LIBRA R.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLI NOIS
 
 L,J 
 
 THE ENGLISH KEVIEW ON DR. HOOK'S 
 LETTER. 
 
 AN ARTICLE 
 
 REPRINTED FROM 
 
 THE ENGLISH REVIEW, No. XI 
 
 LETTER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. W. F. HOOK, D.D. TO THE LORD BISHOP 
 OF ST. DAVID'S, 
 
 « ON THE MEANS OF RENDERING MORE EFFICIENT 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. Paul's church yard, and Waterloo place. 
 
 1847. 
 
 [Price Sixpence.^
 
 LONDON : 
 GH.UF.KT & RIVINGTON, PRINTJRS, 
 
 ST. John's square.
 
 CONTENTS OF THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Subject of Dr. Hook's Letter to the Bishop of St. David's ... 7 
 
 Duty of the *S'/«^e in Education ib. 
 
 Lord John Russell's declarations on the subject of Education — Amount 
 of Parliamentary Grants — Dr. Hook's Title liable to objection — The 
 Poor are not the People 8 
 
 Education must be based not on moral generalities, but on special 
 doctrines 9 
 
 Dr. Hook's allegations 10 
 
 1. That the State has no right to give an education based on sj^ecial 
 doctrines; because the Taxes are collected from persons of ail 
 religions ; and if one religion is endowed, all ought to be . . ib. 
 
 2. That the State does already endow various forms of religious 
 belief ; and it is very difficult to say " in what way the Church is 
 established" ib. 
 
 That it " is as barons, not as bishops, that some of our prelates" sit 
 
 in the House of Lords 11 
 
 His proposals stated, for the establishment and endowment of secular 
 
 schools, and for the provision of religious instruction . . . 11,12 
 Dr. Hook's suggestions anticipated by Mr. James Simpson . . .13 
 
 K hriQ^ Q.Q.coMVit o^ihQ Simpso7iian system 13 — 15 
 
 This system has been tried : 15 
 
 L In France (I), in secondary education ; its results . . .10 
 Abbe de la Mennais : M. de Cormenin. Report of the Chaplains ib. 
 (2) Its results in France, also, in pmnary education . . .17 
 
 IL In Prussia. M. Cousin's report 17 — 20 
 
 Results of the Prussian system 21,22 
 
 The practical consequences " of disjoining the civil and ecclesiastical 
 
 interest" 21—23 
 
 M. Guerry's moral map of France. Statistics of crime in that country. 
 Bishop of Langres. Contrast of education in England and France. 
 What education is ? A village school in England . . . 23—25 
 
 Grand concours at Paris. M. Guizot's reception 2G 
 
 a2
 
 IV CONTENTR OF 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dr. Hook's system worse than the French 2G 
 
 The 7JoMeaching of religion is the teaching of irr<?/?gion . . . .27 
 The teaching of all religions is the teaching of no religion ; it is the 
 
 teaching of scepticism and sedition. Bahelr-rooms . . . 27, 28 
 
 Hardship of this system on the j^oor 28 
 
 Benetit of religious instruction conveyed by means of secular subjects , 29 
 What is religious education ? Bishop Butler. " It cannot be effected by 
 
 instruction in religion two hours a week " . . . . . » ib. 
 Where would school-masters be got for Dr. Hook's system ? . . . ib. 
 He would have proscribed the persons who alone are fit to be masters ; 
 
 and would encourage those who are most unjit to be so ... 30 
 
 Hardship of this system on Dissenters ....... ib. 
 
 Course to be pursued towards them. St. Paul's and St. Augustine's 
 
 precepts in this respect compared with Dr. Hook's . . . 30, 31 
 Examination of this system in relation to the Church — her rights and 
 
 duties — dLudio ihe ministers o^ i\ie Church .... .31 
 
 Could //^cy co-operate in it ? 31,32 
 
 Examination of the system in its relation to the State . . . .32 
 Duties of civil rulers in regard to religion ; to examine, and to discern 
 
 the true mother, and to give her the child, not to divide it . . .33 
 Bishop Butler on the use and necessity of a religious establishment ; and 
 
 on the peculiar value of that of England ..... 33, 34 
 Bishop Warburton and Mr. Burke to the same effect . . . .34 
 Does the payment of taxes to the State oblige the State to endow the 
 
 religion of all who pay ? ib. 
 
 Examination of the assertion, that because all subjects pay taxes, all (or 
 
 none) have a right to an endowment of their religion . . . .35 
 If this were true, religion never could have been endowed by a State . ib. 
 
 What are taxes ? and wherefore paid ? 35, 36 
 
 Citations from Puffendorff, &c. Appeal to Scripture .... ib. 
 On what ground a religious establishment is maintained ? . . .36 
 The maintenance of an established Church is beneficial to all, and by 
 
 its duty to all the State is bound to preserve it, and not to endow 
 
 various creeds ........... 36 
 
 Citations from Lord Bolingbroke and the Edinburgh Review . 36, 37 
 
 According to Dr. Hook's scheme eight millions a year would be levied 
 
 to disestablish religion, and to establish irreligion 37 
 
 The question de facto. Have we an Established Church ? . . . ib. 
 Dr. Hook's allegation, " that it is a pure fiction to assert that the State 
 
 by any Act of Parliament has established the Church" . . . ib. 
 Strange fallacy contained in these words ; pointed out by reference to 
 
 various parties, including Dr. Hook himself, and to the facts of the case 38 
 His assertion examined, that it is " as barons, not as bishops," that our 
 
 Prelates sit in the House of Lords 39 
 
 Examination of his words, that it " is better to have a pauperized hiei-archt/ 
 
 than an uneducated people" . ........ 40 
 
 O.
 
 THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE. V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Uses of episcopal revenues 41 
 
 Hooker on the wealth of Bishops ib. 
 
 Observations on Dr. Hook's contrast between " the Bishops and the 
 
 working Clergy " ib. 
 
 Has the Church Establishment been given up ? 42 
 
 By the Legislature ? or by the Church ? ib. 
 
 In what an Established Church consists. If it had been given up, what 
 
 our course ought to be then 43 
 
 Actual position of England with respect to an established religion . . ib. 
 
 Our own duties arising from this condition 43, 44 
 
 The Church cannot give up her divine commission to be the teacher of 
 the nation ; which commission is hers to execute, but Christ's alone to 
 
 give 44 
 
 Benefits of unity in religion ib. 
 
 Means of maintaining it ......... ib. 
 
 Appeal to non-conformists 44, 45 
 
 The question concerning education for the poor is not a difficult one . 45 
 
 Practical considerations in proof of this assertion ib. 
 
 Evidence of Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Cotton ib. 
 
 Proof that the Church ought to be enabled by the State to educate the 
 
 Poor 46 
 
 Arguments in support of this proposition, by reference (1) to the con- 
 dition and opinions of the poor ........ ib. 
 
 (2) To the/ai/wr^ of various systems of education .... ib. 
 
 (3) To the number of schools in which the principles of*the Esta- 
 blished Church are taught ib. 
 
 (4) To the nature of instruction according to the doctrines of the 
 English Church . . ib. 
 
 Warning to England from the present relations of Church and State in 
 
 France, especially in the matter of education . . . . .47 
 Dr. Hook's plan would place us in the unhappy position in which the 
 
 French now are ib. 
 
 Evils of this condition both to the Church and State of France . . ib. 
 Quotations from the Poet Laureate on the relations of Church and State, 
 
 and on the duty of the State in education 48, 49 
 
 Important Letter of Lord Abinger to Lord Ashley . . . .49 
 Note 6 to p. 19, containing the Address of the Berlin Municipality to 
 
 the King of Prussia, and his Majesty's Reply 54
 
 On the means of rendering more efficient the Education of the 
 People : a Letter to the Lord Bishop of St. David's., by 
 Walter Farquhar Hook, D.B.., Vicar of Leeds. Eighth 
 Edition. London; Murray, 1846, pp. 71. 
 
 The subject on which Dr. Hook treats in the present publication 
 is a very important one. The author's character, his experience, 
 his learning, his ability, and, above all, his position in the Church, 
 give him a special right to speak upon it, and add great weight 
 to what he says; and from the eight editions which have been 
 called for of his pamphlet, within three months, it is quite clear 
 that he has spoken to a very attentive audience. 
 
 The Country is much indebted to him for the abundant and in- 
 controvertible evidence which he has adduced, to show that it is 
 " impossible for voluntary association to meet the wants of the 
 nation by a sufficient supply of school-rooms and competent 
 masters" (p. 21), and that without the aid of the I^tate, "we 
 cannot succeed in the great object which every patriot, as well 
 as every Christian, has at heart " (p. 32), and no one, we think, 
 can have perused his pages, without feeling satisfied that if Eng- 
 land desires to. enjoy the blessings of public peace and prosperity, 
 she must maintain and increase her efforts for the moral and 
 religious training of the young of the lower orders of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 There are many, perhaps, who did not stand in need of the statis- 
 tical details with which Dr. Hook has presented us, to convince us 
 of this proposition ; and for ourselves, we confess that we are, and 
 always have been, of that class of persons who regard it as the 
 paramount duty of a Christian State to provide for the education 
 of its poor; and knowing how extensively poverty, ignorance, 
 and crime prevail among us, especially in our large towns, we 
 have long been persuaded that it is the imperative duty of the 
 Legislature of England to make every exertion in its power to 
 promote the cause of National Education. 
 
 This being the case, we were fully prepared for the declaration 
 of the noble individual who now holds the chief place in Her 
 Majesty's Government. In his letter to the electors of the city 
 of London, and in his address to them on his re-election, Lord
 
 8 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 John Russell states, that the question of national education 
 urgently demands the attention of Parliament; and on the 17th 
 of July last, in his place in the House of Commons, he said, that 
 " after all the voluntary efforts that had been made by individuals, 
 yet the amount of ignorance in this country, the want of edu- 
 cation, the degree to which the Gospel is entirely a sealed book, 
 is a most lamentable fact ; but the disgrace is light in comparison 
 with the evil itself which we have to deplore." And he concluded 
 his speech with the following remarkable words: — "Sir, I have 
 already said I do not wish to enter much into this subject now, but 
 I can assure the House that it is a subject to which I shall pay the 
 most constant attention ; and I do trust that when it comes before 
 the House again, 1 may have some statement to make that will 
 show that the pains I have taken have not been in vain." 
 
