The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-23 00:00:00

FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 28, 1851.

be received in no obstructive spirit by the Government.
Ho thought this was peculiary the time when efforts for
education were necessary, because passing events
were such as to make them sensible of the
position of their country in this particular. In
almost every department, military, constitutional,
and literary, there was room for self-congratulation, but
on this one of education, it was not a question whether
England was first among the nations, but ninth, tenth,
or twelfth. If they looked, too, at their
own internal condition—at the mass of pauperism
and crime which existed among them, they
would also see what necessity there was for an educa-
tional movement. They heard a great deal of the
over-crowded state of the labour-market, but if they
looked at the report of the inspectors they would find
that in many districts, while there was a super-
fluity of uneducated labour, there was a great
deficiency of that which required skill and education.
The constitution of the country supposed knowledge and
education in all subjects, and called upon all citizens to
discharge duties which could not be discharged by un-
educated men. The means now pursued for the promo-
tion of education were not sufficient to carry out a
system of education sufficient for the wants of the peo-
ple. To prove this, he would rely only on the reports
of the Government Inspectors themselves; all of which
were nothing more than a continued illustration of
the necessity of some measure being introduced for the
compulsory adoption of a general system of education.
He did not mean to charge the Committee with inten-
tional partiality, but apparent and inevitable partiality
was inherent in the system. There was another point
which gave the appearance of partiality to the adminis-
tration of these grants. Of all the school inspectors ap-
pointed there were only three ,who did not belong to
one profession, and that was the Church. There
was also another show of partiality induced by the in-
structions which the Committee of Council laid down in
regard to the bestowment of grants. Money
was given, not in proportion to the educational
wants of a district or locality, but the amount of volun-
tary subscriptions which were collected for the purposes
of education. Ho found that an application for a grant
was refused, because no particular religious education
was given in the school, yet in many schools of
this description, a more sound and really moral
and religious education was afforded than in nanny
establishments professing to be of a higher character.
In rural districts the greatest difficulties had to be
encountered in the formation of charitable schools,
and the owners and occupiers of land contributed
very trifling sums towards the funds required for the
purpose. Hence the necessity became apparent for the
interposition of the Government to make all classes pay
in proportion to their means to the education of the
people. Another reason why the present system could
not accomplish the purposes of a national education was,
that a religious difficulty stood in the way, and that
people refused to pay for that which did not agree with
their religious tenets. The Hon. Member then quoted
passages from the reports of Mr. Kennedy and other
school inspectors, for the purpose of showing the neces-
sity of some measure being devised for the extension of
a wise and enlightened system of secular education.
The inspectors did not speak merely from the condition
of the great bulk of the schools actually in existence;
their impressions were derived from the best class of
schools, and they had seen these schools in their best
condition. We need look no further than this impor-
tant fact, however, that the schools actually existing
were twice as large as was necessary for the accommo-
dation of the children who attended them. In the gene-
ral return of the schools aided by Government grants,
amounting to 3,255 schools, it was stated that the ac-
commodation for children was adequate to 539,000, but
that the average daily attendance was only 246,979.
With regard to the administration of the Government
grant, too, in his opinion there had been very consider-
able partiality exhibited—not an intentional but an in-
evitable partiality—which was inherent in the system,
and which could not but indispose a great portion of the
people to giving their cordial co-operation in carrying
out that system. Now it could not be doubted that the'
British and Foreign School Society had effected much
good throughout the country; but what figure did it cut
in the grant for public education? In the year 1840,
when the public grant was only 60,000/. the amounts
granted to the National Church Schools and the British
and Foreign Schools were about equal; being 5,246/. to
the one, and 4,2204 to the other. Ira the next year the
grant was increased, and the disparity showed itself. The
Church Schools received 13,1974, and the British and Fo-
reign Schools only 10,945/. In 1849 the disparity became
extraordinary, and the Church Schools obtained 39,574/.
out of the public grant, and the British and Foreign
Schools only 3,3504 ; and last year the public money
applied to Church Schools was 24,720/., while that to the
British and Foreign Schools was only 3861. Now he
did not complain of intentional partiality in the distri-
bution of the grant. He believed the discrepancy was in-
separable from the fact that the religious difficulty, and
other difficulties incidental to education, had thrown the
British and Foreign Society back in its claims on the
public funds. But could it be said that this disparity
represented the relative position, labour, and usefulness
of those two great societies? And was not an injurious
effect necessarily produced thereby on the public mind?
