The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-31 00:00:00

not only be pauper children, but all other chil-
dren, who will be placed under the control of the
Church of England. It begins to be clear to the
meanest capacity that there is no alternative
between the voluntary system and establish-
ing the St Lte Church paramount over all the
institutions of society. There is no halting at a
semi-voluntaryism. Either there must be no
State Church, or all men must submit to its des-
potic will. Mr. HAWES strongly objected to
paying a clergyman of the Church of England
out of the parish funds. We wonder somewhat
at Sir R. PEEL'S inconsistency, who on Monda3
insisted on making the Dissenting rate-pay en
pay for the education of paupers in the tenets of
the Church of England, or, if the Puseyites pre-
vail, the Church of Rome, in all things but the
name. The House sat till Half-past Twelve.

The debate on Monday right concerning the
education of pauper children, was extremely in
terestiug. Our readers are probably aware that
this has been so successfully prosecuted at Nor-
wood and Battersea, that the hitherto neglected
pauper boys and girls have become models of
activity, propriety, and sagacity. The school
at Norwood, according to the Report, is actin
ally beieged by persons anxious to procure the
children educated there • for servants as the 3
become fit, and the children themselves are sale
to exhibit towards each other, and towards their
teachers and employers, the most kindly affec
Lions and the most endearing behaviour. In
truth, there are few parents, we believe, who
have had any experience of the common schools,
whether called public or private, of the metro
I polis, who may not wish, as they read the ac-
t counts given by Dr. KAY of the Norwood.
school, that their children could obtain the ex-

eellent moral and physical training which paupet
children receive under Mr. AuBIN. It is truly
delightful to learn how much is made at Nor
wood out of children, supposed to be the most
brutified, by kindliness and care, while the
teachers are equal'y benefited by their be-
nevolent task and its results. As we read
those descriptions, we become half converted to
Mr. OVVEN 'S system, and are ready to conclude that
the mind of all human beings is but the reflex
of the circumstances by which they are sur-
rounded, and that if these be kind, gentle, and
beneficent as are all the works of nature, so mil.
he the mind and disposition of man.
Sir ROBERT PEEL, a person not easily kindled

by the description of others, though, as Lore
STANLEY has well expressed it, he knows hom
to dress up a statement for the House, seems tc,
nave been excited by the description of Dr. KAY.
Me Right Hon. Baronet spoke of his Report ac
interesting, and expressed an opinion that it way
only by congregating children in large number:.
hat they could be afforded a good and usefu;

education. Upon this principle, the Legislature,
she Poor-law Commissioners, and the guardian:-
of the poor will act; they will congregate the
children of paupers into masses, and the Stat.(
Ail provide for those who are neglected by their
parents, or who have been unfortunate enougl:
:o lose them, a far better education, both moral
and physical—if there be any truth in the Re-
ports of the Poor-law Commissioners " On the

raining of pauper chldren"—than can by any
possibility be procured for the independent and
even the respectable classes. Of course, we arc
aware that education cannot supply the place of
friends, connections, and rank, which will still en-

.ble the children of the middle classes to star

Corward in life with. some advantages which
pauper chliren cannot command ; but, confin-
ing our remark to early education, we are of
;pinion that the training at Norwood is superior,
for its utility, to the training at most of .our pri-

:ate and public schools.
We meant to have quoted some passages from
the Report to confirm our statement, but a pres-
3ure of other matter compels us to postpone them
still we cannot neglect the duty of submitting to
our readers some remarks, which are suggested
by the debate and the Report.
The Legislature is about to undertake the edu-
cation of all the pauper children of the empire
on a scale superior to the education which can
oossibly be received by the children of independ-
mt workmen, and even of the respectable mid-
lie classes. Without grudging those unfortunate
3eings all the advantages intended for them, we
cannot avoid concluding that taking so much care
if them implies in the State, constituted to pro

mote the welfare of all, a responsibility to take
in equal or greater care of the children of those
who are not paupers. Under the present system,
which proceeds on the principle of leaving as
tittle as possible to individuals, and engross-
ng as much as possible by the State, the
perfection of training attained at Norwood
will become a general test, and it will be
disgraceful to the State to have any portion of
the community worse educated than the paupers
at Norwood. The girls are there taught domestic
iabour, and are so trained that they are already
coveted as servants. The boys are taught
z.rades and handicrafts—they are trained to use
;heir limbs as well as taught morality, and are

aow eagerly sought after as apprentices. Their
superior education, therefore, obtained at the
?xpense of the rate-payers, now enables, and
.viii enable, the pauper children to supplant the

hildren of the rate-payers in a competition for

employment, and probably reduce many of them
pauperism. To a certain extent the effect now
cakes place, though it is not easy to trace it, and
sense of justice, therefore, as well as a due re-
tard to the responsibility the State is now as-
suming, will compel the Legislature to interfere
vith the education of all classes and improve
hat of the rate payers, so that it shall
':e made superior to that of the pau-

- _iers. Such a view opens to us an endless
•-irogression of social improvement of class above
class; we, however, are startled at the prodigious,
the immeasurable responsibility which it involves.

The Legislature will necessarily be obliged to
take on itself, by educating pauper children in a
.nanner so much superior to the education which
the independent classes can now co:nmand, the
,_:ducation of all the children of the community.
Of course when the State becomes responsible
:or the whole education of all the people, in-
cluding not merely their book education, but their
iomestic training, and their bringing up to

rades, it will also be responsible for their morals
and for their subsistence. It must not, for ex-
tmple, bring them up artists or tailors, without a
noral certainty that pictures and clothes will be
vanted sufficient to employ them. It will stand
a the moral relation of a parent to the people,
tad must frame its criminal code, its trade
code, and its system of taxation on that relation.
It must not hang or banish men because they
'teal or commit forgery ; it must rather blame
itself for the failure of its moral training, and
conclude that its own teaching was in fault when
my of its children fall into bad ways, or become
criminal. It cannot educate children to a business
jf any kind without ensuring them work, and
;ome future generation of hand-loom weavers,
Jr agricultural of work labourers thrown outby
new power-loom or some new agrarian sys-
°lnewill justly call on the State which has brought
seems ex_
ern'
drilled them to weave and plough,
hens up and
pensions or su:esisatdeinnciet;
o give them
is delightful, unques-
jelmlieely proposed
benevolent. scheme,
I
engaged in the work,
zionably, to the goodtomseene Itvhheo
youngare actively
r a g
a-
-7veuil-11-idnosionfgStiaGdsileas'isidcotnhvieirvtiendg into respectable
when we trace the responsibility
Jecess whichprovide
aa
tt
aril-, involves the State, first ltno
Least an equdallyg good education for
efnoreealolftitireanioi other
classes, next,
them up to business, to provide them suitable
employment, or to give them a subsistence, v
doubt whether it be, on the whole, prudent to
we e
take so much pains to educate paupers at the
expense of the rate-payers. It is hard—it is
perhaps cruel to neglect them ; but one of the
strongest natural motives to good conduct is the
desire to see our offspring well provided for;
and it is rather a serious consideration whe-
ther that great source of the well-being
of all families may not be weakened or
altogether stopped, by the State providing
..;; much better for patwer children than
v;fili*-101()Pe provide for their ebilt!r:-n,
unless they be first made paupers. • With ail de-
ference even to the legislative skill of Sir R.