 We cannot forbear recording the important and gratifying 
 fact, that on the same day on which this declaration was made, 
 and probably in consequence of it, the sum of 100,000^. was 
 voted for public education, — a larger amount, we beheve, than 
 has ever been given on any previous occasion for the same 
 purpose \ 
 
 On the whole, then, considering the exigencies of the country, 
 considering also the declarations of the present first Minister of 
 the Crown, and the dispositions and acts of the Legislature, we 
 find ourselves arrived at Dr. Hook's conclusion — a conclusion, 
 by the way, propounded to the world by the National Society in 
 its first circular in 1811 — that we "live in an age when the 
 question is, not whether^ but how^ the poor are to be educated." 
 -(p. 5). 
 
 To this enquiry, as most of our readers are aware, it has been 
 Dr. Hook's endeavour to furnish a reply in the pamphlet now 
 under review. 
 
 Before we proceed to examine the plan which he offers for 
 the consideration of the public, we would first request leave to 
 make a remark on the title of his work. It is described as a 
 Letter to the Lord Bishop of St. David's, " On the means of 
 rendering more efficient the Education of the People.'''' This, we 
 would respectfully submit, is a misnomer. His pamphlet does not 
 treat on the education of the people^ but of the^oor. The poor, 
 as well as the nobility and gentry, are a part, a most important 
 part, of the people, but they are not the people ; and it appears to 
 
 > The Parliamentary grants from 18.33 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 184G the wliolc amonnt of money granted 
 hy the Government in aid of the building of schools was 395,000?. — See Dr. Hook, 
 p". 8.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 9 
 
 be a serious error to call them so : and in our opinion it is 
 specially incumbent on the clergy to abstain from all expressions 
 which may give the poor a false notion of their position, and 
 render them discontented with it. To flatter the poor that they 
 are the people^ seems to be the characteristic of a demagogue ; 
 and, of all demagogues, religious ones are the worst. 
 
 The National Society calls itself a Society incorporated *' for 
 the Education of the Poor ,•" and we honour it for its frankness in 
 this respect ; Dr. Hook, on the other hand, reminds us too much 
 of the man, " qui credidit ingens Pauper iem mtium ;'''' he appears 
 to wish to disguise their poverty from the class for whom he calls 
 on the State to provide, although their poverty is the very thing 
 which constitutes their claim to such provision. We shall see, 
 before we close these remarks, that it is indispensable that in 
 treating this subject we should have a clear view of the particular 
 class concerning which we are writing; but even though no 
 special reason existed for such distinctness in the present case, yet 
 our readers will agree with us that it is as necessary for the politi- 
 cian as it is for the historian ^ to call things by their right names — 
 
 ret avKa avKa, rrjv (T/cci^r/v (TKa(f>r]v Xeyeiv. 
 
 We proceed now to describe Dr. Hook's plan for the education 
 of the poor of England and Wales. 
 
 I. First, he wisely lays it down as an unquestionable axiom, 
 that there can be no education, worthy of the nanie, without a 
 religious basis (pp. 5, 6). 
 
 II. He maintains with equal justice, that this basis must be a 
 doctrinal one ; that is, it must be built not on moral generalities, 
 but on the special dogmas of Christianity. He affirms that when 
 persons "talk of an education based on a system of morals 
 divested of all doctrine,'' and call this a religious education, " they 
 seek to deceive themselves as well as us, and utter a falsehood." 
 (p. 35). 
 
 On this subject his observations appear to us to be excellent ; 
 and we beg to transcribe them for the gratification of our 
 readers. 
 
 *' 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 unchristianize the country. To sepa- 
 rate the morality of the Gospel from the doctrines of the Gospel, every 
 one who knows what the Gospel is knows to be impossible. The doc- 
 trines of grace and of good works are so interwoven that they must 
 
 2 Lucian. dc conscribenda Histovia, §• 41.
 
 1 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 stand or fall together. Faith and works, doctrine and morality, are 
 like body and soul ; the pretended mother may be willing 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 con- 
 sent to it. Satan could devise no scheme for the extirpation of Chris- 
 tianity more crafty or more sure than this, which would substitute a 
 system of morals for religion. The generality of mankind content 
 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 sufficient. Instructed 
 that this will suffice, they 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 import- 
 ance. They will thus be educated in a state of indifference to the 
 Christian religion ; indifference will lead to contempt ; contempt to hos- 
 tility:'— i^p. 35, 36. 
 
 III. He affirms that the State of England cannot and ought not 
 to give a religious education, and that " all parties will combine 
 to resist any State education, which is professedly religious.'''' — 
 p. 36. This he maintains on the following grounds, which we 
 trust our readers will carefully consider : — 
 
 1. Dejure. If the State attempts to inculcate religion, it must 
 teach, or cause to be taught, a particular form of it. But this, 
 he argues, it has no right to do ; for, says he (p. 38), " The taxes 
 are collected from persons of all religions, and cannot be fairly 
 expended for the exclusive maintenance of one. 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 
 unjust. The Church has no more claim for exclusive pecuniary 
 aid from the State, or for any pecuniary aid at all, than is pos- 
 sessed by any other of those many corporations with which our 
 country abounds." " It is, therefore (he says), abundantly clear 
 that the State cannot give a religious education, as the word 
 religion is understood by unsophisticated minds.*" — p. 33. 
 
 2. De facto. This question of the inability of the State to give 
 a religious education (he affirms) is already decided. There can- 
 not (he asserts, p. 37) "be any objection on the part of the 
 Church to admit Dissenters to an equality in this respect ; be- 
 cause, so far as education is concerned, this question is already 
 settled : the State does assist both the Church and Dissent at the 
 present time."
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 1 1- 
 
 On this important subject he adds ; and we request special 
 attention to his words, — 
 
 " The notion is now exploded which 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 my self ^ are called 
 High Churchmen^ have little or no sympathy with mere Establish' 
 mentarians. In what way the Church of England is established, even 
 in this portion of the British empire, it is very difficult to say. Our 
 ancestors 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 
 property devised to other corporations, by the legislature. At the Con- 
 quest 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, aud piety, the 
 colonial bishops, are excluded. The Church thus endowed and pro- 
 tected, was once the Church of the whole nation : it was corrupted 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." — p. 37. 
 
 Let us now observe the results deduced by Dr. Hook from 
 these principles as affirmed by himself. He proposes— 
 
 I. That the Lord President of the Privy Council should license 
 Normal schools, whether of the Church or Dissent, for training 
 masters. — p. 65. 
 
 That the government should appoint a board of examiners, 
 who should give diplomas (p. 67) ; and that no master should be 
 allowed to teach in a State school, without previous training in 
 one of the Normal schools above specified. — p. 67. 
 
 II. That literary or secular Primary schools — 16,625 in num- 
 ber — for the education of the poor, should be established by the 
 State throughout England and Wales. — p. 26, 67. 
 
 That in these schools " literary and scientific instruction only 
 should be given by the masters appointed by the government.**' 
 —p. 40. 
 
 But that it should be " required of every child to bring, on the 
 Monday of every week., a certificate of his having attended the 
 Sunday school of his parish church, or some place of worship 
 legally licensed., and also of his having attended for similar reli- 
 gious instruction at some period set apart during the week" (p. 40) ; 
 and that thus " relicjious instruction should be secured to the
 
 12 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 children in accordance with those traditions, whether of Church or 
 of Dissent, which they have received from ihQir parents.'''' — p. 41. 
 
 That, " to effect this object, there should be attached to every 
 school thus established by the State a class-room, in which the 
 clerfjyman 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.'''' — p. 41. 
 
 That "the supervision of these State secular schools should 
 rest with the county magistrates and lay-inspectors appointed 
 by the Committee of Privy Council.'" 
 
 That these schools should be supported from " a local fund 
 raised by a county rate, and from parhamentary grants." — p. 67. 
 
 That " the books to be used should be selected or ])repared 
 under the direction of the Committee of Privy Council." — p. 68. 
 
 That the annual outlay to be thus levied would be as fol- 
 lows, p. 26 : — 
 
 16,625 Schools with salaries of 100/. to principal 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 
 
 " 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/." 
 —p. 27. 
 
 Then, " that if twenty Normal schools (the number required) 
 were established for masters, and ten for mistresses, 450,000/. 
 would be required for the fabric and furniture of Normal schools 
 alone. Then, again, 16,625 elementary scto/ buildings for 160 
 scholars, with a master's dwelling, would each cost 500/. (or 
 8,312,500/.), or upwards of eight millions." 
 
 On the whole, then. Dr. Hook would demand, for the accom- 
 plishment of his plan, a grant of eight onillions in the first 
 instance ; and nearly three millions annually to be raised by a 
 county rate, or voted by Parliament. 
 
 On the other hand, supposing bis schools to be well attended, 
 and to be aided by voluntary subscriptions, he anticipates an 
 annual revenue from those two sources of 1,862,000/. — p. 27. 
 
 Such, then, are the details of the system now proposed by Dr. 
 Hook, for " rendering more efficient the means for the education 
 of the" poor.
 
 Br. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 13 
 
 We observe upon it, in the first place, that this is no new 
 plan of education, even in our own country. 
 
 In the year 1885, or thereabouts, a Presbyterian gentleman, 
 an advocate of the Scotch bar, came from Edinburgh to Lon- 
 don with a vehement desire to educate the people of England. 
 He brought with him recommendations from Professor Pillans, 
 and Messrs. Chambers, and Messrs. Combe, and other distin- 
 guished educationists. He was a friend of Mr. Maclaren, the 
 editor of the Scotsman newspaper^ Having alighted in London, 
 he hastened to the House of Commons, where he found a select 
 committee sitting for education in Ireland ; and, strange to say, 
 this Scotch gentleman was pressed by this Irish committee to give 
 evidence on English education. He informed the committee (we 
 quote his words) that* " France was getting forward in education, 
 and would perhaps get ahead of us ; " that educational matters 
 were in a very prosperous state in' Prussia; SLud, proh pudor ! 
 " that oio class of people in England is well educated at present." 
 He was full of indignation against what he was pleased to call the 
 " monastic system^^'' of Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and all our 
 great schools ; he abhorred " flogging''; " he would extirpate " fag- 
 ging;" he hated "taking places;" and writing Greek and Latin 
 verses was what he specially eschewed. He wished "that' the dead 
 languages " were buried. He would purify Oxford and Cambridge 
 by a special commission ; and though he had never been in Ire- 
 land, he lauded the Belfast^ Academical Institution to the skies. 
 He would have every one compelled^ to go to school; and no persons 
 should be taught any religion that they did not approve. He 
 would have " Mr. Buckingham's baths and airing-grounds " esta- 
 blished by Act of Parliament. He would set up parochial libra- 
 ries and stock them with^ Messrs. Chambers' publications: and 
 he would build parochial laboratories and furnish them with 
 Dr. Reid's "pneumatic trough" and' Mr. Chambers' "cheap air- 
 pump." He explained to the committee the meaning of " percep- 
 tive Christianity*," and drew a clear distinction between an edu- 
 cator and educationist' : he was of the latter class. In short, 
 since the days of Hippias the Eleian, — saving, perhaps, the Abbe 
 Sieyes of Paris, — no one seems yet to have appeared equally 
 qualified with him to reform education and regenerate the 
 world. 
 
