The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-26 00:00:00

THE SUN.
LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPT. 26, 1881.

The Government seems once more, if we may use
the expressive phrase in print—" to have put its
foot into it." It made its first essay in honesty to

tax-payers, by cancelling the Galway contract,
and though there has rarely been a case of less ser-
vice done for public money, or less to be hoped for,
the cry of " broken faith" had almost proved fatal to
the abolition of the Paper Duty, or the existence
of the Ministry, or to both. Yet the same Govern-
ment is bold enough to venture on another similar
experiment ; and as in the first case all Ireland was
in a hubbub, on account of its Galway shareholders
and to vindicate their right to the nation's money,
whatever the nation got for it, so now all

the leading sects of . Dissenters who have
been depending on State aid for their schools, and
the clergy- of the Church of England itself, are
joining the school teachers in getting up quite a
whirlwind of indignation, upon the New Minute of
the Educational Committee of Privy Council.
Substantially we think the Government altoge-
ther in the right, and the greater part of the clamour
without any other justification than the apprehen-
sions of teachers for the bounties they have hitherto
received, and of clergymen, that the church cate-
chism should not form a part of the title to a Govern-
ment grant. If any one thing was clearly ascer-
tained by the lake Education Commission it
was, that the present system wa3 a failure
in the main point. Three-fourths at least,

we believe, of the children, did not obtain
the chief thing for which the intervention of

Government in education can be justified. Though
most schools had crack scholars who could perform
great educational feats, and thus exhibit what the
masters could do with the sharp boys, the deficiency
was quite appalling in regard to the majority of
the children. They could neither read nor write,
nor perform the first four rules of arithmetic with
readiness and correctness ; often not perform them
at all. Yet the certificated teacher was receiving
the grant on account of his certigcate, and the at-
tendance of the scholars so perfunctorily taught,
entitled the teacher to the capitation grant !
The new minute proposes to strike at the root of
this capital defect ; a defect so great that,
unless remedied, we might as well dispense
with Government aid altogether. The object of the
Minute is to make the bestowment of public money
contingent on the work being done which the public
wants. We do not by taxation bestow dietary
luxuries on the receivers of parish relief for the
wants of their bodies; nor ought we to provide
mental luxuries, at the public cost, for those who
are in a state of educational pauperism. Reading,

writing, and arithmetic are the confessed necessaries
of education. Every man in England needs these.
If he has them, the facilities are ample to his reach-
ing any educational attainments likely to be of ser-
vice to him as an individual. If the least spark of
the mens divinior be there, he is surrounded by fuel
for it in almost every village in the kingdom—cheap
literature, which will at least let him know that
there is literature infinitely surpassing it.
While, for the mighty many, and for all the
ordinary purposes of the educational pauper class,
thorough mastery of the all important elements
we have mentioned is the one thing needful for
their personal comfort, the one thing which would
make them better, more available servants to their
masters, the one thing which would make them
readers of all that interested their class of minds,
and which would thus prevent their losing before
they were twenty what they had been taught by
the time they were ten.
All the former grants are therefore now con-
centered on the work done. Formerly simple
attendance 176 times in the year was enough,
though half the pupils might miscall half
the words they read, and not add up one
column in four correctly. Formerly the
certificated teacher received a direct money
payment from the State, and also pay for pupil
teachers. Now all the payments are to be for
scholars who fulfil two conditions-Ist, they must
have attended the requisite number of times; 2dly,
they must have been taught, as well as attended the
school. But this is not all. Rules are laid down
as to age, to meet.the universal fact that unless
the children of the poor learn the elements young
they will most likely never acquire them at all.
And next, as 'there are three principal things to be
learned, the capitatio❑ grant will not only be given
to none who are deficient in all, but a propOrtion
will be struck off in the case of each child who is
deficient in one or in two of the essentials.
Now, looking at this new arrangement as n,

whole, the country rill surely think it an admir-
able one. We Want to mak3 sure of the enormous
sum we pay for education being expended in
teaching what is most necessary to be known to

those who have not the means to procure that ne-
cessary knowledge. The new system of grants
pays for the greatest amount of just that kind of
teiteing. It does not hinciir higher instruction—

rather, by making sure of that on which all better
instruction must rest, it facilitates all the rest.
Geography, history, science, everything may be
added that managers and teachers like; but the
Government is not to pay for that. It will pay
for what is the stepping-stone to it all, and the
stepping-stone also to a smoother level for the poor
man's course of life in all cases.

The teachers, great men as they have become
with their certificated honours, seem, so far as we
can judge by their complaints, much excited by
several considerations—first, they say that their
certificates have had hitherto a money value, of
which they will be deprived. To this we must
briefly reply—that the present system has been
represented to them, annually, as open to revision
if found to fail, as it has been found to do, in the
objects for which it is instituted. Next, the certi-
ficate has still a money value, for only certified
teaching can obtain the Government grants for
schools at all—hence managers must have certified
teachers. And lastly, and on this we lay most
stress—these teachers ought to be thankful to
the system for having enabled them to obtain a cer-
tificate; if it is worth anything they are
gainers. If it testify to fictitious merits, they
ought to gain nothing.

