On the Means of Rendering 
 More Efficient the Education 
 of the People . . . 
 
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 By 
 '^'alter P Tquhar Hook 
 
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ON 
 
 THE MEANS 0? RENDERING MORE EFFICIENT 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D. 
 
 VICAR OF LEEDS. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1846. 
 
London : 
 
 Printed by A. SporriswooDE, 
 
 New-Street-Square. 
 
 ■■k-'\ 
 

 A L E T T E R, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 My Lord Bishop, 
 
 t In the speech addressed by your Lordship 
 
 >_. to the House of Lords on the 10th of May, in which 
 ^ you pleaded earnestly, as the case requires, in behalf 
 3 of the uneducated population of the Principality of 
 Wales, you justly remarked that the question is not 
 as to the deficiency of the means of education, a point 
 which must unfortunately be admitted by every one, 
 ^ but as to the mode in which the acknowledged evil 
 ^ is to be remedied. You added that you did not en- 
 ^^ tertain any hope that Government would provide any 
 ci- general measure for educating the people of Wales, 
 after so many measures with reference to general edu- 
 cation in England had failed, and that such a result 
 from any inquiry which might be instituted you did 
 not anticipate. 
 
 Now, my Lord, upon this subject I have thought 
 
 ^ deeply, and for many years, and I have arrived, my- 
 
 g self, at the conclusion that some very general measure 
 
 =^ for the education of the people must be, ere long, 
 
 adopted by the State ; and I think that among the 
 
 A 2 
 
working clergy of the manufacturing districts this 
 opinion is every where gaining ground, although we 
 are all of us anxious, in any suggestions we have to 
 offer, to act consistently on the principles of the 
 Church. 
 
 I am, as a churchman, and a high churchman, ad- 
 dressing your Lordship to prevail upon you to apply 
 the great powers of your mind to this momentous 
 subject ; and, distinguished as you are for energy on 
 the one hand, and for prudence on the other, I cannot 
 but hope that some measure may be devised by your 
 Lordship such as may meet the wants of our increas- 
 ing population, and commend itself to the judgment 
 of good men of all parties, willing to make great sa- 
 crifices, in order to accomplish so great an object. 
 
 Your Lordship seems to be admirably fitted for 
 such an office, not only from the circumstances to 
 which I have before alluded, but because you have 
 the confidence of opposite parties. Your political 
 principles are, as we all know, liberal, and you have 
 adhered to them consistently, though meekly, through 
 life ; at the same time, those who have adhered with 
 equal firmness and consistency to the principles of the 
 Church of England have always met with that justice 
 from your Lordship which they have sometimes 
 looked for in vain in other quarters. It is as a de- 
 voted minister of the Church of England, that I now 
 ■write ; and though I wi'ite with the desire of ascer- 
 taining what concessions, consistently with those 
 principles, we can make, T am aware that proposals 
 made by me will be received with suspicion in some 
 quarters, and it is with a view of obtaining for them 
 
o 
 
 a calm consideration from all parties that I desire to 
 address them to your Lordship. 
 
 We live in an age when the question is not lohether 
 h\xtlioic the poor are to Le educated. And when I 
 remember the difficulties with which the clergy had 
 to contend five and twenty or thirty years ago, in 
 order to convince men that the education of the poor 
 is even desirable, I cannot but feel that much credit 
 is due to the clergy, who have succeeded in raising a 
 very different feeling in the minds of churchmen. They 
 have, God be praised, preached down effectually that 
 heresy of which I remember the prevalence, according 
 to which even good men Avere induced to suppose that 
 the allwise God had given to man an immortal mind, 
 capable of great things, without the intention, with 
 respect to a large portion of the human race, that it 
 should be exercised. JThat ungodly selfishness is now 
 explodedjby_jiszihich-tlia-upper classes of society were 
 induced to suppose that mental pleasures were a 
 luxury reserved for their exclusive enjoyment, al- 
 though they were often forced to adopt the dog-in- the 
 manger system, and neither taste of those pleasures 
 themselves, jior permit. tJ3ifijy[LJto.pj;h^^ Whatever may 
 add to the innocent enjoyments of our poorer brethren, 
 we are bound by common feelings of charity to pro- 
 cure for them if jjossible ; and this duty becomes the 
 more important when the object in view is to call 
 them from the world of sense without, by opening to 
 them the world of thought within, and by adopting 
 those means which cannot fail to soften, refine, and 
 humanize the character. 
 
 I am aware that some enthusiasts in the cause of 
 A 3 
 
education anticipate results from it which we know, 
 as Christians, can never, through this instrumentality 
 alone, be accomplished. To the unsanctiiied heart 
 education may often be a bane and not a blessing ; 
 but I do believe that it is impossible for us, except by 
 miracle, to sustain Christianity in this country, unless 
 very decided and very energetic measures be speedily 
 adopted to secure for our manufacturing population 
 that moral training which is the basis of all good 
 education, and mthout which religion becomes a mere 
 dogma — an illegitimate mode of expressing political 
 sentiment. Although I would not confound moral train- 
 ing with what I consider to be religious education, yet 
 such training may be used as the handmaid of religion, 
 and for want of it thousands of our fellow- creatures 
 are relapsing into barbarism, and becoming worse 
 than heathens. I say worse than heathens, because, 
 as your Lordship well knows, one of the evidences in 
 favour of Christianity is this, that he by whom it is 
 rejected when offered has no alternative left : he must 
 accept Christianity, or he can have no religion ; he 
 becomes the worst sort of infidel. A heathen has a 
 religion, though a corrupt one : a corrupted or apos- 
 tate Christian is without any God in the world, except 
 his ONvn belly. 
 
 I admit with gratitude the good which has been 
 accomplished through the instrumentality of the 
 National Society. I concede with pleasure the credit 
 Avhich is due to dissenting societies, especially to the 
 Methodists. I demand the praise of all unprejudiced 
 men for the indefatigable zeal in the cause of edu- 
 cation, speaking generally, of the clergy. But, my 
 
Lord, when I look upon all that has been done, I ask, 
 what is the result ? I must contend that, compared 
 with the educational wants of the country, we have 
 done next to nothing ; we have lighted a lanthorn 
 which only makes us more sensible of the surround- 
 ing darkness : we have caused the waters to flow, but 
 what we have effected is but as the jets of a fountain, 
 and not the steady copious stream which is required, 
 
 I count for_ixQthing the reports of societies. With- 
 out intending it, societies are from their constitution 
 braggarts, and the committees are generally too 
 anxious, as advocates, to make the best of their state- 
 ments, to be very rigid in examining the details upon 
 which they are founded. Reports are drawn up as 
 advertisements ; failures are judiciously passed over, 
 and by that very circumstance the good accomplished 
 is given in an exaggerated and therefore an untrue 
 form. The Treasurer of the National Society has 
 put forth a statement that in 1838 there were 6778 
 schools in union with the Society, affording accom- 
 modation for 587,911 scholars, and he supposes that 
 the schools have now increased, including all of every 
 sort connected with the church, to 10,509,with 911 ,834 
 scholars. 
 
 The return on which he makes his calculation did 
 not, I believe, attempt to ascertain how many school 
 buildings were secured for education by trust-deeds. 
 Many of these schools may therefore have been held in 
 hired rooms ; and we know, in point of fact, that this 
 is the case. In rural parishes they are often merely 
 dame schools, held in rented cottages or rooms. 
 Neither does the statement show how many of these 
 
 A 4 
 
8 
 
 children were in attendance only on evening schools 
 or on Sunday schools. No evidence is given that 
 sufficient care Avas taken to prevent a double enu- 
 meration of the children in attendance, both on even- 
 ing schools and Sunday schools, or both on day 
 schools and Sunday schools. 
 
 I have said enough to show that I think the results 
 of the return, as published by the Treasurer of the 
 National Society, desirous of making out the best case 
 for his constituents, are of very little value ; and I 
 have ascertained from him that there are in his pos- 
 session no additional statistics. It is not however 
 difficult to estimate the number of school buildings 
 which have been erected with the aid of grants from 
 the Government. The Parliamentary grants from 
 1833 to 1839 were 20,000/. a year ; from 1839 to 
 1842 inclusive they were 30,000/. ; in 1843 and 1844 
 they were 40,000/. ; and in 1845 they were 75,000/. ; 
 or from 1833 to 1846 the whole amount of money 
 granted by the Government in aid of the building of 
 schools was 395,000/. 
 
 The grants to individual schools appear from the 
 minutes of the Committee of Council on Education to 
 be 120/. on the average for each school building, if 
 that average be extended over the whole period. 
 The number of school buildings erected, or in the 
 course of erection, in England and Wales, with aid 
 from the Parliamentary grant since 1833 is therefore 
 3291, if the whole grants be applied to this object, 
 but on this subject the minutes do not contain inform- 
 ation. These scliools would probably apply accom- 
 modation for 493,650 children, according to the 
 
9 
 
 average ratio of the number of children to the grants 
 of money observed in the minutes. During the same 
 period a certain number of schools has been annually 
 built without aid from Government. The latter 
 schools are often private property, and may there- 
 fore, at any time, be resumed for private uses un- 
 connected with education. 
 
 If we suppose (and this would be a liberal estimate) 
 that 100 such private schools have been annually 
 erected without Parliamentary aid since 1833, then 
 1300 elementary schools (the results of unaided 
 private benevolence) must be added to 3291 schools 
 built with public aid ; and the proportionate number 
 of scholars accommodated since 1833 may perhaps 
 be raised to 600,000 or 650,000. But this latter 
 estimate must be regarded merely as an approxima- 
 tion to the truth. 
 
 There are no exact statistics as to what has been 
 done in building schools secured by trust-deeds, 
 before the interference of parliament in 1843. 
 
 Such are the facts of the case, so far as I am able 
 to ascertain them from the printed documents ; and 
 the proportion between the present annual outlay 
 and the wants of the country may be shown by one 
 simple fact. The parliamentary grant of 1845 was 
 75,000^., being more than double the average annual 
 grant since 1833. If 625 schools may be annually 
 built with the aid of this grant of 75,000/., accom- 
 modating 93,750 scholars, these numbers represent 
 only one-fourth part of the annual permanent increase 
 of the population, which proceeds at the rate of nearly 
 365,000 in the year. 
 
10 
 
 To what has now been stated we must add the sad 
 fact that in the majority of the schools erected by 
 parliamentary assistance the salaries of the masters 
 barely amount to the level of the wages of a skilful 
 mechanic, even where they are best remunerated ; in 
 a much larger proportion of the schools, indeed, the 
 salary of the master is permitted to fall below the wages 
 of a labourer by task- work, and in a third class to those 
 of a day-labourer. There is no provision whatever 
 made for the payment of apprenticed jjupil teachers, 
 which, according to an estimate I shall presently lay 
 before your Lordship, ought to amount to 623,400/., 
 or, at the very lowest calculation, to 374,985/. 
 Instead of apprenticed pupils and trained assistants, 
 we commit the education of the people of England to 
 the wisdom, experience, and discretion of unpaid 
 instructors in the shape of monitors, whose average 
 age is ten years. The fund for the provision of 
 books and apparatus is, according to the reports of 
 tlie inspectors, extremely low, and the supply meagre. 
 In many instances the Bible, I regret to say, is dese- 
 crated by being used as a mere class book, because 
 Bibles can be purchased cheaply ; nor can I here 
 refrain from saying that it is discreditable to the 
 National Society that it has not supplied us with a 
 better class of school books, e:>pecially on religious 
 subjects. The blame, perhaps, will be thrown upon 
 the Christian Knowledge Society; but wlierever tlie 
 blame rests, the censure is deserved, for it ought to 
 be one of the first duties of an educational society to 
 select educational works, or to have them composed. 
 
11 
 
 Proceeding to the consideration of the quality of 
 our education, I must begin by remarking that we 
 possess some admirable schools : I have schools in my 
 own parish which might challenge comparison with 
 any schools anywhere established. If I were employed 
 as an advocate of the present system of education, I 
 might appeal to our bitterest opponent, and if he has 
 common feelings of honesty, he would freely admit 
 that we have done much more than, with our scanty 
 resources, he could have supposed to be possible. But 
 Avhere are these schools to be found ? In localities in- 
 habited by the wealthy ; in districts where the clergy 
 are not only active, but numerous and influential, 
 and where a laity possessing leisure are willing to dis- 
 charge gratuitously the ofiice of teachers or at least 
 of inspectors. 
 
