloured, but, on the other hand, when he
felt that in the General Assembly the preamble of the bill
was stated to be a foul calumny, he thought it due to him-
self to say a few words in explanation. His observations
did not apply to those who had taken them so much amiss.
He was speaking of that period of the history of the Church
of Scotland when those gentlemen had little to do with
swaying it, of the time when other men were at its head
—such men as Andrew Thomson and Thomas Chalmers,
and others who raised the Church of Scotland to what
she was twelve years ago, the cheapest and most hard
working church establishment in the world. He did not
say it arose from neglect, but from 1800 to 1825, the
parochial schools had been going down year by year, and
he believed that in 1825 there had been no period in
the history of Scotland for 150 years when they
were at so low a standard. About 1830 or 1835 there be-
gan a revival. The unfortunate disruption happened in
1843, the free church went out and carried on their educa-
tion, and those who remained behind carried on theirs,
and that very reason now prevented the superintendence
being efficient. The schoolmasters who were tried for
offences succeeded sometimes on a point of law, but more
often the presbytery rather allowed an inefficient school-
master to go on than engage in an uncertain and expensive
law snit. In this state of the law whole parishes had been
neglected. In 1799 the General Assembly made an order
on the presbyters to send up general reports on the state
of the schools, but that order had been systematically dis-
obeyed. He was therefore justified in saying that the
superintendence of the presbyteries had not been effective,
and that it was well to take away the superintendence
from this general body, and place it in a local body, the
minister of the parish and the heritors. Now, he admitted
that there was some force in the observations which had
been made with regard to taking security for religion. He
had felt ever since the bill was introduced that theoreti-
cally it was difficult to say that the schoolmaster should
teach religion without there being some security for his
character. It was said that the plan was not sufficiently
popular, and that it was not sufficiently religious. To
meet the first objection, he proposed that the provosts, or
delegates of the town councils of Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Perth, and Aberdeen should ex officio be members of a
general board for deciding on the qualification of school-
masters. To meet the second objection, he proposed that
the principals of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glas-
gow, two delegates from the Universities of St. An-
drew's and Aberdeen, and that the principals of the Free
Church College and the United Presbyterian College should
also be cx officio members of the same board ; and he
thought the presence of so many ecclesiastics would afford
sufficient security for the religious character of the school-
master. He should not like to see, as one of the ultimate
results of the measure, a system of normal training estab-
lished which would send the master out with a certificate
of both moral and religious character. It was impossible
to include that object in this bill, but he had no doubt
that an approximation to its attainment would be made
by the board. His hon. friend the member for the West
Riding complained that it had not been stated what the
religion was to be. It was unnecessary to say what reli-
gion was to be taught in Scotland. If he were wrong on
that point the whole bill was misclrawn ; it had no foun-
dation and no meaning, unless the people of Scotland were
agreed that the teaching should be that of the Presbyte-
rian faith. With regard to the remarks of the hon. mem-
ber for Montrose on the dismissal of masters, and other
matters of that kind, he begged to say that so far he was
perfectly willing to modify the bill. With respect to the
position of the Roman Catholic] church, he wished to ob-
serve that the 36th clause had been very much misunder-
stood. When it was contemplated to set up a national
system, and to impose a national rate in support of it, it
was quite plain that many would have have to pay
the rate who could not take advantage of the educa-
tion. He had not supposed at first that the Episcopalians
came under that category as well as Roman Catholics

but it now appeared that they did. Now, without enter.

ing into fine polemical distinctions, he admitted that i

would be impOssible to call on these parties to pay the
rate, and not in some shape or other give them good and
substantial assistance in their own education. (Cheers.)

,
localities. That
H
idea
poorer f
assistancelllwiagghtthwaetfi huengidevrenthien denominational clause,
aculauhsee,eohtdowdevaaeyr, hatadynreoetenmtetwwias.
earnhdyththeeremorae.
asking Roman
Privy Council grant, the Government, while
,ththfaavtollerith;
chinery of the denominational clause, or by that of the
Catholics and Episcopalians to subscribe to the national
rate,
didwonuoldt
know
rtahiadt
he had
work.theminatnhyeitrhingmore to say. ea
(liea
felt that a great responsibility rested upon him ; but he
also felt, that by walking either to the right hand or to
r'hlire
He
the left, he should have raised up two opponents for one
that he had conciliated. If he had taken the advice of
the Established Church, he would have had all the rest of
Scotland against him ; if he had taken the advice of the
Secularists, he would have had both the Established and
the Free Church against him, and a very large majority in
that house. If hon, gentlemen could show him a better
plan, let them do so ; but if they could not, let them sup-
portnor
ojt hime o and i
n
(Loud cheers.)
dmoiinsegryh.is best to rescue his country from ig-
Mr. BOWYER rose amid the marked impatience of
the house. He was understood to state that he repre-
sented the views of the Roman Catholics of Scotland on
g ee
en
e;j
vbnoii
tytl
il e,
I,
vdtrh,heegetuahr
irnedgrd
htetohrt
see
ydo tfnwheteciutemil
odm
ini
give
iunevt eone r
idsa
tnhyoyef
ethoinsnech7nastaionny.
advTahnetya
atshkatthnentvertrnhins
iawnsiessluhuie.dadinnetgoe the Roman Catholics, and he might say the
ofEp" iscopali
ideans too, would not be overlooked ? (Loud cries
Div.")

! .
not be
The LORD-ADVOCATE replied that if it
pos-
sible to make them better, at all events they would not
made worse. (Hear, hear.)
The house then divided, when the numbers were--
For the second reading
184
Against it
193
Majority against the Government ...... -9
The bill was accordingly rejected.
The announcement of the numbers was received with
loud and continued cheering by the Opposition.
MANNING THE NA VY (BOUNTIES).
the Heine. went into committee pro forma.
RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC REGULATION
BILL.
Mr. CARDWELL moved that this bill be read a third
time.

Mr. I. BUTT objected to reading s third time and pas-