But whatever was the cause, there was the result.
Another point in which the present system exhibited
partiality, though it was not intentional, was, that of all
the inspectors appointed, there were but three who did
not belong to the Established Church; and these three
wero absolutely requisite—one for the British and Fo-
reign, one for the Wesleyan, and one for the Roman
Catholic schools. Another appearance of partiality was
produced by the restrictions laid down by the Privy
Council in the bestowal of grants. It gave the least help
where most was needed. It gave in proportion, not to the
educational wants of a locality, but to the amount of the
voluntary subscriptions raised in that locality. Another
partiality, which had an injurious tendency in certain lo-
calities, was this—poorratepayers in the rural districts did
not look with complacency at finding themselves rated to
give an education to pauper children, which they wore
unable to bestow upon their own children—(Hear)—and
it was stated in the third annual report for 1850 that
the high standard of workhouse education was fast
ceasing to be exceptional. But the worst of the partial
results of the existing system was the inequality with
which the support of schools pressed upon the different
classes, and especially upon the clergy. The Hon.
Gentleman here read the list of subscribers to one vil-
lage school, from which it appeared that to raise the
sum of 28/., the expense of that school for one year, six
landlords and farmers subscribed ss. a piece, the princi-
pal landowner in the parish three guineas, a friend of
the rector Si., and the poor rector himself 17s. 10s.—
(Hear, hear.) Surely a state of things liko that showed
the absolute necessity for the intervention of Govern-
ment, so far as to call upon every man to pay according
to his means: There was an aversion in persons to pay
towards the support of that which did not agree with
their theological opinions, and yet the present system,
in a strange manner, whilst giving a stern denial to
merely secular education, patronised every kind and
species of theology, applied the public money to any
creed, patronised error as regularly as truth, and seemed
to rest on the conviction that there was some evil in
mere instruction which might be rectified even by a bad
theology.—(Hear, hear.) The British and Foreign
Schools Society had as exclusive a creed as the National
School Society themselves. And where, he asked, was
the wisdom, the justice, or the propriety of calling upon
Protestants to supply funds for the support of schools
in which they had been told Madonnas were wor-
shipped by the children, and which schools were em-
plo) ed in the promulgation of that to which the country
took the most violent exception?—(Hear, hear.) Every, one had now to pay for something which he dis-
believed, and he in turn became the occasion of taxation
upon others for that which he believed and they did not
believe. When he mentioned an educational rate, he
trusted it would not seem to be an enterprise involved
in expense which a nation like this ought to grudge. The
best calculation which had been made proved that in the
county of Lancaster twopence in the pound would be
sufficient for the erection of all the schools which might
be required for the whole of the children of that county,
and he believed we were paying directly as much now
es we need pay for a complete system of national edu-
cation. But we could not do better than take the expe-
rience of America upon this matter. He held in his
hand a report signed by Mr. Henry Barnard, a com-
missioner appointed by Rhode Island in 1846, to com-
pare the different modes of public education throughout
the various states of the Union. And he stated in re-
ference to places where the system had been carried out
to completion, that whilst it gave a good education it
had diminished the expense 01 both public and private
instruction. The resolution which he (Mr. Fox) now
submitted to the House asserted the desirableness of local
government as well as of local taxation for the support
or these schools; and he believed that by this means
facilities would bo given for preventing some of the evils
which were frequently anticipated as connected with the
introduction of is new system. He was desirous of effect-
ing the separation of secular and theological instruction;
but it should be recollected that the separation or anni-
hilation of either of these modes was a totally different
thing. What he wished was that the schoolmaster should
fulfil his work of secular instruction, and thus prepare
and expand the mind for that religious training which
then the minister of the chapel or the clergyman of the
parish might bestow, and which he only could bestow
with efficiency. Religion required an intellectual atmos-
phere, and other faculties were to bo trained besides
those which were to be exercised in the reception of re-
ligious truths and principles; and therefore the advo-
cates of secular instruction were, in fact, rendering much
more important service towards a religious education
than were those who made the appearance of the one
the sole object of their instruction, and threw the other
into comparative disregard. Ho contended, then, that
they were bound to separate secular and religious in-
struction, or, without it, there was no chance
whatever of a general education in this country.