 But go to our poorer districts, not to our to"\vns, 
 but to our manufacturing villages, and there you will 
 perceive how great our educational destitution really 
 is. I am myself surrounded by a district containing 
 two hundred and fifty thousand souls, exclusive of the 
 large to^wns, in which there are thousands uneducated, 
 or receiving an education worse than none ; for where 
 a number of children are gathered together, if some 
 good is not going on, much of evil must ensue from 
 the mere aggregation of numbers. Not one in a hun- 
 dred attends any place of worship, but the usual 
 practice is for the men to lie in bed on the Sunday 
 morning, while the women cook the dinner, and for an 
 adjournment in the evening to take place to a public- 
 house. I am sure, from what I have witnessed, that 
 however low in principle, and consequently in prac- 
 
12 
 
 tice, many of the clergy may be in Wales, this state 
 of things is not in the manufacturing districts to be 
 attributed generally to any want of zeal on the part 
 of the clergy. The very first object which a respect- 
 able clergyman has in view when he receives an 
 appointment, is to form a school. But, suppose him 
 to be placed in one of those poor districts which 
 abound in the land, in which there is no man of 
 wealth resident, what is he to do ? Let us suppose 
 him by great exertion to have obtained a pittance 
 sufficient to pay for the hire of a room, having calcu- 
 lated on collecting three or four pounds every year 
 by a charity sermon (little as this seems to be, the 
 collection often is less) : let us suppose him to have 
 induced some pious young man, for the love of God, 
 to give up a trade, and to undertake the school with 
 a trifling salary, and with the hope of obtaining a 
 livelihood by the pence of the children. The poor 
 young man having been sent for a short time to that 
 apology for a training school at Westminster, has con- 
 fided to him, as a great privilege, the sole charge of 
 a hundred or a hundred and fifty little dirty, ragged, 
 ignorant urchins, assembled in the miserable building 
 now dignified by the name of a National School 
 Room, and he is expected, as by miracle, to convert 
 them, in as short a space of time as possible, into 
 clean, well-bred, intelHgent children, capable of pass- 
 ing a creditable examination, if by chance an in- 
 spector or organizing master pass that way. He 
 begins his work upon these hundred or liundred and 
 fifty children, and upon whom does he depend for 
 assistance and support ? The clergyman of the parish 
 
13 
 
 or district looks in occasionally, and gives him a word 
 of encouragement, but the multiplicity of his various 
 and important duties prevents his doing more ; or he 
 thinks, perhaps, that his friend, the schoolmaster, is 
 the only person in his district upon whose co-operation 
 in works of piety he can depend, and consequently so 
 far from aiding the schoolmaster, he looks to the 
 schoolmaster for assistance. And in the school what 
 can the good young man eiFect ? He cannot educate 
 (it is physically impossible) all the children himself, 
 and therefore he is obliged to have recourse to the 
 monitorial system ; the result of which is, that while 
 a portion of the children are vain, conceited, and 
 puffed-up, a larger proportion are left in their ig- 
 norance. I have known instances of children who 
 have been for two years at a National School, and have 
 left it unable to read. 
 
 The master seeing this, depressed in spirit, gets 
 through the drudgery of the school hours as best he 
 may ; but has his work ceased ? No ; he must teach 
 his monitors : to them he must impart some know- 
 ledge out of school hours, and his mind is still kept 
 on the stretch. He may perhaps be under the ne- 
 cessity of keeping an evening school also. Nor is he 
 even then at rest. Having lamented the inconvenience 
 of the room they have hired for a school, he and the 
 clergyman are found closeted together, devising the best 
 means, from a letter to the Queen Dowager down to the 
 holding of a bazaar, for erecting a building better 
 suited for their purpose. They determine to beg. The 
 principal burden of this begging devolves of course 
 upon the clergyman, and no one who has not ex- 
 
14 
 
 • 
 perienced it, can Ibnu an iclua of the weariness and 
 
 paintulness of begging from day to day for districts 
 wholly inhabited by the poor. He is, indeed, some- 
 times cheered by the kind expressions and liberal 
 donations of the wealthy, and overwhelmed -svith joy 
 at receiving an anonymous five-pound note. But 
 how often does he meet with a cold repulse from some 
 supercilious Pharisee, who, proud of having contri- 
 buted a few pounds more than his neighbours in his 
 own immediate neighbourhood, insinuates by his man- 
 ner that if the poor clergyman had done his duty, he 
 would not have need to ask a stranger for assistance ! 
 How often has he to endure the insolence of the 
 purse-proud, and to listen to excuses which serve only 
 to remind him how true to nature Shakspeare was, 
 when he depicted the characters and framed the 
 answers of the friends of Timon. The master too is 
 employed in this work ; and though he finds himself 
 regarded as one who has no fixed station in society, 
 he very often by his patience and perseverance suc- 
 ceeds wonderfully. They labour incessantly ; until 
 at last, by the aid of the National Society, a grant 
 from the Committee of Privy Council, and a liberal 
 donation from Queen Adelaide, the requisite amount 
 is nearly gained. The clergyman then proceeds to 
 build, and guarantees the money that is wanted to 
 complete the work, which, generally speaking, he has 
 to pay from his private resources. There is no com- 
 plaint to be made ; both clergyman and master feel 
 that they have been labouring in their vocation, and 
 in labouring for the glory of God, and the welfare of 
 their fellow-creatures — they have been doing God's 
 
15 
 
 work, in that station of life, however humble, in 
 which he, by his providence, has placed them. No 
 happier feeling than this can exist, and the more 
 humble our sphere of action, the more of spiritual 
 comfort attends this blessed conviction. But it is 
 very clear that the energies which are thus exhausted 
 in procuring funds for the erection of the fabric cannot 
 be directed exclusively, as they ought to be, to the moral 
 edification of those in care for whose souls the labour 
 of love was first undertaken. Nor is the anxiety of the 
 master to cease with the comj^letion of the building; 
 upon him, equally with the clergyman, devolves the duty 
 of collecting the subscriptions needful to defray the ex- 
 penses ; and he has always the prospect before him of 
 being reduced to greater want, at the very time that 
 his family is increasing, by the defalcation of the 
 pence of the children, upon which, either wholly or in 
 great part, his subsistence is made to depend. From 
 increase of the population, the clergyman, meanwhile, 
 as soon as one school is built, has to commence another- 
 and when all is done, he has the satisfaction of feelino- 
 
 o 
 
 that it is only as a drop in the ocean. 
 
 In depicting this case I have presented to your Lord- 
 ship a scene, of which the truthfulness will be recog- 
 nised by every one acquainted with our manufacturino- 
 districts ; and I believe that similar difficulties, differ- 
 ing in degree rather than kind, are experienced by 
 the rural clergy. While your Lordship sympathises 
 with these working clergy and masters, and awards 
 to them the credit which is so justly their due, you 
 will regret that the results of such exertion are so 
 often inadequate, and you will perceive how much the 
 
16 
 
 Church would gain, if wc were able to direct this zeal 
 to other objects, by leaving to the State the erection 
 of school-rooms, and the sustentation of our schools. 
 
 But this is a minor consideration ; what I wish 
 to do is to call your Lordship's especial attention 
 to the fact, that while we have good schools, admi- 
 rable schools, of which we cannot speak too highly, 
 yet education is at the minimum there^ where it is 
 wanted most. It is a gross delusion to represent the 
 great mass of the people of this country as being 
 under a state of efficient education ; and from the 
 want of education the condition of the working classes 
 is every day growing worse. The practical man 
 acquiesces at once in the truth of the assertion of 
 Bishop Butler, that "if this" (the art of printing) " be 
 a blessing, we ought to let the poor man share it 
 with us. And if we do not, it is certain how little 
 soever it is attended to, that they will be upon a 
 greater disadvantage upon many accounts, especially 
 in populous places, than they were in the dark ages, 
 for they will be more comparatively ignorant than 
 they were then ; and the ordinary affairs of the 
 world are now put in a way which requires that they 
 should have some knowledge of letters, which was not 
 the case then ; and therefore, to bring up the poor in 
 their former ignorance, now this knowledge is so 
 much more common and wanted, would be, not to 
 keep them in the same, but to put them in a lower 
 condition of life than they were formerly." 
 
 The truth of this observation of our great meta- 
 physician and divine is, as I have said, at once 
 perceived by the working clergy in manufacturing 
 
17 
 
 districts. The class of persons who formerly were 
 accustomed to hide themselves in the deep recesses of 
 a forest, under the leadership of a Robin Hood or a 
 Rob Roy, and who mingled with their outlawry some 
 generosity of feeling and respect for religion, are now 
 to be found in the still more gloomy alleys and back 
 streets of our large towns, where they obtain a pre- 
 carious livelihood by pilfering and begging ; adding 
 to inherited vice the dissipation of cities, and to their 
 natural ferocity a surly infidelity. These are the 
 persons, and such as these, who are ready at a mo- 
 ment's notice for turbulence and mischief. And for 
 the command of these licentious hosts, leaders are 
 provided under the present system of inadequate 
 education. To meet the wants of those who are 
 endowed by nature with energy of character, or who 
 have parents wise enough to perceive the advantages 
 they secure for their offspring by the culture of 
 their minds, there are, as I have observed, a certain 
 number of good schools. And through these, there 
 are among the working classes many intelligent men, 
 unwearied in the pursuit of that knowledge which 
 a cheap literature supplies, gifted with powers of 
 mind which have been cultivated to a considerable 
 extent, and with a natural eloquence, colloquial and 
 provincial, which has a peculiar charm for those whom 
 they aspire to lead, and who, from want of education, 
 can scarcely understand any other mode of address. 
 They are employed, very frequently, as preachers of 
 temperance or sedition, and sometimes of both, though 
 they form a class from whom, under a better system, 
 schoolmasters might be selected. The}^ are qualified 
 
18 
 
 for almost any office to which they may be elected, 
 and are regarded by the operatives as the representa- 
 tives of their order. When trade is bad their influ- 
 ence for good or evil is unduly great ; and if there 
 did not exist suspicion and jealousy among themselves, 
 they would be more dangerous mem])ers of society 
 than they are. I know that many of them are men 
 estimable in the relations of private life, but they are 
 dangerous to the community, because they are dis- 
 contented, not always without cause, and because 
 tiieir influence is too great, and their power unconsti- 
 tutional. This influence and power they possess 
 because, by the superiority of their education, they 
 are unduly elevated above persons in their own 
 sphere of life, and they can only be brought back to 
 their proper level by making education what it is now 
 very far from being — universal. 
 
 This brings me to remark, in passing, that the 
 subject of compulsory education is one which is 
 worthy of the serious consideration of a Christian 
 statesman. No compulsion can of course be resorted 
 to which would interfere with the liberty of the 
 subject ; but there are many indirect and constitu- 
 tional methods of forcing unwilling parents to extend 
 to their children a blessing which is as beneficial to 
 the children themselves as to the public. The 
 children of many of those persons to whom allusion 
 lias already been made arc sent out every day to beg 
 by their parents, and they are punished unless, by 
 begging or stealing, they bring home at night 
 a specific sum of money. In vain do the clergy 
 penetrate the dark lanes where these persons reside, 
 and entreat them to send their cliildren to school : 
 
19 
 
 they are put oft' in quiet times with civil speeches : 
 and in times of turbulence they are, perhaps, pelted 
 and abused. Now it might surely be enacted that, if 
 a child under a certain age be found begging, the 
 magistrates might send it to the industrial school 
 attached to the workhouse, where it could be fed and 
 clothed as well as educated. It would not be just to 
 compel a parent while professing to support his child, 
 to send it to school ; there would be validity in the 
 excuse that the services of the child are required to 
 contribute towards the expenses of the household: 
 but the parent would have no cause for complaint if, 
 besides providing for his child a good education, we 
 were also to make provision for its sustenance. A 
 boy or girl found begging might be thus appropriated 
 by the state and sent to the workhouse, so that the 
 punishment of the parent would be the blessing of 
 the child. 
 
 There are, also, occupations in which the labour of 
 children at a tender age is valuable, and has even a 
 tendency to supplant that of persons of riper years, or 
 of adults. The principle of protecting these cliildren 
 from labour before the physical structure is capable 
 without injury of supporting fatigue, and of pre- 
 venting that labour from being too much protracted, 
 has not only been adopted by the legislature, but pro- 
 vision has been made that such children shall attend 
 school during certain hours of the day Avhich, under 
 these regulations, are withdrawn from the period of 
 work. So far, the education oi' these children is re- 
 quired by the law ; and the masters of the schools in 
 which they are instructed may be deprived of the 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 power of giving the required certificates, if they are 
 grossly imcompetent or immoral. 
 
 Valuable as these regulations are, in as far as they 
 contain the recognition of a principle of vast import- 
 ance, it is obvious that, as the visitation of the schools 
 is confined to the factory inspectors, already over- 
 burthened with duties of a very difi'erent kind, and 
 not necessarily possessing any peculiar qualifications 
 for this function, the power of disallowing to a school- 
 master the privilege of issuing certificates must be 
 practically almost inoperative. 
 
