The Sun.
London, England, 1845-06-05 00:00:00

•
s(i'ir fOnfil aian4
\

LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1845,

The Commons did not 'nage a Ilouse last evening.
The Lords met at Five, and, after mutual explana-
tions between the Bishop of CAsim. aril the Marquis of
NOR3IANBY on the subject of e eof the Right
Rev. Prelate, to which the Nobl .*),I. is had alluded
son a former evening, the order (.0 vie ;ill) for the second
reading of the Maynooth Bill was read.
Their -Lordships were addressed 1)y the Earl Of

CLANCARTY, the Duke of CLEVELAND, Earl SPEN-
CER, the Bishop of NORWICH, the Earl of MoR-
NINOTON, Lord COLCHESTER, Lord MONTEAGLE, the
Bishop of St. DAVID'S, the Earl of CHARLEvILLE,
and Lord STANLEY, after which their Lordships
divided, when there appeared, for the amendment,
59, against it, 155 ; majority against the amend•
ment, 96.

Their Lordships then divided on the original motion,
which was carried by a majority of 157.

The tedious debate on the second reading of the
Maynooth Bill in the Upper House has at last been
brought to a close, and the measure carried by a majo-
rity even greater than that by which it was affirmed in
the House of Commons. The majority on the third
reading in that assembly was 133, and on the second
reading 147 ;—so that the majority in the Lords ex-
ceeded that in the Commons by 10. These are large
majorities in favour of a measure that has excited a vast

noise and roused strong opposition from a great number
of different sections of Protestants, and we, therefore,
confidently trust that such a weight of authority will
have its due influence, and the country will wait
patiently to see the operation of the measure. We
rejoice that the question has thus been set at
rest, and at the same time entertain the strongest
hopes that it will prove one of the greatest acts of jus-
tice yet rendered to Ireland. Whatever may be said by
the people of that country about the hostility dis-
played out of the two Houses of Parliament, they must
all admit that the Legislature has nobly performed its
duty, and, making allowances for the mis-
guided and bigoted language used by certain
speakers, that a general wish prevails among
all men of talent, experience, and right principles, to
place their country on a footing of equality with Eng-
land and Scotland. Much was expected from the bench
of bishops by the opponents of the measure. The
Bishop of LONDON was to denounce it in the name of the
English clergy, and the Bishop of EXETER,
who had postponed his visitations for the pur-
pose, was absolutely to crush the Bill by a
speech such as never had been heard within the walls of
Parliament. Miserable failures were they both. In-
consistency and relentless bigotry c'iaracterised the
remarks of these Puseyite Prelates, and they met just with
that support which they merited from an assembly of
' gentlemen, and what is more, good Christians. It is a
curious fact that the only English Bishops who spoke
against this measure of justice and charity are believed
to be much more favourable to Popery than Protes •
tactiorn, and other reasons, therefore, than those of a
religious character, probably, influenced their conduct.
But whatever might be their motives or feelings, their
speeches effected nothing, and to the honour of the,
bench, their example was not followed. The Archbishop
of CANTERBURY remained silent, and the character of
the Church was amply vindicated by three of its most
distinguished Prela►_es—the Archbishop of DUBLIN, the
Bishop of NORWICH, and the Bishop of St. DAVID'S. If
we look to the lay speakers, a still stronger force
of intellect was ranged on the right side. It
is needless to recount their names. The leading
statesmen of both political parties vied with each
other in claiming justice for Ireland, and were op-
posed only by such Peers as RoDEN and NEWCASTLE.
But their day, happily for the country, is past—their
very children have discarded their politics—the old Tory
system is extinct—and no people will profit so much by
the .]hange as the calumniated and oppressed Irish.

(ef .yhatever party the Ministry of the day may have
been, it must be conceded to the successive Governments
which have occupied office for the last half century in
this country that they have all and each of them been
animated by a sincere desire to extend the blessings of
education over Ireland. However strongly marked the
differences which have characterised the general princi-

pies of their domestic or their foreign policy, they have
concurred in the perception of this great moral necessity
affecting the entire population of the sister kingdom, in
those classes not enjoying the advantages of competent

subsistence, and therefore disabled, whilst unassisted by
external aid, from the acquisition of that moral and in-

wtelkAtual culture, to the advantages of which no nation
is, perhaps, more instinctively alive than Ireland, even
in those sections of her community which have been
furthest removed from the experience of those advan-

