The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-05 00:00:00

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ON

EDUCATION.

[CENTRAL PRESS TELEGRAM.
The Archbishop of Canterbury presided yesterday for a
time over a large meeting, held at Canterbury, attended
in force by the clergy, for the purpose of extending ele-
mentary education. The proceedings having been opened
with prayer, his Grace addressed the meeting. Alluding
to this, almost his first, return to public life since his
illness, Dr. Tait expressed his thankfulness to Almighty
God for enabling him to attend the meeting. They were
met, he went on to observe, to devise means for giving a
religious education to the children of the diocese. The
largely increased parliamentary powers conceded to the
people by recent legislation had laid bare the fact
that increased means 'whereby they should be
educated were needed. The Government had provided
what was wanted ; a measure had been passed •in the
session not long since concluded, directing that every
child should be educated. He felt that it was essential
that all education should have a religious basis ; therefore
he had called the present meeting. Its object was, first,
to increase the number of schools connected with
the Church of England ; secondly, to see that they all
came within the requirements of modern legislation ; and,
thirdly, to insist upon a distinct religious education being
given in their schools, such an education as they,
members of the Church of 'England, could assist in
giving. Thus they could help the working of the new
measure of education, and at the same time maintain the
continuance of secular training, combined with religious
instruction. The primate concluded by announcing that
many promises of pecuniary aid to carry out their object
had been received.

Earl ROMNEY next addressed the meeting, and explained
that its aim was not to teach religion merely on Sundays,
but to instil continually into the young minds principles
of action which would render them firm and
stable against temptation, and not easily led away
by outside influences. It was to be hoped (his lordship
went on to say) that the Government would continue the
annual grant in some cases, as in several dis-
tricts where there were no resident gentry
the withdrawal would be severely felt. His lordship
moved that the passing of the Elementary Education Act
forms a crisis which calls for the hearty co-operation of
all Churchmen to secure an efficient religious education,
based on the principles of the Church of England.
Archdeacon PARRY, Bishop Suffragan of Dover, seconded
the motion.—lt was carried unanimously.
Mr. GATHORNE HARDY, M.P., was among the subse
quent speakers. The right hon. gentleman urged upon
all workers in this matter to seize upon the very short
period which yet remained to obtain Government grants
where necessary.
Lord FITZWALTER, Archdeacon HARRISON, the Dean
of CANTERBURY and others also spoke ; and
resolutions were unanimonsly passed having for
their object the maintenance of religious edu-
cation in every parish throughout the diocese ; the
appointment of inspectors for this purpose by the Arch-
bishop, to hold an annual inspection ; and the collection
of funds to carry out the measure.

PHYSICAL DETERIORATION OF THE

UNIVERSE.

The winter session of Owen's College, Manchester, was
opened on Monday, when Dr. Balfour Stewart, the
newly-appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy, deli-
vered the inaugural address, the subject be'rg "The
Recent developments of Physical Science." Ma:ly ladies
assembled with the distinguished company present. Dr
Stewart, in the course of his observations, contended that
the world was undergoing a physical deterioration of a re-
markable character. A process of degradation was at work
which apparently had no limit, and which would only
end when the universe, or at least our part of it, had be-
come entirely unfit as a residence for organised beings.
The sun, as many familiar illustrations showed, was the
great source of our material well being. It prepared the
food which supplied our frames with energy, as well as
with that delicately-constructed tissue which was essential
to animated existence. But the sun was only a great fire 2
and it was apparently a fire that had long since ceased
to be fed. Indeed the solar orb, with all his wealth of
energy, yet resembled a man whose expenditure exceeded
his income. There was only one issue, unless we could
see an end to the process of waste ; but we failed with
our present knowledge to see any prospect of such a
change. We were thus led to contemplate the degrada-
tion of the universe, or, at least, of our own part of it
ending in a total absence of all useful energy and of all
life. These were issues up )u which the man of science
might speculate with advantage ; but it should always be
borne in mind that our present intellectual stand-point
was very low, and our knowledge of nature's laws very
incomplete. Scarcely less important than our increased
knowledge of late concerning the laws of nature, was
the advance we had made in our knowledge of the great
bodies of nature—in which branch investigations had
been greatly aided during the last ten years by the use
of the spectroscrope. Descending to our own earth, there
was some reason to suppose that we were knit to our
luminary, and possibly through him to the other members
of our system, by some other bond besides that usually
recognised. General Sir E. Sabine appeared
to have - proved that disturbances of the earth's
magnetism took place most frequently in those years
in which there were most snn spote. This
was confirmed by the experience of the present
year, during which we had a great number of sun
spots, and frequent and large disturbances of the earth's
magnetism accompanied ten days ago, as usual,
by bright appearances of aurora borealis. In connection
with the meteorology of our globe, it had not yet been
traced whether the earth's climate and atmosphere were
influenced in any way by the changes taking place in the
atmosphere of the sun ; but this connection, important
though the question was, had hardly yet been sought
for in a proper manner. Recent observations discussed
by Mr. Baxendale led us to think there might be some
connection between the daily changes in the earth's
magnetism and the daily motions of the air. Coupling
this with the fact that the frequency of terrestial mag-
netic disturbances would appear to be connected with the
appearance of sun spots, we were led to contemplate at
least the possibility of some connection between meteor-
ology and sun spots. If these remarks were of any value,
they tended to indicate the probable union of the various
branches of observational inquiry into one great cosmical
research, and pointed to the wisdom of a very close
union between the workers in the cognate fields of
meteorology, terrestial magnetism, and celestial physics.
Unfortunately, this prospect was delayed somewhat by
our extremely limited knowledge of the various com-
ponent of the earth's atmosphere—by the backward
state of physical meteorology. They were all aware that
at the present moment a royal commission was inquiring
as to the relation between science and the State ; and
perhaps, therefore, they would permit him the opportu-
nity of stating his views as to the manner in which this
very necessary assistance might best be given. He
thought that those branches of science which demand
for their extension experiments not requiring very great
time might be furthered with much advanta.gd in institu-
tions such as Owen's College. He believed it to be
advantageous to bring the highest class of physical teach-
ing into contact with research. If Government were
disposed to grant pecuniary aid to such researches, an
extension of the allowance made annually to the Govern-
ment Grant Committee of Royal Society would appear
to be a very legitimate way of accomplishing this
object.