 This power should be vested in the inspectors of 
 schools. They should be required to examine every 
 factory child receiving education at least once every 
 year, and to certify his progress. A public record 
 of the results of this examination should be kept, and 
 every master who is not enabled to procure for his 
 scholars a certain reasonable rate of advancement in 
 their acquirements should, by that fact be disqualified 
 from further charge of their instruction. Moreover, 
 with respect to the children, wherein would consist the 
 impolicy or injustice of requiring, with respect to every 
 child of thirteen years of age, that he should have at- 
 tained a certain reasonable amount of proficiency to 
 be certified by the inspector of schools, before he 
 should be permitted to work full time in the mill, and 
 that in default of such certificate, school attendance 
 during three hours daily should be continued ? 
 
 The application of this principle may be difficult 
 in souk; employments ; but I heartily join with the 
 maimfacturers of our northern counties in disclaim- 
 ing for them any ])ec,uruir negligence ; and I see no 
 
21 
 
 reason why such regulations should not be attached 
 to rural employments. 
 
 If the number of the masters and assistants were 
 increased, so as to meet the educational wants of the 
 country, we should have also a body of men who out 
 of school hours might act as educational missionaries, 
 by going to the parents and entreating them to send 
 their children to school. In every schoolroom a 
 register should be kept of all the children in the dis- 
 trict, that the number of those who ought to be in 
 attendance may be discoverable at once. This could 
 be easily accomplished through the civil registrars. 
 
 Your Lordship Avill perceive the object of my pre- 
 sent observations. Education is now general: we 
 should endeavour to make it universal ; and this, I 
 feel sure, cannot be accomplished without more direct 
 interference on the part of the state than any which 
 now exists. Unless there be state schools, any such 
 compulsory education as that to which I have alluded 
 would be utterly impracticable. But, even setting 
 aside this important consideration, it is impossible for 
 voluntary associations to meet the wants of the nation 
 by a sufficient supply of school-rooms and competent 
 ]nasters. We hear the officers of the National Society, 
 and persons most interested in its welfare, discoursing 
 complacently on the special fund which, cliiefly 
 through the exertions of that judicious and indefati- 
 gable lay member of the Committee, Mr. Mathison, 
 was established in 1842. The appeal on behalf of the 
 special fund, in aid of the operations of the National 
 Society, was made under a combination of advan- 
 tageous circumstances, whk^h can scarcely occur 
 
 B '} 
 
22 
 
 again. 1 admit that the sum collected ^vas a large 
 one, although it fell ver}- far short of the expectations 
 of those who desired to see a Church mov.ement on an 
 extensive scale. The sum of 151,985/. is certainly a 
 large sum to be raised by begging ; but when we re- 
 member that this is all that could be raised under 
 circumstances the most favourable, those who are 
 earnest in the cause of education must perceive that 
 we must rely for support upon something more sub- 
 stantial than the uncertain and capricious charity of 
 individuals. 
 
 I doubt whether those who make such loud boast- 
 ings of what has been done (positively much, but, as 
 compared with the wants of the country, little,) are 
 aware what the wants of the country are. I will, 
 therefore, enter briefly upon the subject, and call the 
 attention of your Lordship and the public to the real 
 state of the case. * 
 
 It will be admitted on all hands that there ought to 
 be a school in every district capable of accommodat- 
 ing scholars in proportion of one in six of the popu- 
 lation, f In parishes of 1000 inhabitants there ought 
 
 * The estimate is founded on Mr. Cousins' account of the state 
 of education in Germany and Holland ; on statistical documents 
 relating to those countries and to France ; on information con- 
 tained in the minutes of the Committee of Council on Education 
 for 1839, explaining tlie places of school-houses published in that 
 volume ; and tlic Dutch and German Schools, by Mr. Ilickson. 
 
 f Tlie reports of tlie Governments of the New England States 
 say tiiat one in four of their population is at school. If from this 
 number be deducted tliose attending superior and evening schools, 
 one in six may be taken as a sufTicicnt attendance I'or the children 
 of the working classes, of the iiunible farmers, shopkeepers, clerks, 
 and superior artisans, all of whom would send their children to 
 
23 
 
 to be a boys' school and a girls' school. In parishes 
 of 2000 there should be, in addition, an infant school. 
 It will, I trust, be admitted that no master should 
 have charge of more than sixty scholars, unless aided 
 by an apprentice. In every school containing more 
 than eighty scholars, the master should be aided by 
 an apprentice ; and for every additional eighty scholars, 
 by a junior master trained in a Normal school, and by 
 an apprentice also. 
 
 I take it for granted that these will be admitted by 
 every one to be reasonable requirements, if there is 
 to be any thing like a general education of the people. 
 With a smaller number of masters it is impossible to 
 educate the children properly ; impossible to adopt that 
 moral training which is an essential part of a good 
 education, and which, under the monitorial system, 
 cannot be accomplished. The mind of the educated 
 must be brought to bear upon the uneducated ; and 
 more, much more, must be done, than merely to as- 
 certain that prescribed lessons are accurately learned. 
 I have, I believe, stated the minimum of what is re- 
 fjuired ; and I proceed to remark that the population 
 of England and Wales now amounts to at least 
 16,000,000, and by the foregoing estimate the number 
 of children who ought to be receiving education will 
 be 2,660,000. If the schools be supposed to contain, 
 on the average, 160 children, the number of school- 
 l)uildings required for England and Wales will be 
 16,625. \i^ for the sake of simplicity, masters only 
 
 an efficient elementary school. If the schools were thus efficient 
 even children of the higher classes might attend them, as in 
 Scotland, and the blending of the cliildren of all classes is a thing 
 much to be desired. 
 
 B 4 
 
24 
 
 be spoken of, the number of teachers required for 
 these schools may be more readily computed. In 
 each of these schools a master, an assistant master, 
 and two apprentices, would be required, if the most 
 efficient system were adopted; or 16,025 masters, a 
 similar number of assistant-masters, and 33,250 ap- 
 prentices. 
 
 If an inferior plan of organization were adopted ; 
 if no assistant masters were employed, and each school 
 were provided with a head master and with one ap- 
 prentice for every forty scholars beyond the first 
 forty taught by the master, then 16,625 schools, 
 containing on an average each 160 scholars, would 
 require 16,625 masters, and 49,875 apprentices, for 
 the efficient instruction of 2,660,000 scholars. On 
 this plan, the elder apprentices would supply the place 
 of assistant masters. 
 
 The latter estimate, as involving the lowest expen- 
 diture, shall now be taken as the basis of further cal- 
 culations. Under a well organized training in ele- 
 mentary and Normal schools, the most proficient and 
 the best disposed scholars would be appointed to the 
 vocation of teachers, and at the termination of their 
 apprenticeship would receive two years' training in a 
 Normal school. Under such a system it might be 
 presumed that every master Avould enter upon his 
 duties at the early age of 21 or 22 years. Having 
 regard to the expectancy of life at that period, to the 
 probable duration of health, and to the change of 
 pursuits consequent upon the influence of society on 
 the career of the masters of schools as a class, the 
 average period of service for each master cannot be 
 
25 
 
 estimated at more than sixteen years. An annual 
 suj^ply of 07ie thousand masters would therefore be 
 required for the elementary schools in England and 
 Wales. It must be borne in mind, however, that no 
 account has been taken of the number of mistresses 
 required, as they have been merged in the estimate 
 for apprentices, and therefore if mistresses be included, 
 the number of principal teachers necessary would 
 certainly be not less than fifteen hundred yearly. 
 
 If all the masters admitted into Normal schools 
 were to pass through an apprenticeship of five years 
 in elementary schools, the period of training in the 
 Normal schools might be limited to two years, Avhich, 
 according to Mr. Coleridge's able statement, must be 
 too short a time to those who have not had the ad- 
 \ant;iges of a primary education. 
 
 In this course of trainino- each Normal school miaht 
 contain one hundred students without materially in- 
 terfering with the moral discipline, by the assem- 
 blage of too great numbers. Two thousand students, 
 under training for two years, would render neces- 
 sary the establishment of twenty Normal schools for 
 one hundred students each. Or, if mistresses be in- 
 cluded, three thousand students would require thirty 
 Normal schools. 
 
 Having given this statistical sketch of the number 
 of scholars, masters, apprentices, students, and Nor- 
 mal schools required under this scheme, the whole 
 annual expenses may now be computed. 
 
 Supposing stiU, for the sake of simplicity, the schools 
 to be conducted only by masters ; it will be requisite 
 to make some addition to the average salary of the 
 
2H 
 
 iiiMSters, ill consideration of the additional salary re- 
 quired for a mistress in one half of these schools. If 
 the average salary which the master ought to receive 
 be stated as 80/. with a house, and that of the mis- 
 tress as 40/. ; and considering that half the schools 
 (i.e. the rural) require only a master, the average 
 salary of the principal teachers may be taken as 100/. 
 The annual expense for books, fuel, light, repairs, 
 &c., would be on the average 30/. Three apprentices 
 would be required in schools of 160 scholars without 
 a mistress, and two Avith a mistress. The apprentices' 
 stipends may be estimated, on the average, as 15/. 
 each year for each apprentice. 
 
 The animal outlay of the schools would, therefore, 
 be as follows : — ^ 
 
 16,625 Schools with salaries of 100/. to })iincipal £ 
 
 teachers 1,662,500 
 
 16,625 Schools for general annual expenses, 30/. 
 
 each 498,750 
 
 8,312 Schools with two apprentices, at 15/. each, 
 
 or 30/. 249,360 
 
 8,312 Schools with three apprentices, at 15/. 
 
 each, or 45/. 374,040 
 
 Total general outlay on elementary schools - £^'2,784,650 
 
 It is presumed that 2,660,000 children would be in 
 attendance on these schools. The school pence re- 
 ceived from the children ordinarily vary from one 
 penny for each child to threepence, fourpence, or 
 sometimes sixpence a week. The lowest rate is most 
 general. If we presume that the entire population of 
 school age are at school, and take into account the 
 fluctuations of attendance, it would probably be a 
 
27 
 
 high estimate to suppose, that three-halfpence* would 
 be received weekly from each child, upon a payment 
 during attendance, of twopence per week ; or, omit- 
 ting the holidays, six shillings a year would be thus 
 received. 
 
 If the income from voluntary subscriptions be es- 
 timated at one-third more than the school pence : 
 
 £ 
 2,660,000 children paying six shillings f per 
 annum, or l^d. per week, would provide an in- 
 come of •■ - - - - 798,000 
 Voluntary subscriptions rate at one-third more - 1,064,000 
 
 Together - -£1,862,000 
 
 The expenses of Normal schools would average 
 50/. annually for each student, or for two thousand 
 candidate masters, 100,000/., and for one thousand 
 mistresses, in training, 50,000/. 
 
 The total annual outlay would, therefore, be 
 2,784,650/. :-150,000/., or 2,934,650/.; and, deducting 
 the whole probable income from this sum, a balance of 
 1 ,072,650/. remains to be provided for, by endowments, 
 or from annual grants of Parliament, or parochial 
 taxation. 
 
 As the tendency of some of these sources of supply 
 
 * Supposing that the average attendance of scholars is 25 per 
 cent, below those actually entered on the school books, this rate 
 (l^d.) involves a payment of 2d. per week from the scholars attend- 
 ing the schools. 
 
 f The payment of pence on the part of the parents excludes 
 from our schools the children of parents who are indifferent about 
 their education. It excludes some of the very children whom it is 
 most important to educate. Or rather, it would exclude them if, 
 in many cases, the pence wei-e not paid for them by some bene- 
 volent fund. 
 
28 
 
 is to dry up the voluntary contributions, the account 
 of the balance to be thus provided for might be liable 
 to increase. But, I ask, my Lord, who that knows 
 any thing of the difficulty of raising money by private 
 subscriptions, can be so sanguine as to rely wholly on 
 voluntary contributions for the annual supply of two 
 millions of money ? 
 
 What has been stated has reference to the annual 
 expenses only : as to the primary outlay, I am unable 
 to ascertain with accuracy what has been done, — 
 done perfectly and completely. But let us consider 
 what the primary outlay would be if the education of 
 this country were to be made as efficient as it is in 
 Prussia and Holland. 
 
 The cost of tlie buildings and furniture of each 
 Normal school would l)e at least 15,000/.; and if 
 twenty were established for the training of masters, 
 and ten for mistresses, 450,000/. would be required 
 for the fabric and furniture of Normal schools alone. 
 Then, again, 16,625 elementary school buildings for 
 160 scholars, -svith a master's dwelling, would each cost 
 500Z. (or 8,312,500/.), or upwards of eight millions: 
 now, admitting that in this particular department 
 much has been done, that schools, and often good 
 schools, have been erected, I venture to ask whether 
 we have l)y voluntary contributions expended eight 
 millions of money in school buildings ? The answer 
 to this question alone will show what remains to be 
 done in this one department of the educational plan 
 alone, — that one pai-ticulsir point to Avliich the Na- 
 tional Society has of late almost exclusively directed 
 its attention. 
 
