The Sun.
London, England, 1835-05-22 00:00:00

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Lord BROUGHAM rose and said, that according to the
notice he had given, he rose to submit to the House certain
resolutions upon the subject of education.—( Hear, hear.)
—He thought there could be but one of inion upon
the necessity of education, though there might be a difference
of sentiment as to the mode in which it was to be afforded.
In calling the attention of the House to a subject
of such deep importance and universal interest, both
to the governors and the governed of this country, as education,
he thought he need hardly preface the observations he had to
make—he need hardly bespeak their attention to a topic
of such vast concern. It was unfortunately true that
he differed from the majority, perhaps a very larg,,,
majority of their Lordships in political opinion.—( Hear.)
He entertained his own opinions conscientiously—he en-
tertained the same opinions now that he ever entertained
—their Lordships might entertain their opinions, for while
they allowed him to entertain his own, he would not find
fault with those of others.—( Hear, hear, hear.) He hoped
that, upon a question of this sort, it would not suffer,
because he was its advocate, from the contamination
of party feeling ; . but that their Lordships would
consult upon it, with a view to general principles.
He was, however, much afraid that the cause might
suffer in his hands. He knew that there were many
who did not listen so much to the character of
the subject, as to the character and habits and con-

nections of the persons who presumed to handle
They regarded more the wrongs of persons—they attended
more to the wrongs of persons than to the rights of things;
therefore it was that he claimed for this subject that particular
consideration which the question itself was so entitled to.
In 1818, the Education Committee, whose labours were
very extensive and valuable, stated there were, inde-
pendent
_of Sunday schools, day-schools capable of edu.

•
- -
eating 644,000 children ; of these 166,000 were in-
structed in endowed schools, and 478,000 in schools
supported by voluntary contribution.—(Hear.) That showed
what proportion of education was afforded t.) the poor.
Of the six hundred thousand that attended those day and
Sunday-schools, only one half paid for their education, and
the other half were educated by charity. Of course the
children would not learn much in the Sunday schools—they
could not be taught to read, to write, and to cypher,
as in day schools, but it kept them out of harm's way : he
did not mention this out of disrespect to the motives of

those excellent individuals who patronised Sunday schools,
or taught in them, but because he preferred the daily to Sun-
day schools.—(Hear.) No returns had ever told which
children had attended Sunday schools only, and which had.

attended day-schools alone, so out of the 644,600, for aught he
knew, 500,000 might be comprised in those who attended
both day-schools and Sunday-schools. At least three-fourths,
but more commonly four-fifths, of the whole number belonged
to other schools as well as Sunday-schools, so that they
would commit a great error ifthey added the two together.
Ten years after 1818, he sent 700 or 800 circulars around to

differe'nt parishes, from which he received 487 answers, but be
considered that too small a number to justify him in building
an average upon. He chose the parishes indifferently out
of each county regularly, the number according to the size.
The House would take the various descriptions of parishes in-
cluded in that number, and he would hold that the 500 answers
that had been returned to the circulars referred to al-
ready by him, afforded a sufficient ground for the average
he had then stated. The result of that calculation was

—for he would not trouble their Lordships with the details—
(there having been 50,000 children in the unendowed day-
schools in 1818, which in 1828 had encreased to the

number of 105,000) that an increase of 5 per cent. had
taken place. When he stated that he confidently believed
that education had increased in England in the proportion of
478,000 to one million one hundred odd thousand of male
unendowed scholars, or rather to the amount of nine

or ten hundred thousand—( Hear, hear)—he was positive
that his calculation was not beyond what the data
he had in his possession justified. He did not enter into this
opinion alone, but he was joined by a few of the men with
whom he had been in the habit of acting. But this
was not generally the case—for one universal shout was
raised against him by the advocates of parochial
schools as ti) the imperfectness, or rather the falsity of the
data whereon he grounded his statement. Learned professors,
clerical gentlemen, expert and experienced calculators, alleged
that though the average was correct in 487 parishes, it
diA not follow that in the other 11,000 parishes 'education
had made equal progress; on the contrary, it was asserted
that in these parishes education, instead of advancing, was
stationary, or had retrograded.—(Loud cries of ‘‘ Hear,
hear.") In vain he urged that it was out of the question
to argue that education in 487 parishes, taken at random,
had been advancing in the proportion of fifty thousand to 105
thousand; and, that in all the other parishes it had been at a