They could produce no combination but upon
this system. And was it wholesome that
chil-
dren should be trained up from their earliest_t
youth within-the lines of sectarian demarcation?. Was i_
fneol i
ogwo good d_ tt oo them
rememberin
after
ftethr the impressions
tporelsosoikobbsacwkbtioetewirzhtoboelb
feted from them upon religious points,
nitoe, and to have some better opinionofthtahnostehweyhocoduilfd-
oh
of
have
theirif theyr,i
lg
ihoauds bdeiffenerkenepeetss?epaTrabteeraen.cliv:l4rot oeno:iczoii
mixed religious
or coherence in the present system of a nit
and secular instruction. Whatwith a
or the Athanasian Creed tiil:ittnYuhltai`p:tix-hcaetiA.oraleleB,'
for instance? Why, they were treated by themselves as
perfectly dtsticct in their own proceedings; for there
as to
aeenritianiuotesoobfoColortnocirl w
epohritch,
minlysturupcotned hetbteseienuslpaerc,teonrsd,
'
not upon the religious instruction. Did not this at once
dc:troy the theory of their being indissoluble, or there
thebeing
on anyee advantageul
d no tb
be separated
in s o
from
the other? Besides, them together that
religious education bad been to a certain extent provided;
and the voluntary principle would do that, both in the Es-
tablished Church and in the DisseLting community. But

he would not say the voluntary principle in the Esta-
blished Church, because it was the bounden duty of the
clergyman to attend to the religion of the children as well
us the adults ; and let the work be / well one th
clergyman, where was the necessity
ford
the hinter-
ference of the schoolmaster in the teaching of religion?
He was urging nothing new or unheard of; or for which
he had not the sanction of authority. In an episcopal
charge delivered two years ago in St. Paul's, the Bishop,
in commenting upon the questioa of education, observed
that however valuable masters of schools might he in
other respects, they seldom found them possessed of
ability to communicate real religion; that the doctrines
which led to practical godliness must be inculcated by
those whose office it was to expound the Bible; that the
literary character of the school might depend on the
master, but the religious character must depend on the
clergy. The separation of religious and secular educa-
tion was in fact ected on in practice in all scholastic
establishments, such as the Royal Naval School and
others, over which the Government had control, just as
it would be in the schools which he proposed. It was
only when they considered instruction in a charitable
point of view that they gave the preponderance to reli-
gious teaching. The Bible was not a book which should
be given into the hands of poor ignorant children for the
purpose of teaching them to read. Such was the
opinion of Dr. Hook—an opinion which was sustained by
the authority of one of the most eminent men this coun-
try ever produced, whose philosophy was as beneficent
as his eloquence was brilliant, and whose piety
was as unquestionable as his mighty talent—he meant
Edmund Burke—who, in a speech delivered some eighty
years ago in this House, in the year 1772, observed
that the Bible was no summary of doctrines regularly
digestedebut a venerable and multifarious record of Di-
vide promises. Such a book was not therefore the only
fit and suitable work to be entrusted to the compara-
tively uninformed schoolmaster for the teaching of the
ignorant children under his charge. They had all expe-
rience of that in th's country, for it had not been so ef-
fectual a barrier against criminality as had been sup-
posed. For twelve consecutive years the criminal tables
showed an increase of criminality in the imperfectly
educated. Such tables tested the value of sound instruc-
tion by a constantly diminishing ratio in the per-tentage
of criminals well taught; they showed a constantly dimi-
nishing ratio in the per-tentage not taught at all, but a
constantly increasing ratio in the imperfectly taught.