29 
 
 If the attendance of one in six of the population at 
 elementary schools be deemed too high an average, 
 let one in eight be adopted, and then we may reduce 
 the foregoing calculations as follows : — 
 
 Population of England and Wales - - - 16,000,000 
 Number of scholars who ought to be in attend- 
 ance, 1 in 8 of the population - . - 2,000,000 
 
 As over the same area of country, scholars, fewer 
 
 in number by one-fourth than in the former estimate, 
 
 are to be distributed, it is of course necessary to 
 
 suppose that each school would contain a smaller 
 
 average number. If taken as one fourth less, or 120 
 
 scholars on the average, then the number of schools 
 
 required 
 
 £ 
 
 For 2,000,000 scholars, would be - - 16,666 
 
 One Master to each school at 100/. - - 1,666,600 
 
 Annual expenses of each school at 20/. - 333,320 
 One half of the schools with an apprentice 
 
 of 15/. 124,995 
 
 One half, with two apprentices at 30/. - 249,990 
 
 The annual expenses of the Normal schools 150,000 
 
 So that the total would still be - - - £2,541,571 
 
 £ 
 The annual income from school pence for 
 
 2,000,000 of scholars at 6s. a year, or \^d. 
 
 a week, would be 600,000 
 
 From voluntary subscriptions, one third more 800,000 
 
 Total income 1,400,000 
 
 Balance to be derived from endowment, or 
 annual grants of Parliament, or from local 
 taxation 1,141,571 
 
 2,541,571 
 
30 
 
 If the assistant master had been placed in each 
 school at a salary of 40/. a year, the estimate of 
 annual outlay would have been raised 25/. for each 
 school, or (1G,6G6 x 25) 416,G50/., making the an- 
 nual expenditure to be provided for nearly 3,000,000/., 
 and the deficiency, after the probable sources of 
 income are exhausted, upwards of 1,500,000/. 
 
 That no part of this estimate is exaggerated may 
 be ascertained from the follo^ving comparisons : — 
 Switzerland, with a population just equal to that of 
 London, has thirteen Normal schools. 
 
 The population of France in 1843 was 34,230,178. 
 
 The number of Communes provided with a 
 
 primary school ------ 34,578 
 
 Popuhition of the Communes so provided - 33,080,002 
 
 Number of Communes not so provided - - 2,460 
 
 Population of Communes not provided with 
 
 schools 1,160,176 
 
 Total number of primary schools, elementary and 
 superior, for boys and girls, established in 
 
 France, in 1843 59,838 
 
 France has 76 Normal schools for the education 
 of school masters, and 16 for the education of 
 school mistresses, or altogether - - - 92 
 
 The course of instruction extends to two years in 
 49 of these schools, and to three years in the rest of 
 the 76 schools for masters ; G2 are said to be large 
 and excellent schools ; the remaining 14 are inferior. 
 The Avhole number of cliildren admitted into the 
 primary schools of France in 1843 was 3,1G4,2U7 ; of 
 this number those admitted gratuitously amounted to 
 7G3,820. Those who paid something monthly for 
 their education, 2,400,477. 
 
31 
 
 The population of Prussia in 1831 was - - 13,000,000 
 In that year the number of children under 14 was 4,767,072 
 Of which the number of those between 7 and 14 
 
 was 2,043,030 
 
 Of these the number attending schools was - 2,021,421 
 
 For the education of these children Prussia, in 1831, 
 proposed to establish 27,749 primary schools. 
 
 For the education of the masters of these primary- 
 schools, 33 Normal schools have been established. 
 In 24 of these Normal schools there were 1500 stu- 
 dents, and of these 897 remain two years at scjiool ; 
 483, three years ; and for the remaining 120 the time 
 is not fixed. 
 
 The Normal schools of Prussia supply 750 teachers 
 annually for the charge of primary schools. 
 
 The population of Bavaria in 1828 was about 
 4,000,000. Seven Normal schools existed, and 5394 
 public or national schools, which were taught by 7114 
 teachers, and the schools of all classes contained 
 498,000 pupils, or one eighth of the population. 
 
 In the Austrian dominions, in 1838, the population 
 amounted to 23,652,000. The number of children 
 between 5 and 13 years was 2,886,441 ; the number 
 of primary schools, 19,536. The total number of 
 children in actual attendance, including repetition 
 schools, was 2,338,985. The number of teachers was, 
 
 Religious ..... 13,1821 
 Literary .... 26,842 J ' 
 
 Tlie cost of the schools was 2,795,791 florins. There 
 was one school for every 856 inhabitants. Austria 
 has 14 Normal schools. 
 
 In Holland the population in 1835 amounted to 
 
32 
 
 2,528,387. There were in tliiit year of public and 
 private primary schools, 2,832. The number of 
 children attending the schools was 304,459. 
 
 In Hanover the population is 1,684,000. There 
 are 3,428 primary schools, containing 214,524 scho- 
 lars, or 1 in 7*9 of the population. There are six 
 Normal schools. 
 
 The population of Denmark in 1838 was 2,032,265, 
 the number of children of age to go to school, 
 300,000; the number of elementary schools was 
 4,600 ; the number of scholars in attendance on 
 them, 278,500 ; so that the whole population was re- 
 ceiving instruction. 
 
 And now having stated what has been done, what 
 our probable resources are, and what is requisite to 
 be done in order to place the education of the people 
 of our own country in the same advantageous posi- 
 tion as education in other nations, 1 think that we 
 must come to the conclusion, that without some more 
 direct interference on the part of the State than that 
 Avhich now exists, we cannot succeed in the great 
 object which every patriot as well as every Christian 
 must have at heart. Upon the present system of 
 educating through the instrumentality of voluntary 
 associations, assisted by the State, there is no proba- 
 bility of our obtaining a sufficient number of efficient 
 primary schools, or that systematic training for the 
 great mass of the people which is an essential part of 
 education. That the present system has been tried, 
 every one must be glad, because unless the experi- 
 ment had been made, the persons in this country, 
 whether Churclimen (^r l^issenters, who are earnest 
 
ill their reli 0:1011, would never have been satisfied. 
 With one voice, the Church and Dissent demanded 
 that they might be permitted to attempt that univer- 
 sal education of the people to which both parties had 
 directed their attention before the question of Educa- 
 tion became a popular one. The two parties have 
 acted not so much in a spirit of opposition to each 
 other as in a spirit of generous rivalry. The experi- 
 ment has been made, and it has failed : I mean failed 
 so far as to convince practical men that further mea- 
 sures are absolutely necessary, and that the State 
 must effect what voluntary associations will never 
 accomplish. 
 
 Let us, then, see what steps may be taken, without 
 violation of religious principle, and, if so, what steps 
 ouglit to be taken. In order to do this, let us ascertain 
 why there has been so strong an objection on the part 
 of religious men, whether Churchmen or Dissenters, 
 against every proposal which has hitherto been made 
 in favour of a State Education. 
 
 Statesmen, as well as others, will always find that 
 it is the part of sound policy, as well as of honesty, to 
 " tell the truth and shame the devil." When a sus- 
 picion exists that falsehood lurks at the bottom of a 
 measure proposed for our acceptance, repugnance to 
 it is straightway excited. If the State promises what 
 it is quite clear the State is unable to give, then, 
 because its promises are known to be false, a preju- 
 dice is excited against its proposals. It is abundantly 
 clear that the vState cannot give a i^eligious education, 
 as the word religion is understood by unsophisticated 
 minds. The assertion that it is desirable that the 
 
34 
 
 State should educate, and that its education must be 
 a religious one, Avhich is, as I shall show, in one sense 
 true, must greatly awaken suspicion when the asser- 
 tion is made by those who are known to have no reli- 
 gion, properly speaking, themselves. It is suspected 
 that an evasion is intended, and that it is meant to keep 
 the word of promise to the ear, but break it to the hope. 
 There is an instinct in the religious mind, which 
 excites a suspicion that the principle is enunciated 
 merely to silence opposition ; and the question at 
 once occurs to the practical English mind (to which 
 religion is not a sentiment, but a reality); when you 
 speak of religion, mhat religion do you intend ? The 
 Churchman asks, is education to be based on my reli- 
 gion ? if it be, I am ready to sacrifice every thing in 
 order to work with the State. But no ; this cannot 
 be ; for this would exclude a large and influential 
 portion of the community, the Protestant Dissenters. 
 And then comes the question from the Dissenters ; 
 will you base education upon protestantism, or the 
 admission of every species of doctrine and opinion 
 except those which are peculiar to the Church of 
 Rome? This cannot be; because it would lead to the 
 rejection of Roman Catholics. Will you base religion, 
 then, on the Bible, and the Bible only ? The difficulty 
 now occurs as to the version to be used, whether 
 the authorised version, the Roman Catholic, or the 
 " Unitarian" version. What, then, is the religion the 
 Statesman will give us as the basis of education ? 
 Upon investigating the subject, we find that a notion 
 prevails among careless people, that religion may be 
 treated as either general or special: special rehgion 
 
35 
 
 is doctrinal, and general religion is some system of 
 morals which, being divested of all doctrine, looks so 
 like no religion at all, that religious persons at once 
 perceive, that when people talk of an education based 
 on such a religion, they seek to deceive themselves as 
 well as us, and utter a falsehood. 
 
 Now all really Christian persons must stand opposed 
 to any system of education which being professedly 
 based upon this general religion, which is no religion, 
 will in fact unchristianise this country. To separate 
 the morality of the Gospel from the doctrines of the 
 Gospel, ever}^ one who knows what the Gospel is, 
 knows to be impossible. The doctrines of grace and 
 of good works are so interwoven that they must stand 
 or fall together. Faith and works, doctrine and 
 morality, are like body and soul; the pretended 
 mother may be Avilling to divide them, they who know 
 what the Gospel is, like the true mother before the 
 throne of Solomon, will suffer any affliction before they 
 will consent to it. Satan could devise no scheme for 
 the extirpation of Christianity, more crafty or more 
 sure than this, which would substitute a sj'stem of 
 morals for religion. The generality of mankind con- 
 tent themselves always with the lowest degree of 
 religion, which will silence their conscience and aid 
 their self-deception : they desire to believe as little as 
 they may without peril to their souls, and to do only 
 what the majority of their neighbours say they must. 
 On this general religion, which is no religion, — on 
 this semblance of religion, this shadow put for the 
 substance, the majority of the people of England will, 
 under such a system of education, be taught to rest as 
 
 c 2 
 
sufficient. Instructed that this will suffice, tliey will 
 proceed no further. They will be brought up to 
 suppose that Christian doctrine is a thing indifferent, 
 an exercise for the ingenuity of theologians, but of no 
 practical importance. They will thus be educated in 
 a state of indifference to the Christian religion ; in- 
 difference will lead to contempt, contempt to hostility: 
 they will regard the Blood of the Covenant as an un- 
 holy thing, and crucify afresh the Lord of Life. Such 
 a system of education would be indeed like snow, it 
 miu'ht reflect lio:ht, but could not be a source of heat. 
 I believe that all religious sects and parties will, on 
 this ground, combine to resist any State education 
 which is professedly religious ; and I believe that it is 
 because statesinen have supposed it necessary, in 
 order to conciliate religious persons, ^vhich they have 
 entirely failed to do, by talking of their education as 
 based upon religion, that the strong feeling of oppo- 
 sition to State education has been excited. But their 
 position will be changed, if they tell us that while the 
 State recognises the necessity of a religious education, 
 it can itself ordy give a literary and scientific education ; 
 and that it will obtain from others a blessing which it 
 cannot confer itself. It makes an essential difference 
 whether a part is put for the whole, which is the fact 
 under the systems hitherto proposed ; or whether the 
 literary education of the State be declared of itself in- 
 sufficient, and only one department of a great Avork. 
 If the State says that it will make provision for lite- 
 rary or secular instruction, calling in the joint aid of 
 the Church and Dissenters to complete the education ; 
 if it divides education into two departments, assuming 
 
37 
 
 one to itself, and offering every facility to those who 
 labour in the other department, a great portion of the 
 objections to which I have alluded will be annihilated. 
 Nor can there be any objection on the part of the 
 Church to admit Dissenters to an ecjuality in this re- 
 spect ; because, so far as education is concerned, this 
 question is already settled : the State does assist both 
 the Church and Dissent at the present time, and, con- 
 sequently, w^hat I shall presently suggest will only be 
 another application of a principle already conceded. 
 The notion is now exploded Avhich once prevailed, 
 that the Church of England has an exclusive claim to 
 pecuniary support on the ground of its being the 
 Establishment. Those who, like myself, are called 
 High Churchmen, have little or no sympathy with 
 mere Establishmentarians. In what way the Church 
 of England is established, even in this portion of the 
 British empire, it is very difficult to say. Our ances- 
 tors endowed the Church, not by legislative enactment, 
 but by the piety of individuals ; even royal benefactors 
 acted in their individual, not their corporate, capacity, 
 and their grants have been protected, like j^roperty 
 devised to other corporations, by the legislature. At 
 the Conquest the bishops were, on account of the lands 
 they held, made barons, and invested with the rights 
 as well as the responsibilities of feudal lords. It is 
 as barons, not as bishops, that seats in the House of 
 Lords are held by some of our prelates; not by all, for 
 a portion of our hierarchy eminently distinguished for 
 learning, zeal, and piety, the colonial bishops, are ex- 
 cluded. The Church thus endowed and protected, 
 was once the Church of the whole nation : it was cor- 
 
