The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-02 00:00:00

EDUCATION.

The event of the day, and in some respects the event of
the present meeting of the association, was the address en
Education, by the Rev. Canon Kingsley. This was
delivered before the members and associates in the Victoria
Rooms, at ten o'clock this morning. Canon Kingsley
having stated that he appeared at the Congress not as a
teacher, but as a learner, enumerated at some length what
he took to be the general principles on which the education
of the people should be conducted. Undoubtedly the first
claim of a human being in the matter of education was
upon his parents; bat if they refused to do their duty—
and very many did--the State must supply the deficiency.
" The State has no right to compel the mass of citizens to
receive among them every year a fresh crop of savages, to
be a nuisance and a danger to the body politic. It has no
right to demand that the physical life of the child shall be
preserved, and yet to allow its far more important and
valuable life—its intellectual and moral life —to be
destroyed. Moreover, it has no right to delegate its own
duties in this matter to any voluntary associations, how-
ever venerable, earnest, and able. The State, and the
State alone, is responsible to the existing citizens for
the training of those who are to become citizens."
Canon Kingsley doubted whether even in an ideal and per-
fect state the whole education of youth, or even
the control over it, ought to be entrusted to the
clergy. One function of teaching—the all-important
one of instructing children in religion—was undoubt-
edly part of the province of the clergy ; but more than that
was not their duty. Of course in matters which they were
competent to teach they were on the same footing as other
citizens, but on no higher footing. In times past the
entire work of education was done by the clergy, simply
because there was no one else to do it. But things were
now altered. The clergy ought to confine themselves more
and more to their own department of relgious teaching,
and particularly ought this to be the case in a country
where the people followed so many different creeds. With
respect to the question of who should pay the cost of
national education, the President thought it comparatively
a matter of detail whether the money was raised by rates
or taxes. The State ought to bear the expense, reimburs-
ing itself by taxes of some kind. " These taxes ought to
touch the parents, who aro immediately responsible for
the existence of the children ; and next, the employers of
labour of every class; because they, for their own profit,
have made the existence of these children possible.
Every one acquainted with the very alphabet of political
economy knows what I mean. Most will, of course,
agree that a capitalist who not only collects round him,
but, by giving employment, actually causes to multiply a
large population, is bound morally, and ought to be •
bound legally, to the State, to see that the population
which ho has created does not grow up savage ; but this
rule applies, I believe, to every farmer, tradesman, master,
cr employer of labour of any kind ; and applies no less to
the landlord, the retired tradesman, or any and every
capitalist. Whether ho employs labour now or not, and
whatever use he makes of his capital, that capital has
been produced by labour ; and he is more or less responsible
for the civilisation or the savagery of those, or the
descendants of those, whose labour has enriched him or
his ancestors. I hold that no citizen, possessed of any
capital whatsoever, has aright to deny his universal duty.
Private generosity must not, of course, be hindered. All
I ask is, that the generous should not be over-tasked to
save the pockets of the ungenerous ; that the noble-hearted
should not, as now, be forced to pay for the mean; the en-
lightened for the unenlightened; the patriotic for the
selfish. But that all, whatever their private fancies or
characters may be, should be forced by law to acknow-
ledge their primary duty, and to fulfil it. The State, I
hold, has a right to compel the ignorant to learn ; but
it has also a. right to compel the stingy to pay towards
that learning. When, therefore, the National Educa-
tion League was started at Birmingham, I for ono
joined it, as the only method of obtaining what
twenty years' experience as a parish clergyman had shown
ono to be necessary—compulsory attendance. No one is
more alive than I am to the services which different great
denominations and religious bodies have rendered to edu-
cation ; of the services of the British and Yoreign School
Society; of the National Society, and so forth. Ho who
does not' feel that England plies a huge debt to these splen-
did results of the voluntary principle must be deeply igno-
rant of the History of England for the last eighty
years. But, over and above what they have
done, does not much, too much, remain, which
they cannot do? for the simple reason that those
who need education most care for it least ; and
that those who aro unawakened to the value of religion
aro certain to be still lets awakened to the value of learn-
ing? This defect seems to me to be inseparable from the
voluntary system of education, however zealously and ably
carried out. I can only speak of it as I know it from
experience; and what I find in the country districts is
i this--Even if s'vc have a school in which every child in the
parish can receive a sound education, or at least the rudi-
merits of one, beside the civilising influence of intercourse
with the ladies of the parish; and if even, as is usually
the case, the great majority avail themselves rationally and
thanbfully enough; yet there is always a minority who
cannot be made to attend regularly without threats, finc3,
elcksion from charities, and so forth ; a process which
policeman'seaa work
andiffler ca
transfers the clergyman from a minister of the Gospel
into a judge and' policeman; and I for ono refuse to do
c s
thechaegr school i
;c the
nget
reckless
policeman c e
sectionm to w
doh itoh fore idme" .
Fe not
rtuilntural the
come to school at all, no volmatary system would be suffi-
ndlaisrtgrieettsewna ththereweerree
were
ee
hwuhno
neveriet.
saw In a
.
dreds and thousands. In Birmingham 21,000 out of
45,000 children never went to school. Nor was this wholly
owing to the want of school accomodetion, for
there was at
all events room for 11,000 more than
the actual attendance..
Tb.e__Birminsehans. Education—Society
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