 The House of Commons appears to have been duly sensible of 
 
 3 Appendix to Report from Select Committee on Education, 1835, p. 169 
 * P. 126. * P. 126. 6 p 189. 7 P 179 
 
 s P. 195. » P. 199. 1 P. 145. 2 p" igj" 
 
 3 P. 162. * r. 184. 3 P. 150.
 
 14 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 the honour conferred on it by the presence of this distinguished 
 educationist, and ordered his evidence to be printed in an Ap- 
 pendix to the Report of the Committee on Irish Education 
 for 1835, — where it occupies no less than eighty-five folio 
 pages! 
 
 Having recently perused this Scotch evidence before this Irish 
 committee on English education, we were much surprised to find 
 that the learned witness whom we have just introduced to our 
 readers has anticipated nearly all of Dr. Hook's suggestions for 
 improving national instruction. If Mr. Joseph Lancaster could 
 have made any thing like so strong a case for claiming priority of 
 invention of the monitorial system against Dr. Bell, —about which 
 system, by the way, the world seems now quite as much disposed 
 to quarrel who shall be the first to destroy it, as forty years ago 
 they were to contend to whom should be assigned the honour of 
 having originated it, — as Mr. James Simpson can establish for 
 precedence of Dr. Hook in the discovery of the sacred-and-secular- 
 severance system of instruction, what a note of triumph would have 
 been sounded by all the Lancasterians of the land ! The plan 
 propounded by the Vicar of Leeds must, on the common principle 
 of suum cuique, be called the Simpsonian System of education. 
 Let us proceed to show this. 
 
 First, Mr. Simpson says (p. 149) : " I would wish to see, 
 \^i^ 2i Minister of Instruction ; 2nd, a Board of Commissioners with 
 the power of establishing schools, and sole power of appointing 
 teachers. When I say schools, I mean not only Elementary 
 schools, but also Normal schools for training masters ; and there 
 should be Examinoiors of the teachers from these Normal schools, 
 on their trials for licences. To the Board of Commissioners I 
 would leave the appointment of Inspectors of schools. We should 
 thus have a Minister of Instruction, the National Board of Educa- 
 tion, the Board of Examinators, and the Inspectors.'" 
 
 Here we have pretty much Dr. Hook's educational organiza- 
 tion. His diplomas are also forestalled (p. ] 54) : " All teachers,'" 
 says Mr. Simpson, " should attend the national Normal schools, 
 and receive what the French call the hremt de capacite?'' 
 
 Now for the assessment for the foundation and maintenance of 
 schools : " I would not give the parish any discretion w^hether or 
 not a school shall be established ; and the expenses of the schools 
 should be provided for by the parishes, or the locaHties in general 
 where they are situated" (pp. 164, 165). 
 
 And next for the main feature of Dr. Hook's scheme, viz. his 
 device, secernere sacra profanis, one would say that Dr. Hook 
 has almost transcribed Mr. Simpson's words. Mr. Simpson says
 
 Dr. Hooh on the Education of the Poor. 15 
 
 (p. 156, 157), "The teachers of the Elementary schools, it is 
 proposed, shall be secular teachers, and no more ; they should not 
 be required to teach revealed religion ; but, more, they should not 
 be permitted to do so. There shall be other and much better 
 provision for it : it shall be imparted to the young, not by the 
 elementary teacher, but by the proper religious teachers^ the clergy 
 of the different persuasions.''^ 
 
 And again (p. 185) : "I would, as I have said, secularize secular 
 education wholly, but at the same time make a most perfect provi- 
 sion (!) for education in revealed religion^ by allotting to every 
 elementary school both secular and religious instruction, but under 
 different teachers and at separate hours."" 
 
 Again (p. 187) : " The pupil shall have a teacher of secular 
 knowledge., and he shall have a teacher of revealed religion., at a 
 separate hour, and the teacher of religion shall be the minister of 
 his persuasion ; so that the ministers of religion shall be bound to 
 take upon them the religious training of the young." 
 
 So remarkable is the coincidence between the evidence of 
 Mr. Simpson before the Irish committee and the letter of Dr. Hook 
 to the Bishop of St. David's, that we are almost inclined to doubt 
 whether the Presbyterian advocate may not bring an action for 
 plagiarism against the Anglican divine. 
 
 But to proceed. Happily for England, the Simpsonian system, 
 thus republished by Dr. Hook, need not now be encountered by ab- 
 stract reasoning. It has already been tried in other countries, par- 
 ticularly in France. That country seems to be like a political 
 laboratory, in which experiments are made in educational and 
 ecclesiastical chymistry for the benefit of England, if she will be 
 wise enough to profit by them. Let us then examine the results 
 which this system has produced on the other side of the 
 Channel. 
 
 It is well known to many of our readers that the Emperor Na- 
 poleon founded the French University in 1806, and that this 
 university consists of twenty-seven academies, formed of a large 
 number of colleges or schools planted throughout the whole of 
 France. If we may use the comparison, France is the university 
 garden, these academies are its parterres, and the schools are 
 intended to be its flowers. These schools are conducted by 
 masters breveted by the government Board of Examiners, and ap- 
 pointed by the Minister of Instruction. They are to secondary 
 instruction what Dr. Hook's teachers would be to primary. In- 
 deed, as we shall see, France must be Dr. Hook's educational 
 Utopia. He would be much happier at Lyons than at Leeds. 
 In France the State does not pretend to give religious instruction
 
 1 6 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 in its great schools : it appoints teachers who have no religion^ ; 
 and it appears to think that they do not require any, for they 
 have only secular instruction to give. Let the schoolmaster say 
 nothing about religion, and let the clergy of the different creeds 
 attend to that^ — this is the theory of Dr. Hook, and this is the 
 'practice of France. Hence the race of aumoniers (or chaplains) 
 attached to the French schools. The bell rings on a Wednesday 
 afternoon in the College Royal; enter the Eomanist aumonier 
 to hear confessions ; enter the Lutheran aumonier to give a lec- 
 ture on the Augsburg Confession ; enter the Calvinist aumonier 
 to read a homily on Calvin's Institutes or the Catechism of Ge- 
 neva ; — and the boys whose parents are of no particular religion 
 are let loose to go and climb poles in the callisthenic gymnasium, 
 or to take a dip in the Ecole de Natation. 
 
 But this is too serious a matter to be treated lightly. It is as 
 clear to almost all the world in France, as the midday sun in its 
 bright sky, that this Simpsonian system of education has pro- 
 duced there a race of youthful infidels. The celebrated Abbe de 
 la Mennais said in his famous letter '' to the Minister of Instruc- 
 tion in 1823, " Une race impie^ depravee^ revolutionnaire se 
 forme sous Tinfluence de FUniversite ;"" and he did not scruple to 
 speak of the State schools as " les seminaires de Vatheisme et le 
 vestibule de Venfer?'' 
 
 So lately as last year, M. le Vicomte de Cormenin (no fanatic, 
 but a shrewd man of the world,) thus wrote ^ : " Do our schools 
 give any moral education to their pupils T — " No." — " Why 
 not r — " That is the business of the parents^ — " Any religious 
 educationT— "No."— " Why notT— "T'to is the business of 
 the clergy., — but we have chaplains in our schools." — " You may 
 have what you like, but you have no religion there : your schools 
 are not made for it, and they have none."*"* Let Dr. Hook's ad- 
 mirers observe this. 
 
 In corroboration of this assertion it is scarcely necessary to 
 refer to the testimony of the French ^ Episcopate, who have been 
 unanimous in condemning this State system of education ; since 
 we may presume that their judgment is familiar to most of our 
 readers, especially now that the question of national education 
 has been agitated so warmly at the recent elections in France, 
 
 •'If any one wishes for authentic evidence of this fact, let him consult the extracts 
 from the works of the university teachers collected in the Catechisme de I'Univer- 
 site. Paris, 1845. 
 
 7 This letter will be found in M. de Riancey's Histoire de I'lnstruction Publique, 
 vol. ii. p. 316. 
 
 8 " Feu ! Feu !" Seventeenth Edition. Paris, 1845, p. 19. 
 ^ See Recueil des Actes Episcopaux. Paris, Mar. 1845.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 1 7 
 
 and has been the pierre de touche of so many candidates for the 
 Chamber just assembled. 
 
 But we should not be doing justice to those energetic persons 
 who are labouring day and night in France to abrogate a law 
 which Dr. Hook would enact in England, if we did not advert to 
 the testimony of those very parties (Dr. Hook's religious teachers 
 of various persuasions) who represent and conduct the spiritual 
 instruction of these schools. The Chaplains of the State schools 
 of France thus expressed themselves in an official report in 1830 
 concerning the result of their labours ; and every succeeding year 
 has only added fresh evidence to show the justice of their 
 complaints. 
 
 " The Chaplains (say they concerning themselves) are in a 
 state of despondency which no language can express, on account 
 of the utter futihty of their labours, although they have spared 
 no pains to render them effectual 
 
 " When the scholastic career of the pupils is finished, of those 
 who quit a school of about four hundred students, there is only 
 about one pupil a-year who believes the doctrines, and discharges 
 the duties, of religion ^" 
 
 One in Four Hundred ! Such is the result of the spiritual 
 and secular separation system in the schools of France ! 
 
 Let Dr. Hook add this fact to his statistical tables, in which he 
 calls on us to vote Eight Millions sterling, and Three Mil- 
 lions per annum for the establishment of similar schools in this 
 country, — to produce one Christian in four hundred ! 
 
 But this is not all. Dr. Hook's plan of national education has 
 been tried in France, not only in secondare/ instruction, but in 
 primary also, that is, precisely in that kind of instruction which 
 is now under consideration ; and in which he would establish it 
 in England and Wales, at the outlay we have just mentioned, 
 and to the subversion of what is already established in that de- 
 partment of education. 
 
 In the summer of 1831, M. Victor Cousin, the celebrated 
 professor and publicist, visited Berlin, where he had two inter- 
 views with Baron von Altenstein, the Prussian Minister of 
 Instruction. He had also frequent conversations with M. Schulze, 
 one of the minister's confidential counsellors. The result of 
 M. Cousin's conferences and inquiries was a Report on National 
 Education, addressed by him to M. le Comte de Montahvet, the 
 then Minister of Instruction in France ^ In it M. Cousin in- 
 
 ^ The French original of this Report will be found inserted at full length in 
 M, de Riancey's Histoire, vol. ii. pp. 378—381. 
 