38 
 
 rupted in the middle ages: it was reformed; and, as 
 the old Catholic Church, reformed, it remains among 
 us to this day, one of the great corporations of the 
 land. But it ceased to be the religion of the whole 
 nation when, many departing from it, a iuU toleration 
 of all denominations of Christianity was granted. It 
 exists, therefore, now, simply as one of the many cor- 
 porations of the country, claiming from the State, 
 like every other corporation, protection for its rights 
 and its property. It is a pure fiction to assert that 
 the State, by any act of parliament, has established 
 the Church of England, or any other form of Christi- 
 anity, to which it is exclusively bound to render pe- 
 cuniary support, or to afford any other support, than 
 such as every class of her Majesty's subjects have a 
 right to demand. This is proved by the impossibility 
 of producing any act of parliament by which this es- 
 tablishment was ordained. The Church has inherited 
 property, together with certain rights, and it has a 
 claim upon protection, precisely similar to the claim 
 for protection which may be urged by the Lord Mayor 
 and the Corporation of London, who are also invested 
 with certain rights and property handed down to them 
 from their predecessors. The Church has no more 
 claim for exclusive pecuniary aid from the State, or 
 for any pecuniary aid at all, than is possessed by any 
 other of those many corporations with which our 
 country abounds. To call upon Parliament to vote 
 any money for the exclusive support of the Church of 
 England, is to call upon Parliament to do what is un- 
 just. The taxes are collected from i)ersons of all 
 religions, and cannot be fairly expended for the ex- 
 
39 
 
 elusive maintenance of one. I may indeed, in passing, 
 observe, that the outcry is unjust which is sometimes 
 raised against Government for not establishing bishop- 
 rics in the Colonies. If the Government is to support 
 our bishops, it is equally bound to support prelates of 
 the Church of Rome, and Presbyterian ministers, and 
 by seeking, therefore, for such support, we should 
 only fare the worse. If the Church has a right to 
 demand protection from the State, the State has an 
 equal right to demand of the Church that, with her 
 ample endo^^^nents, she should make provision for her 
 wants without seeking grants from the public funds, 
 which are raised by the taxation of all the people. I 
 think that our Colonial bishops ought to be supported, 
 not merely by private subscriptions, but by the more 
 wealthy bishops at home : but, be this as it may, we 
 have certainly no right to make a demand for such a 
 purpose upon the State, And if the Church of 
 England claims a right to the exclusive education of 
 the people, it becomes her duty to seek to supply the 
 deficiency of the funds required, by appropriating her 
 property to this purpose. Our bishops are, on this 
 princi]3le, bound to go down to the House of Lords 
 and seek powers from the legislature to sell their 
 estates, and their example should be followed by the 
 more opulent of the inferior clergy. The help of the 
 laity would be then sufficient. It would be better 
 for the Church to have a pauperised hierarchy than 
 an uneducated j)eople ; and never could the hierarchy 
 be more respectable than when pauperised in such a 
 cause. But though I shrink not from declaring what 
 must be, and ought to be, the consequence of asserting 
 
 c 4 
 
40 
 
 the principle that the education of the people, secular 
 as well as religious, pertains exclusively to the Church, 
 I admit that such a measure is not to he required, 
 because the country -svill not accept the education of 
 the Church ; and for the religious education of those 
 who will receive education at our hands, we have at 
 present suthcient funds, though they are insufficient 
 for that Ayliich it is useless for the Church to attempt 
 — the general education of the people. 
 
 Having conceded and asserted the principle that in 
 any measure of education the State must admit the 
 co-operation of Dissenters as well as that of the Church ; 
 let us proceed to consider what religious men of all 
 parties would require before they would submit to the 
 direct interference of the State. They would require 
 a recognition on the part of the State of the solemn 
 importance of religious training, — training in what is 
 called special or doctrinal religion. Now, if the 
 State were to establish a school in which literary and 
 scientific instruction only should be given by the mas- 
 ter appointed by Government, would not this principle 
 be sufficiently atfirmed, provided it were required of 
 every child to bring on the ]\Ionday of every week a 
 certificate of his having attended the Sunday school of 
 his parish church, or of some place of worship legally 
 licensed, and also of his having attended ibr similar 
 religious instruction, at some period set apart during 
 the week ? Let this, then, be a principle laid down, — 
 that the State might endow schools in which instruc- 
 tion purely literary or secular should be imparted, with 
 due care to impress upon the minds of the children 
 the fact, that this instruction is not in itself sufficient ; 
 
41 
 
 but that, to complete the system of education, religious 
 instruction is also secured for them, in accordance 
 with those traditions whether of Church or of Dissent, 
 which they have received from their parents. 
 
 To effect this object, there should be attached to 
 every school thus established by the State a class- 
 room, in which the clergyman of the parish, or his 
 deputies might give religious instruction to his people, 
 on the afternoons of every Wednesday and Friday ; 
 another class-room being provided for a similar pur- 
 pose for dissenting ministers. Suppose this to be 
 done, in addition to the requiring of the children an 
 attendance at some Sunday school, and I do not ask 
 whether such an arrangement would be preferred to 
 any other by either party, for each party would pre- 
 fer having every thing in their own way; but I do 
 ask whether there could be any violation of principle 
 on either side ? I ask whether, for the sake of a great 
 national object, there might not be a sacrifice, not of 
 principle, but of prejudice on either side? 
 
 Leaving Dissenters to answer this question as they 
 may think lit, I must address myself, through your 
 Lordship, to Churchmen; and I will demand, in the 
 first place, what we shall lose, looking, not to the dig- 
 nity of the Establishment, which I regard as a question 
 beneath contempt, but to the propagation of Church 
 principles ; that is to say, of what we believe to be 
 pure religion and undefiled before God ? As to the 
 opportunities of religious instruction, there would be, 
 in most instances, a positive gain, from the fact, that 
 the minds of the children would be better pre- 
 pared by mental exercise to understand what might 
 
42 
 
 be said to thciii. It" we consider what is done now in 
 the way of religious education in National Schools, 
 generally speaking, and if we bear in mind that, owing 
 to the ambition of some of the chief managers of the 
 National Society, which induces them to bring under 
 their influence as many children as possible, the 
 secular instruction is much greater in proportion 
 than the religious, we shall find that under the pro- 
 posed arrangement there will be an actual gain. 
 By reference to the Time Table of the National 
 Society's Central Boys' School, as published in the 
 report, we shall find that two afternoons devoted 
 to religious instruction will afford us more time for 
 that department of education than we possess at 
 present ; and the benefit to the children will be great 
 in their being taught to distinguish between their 
 religious and their ordinary lessons. In the reli- 
 gious class-room they will be taught to apply to the 
 good of their souls the information they have re- 
 ceived in the school, and wrong impressions may bo 
 removed.* Immense, too, will be the gain of throwing 
 upon the clergy that department of education, which, 
 being now regarded as part of the routine business of 
 the school, is too often left to the master only. Wc 
 have, indeed, merely to refer to the reports of the in- 
 spectors to see how very unsatisfactory is the present 
 state of religious education in our day schools. 
 
 * It has been objected that a clever master of infidel principles 
 might introduce infidelity in his history, moral philosophy, natural 
 philosophy, or any other subject. But, as will be seen in another 
 place, it is contemplated to allow free access to the scliools at all 
 times to all persons, and a master thus abusing his trust would 
 soon be detected. On a complaint to the Government he would 
 be rtinovctl. 
 
43 
 
 The following are the answers returned from 120 
 schools in the Northern District, to inquiries issued 
 under the direction of the Committee of Privy Council ; 
 
 1. Holy Bible, read 
 daily ? 
 New Testament ? 
 
 Ill Class. 
 
 75 
 15 
 
 InGallery. 
 
 12 
 
 Each 
 other day. 
 
 11 
 
 Not at all. 
 
 7 
 
 In about twen- 
 ty schools, the 
 Scriptures are 
 read regularly 
 twice a-day. 
 
 2. Children taught 
 private prayer ? 
 
 Yes. 
 28 
 
 No. 
 92 
 
 
 
 These are pray- 
 ers additional 
 to the Lord's 
 Prayer, which 
 is almost al- 
 ways taught. 
 
 3. Instructed in 
 ChurchCatechism? 
 
 Well. 
 21 
 
 Tolerably. 
 
 87 
 
 Indiffer- 
 ently. 
 
 8 
 
 Not at all. 
 4 
 
 
 4. In the Liturgy 
 and Services of 
 the Church? 
 
 5 
 
 
 33 
 
 82 
 
 
 5. Inquiries made by 
 teachers, how far 
 children have pro- 
 fited by public or- 
 dinances of reli- 
 gion ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 45 
 
 No. 
 
 75 
 
 
 
 
 6. Progress of child- 
 ren in religious 
 knowledge in pro- 
 portion to the time 
 they have been at 
 school ? 
 
 Very good. 
 15 
 
 Good. 
 56 
 
 Moderate. 
 26 
 
 None. 
 23 
 
 
 7. School opened and 
 closed with prayer ? 
 
 Yes. 
 118 
 
 No. 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 The Inspector, after some commonplace remarks 
 on " the cause of thankfulness that the Word of God 
 is read daily in so great a number (five-sevenths) of 
 the schools ;" adds : " It will be seen, by a reference 
 
44 
 
 to the figures given above, tliat in far tlie greater 
 number of schools the Scriptures are read in classes 
 by the children, as one of their reading-lessons. This 
 is intended as, and doubtless is, in many cases, the 
 most simple means of religious instruction ; yet it 
 cannot be denied that in some schools it degenerates 
 into nothing more than a reading-lesson, with no 
 peculiar interest, nor profit, nor object. I have seen 
 cases where the task is gone through without a single 
 question being asked, and Avhere, when the chapter 
 was finished, the books were shut, and spelling com- 
 menced out of it ! I have seen other cases, where the 
 class has been left entirely under the charge of an 
 ignorant and thoughtless monitor; and when I have 
 inquired, ' What part of Scripture are you reading ? ' 
 the answer has been, ' Anywhere.' And it was true : 
 without any direction from the master, they read just 
 where the monitor pleased to ' set them on.' I found 
 one little class in the Epistle to the Galatians! In- 
 deed it is not unfrequently the case that the lower 
 classes are reading the Epistles ! It is obvious that 
 in these cases there can be no religious instruction, 
 nor peculiar benefit in reading the AVord of God. It 
 would seem desirable that a lesson in Scripture should 
 be conducted on a very difi'erent plan, and in a ^•ery 
 diflferent spirit." I presume that all persons will agree 
 with him on this point, and perhaps not a few con- 
 sider that his statements nullify his assertion that 
 there is any cause for congratulation that the Scrip 
 tures are read, when they are read to so little 
 profit. 
 
 He proceeds to remark that " in very few instances 
 
45 
 
 (not one-fourth of our schools) arc the chiklrcn taught 
 any prayers to repeat at home." He also mforms us 
 that " the Church Catechism is taught (with only four 
 exceptions) in all the schools which I have inspected. 
 The exceptions were these: — One, where, of 110 
 children, only 17 belonged to the Church of England ; 
 another, where (unless I misunderstood him entirely) 
 it was the wish of the incumbent ; a third, where 
 everything was in much confusion from peculiar cir- 
 cumstances; the fourth, where, though the majority 
 of children belonged to our Church, the Committee of 
 Management were Dissenters, and did not allow it to 
 form a part of the school course. In several parishes, 
 chiefly agricultural, it is taught twice a week, on 
 Wednesdays and Fridays ; in some only on the latter 
 day. In a considerable number of schools it is re- 
 peated, whole or in part, every day; in some instances 
 twice each day, in the morning and afternoon ; but 
 these are not of the number who are ' well-instructed ' 
 in it ; they have, it seems, repeated it too often, merely 
 as a repetition ; they have said the Catechism, but 
 have not been catechised. 
 
 "And, I believe, that what I liave said above with 
 regard to direct Scriptural instruction, may be ap- 
 plied equally to instruction in the Catechism. Chil- 
 dren are frequently taught it by rote." 
 
