The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-24 00:00:00

MR. COBDEN onNATIONAL EDUCATION,

MANCHESTER, JAN. 23.—Last evening the. Ira•
tional Public School Association, recently founded
here on the basis of the late Lancashire Public Schoci
Association, held its annual meeting, and Mr. Cobden ,
M.P., and Mr. Milner Gibson, having accepted invi-
tations to be present, there was a very large attendance
of members and friends of both sexes. Mr. Alex an-
der Henry, the president, took the chair, and
opened the proceedings, and after some prelimii iary
and routine busine'ss Mr. Cobden was called upon to
Move the first resolution.

Mr. COBDEN presented himself amid loud arid pro-
longed cheers. He said the resolution was—
" That the present' aspect of the educational +question
gives high testimony to the value of the effort sof this
asscciadon, and promises a complete and. speedy
triumph."

The Hon. Gentleman, after observing that' the aspect
of tbe room, from its crowded state, affo riled great
encouragement to the friends of education, continued
—But Ido not disguise from myself, and lam sure
ou will riot conceal from your minds, r: rat we are
indebted in some degree for this meetirg to a recent
movement which has taken place in your city by
gentlemen who have hitherto not taker i a prominent
port in the cause of national education. Now, I join
most unfeiiznedly in the expressions •if congratula-
tion used by the gentlemen who have jinst addressed
you, on the fact that these parties It av e come for-
ward to avow to some extent their, adhesion to
the principles of this association.—(:Hear, hear.)
They have given the sanction of their approval to the
main features-. of this association. As has been well
observed, they have adopted the principle of local
rating, and I may further say they hare, by one of
the provisions of the scheme they have published to
the world, given their adhesion to our principle of se-
cular education, inasmuch as they leave to the parents
of children the power of demanding for their children
exemption from that 'doctrinal teachi og hitherto held
as indispensable.—(Applause.) I must confess I have
always been so imbued-.with the difficulties of this
question, that if a proposal had been made calculated
to give an improved education, to the people, coupled
with conditions ten times as objectionable as those
which we have lately had propounded to us, Ido
not think I could have found , it in my heart
to offer any strong ,opposition to it., I have really
passed that time that I could offer opposition to any
scheme whatever, come from whatever party it may,
which proposes to give to the masses better education
than they at present receive.—(Hear, `hear.) I will
say more. I have not taken up :any general se-
cular system from any original love' of a system of
education which either separates itself from religien,
or which sets up any peculiar or novel model of a
system of education that shall be different from any-
thing that has been proposed in this country. I
confess that, for fifteen years nearly, my efforts in
education, and hopes of success in a system of
national education had always been associated with
the idea of coupling education in this country, with
the various religious communities which exist; but I
have found, after trying it, as I think, in nearly every,
possible shape, such insuperable difficulties, in conse-
quence of religious discords in this country, that I
have taken refuge in this, which has been called a
remote haven of refuge for educationalists of all the
secular systems, in sheer despair of finding any other
system of education. I should, therefore, be a hypo-
crite if I said I was repugnant to a system of educa-
tion coupled with religious instruction.—(Hear,
hear.) But there is no one can have a stronger con-
viction of the utter uselessness of attempting to unite
the religious bodies of this country in any system of
education. Indeed, I can hardly bring myself to give
serious consideration to the plan brought forward by
some gentlemen in this borough, no doubt with the
very best intentions, and before they have been en-
gaged in it a year I believe they will perceive the
hopelessness of the task. For what do they propose
to do ? It it precisely what Parliament, the Govern-
ment, and the Council of Education have been at-
tempting to do for a great number of years. It is to
give a system of education to the country which shall
comprise religious instruction, and which shall call upon
the people of the country to subscribe, by means of
taxation, by rates, for the general religious as well
as secular instruction of the country. There is no
novelty in the scbeme ; it is merely a proposal to
tranfer to Manchester, as a theatre, the contest which
has before been going on in the Housef of Commons
and the Government. It is, in fact, a proposal
whereby everybody shall be called upon to pay for
the religious teachers of everybody else.—(" Hear,"
and a laugh.) Now, that has precisely been objected
to by a great portion of this community, and is what
has prevented the present system, administered
through orders in Council, from having been success-
ful. Certainly, there is this novelty—that for the

first time abolly of churchmen have themselves come

forward and reCcomnaended that all religious denomi-
nations shall be allowed to receive the public money
for the teaching of their own catechisms and creeds.
So far we have no difference with the quarter from
which the proposal comes ; but this does not alter the
character of the opposition of those who have opposed
the Minutes of Council and the grants of Government
and Parliament and national education. It is exactly
the same thing, whether every Nonconformist, and all
the religious voluntaries of the country, shall receive
the public money and pay the public money for the pur-
pose of religious teaching through a Jocal rate, or whe-
ther they shall ask for the money which has, through the
Minutes in Council, been voted by Parliament. There

is no difference in the two proposals, except that one
is to be done by means of local rates in Manchester,
and the other out of the national taxes. How are we

thus, then,to escape the difficulties in the religious

question which we'have hitherto had to encounter ?

