The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-09 00:00:00

CHUSAN.

Accounts from Chusan to the 24th December
have been received per Eagle, accordingto which
the health of the troops was improving, there
being no new cases of sickness. As will
be seen from an extract of a letter from
thence, communication with Ningpo was
unrestricted, but the writer of that letter says
that the Chinese intend commencing hostilities
in spring. We do not think it unlikely, having
never had much faith in the pacific intentions of
the Chinese Government, as long as these could
only be manifested by sacrifices on their part,
and having hitherto refrained from exten-
sive hostile acts, was probably caused by the bad
state of the army, which must have been much
demoralized during, the two last peaceful
reigns, particularly when it is borne in mind
that the civil service is at all times held in
higher esteem in China than the military,
wHich, neglected during peace, can only regain its
proper rank in times of pressing necessity.
How far the preparations lately made
in our neighbourhood have served to or-
ganize an effective body of troops, the events
now passing at the Bogue will show; we do
not expect to hear much said in favour of
their discipline or tactics. Provisions at Chu-
san were plentiful ; the bazaar was sup-
plied with all kinds of necessaries, and even
articles of export-commerce, such as course
Silk Piece-goods, Raw Silk of inferior quality,
and Tea, but in small quantities, were offered fbr
sale. The weather was getting very cold, the
thermometer having fallen as low as 22 degrees.
—Canton Press.

So much is now said in public and in Par-
liament about placing the education of the whole
community under the control of the clergy, that
we shall do some service by subjecting the quali-
fications of that body for the high trust to exa-
mination. We cannot conceive it possible that
our Legislature should go on appointing chap-
lains to workhouses, and chaplains to gaols, and
subjecting public instruction to their interfe-
rence and control, without first satisfying them-
selves perfectly that the clergy are the fittest
body of men for that office. In the hope that
we may attract the attention of Members of
Parliament to the subject, we pen the following
observations.

The origin of the opinion that the priesthood
are the proper instructors of the people, may be
traced to the remotest antiquity. Amongst the
Jews the Levites were the keepers of all the
public records, and of necessity the teachers of
the people in all matters of history, religion,
and morals. The priests in Egypt seem to have
filled a similar office, and to have possessed all
the learning of the country. A similar fact
was true of the Christian priesthood. On
the breaking-up of the Roman empire,
the knowledge of antiquity and many of
the useful arts was exclusively preserved by the
Christian clergy. They were respected by the
barbarians, and became their teachers. They
spread not only Christianity, but the arts of
Rome and Greece over Europe, and were at that
time to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors what our
missionaries now are to the Sandwich Islanders.
For several centuries the arts of reading and
writing, the sciences of astronomy, of alchymy, of

geography, and the practice of medicine, were
almost exclusively in their hands. At that period
they were the only teachers of the people, and
they hold their present office as teachers more
from traditionary respect for what the early
priests did than from a conviction derived from
reason of what the present race of priests are ca-
pable of performing. The Legislature has now
to consider—;admitting as we most cheerfully
do, the former great utility of the priesthood—
whether they have any claims to hold the same
high office in the present altered circumstances
of mankind.
We must first notice that they are now by no
means the exclusive depositories of science and
historical knowledge. On the contrary, lay-
men are perhaps greater cultivators of the
sciences than the clergy. Reading, writing,
and. the other arts which youth learn, are quite
as much taught by laymen as by the clergy.
They are not in fact, as clergymen, any longer
the actual instructors of the people. Many of
them take part in the periodical literature of the
day; they write books also, and so contribute to
the public instruction; but the press has actually
superseded the clergy as public instructors, and
it is only as they operate through that, in com-
mon with laymen, that they now fulfil this
office.

The great object of education, so far as the
State is concerned, is to make man happy on
earth. The State does not undertake to prepare
man for Heaven. It must teach him to do his
duties in this life. It must enable him to play
his part well in the great earthly drama till its
final denouement. Is the priesthood, as a
body, calculated to teach men their duties ?
Is their own education such as to fit them to
be the instructors of other men in the duties of
life? Are their minds so formed, and drilled, in
love, affection, and sincere convictions, that they
can be relied on as models on which a wise states-
man would desire to fashion the minds of the

people ? These are important questions, and,
before Sir ROBERT PEEL and Lord STANLEY,
and Sir ROBERT INGLIS, heap taxes on us to pay
clergymen, they are bound to consider and an-
swer them.