 "The answer," he observes, " to the 4th question in 
 religious instruction, is far from being satisfactory. It 
 tells us that not a twentieth part of our chililren are 
 tolerably instructed in tlie Liturgy and Services of 
 the Church ; that only about one-third have been 
 taught at all what is the peculiar character, and what 
 
46 
 
 the meaTiing, and fitness, and beauty of the Liturgy 
 of that Cliurch to whicli they belong." 
 
 Such is the report from the Northern District, and 
 on reference to other reports we shall find the state- 
 ments equally unsatisfactory. I may refer especially 
 to the able report of Mr. Bellairs, which is more 
 business-like than those of the other clerical inspec- 
 tors. 
 
 Now I ask, my Lord, can it be said that religious 
 education is given in such schools as these ? Is it 
 not a mere mockery to tell persons that there is a re- 
 ligious education given in our National Schools, be- 
 cause the children are permitted to dog's-ear a Bible ? 
 Is it possible that a religious education can be given 
 in our National Schools, conducted, as the majority 
 of them are, by one master, or mistress, and a set of 
 monitors from ten to thirteen years of age ? Is not 
 the education almost irreligious when instruction is 
 given on some important points of theology, and yet 
 no care is taken with respect to spiritual training ? 
 For religious education we require more than the 
 Bible, more than the Prayer Book ; we require the 
 living Soul of the Instructor, sanctified by grace, to 
 come into spiritual contact Avith the soul of the person 
 taught : the educated and religious mind must be 
 brought to bear upon the mind untrained and uncul- 
 tivated. We require to have general principles applied 
 to individual character ; and to say that in our Na- 
 tional Schools we are giving a religious education until 
 we obtain in each school a master for not more than 
 30 or 40 children, is to assert what is not true. That 
 there are many, very many, National Schools, in 
 
47 
 
 which the highest religious instruction is given, I 
 know ; but we cannot say this of the majority. 
 
 Do I say, then, that there is no religious education 
 in our large manufacturing districts, except in the 
 neighbourhood of the wealthy ? No, indeed. We 
 may bless God that we not only possess a system of 
 religious training, but that we are year by year 
 visibly improving upon it. But the religious educa- 
 tion is given to the people in our Sunday schools. 
 The National Schools are, in fact, only nurseries for 
 our Sunday schools ; they are only what Government 
 schools would be. The mainstay of religious educa- 
 tion is to be found in our Sunday schools.* The most 
 
 * According to the statement of the Rural Dean of Castle Camps, 
 in Mr. Allen's report, it appears to be the same in agricultural 
 parishes. He says, " Situated as the clergy are, they ai'c for the 
 most part obliged to make the Sunday school the main point, and 
 therefore the daily schools do not alFord a fair criterion of the 
 state of education. For the most part we can now collect but few 
 children beyond ten years of age, and the greater part of them are 
 much below that age. — The greater part of the daily schools are 
 in fact infant schools ; so much so that in this parish (Castle 
 Camps), four years ago, having consolidated the schools Avhich 
 were in different parts of the parish, I have felt it right to separate 
 them again, as the children were so young that the school during 
 a good part of the winter was in a great measure deserted ; and 
 with our present teachers, I think them better taught in small 
 schools than in large ones, I collected my Sunday school for Mr. 
 Allen to examine, and he expressed himself pleased with it. To 
 the head classes of this I devote my chief attention ; and i)erhaps 
 I may mention, that in the course of my attendance on the sick, I 
 never met with such instances of ignorance as were common some 
 years ago With regard to this county, great improve- 
 ment has taken place within a few years ; and during the past 
 yeai", greater grants have been made by the Cambridge Board than 
 at any former period. In a great number of parishes in this 
 county, if school-rooms are built, it must be in a great measure 
 
48 
 
 eariK'sit, tlie most devoted, the most pious of our 
 several congregations are accustomed mth meritori- 
 ous zeal to dedicate themselves to this great work. 
 All classes are blended together ; ricli and poor, one 
 with another, rejoice to undertake the office of Sunday 
 school teachers. Many young men and young women, 
 who have no other day in the week for recreation and 
 leisure, with a zeal and charity, (for which may God 
 Almighty bless them!) consecrate their little leisure 
 on the Lord's Day to tlie training of little children in 
 the way they ought to go. Each has a separate class, 
 and becomes personally acquainted with tlie character 
 of each member of the class. He visits his children 
 at their homes, walks with them, converses Avith them, 
 and being a person of spiritual experience, is able to 
 give that advice which a soul aspiring after heavenly 
 things so greatly needs, and which none but those 
 who know what spiritual difficulties and spiritual 
 comforts are, can impart, — while in all peculiar cases 
 he has his pastor to whom he can reler his young 
 charge, or from whom he can himself receive direc- 
 tions how to proceed. The Sunday school teacher 
 prepares the children to be catechised at church, and 
 
 from grants of public societies and the Board of Education .... 
 I may state that in visiting the sick, I rarely vow meet with a per- 
 son not well acquainted with the great principles of his faith. I 
 regret, for the reasons I have mentioned, that the Sunday schools 
 do not fall within the scope of the inspectors of the Board of Edu- 
 cation, as I am satisfied that a fjiir judgment can hardly be formed 
 from the mei'e inspection of the daily schools. It is true that our 
 daily schools are and must be to a certain extent inefficient ; but 
 as far as the clergy arc concerned, they certainly in most cases are 
 in a great measure, and in other.s entirely, supported by them." 
 
49 
 
 when the season for confirmation draws near, is able 
 to inform the clergyman of the advice which is need- 
 ful in each particular case among his pupils, the cha- 
 racters of whom have been long before him. The 
 children act in subordination to the teacher, the 
 teacher to the superintendent, the superintendent to 
 the clergyman. Young persons, too old to remain as 
 pupils, permit themselves sometimes to be formed in 
 classes, to be prepared, on the week-day, for the duties 
 they are to perform on the Sunday. In the parish 
 in which he who has the pleasure of now writing to 
 your Lordship resides, there is an association of 
 Sunday school teachers, which numbers six hundred 
 members, who meet at stated times to converse on 
 subjects connected with their high and sacred calling, 
 and to receive instruction from the clergy. Happy 
 meetings they are, and may they be blessed to the 
 spiritual edification of both clergy and people! 
 
 It is here that we are to look for the real religious 
 education of our people, and to the perfecting of this 
 system, religious persons must bend their minds. No 
 Government system of education can interfere with 
 this; but on the contrary, if the day schools turn out 
 well disciplined children, thoroughly grounded in all 
 that they profess to know, the duties of the Sunday 
 school teacher will be lighter, — the children will 
 come to the Sunday school, and to be catechised at 
 church with that advantage which is now only pos- 
 sessed by those who live in the vicinity a good 
 National School ; a circumstance which must always 
 be doubtful, while the majority of the masters remain 
 untrained. Even now we cannot command the at- 
 
 D 
 
•50 
 
 tendance on the Snndny of all tlie cliildren who 
 receive our instruction at the week-day schools. 
 
 AVhen I propose to devote to religious instruction 
 the afternoons of two days in the week, I would ven- 
 ture to enquire how many of the clergy, overworked 
 as the working clergy are, can bestow more of their 
 time than this upon this one department of spiritual 
 labour? I know the diligence of some of our brethren, 
 that they attend their schools daily, opening them and 
 closing them with prayer offered by themselves. But 
 how few are they who have time to do this regularly, 
 and in how many schools, for want of a fixed time for 
 the attendance of the clergy, is the religious instruction 
 given in a desultory and therefore in an unsatisfactory 
 manner. Fix the time of attendance, let us be bound 
 down by definite hours, and it will be better for us as 
 well as for the children ; and the clergy will no more 
 neglect their duties at the school-room on Wednesdays 
 and Fridays, than their duties at church on the Sun- 
 day. As to daily prayers ; if the clergy see fit to 
 attend half an hour before the business of the literary 
 school commences, and at the time when the school 
 closes, they may still have the children in the class- 
 room, and commence and close the labours of the day 
 with prayer. Not that I mean to say that all the work 
 must devolve upon the clergyman ; where there are 
 many children, he, in his class-room Avill, like the 
 schoolmaster, require the help of assistants; and 
 assistants will be, I trust, provided for him from the 
 Normal schools of the Diocesan Boards, to which I 
 shall presently have occasion to refer. There will 
 still be need of Church schoolmasters ; but they will be 
 
51 
 
 persons not confined to the work of education, but be 
 under the employment of the clergy in various ways. 
 Besides assisting in the church class-room on Wed- 
 nesdays and Fridays, and acting as superintendents 
 of the Sunday school, they will be able to assist in 
 various other charities of the parish ; in visiting the 
 sick, in calling upon the parents of the children, in 
 recruiting scholars, in encreasing the desire of educa- 
 tion, in showing parents how they may aid the labours 
 of the schoolmaster and the clergyman, and in leading 
 whole families, now left in ignorance and irreligion, 
 to a sense of their duty to God and their families: 
 they will act, in short, as deacons, and they who wish 
 to see in the Church the restoration of an efficient 
 diaconate, will see that by the measure now proposed 
 their object will be promoted rather than retarded. 
 
 Let me add, too, what I have hinted at before, that 
 the clergy being exonerated from the extreme care, 
 as in many cases it is, attendant upon raising the 
 funds, not only for the erection, but for the sustenta- 
 tion of the schools, will have more time to devote to 
 their spiritual duties, and more money at command 
 to build new churches, or, what is more important, to 
 support a greater number of working clergy.* We 
 
 * " It seems probable, on the whole, that about six millions of 
 the inhabitants of England and Wales (including the great body 
 of the town and manufacturing population) are beyond any elFective 
 control and guidance of the Established Church, with her present 
 means ; and that not less than 6000 additional clergy are requisite 
 at this moment to place her in a state of full efficiency." — An 
 Enquiry into the possibility of obtaining means for Church 
 Extension, without Parliamentary Grants, by the Rev. "VV. 
 Palmer, M. A., p. 13. 
 
 I) 2 
 
5§ 
 
 should not forget that it is not the business of the 
 clergy to give secular instruction to the people. It 
 is good and charitable to do so, in the absence of 
 other means; but it is not our peculiar vocation. Our 
 business is to catechise the children at church, and to 
 provide for their being prepared to receive our in- 
 structions at that time. Ample opportunity is given 
 under the proposed system for such preparation ; and 
 having secured this, I cannot perceive Avhy we should 
 refuse to permit the merely literary instruction to 
 pass into hands better able than our own to do what 
 we wish to see done. 
 
 In alluding to the exertions of the clergy, and the 
 labours they ha\'e to encounter in the erection and 
 sustentation of their schools, I have pointed out the 
 advantao;es which will accrue to ourselves as well 
 as to the public, by a measure which, throwing the 
 burden upon shoulders better able to sustain it, will 
 enable them to devote the whole of their time, a 
 large portion of which is now occupied by financial 
 arrangements and calculations, to duties more di- 
 rectly within the scope of their calling and more 
 exclusively spiritual. But here we shall be met by 
 the prevalent notion, that by supporting the National 
 Society, and refusing, except through that Society, to 
 co-operate with the State, we maintain the principles 
 of the Church ; whereas I contend, that if we fairly 
 consider the case as stated above, we can maintain 
 those principles quite as powerfully under the pro- 
 posed as under the present system. 
 
 Upon any voluntary association it is impossible to 
 place dependance; and tliey wlio would rely upon the 
 
53 
 
 National Society, considered apart from its Normal 
 schools, will soon find that they are leaning upon a 
 broken reed. It is very true that the National 
 Society has been instituted " for the education of the 
 poor in the principles of the Established Church 
 throughout England and Wales." Tliis sounds well, 
 and awakens the zeal of Churchmen in the cause of the 
 Society. But in the present divided state of the 
 Church of England, the question arises. What are 
 " the principles of the Established Church?" We go 
 to one party, and they tell us, with all appearance of 
 reason, that by " the principles of the Established 
 Church," in the article of Education, is meant the 
 principles of that Catechism Avhich the Church has 
 drawn up with an especial view to the training of her 
 children in the way they ought to go. We go to an 
 opposite party, and they tell us, that the Church 
 Catechism is " trash ;" that if used, it must be used in 
 a "non-natural" sense ; and that by Church principles 
 are meant any principles not in accordance Avith 
 the Church of Ivome. The latter party accuse those 
 to whom they stand opposed of popery, and they 
 are again accused by their opponents of what many 
 consider to be equally bad, puritanism, or latitudina- 
 rianism. 
 
