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

brought forward this Wan, will find before they have
taken one-twentieth part of the trouble with it
which some gentlemen in this room have given
to the education question, they have attempted an
impossibility, and will be compelled to turn aside
from what they have attempted to do and join our
ranks—that is, if we do nothing, as I hope we shall
not, which shall repel them. Our difficulties are pre-
cisely those that have had to be encountered in
Holland and America. Both have gone through
the same ordeal. When the pilgrim fathers landed
in New England, there no doubt the education given
embraced religious teaching. Everybody was taught
the same catechism, but as the number of sects in-
creased it was found that these religious questions
became a great bone of contention. The Americans
have had to go through precisely the same ordeal
that we are going through in this country, and it has
ended precisely as it will end in this country. The
fundamental principle is laid down in the Massa-
chusetts statute for erecting common schools, which
says, "that no hook shall be admitted into the schools.
and nothing shall be taught in them, which favour,
the particular doctrine or any peculiar Christian seer."
—(Hear, hear.) In Holland they have come to the
canoe conclusion. There they have adopted a secular
system, because they have found it impracticable to
unite the religious bodies in any system of combined
religious instruction.—(Hear, hear.) Now, I think
if ever there was a time when it was desirable more
than another to try and separate religious education
from secular instruction it is the present time. And
I will tell 3ou why. We have arrived at that periou
when all the world is agreed that secular education
is a good thing for society. All were agreed that it
is a good thing that English boys and girls should be
taught to read and write and spell, and as much
grammar and geography as they can possibly imbibe.
There is no difference of opinion about putting the
elements of knowledge into the minds of every
child in this land, if it can be done. But while
we are united on that point can any one who
moves in society for a moment conceal from himself
that we have also arrived at a time when we have
probably more religious discord impending over us
than at any other period of our history ?—(Cheers.)
When I speak of religious discord, I don't mean
merely the dissensions between the Roman Catholics
and Protestants ; I will not allude to them except so
far as they lead to schisms and controversies in the
internal state of other religious bodies. But I think
there is, no doubt, at this moment looming in the dis-
tance, and not in the very remote distance either, a
schism in the Church of England itself.—(Hear.)
You have two parties in that Church, the one perhaps
stronger than the other in numbers, but the other far
more strong in intellect and logic, which are going to
divide the Church. Then I see the Wesleyan body
also torn asunder by a schism which the most sanguine
can hardly hope to see healed. Ido not think several
other religious bodies are perfectly tranquil in thei
internal organization. Now, while we have the
prospect of these
great internal dissensions in religi-
ous bodies, and while we are all agreed that secular
education is a desirable thing, would it be desirable,
if it could be effected, if it were practicable—which
I believe it is not—that oar national system of
education should be one united and bound up with
the religious organizations, and by which the
schisms which prevail in the churches must neces-
sarily be transferred with increased virulence to
the schools ?—(Cheers.) For bear in mind that
what you see now pervading in the churches in
Scotland, where you have an irreconcilable dispute
with regard to the appointment of masters to the
parochial schools of Scotland—a dispute between the
old Kirk and the Free Church—recollect, if what I
say be correct, when you have an impending schism
in the Anglicarr Church, you will have precisely the
same difficulty in the appointment of masters, In
one parish the High Church party will predominate,
and will dwell upon the necessity of the master ob-
serving all the oldiorms of our Church and enforcing
all the old ritual and observances prescribed by the
Liturgy and Canons; and, on the other hand, you
will have the Low Church party dwelling upon the
more vital essence of religion, and encouraging the dis-
continuance of those forms which the other party re-
gard as of greater importance. And depend upon it,
that while these discords pervade the Church you will
have them in the schools also ; you will have to
fight the battle again and again to reconcile the
various religious bodies, and in the end you will find
yourselves obliged to return to the secular system
which has been adopted in the United States and
in Holland.—(Cheers.) While I have been visit-
ing Leeds and Huddersfield, I have repeatedly sought
interviews with the liberal Dissenters, and have
endeavoured to have an unrestricted discussion
with them on this question, rather than in the public
arena, where they might be committed to opinions
which I hope when they have seen our plans they will
be prepared at least to modify.—(Hear.) Now I have
found that one of the objections to our plan has been
that alluded to by Mr. Schwabe, when he spoke of
the vast number of schools already in existence, and
the objection that we were supposed to propose to
supersede all the existing schools, and render the
school-rooms valueless. Now, it is my firm belief
that if a system such as we proposed were adapted,
we should have no difficulty whatever in getting an
Act of Parliament to levy a local rate in Manchester.
