The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-01-10 00:00:00

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

LETTER FROM THE REV. JOHN SINCLAIR, M.A., SECRETARY
or THE NATIONAL SOCIETY, TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD
ASHLEY, M.P., CHAIRMAN OF THE SUBSCRIPTION COM-
MITTEE FORMED IN AID Or TBAT INSTITUTION.
National Society's Office, Jan. 1, 1840.

My Lord,—At the request of the subscription committee
I have drawn up the enclosed statement, containing further
grounds On which to rest their present appeal in behalf of the
National Society to the generosity of the English public.
The passages 1 have extracted from the letters sent to this
Office ay the clergy and managers of schools will effectually
advance the great object which the committee has at heart,
if they produce the same impression upon others which they
have made upon thyself.—l have the honour to be, lay Lord,
with much respect, your Lordship's faithful and obedient
servant, JOHN SINCLAIR Secretary.

TO the Right Hon. Lord Ashley, M.P.

AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY TO
THE FRIENDS AND PROMOTERS OF SOUND CHRISTIAN
EDUCATION THROUGHOUT ENGLAND AND WALES. •
The National Society has now for upwards of 27 years
carried on, unobtrusively, but laboriously, and, it is believed,.
effectually, the 'great work of promoting the education of the
poor in the principles of the Established Church. By its
charter of incorporation the society includes in its committee
of management, besides a stated number of temporal peers
and Privy Councillors, the whole of the right rev. bench,
and has thus been enabled to exercise a beneficial influence
over every diocese and district in the kingdom. For many
years the resources of the society arose entirely from the vo-
luntary contributions of individuals who had at heart the
instruction of the young in the principles and practice of
genuine Protestant Christianity. The contributions to its
funds were by no means in proportion to the magnitude of
the object to be effected; but so judiciously were they hus-
banded and expended, that in the year 1833, nearly half a
million of children were receiving education under the super-
intendence of our parochial clergy in schools connected with
this truly Christian and patriotic association. In that year the
society for the first time received assistance in its benevolent
labours from the public Treasury. The sum of £20,000 was
voted by parliament for the purpose of education, no part of
which was ever appropriated to the National Society itself,
though a considerable proportion was set apart for schools
recommended by the society to the Lords of the Treasury.
The conditions required by their lordships were, that the
tenure of the site should be secure ; that the edifice should
be suitable as well as substantial ; and that reports upon the
state of education should, on being called for, be presented
to government. Their lordships confined themselves to these
equitable and well-advised requirements, because they gave
no aid to the maintenance of the school, but only assisted in
its first erection ; and assisted only at the rate of 10s. per
head for every space of six square feet allotted to each child.
Their lordships acted upon the principle, that the managers
of the school, by whom four-fifths of the cost of the building
were paid, and the entire maintenance. of the school was de-
frayed, were entitled to the privilese -of deciding as to the
to be pursued. Thoir zeal in the cause of popular education ;
their rank in society, as belonging to the middle and more
educated classes ; and, in someinstances, their station in the
church, entitled them, it was conceived, to this moderate ex-
ercise of confidence on the part of the public. Auy inspec-
tion of the school, to ascertain how the parochial clergyman
was discharging his duty to the younger members of his flock,
was left to his ecclesiastical superiors.
The foregoing arrangement for the distribution of the na-
tional bounty continued in operation for the space of five
years. The amount was not large, or rather, indeed, was
trivial, in comparison with the magnitude and importance of
the national object to be attained ; and, indeed, the method
of distribution was not free from serious objections ; yet the
plan encountered no resistance from the Church, and was ac-.
quiesced in by the community at large. A new impulse was
given to the progress of education, and an expectation raised,
and gradually confirmed, in the minds of its supporters, that
the parliamentary bounty will continue to flow—and, per-
haps, even more copiously—in its atcustorned channel. No
suspicion arose, or could in candour be expected to arise, that
the ordinary annual gift would be all at once encumbered
with new conditions:
The year 1839, hoivever, has brought an unforseen change.
During the last session the sum of £30,000 has been voted