 2 The greater part of this Report has been translated and published by Mrs. Sarah 
 Austin. London, 1834. The reader may compare with it the evidence of Dr. JuHus 
 
 B
 
 18 hr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 forms the Minister tliat every parent in Prussia is compelled to 
 send his cliildren to school ; that each gemeinde^ commune, or 
 parish, is ohHgcd to maintain a primary school : that the masters 
 of these schools are trained in Normal Schools — of which there is 
 one in every department — supported partly by local and partly 
 by State funds : that after they have been trained for a com- 
 petent time in these Normal Schools, the would-be masters are 
 examined by a government board, and, if approved by it, receive a 
 brevet or dip>loma from the Minister of Instruction. 
 
 Now for the main point. How is religious instruction provided 
 for in the Prussian schools ? As a State, Prussia does endeavour 
 to give some religious instruction, and where it can, dogmatic 
 instruction : therefore it does not desire to unite children of dif- 
 ferent religious persuasions ; indeed, in many cases it maintains 
 separate schools of different communions in the same parish ; but 
 where this does not appear to be feasible it imparts only general 
 religious instruction, and leaves special doctrinal instruction to be 
 inculcated by the pastors of the various creeds, or by the parents 
 of the children. 
 
 In national education, therefore, Prussia has no national re- 
 ligion ; but from its mode of acting it appears that it would have 
 one, if it could. 
 
 It is a fact well worthy of notice, as showing how complete the 
 mechanical organization of instruction is in that country, that in 
 ]831 the number of children between the ages of 7 and 14, the 
 approved schoolable period, was 2,043,030, and that the number 
 actually schooled in the State schools was no less than 2,021,421, 
 so that there were only 21,609 children unschooled; and this 
 number at least (it may be reasonably supposed) was provided 
 for in private schools ^ : so that it would appear that every child 
 who coidd be educated was educated. In fact, the whole kingdom 
 was one great school — one vast mind-manufactory. Beside this, 
 lists *, we hear, are kept with such scrupulous accuracy, that His 
 Prussian Majesty can know, at a moment's notice, which of his 
 juvenile subjects has been guilty of missing school on any given 
 day in any year in any of the most obscure villages of his do- 
 minions. Playing truant is a high state misdemeanour ; an affaire 
 de lese-majeste. These lists, we are assured, are often appealed to 
 in courts of justice; not to prove or disprove alibis, but as evi- 
 dence of character. 
 
 Yet, alas ! after all these painful and fatiguing processes of 
 intellectual cotton-spinning, we find, to our inexpressible grief 
 
 on Prussian Education, § 1774—1708, in the Parliamentai'y Report on Education. 
 London, 1835. 
 
 3 See Report, pp. \\\ 4. 324. * P. 312. 30.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 19 
 
 and dismay, that superstition and infidelity are widely prevalent 
 in Prussia. No less than a million and a half of human beings — 
 nearly as many as the school-going population — went last year on 
 a pilgrimage "to the Holy Coat at Treves ; and how many more 
 Prussian subjects are now joining with MM. Konge and Czerski^ 
 and the Friends of Light, as they are called, in their ungodly 
 crusade against revealed religion, and in their fanatical rhapsodies 
 against public peace and order, we are not able to tell. The 
 recent Address (Oct. 2, 1845) of the municipality^ of Berlin to 
 the sovereign seated on his throne, an address which can only 
 be characterized as a manifesto of Deism, and this from the 
 municipal body of the capital of that great kingdom, "where 
 every child is obliged to go to school,''' speaks volumes as to the state 
 of the public mind in that country after all the educational 
 drilling it has received, and fills us with an involuntary shudder 
 at the very names of Primary schools. Normal schools, Model 
 schools. School- inspectors, and Ministers of Public Instruction. 
 
 We are led from these observations on Prussian schools to re- 
 cross the Rhine, and to recur to our former topic, — primary 
 education in France, 
 
 The year after the appearance of M. Cousin's Report, M. 
 Guizot became Minister of Instruction in that country, and in 
 June, 1833, was passed the law by which primary instruction in 
 France is now regulated. 
 
 This legislative act embodied most of the recommendations of 
 M. Cousin'*s Report. 
 Byit^— 
 
 1. Every commune or parish is compelled to maintain (either 
 by itself alone or jointly with other communes) 2ifrim.a,ry school. 
 
 2. The chef-lieu of every department (in the same manner) 
 must maintain a Normal or Training school. 
 
 3. Every parochial school is under a local school-committee 
 composed of the Maire, the Procureur du Poi, the Ministers of 
 the various religions (licensed by the State), and one or more 
 notables of the parish. 
 
 4. It is also subject to a county committee (comite d'arrondisse- 
 ment), consisti»ng of the Maire of the chef -lieu or county town, 
 one of the justices of the peace, one of the ministers of the dif- 
 ferent rehgions, a professor or schoolmaster, a parochial school- 
 master, and three notables of the arrondissement, all under the 
 presidency of the suh-prefect of the department. 
 
 5 Our readers will find a circumstantial account of their proceedings, with 
 documents, in our third volume, p. 495, sqq. 
 
 6 See Note at p. 50. 
 
 7 We cite from the official " Guide des Ecoles Primaires," published by autho- 
 rity, Paris, 1842. 
 
 B 2
 
 20 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor, 
 
 5. Tlie masters of the Primary schools are appointed by this 
 committee, at the nomination of the municipal council of the com- 
 mune in which the school is. Previously to his appointment the 
 master must have obtained a certijicat de moralite from the mayor 
 and three town councillors of the parish where he has resided for 
 three years : he must have also been examined by a board of 
 seven examiners nominated by the Minister of Instruction, and 
 have received a hrevet de capacite from them ; and, lastly, having 
 been a})pointed as above specified, and having taken an oath of 
 fidelity to the king, the charter, and the laws, he receives an 
 arrete d'insi'Uution from the Minister of Instruction, and is in- 
 stalled by the rector of the academie in which the school is. 
 
 6. The comite d'arrondissenient inspects all the schools in its 
 district, and forwards an annual report of their condition to the 
 prefect of the departement and to the Minister of Public Instruc- 
 tion ; it has also the power of reprimanding incompetent or neg- 
 ligent masters, and suspending them from tlieir functions. 
 
 In addition to this, there is a government inspector in each 
 departement^ and a sub-inspector in every arrondissement ; all of 
 tliem nominated by the Minister of Instruction, and bound to 
 make an annual report concerning the state of the schools to the 
 rector of the academie, and to the prefect of the departement in 
 which the school is ; and this report is forwarded to the Council 
 of Education in Paris, and there read. 
 
 So much for the material and personal organization of the 
 Primary schools of France ; let us now examine their method of 
 religious instructio7i. 
 
 " The wishes of the parents (says the law of June 1833) shall 
 be consulted and followed in all that concerns the participation of 
 their children in the religious instruction of the school/' 
 
 *' Parents shall be invited (says the ministerial circular of Nov. 
 183o) to give religious instruction themselves, or by means of the 
 ministers of their religion (that religion being — in the words of 
 the Conseil Boi/al of June 1837 — Romanist, Lutheran, Calvinistic, 
 or Jewish ; each of these four creeds being licensed and endowed 
 by the state) ; and for this purpose the children shall he conducted 
 on certain days and at fixed hours to the respective places of 
 worship in which such instruction is given." 
 
 In practice the religious instruction given by the state school- 
 master is of so little account, that " in each parochial school (says 
 the Abbe Dieulin^) the religious exercises of the pupils are under 
 the control of the clergy, and as soon as that ceases or flags, the 
 teaching of the primary schools becomes wholly secular''"' (dement 
 
 » in his Guide des Cures, 3rd edition, 1844, vol. i. pj). 569. 578. 548. 553.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 21 
 
 tout-a-fait seculier). Such, then, is the condition of the parochial 
 schools in France with respect to religious education. 
 
 Let us now pause for a few moments, and review the leading 
 characteristics of this system as practised in France, and now 
 recommended for adoption in England. 
 
 1. In almost every one of the 37,000 communes or parishes of 
 France there exists a Primary school, governed by an instructor 
 trained in a State Normal school, licensed and appointed by the 
 secular power, and responsible to it. 
 
 2. The parochial school is supported by a parochial tax and by 
 a small payment from the children ; it is under secular inspection, 
 and the books used in it are authorized by a secular board of 
 education. 
 
 3. The master is entirely independent of the pastor of the 
 parish and of the bishop of the diocese ; and the school has no 
 connexion with any religious body, except so far as that the minis- 
 ters of the various creeds have access to the school to give religious 
 instruction, and that the pupils are enjoined to resort to them for 
 it, and that the ministers are members of the school committee. 
 
 Let us now consider the results. It might, we think, be anti- 
 cipated, that the parochial schoolmaster, having no connexion with 
 the parochial pastor, and having a commission to teach from the 
 crown, and the subjects of his teaching being of a more utilitarian, 
 marketable, and ostentatious character than those of the clergy- 
 man, he would, even, perhaps, in spite of himself, become a rival 
 of the pastor of the parish, and that thus the Church and State 
 would be exhibited in every parish of France in an attitude, not 
 of friendly alliance with each other, but of jealous antagonism. 
 
 Suppose also the case of a young master fresh from his Normal 
 school, proud of belonging to the corps enseignant of the nation, 
 armed with his certificat de moralite from M. le Maire in one hand, 
 and with his brevet de capacite and his arrete d'' institution from 
 M. le Ministre in the other, brimful of big notions of the vast 
 importance of his calcul and dessin lineaire^ and not less per- 
 suaded, we fear, of the comparative unim.portance of the doctrines 
 and practice of Christianity, because he is not required to teach 
 the one or to exercise the other ^ Suppose him also making him- 
 self of great importance to the admiring villagers^ by his skill 
 in surveying, and map-making, and gauging, and well-sinking, and 
 billiard-playing, and speechifying at clubs, — suppose him a daily 
 
 3 " II pourrait malheureusement dans I'etat present de legislation se dispenser 
 des pratiques du eulte sans donner lieu a aucune poursuite," says the Abbe Dieulin, 
 p. 583. 
 
 • The instituteurs (says the same writer, p. 587) have now become "assez 
 generalemcnt les factotums de nos communes."
 
