The Sun.
London, England, 1818-08-11 00:00:00

ON EDUCATION.

FOR THE SUN.

LLETTER I.]

Mr, read with some surprize in
your Paper of the sth an account of the Meeting
of the British and Foreign School Society, to
Nellie!) his Royal Highness the Duke of KENT
thore4ht proper to introduce his august Spouse as
a specimen of our National Institutions. I say I
read it ‘vith surprise, not only as a very extraor-
dinary measure, on the part of his Royal High-
ness, to bring before an illustrious Foreigner, and
tha[ Foreigner his own wife, as an object of Iris
first predilection and attachment, a Society esta-
biished directly in the face, and in contradistioe-
thin to the National Establishment which placed
the Frani)), of his Royal Highness upon the throne
of these realists but I felt equal surprise that in
your Paper, avowedly supporting the National
E•tablishments in Church and State, not only a.
detailed account.of speeches delivered-by some of
the most virulent of the spiritual and political pu-
ritans of the present day should be sent forth to
the world—but that they should be sent forth un-
der the seeming sanction of your approbation,
and accompanied with observations calculated to
give force and effect to the mischievous Opinions
of the speakers. Upon reflectiou, however, I
doubt not that this article was paid tor, and ad-
mitted as an Advertisement of the party,* a prac.
tice which prevails universally with these disin-
terested and pure Reformers, for the more gene-
ral circulation of their regularly got up scenic re-
F.eseurat ions, and the Fonds for which 1 happen
to know are drawn from ill, pittance of the poor
deceived labourer and mechanic in penny sub-
seri mions, as well as from those who have a deeper
interest in involving this happy Country in all the
miseries Nvbich a similar line of conduct, under
the VERBS and CaosawaeLs of other times, in-
duced and perfected to tlie overthrow of the
Church and State.

It is to me one of the extraordinary and ap-
palling features of the present times, that the
chicanery and quackery by which impostors and
pretenders to purity have always been distin-
guished, are as successfully practised as if the
world were unacquainted with their prototypes in
past times. The universal practice of the Puri-
tans, in,order to carry their ultimate objects in
the reign Of CHARLES I. %% as to poison !he public
mind, and to render the Church Establishment
odious and contemptible in the minds of the lower
classes. Precisely the saute are the purpose and
bent of those reforming Politicians in the present
day, who for the greater part have no religious
set‘iples to encounter, and who seek out every
Institution which, in fact, or by.implicai ion, can
be supposed to militate against the Establishment,
as the peculiar objects of their patronage anti
affect hot. They have not the decency (since they
find not the necessity, front the blindness of those
who eipo'tse their principles) to chew even equal
favour to the National Eslablishwents. They
uever grace the Meetings of the National Society
and the various Church Societies will, their pre-
settee—nor honour them with their protection.
They will support a Jewish School, or a Maho-
metan one, were there one at hand to solicit their
aid, hot a Society. or School, founded upon the
principles of the Established Religion, they re-
gard with an eye of abhorrence, that might he
termed bigotry, had not these liberal Gentlemen
monopolized, the term, and limited it exclusively
to those who feel attachment to the Institutions
of their Fathers in Church or State. That I may
not be taxed with vapoming—or of yielding to
this spirit of bigotry, which must needs inspire me
in defence of our National Institutions--I will
shew how far, as a matter of fact and as a point
of History, 1 am grounded in the opinions I en-
tertain, and the apprehensions I experience upon
this momentous question.
" Though the political and religious Puritans
(says Hume) mutually lent assistance to each
other, there were 'natty who joined the former,
yet declined all connexion with the latter,"—
that is your liberal men, who, feeling the affecta-
tion of superior sanctity inconsistent with their
habits and pursuits in life, find hypocrisy in re-
ligion too arduous a part, and confine their purity
to temporal and political questions, which by their
predecessors were found in the long run to unite
and terminate in the same end. "By declaim-
ing (continues Mr. Home) agaiOst the supposed
encroachments and tyranny of the Prelates, they
endeavoured to carry the nation front a hatred of
their persons to an opposition against their office,
and character; and when men wete enlisted in
Party, it would not be difficult, they thought, to
lead than by degrees into many measures for
which they formerly entertained the greatest aver-
sion. Though the new Sectaries composed not
at first the majority of the nation, they were in-
flamed, as is usual among innovators, with -ex-
treme zeal for their opinions. Their insurmount-
able passion, disguised to themselves, as well as
to others, under the appearance of holy fervour,
was well qualified to make proselytes, and to
seize the minds of the ignorant multitude, and
one furious Enthusiast was able, by his active in-
dustry, to surmount the indolent efforts of many
sober and reasonable antagonists." These were
the arts, and- this the machinery, which the old
Puritans, political and spiritual, adopted to under-
mine the fabric of the Constitution, and asey ay.
FECTED IT!

Now.. Sir,
, the great engine which Mr.
Bnouunam . and his few desperate adherents duly
appreciate, and by which a State may be secretly
and almost imperceptibly undermined, is the
education of the great moss of the people, upon
principles which tend to render the public Insti-
tutions of the country contemptible, or at least in-
different. These are the principles of Mr. LAN.-
cas ratt,avowed by himself in t he original Establish-
ment of his Plan, which, to use his own words,
was to prevent education from being subservient
to the propagation " of the peculiar tenets of any
sect." among which sects are included the Church
of England. He holds forth his new system as