The Sun.
London, England, 1834-04-17 00:00:00

•'"A!).`.-
the mind it felt cas a want or semis s 11/here the
schoolmaster himself might be taught ; and he hoped that,
the other house of Parliament, follow* ep the feeling
they had already manifested, niatebtril as, they were, and
properly were, over the interests of the public purse, 'Wohld
say, that the country should not, for The Weht of twenty
thousand pound's, airy longer Siff& tiirn this great and
glaring deficiency: He trested that they would make this
advance upon the 'Aloe principle as the one he had
Already mentioned, In 'order that they might institilte those
schooli which the French called Normal Sellbols, for the
benefit mind improvement of the musters who were to be
emploved to teach at the other seminaries. In a country
like this, where there were between thirteen and fourteen
raillions of inhabitants, many of them existing ill the dense
populations of a manufacturing town, he was perfectly
aware that education could not be of that sound and sub-
stantial character which it ought, if it depended entirely
upon casual support. Besides, another event might hap-
pen—the generous feelings of to-day might not actuate
men at a future period—another generation might grow up
" who knew not Joseph"---f Mr. Hume was standing at the
lower bar of the house]—he meant, who had a greater re-
gard for economy—not that safe and proper economy which
could not but be advantageous, but that economy which sa-
crificed everything to the petty interests of the prtsnt mo-
ment, and not the sound economy to which he referred. At
the same time that he made these observations on the defi-
ciency of education so afforded, he was perfectly ready to
admit that compulsory education—the making people send
their children to school, as in Prussia—was just the very
worst system that could be adopted in this country. Thei e
was nothing more likely to make education itself unpopular.
Men would come to dislike the thing itself, because of their
dislike of the rate which ywere compelled to pay for it ;
while those for whom benefit it was intended would be
equally tlisPlease.:t with the compulsion of sending their
children to school, whether that compulsion was exercised
byt aetve force, or by depriving them of privileges if they
re
-used to send their children there. In his opinion no
tompulsion whatever ought to be used. The privilege ( f
'.instruction was the best guarantee that men would take
advantage of it, and the knowledge of its benefits the best
incitement for them to do so. He was therefore still
averse to introducing any bill upon the sttbject. He wished
to try further the effects of the voluntary system. He
wished to improve the schools, and to afford the best system
of education to the children by the me,:ais of schoolmasters
educated upon the Normal Plans He hoped that some
attempt to do this would made in the other house of
parliament before the of the session. There was one
ether subject to whit);, he wished to allude, and that was,
as to the funds ".-...;ich were now applicable to the purpose s
of educati,- ,41. Their lordships were of course aware that
""e7., nad been funds in this country which, if properly
applied, would have been devoted to purposes of charity,
but which had not been properly applied. Under Gil-
bert's Act, in 1785, returns had been made of the amount
of the income of different charities, and these returns
placed that amount at a sum of 310,000/. He had never
thought that this was other than a deficient return. The
returns which had subsequently been made by the Charity
Commissioners, before whom the fullest possible examina-
tions had been taken, completely showed that the returns
of 1785 had underrated the real amount of the income of
these charities. Notwithstanding all the abuses—notwith-
standing the underletting of the property—notwithstanding
the loss of some of the funds and the misapplication of
others, so that all the revenue did not reach its destinatior,
he found that of the funds devoted to charitable purposes in
parts of Yorkshire, in Surrey, in Cumberland, awl Bed-
fordshire, and in fourteen or fifteen other places, averaging
about one-half of the population of this country, the total
income was 428,000/., instead of being, as it would be
under the return of 1185, only 130,0001. ; which showed
that for the whole of the country a sum of between
enomoor. and 900,0001. was applicable to the purposes cf
charity ; and, if well managed, he believed it would be
found to be far more valuable, and that nearly one million
and a half--certainly considerably above one million
'tivo leandred thousand pounds--had been devoted, by
'the munificence of different persons, to objects of charity.
That these funds were not applied to the purposes for which
they were originally intended was, in many cases, not so
much owing to the persons into whose hands these funds
had fallen, as to those who had intended, by means of these
funds, to found schools and hospitals. From the errors of
some of these persons as to the means of carrying their in-
tentions into effect, it sometimes happened that not only
their munificence had been productive of no advantage,
but that there were no greater nuisances in the country
than some of the charities which they had founded. He
wished he could say they were innocent—that they were
merely useless--that they did no harm if they did no
good ; but he could not say so—many of them were
positively noxious—they were such as the law ought
not to allow, and some of them the law did not allow.
That splendid building the Foundling Hospital, the income
of which, at the present moment, was 60,000/. a year, but
the iueome of which would, a few years hence, when the ,
leom's of their property fell in, be considerably more,
still 'Dore the name of the Foundling Hospital ; but it.