 22 Dr, Hook on the Education of the Poor, 
 
 frequenter of the cafe and cabaret^ a reader of the Constitutlonnely 
 and an admirer of M. Michelet, — what chance, we should like 
 Dr. Hook to tell us, would the poor village Cure, with his Cate- 
 chisme^ his Petit- Paroissien, and his Journee du Chretien^ — be he 
 as pious as Vincent de Paul and as learned as Thomas Aquinas, 
 — have against M. Vlnstituteur de VEcole Primaire? 
 
 Suppose, again, the said instituteur to be a person of sceptical 
 opinions and licentious habits, — and it is in vain for Dr. Hook to 
 flatter himself that he would be removed^ — who, we ask, would 
 remove him ? The bishop could not, the cure coidd not, and the 
 secular authorities, we have too much reason to believe, tvould not ; 
 for, we ask, has M. Quinet been removed? has M. Mickiewicz 
 been removed, although they have uttered blasphemous rhapsodies 
 against Christianity, not in an obscure village, but in their public 
 lecture-rooms in the College de France, in the very capital of the 
 Empire^? No. A secidar educating body would take no cogni- 
 zance of the religious opinions of the parish schoolmaster ; and 
 he would be a thorn in the side of the parish priest, and would do 
 infinitely more mischief among the parishioners in a week than 
 the pastor could repair in a year. 
 
 In our humble opinion, M. Guizot, by his education bill of 
 1833 (founded, as we have said, on M. Cousin's rapport), has 
 taken incalculable pains to represent on a large scale, mutatis 
 mutandis, the celebrated dialogue in the " Clouds "" of Aristo- 
 jihanes, where the^ two game-cocks (emblems of the Gallic race) 
 are brought on the stage as the representatives and champions of 
 the new and old systems of education*, to peck and spur at one 
 another for the diversion of the public. On the French educa- 
 tional stage there stands on one side the juvenile secular Gallus, — 
 
 ***** seque 
 
 Sustulit in digitos, primoresque erigit ungues*, — 
 
 on the other side, impar congressus, is his veteran ecclesiastical 
 rival, having moulted his feathers and looking dark and dusty. 
 The result, we fear, is generally the same in France as it was at 
 Athens in the play. And now Dr. Hook would establish a simi- 
 lar cockpit in every village in England. 
 
 2 These antichristian extravagancies were brought before the notice of the 
 Minister of Public Instruction, by M. de I'Espinasse in the Chamber of Deputies, 
 in July, 1844 ; but in vain. See Les Nouveaux Montanistes du Colle'ge de France, 
 Paris, 1844, p. 160. 1G8. 
 
 3 See Mitchell's Aristophanes, Preface, p. Ixxxix., and vol. ii. p. 100. 
 * Nubes, 947. 
 
 Sei^oj Toivvv Tt)v ap^aiav TlaiStiiip wt; ^iSKtiTO, 
 OT iyio Ta diKcua Xsywv ijvOuvv Kai <ru}<ppo<TuvT} 'vtvofXiCTO. 
 5 Lucilius ap. Non. v. 24.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 23 
 
 Perhaps, however, it may be thought that we are drawing an 
 imaginary picture. To our minds, considering the materials Dr. 
 Hook puts together, the result is as clearly evident as if we saw it 
 now visibly realized before our bodily eyes ; for as South® said, — 
 and he was a keen observer of things, — " It is a pestilential design 
 to attempt to disjoin the civil and ecclesiastical interests, which 
 are of that nature, that it is to be feared that they cannot be 
 divided but they will prove opposite^ and, not resting on a bare 
 diversity., will quickly rise into a contrariety C and so we say 
 now ; Dr. Hook's severance of secular and sacred would soon be- 
 come hostility of one to the other. 
 
 But we need not speculate on probabilities. " M. Guerry 
 (says the "Edinburgh Review'") some time ago scandalized the 
 friends of education (in France) by asserting that the number of 
 persons annually charged with offences against the laws in France 
 varied in the several departments with the number of persons who 
 had received the elements of instruction. It is undoubtedly true 
 that the amount of legal crime does appear to keep pace with the 
 amount of primary instruction^ M. Guerry's moral map, in which 
 the districts where schools and crimes are most numerous are 
 coloured with a dark tint, has, we fear, not changed its hue for 
 the better since the bill of 183S has been in full operation. In 
 the last Compte rendu de la justice criminelle in France we are 
 informed, that since 1826 to 1843 the population^ of. France has 
 increased seven per cent.., and that crime has augmented in the 
 same period at least eighteen per cent^ ! 
 
 ^ In his Sei'mon on 1 Kings xiii. 33. 
 
 ' No. cxxxix. p. 56. We are indebted to Archdeacon Wilberforce for this refei*- 
 ence. See his Letters to Lord Lansdowne on the Establishment of a Board of 
 National Education, p. 46. 
 
 * A French Journal says : " Un mot encore pour resumer cet article ; le chiffre 
 de I'augmentation de la population est, depuis 1826, de 7 p. 100; raccroissement 
 des crimes est de dix-huit ou dix-neuf pour cent." 
 
 ^ The following are the remarks of the XJ niters (10 Aug. 1845) in introducing 
 these statistics to its readers : — 
 
 *' Nous allons mettre sous leurs yeux les chiffres ; ils verront comment cette 
 society, fiUe de la philosophie du dix-huitieme siecle, repond a ces enseignements dont 
 on vante tant I'efficacite et surtout la moralite'. Nous savons bien qu'on nous accu- 
 sera de calomnier la civilisation : que nous importe ! Nous repondrons a nos 
 adversaires qu'il y a a nos yeux une civilisation salutaire, utile a tous, et a la gran- 
 deur des peuples et au bien-etre des individus, civilisation qui met a cote du droit le 
 devoir, a cote du bonheur le courage, la resignation, I'honnetete ; qui ne preche pas 
 seulement a I'homme le culte de ses appetits, mais qui lui enseigne toutes les verius 
 et tous les devoirs ; cette civilisation est mere de tous les progres : elle maintient 
 I'ordre, rafFermit I'homme contre l'adversite,concilie I'existence des gouvernements 
 avec les droits des peuples : en un mot, elle guerit et soulage, non pas avec des 
 geoles et des carcans, mais avec des paroles bienfaisantes, avec la morale de 
 I'Evangile. — Cette civilisation repose sur la religion et sur le I'espect du a ses 
 enseignements. 
 
 " Nous la desirous, et nous poursuivons de tous nos efforts son avenement ; mais
 
 24 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 But to come nearer to the point, namely, the character of 
 the primary schoohnaster, and his relation to the pastor of the 
 parish. 
 
 In a recent publication of Monseigneur Parisis ', the eloquent 
 Bishop of Langres, we find a melancholy description of the condi- 
 tion of French parishes, in consequence of the bad conduct and 
 ])ernicious influence of the State schoolmaster. After enter- 
 ing into some lamentable details on this subject, he says ^ " I 
 have not inspected all the Primary schools in France, but, to 
 judge from what 1 know., there are certainly more than ten 
 THOUSAND OathoHc villages more or less in the state of suffering 
 which I have described ;" that is, nearly a third of the whole ! 
 
 It is a well-known fact that, in consequence of this condition 
 of things, many of the parochial clergy of France have kept aloof 
 from the State schools, or abandoned them in despair, and the 
 schools have become completely secular^ that is to say, in the end., 
 hostile to Religion and the Church, and nurseries of impiety and 
 anarchy. 
 
 We would therefore beg leave to submit to Dr. Hook this 
 question, '' Suppose him to have expended his eight millions, and 
 to have obtained his grant of three millions a year, for his State 
 schools, is he certain that he can ensure the attendance of the 
 parochiaP clergy upon any of them V 
 
 Such then has been the practical working in France of the 
 system of primary education, which Dr. Hook proposes to "render 
 universal" in England and Wales. Dr. Hook expresses an 
 earnest desire * to place the education of the people in the same 
 
 a cotd de cette civilisation il y en a une autre qui, prechant a I'homme ses droits, ne 
 lui parle de ses devoirs que pour le pousser a I'esprit d'insubordination et de rdvolte ; 
 qui le prend au berceau, pour le battre par tous les vents du scepticisme et de 
 I'e'goisme ; qui, s'adressant a son esprit, neglige sa conscience, sa raison, son coeur. 
 Cette civilisation n'est point notre fait. Nous ue cesserons de la combattre, soit 
 qu'elle atteigne les classes aisees de la socie'te, soit qu'elle sHnfiltre dans les classes 
 in/crleureSf car ses fruits seront amers partout. 
 
 " Que de choses nous pourrions dire pour rendre d'une maniere plus saillante 
 notre pensde et pour faire sentir des a present toutes les consequences du mal. 
 Nous prefe'rons arriver aux fails, sauf a en tirer plus tard les inductions qui nous 
 sembleront justes. Et d'abord, mettons sous les yeux de nos lecteurs un tableau qui 
 leur fera voir dans quelle proportion ont augmente les crimes de 1826 k 1843, — c'est 
 a dire dans une periode de 17 a 18 ans." 
 
 ^ Examen de la Question de la Liberty d'Enseigneraent, Paris, 1843. 
 
 2 P. 46. 
 
 ' Would he even gain that of the sincerely religious dissenting teachers? "They 
 (whatever their /)c»/i^icrt^ brethren may d<») — they, too, (says Mr. Mathison, Iloiccan 
 th^ Church educate the People ? p. 96,) have recorded their protest against the state 
 schoolmaster, — against the severance of religious from secular tuition ;" i. e. against 
 Dr. Hook's plan. 
 
 * P. 32.
 
 Dr. Ilook on the Education of the Poor. 25 
 
 advantageous position as education in other countries ; and among 
 them he specifies France I 
 
 We think that, after the details now presented to our readers, we 
 may confidently affirm that (thanks be to Divine Providence and 
 to the bishops and parochial clergy of England, and to those ex- 
 cellent individuals who instituted and have maintained the National 
 Society, and to the English government and legislature, as far as 
 they have augmented its resources) England, with all her deficien- 
 cies, is in an infinitely more healthy and prosperous state in all 
 that concerns National Education than France ; and we cannot 
 find words to express our astonishment that Dr. Hook should 
 speak '•'• of placing us in the same advantageous position with it.*'"' 
 The same advantageous position with France ! Divided parishes, 
 disaffected people, insubordinate children, sceptical schoolmas- 
 ters, and despairing pastors ; education unsanctified and un- 
 christianized, and religion despised; — these are the egregious 
 advantages which he would bestow upon us at the cost of three 
 millions a year : and all this under the name of " rendering more 
 efficient the education of the people ! " 
 
 We have already expressed our regret that Dr. Hook should 
 have employed the term people in his title-page for the poor ; and 
 vs^e have now to complain that he mystifies himself and us by the 
 use he makes of the word education. 
 