tages by realising them in their own persons. But cast-
ing a retrospective glance at the history of the last fifty
years, and endeavouring to speak with the dispassionate
impartiality of historians, rather than under the excited
feelings of contemporaries, we feel disposed to acknow-
ledge that Whigs and Tories hare both meant well to this
noble cause of Irish education, unfortunate as, in some
instances, may have been their notions of the practical
means for carrying out their common object.
The eleventh report of the Commissioners of National
Education, recently issued, strongly illustrates the pro-
digious progress which has been made in this matter by
the Governments that have held office since towards the
close of the reign of GEORGE the FOURTH down to the
present time.
The Commissioners in their report, dated the 24th of
April, 1845, have framed a document which breathes a
spirit of liberality and toleration on the general principle
of national education which is alike honourable to them
and auspicious to the Irish people. We would earnestly
entreat all those who (conscientiously, no doubt) are of
opinion that no system of popular education should be
sustained by Parliament, of which the teachers of par-

titular religious doctrines should not fore an essential,
to peruse this invaluable document. The Commis-
sioners attribute to the increased grants lately made by
the Legislature their establishment of additional super-
intendents and training departments, and the enlarge-
ment of their schools. Their school districts have been
raised from 25 to 32, and in the neighbourhood of the
model schools in Dublin have provided accommodation
for 100 of the masters they call up for training, instead
of 70 only, as heretofore. They have introduced
beneficial arrangements into their model agricultural
school, with premiums for those who distinguish them-
selves by proficiency in this department, and it is highly
honourable to the practical usefulness of these arrange-
ments, that they are noticed with high commendation
in the Occupation of Lands Commission's (Ireland) Re-
port. The agricultural farm, if we may so call it, at
Larne has already attained celebrity even among the
most scientific classes of the Scottish farmers. The
Commissioners boast with reasonable pride that at the
commencement of last year they had 2,912 schools, at-
tended by 355,320 children. At the close of last year
the schools were 3,153 ; the children in attendance at
them, 39.5,550. They calculate that in the course of the
present year between four and five hundred thousand
poor ehildren will be receiving the blessings of
education. .

It is not marvellous that with Commissioners whose
energy has already accomplished such gratifying results

in diffusing a system of education, possessing every pos-
sible guarantee for inculcating the most strictly moral
instruction, together with all branches of useful and
general knowledge, there should be bigots among us who
will insist upon mixing up exclusive Churchmen to teach
nothing but exclusive doctrine after orthodox authori-
ties. Let Parliament uphold and extend, say we, a system
thus happily begun, and the problem " how to govern Ire-
land" is solved. Give us half a million of the rising genera-
tion of a country with eight millions of people, and we shall
not be frightened out of our convictions of the imme-
diate advent of their permanent peace, order, prosperity,
and loyal attachment to the insti.tacions of the united
empire, by the traditions of past eetituries of b irba.rism
and turbulence, superstitious ignorance, and ferocious
faction fighting. Elevate the mass of her people by an
enlightened scheme of education like this iu their own
self-respect, and they must and will be elevated in ours.
Equality of rights and privileges will be no longer a
claim to be vindicated by them, or a boon to be con-
ferred by you. It will be a natural inevitable conse-
quence, which you can neither resist nor withhold. The
consolatory truth is, that this salutary consequence is
now already in motion, and cannot be arrested. In con-
clusion, we will merely contrast with this encouraging
view of the moral progress which the Irish people is now
making the dreary scene from which she has emerged.
We learn at p. 5 of the report, that the old Incorporated
Society for promoting English Protestant Schools in
Ireland was established by royal charter in 1733. The
annual grants formerly made to the schools in connexion
with it, known as the " Charter Schools," were, in con-
sequence of the report of a Commission in 1824, gra-
dually reduced and finally withdrawn. In that year the
number of these schools was 32, the number cf children
in them amounted to 2,255 ; and the grant for 1825,
(what do our readers imagine it w•ts ?) 21,6151.; that is
to say 9/. 9s. led. per head per annum for the children
educated, and an average of 644/. 9s. 6d. for each of the
32 schools. They needed no education in jol, bingin
those days. Thank Gon we have lived to see Irishcation an object of national liberality, and legislative,
not party, solicitude.

The intelligence from Syria is of a most distressing 1
character. The war between the Drusesa and the
Ma-
ronites, the Christian party, has broken out again with
the greatest fury, and threatens to carry devastation
through the country. Villages are burnt, churches and
convents levelled with t're gound, and every species of
cruelty inflicted upon the unhappy population by the
party that happens to be victorious—for there seems to
be little difference between them. The Turkish autho-
rities, however, openly side with the Druses, but the
foreign Ambassadors have taken the most energetic