Lad not been a Foundling Hospital for full half a
century past. Acrd why ? Because it was found to be
a nuisance, and not a charity. It occasioned child mur-
der ; it certainly caused desertion and abandonment of
children ; that was its immediate consequence. Many
children were born because their parents imagined they
could provide for them by means of the Foundling Hos-
pital ; children that otherwise, probably, would not have
been born. If one of such children was refused admission
into the hospital, it was not easy to say what might be
dune with it. The proof of the evil which the nature of
the hospital had occasioned had been incontestably proved
by a large body of evidence ; and the result was, that
the directors made a rule, which, though it did not
in words define the hospital by the name of a Found-
ling Hospital, did in fact entirely deprive it of the cha-
racter of one. That rule was, that before any child could
he taken into the hospital, the parent of that child must
be examined before persons appointed for that purpose. It
was a salutary rule—most safe and most beneficial—but
which entirely deprived the hospital of its original character.
hi the same manner the Small-pox Hospital would hare
been a nuisance if the object for which it had been origi-
nally intended had been pursued in the present day, for it
would have tended to spread, instead of to counteract that
disease ; and he believed that it was Lord Ellenborough
that had said that those splendid towers must come to the
ground if they tended to propagate a disease, which, for the
sake of public advantage, should be as speedily as possible
terminated. The rule laid down by that noble lord had
been acted upon, and the hospital, instead of being a small-
pox hospital, was converted into an hospital for fever pa-
tients, and for the vaccination of children. Those chari-
table institutions formed for the purpose of relieving diseases
against which no human care could guard ought to be
protected so long as their funds were fairly administered;
,but there were others, the funds of which could not be
administered according to the intention of the original
founders of them, without occasioning great disadvantage
to the public. It was to the directors of these institutions
that he now addressed himself—their administration of these
funds must be changed. If they thought they had not
authority to change that administration, they should re-
ceive the assistance of Parliament to enable them to do so ;
but if they refused—if they wifully and obstinately adhered
to the old method of administering the funds that were in-
trusted to them, he gave them notice, that it was his in-
tention, if they showed the same " crass" ignorance, if they
still obstinately resisted the light, and perpetuated those
things which were not for the advantage of the community,
instead of applying the funds they possessed for those pur-
poses which would be safe and beneficial, he should listen
to the complaints against them ; he should hold that these
trustees were eo longer to be considered as men in a pri-
vate situation—that they
,were not entitled to act in this
manner for their private gratification, and that if they did
not mend their ways, and consent to a better application
of the fnuds which the munificence of former ages had
placed at their disposal, it would be the duty of parliament
to look into the administration of estates intrusted to their
care, and to deal with the trusts so as better, more bene-
ficially, and more safely, to execute those trusts. It was
sufficient for him to give this general notice ; private pro-
perty would not be invaded ; but parliament must see that
the public advantage--such as it was intended by the ori-
ginal creators of these charitable funds—should be properly
secured. They had the remedy in their own hands—let
them do what the Foundling Hospital and the Small-pox
Hospital had done—let them prevent the fact of Parlia-
mentary interference, by removing the necessity for it ;
but if not, it would be the duty of Parliament—a duty
which Parliament could not long abstain from executing—
to see that their mistakes were fully remedied by the legis-
lature. He moved for a return of the charities and schools
supported by charitable contributions in several different
counties.
The Earl of MALMESBURY expressed himself strongly
in favour of Sunday schools. He entirely agreed with the
noble and learned lord in his objection to a compulsory
rate. He did not, however, coincide with him in the pro-
priety of establishing Normal schools. They were not ne-
cessary, because those who founded charity-schools always
selected proper masters.
The LORD CHANCELLOR said a few words in sup-
port of his proposition for the establishment of Normal
schools.

Lord WYNFORD contended that a subject of so much
importance as the present ought not to have been brought
before the house without notice. The speech of his noble
and learned friend, when it went before the public, was
calculated to produce an impression which ought not to be
produced, and which, moreover, would not be produced if
noble lords were prepared with the information to answer
it which was in existence. He admitted that if any of the
property which had been left by the donors of charitable
institutions had been misapplied so as to become a nuisance
instead of a benefit to the community, the house had then
a right to interfere with it ; but if that property was ad-
ministered conformably to the intentions of the donors, then
the house had no right to interfere, and the trustees
would be guilty of a breach of trust if they did not
protest against such interference. His noble and learned
friend, acting on mere ex-parte statements, had charged
the trustees with a neglect of duty. He could not
reconcile a charge founded on such partial premises with
notions of justice, and he was sure that the legislature
would not take the measures which his noble and learned
friend had intimated his intention to recommend without