The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-06-17 00:00:00

NEW CORPORATION DISSENTING SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
Stn,—lt appears that our dissenting council are not content
with refusing the rector's application with regard to the schools,
but that they must add a gratuitous insult to that refusal.
The'clergy and public are informed that the church of England
is a SECT t. that it does not belong, as it professes to do, to that
universal body which is connected by a profession of the same
great catholic verities, and an adherence to the primitive stan-
dards of belief, but that it deserves to rank only among those
ephemeral sections from that body which are daily springing up
around us, maintaining every conceivable variety of error ! !
Now mark the argument they would convey under this false
insinuation, that the established religion -of-the country is a
sect, and that her clergy have no higher authority to teach than
the self-appointed sectarian ministers. The church, they would
say, is one sect among some fifteen or twenty different sects in
the town, holding various contradictory religious opinions ;
therefore she is not snore deserving of public regard than any of
the rest. And though the corporation schools are the great
charity schools of the town, built with public money, for the
purpose of educating the children of the poor in the principles
of the established religion of the country—though they have
hitherto been conducted upon the national, or Bell's system,
with a view rather to the spiritual than the intellectualimprove-
omit of the children—though they have always been Sunday as
well as day schools, and have been under the constant visitation
of the clergy—notwithstanding all this, we will not say they
scruple to insult the religion of the country, by perverting these
schoorg from their original intention, and turning them into
juvenile mechanic's institution; instead of seminaries. of mural
and religious education. Ido maintain that the corporation, in
adopting the late report of the education committee, and their
recommendation to try experiments with these schools, (experi-
ments which they well know must be tantamount to turning the
clergy out of the schools)—l do maintain that, by that resolu-
tion, as well as by the resolution of Thursday, they have de-
liberately insulted the churchmen of this town. Nay more,
they have insulted the religious feeling of the whole body of the
working classes. Because the church is a sect, and because
sects differ in their religious opinions, it is proposed to exclude
religion altogether front the great charity schools of the town, so
far as it is to
_Arm any part of the systematic course of instruction!,
Truly this is an easy' ray of getting over a difficulty, where men
are agreed that religion is of minor importance in a people's
education. But are the people of this opinion ? Can Mr.
Rathbone find ten families, even among the dissenting poor, who
would not pi efer to give their children an education based upon
Cilrith.,l7t principles ?
The only apology for the audacious experiments that are
threatened to the christian schools of the town, is the implied
unpopularity of the doctrines of the church. But I deny that
they are unpopUlar with the mass of the people. The method-
ists, who are the largest dissenting body, approve of them. No
dissenters have ever been refused admittance to the schools, and
dissenting parents do not refuse to send their children. If, as is
the case in Ireland, four-fifths of the people were opposed to the
established religion. there might be some plausibility for the
introduction of the Irish system. But, in this town, nineteen-
, twentieths of the whole population of the working classes have
no objection to the doctrines and worship of the church.
Can Mr. Rathbone find five poor fatuities within half-a-mile
of either of the schools, except papists, who would object on the
score of their religion to send tneir children to be educated
there? Can the dissenting Mr. Rathbone find even inie family
within the same distance possessing his own religious views, to
warrant him iu setting himself up as religious dictator among
the people, and attempt to thrust the ministers of Christ from
that position in which they are placed, not only by the church
of Christ. but by the laws of this country.—Yours,
A FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE, AND AN ADVOCATE
FOR AN ENLIGHTENED SYSTEM OF EDUCA-
TION, BASED UPON RELIGION.

DISTRESS OF THE HAYMAKERS.-It has been aheart-rending
right during the past week to travel in the suburban parts of
the metropolis, particularly o❑ the ❑orthern roads, where hun-
dreds of English and Irish-mowers and haymakers, with their
numerous families, are grouped about the roads iu the most ab-
ject poverty. The severity and length of the winter, and the
present precarious state of the weather, have so delayed the
commencement of the harvest, that scarcely a farmer about
town has ventured to cut his grass; and hence shoals of Irish
haymakers and English inoWers, who have arrived near town
in quest of employment, and failing to find it, have been re-
duced to a d rplorirble state of privation. Every passenger of
respectable appearance, %%briber on foot, horseback, or vehicle,
is accosted by a knot of supplicants, of all ages and denomina-
tions, urging their claims in the most pitiable terms. At night
they take up their abode under hay-stacks, in stables, and
hedges.