The decrease in the former was 33 5-10 to 31 5-10 per
cent., while the increase in the latter was from 53 1-10
to 59 5-10 per cent. Religious teaching failed, in fact,
because it was not sufficiently combined with secular
education. The Irish national schools were much better
conducted in respect to the separation of theological
from secular instruction than the schools in this coun-
try. There was a larger portion of the secular element
in the instruction given, and the faculties of the children
were, therefore, more fully developed. The result
was, that from 1845 to 1849 (the years to which the re-
turns he had got applied), the number of those com-
mitted who could read and write, instead of increasing,
as in this country, decreased from 26 3-10 per cent. of
the whole criminal population in the first-named year,
to 17 6-10 per cent. in 1849 ; whilst the number of
criminals who could neither read nor write increased in
a corresponding proportion—a result exactly the re-
verse of what took place in this country. In the re-
port of the inspector of the Lancashire Sunday schools,
analogous results were traced, which proved that Sun-
day-school teaching required something in addition to
its ordinary character to render it efficacious. It was
necessary to do something, as the voluntary system did
not meet the emergency, and was not capable of exten-
sion so as to meet it. If, therefore, not on the ground
of preference, at least on the ground of necessity, they
were thrown back on some such plan as that contained
in the proposition he should submit to the House, that
conviction was growing and spreading throughout the
country, especially among those whose co-operation was
necessary to the success of a general system of educa-
tion by the working classes. A number of such schools
had already been established in London, where the edu-
cation, according to the judgment of Mr. Motley, the
inspector of the British Weslyan denominational schools,
was of a high order. The same gentleman also spoke of
the great and growing attention which this educational
problem excited amongst the great mercantile and ma-
nufacturing interests of the North, and he added that he
had been invited to inspect most superior educational
institutions which had risen out of the efforts of the
working classes, aided by their employers, to elevate
themselves in the:scale of intelligence. He thanked the
House for it.; attention, and he had only to say that at
the present time, amidst the conflicts of political parties
—amidst the collision of rival churches and hierarchies
—amidst the strife of sects, and the war of different
classes, systems, and interests—amidst the collision of
their various systems of policy, whether commercial or
constitutional—amidst the competition of nations and
the development of industrial and artistic energies,
nothing could better engage the attention of the Legis-
lature than building up an educational fabric of national
greatness and prosperity, founded on the broad basis of
national intelligence. The Hon. Gentleman concluded
with the motion of which he had given notice:—" That
it is expedient to promote the education of the people in
England and Wales, by the establishment of free schools
for secular instruction, to be supported by local rates,
and managed by committees, elected specially for that
purpose by the ratepayers."
Sir G. GREY said the Hon. Gentleman had begun
his speech by referring to some observations made
by the First Lord of the Treasury on the subject of
education out of that House, and from them he anti-
cipated that though the Government might not concur
with him in the proposition expressed in his resolution,
it would not be met by them in an obstructive spirit.
He assured the Honourable Gentleman, though he could
not consent to his resolution in the form in which
it was expressed, ho should not meet in a spirit of
opposition any attempt that might be made to extesd
the means of sound and useful education amongst the
children of the great body of the people of this kingdom;
and still less would he oppose any attempt to draw the
different classes together, with a view to combining the
different religious denominations in the promotion of
that important subject. He did not dispute that there
were great deficiencies in their present educational sys-
tem, and which were inherent in that system, as applied
to the great body of the people. But he must also re-
mind the House of the great increase which had of late
taken place in the means of education among the lower
clases—an increase not only in the number of the
schools, but also in the improved condition of the
teachers, their qualifications for the discharge of their
duties, and the improved character of the educ ition im-
parted. Ho admitted, at the same time, that much re-
mained to be done; but they were now asked to assent
to the proposition that it is expedient to promote the
education of the people of England and Wales by the
establishment of free schools for secular instruction, to
be supported by local rates, and managed by com-
mittees elected for that purpose by the ratepayers.
So far as the application of local rates to supply
existing deficiencies in education, he was not prepared
to differ with the Hon. Gentleman. There could be
no reasonable distinction drawn between the applica-
tion of local rates and the appropriation of a portion
of the general taxation of the country to the pro-
motion of education; and there might be advan-
tages from local management, provided efficient in-
inspection of the schools were secured. To that part of
the plen he had no objection; but he must hesitate be-
fore adopting a resolution on the expediency of enforcing
a system of local rates for the purpose, because the cir-
cumstances of the different parts of the country were so
essentially dissimilar, that though the system might be
applicable to the country generally, it would not apply
universally to all parts. They had a precedent in sllow-
tag a portion of the local rates for baths and wash-
houses, and in a Bill now before the House, for apply-
ing part of the local rates to provide better dwellings
for the poor. If they might be applied, then, to the
improvement of the moral, social, and physical condi-
tion of the poor, there could be no objection to their
1 application in the advancement of the more important
object of sound education. But everything depended
on what the character of that education was to be; and
ho was bound to say he felt the same insuperable objec-
tion to the terms of the resolution that ho did to the
Honourable Gentleman's Bill of last year, which the
House had rejected, on the discussion of the second
reading, by a very large majority. His objection was,
that the principle of the Honourable Gentleman's motion
was that the application of the local funds should be
limited to the promotion of secular education, from which
religious education should bo excluded altogether.
