The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT 'OPTBE' PUBLIC/ JOURNALS.

But few, in the opinion of the Watch- With
perfect equanimity the "successive sacrifices made in order
to fine education down to the national and uniform idea.
There go one-'after_another, like. deck cargo thrown oven-
board in a storm,.Latin and Greek; history, ancient and
modern ; moral philosophy ; grammar, at least as regards
•
its present place in the teaching of language-4 ; theology
and, last of all, that knowledge of Scripture which the last
generation foiidly hoped even Papists and ultra-Protes-
tants could possess in common. For thirty years, with
Dr. Whately to lead and to assist, we have been labouring
to " de-denominationalize " education in Ireland, but the
result, long denounced by Dr. Cullen and his friends,
is now described by Mr. Lowe as a sort of Biblical Deism.
Whatever it is, it it has not made the Irish Protestants
loyal subjects, nor good Papists either. The result does
not recommend it for English imitation. When
all these are taken away, the Latin hexameters
and Greek iambics at one end of the school,
to the " Parables, Discourses, and Miracles " at the
other, what is left for the State to teach? It has to
give elementary knowledge, useful powers, and, as far as
it can, good habits. It has to educate so as to sharpen the
observation, to quicken the attention, to assist the judg-
ment, to improve the memory, to render its pupils less
easily imposed upon, less liable to take up with wrong
notions, and in all respects better qualified to make their
way iz, the world. No small part of the influence brought
to bear on the rising generation, and certainly no small
part of the circumstances into which it is sure to be
thrown, is delusive and dangerous. The world is in
one great conspiracy to mislead, cheat, rob, and
destroy the continual succession of new-comers brought
in by Dame Nature. Sense, wit, reason, and all the
faculties ought to be trained for the opening encounter.
Nobody can pretend to say that this is even attempted
in any existing school, whether for high, low, or middle.
If this is to be now attempted, the common residuum
left to the State as the subject matter for national
education cannot be called too little. But, be it little
or great, how is it to be done ? In the present
stage of affairs it seems superfluous, and indeed
useless, to discuss any machinery proposed for a national
system of education. Some of the gentlemen at Liverpool
asked curious questions as to the working of such a system,
its compulsory character, and where the money was to
come from, but they can hardly have remembered at the
time that what we have been calling for thirty-five years
the Reformed Parliament is now on its deathbed, and can
much more easily bequeath wishes and sentiments to its
survivor than pecuniary arrangements. By the time we have
arrived at some unity of action in these matters, it is possi-
ble the finance of the nation may be conducted on very dif-
ferent principles. There are, indeed, those who tell us
that the chief use of parliamentary reform is to inaugu-
rate a new era of direct taxation. In this case Mr.
Lowe's adhesion to the proposed support of schools
by union rating will be accepted with thankfulness

and utilised to the full. But, to all appearance, we
have to arrive at some recognised ideal of national
education before we can address ourselves to ways and
means.

Russia has been at last induced to postpone for a time
the active advancement of her traditional policy in the
East. This result, says the Post, is mainly due to the
firmness and good sense of Lord Stanley. He was the
first to make a stand during the recent crisis in favour of
Turkey, and had the courage for some months to venture
upon a policy which had the temporary effect of isolating
Great Britain from the other great Powers, who all corn-
billed in their diplomatic efforts to persuade the Porte tc
give up her sovereign rights over Crete. Successive repre-
sentations of a very energetic character are alleged to have
been lately made in concert, by England, France, Austria,
and Prussia, at Belgrade, against the organised attempts
which have been so long fomented by Russian influence in
Servia to stir up an insurrection in the fron.ier lands of
Turkey ; and with this latest expression of European
diplomacy we can well afford to rest content. Too much
praise can hardly be given to Lord Stanlay for his tact
and prudence in the conduct of this complicated business.
He has had to deal with some of the ablest diplomatists
living, and they have been unable to obtain the smallest
advantage over him by any artifice, however specious.
The Kingdom of Hun;ary haring re-entered into pos.
session of its ancient rights, naturally seeks to realise the
advantages of the fine position which it has finally won,
thanks to the capacity, patience, and fortitude of its states-
men. The peaceful conflict it maintained for sixteen
years with the Austrian Government has resulted in a
success by which each party gains immensely, for the Em.
peror of Austria, not less than the Hungarian people, may
bless the constancy of M. Deak. The Daily News observes
that one of the first uses to which the Hungarians are turn-
ing the right of self-government is the development of the
material resources of their country, which has suffered more
than can be told from the stagnation to which political
uncertainty has condemned it throughout a period in which
almost every other country of Europe has made
i nmense pro7e3s in everything that can contribute
to the well-being of its people. The first and most
pressing want of Hungary is railways and canals to placs
its vast corn-fields in communication with the great con-
suming populations of Western Europe. It is for this
purpose that the public of London and Paris are invited
to subscribe to the loan of £8,000,003 which is just
announced. This is the first time that. the Hungarians
have been in a position to present themselves to Europe
and ask to be trusted with funds as a definitively constituted
nation. Hitherto their financial affairs have been mingled
and for all practical purposes confused with those of Aus-
tria, and subjected to all the chances of a fluctuating
policy, over which they could exercise no effectual super
vision. An end has now been put to this state of things
the Hungarian Diet has now a real control over the taxa-
tion of the kingdom. The loan now announced is offered
under the authority of a law passed in the Diet, and no
reasonable doubt can be entertained that it will be-strictly
applied to the purposes for which it is proposed.