if the members of the dissenting bodies have been
sincere in their opposition hitherto to a national sys-
tem as administered through the Minutes of Council,
there is not the slightest hope of that proposal which
has now emanated from the Churchmen of Man-

chester being accepted by the Dissenters of this
country. But after all, perhaps, we are dealing with
the plan of an individual rather than the manifesto of

a party. lam not sure that any party in this city,
any religious body as a body, or committee as a com-
mittee, have endorsed the proposal now submitted to
us. Nor do I think the gentlemen who have so
far given in their adhesion to it have considered
the ultimate bearing and scope of the proposal
put forward. It is based upon the principle of
voting the public money for the teaching of the
religious creeds of every religious denomination ; for
if it does not recognise that principle it is an
unjust proposal—(Hear and applause.) Now, I
doubt if the gentlemen who have so far advocated this
new system as to attend in person to hear it mooted,
have fully considered the ultimate scope of what must
he the result if it is to be carried out with anything
like fairness; for it amounts to this—that you shall
pay from the public rates of this city the money for
educating children in church schools where, inde•
pendent of the secular instruction which they shall
receive, they shall be taught the Church Catechism ;
and also to the Independents, Baptists, Unitarians,
Wesleyans, the same system shall be applied, by
which, besides the secular instruction which shall be
enforced, they shall be allowed to teach their various
creeds or catechisms. But there is a large body in

Manchester and Salford—a large body lying in the
very lowest stratum, as you may say, in society,
whose education must be embraced in any way, or

that plan must be worse than a pretence, for it must
be fraught with downright injustice and negligence
to the most necessitous portion of the community.
I speak of the Roman Catholic population, which was
described in Dr. Kaye's pamphlet, written some 14
years ago (he is now Sir Kaye Shuttlewortb) ; that
part of the population of Manchuster and Salford which
he has described, comprising 60,000 or 80,000 Irish, all
Roman Catholics, who have imported into this city a
great deal of that barbarism which has unfortunately
characterised the country whence they came. Any
system which does not embrace that portion of the
population cannot be tolerated for a moment as a

system.—(Loud cheers.) I say, therefore, that the
proposal of the Church party must mean that money
shall be paid out of the public rates to provide school-
ing for the whole of those Roman Catholic children
and be,ides the secular instruction they shall receive
they shall be taught their own catechisms and be per-
mitted to observe their own religious ceremonies pre-
cisely in the same way that the Church of England
or dissenting schools are allowed to do. Have these
gentlemen made up their minds that they will pay
rates for the purpose of the religious training of the
Roman Catholic children? I say I should be a hypo-
crite if I expressed very great repugnance myself to
that which shall give these poor children an education
even coupled with that sort of instruction which, I am
sure, to many here present, would be very repugnant;
but have they made up tbeir minds that the whole of
the Roman Catholic children of Manchester shall be

taught their religion at the expense of the ratepayers
of Manchester ?—(Hear, hear.) When they talk of
enforcing the reading of the Bible, have they made
up their minds whqt version shall be used ?—(Cheers.)
Has it been settled, and do they mean, that the
Douay version of the Bible should be used in these
schools ? Because, if they do not mean that, when
they make the Bible the condition of receiving any
schooling, then it is at once shutting the door most
effectually to the instruction of the Roman Catholic
children in this town. Do not let any one suppose
for a moment that I am interpreting these objections
as my own objections—they are what I have had to
encounter for the last fifteen years. So long ago as
1836,1 remember when Mr. Wyse, himself a Ca-
tholic, and Mr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, came here to
enlighten us and agitate us on the subject of educa-
tion. I remember as long ago as that having in my
countinghouse ministers of religion of every denomi-
nation in Manchester, endeavouring to bring them to
some sort of agreement on a system of schooling ; and
I believe the insuperable difficulties I then encoun-
tered are increased now. And these very gentle-
men who, probably with the best intentions, have