Such schools would, if they succeeded, supersede those
now in existence. The Hon. Gentleman said it was not
fair to call on parties to support any system of religi-
ous education of which they did not approve ; but the
Hon. Gentleman did not get rid of a similar objectionfor
by his plan of applying the rates, whether local or gene-
ral, to the purposes of secular education only; there
were large numbers who contributed to the rates who
regarded the communication of religious instruction
along with secular education as indispensable.i Besides,
it should be remembered that the frequenters of poor
schools had nowhere else to obtain religious instruction,
whereas the students in seminaries and colleges for the
better classes had other souroes for religious instruction,
while they were usually arrived at a time of life when
the religious impressions and opinions were already
formed; whereas, for the communication of catechetical
instruction the children of the poor could not be got to
the fiord from
er
a
of
frequent the church, and if they weretoof
exclude
their schools the practice of the reading
God, they would deprive them of their only source of
religious instruction. That was the principle of the Hon.
Gentleman's present proposition, and of his Bill last
year, to which he had then objected and still objected;
and the repetition of that proposition now must meet
with the same opposition from the Government that it
had last year. The Hon. Gentleman had referred to
one
Gentleman national schools; but according to the Hon.
Gentleman's proposition these sohools would be age
deprived of participation in the local rates. The Hon.
Gentleman had also referred to the opinion of Dr. Hook;
but Dr. Hook had never expressed an opinion hostile
to the reading of the Bible in schools with a view to
religious in but th Reverend Gentleman
thought it nught not to he used in schools for the
mere purpose of teaching children to read. lie (Sir G.
1 Grey) doubted too. *f
sehoolna___
~
~ 1 they really could prevent a
"'er rimy, conscious of his responsibility, from
conveying religious instruction to the children com-
mitted to his care. The Hon. Gentleman had taken oc-
casion to allude to what he called the rival plan devised
at Manchester. Some time back Mr. Entwistle and
some other gentlemen submitted to him the heads of a
system of enucation to be applicable principally, if not
solely, to the very populous districts of Manchester and
Salford, and stated that they meant to propose a Bill to
Parliament for the purpose not this session, us there
would not he time, but next session. The scheme was
based on the combination of the representativeis,
tricts—
of dif-
ferent religious denominations in those large d
the system to be supported out of the rates which sere
to be applicable to the maintenance of existing schools
in which religion was taught. Every religious denomi-

nation was represented on their committee, and not-
withetaeding the objections of some Roman Catholic
priests, the Roman Catholic laymen remained on the
committee, and the committee did not despair of devi-
sing means of including the Roman Catholics:: It was
expected, too, they would be able to include Leeds in its
operation, and with the probability of such a scheme
succeeding it would be most inexpedient to affirm a re-
solution which would exclude religious instruction from
secular education. He trusted that the system he re-
terred to would be brought forward successfully, and
that it would be the means for augmenting the means of
education and of combining the different classes of the
community in one common effort for that laudable object.
Mr. HUME said the Right Hon. Baronet seemed to
forget the great point at issue, the necessity of a general
education for the poorer classes of the country. As the
Hon. Member for Oldham had shown the clear con-
nexion between ignerance and crime, it behoved the
Government to attend to the question. The Right Hon.
Baronet said it was impossible to deal with the question;
but it was done in the United States with the greatest
success. He (Mr. Hume) agreed with his Hon. Friend
that it was the duty of the country to educate the poorer
classes for their respective conditions in life; and also
that it should be at the cost of the State. In Ireland the
Catholic priests objected to education without religion--
hence the godless colleges; while the Right Hon. Baronet
said that he could not agree to any education that was
purely secular and unconnected with the teaching of
true religion; but there were upwards of twenty sects in
England, each of them teaching a different faith. Who
was to say which was the true religion? In the United
States the villages of 50 individuals were obliged to main-
tain a school for six months, while those of 100 were
obliged to maintain one a year. This was done without
religious difference, because religion was excluded from
them, and the children brought up alone in a know-
ledge of their duties to society. Were the citizens
of the United States less moral or less intelligent than
those of England? The example of the Americans, at
least in this instance, should be looked to. They were
bringing up a moral, virtuous generation of citizens,
capable of fulfilling ail their duties; while in England the
different sects were quarrelling about who should have a
monopoly of the education of the people. His flea.