One of the foremost duties of every man, if
not the first duty, is to provide for his own sub-
sistence ; and, in order to do that, he must learn
some one of the many thousand of the wealth-
creating arts, to which successive division and
subdivision of labour has given rise. He cannot
dispense with that, and the fitness of the clergy
to teach any of these arts must be at once flatly
denied. Nor is their example, on this point,
calculated to impress on men the great lesson that
ea`ch man must earn his own bread by the sweat
of his brow. For the behoof of the priesthood,
a great portion of the annual produce oflabour is
set apart, and that is most unequally divided.
Shares in it are not to be obtained by industry, by
great ability or by great virtue, bualby fawning,
by family connections, by educating some great
man's son, or by being, per chance, tutor to some
youth who turns out a great statesman. Who
can narrate the squabbles, quarrels, and intrigues
of the clergy to get large shares in this property,
as it is called, of the Church Who knows a
tithe of the simony and other vices which now
and then peep out, as at York, of which the
clergy, for the sake of wealth, are habitually
guilty ? While, then, they are utterly unfit to
teach other men bread-winning occupations, their
own means of obtaining subsistence is the reverse
of that recommended by the Apostle, and calcu-
lated to teach the community to get wealth by
any means in preference to daily labour.

In common with opulent laymen they acquire
much useful knowledge at School and college,
but that is not essential to the performance of
their functions, for which they receive a peculiar
instruction. They are impressed with a know-
ledge of the past, and taught to disregard the
present. Their acquaintance with the latter is
only an incidental acquisition, and is not a neces-
sary part of their instruction. To one narrow
portion of antiquity, to one little trait
in the history of mankind, their minds
are held in strict obedience, and are
bound and chained by ready-made formulas,
which have very often little relation to the
actual world. As they enunciate them their
conduct proves that they do not believe them.
For example, they preach disregard of wealth,
and struggle continually to acquire it. They
preach charity and love, but they rarely exhibit
them in their conduct. They persecute and ma-
lign their brethren like the most stupid of man-
kind. At present the whole community is
shaken by their quarrels. They denounce am-
bition, and are the most domineering and ambi-
tious of men. They tell us to be humble, but set
an example of arrogance. Between their doctrines
and their conduct there is the most terrible incon-
sistency. They have few or no honest convictions
of their own, and cannot convey honest convic-
tions to others. The great influence which they

still have over the education and morals of the

people is the source of that insincerity, which is
the plague of modern time.
But besides the perpetual conflict between
their doctrines and actual practices, the distin-

guishing feature of their education, that it refers
wholly to the past and disregards the present,

suffices to prove their incapacity to teach men
how they ought now to act. The people re-
quire to learn the natural laws on which the

preservation of health in a crowded, mercan-
tile community depends. Will any knowledge of

the lives and characters of the scattered and

agricultural people of antiquity teach that;
Poverty is at present a great evil; the bulk of
the people, therefore, require to learn the na-

tural laws on which, in the present state of

society, the progress of wealth and popula-
tion depends. To attain these great ends,
to which laws are continually directed,
it is essential that the teachers of the people
study the present as well as the past. And be-
cause the priesthood are on principle taught to

disregard the present, and are mainly instructed
in the past, we conclude that they are nol the

proper persons to be charged with the education
of the community.
We make these remarks only in relation to the
State employing and paying the clergy as public
teachers. With their influence over private life,
and any voluntary deference paid to them, we
meddle not. We place ourselves in the position

of legislaorts ; we look at the clergy as employed
by the State to instruct the people in the art of

providing for their own and the public welfare ;
and for that great and important, and even vital,

object, we pronounce them to be completely in-

efficient.

The Morning Chronicle yesterday advocated
the formation of Boards of Health, which, like
Mr. EWART'S proposed Minister of Public In-
struction, is an importation from the Continent.
Boards of Health exist in all parts of Germany
and in France. Is the health of the people there
superior to the health of the people of England?
Do they live longer ? Is the rate of mortality
less. Are their cities cleaner ?. To all which
questions we answer No; and, therefore, we say
that this importation is as uncalled for as Mr.
EWART'S Minister of Public Instruction.
We are not aware that this recommen-
dation is advocated in the public prints by
the Commissioners of Inquig into the Health
of Towns, but it proceeds from them.
It does not add to the force of the recommen-
dation, that some of these gentlemen are sus-
pected of wishing to create a snug place for
themselves. Nor is that suspicion weakened by
the public knowledge that other gentlemen have
succeeded in establishing offices from which they
enjoy great advantages, whatever use they may
be of to the public. Now that the avenues of com-
merce are almost blocked up, the professions
overstocked, and legitimate enterprise without
any adequate scope, it is not perhaps surprising
that men of talents and and ambition turn their
attention to serving the public. It pays well,
and its wages are certain. They find out, by
various deductions, that the public has great
need of their services, and a variety of recom-
mendations ensue, against which the Ministers
ought to be upon their guard. In fact they are
beset with schemes of this description, and the
more they yield to them, the more expense they
will fasten on the country, and the less popular
will they become. Such gentlemen may weaken
but cannot strengthen the Governtnent.
We beg it may not lye Supposed' that we deny