for educational purposes ; not, as before, with the full con-
currence of both Houses of Parliament, but by the lower
house alone, contrary to the declared wishes and solemn re-
monstrances of the upper. A central board, consisting of
four privy councillors, all of them laymen, to the marked
exclusion of the spiritual members, has been for the first time
established, and to their discretion has been committed the
distribution of the grant. In exercising this discretionary
power, the board thus constituted were unhappily persuaded
to betray suspicions as to the zeal and judgment, not only of
the originators and promoters of schools throughout the
country, but even of the National Church itself. They re-
quired the inspection of all schools which should hereafter
be aided by public money; and would not be satisfied with
an inspection carried on under the authorities of the Church,
but insisted upon appointing an inspector of their own ; who,
without inquiring into what had hitherto been considered the
most important point for examination, namely, religious
knowledge, should ascertain merely the state and progress
of what is now termed secular instruction. In this new con-
dition annexed to public grants for educational purposes, the
managers of schools, and especially the clergy, to whom pro-
fessionally the superintendence of education is confided,
could'not be expected to concur. An inspection by Church
authority, so far from resisting, they would have courted ;
but not only had they reason to apprehend that this inter-
ference of a government functionary would lead to further
and very perilous encroachments on their pastoral influence,
but they considered the measure as in itself objectionable on
various grounds ; and more especially from its tendency to
make religion be regarded as a secondary instead of a primary
and paramount consideration. The clergy, therefore, were
precluded by conscientious scruples from accepting the aid so
ungenerously and cruelly restricted.
Meanwhile many friends of practical education; trusting to
the wonted assistance of parliament, and to the hitherto un-
failing co-operation of the National Society, not only pro-
jected plans of new schools, but proceeded to carry them into
execution. In several instances, the minister of the parish,
foremost as became his holy office in the good work, made
himself personally responsible for the whole of the deficien-
cies which the public grant was expected to supply. But
suddenly this resource fails him, unless, as has been stated,,
he consents to conditions which he considers dangerous and
degrading.
To form any adequate conception of the difficulty and em-
barrassment -to-which the clergy were reduced by 'their zeal
for popular education, joined with their high-minded reso-
lution, rather, to suffer for conscience sake than do violence
to their principles, it- would be necessary for the public to
read a large proportion of the voluminous correspondence,
ameamting to above 1000 letters, which, during the last three
months, it has been my painful task to peruse. In many
instances, the applicant-, who had accepted offers from the
Committee of Council, inforrits me that he has done so with
great reluctance, only because ." his resources were utterly
insufficient for the work ;" or because " the parish would
otherwise remain in its usual destitution in point of education,
and it would be totally out of his power to risk the undertak-
ing upon his own responsibility ;" or because " his funds
were quite inadequate to pay his contractor ;" or because he
was ' obliged to take -the money much against his will, in
uttertlespair of ever obtaining a grant from any other source :
or because, " to his great regret, the managers, from the
kindest intentions, would not suffer him to incur the respon-
sibility of raising the requisite funds."
In' other cases the applicant, after accepting the offer of
the Committee of Council, has opened his eyes to the danger
lurking under the plausible pretence of unauthoritative go-
vernment inspection; has heard of the acknowledgement by
the Committee of Council that regulation 'A is only "for the
present year," and will be afterwards succeeded by more
stringent measures; has ascertained what is the ultimate ob-
ject of the philosophical educationists by whom government
inspection was first proposed ; has begun to look upon it as
the first step towards transferring the superintendence of
education from the Church to the State, and thereby either
introducing into schools a generalised Christianity or banish-
ing Christianity from them altogether ; and has written to
me earnestly soliciting assistance from the society that he
may rid himself of the offensive bond and return the money.
When the applicant has from the first considered himself
precluded from accepting the grant, he has the Christian
firmness to decline it, although he is almost driven to accept