Friend did not desire to set religions instruction aside;
on the contrary, he desired to fit the youthful mind for
its due reception. It was a duty specially worthy of a
senate to legislate upon this subject; and it was a dis-
grace to England, rich, powerful, and populous, that
there should be such an amount of crime co-existent
and arising, as was proved, entirely out of the ignorance
of that class which should be the best support of the
State. The present system created the most serious
difference between the several classes of the community;
the contrary one produced the best effects on the United
States—Massachusetts, for instance, whore the children
of the poor were educated at the expense of the State.
In Edinburgh the result of an inquiry instituted into the
antecedents of five hundred prisoners proved that crime
was transmitted from generation to generation in marl
families, because of the ignorance and neglect in which
they had been left. He therefore called ell men of property to consider whether it would
not be better to adopt the system of his Hon. Friend,
and by increauing education reduce the amount of crime-
He hailed the Lancashire plan of education with great
satisfaction; and if that could be carried out his Hon.
Friend would be satisfied. Each parish should have the
power of rating itself, for the support of the schools, as
the parishes already had for baths and washhouses.
Under these circumstances he hoped the Noble Lord at
the head of the Government, who with his family had
always been the great supporters of education, would not
allow himself to be diverted by trivial differences, but
would take the broad course. Surely Englishmen
might do that which was done in this matter by Ame-
ricans.
Mr. A. B. HOPE should oppose the motion, because
he was desirotis of giving all creeds the most perfect
liberty of action. The resolution of the Hon. Member
for Oldham was, in his opinion, one more fraught with
danger to the principle of religious liberty than, perhaps,
any other that had ever been laid before Parliament.
If a purely secular education could be given, be (Mr.
Hope) would not object to it; but that was impossible
by tee very laws of nature.—(Hear, hear.) If dogmatic
religion was not taught in the schools under this
system of the Hen. Member, some religion would neces-
sarily be taught, if it was none other than the negation
of all faith. The Hon. Gentleman asked what had the
multiplication table to do wida religion, and last year
he had asked what had religion to do with the enjoyment
of the beauties, of nature; but to be taught anything a
child should be. taught to trace things to their rudi-
ments, and how, in that case, could a knowledge of the
Supreme Being be shut out from his mind? Whether
the most elementary education was imparted, therefore,
or the most scientific, the result was identical. At the
very lowest, these schools would have, consequently, to
teach Deism or Atheism. A compulsory system of edu-
cation was instituted by the motion, and a scheme set
up side by side with the established religion which
taught these, and from which the poor could not escape.
Therefore it was that be (Mr. II.) considered the scheme
of the Hon. Member as so fraught with danger; and on
this ground, as well as upon many others which he
should not trouble the House to detail, he should oppose
the motion. He was at one with the Hon. Gentle-
man in his winh to improve the moral condition of
the people of this country; but he could not see why
the Anglo-Saxon principle of decentralization, which
had been adopted in trade and all other
matters, should not be allowed freely to exist in the
matter of education. Either religious toleration should
be abolished, and a compulsory religion enforced as
well as a compulsory education; or education in respect
of religion should be left perfectly free. He had no
objection to ha being made as free as possible, nor would
he oppose taxation for the purpose; but he was of
opinion that the only way to obtain a national system
was to distribute the amount contributed by the State,
in the ratio of their wants, among the several religious
denominations of the country. lie was for the adoption
of a system analogous to that of the London University,
and he was opposed to the gigantic scheme which it
proposed of centralisation.
Colonel THOMPSON said the Hon. Gentleman had
overlooked the fact that there were different establish-
ments for each denomination of Dissenters. Was there
no way of getting rid of the great obstacle to a general
education presented by religious difference? Why
should not an hour a day be assigned for religious in-
struction ? Why should the religious question be forced
on public education? It was not mixed up with private
education. Boys and girls could learn French or Italian
without it; why not the poor learn as well the art of
reading? He thought the various sects were afraid of
the spread of human knowledge. The State should take
advantage .of it.