 Between these contending parties, how can tlie 
 National Society act ? The question is virtually put 
 to the Society, What do you mean by " the principles 
 of the Established Churcli ?" An answer to which 
 question the officers of the Society find it inexpedient 
 to give, because any definite answer would imme- 
 diately occasion, on one side or the other, the with- 
 
 D 3 
 
drawal from the Society of a large iiuiiiber of sub- 
 scribers. Hence the Society does in fact become 
 little more than a society for raising and distributing 
 funds, and it can be of no real importance to the 
 clergy through whom the assistance they require is 
 supplied. A society is, in fact, what the managers 
 of the society think fit at any time to make it ; and 
 the question is not, what are the terms used by the 
 society, but how are the terms understood by those 
 who have the chief part in directing its operations. 
 The purpose of the Society is stated in a quotation 
 from its report, which I have already given ; and the 
 terms of union with the Society are sufficiently plain, 
 as a plain man would suppose. But according to the 
 interpretation put upon these words by those whose 
 interpretation is authoritative, they mean nothing 
 more than this, that if we can educate the people on 
 the principles of the Church, it is desirable to do 
 so, but if those principles are not acceptable, we may 
 at our discretion dispense with them. We find the 
 following statement in a letter quoted with general 
 approbation, and without any expression of disagree- 
 ment, by the Bishop of Chester in the third note 
 to his fourth Charge : — 
 
 " I would particularly state, that the children at- 
 tending the National Schools here, or anywhere else 
 that I know, are not, as was said in the House of 
 Commons lately, all required to attend church on 
 Sundays. We endeavour to see that they keep holy 
 the Sabbath. Where the parents are decided Dis- 
 senters, they are expected to go with their parents to 
 the chapel, and to the chapel-school. If Dissenters 
 
5^ 
 
 are careless about the religious welfare of their chil- 
 dren, we then strive to bring them to school on 
 Sundays, and take them twice to church. I can 
 hardly doubt that the practice here described has been 
 common in all parts of England. Indeed, in the 
 debate on Education, which took place in the House 
 of Lords in July of last year, as reported in The 
 Mirror of Parliament, the Bishop of London quotes a 
 passage from the Report of a Committee of the House 
 of Commons on Education in 1818, stating, that ' in 
 many schools where the National system is adopted, 
 the Church Catechism is only taught, and attendance 
 at the established place of worship is only required of 
 those whose parents belong to the Establishment.^ He 
 himself in the same debate says : ' I know that it is 
 practicable to educate the children of Churchmen and 
 Dissenters together ; having been president of a very 
 large National School, to which children of every 
 denomination, Jews not excluded, were admitted. I 
 know that it requires very judicious management to 
 avoid giving offence to Dissenters : yet we have 
 enforced our rules judiciously; and the Dissenters 
 are content to leave their children in our hands, to 
 receive instruction in what are held by the Church to 
 be the fundamental principles of Christianity.' These 
 words plainly imply, though they do not positively 
 assert, that attendance on the Lord's Day was not 
 exacted from all the children. Moreover, the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, the President of the National 
 Society, in the speech with which lie opened that 
 debate, when arguing that the National System of 
 
 D 4 
 
56 
 
 Education embraces the orthodox Dissenters, ex- 
 pressly states : ' The great object is the giving the 
 Church the means of making the children attend the 
 parish church ; hut if their parents take them to any 
 other places of ivorship, they are not refused permission. 
 This has been done in some of the large schools in 
 London ; and at the present moment there is a school 
 in Westminster, where there are upwards of forty 
 Roman Catholic children."* 
 
 Now, my Lord, I will not deny the desirableness of 
 admitting all persons of all sects and parties to schools 
 established for educating the people of this country ; 
 for that point I am contending. But with all the 
 deference and respect Avhich are due to such high au- 
 thority as that which I have given above, I may ask 
 why, if Church principles may be dispensed with at 
 the caprice of the clergy, are we to waste our valuable 
 time in raising subscriptions for the National Society, 
 and in erecting schools to be in union with the 
 Society, when what the National Society designs to 
 do would be done better by the State if we would only 
 permit the State to have the control? If the distinct- 
 ive principles of the Church of England may be dis- 
 pensed with, whenever it is deemed expedient to do 
 so, in the National Schools, those schools may be as 
 well in the hands of the State as under the direction 
 of the National Society. Give us a theory, and wc 
 can argue for it; give us a principle, and we can die 
 for it : but why should we be beggars for a Society 
 
 * This passage is quoted as forming part of a controversial 
 note in a charge by Archdeacon Ilare, in the Appendix to Mr. 
 Allen's report to the Committee of Privy Council on Education. 
 
57 
 
 which has neither theory, nor principle, nor anything 
 else to kindle zeal ? 
 
 I know, of course, the answer, which will here be 
 giv^en, and which, on one occasion, was given, namely, 
 that by an occasional and judicious sacrifice of prin- 
 ciple, the clergy will retain, what otherwise they can- 
 not do, the education of the people in their own hands. 
 Now to such a system, I for one, can never consent, 
 for it would sacrifice Church principle in order to 
 gratify Church ambition. My object in the proposal 
 I am submitting to your Lordship is the very reverse 
 of this ; it is for the clergy to make every sacrifice 
 except that of principle. Those who think with me 
 do not wish to have the education of the people in 
 our hands, unless the people arc -willing to accept the 
 education which we, as ministers of the Church, are 
 commissioned to give. Still less do we wish, as some 
 influential parties in the National Society have sug- 
 gested, to allure children of Dissenters into our schools, 
 under a promise that the Catechism shall not be 
 taught, while all the while we have it in our hearts 
 to induce them, Avlien they grow up, to become Con- 
 formists. We simply seek the liberty which is con- 
 ceded to all, to teach those who are willing to receive 
 our instruction, according to what we, being Church- 
 men, have received as the words of truth. As to the 
 formation of a Church party distinct from Church 
 principles, we repudiate the idea. 
 
 I am inclined to contend that the clergy will be 
 more at liberty to propound to their children tlie doc- 
 trines of the Church under the system 1 propose, 
 than they are under the existing system. They -will 
 
58 
 
 not be restrained, by motives of policy, from teaching 
 the truth, and the whole truth, and they will have even 
 more opportunity for doing so than they have at pre- 
 sent. It is undoubtedly true that Dissenters will 
 enjoy equal liberty; that their privileges Avill be 
 the same ; but this is precisely what I ask the clergy 
 to surrender, jealousy of Dissenters. Let us put all 
 thought of Dissenters out of the question ; whether 
 they take the lead or follow the lead, is only a ques- 
 tion in which the pride of the Establishinent is con- 
 cerned ; let us pass it by, and simply seek to ascertain 
 whether or not we can educate the children Avhose 
 parents will accept a Church education at our hands, 
 as well under the system I propose as we can 
 do under the circumstances in which we are now 
 placed ? I have ho fear as to the answer unpre- 
 judiced minds must give to the question. We shall 
 obtain a great boon for our country without any spi- 
 ritual loss to ourselves. I believe that Dissenters 
 Avill return a similar answer to the same question if 
 they will consider it fairly ; and so both parties will 
 remain precisely in the same relative position as that 
 which they at present occupy. And here I am free to 
 admit, that if it can be shown that any undue advan- 
 tage is given to the Church over Dissent by my present 
 proposal, this will be, so far, a valid objection to it. It 
 would be absurd, as well as undesirable, to attempt any 
 retrograde movement, and to place Dissenters, in the 
 cause of education, at a disadvantage. I only ask for a 
 fair field, where, in educating the people, we may dis- 
 play, not opposition, but a generous rivalry, as is the 
 case, for the most part, at the present time. We 
 
59 
 
 cannot unite with Dissenters, because we cannot unite 
 without a compromise of religious principle on either 
 side : such I do not expect from them, and such they 
 have no right to expect from us. But as for political 
 privileges, these we would readily concede to them for 
 the good of our countr}'^ ; nor would we allow any 
 establishmentarian pride to offer an impediment in 
 the way of public improvement. 
 
 There still remain two important points, which in 
 every scheme of elementary education must come un- 
 der consideration, and to which, though it be a subject 
 which I am not very competent to discuss, I must 
 now call your Lordship's attention. I allude to the 
 system of Finance, and to the local Governing Body. 
 They depend very much the one on the other. 
 
 Upon entering upon this subject, I must remark 
 that one of the chief objections which is felt by prac- 
 tical men to lie against the measures hitherto proposed 
 for State education is this, that the local management 
 Avould devolve, in this country, upon persons most in- 
 competent, generally speaking, to superintend the 
 education of the people, if the funds being raised by 
 parochial taxation were placed under the control of 
 parochial representatives. In towns, if the superin- 
 tendence of the education were to be assigned to the 
 municipal corporations, there would at elections be 
 endless disputes and controversies between Church- 
 men and Dissenters, whigs, conservatives, and radicals, 
 and the triumph of either party would act detriment- 
 ally upon the schools. Any one who is conversant with 
 manufacturing towns will bear witness to the truth 
 of what I now say, unless he be entirely blinded by 
 
60 
 
 his prejudices. That a local fund would be necessary, 
 and local superintendence expedient, I fully admit : 
 but we should make the locality as extensive as pos- 
 sible, and endeavour to obtain as superintendents per- 
 sons removed, as nnich as possible, from the littleness 
 and disputes of local politics. 
 
 Now it seems to me that instead of charging the 
 local fund on the parochial assessment, we should 
 rather raise it from a county rate, to be granted by 
 the magistrates at the quarter sessions. B}^ the 
 county magistrates certain school districts through- 
 out the county might be defined, and for each district 
 a Board of Management should be formed, the func- 
 tions of which would be to elect and dismiss masters 
 and mistresses, to provide for the regular visitation of 
 the schools, to settle and to decide whether or not in 
 any particular school the school pence should cease to 
 be received as part of the master's salary, to appren- 
 tice the pupil teachers, to purchase books, apparatus, 
 &c.,toattendto the repair and ventilation of the school- 
 rooms, and to make provision for their general 
 management in all respects. 
 
 The Board of ]\Ianagement should depute one of 
 their number to report on the state of the schools in 
 the district at every quarter sessions. And there 
 should of course be a power of appeal to the President 
 of the Committee of Privy Council on Education. 
 
 The Board of Management should be open to all 
 persons without any religious disqualifications Avhat- 
 evcr, and should be of a mixed character, so as to be 
 void of political or sectarian bias. 
 
 The salary of the master might be derived in part 
 
m 
 
 from the school pence, except in localities where tlie 
 non-payment of pence might be deemed expedient; 
 but a certain minimum stipend should be also secured 
 by lavv^, with power on the part of the magistrates to 
 raise the stipend to a fixed maximum. This salary 
 should be charged on the county rate. 
 
 The master should also have the prospect of gra- 
 tuities from Government for great success in the 
 management of his school, and in the training of his 
 apprentices. The gratuities should be charged on a 
 central fund. 
 
 This central fund should consist of some annual 
 vote of Parliament, administered by the Committee of 
 Council on Education. 
 
 Out of this central fund the stipends of the ap- 
 prentices, being dependent on their continued pro- 
 ficiency, and therefore determinable by the Govern- 
 ment, should also be charged. 
 
 It might be well to have commissioners in the first 
 instance appointed by Government to provide for the 
 erection of a school in any place where there are 
 a thousand inhabitants, and no good school already 
 established. Care should be taken not to place a 
 Government school in any place in which a good 
 school, conducted either by Churchmen or Dissenters, 
 at the present time exists. But an offer might be 
 made, on the part of -the Government to defray the 
 expenses of any existing school on its being trans- 
 ferred to the magistrates, with the undei'standing 
 that the trustees of such school, and their successors, 
 should become members of the Board of ]\Ianagement, 
 and have the exclusive use of the school-room on 
 
G2 
 
 Siindaj's. Where new school-rooms are to bo erected, 
 private contributions might be accepted on similar 
 conditions : a certain sum being subscribed, the sub- 
 scribers might elect five trustees to become members 
 of the Board of ]\Ianagement, and to occupy the 
 building for a Sunday school. 
 
 This would prevent the drying up of the sources 
 of private benevolence : these I would also call into 
 play in aid of the Normal schools, a subject to which 
 I must now advert. 
 
 In its Normal schools the National Society has 
 been pre-eminently successful ; it possesses three : 
 
 1. St. Mark's College, Chelsea ; of which institution 
 it is quite impossible to speak in words of too high 
 praise : under the direction of a principal, the Rev. 
 Derwent Coleridge, who has devoted to the cause of 
 national education the energies of no ordinary mind, 
 this Normal school may be considered as a model of 
 what such establishments ought to be. It is capable 
 of accommodating seventy students, and the period of 
 training is three years. 
 
 2. The Battersea Training School; which contains 
 seventy-one pupils ; the period of training being one 
 year and a half — too short a period; though the 
 energy and kindness of heart displayed by the prin- 
 cipal, the Rev. Thomas Jackson, will go far to 
 remedy the disadvantages occasioned by this arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 3. The Whitelands Training School for mistresses, 
 containing about fifty-four. The period of training 
 is for three or four years ; and to tliis institution 
 also the very highest praise is due, as those assert 
 
who are most competent to bear witness on sucli a 
 subject. 
 
