The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-03 00:00:00

they would incur this great evil—they would check the
flow of private charity.—(Hear.) It was oe private
charity, after all, that they must depend for their main
support, and not on the Government grants. Another
most important ground of suspicion was, that personal
experience proved that the power which held the purse
strings was the dominant power. Of this the power
possessed by the House of Commons was an example.
The administration of these funds depended a thousand
times more upon the things which the Noble Marquis
said could not be reduced to amounts, than on the abso
lute amounts laid on the table of Parliament. He could
tell of an instance which occurred in his own diocese, in
which a grant had been refused unless two landowners
of the parish would guarantee that the school should be
maintained. That was a very different thing from say-
ing there shall be reasonable ground for believing that
the school will be maintained. There was, and must be,
great responsibility and power resting in the manage-
ment of the public funds for educational purposes;
and, if suspicion was to be avoided, there ought to
be the greatest possible readiness to accord the means of
inquiry. Those were the grounds upon which he
thought suspicion had grown up amongst the people of
the country, and it was therefore he regarded the motion
of his Noble Friend as a reasonable one, because it was
but fi' to still alarm. It was not a motion which the
Government could refuse it they were satisfied that their
cause was a good one. He earnestly hoped their Lord-
ships would agree to the motion of his Noble Friend,
and show what was true and what false in the general
allegations on the subject, and thus restore confidence to
the people and to the Church.
The Marquis of LANSDO WNE explained that he
did not object to inquiry, but to its being entered upon
at the present period of the session, when it would be
necessarily incomplete. He only proposed to postpone
it to a period of next session when there could be a con-
current inquiry of the House of Commons, and when
the inquiry would have all that completeness which was
desirable.

The Earl of CARLISLE defended the management
clauses which were drawn up under the direction of his
Noble Friend the late Lord Wharncliffe, in 1845, and
having been submitted to the National Society in 1846
were recommended by them for adoption to the diocesan
schools. In those clauses the Committee wished to leave
everything they could to local management and direc-
tion; but in applying public funds to public purposes,
they felt they were bound to observe the course that ap-
peared to them right and just, and they thought that
Church laymen should have full co-operation with
Church clergymen in local matters. The whole course of
the Committee of Privy Council was directed to remove
the objections and to secure the co-operation of the
National Society. In addition, too, other checks and
precautions were provided for the satisfaction of the
Church, with reference to extending superintendence
to the moral and religious instruction in the schools and
other matters of importance, an appeal being allowed in
all those respects to the bishop, except in one instance
which did not refer to moral or religious instruction.
When he considered all that had been granted, with the
clamour which had been raised at what had been with-
held, he thought they witnessed a very sorry spectacle
in seeing, in a teeming population full of crime, the co-
operation of the Church and State interrupted in the
education of the people on account of points so lament-
ably insignificant. Considering that the Church had get
the lion's share of the advantages of the system, he
should be sorry to see it precipitate a movement on the
point. With reference to the question immediately be-
fore them, he trusted their Lordships would not, at that
period of the session, insist upon an inquiry on so im-
portant a subject, which, if they did, must necessarily
be immature and limited.
Lord STANLEY deprecated the management clauses
of the Committee of Privy Council as most unreasonable
in their tendency, and arbitrary in their elreet. He be-
lieved the question was divested of all party feeling
whatever, and when an application was made to him to
bring forward the motion, he refused to do so, lest from
his position in that House it might be considered as sa-
vouring of a feeling of hostility towards her Majesty's
Government. His Noble Friend laid before their Lord-
ships a case for inquiry, in order to give every informa-
tion to the country of the working of a most expensive
undertaking in educating the great body of the people.
He condemned the system now pursued in many of the
schools, which he denominated by the well-known phrase
of '° cramming," by which children, and especially young
females, were driven to prepare for an examination to
acquire a certain degree of knowledge utterly useless
to them in their future career. He believed that a
great deal of discretion must be left with the Privy
Council, bat the public ought to know how that discre-
tion was exercised. Ile denied what his Noble Friend
(the Earl of Carlisle) asserted, that the Privy Council
gave publicity to their proceedings, for there were many
acts of theirs of which the public knew nothing. He
might instance for example the foundation of Nedder
Hall as a normal school—an institution founded, he
believed, in 1846, or at least its principles, and yet
Parliament knew nothing of it until 1849. If they
went ieto Committee now they would allow the Go-
rernment to state their own case, and an examination
of their own witnesses.—(A laugh.) His Noble Friend,
who brought forward the motion should certainly have
his support.—(Cheers.)
After a few werds from the Earl of GALLOWAY and
the Marquis of LANSDOWNE,
The Earl of HARRO WBY replied, and their Lord-
ships divided.

The numbers were—
For the motion
Against it ... •31
Majority a;ainst the motion ... —5
Tho House a ijourned at a garter to One o'clock.