The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-08 00:00:00

X. 11.101
16

•
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL IN MAN

CIIES7'ER.

The annual meeting of the Lancashire and
Cheshire Mechanics' Institutes, of which his Royal
Highness the Prince Consort is president, was held
on Tuesday in Manchester, commencing with the
annual meeting of the delegates, at noon, in the
lecture hall of the Mechanics' Institution, David-
strect.

In the evening a public meeting was held in the
Great Free-trade Hall, at which his Grace the Duke
of Argyll presided, and distributed prizes and certi-
ficates to the 130 male and female candiiiadvaftees whoexa.
had been successful at the public and p
minations during the past year. The following
gentlemen were also amongst those on the platform•
—The Hon. Algernon Egerton. M.P. ; Mr. Thomas
Baz'ey, M.P. • Major Gray, M.P. ; Mr. 0. Hey.
wood, Mr. J. Watts, Ivie Mackie, Esq., the Mayor
of Manchester, &c.
The Noble CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings,
thanked them for the honour which they had dons
him, personally a stranger, in inviting him to pre-
side that evening. They all knew that the very
name of Manchester was over the whole world con-
sidered as the representative of that commercial in-
dustry and intelligence which were one at least of
the main foundations of our national prosperity and
-power. That was one side of the picture •, but he
need hardly tell those assembled there that there
was another side. What was the moral, what the
social condition of those masses of the population
which their commercial enterprise had brought to-
gether? Was it or was it not an improving condi-
tion ? That was a question which he need hardly
say must be asked often ; and though he was far
from saying that it should be answered in any spirit
of despondency, it was a question which all must ask
with some feeling of anxiety, and with respect to
which many friends of public education in this
country had been almost driven to despair—to
despair at least of all mere voluntary exertion, and
to hold the opinion that nothing short of the strong
arm of the law, nothing short of a national system
of education founded on public assessment, could
possibly overtake the evil. Now, whatever might
be the opinion of various persons present upon the
question of public education, he at least rejoiced to
see by the working of that association that they
were determined not to wait for a system of public
education ; that they were determined by a volun-
tary exertion to put their shoulders to the wheel,
and to do what could be done at least in the mean-
time. (Hear, hear.) He felt sure that that was a
wise resolution ; for, though he did not pretend to
predict what might be the future solution of that
great question in this great country, he was sure
that they ought not to wait for it, and that for two
reasons—first, that should any system of public
education such as that to which he had referred
never come into operation, voluntary exertion was,
after all, the best, and indeed it was the only sub.
stitute ; and secondly, if a system of public educa-
tion ever did come, it was not unlikely to be built
upon the foundation which they might lay. Ad-
dressing himself to the consideration of the relation
which mechanics' institutes lad upon the present
state and the future prospects of the great question
of national education, his grace traced the failure of
the efforts which were made 17 years ago by Sir
Robert Peel's government to establish a national
system to the natural, and the perhaps in some de-
gree just, jealousy which had arisen among the
various Christian communities of this country.
Every one of those bodies was more or less inclined
to look with jealousy and suspicion upon any sys-
tem of public education which would tend to im-
pede or to fetter their future operations. He there-
fore conceived that the system of Privy Council
grants had been practically firmly established, so
that whatever system of national education was in
future to be adopted must in a great degree be
founded upon the system now established. Look-
ing for a moment at the objections which obtained
against that system, his grace confessed that he did
not concur in the objection that it had been a sec-
tarian education. There was no man who was
more opposed than he was to what was called sec-
tarian teaching—no man who would be more op-
posed, more averse, than he should be, to the teach-
ing of religion in a dogmatic, contentious, and
controversial spirit. (Hear, hear.) He thought it
would be well, too, for the churches of this country
to remember that they were now teaching and
speaking in the presence of multitudes of men who
either belonged to no church at all or whose alle-
giance
to any church sat very loose upon them—
who had a very sharp eye to detect the smallest
mixture of human passion in the teaching of di-
vine things, and to distinguish between that zeal
which proceeded from pride of system and that
which proceeded from the love of truth. (Hear,
hear, and applause.) He should be glad to see in
that spirit one rule adopted by all denominational
schools of this country, namely, that they would