These worthy men seem also much disturbed
at having to receive all their pay from the
managers of the school, to whom the Government
will make the capitation grant, on the new plan, in
one sum. Possibly a certain portion of it may be
made by the Government due to the teacher ; but
in any case, however much the teacher may con-
sider his dignity involved in receiving a post-office
older direct from the Treasury, rather than in being
dependent solely on the managers, the business of
making such a vast number of small remittances
was too much for the Central Administration, and
done at an enormous and disproportionate cost.
Besides, the country will decidedly approve of
decentralisation, of local administration, and of
abolishing an army of State-paid officials. Let
each teacher, if he be worth anything, make
his own bargain with the managers who employ
him.

There has been not a little outcry from the
clergy—who have denounced, in many cases, the
new system as a godless one 1 The old cant cry,
at which laymen will surely smile, We are in-
clined to look upon it as a rather godly act than
not, to teach a poor child those essential elements
of knowledge, on which its bread may depend,
and which must almost necessarily facilitate his
earning it. Charity is commonly held to be
amongst the most godlike of virtues with us
poor mortals. And does all that is divine in it
vanish because it does not offer to clothe religious
as well as mental nakedness. What are the clergy
and our host of Sunday school teachers for ? Why
do we spend one way and another £5,000,000 at
least per annum on a State Church, besides all
that Dissenters do, if they cannot look to the
religious part of the business ? But, especially,
we would remind the clergy that their greatest
hindrance is that crass ignorance which leaves the
hearer perfectly obtuse to all his pulpit instructions,
and incapacitates him to read with advantage, not
only his Bible and prayer-book, but even the
simplest religious paper he can leave in his house.
We hope the Government will be true to its
main points. We also hope that Mr. DISRAELI
will not condescend to make political capital out of
the present clerical clamour. The young lords will
doubtless urge him to do so, but as he has, with
justice, complained of the excessive amount of the
Education -Grant, and as Sir Souls BAKINGTON has
honestly exposed its hitherto very useless applica-
tion, and urged something of the same tendency as
is now offered, the least we can ask is that the
House of Commons will set its common-sense
against an interested agitation.

Mr. HENLEY, the member for Oxfordshire, and
ex-President of the Board of Trade under the late
Government, has been thus described by the his-
torian and analyst of Lord DERBY'S Cabinet. "He
is the very type," wrote MARK ROCHESTER more
than two years ago, in his " Cabinet Pictures " (p.
243), published by Messrs. ROUTLEDGE and Co.
"He is the very type of old-world Toryism
under its most reasonable aspect—shrewd; keen-
sighted wherever he will look (but he won't look
sometimes save in his own chosen direction), con-
scientious to a scruple, precise to a fault--an excel-
'eat fault, however, in the habit of a financier."
The Author of " The Derby Ministry " adding
further, in regard to Mr. HENLEY—" His intellect
is eminently logical, moreover, in its way, when
you once get to the right side of it. It is logical
always, if you frankly grant him his premises un-
conditionally. His convictions are consistent
throughout, and dogged almost to the extent of
obstinacy. Yet he is so clear-headed at the very
time when he is so hard-headed, that he can be less
accurately termed the drag upon the State coach,
than the break happily applied at times to the train
of political events—regulating our speed, at critical
moments, when we have been just shunted on to a
new line perhaps, and are going down an incline of
more than ordinary acclivity." Now, every touch
in this little outline-sketch of Mr. HENLEY we
believe to be true to the life. Rapidly pencilled
though it is—in it the miniature-painter has accu-
rately enough caught the likeness. It can be recog-
nised, we are satisfied, by any one, however slightly
acquainted with the original. Nor is there very
much credit due to an artist who can thus trace out,
with a truthful hand, an easily distinguishable
resemblance to one whose features are, in them-
selves, so strongly marked. The difficulty would
be not to delineate an effigy of Mr. HENLEY bear-
ing about it the evidences of verisimilitude. For
the right hon. gentleman is in every point of view
at every shade, and at every turn what, in popular
idiom, we term " a character."

Arrant Tory though he is to the marrow of his
backbone, we all of us like to listen to him. Our
views may be as wide as the poles asunder—(as it
happens with us they generally are)—yet are we
at all times willing to listen to one who talks so
directly to the purpose in enunciating his own
strong opinions. Mistaken he often is, to our
thinking. Yet is he ever acceptable to us as a
speaker, whether in the House or out of it. He is
invariably so very much in earnest—he is always
so shrewd—he is often so caustic without ever
being spiteful—he is so frequently sharp and
acrid in his speech, and yet perpetually in the very
best of tempers both with himself and everybody
else. He is a man you are often laughing with,
but never have the chance of laughing at. What
RICHARD COBDEN is to the enlightened Free-
traaing Liberal Reformers—what HENRY DRUM-
MOND was to the Transcendentalists both in Poli-
tic, and Religion— that is JOSEPH HENLEY to the
old genius of your genuine true-blue Toryism.
• Very recently Mr. HENLEY has been availing
himself of the leisure time of the long autumn
holidays to discourse upon a variety of themes,
here and there,
The agricultural ban
downquientsthheavwe easffteorrndedprhoivminctelse.
opportunity of talking in this w
and of this opportunity he has ea
availed himself. Upon one of theseayg occasions—iterlr discursively,
enough
'was in Oxfordshire—the member for the county