The Herald, referring to the statistics lately adduced in
its columns relating to burial societies, says :—lt is as long
ago as seventy years that the original Act for the encourage.
ment of friendly societies was passed ; but its scope was
avowedly the regulation and protection of clubs purely
local, all whose officers, with the single exception of the
secretary, should be unpaid, which should employ no col-
lectors, and the majority, at least, of whose members
should be known to each other. Such a state of things, it
is obvious, would guarantee probity, simplicity, and
economy. But what is the condition of most friendly
societies at the present day? Mr. Tidd Pratt informs es.
They have highly-salaried treasurers and directors, and
employ an army of handsomely remunerated agents and
collectors in all the principal towns of the kingdom. It is
as plain as day that trades unions, still regarded exclu-
sively as friendly societies, whilst encumbered with all this
heavy, costly, and questionable machinery, would be work-
jug, as Mr. Corrance alleged at Ipswich, on an unsound
principle, and that the guarantee that their promised
benefits would accrue to their members must be very slight
indeed. How can friendly societies, thus conducted, com-
pete for the favour of ti e working man who is alive to his
own interests with the post-office savings banks suggested
by Mr. Scudamore and established by Mr. Gladstone?

The Saturday Review, with regard to Lord Stanley's
speech at the Bristol banquet, observes that he spoke much
on Ireland, and all that he said was sensible and true. But
it was nothing more. He simply sees a blank before him
when he tries to conceive what ought to be done for
Ireland. If the highest feat a statesman could perform
in our days would be to grapple with the Irish difficulty,
and spew us what we can do and ought to do for Ireland,
then to this statesmanship Lord Stanley made no approach
.and no pretence. He had, however, the great merit of
stating simply what cannot be done, and of declaring him-
sell incapable of saying what cannot be done. lie had
arrivediattrat the point which every sensible man in a club,
or any other place of common discussion, easily
arrives it.
t. sees that it is all nonsense talking of sepa-
rating England from
Ireland. He 'also sees that, when
we talk of
th rearranging
ot e land system of Ireland, we
must either have 3
have a scheme of confiscation ;
and that we must clearly make up our minds that, if we
have confiscation at all, we
must take confiscation with
all its serious and far-reaching
consequences. All this is
very true, and we are glad it should
be said distinctly ;
but it is not much to say. It sounds rather disap-
pointing when we find Lord Stanley has
no other
remedy whatever to offer for the woes ofl
Ireland ex-
cept some sort of modified Tenant eollverksation
Bill like that which the Government proposed last
session. We quite own that if a Minister, or any- public
man of eminence, has really nothing to say on a great 4
subject, he should not talk vaguely, as if he had a
mysterious secret which he forbears to disclo:;e• Tie
leaders of the Liberal party lately fell into the mista'ze
of hinting that they had some secret of the sort, while yet
they were not prepared to give the slightest hint of what
thi.; secret was. Mr. Bright, in.lee.l, hai relieved himself
fr the i:nputation of never making a definite pr.4x,si
Von. He has prop,red that the State should buy large
e,tates, and resell them, which is a plan Chat, as stated,
!.lane from the taint of confiscation, although it might pay,
the way for something of the sort. But discussion—ever.
tLe discussion of honest and fair critics, and not of critic:-
who flatter a little foolish vanity by decrying everything
Mr. Bright does or says—has not led to a result at all in
favour of Mr. Bright's plan. The objection to his plan
is the same as to all plans whatever that we hear about
for dealing in a large way with Irish land. The Irish
want what is bad for them, not what is bad for us Eng-
lish, or for great Protestant landowners or any of the
people that Irishmen hate, but for the Irish themselves.
The 'Y want small holdings of
lands, in a wet climate, with
a very poor soil. Supposing Nye give them what they