afford their secular education to any child whose
parents objected to the peculiar religious teaching
of that denomination, without forcing that child to
go through their system of religious instruction.
(Hear, hear.) That was a rule wich all churches
would do well to adopt; and whilst just in itself,
he thought it would be in a high degree adapted to
the population amongst whom such churches might
exist. (Hear, hear.). He was very glad to enter-
tain the belief that in many schools, both of the
established church and of dissenting churches, that
rale was absolutely adopted with great advantage
and success. But with all the objections that were
raised to it he confessed he did not think they could
afford to spare the agency of the Christian churches
of this country. (Hear, hear.) He sympathised
very heartily with the feeling, which he believed to
be prevalent in this country, that the primary edu-
cation of the young ought to be connected as far as
possible with the teaching of religion, whilst he
had avery strong conviction that there was no other
security for the reality of the religious teaching
than that the education should be connected with
verified systems of Christian doctrine ; and he was
not so jealous as some others appeared to be of the
influence of difference of religious opinion upon the
habits of thought and opinions of men. (Hear, hear.)
Looking back to the past history of this country, he
could not help remembering that the liberties of
England had to a very large extent been founded upon
the results of differences of religious opinions and
feelings. (Hear, hear.) Liberty of conscience, which
was the first of all liberties, had been the direct re-
sult of religious dissent; and he was sometimes
tempted to think that the same influence which had
been so powerful in the founding of our liberties
was not whoUvy valueless in preserving them.
(Hear, hear.) 11,0 did not deny that religious
opinions affected—and sometimes affected most in-
juriously—the political and secular opinions of
mankind ; and they saw some remarkable instances
of it at the present moment, in the apathy which
many, as capable as any of them of generous emo-
tions—men who valued liberty or who professed to
do so, and complained most bitterly when they
were themselves deprived of it—yet showed to the
struggle now being made in the Italian peninsula
—(cheers)—to effect changes which had been put-
ting an end to systems of government which had
been odious in the dark ages and among the rudest
nations, but which were doubly horrible as applied
to a refined people and in an enlightened age—
(hear, hear)—changes which were so deeply sympa-
thised in by the gnat mass of the people of this
country that he believed he did not exaggerated
when he said that their accomplishment had added
to the happiness of almost every English
men
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) Yet they saw
moavneYment
home.
withdrawing their sympathies from that alramping
solely and entirely in consequence of the c
influence of certain ecclesiastical
and evils, he
P and
opinions. In spite of all the dangers .
they could part with or
repeated he did not think
spare the agencies of
eoChristian
untries, at least, wbere
churches in this
country ; and in all those
there were free opinion alwfroeuelddibsecuuslstiionina,theelywfaosr
satisfied that that influenncxio
us to see the people of
the best. He was not
anyaone system which should be
England drilled in aor to .any religious
wholly negatSYe wsaw any religious denomination
belief, but if 116 cold and educating. tho
fully occupying th:say that, on the
mass he should thee 'best sytein that could be de-
`""" hear,
He believed that the real
vised. (Hears
defect of the denominational Eystern wasthat in
particular localties, where religious zeal was very
warm, it had
schools; led to an unnecessary multiplication
of whilst, on the contrary, in other
places, which were very often the most populous
and most requiring education, but where religious
zeal was comparatively lukewarm, the number of
schools was small. That, however, which was per-
haps a defect incidental to the system, might be
diminished by such voluntary exertions as to some
extent he saw typified in the audience he then ad-
dressed. The defect in the educational system was
not so much a want of schools as the very short
time which the working classes could be persuaded
to devote to education—the early period at which
they withdrew their children from school. The first
question which they naturally asked themselves
with regard to their association was, what was the
kind or system of education which was pursued
under its patronage ? That was a question the
more important to ask, as it was quite notorious
that there had been a very common impression that
what were commonly called mechanics' institutions
had to a very great extent been a failure in this
country, and some of his predecessors in that chair
had referred to the well-known joke that mechanics'
institutions in this country were wholly devoid
stern hi
mechanics. He believed this had been to a
the
extent owing to the want of any great
education which had hitherto, at least':
one oint
in meolgtnicts' inditntion,si and the" wa# p
been afforded