it " by urgent necessity," or thereby " brings himself into
a strait ;" or must " make himself responsible for the defi-
ciency;" or " feirs he must abandon his present project ;"
or " from the poverty of -his parish must take upon himself
the whole expense ;" or " will be involved in' great embar-
rassment '•" or " is called upon to pay a large sum which he
has. only the means of meeting to a limited extent ;" or " is
subjected to great inconvenience, having, on the faith of the
government grant, made preparations the 'cost of which he
will be obliged to defrAy ;" or " finds himself at a stand-
still, with the future all dark, and at a loss what to do."
Sometirnes 'Correspondence has afforded me the grati-
fying intelligence that the applicant will not call for assistance
from the National Society, because it is " not to the society,
but to parliament," that he looks for redress of the wrong
he has sustained ; or because " the promoters of the school,
who strongly objected to the proposed inspection, had sup-
plied all his wants ;" or because " he was enabled to carry
on his buildings through the very great munificence of a
neighbouring landowner ;" or because " he will endeavour
to procure the sum required from other' quarters, and trusts
that his parishioners will not ultimately suffer from his per-
formance of a duty which he owes no less to them than to
himself;" or because " he can afford to complete the school
buildings from his own resources, and considers it the duty
of every individual to strain every nerve at this crisis to ren-
der himself rather a help than a burden to others."
A painful contrast to these gratifying communications is
afforded by the many letters I have received from every quar-
ter of the kingdom, in which the parties inform me, that as
they cannot, under present circumstances, conscientiously
accept public money, and consider the whole cause of sound
Christian education in the greatest jeopardy, they have either
for the present abandoned their whole design of building
schools, or have contracted the dimensions of the buildings,
Sun ay schoolsinstea iSMggkiel
y sc oo s,not now
provide
i accommodation for the master and .mistress. To
cseeocived how
upon right effectually the Committee of Council have suc-
in discouraging the chief patrons of popular education
principles, I shall conclude these quotations with
one more remarkable example :—" The promoters of the
schools here are
any probability,
resolved tto lay one stone of a building
which may bya
ist
now any futureto be tim e,be, divertedit
from the object for whicherected,
the education of the
ciples." poor in sound Church of England prin-
It is to obviate these circumstances of unprecedented and
unlooked-for embarrassment, to animate the promoters of
popular instruction, to meet new claims upon the National
Society, from parishes in a state of spiritual destitution, which
pn some future occasion I may describe, but of which the
public has at present no conception—that the Subscription
Committee, formed in aid of the National Society, are now
endeavouring to call forth the generosity of the English na-
tion. It is at the request of that committee that I have writ-
ten the above explanatory statements; and I shall only add,
that an appeal such as theirs, in behalf of the Church of Eng-
land, has never yet been made in vain. All parties are
agreed that no object whatever is more important than the
education of the people; and no party can deny, that reli_
?lon in a Christian country must form the basis of Christian
i struction. U this basis the National Society has been
formed Upon
and incorporated ; and it remains with the English
public to decide,
-tried and useful edifice
shall this long -tried
shall continue to be the bulwark of sound popular education, or be suffere to crumble clergy shall
he supportstheirinto ruin ; whether the
legit'
violate the ervi • Mate endeavours to preserve in-
straint the lai s sion of their flocks, feeding without re-
Shepherd' of the sealmitted to their charge by the great
ference ; whether thell46eart be subjected to invidious inter-
land shall be instructed and
ints.is of the population of Dig-
it was promulgated by its Divainecehped in Christian truth, as
uninutilated and entire, or shall' ic
Pounder and His apostles,
fect instruction, incapable of tra' ' e a partial' and itoper.
ming them to •
here or happiness hereafter. moral virtue

MATEs.—The following memorandum appears
iirsB3 'O, this
quarter's Navy List :—" Admiralty, Dec. 16
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty are pleased to dMy
i
that in future the names of all mates who shall r rect
emain out
of the service for more than one year without applying for an
appointment shall be removed from the official register of
mates and midshipmen, and they shall be considered as hay..
ink relinquished the naval service, unless my lords shall be
suistied that the omission proceeded from unavoidable
causes."