The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-04 00:00:00

GOVERNMENT SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 125
2

( From the Time& )
The measure for the extension and improvement of
the education of- -the people of England, which Lord
John Russell is this evening to submit to the considera-

tion of the House of Commons, is the first important
original proposition of Lord Aberdeen's Government.
For this reasen, as well as from the interest 'of the sub-
ject, the statement now about to be made on behalf of
the Government is expected with more than common
solicitude ; and, although we shall not anticipate the
details of Lord John Russell's proposition, we may ven-
ture to offer some remarks on the spirit in which it has
been conceived and the support to which it may be en-
titled. About fourteen years have now elapsed since
the Committee of Council on Education began its la-
bours, and assumed the control of the Parliamentary
grant annually devoted at that time to the instruc-
tion of the people, or rather to the erection of schools.
Although the participation of the State in this moment-
ous duty is still here and there regarded with suspicions
approaching to hostility, there is, we may safely assume,
no statesman, and probably no prelate, of those who
went up in 1839 with white staves to the foot of the
throne to address her Majesty on the unconstitutional
powers of that Committee of the Privy Council, who would
not now acknowledge that the fears of a great many
eminent persons got the better of their reason on that
occasion. The Committee of Education has been suc-
cessively conducted by its original founders, by the Go-
vernment of Sir Robert Peel, by Lord John Russell's
Cabinet from 1846 to 1852, and even by Lord Derby's
Administration last year, with no important deviation
from its course of policy. It has not only caused many
thousands of schoolhouses to be erected, by stimu-
lating and assisting the liberality of parochial authori-
ties, but it has materially improved and raised the cha-
racter of the instructors and of the instruction given
throughout the kingdom. It has enabled the great
educational societies to support training establishments
for teachers, and to introduce the important class of
pupil-teachers and Queen's scholars to the work of public
instruction in the country. It has to a great degree
superseded the imperfect machinery of Bell and Lancas-
ter's monitorial system by increasing the supply of more
competent masters. It has demonstrated by example,
and it has regulated and advised by inspection. But,
though a more enlarged and practical character has
been given to many branches of popular instruction,
the entire experience
.of the system and its results
proves that the influence of the State has never in
any case been employed to lower or to weaken the
religious element in these schools, or to oppose the
just authority of the parochial clergy ; and we
are confident thrt the true principles of the National So-
ciety for the education of the poor in the principles of
the Established Church have never been more effectually
and beneficially applied than since that society has ac-
cepted the direct assistance and co-operation of the Go-
vernment. After this term of experience, sanctioned
by the approbation of all that is most eminent and bene-
volent in the Church, in the State, and in the nation at

large, we hope the time is come when we may dismiss
the unworthy suspicions which have hitherto been at-
tached to the views of the Queen's Ministers, and that
their scheme, whatever it may be, will be judged as far as
possible on its own merits. Lord John Russell already
told the House of Commons, on retiring from the Pre-
miership in 1852, that in his opinion the country
would ere long be ripe for a more complete measure of
education than had yet been brought forward and he
has since repeated that this siakisot, arid that of Parlia-
mentary reform, arc the two matters that principally
engross his interest. It is a fortunate circumstance that
the present Administration and the present Committee
of Council for Education are so constituted as to give a
pledge against any extreme policy on either side, for no-
body will imagine that a measure to which dr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Sidney Herbert have given their active
assent can be unfriendly or dishonest to the Church, or
that Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell have sacri-
ficed the Dissenters, or the cause of secular education,
to the exclusive pretensions of the clergy.
The truth is, that it cannot be the intention, for it is
not in the power, of any Government to alter the nature
of the instruction given to the poorer classes of the
Englisg people, and we conceive that nothing can be
done to interfere at all with that part of the subject. The
nature of the instruction given is already conformable to
the predominant feelings and convictions of the nation.
It is based, in all cases, on religious education ; it is
closely connected with the offices of the church or the
ministrations of other religious denominations ; and no
doubt can be entertained that an attempt to weaken this
connexion, and to dissolve the tie between religious and
secular education, would be received with aversion,
and would prove fatal to the Government proposing it.
We entertain no apprehensions whatever that any such
measure or tendency will be found in tad John Rus-
sel's statement to-night ; and, although it is to be hoped
that the schools for the children of the English people
will continue to improve, as. they have improved in the
last few years, We see no reason to suppose that any
such improvement is to be purchased by the sacrifice of
that which has hitherto obtained for them the respect
and, gratitude of the public, The chief advantage to be
derived from the interposition of the Government and
of the legislative authority in Parliament in this under-
taking appears to us to consist in the application and
control of the funds necessary to support an efficient
system of national education. It is, therefore, to these
objects that we expect to find the Ministerial proposal
principally directed.
Although the sums of money annually voted by Par-
liament are still small, there is probably no country in
the world in which larger private endowments exist for 10
the purposes of education than in England, though, in 25
very many instances, their application by no means cor-
-10
responds with the liberal intentions of the founder. 1.0.(
These charities, which are scattered through almost
206
every parish in the land, are, for the most part, far
too small in amount to defray the cost of a Chancery St.
suit, where that is needed to check misappropriation
or to amend the application of such funds. Their 17
amount has been roughly calculated at 700,0001. or 25
800,0001. a-year—a sum amply sufficient to give a
very powerful stimulus to education throughout the
country. But in their present condition these funds are
at least partially wasted, and it is very seldom indeed
that they can be said to afford to the class for which they I
were intended the best education that the present age
requires. It is said, therefore, that one of the principal
features in Lord John Russell's plan is to connect the 4,
administration of these educational endowments and
charities with that department of the Government which
is already charged with the distribution of the Parlia-
mentary grant. Provision must of course be made for
the cheap and prompt solution of the legal questions
arising out of these small charities, and this may be
done either by conferring an equitable jurisdiction to a
certain amount, for this purpose, on the judges of
the County Courts, or by the appointment of judicial
commissioners expressly empowered to settle these diffi-
culties without expense to the fund itself. But, in most
instances, it is probable that a small amount of adminis-
trative assistance and control, co-operating with the
trustees and managers of these endowments, would suf-
fice to give to them the same impulse which has al-
ready been so powerfully felt in the common parochial
schools.
If this be a part of Lord John Russell's scheme, we
hope that it will be most cautiously guarded against
the suspicion, which will of course be raised, that it is
the intention of the State to exert a centralised au-
thority over the local institutions or property of the
country, or that it is proposed to employ its authority
for the furtherance of any particular views on the
subject of education. The Government can have
no such intentions, unless it is prepared to bring
round its ears a swarm of adversaries who have twice
succeeded in defeating similar proposals ; and there is
still a powerful party in the country, both in the church
and out of it, who regard the intervention of the State
in this whole question with extreme jealousy and dissa-
tisfaction. The difficulty is to do what the exigency of
the case and the wants of our increasing population re-
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