 The advantages of which he speaks, whatever th^y may be in 
 the matter of instruction^ (and we doubt very much whether the 
 French system possesses any even in this respect^) are no advan- 
 tages at all, but very much the reverse in the way of education. 
 A child may b6 instructed by that system, but cannot be educated 
 by it. Where the secular is separated from the sacred — where 
 it is independent of it, and indifferent or opposed to it, there mai/ 
 be instruction^ but there cannot be education. In Education the 
 secular must be subordinate to the sacred, must be dependent on 
 it, must be subsidiary to it, must be tributary to it ; must be 
 informed, animated, enlightened, guided, governed, inspired, 
 elevated, consecrated by it. And therefore, for our own part, 
 when we turn our eyes from France, and fix them on our own 
 country; when instead of an ecole primaire, with its State 
 schoolmaster and communal committee — standing like a neigh- 
 bourless hut on a wild and barren moor, in a wilderness of moral 
 and religious isolation — we look at one of our own parish schools 
 shaded by the trees of the village churchyard, and the object of 
 solemn care and religious interest to its master and to the parish 
 priest, both working together with one heart ; when we see 
 it visited by him, its children catechized by him, loved by him, 
 blessed by him, and not only cared for by him, but also by the
 
 26 Dr. Ilook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 members of his family, his wife, his daughters, instructed by 
 them in simple psalmody, and taught to praise God joyfully in 
 His house ; when we see them assembled together in cheerful 
 holyday groups on a summer's day upon the lawn of the par- 
 sonage on their annual festivity, and enjoying the pleasures 
 derived from love tempered by respect ; vve know not how to 
 describe our joy and gratitude, that England has as yet been 
 preserved from the miserable advantages which Dr. Hook would 
 give us ; and we do not hesitate to say, that one single English 
 school, such as we have now described, is a greater national bless- 
 ing, and more likely to draw down God's mercies upon a country, 
 than all the thirty thousand ecoles primaires of France^ with the 
 ^linister of Public Instruction at their head. For our part, we 
 had rather go hack to the days of Shenstone's School-mistress, 
 with her horn-book, and Sternhold and Hopkins, her elbow chair, 
 and her birchen-tree, than forward to the Simpsonian era, so 
 earnestly yearned for by Dr. Hook. 
 
 At the grand concours in the French capital of the great schools 
 of Paris and Versailles on August 12 of the present year, M. 
 Guizot, at his entrance into the grande salle du concours^ at the 
 Sorbonne, was greeted by the students with the recolutionary airs 
 of the Marseillaise and Parisienne ! a pretty strong practical proof 
 of the moral and political working of the French system of edu- 
 cation ; and he was also saluted with the following verse from the 
 opera of Charles V. : — 
 
 " Jamais en France I'Anglais ne regnera,*' 
 
 to which, in spite of Dr. Hook's arguments, we would beg leave 
 to re-echo, 
 
 "Jamais en Angleterre la France n'enseignera." 
 
 But we must not stop here. Dr. Hook's system is not 
 only quite as bad as the French one, but it is 7nuch worse. 
 First, in its destructimness. In 1833, M. Guizot had almost a 
 clear field to deal with in the matter of primary education. 
 France was almost a tabula rasa, and he might put what schools 
 he liked, wherever he liked, without disturbing any body. But 
 in England, in 1846, the case is widely different. It was very 
 properly objected, in 1808, to Mr. AVhitbread's Bill for the 
 Education of the Lower Orders, that he did not seem to be aware 
 " that there were any schools existing in England ! " Dr. Hook 
 does something rather more unjustifiable than this. He ignores 
 the being of many that do exist \ and treats the rest as tf' they 
 
 * See a sensible article in No. viii. of the " Ecclesiastic " for proof of this, with 
 respect to diocesan training schools, p. 1\S — Ol.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 27 
 
 existed to very little or no purpose. At this time there are about 
 TEN THOUSAND Ohurch schools existing in England, with nearly 
 a MILLION scholars*'; and nowhere comes Dr. Hook, and would 
 annihilate these schools by A ct of Parliament ; we say, annihilate^ 
 for he would destroy them in their character as Church schools. 
 He would build 16,625 State schools, to be maintained at a 
 cost of about three millions inclusive of voluntary contributions, 
 which he anticipates will be transferred from existing Church 
 schools to future State schools. Thus he would sap the foun- 
 dations of the Church schools ; which, in order to exist at all, 
 will, he supposes, become State schools. This, we venture 
 to say, neither M. Guizot, nor any statesman in the world, would 
 ever have dreamt of doing, whatever his opinion might be of what 
 is abstractedly best for education. He would have been too well 
 satisfied with what already exists, and too apprehensive of the 
 results of so sweeping a change, which is no less than an 
 attempt to revolutionize the whole scholastic constitution of the 
 country. 
 
 Next, Dr. Hook''s plan is worse than the French system in 
 respect to instruction. 
 
 In France, a primary schoolmaster, as master, is not necessarily 
 irreligious. He is required to teach the catechism of the diocese, 
 bien entendu to those who are willing to learn it. This is some- 
 thing, though not much ; and in practice, as we have seen, it 
 amounts to very little. But Dr. Hook's masters, as masters^ are 
 compelled to know nothing of religion. They are all to be 
 at liberty to live, as it were, at any time before the Christian era ; 
 but they must never cross the threshold of Anno Domini One. 
 Now what we would here say to Dr. Hook is this : It is absurd 
 to think that you can tell your master, " You must not teach 
 religion," and to think that you can stop there. No. By not 
 teaching religion^ he must teach irreligion. There is atheism in 
 his silence. 
 
 How, we would ask, for instance, can he teach geography, or 
 astronomy, or husbandry, without speaking of God ? No heathen 
 ever did, and no true Christian ever will. How can he teach 
 history, especially English history, without dwelling on the doc- 
 trines of Christianity ? By the mere secular mode of teaching 
 these subjects, he must make his pupils deists, and himself too, 
 if he is not one already ; and when you have created some 16,000 
 deistical teachers, will you then think that you can " educate the 
 people ?" 
 
 But it may be said. Dr. Hook provides a remedy against all 
 this. And what is it ? Why, on the Wednesday and Friday 
 
 ^ See Mr. Burfjess'a Letter to Dr. Hook, p. 6.
 
 28 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 afternoons, the teachers of various persuasions are to present 
 themselves at the scliool door, and to show the children twice 
 a- week how much religious strife there is in the parish, and what 
 a variety of opinions in the world on the subject of Christianity, 
 and teach them thereby to debate and quarrel about it, instead of 
 believing and practising it. These teachers are to sort the 
 scholars into sects, and to carry off each his own dozen or half- 
 dozen of juvenile followers into the Babel-room to be attached to 
 the school, and there give them for an hour or more a most lively 
 practical picture of the confusion of tongues. "iVo religion taught 
 hei'e on a Monday, — and a hundred on a Wednesday !" Such 
 is to be the inscription over the door of Dr. Hook's State schools. 
 Pantheons on a Friday, and something, for which England has 
 not got a word, on a Thursday and Saturday. Whether the 
 religion of the Wednesdays and Fridays, or the irreligion of the 
 rest of the week, would be most effective in producing a race of 
 freethinkers, it is, in our opinion, very difficult to say; taken 
 both together, they would be irresistible. 
 
 Let us refresh ourselves for a minute from the sadness and 
 weariness of spirit which such a prospect produces, by consider- 
 ing the advantages of our present system, as contrasted with that 
 which is proposed. Lord Bacon says well, that religion is aroma 
 scientiarum^ and every one who has had any experience in teach- 
 ing must confess, that it is only by being enabled to mingle a holy 
 fragrance with secular instruction that he can render it sweet to 
 his scholars or himself. Without it, it becomes an odour of 
 death unto death. We would put it, therefore, to Dr. Hook, 
 whether he would condemn the poor children of England to be 
 deprived of all the fresh and palatable mental food which they 
 enjoy, and to be fed only on secular husks from the hand of their 
 schoolmasters ; and whether the nauseous fare said to be admi- 
 nistered to their bodies in some of our union workhouses, is not 
 the only fit type of such instruction as this ' ? 
 
 7 What our great poet of the present day has said concerning the study of 
 Roman Antiquities, may be applied to all " literary and secular instruction :" — 
 " How profitless the relics that we cull, 
 
 Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome, 
 
 Unless they chasten fancies that presume 
 Too high, or idle agitations lull ! 
 Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full, 
 
 To have no seat for thought were better doom, 
 Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull 
 
 Of him who gloried in its nodding plume. 
 Hearen out of Tiew, our wishes, what are iliey ? 
 
 Our fond regrets, insatiate in their grasp ? 
 The sage's theory ? the poet's lay ?— 
 
 Mere fibulne without a robe to clasp ; 
 Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls; 
 Urns without ashes, tearless lacrymals !"
 
 Dr, Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 Would he, we ask, also deprive them of the spiritual 
 they derive from religious instruction conveyed by means of secu- 
 lar subjects of teaching ? No one, we think, can doubt that reli- 
 gion is often much more successfully inculcated by a teacher 
 when treating on a secular subject than on a religious one. A 
 master, with a Homer before him, can often instil Christianity, 
 softly and gently, into the mind of a pupil, who is almost insen- 
 sible to direct appeals from the Catechism, or even from the Bible. 
 Many a teacher can bear witness to the wisdom of St. Paul in 
 taking his text from the Altar to the Unknown God. And yet 
 Dr. Hook would rob the poor of this religious advantage derived 
 from secular instruction, and he would shut out religion from one 
 of its main avenues into their heart ! And this is " education for 
 the people !" 
 
 Besides, when he separates secular from religious instruction, 
 Dr. Hook appears to forget the very important truth, that reli- 
 gious education^ — what Solomon calls the training up a child "in 
 the wa^f he should go^'''' — is a practical thing ®; and that, though it 
 requires religious instruction in tlie fundamental principles of 
 Christianity, it does not consist in it. It consists in the constant 
 application of these principles to the management of the temper^ 
 and to the government of the behaviour. Religious education 
 consists in bringing religion to bear on the daili/ life of the child. 
 But, if the schoolmaster is never allowed to appeal to* religion, he 
 cannot apply religious motives and precepts to the formation of his 
 pupiFs habits ; he can only offer him worldly maxims and objects ; 
 and he must therefore lead him to form the irreligious habit of 
 regulating his actions by the opinions of men, and not by the law 
 of God. This is unchristian education : and its bad effects cannot 
 be counteracted by an hour or two of religious instruction two 
 days in the week. 
 