Mr. TRELAWNY denied the proposition of the Hon.
Member for Maidstone, that not to teach religion was a
xegetion of religion. He contended that education, as a
means of repressing crime, should be adopted by the
State as;weil as any other mode of repressing it. The
amount expended on the punishment of criminals at
the present moment was enormous; and it behoved the
country to take up the subject. He could not compre-
hend the course of the Noble Lord in demanding an-
nually such a miserable pittance as 150,0001. for educa-
tion. If education was worth anything, it was worth
more than that. Education would have put an end to
the Ecclesiastical Tales Bill; and he believed, if the Go-
vernment asked for such a sum as would give a good
general education to the poor, that Parliament would not
refuse it, notwithstanding the selfish opposition of the
middle classes to taxation. Sor far as he (Mr. Trelawny)
was concerned, there was no sacrifice which he W 5 not
prepared to make on the subject.
Mr. W. FATTEN agreed with the Hon. Member for
Montrose as to the necessity for education at the public
t he
expense; but in his own county, as well as throughout
country generally, a false step would be takes, and
education not founded on religion. He believed that
there was a strong feeling in the country at large that
religion should be combined with education; it was so in
Lancashire, where great efforts were made to educate
the people, and where those succeeded best which were
based upon religion. If no other plan of education suc-
ceeded, he might, perhaps, support that of the Hon.
Member; but until all those in process failed, he should
oppose the motion of the Hon. Member, He was of ei. -
Mon that the scheme now in agitation in Manchester,
and though heyv
luded to by his Right Hon. Friend, aasdmthitetedontehebeos-t
and
hhgermeaatinretaluinc
adapted for the counts
equ polarityal l
s pootp' theula
alas.
rival
It
et
however,adiatehea,t this
was
he voted against the resolution.
Mr. M. GIBSON said the first the Right Hon. Gentlemn
the Government werepart of the speech of
afavourablegave h i
rat
o greatthe Lancashirethat
scheme of education. The part of the Hon. Mem bees
speech to which he was favourable
was that which re-
ferred to the ' • , of
whether a general
but then, if'established
or sectarian
the result principle a rate. He doubted, however,
system of rates could be established,
they must not be denominational
rates. If such kind of rates were adopted,
would be that a special majority would be able
to enforce on the minority of their fellow-parishioners
that system of religious teaching to which the minority
might
be opposed. If then such a system were en-
force, it would put the whole country into a reli-
gious conflict. But if rates were to be levied
without reference to religious denomination, it did not
necessarily follow that the schools would be irreli-
gious schools, as they had been termed. This plan was
to give elementary instruction, and to set apart a special
separate time for teaching religious matters. It ap-
peared to him that the mere giving of primary instruc-
tion was so good in itself that it could not fail of pro-
ducing great moral effects. He had doubts of the pro-
priey of allowing schoolmasters to be also religious
teachers. From what he had been informed, he was
inclined to doubt whether Ministers were the proper par-
ties to have the controlling power over the religious
studies of children. In a speech delivered by the Rev.
F. Grose at a public meeting, it was asserted that the
more a man advanced in knowledge the more he receded
from religion. Now he differed from the sentiments of
the Rev. Gentleman—on the contrary, he belived the
more that a man was taught, the more likely he was to
become religious and moral. The Rev, Gentleman fur-
ther said, we ought to weave Church of England or
Evangelical principles with education. If we separated.
secular and religious education, we should separate whale
God had joined together. Now, he was sure the people
of England would never agree to a system of public
i
rating, when they saw what clergymen proposed to do
with the money if they got it, and the system of secta-
rian education they proposed to establish. He had s een
the operation of secular education ' 13 I •Hollered,,
and o glum,
and other countries, and he defied any one to say those
countries were less moral than '
England. It was not.
right to throw on the supporters of his Hon. Friend's
plan the charge of a desire
to give education without
religion; the object ,his Hon. Friend had was to give
useful secular instruction, and he should therefore sup -
port it.
r. WIGRAM laid the growing interest in the su. b-
j sets.elved that the real question was not, whether e 4 Lt-