The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-02-19 00:00:00

STATE PAPERS ON EDUCATION,

(Presented to Parliament by her Majesty's Command.)
Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, Feb: 4, 1839
Whitehall, Feb. 4, 1839.

My Lord,—l have received her Majesty's commands to
make a communication to your lordship on a subject of the
greatest importance. Her Majesty has observed with deep
concern the want of instruction which is still observable among
the poorer classes of her subjects. All the inquites which
have been made show a deficiency in the general education of
the people which is not in accordance with the character of a
civilised and Christian nation. _ _ _

The reports of the chaplains of gaols show that, to a large
number of unfortunate prisoners a knowledge of the funda-
mental truths of natural and revealed religion has never been
imparted.
It is some consolation to her Majesty to perceive that of
late years the zeal for popular education has increased, that
the established church has made great efforts to promote the
buildings of schools, and that the National and British and
Foreign School Societies have actively endeavoured to stimu-
late the liberality of the benevolent and enlightened friends
of general education:
Still much remains to be done ; and among the chief de-
fects yet subsisting may be reckoned the insufficient number
of qualified schoolmasters, the imperfect mode of teaching
which prevalls in, perhaps, the greater number of the schools,
the absence of any sufficient inspection of the schools, and
examination-of the nature of the instruction given, the want
of a model school which might serve for the example of those
societies and committees which anxiously, seek to improve
their own mehods of teaching, and, finally, the neglect of this
great subject among the enactments of our voluminous legis-
lation.
Some of these defects appear to admit of an immediate
remedy, and I am directed by her Majesty to desire, in the
first place, thv- our lordship, with four other of the Queen'sservants, sllotodform a hoard or committee for the consider-
ation of all matters affecting the education of the people.
For the present it is thought advisable that this board
should consist of :

The lord president of the council.
The lord privy seal.
The chancellor of the exchequer.
The secretary of state for the homse department, and •
The master of the mint.
It is proposed that the board should be intrusted with the
application of any sums which may be voted by parliament
for the purposes of education in England and Wales.
Among the first objects to which any grant may be applied
will be the establishment of a normal school.
In such a school a body of schoolmasters may be formed,
competent to assume the management of similar institutions
in all parts of the country. In such a school likewise the
best modes of teaching may be introduced, and those who
wish to improve the schools of their neighbourhood may have
an opportunity of observing their results.
The board will consider whether it may not be advisable
for some years to apply a sum of money annually in aid of
the normal schools of the National and of the British and
Foreign School Societies.
They will likewise determine whether their measures will
allow them to afford gratuities to deserving schoolmasters ;
there is no class of men whose rewards are so disproportion-
ate to their usefulness to the community.
In any normal or model school to be established by thor
board four principal objects should be kept in view,
1. Religious instruction.
2. General instruction:
3. Aloral training.
4. Habits of industry.

Of these four I need only allude to 'the first ; with respect
to religious instruction there is, as your lordship is aware, a
wide or apparently wide difference of opinion among those
who have been most forward in promoting education.
The National Society, supported by the Established Church,
contend that the schoolmaster should be invariably a church-
man : that the church catechism should be taught in the
school to all the scholars ; that all should be required to at-
tznd church on Sundays, and that the schools should be in
every case under the superintendance of the clergyman of
the parish.
The British and Foreign School Society, on the other hand,
admit churchmen and dissenters equally as schoolmasters,
require that the Bible should be taught in their schools, but
insist that no catechism should be admitted.
Others again contend that secular instruction should be
the business of the school, and that the ministers of different
persuasions should each instruct separately the children of
their own followers.
In the midst of these conflicting opinions that there is not
practically that exclusiveness among the church societies, nor
that indifference to religion among those who exclude dog-
matic instruction from the school, which their mutual accusa-
tions would lead bystanders to suppose.
Much, therefore, may be effected by a temperate attention
to the fair claims of the Established Church, and the religi-
ous freedom sanctioned by law.
Ou this subject I need only say, that it is her Majesty's
wish that the youth of this kingdom should be religiously
brought up, and that the right of conscience should be
respected.
Moreover, there is a large class of children who may be
fitted to be good members of society without injury or of-
fence to any party—l mean pauper orphans, children deserted
by their parents, and the offspring of criminals and their
associates.
It is from this class that the thieves and housebreakers of
society are continually recruited. It is this class likewise
which has filled the workhouses with ignorant and idle
inmates.
The poor law commissioners have very properly under-
taken to amend the vicious system which has hitherto pre-
vailed, and in the neighbourhood of the metropolis much has
been already done under their auspices.
It is in this direction, likewise, that certain good can be
accomplished. It sometimes happens that the training which
the child of poor but virtuous parents receives at home, is
but ill exchanged for the imperfect or faulty instruction
which he receives at school, debased by vicious association ;
but for those whose parents are dead, or who have no home
but one of habitual vice, there can be no such danger.
In all such instances, by combining moral training with
general instruction, the young may be saved from the temp-
tations to crime, and the whole community receive indisput-
able benefit.