 But now we have another question to put to Dr. Hook. 
 Where would he get his schoolmasters I What man, with a 
 soul fitting him to be a master, would ever consent to teach in 
 any one of these 16,000 schools, where he is never to open his 
 lips about religion ? Would not any one with the spirit of a 
 Christian or of a man infinitely prefer breaking stones on the 
 high-road, to such heartless, joyless, godless drudgery as this ? 
 
 " Great God ! I'd rather be 
 A pagan, suckled in a creed out-worn," 
 
 than one of his state schoolmasters, with an atheistical muz- 
 zle on my mouth. He has therefore deprived himself of the 
 
 8 On this point see Bp. Butler's Sermon for the Charity Schools, 1745.
 
 30 Dr, Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 only class of persons fit to teach schools, by this his act of 
 severing secular from sacred instruction. He has proscribed 
 all the Christian young men of England from ever becoming 
 schoolmasters. The Church may shut up her training schools, 
 Stanley Grove may disband its pupils, Battersea may close its 
 doors, Westminster may deserve his sarcasms, and become use- 
 less ; for he will have deprived them of their occupation by 
 secularizing the profession of a teacher. And now lohat class of 
 persons has he left himself for his State schools l Just those 
 who are unfit to teach in any school at all ; and who ought to be 
 deprived of the office of schoolmaster, if they should have ever 
 been permitted to intrude into it ; those who either think their 
 Christianity to be like their coat and waistcoat, an article which 
 may be put off whenever they please, or who have no Christianity at 
 all. With 16,000 such masters as these planted throughout the 
 country, we should soon have a race of juvenile Chartists in every 
 parish of England. And these are the masters for whom he 
 would uproot our present teachers, to set them in their room ! 
 
 But this is not all. Dr. Hook is a Churchman ; he styles 
 himself "a high Churchman^'''' (why should any one call himself 
 names ?) but, whether high or low, as a Churchman he must be 
 desirous of unity : he must wish that schismatics should be eman- 
 cipated from their schism, and heretics from their heresy ; and 
 yet he proposes a measure which would stereotype heresy and 
 schism for ever ! Instead of saying with St. Paul, " Be ye all of 
 one mind," " Let there be no divisions among you ;" he says, 
 " Be ye all of different minds," and " Let the divisions which 
 now exist among you be perpetuated for ever !" And, not content 
 with speaking thus in his own person, he calls on the Legislature 
 to enforce his principle by Act of Parliament. 
 
 If he says that he has taken things as they are, that he does 
 not make divisions, hnt finds them, we would humbly submit to him 
 whether it would not be better to endeavour to make things better 
 than they are, and to heal our divisions rather than to render them 
 incurable. We respectfully suggest to him that he has no right 
 to say to the dissenters, " Be dissenters, you and your children, 
 until doomsday ;" and that he is guilty of an act of grievous 
 cruelty to them and their posterity in blocking up the road for 
 their return to the unity of the Church. How different was the 
 language and conduct of St. Augustine ! When the dissenters 
 of his day asked him, why he was so eager for their restoration 
 to the bosom of the Church, when they said, " Quid nos vultis \ 
 
 ^ P. 4, " I am a Churcliiiian, and a high Cluu'chman, addx*essing your 
 Lordship ."
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 31 
 
 quid nos quseritis V he replied, " Quasi non ipsa causa sit quare 
 eos velimus et quare quseramus, quia errant et pereunt. Quia in 
 errore es, revocare volo." — " Sic volo errare, (said the dissenter,) 
 sic volo perire.'" — " Sic vis errare ! (was the reply,) sic vis 
 perire ! Quanto melius. Ego nolo M" And again, in another 
 place, " Quserimus vos, quia peristis, ut de inventis gaudeamus de 
 quibus perditis dolebamus^'" This was language worthy of a 
 Christian bishop. What would St. Augustine have said to Dr. 
 Hook's plan for " securing ^ religious instruction to the children 
 of dissenters in accordance with the traditions of their parents ?^^ 
 If this could ever be called AngHcan churchmanship, — let alone 
 high churchmanship, — it would, in our opinion, be the severest 
 calamity that ever jjefell the Church of England. 
 
 Does not Dr. Hook believe in the pastoral commission * of the 
 Church I Does he not believe that Christ said to her, " Go teach 
 all nations V Does he not believe that the same Divine Voice which 
 said, " Feed My sheep,'' said also, " Feed My lamhs r and that, if 
 the former command is addressed to her, so is the latter \ that, in a 
 word, the Christian School is by divine institution connected with, 
 dependent on, and subsidiary to, the Christian Church, and that, 
 what God has united, it is not for man to put asunder ? How 
 then, w^e would earnestly inquire, how can he reconcile it to 
 himself to advise the Church to be false to her pastoral com- 
 mission, and to give up her lambs, — not the less the object of her 
 regards and her anxiety because they have strayed, — to the jaws 
 of the wolf and to the carelessness of the hireling ? Is this her 
 fidelity to Christ l this her imitation of the good Shepherd ? How 
 can any one recommend the spouse of Christ to resemble the 
 false mother and to be willing to divide the child, and thus con- 
 vict herself of falsehood ? Again, we ask, is this churchmanship ? 
 
 But further. How, we would also ask, can Dr. Hook call on his 
 brethren, the priests and deacons of the Church, to co-operate in 
 a system founded on falsehood ; that is, instituted on the as- 
 sumption that every self-consecrated teacher has an equal right 
 to feed Christ's flock with the divinely appointed pastors thereof? 
 He speaks of this compromise being a sacrifice ^ not oi principle, 
 but oi prejudice. Has it then come to this, that it is Si prejudice 
 to " magnify the office " which Christ has instituted for the sal- 
 vation of souls ? is not, rather, an officer of Christ guilty of great 
 
 * Sermon xlvi. on Ezekiel xxxiv. 1 — 16. We would earnestly recommend that 
 all Churchmen who feel any doubt of what their own conduct ought to be toward 
 Dissenters should read this admirable sermon. 
 
 2 Epist. xciii. 46. ^ p, 41, 
 
 * See Dr. Moberly's Discourses, 2nd ed. pp. 143 — 147- 
 
 5 P. 57. 71.
 
 32 Dr. Hool' on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 presumption, if he betrays that which Christ commits to his 
 trust and charjres him diligently to keep ? Is it, after all, a 
 prejudice to obey Scripture, and to " mark those who cause 
 divisions among us, and to avoid them ?" — " to withdraw from 
 those who walk disorderly and not after apostolic tradition V — 
 " to note them T' — " to have no company with them ?"' — '' to turn 
 away from them T' Dr. Hook knows, from Polycarp ^ that St. 
 John would not go into the same public bathing-house with Ce- 
 rinthus, and dissuaded others from doing so ; and does he think 
 that he would have gone twice a- week to teach with modern 
 Cerinthians in the same school ? Let us be charitable to schis- 
 matics, by all means ; but is it any work of charity to unite with 
 them in the work of education ? We trow not. It is an act of 
 injustice towards them. It is flattering them to their destruc- 
 tion, and " spreading a net for their feet."" 
 
 Let us now consider Dr. Hook's plan in its relation to states- 
 men and the State. 
 
 Dr. Hook comes forward and assures the State, that '' it 
 cannot ' give a religious education,""* that it is in vain for it to 
 try ; that ^' all parties ' will combine to resist any State education 
 which is professedly religious ;" that the State cannot ascertain 
 what religious truth is ; that it has no national religion, and that 
 it ought not to have any, for *' the taxes ' are collected from per- 
 sons of all religious persuasions, and cannot be fairly expended 
 on the exclusive maintenance of one ;" and that therefore the 
 State, if it wishes religious instruction to be given in the schools 
 for the lower orders, must call in the aid, not of any one class of 
 religious teachers, but of all. 
 
 To these unwarrantable assertions we reply, in the words of 
 St. Augustine \ " Non te timeo ; non enim potes evertere tri- 
 bunal Christie et tuum constituere."*"* You cannot overthrow 
 Christ'*s judgment-seat, and plant your own in its place. Christ 
 has commanded "all kings to bow down before Him,"'"' and "all 
 nations to do Him service f and all who do not so will be placed 
 as His enemies under His feet at the great day of doom : " All 
 nations that will not serve Him shall perish." He has ordered 
 that kings and queens should be the " nursing fathers and nursing 
 mothers "" of His Church, and it is their duty to be so, whatever 
 men may think or say. Will then Dr. Hook affirm that it is impos- 
 sible for England to do what Christ enjoins all nations to perform I 
 
 ^ Euseb. H. E. iii. 28. tK TrapaSoaewg TIoXvicdpTrov 'l(i)dvvT)v rbv airoaTokov 
 ti<T£\9tlv TTOTS Iv ^a\avd(f), ioart XovcraaOai, yvovra de ivSov ovra KijpivdoVf 
 cnroTnjSi'iffai re rov tottov Kai iKcpvytiv 9upa^e,firjS' vTrofidvavTa rrjv avrriv aifTt^ 
 VTTodvvai (TTeyijv, ravTo re tovto napaivEcrai Tolg avv avrip. 
 
 ' P. 33. 8 p, 37_ 9 p, 38 1 serm. xlvi.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 33 
 
 Will he dictate to England another law contrary to that of 
 Christ I Will he, a minister of Christ, bound to " charge others 
 to teach no other doctrine*" but His, advise his country not 
 to be a Solomon, not to pray to God for wisdom to judge aright, 
 not to transcribe His Holy Word, not to act according to its dic- 
 tates, not to exercise its reason and to examine the evidence of 
 the case, and to discern the true mother"^ ^ and to give her the 
 ^Dhole child., — no, to do none of these things, — but to divide it 
 into a hundred atoms ; — yes, even to be a Herod, and murder 
 Christ's Innocents ? 
 
 Let him consider, we entreat him, what a miserable, what an igno- 
 minious confession he calls upon England to make, — that she can- 
 not discern the truth, and must not even be as good as Pilate and 
 inquire, " What is truth l ' that, so far from " buying the truth 
 and selling it wo^," she must barter away the truth she already 
 possesses, she must destroy her Church-schools, to found sceptical 
 seminaries in their place ; and that, instead of holding in her 
 own hands, in the sight of all men, the symbols of the true faith, 
 she must become a toll-collector of tickets^ every Monday morn- 
 ing in her schools, to ascertain that her children have been at all 
 possible varieties of conventicular meetings on the previous Sunday ! 
 Heaven forbid that she should ever lend an ear to such counsel as 
 this ! We would address ourselves to Dr. Hook, and say — Let 
 us examine the reasons on which you ground this advice. You 
 assert that England has no religious establishment. Let us waive, 
 for the present., the question de facto., and consider that de jure. 
 If it is true, then, that she has not a religious establishment, — we 
 reply, — she ought not to allow herself to rest for a moment before 
 she has one, for she cannot hope to prosper without one. " Our 
 great metaphysician and divine," as you justly call him". Bishop 
 Butler, affirms^ that "a constitution of a civW goyernmeut without 
 
 2 1 Kings iii. 27. ^ p, 41^ i Dr. Hook's Letter, p. 16. 
 