 It is by these establishments that the National 
 Society is likely permanently to benefit the country. 
 There is another establishment belonging to the So- 
 ciety, which does not deserve the name of a Normal 
 school, though it has not been without its use, in 
 which young men are received for six months. It is 
 connected with the Central School at Westminster, and 
 can only be regarded as a temporary arrangement, a 
 mere make*shift. 
 
 In addition to these, some of the Diocesan Boards 
 have also established Training Schools ; among which 
 I may mention the following : — 
 
 I. The York and Ripon Normal school, which, 
 under the able management of the Rev. Mr. Reid, is 
 considered as the great Training School of the North. 
 It is intended to accommodate fifty-five masters and 
 thirty-five mistresses ; the period of training being 
 three years. When the buildings now in the course of 
 erection are completed, this establishment ^vill present 
 us with another model of what a Normal school ought 
 to be. 
 
 II. The Chester Normal and Model schools are 
 intended for the accommodation of seventy students; 
 and recently contained fifty. The average period of 
 training is nearly a year and a half. The character 
 of this institution is not quite as high as it once was. 
 
 III. In the diocese of Durham buildings are about 
 to be erected for a school, in whicli twenty masters 
 are to be trained for about two years. 
 
 IV. The school for mistresses at Salisbury deserves 
 
G4 
 
 to be distingnished from the remainder of the dio- 
 cesan schools, by the superiority of its plan of train- 
 ing. This school trains twenty mistresses, during a 
 period of Uvo years, and usually contains nearly that 
 number. 
 
 Y. The Training School Avhich is connected with 
 the school for the daughters of the clei*gy at Warring- 
 ton will probably train thirty mistresses, with more 
 than average success. 
 
 I have no sufficient information concerning the pre- 
 sent condition of the Training School at Lichfield, 
 which, however, not long ago contained twenty-five 
 youths, in a course of training intended to extend to 
 two years. 
 
 There are other diocesan Normal schools which, 
 however, hardly fulfil the objects of such institutions, 
 failino: either in the limited scheme of their studies, 
 or in the period of training, or else in the want of 
 efficiency in the practising school, and of adaptation 
 in the instruction and training to the Avants of well- 
 conducted elementary schools. 
 
 Of Dissenting Normal schools I only know of that 
 which belongs to the British and Foreign School 
 Society, in which fifty or sixty young men receive 
 from six to nine months instruction and training, pre- 
 paratory to their being intrusted with elementary 
 schools connected with that society. It is also said 
 that there is a School at Brecon, in South Wales. 
 
 Although we fall short of the twenty-five or thirty 
 Normal schools which are necessary to supply a suffi- 
 cient number of masters for our schools, yet your 
 Lordship will perceive that we have here a set of 
 
65 
 
 valuable Normal schools established by private bene- 
 volence, which may be increased ; and what I would 
 suggest is this, that instead of forming Normal schools, 
 the Government should establish a Board of Examiners, 
 without a diploma from whom no master should ever 
 be appointed to a Government school. As a previous 
 qualification for such an examination, each candidate 
 should be required to produce a certificate of his 
 having attended for two years, at least, at one of the 
 existing Normal schools, or such other training 
 schools, whether of the Church or Dissent, as may 
 hereafter be licensed by the Lord President, on the 
 plan adopted, I believe, with respect to medical 
 schools by the University of London. 
 
 If it be objected that neither Churchmen nor Dis- 
 senters would be inclined to maintain their Normal 
 schools under such an arrangement, I can only say, 
 let the experiment be first made, and, if it fail, 
 then the Government might undertake the support of 
 Normal as well as primary schools. But the impres- 
 sion on my mind is, that this is a mistaken view of 
 the case. In the Church, as I have before shown, we 
 are in want of more clergy and of lay helps, properly 
 trained, and duly licensed, after examination by the 
 bishops. We require a real not a nominal order of 
 deacons, to be constantly employed, and the assistance 
 of sub-deacons ; and we require for them good and 
 cheap education. If the funds of the National So- 
 ciety be directed to the one object of establishing good 
 Normal schools, and if the parishes are relieved from 
 the heavy expenses incurred by the support of the 
 primary schools, we shall have the means of employing- 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 tliese deacons and sub-deacons, or lay helps, to a much 
 greater extent than we can do now : we shall require 
 them to assist also in that department of the educa- 
 tion Avhich will devolve upon us, and for their educa- 
 tion the Normal schools will be available, as well as 
 for those who shall present themselves as candidates 
 for masterships. Dissenters could, I presume, attach 
 Normal schools, without difficulty, to their colleges, and 
 to this plan we might therefore expect them to accede. 
 
 And now, my Lord, in conclusion, I will briefly 
 recapitulate what has been suggested in this letter. 
 There are to be two classes of schools : 
 
 I. The schools of religious doctrine, precept, and 
 training. 
 
 These schools are to be held on the Sunday, and on 
 the afternoons of Wednesday and Friday. 
 
 They are to be supported by the voluntary contribu- 
 tions of relif^ious conorcoations. 
 
 The master of the literary school may act as the 
 superintendent of a Sunday school, when elected by 
 the trustees of such school. 
 
 When the trustees of any existing school permit the 
 buildings to be used as a Goverinnent school, such 
 trustees shall be at liberty to use those buildings on 
 the Sunday for a school of religion. 
 
 When any new school is erected, it may be used for 
 the same purpose by trustees contributing a certain 
 sum towards the erection of the edifice. The super- 
 intendence of the schools of religion or catechetical 
 schools would of course rest with the Bishop and the 
 parochial clergy, so far as the Cluu'ch schools arc 
 concerned. Dissenters would make such regulations 
 as to them might seem expedient. 
 
67 
 
 II. Literary or secular schools, which are to be 
 taught by masters and apprentices holding diplomas 
 from the Government, awarded after examination by 
 a board of examiners appointed by authority. 
 
 The master must have received a regular training 
 in a Normal school established by the Church, or in a 
 Dissenting school, licensed by the Government. 
 
 The apprentices must be bound by indentures to 
 serve a certain number of years at specified stipends. 
 They must receive instruction from the master, and 
 be examined from time to time by the inspectors of 
 schools, and certificates of regular progress in acquire- 
 ments and skill must be required for the payment of 
 their stipends. 
 
 The supervision of these schools should rest with 
 the magistrates and lay-inspectors appointed by the 
 Committee of Privy Council. 
 
 The funds, with the exception of the stipends of 
 apprentices, and of occasional gratuities to deserving 
 masters, should be provided out of a local fund raised 
 by a county rate, and from Parliamentary grants. 
 
 In these schools, let the objects be (1.) strict, moral 
 discipline, which can only be enforced by Avell-trained 
 masters, with diligent apprentices or under masters : 
 (2.) the exercise of the mentjil faculties ; the ploughing 
 of the soil as it were, preparatory to the sowing of 
 the seed, which is much more important than sciolists 
 are aware of, and in which, as regards our lower 
 classes, the present system is deficient. This implies, 
 that whatever is taught, be it much or little, be it 
 mathematics to the higher classes, or spelling to the 
 lower, shall be taught well, correctly and completely. 
 Slovenly teaching makes slovenly minds, and slovenly 
 
68 
 
 iniiids are immoral. In order to improve the social 
 condition of the people, they require to have their 
 minds in early life well trained by consistent discipline 
 and exercise, so that they may be capable not only of 
 reading but of thinking. To accomplish this under 
 the monitorial system is impossible. 
 
 The fundamental principles of every subject should 
 be duly explained to the pupils, which can only be 
 accomplished when they are fully understood by the 
 teacher : we cannot give unless we have received, and 
 from an empty bucket water will not flow. The object 
 in a primary school, should be to lay a good foundation 
 upon which, according to the circumstances under 
 which he is placed, the pupil may hereafter erect a 
 superstructure. The very great importance of this 
 mental culture, as distinguished from the mere acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, must be apparent to every 
 thoughtful mind. In what indeed is the difference more 
 striking between the upper and middle, and the lower 
 classes of society, than in this, that o-sving to early 
 attention to mental training, the upper and middle 
 classes are better prepared to seize, apply, and use 
 any information which may be subsequently ob- 
 tained. To learn a little well, correctly, and com- 
 pletely, is far better than to receive information on a 
 multitude of subjects ; it is by receiving and di- 
 gesting information that the mind is exercised ; and 
 therefore, (3.) anotlier object must be, to have correct 
 instruction given in reading, Avriting, arithmetic, the 
 elements of mathematics, geography, music, drawing, 
 history. 
 
 The books to be used must be selected or pre^mred 
 under the direction of the Committee of Privy Council ; 
 
69 
 
 hut as, in history especially, subjects might be intro- 
 duced which might be regarded by some parties as 
 objectionable, provision should be made for the due 
 consideration of any objections which might be ad- 
 vanced, on the one side by the clergy, or on the other 
 by Dissenting ministers. Bibles should be on the 
 shelves for the use of the school of religion ; but it 
 must be a law that the Bible shall never be used as a 
 class Book. And above all things, selections from 
 the Bible, as mere moral lessons, should be avoided ; 
 for such selections would lead to some of those con- 
 sequences, from the dread of which, as I have shown, 
 the opposition to a Government system of education is 
 raised. Such a proceeding is calculated to induce 
 children and their parents to suppose, that instead of 
 deferring to the Bible as the great charter of their 
 religion, they may pick and choose from it whatever 
 may commend itself to their judgment, rejecting the 
 rest. Every leligious man is jealous of that Bible 
 which has been given unto us by a jealous God ; and 
 he will deprecate above all things the notion which 
 selections from it would inculcate; that it is a Book 
 Avhich contains some things which are good, but many 
 that are useless, and other things which may be re- 
 jected. This would be, indeed, to lay deep the foun- 
 dations of rationalism. We must have the Bible, and 
 the whole Bible, — or no Bible. To make the Bible 
 a class Book where the education given is avowedly 
 secular, is a profanation of the Sacred Volume. 
 Children ought to be taught that it is, what it is in 
 truth, the Word of the living God, too sacred for 
 common use, and to be employed only when religious 
 instruction is given. 
 
70 
 
 I am not ignorant of the fact that the main ob- 
 jection to this proposal, on the part of some, will rest 
 on my desire to place the appointment of the Board 
 of i\Ianagers in the hands of the county magistrates, 
 instead of having recourse to the representative sys- 
 tem. There are however many who will agree with me 
 in thinking that on such a subject the representative 
 system, involving canvassing and controversy, triumph 
 and defeat, is the very worst system that could be 
 adopted. AVhat relates to education should come with 
 authority ; it should be the ordinance of a paternal 
 government. And those who know from experience 
 the bitterness of local politics, (I intend not to blame 
 one party more than another,) "will feel the import- 
 ance of the suggestion which I oifer of placing the 
 supervision of the schools in the hands of persons 
 interested in the general welfare of a county and 
 cognisant of the Avants of particular localities, yet re- 
 moved from parochial or corporation cabals. If we 
 find that no objection is raised to this measure on the 
 part of the clergy, although the concession is great to 
 those who think much of the dignity of the Establish- 
 ment, it may be hoped and supposed that in other 
 quarters also there will be a mllingness to concede a 
 point which does not involve a principle, in order to 
 secure an important object. The best plan would be 
 to obtain the whole fund from a Parliamentary grant 
 to be placed at the disposal of the Committee of the 
 Privy Council, but it would scarcely be possible to ob- 
 tain a parliamentary grant to the amount required. 
 
 Great sacrifices, I am sure, every one will be pre- 
 pared to make, who are really aware of the social 
 misery and danger Avhich exists in some parts of the 
 
71 
 
 manufacturing districts, who reflect upon the masses 
 of the people who might be happy and are wretched, 
 and on the immorality which through ignorance 
 abounds in the land. When we realise the spiritual 
 starvation around us, we shall be prepared to make any 
 sacrifice, except those of our religious principles, to 
 secure for our poorer brethren the blessings which must 
 result from a good education. The evil exists. We 
 must meet it manfully by self-denying exertion, and 
 especially by that kind of self-denial which is perhaps 
 the most difficult, and therefore the most meritorious 
 — the sacrifice of party prejudice, and the petty 
 jealousies which pertain to party spirit. When the 
 foreign enemy threatens our common country, it is 
 a glorious thing to see how Englishmen cast aside all 
 party feeling, and unite as one man to repel him : so 
 let it be in our warfare against ignorance and im- 
 morality : casting aside all minor considerations, not 
 involving principle, may we be united in one common 
 cause, doing not what, abstractedly, considered we 
 should deem to be the best, but the best in those 
 circumstances under which the providence of our 
 God has placed us. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 
 My Lord Bishop, 
 Your obedient humble Servant, 
 
 W. F. Hook. 
 
 Vicarage, Leeds, 
 June 1st, 1846. 
 
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