(Hear, hear.) Ido not conceal from myself that
if we establish free schools in every parish you will
ultimately close all existing eleemosynary schools in
which you now call upon children to pay 23. or 3d.
a week. If they did not, they would not be worthy
the name of national schools. But such being the
case, I take it they would be purchased or rented as
Mr. Schwabe has described, they might be rented
on the week day and left on the Sundays in the
hands of the different religious congregations for the
purpose of religious teaching.—(Cheers.) Another
objection I have had to encounter among
our Dis-
senting friends is, that they have been inclined to
imagine that the teaching children a little of reading,
writing, grammar, and geography, is inimical to re-
ligion. Now, I have found a most curious refutation
of this doctrine wherever I have been, in the practice
of the very party who have objected to us. I re-
member, at Birmingham, I found a proprietary
school, built by a joint-stock association, by men of
every religious denomination—l heard, in fact, of a
clergyman sending his son to it, Well, in that school
there is no religion taught, and yet I found the' very
parties who objected to us Were sending their sons to
schools where secular education is avowedly separated
from religious teaching.—(Cheers.) Again, I was
present at a meeting in Yorkshire where one
gentleman stoutly maintained that it was utterly,
impossible to separate religious from secular teach-
ing ;it was in Huddersfield. Well, another E4'ntle-
man said to him, " How can you possibly maintain that
doctrine when you know you have sent your own son to
our Huddersfield College,
where you know that we
could not go on for a day unless we all consented to
separate religion from secular instruction ?
(Cheers.) Again, the schools at the Huddersfield
and our other mechanics' institutions are founded on
that principle, and what I have said of the Hudders-
field Mechanics' Institution applies to all thoSe of
the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutions, of
which our friend Mr. Baines is himself the president.
—(Hear, hear.) I have found everywhere in my
travels that gentlemen have afforded in their own
practice the best possible augury of our future suc-
cess, and the best possible refutation of their own
principles.—(Cheers and laughter.) However, ,I am
glad
we have got from our Church friends in Man-
chester a corroboration of the doctrine with which we
started—that the present system of schooling is very
defective. Now, the great fallacy of school statistics
has been that we have taken schoolhouses for school-
ing and bricks and mortar for good masters.—
schools, and that it is a
I have no doubt there` have
galvanise an effort in a'
vb( Cee
rehyne evreasassty and
hl laughter.)
effortsungg ht
ott eor
build.)
con-
gregation to raise a school. And nothing is
8o common in men's minds as to think that
when they have raised a school they have done a great
"You have
; annldenutyntil of schools, but the
thing for education. But I want to know what bricks
and mortar do for education ? The gentlemen con-
nected with the Church schools system tell us that
these schools in a great number of cases stand"idle,
and children don't come to them. Now, in connexion
with this point I have heard it mentioned wherever I
have been
been that
don't you adopt some
principle of compulsion and adopt a coercive princi-
ple it is of no use building schools, for the children
will not attend them." Now, I have told them that
we do not go so far as that yet. If you have good
schools and schoolmasters I am firmly persuaded you
tattte "nYd
will fill your schools; but if then you should find that
people will bring up their children in idleness and
ignorance, I do not know that it would be such an
infringement upon the liberty of the subject if you
did adopt some plan, first of all, perhaps, to seduce or
bribe parents to send their children to school, or, if that
would not do, to try a little compulsion. Mr. Cobden
proceeded to say that some of the Dissenters years
ago objected that they could not take money raised
by taxes for teaching religion in schools ; and now,
when it was proposed to accommodate them by sepa-
rating the religious from the secular, we were told
by them that it was contrary to their religious convic-
tions to separate them.—(Cheers.) He must say he
thought such a course, if persevered in, would go very
far to alienate the feelings of the great mass of the
community ; and as there was :n certain districts
reason to fear that a great number of the working
classes were not in community with either Dissent
or Church, he feared it would very much alienate
them from those who took an impracticable course
—a course which should prevent the diffusion of
education among the working classes, by setting up
obstacles which it would be impossible for rational
men to remove. If these gentlemen had a due ap-
preciation of the value of secular knowledge, he
put it to them, did they not value it in their
own case and that of their families ? He wished
to know if such parties did or did not believe that