These and other considerations will, I am persuaded, re-
ceive from your lordship the most careful attention. I need
not enter, at present, into any further plans in contemplation
for the extension of the blessings of sound and religious edu-
cation.—l have, Scc. (Signed) J. RUSSELL.
The Lord President of the Council, &c.

Berkeley-square, Feb. 6, 1839.
My Lord,—l have had the honour to receive your lord-
ship's letter, conveying to me her Majesty's desire that I, as
president of the council, together with certain other of her
Majesty's servants, should compose a board, or committee,
to consider the state of education, and direct the application
of any sums which may be appropriated by Parliament for
its improvement.
I hasten to express my readiness, whilst I continue to fill
that situation, to discharge my share of such a duty, con-
vinced, as I am, of the importance of the objects proposed,
and the improbability of their being satisfactorily accom-
plished without the countenance and superintendence of her
Majesty's government.
I at the sanw time beg leave, at the outset, to state my
opinion, that the establishment of a normal school, for
training' masters in the most perfect methods of communica-
ting literary and industrial, as well as moral and religious
instruction, is the most pressing and important of these ob-
jects, both in itself and as being a necessary step to the at-
tainment of the rest ; and also the strong conviction which I
entertain that it should be a positive condition of such an
establishment, that it should be so regulated and provided
with sufficient means to enable the teachers, who are trained
there, to acquire and to give such religious instruction as
may be required at all ordinary schools in the principles of
the Church of England, without any exclusion of those who
may be connected with such other religious persuasions as
are known to prevail amongst a considerable portion of the
Population of the country, who may be desirous of and should
31e enabled to receive similar instruction from their own
ministers, subject to the control and superintendence of the
authority under which the school will be placed.
That such a regulation should be distinctly promulgated
and understood, appears to me indispensable for its success,
in diffusing widely those benefits which all are alike entitled
to receive, and combining with the most approved methods
of education the most solid foundation on which it can be
placed.—l have, &c., (Signed) LANSDOWNN.
The Lord John Russell, &c. &c. &c.

Whitehall, Feb. 9th, 1839.
My Lord,--I have had the honour to lay before the Queen
your lordship's letter to me of the 6th instant, and I am
commanded to inform you that her Majesty is pleased to
approve of the course your lordship proposes to pursue.
I have, &c., (Signed J. RUSSELL.
The President of the Council.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.—The half-yearly general
meeting of the proprietors of this company was held in Lon-
don on Tuesday last, W. N. Sims, Esq. in the chair. The
chairman, having stated the object of the meeting, called
upon the secretary to read the report, and said that he (the
chairman) should be ready to give any information in his
power which the report might be found not to contain. The
secretary then proceeded to read the report, from which it
appeared that the number of passengers taken by the com-
pany, from the 4th of June to the 31st of December, was
upwards of 264,000, or 1,278 per diem. The receipts during
that time had been £43,845 2s. 2d., and the expenditure
£25,518 16s. 6(1., leaving a net profit of £18,296 6s. Bd.
The report stated that the short trains were very expensive,
and that the high price of coke, which could only be procured
in London, rendered the outlay of the company much greater
than it otherwise would be.. This railway ranked, in point
if the number of passengers conveyed, next to the Binning-
n and Liverpool. The mails and many of the coaches
still on the turnpike-road, but when a greater propor-
' the line was completed, there would be an accession
erom these sources, and every effort would be made
line.