want, would it nolle Alio-fie for them to have it? If it
would—as Lord Stanley, expressing the opinion of the
best judges on the subject, said it would—can it be right
to give it to them ? Why should we condemn them to
eternal poverty and potatoes? They wish for it, certainly,
and 133 they wish for unlimited whisky ; but the State is
not to be expected to let all Ireland get drunk at the
charge of the Consolidgted Fund.
The recent Educational Conference at Manchester seems
to have declared itself distinctly in favour of two impor-
tant principles : 1. The frank admission of denominational
and other religious schools into perfect equality with all
other primary schools, on condition of their adopting a
complete conscience clause, and satisfying the inspectors
of their efficiency as teaching institutions ; 2. The repeal
of that provision of the Privy Council which refuses aid to
purely secular schools—or, in other words, the admission
of purely secular schools to perfect equality with the
Church, denominational, and other religions schools. The
Spectator agrees heartily with both these conclusions, for
it is disposed to consider private schools established by
honest secularists as a particular species of sectarian
schools—schools in which the sectarian principle takes the
form of a vehement prejudice against all religious teaching.
And as the most purely secular education is certainly
better than none, even on the religious ground, since it
undoubtedly opens the minds of those submitted to it to a
number of new moral and intellectual influences which are
not by any means purely secular—we do not think it
would be right in the State to refuse aid to any well-
conducted private schools ignoring religious teaching,
which it would grant to other private schools partly
aiming at the inculcation of their own special views. If
there be any considerable number of Jews, Deists, Secu-
larists, or Positivists amongst the working class, it is clear
that their children ought not to be debarred by their
peculiar views from such general education as they can
get, and it would be very unjust to place schools specially
established for the children of such persons under any
special disadvantages to which the schools of, it may be,
almost equally eccentric sectarians are not exposed. Of
course, in case secularistic principles were directly incul-
cated at such scileQls as subversive of religion, it would be
essential that that they, too, should be subjected to the
I action of the conscience clause, and that the parents of
I all children attending them should receive due notice of,

and be entitled to proper protection for, their children
from the inculcation of such controversial negations. But
there is a further question of considerable moment as to
the general influence which the foundation of new district
schools, supported by borough and county rates, will have
on the religious character of our primary schools. Under
Mr. Bruce and Mr. Forster's bill, the School Committee
(elected by town councils in municipal boroughs and
elsewhere generally by the ratepayers) has full power to
manage a district school itself, or to delegate its manage-
ment to other qualified persons, under condition, of course,
of full compliance with the conscience clause and all
other conditions imposed to test efficiency. There is
nothing to prevent such a School Committee from itself
setting apart a time for the specific religious instruction
of all children whose parents do not object to it ;
and they are expressly empowered to hand over their
school for certain hours to other denominational
managers for this particular purpose. Thus there is
practically no limitation at all except the will of the
ratepayers, and the views to which the elected members
of the School Committee are pledged, to the power of the'
School Committee to inculcate any particular religious
faith they please on those of their scholars whose parents
do not object. But the difficulty which we foresee in this
matter is that the old church-rate cry may be again raised.
Under the proposed bill it is clear enough that compulsory
rates might be in part used for remunerating the teachers
of religious principles from which some of the ratepayers
would conscientiously disagree. It is true that their chil-
dren would not be compelled to attend such lessons—but
neither was it ever compulsory on Dissenters to attend the
services of the churches whose rates they paid. The cry
was that there was abstract injustice in compelling ally
man to contribute at all towards the teaching of what he

held to be pernicious or false--or even towards the repair
of the building in which such teaching went forward. Wo
have never sympathised much with those who raised this
cry, and not at all with those who objected to support the
fabric of the national Church ;
.but we are quite sure that
it would be a great evil for the educational cause if this cry
were raised again, as it certainly will be unless great care
is taken, in relation both to the tax laid on a parish to
build an edifice the accommodation of which may be made
over in certain hours to special religious teachers, and to
the rate laid on the borough or union for supplying funds
for the remuneration of sectarian masters and mistresses.
It will be said, not without plausibility, that it is one thing
for the State to aid equally all kinds of sectarian schools,
in proportion only to the efficiency of their general teach-
ing, and quite another for the public rates by which a
school-house is built and a school administered to be
diverted in any degree, however small, from the common
service of all, to the advantage of any one religious body.
Hence we should fear that the ,elections of school coin
mittees will be occasions for very hot sectarian contests,
the various candidates either pledging themselves to
attempt to abtain the school-house and the aid of the school
teachers out of the general lesson-hours, for the Church,
or the Wesleyans, or the Baptists, or any other denomina-
tion strong in the district—or else pledging themselves to
resist the attempt of any religious body whatever to profit
in any way by rates which come from the pockets of al
alike. Now, any opening for contests of this kind would
be most disastrous.