 5 Sermon on the King's Accession. We would beg to commend the following 
 words of this great man, concerning the Established Church of England, to the 
 special attention of our readers : — " Now a reasonable establishment provides 
 instruction for the ignoi'ant ; withdraws them, not in the way of force, but of 
 guidance, from running after those kinds of conceits. It doubtless has a tendency 
 likewise to keep up a sense of real religion and real Christianity in a nation ; and is, 
 moreover, necessary for the encouragement of learning, some parts of which the 
 Scripture revelation absolutely requires should be cultivated. 
 
 " It is to be remarked further, that the value of any particular religious esta- 
 blishment is not to be estimated merely by what it is in itself, but also by what it 
 is in comparison with those of other nations ; a comparison which will sufficiently 
 teach us not to expect perfection in human things. And, what is still more 
 material, the value of our own ought to be very much heightened in our esteem by 
 considering what it is a security from ; I mean that great corruption of Christianity 
 — Popery, which is ever hard at work to biding us again under its yoke." Bishop 
 Butler, Sermon on the Kincf's Accession. 
 
 C
 
 .34 Dr. Tlook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 a i-eliffious estaMlshment is a chimerical project, of which there is 
 no example, and which, leaving the generality without guide and 
 instruction, nmst leave religion to be sunk and forgotten among 
 them, and, at the same time, give full scope to superstition and 
 the gloom of enthusiasm."*"* — " An established religion is the uni- 
 versal voice of nature,'"* says Bishop Warburton ^ ^' The conse- 
 cration of the State by a State Religion is necessary''., we do not 
 consider it as convenient., but as essential., to a State," says Mr. 
 Burke. You may, perhaps, say, in answer to all this, that " those 
 who like yourself are called High Churchmen, have little or no 
 sympatliy with mere^ Establishmentarians.'"* Of ''''mere Esta- 
 blishmentarians/"* as you style them, we know nothing ; we do not 
 believe in their existence ; we suppose that all who affirm, or ever 
 have affirmed, the necessity of a religious establishment to a 
 State, have done so on account of its religions uses, both public 
 and private ; and because it is the Divine loill that States should 
 be consecrated by religion, and because they cannot hope for 
 God"*s blessing without it. So that, when you say you have no 
 sympathy with mere Establishmentarians, you say you have no 
 sympathy with men in the moon. But if you mean that you have 
 no sympathy with Establishmentarians (as indeed seems to be the 
 case), then we leave it to you to consider whether it is not a 
 greater misfortune to you to have little or no sympathy with 
 Bishop Butler, Bishop Warburton, and Mr. Burke, than it is to 
 them to " have little or no sympathy " with Dr. Hook. 
 
 But to examine further your reasons^ for this want of sympathy 
 with them. You say, " that the taxes are collected from persons 
 of all religions^ and cannot be fairly expended for the exclusive 
 maintenance of one.'''' And you lay it down very confidently, that 
 " to call upon Parliament to vote any mone}^ for the exclusive sup- 
 port of the Church of England, is to call upon Parliament to do 
 what is uTijust.'''' 
 
 We lately met with this argument in a book, also on the " Edu- 
 cation of the People,"*' written by an excellent lady^, who has 
 
 « Alliance, p. 103. ^ Works, p. 174. « P. 37. ^ P. 38. 
 
 2 Mrs. TucUfield, p. 40. " As Dissenters pay tax.esy I think they may reasonably 
 expect that government should assist them in forming separate schools." Mrs. 
 Tuckfield has in a very sensible manner protested, by anticipation, against Dr. 
 Hook's plan (ibid. p. 38), as follows : " I have never been able to make up my 
 mind to like the plan of receiving children of all different persuasions in the same 
 schools, on the principle of professing to avoid doctrinal instruction, except that 
 given by the ministers of each dif event sect on particular days, or particidar hours. I 
 feel persuaded such a plan, if it icere really practicable, would in this country, under 
 existing circumstances, have very injurious results ; such a school would become a 
 hot-bed f(yr Utile juvenile controversialists, who would very soon compare notes, with 
 respect to their religious teachers, and neither learn nor believe any thing distinctly. 
 I do not see how we can conscientiously order any schoolmaster to refrain from
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. ^5 
 
 done much for the cause of instruction, and we confess that we 
 were greatly surprised to see so shallow a sophism in so respect- 
 able a work. But to meet with it in the pages of an experienced 
 writer like Dr. Hook is what indeed has exhausted all our 
 faculties of amazement. 
 
 Let us first observe that this proposition is a general one, and 
 does not affect England more than any other nation, or England 
 more noio than at any other time : but it is predicated concerning 
 all nations at all times. Since, also, in any nation that ever 
 existed, the citizens have never been all of one and the same 
 mind concerning religion ; since there ever have been and ever 
 will be dissenters in every public community ; therefore no State 
 has ever been justified, or ever will be justified, in voting a single 
 shilling for religion ! All governments which have done so have 
 been guilty of iniquity ! Thus, for instance, the Parliament of 
 England, when it voted the erection of fifty new churches, which 
 it described ^ "as a work so much for the honour of God, the 
 spiritual welfare of her Majesty's subjects, the interest of the 
 Established Church, and the glory of her Majesty's reign,'' did 
 not what was pious and noble, but what was unjust! What a 
 strange proposition is this ! 
 
 If i)r. Hook had given this important subject any adequate 
 consideration, he would have perceived that there is not the slightest 
 ground for maintaining that the payment of taxes on the part of 
 subjects creates any ololigation on the part of rulers to endow 
 the opinions of those who pay. We pay taxes to the governing 
 power, in token of our subjection to it, and in order that it may 
 have the means of protecting our property and persons, and of 
 upholding the dignity of the State, and providing for its welfare, 
 and as a remuneration for its service in so doing. In conse- 
 quence of this payment we are entitled to liberty and protection, 
 in mind, body, and estate ; but the State is not under any obli- 
 gation, on the ground of our paying taxes^ to go further than 
 protection., and to proceed to encourage and endow our opinions : 
 and whatever opinions it ma^/ encourage, it does so not because 
 they are ours., but because they are in accordance with the Dimne 
 will, and conducive to the general good. All this is clearly laid 
 down by all respectable writers who have treated upon taxes ; from 
 Puffendorf *, Grotius, and Gerhard, down to our own Blackstone. 
 
 touching on any doctrinal point, or how, conscientiously, he can obey such orders, unless 
 lie denies the practical efficacy on the heart of some of those cardinal doctrines 
 which appear to me the corner-stone of Christianity." 
 
 3 10 Anne, c. ii. 
 
 * PuFFENDORF do Officio Civis, ii. xv. Altei'um jus imperantis in hoc consistit, 
 ut possit particulam aliquara de subditorum bonis tributi aut tectigalis nomine 
 decerpere. Cum enim civium vita etfortuna sint defendendce, OT^ortet ut hi conferant 
 
 c2
 
 :36 Dr. Jlooh on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 It is also most distinctly taught in Scripture. Christ com- 
 mands the Jews to pay tribute to Cicsar. Why? Because i\\Qy 
 were Ca;sar\s subjects ; not because he encouraged their opinions, 
 or in order that he might do so. Anjain : St. Paul commands 
 Christians to pay tribute* to Nero. JNero burnt Christians, but 
 we never heard that he expended a single denarius of the taxes 
 collected from them in maintaining their religion. JJut St. Paul 
 did not think that they were therefore exempt from paying taxes 
 to Nero, the heathen, the persecutor. No. And n^hy were they 
 ordered by the apostle to pay them \ Because., as he tells them, 
 the higher Powers " are God's ^ ministers, attending continually 
 on this very thing,"" that is, on the execution of justice and on the 
 maintenance of peace ; that those subject to their sway may be 
 enabled to "lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and 
 honesty "^ T 
 
 We would proceed further, and say, that since the civil power 
 is bound to take care ^'ne quid detrimenti Res])ublica capiat,'' 
 and since nothing so disturbs the peace and impairs the stability 
 of a State as dimsions and factions in religion, and nothing so 
 much strengthens it as religious unity., therefore the legislators of 
 a country, to whom saliis poimli is suprema lex, would be neglect- 
 ing their first duty to all those who pay taxes, they would not be 
 guarding them with that defence and protection which they owe 
 them, if they were to endow different religions, instead of main- 
 taining one. 
 
 Perhaps Dr. Hook will allow us to submit to him the following 
 authorities on this subject. Persons who have " Httle or no sym- 
 pathy" with the authors above cited, perhaps may look with 
 more indulgence on these. 
 
 Lord Bolingbroke says% that " to make government effectual, 
 there must be religion ; this religion must be national ; and the 
 national religion must be maintained in reputation, in reverence.'' 
 And in the Edinburgh Review ^ we read as follows : — " We grant 
 
 unde sumptus ad eum finem necessarii tolerentur. Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, 
 i. 11. § vii. 12. Tributa ut solvamus honestum est, atque etiam prseceptum consci- 
 entiam obligans, ut Paulus Apostolus explicat ; tributorum autem/xis est ut potes- 
 tat(is publicse liabeaiit unde sumptum faciant ad bonos tuendos et coercendos malos. 
 Rum. xiii. 3, 4. (i. Tacitus (Hist. iv. 74) apposite ad bane I'em : Neque quies 
 gentium sine a^-mis, neque ai'ma sine stipendiis, neque stipendia sine tribntis haberi 
 queunt. Cui dicto simile est Augustini illud, (c. Faust, xxii. e. 74.) Adhoctributa 
 prcestamus ut propter necessaria militi stipondiuni pnebeatur. Gerhard de Magis- 
 tratu Polit. § 477- Blackstone i. 8. Subjects are " bound to contribute a portion 
 of their private gains in order to support government, which presides over public 
 affairs, and enables private persons to attend to their private concerns ; and in 
 order to reward that magistracy which protects them in the enjoyment of their 
 . respective ])roi>erty.'* 
 
 ^ Rom. xiii. fi. 6 Rq^. xiii. 1—6. ? i Tim. ii. 2. 
 
 » Works, iii. 3.30. » No. i. p. 64.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 37 
 
 that it is proper for the legislature, in its paternal care for the 
 people, to provide for them the benefits of religious instruction 
 and public worship, by the estoMishnent of a national Church ; and 
 an ample provision ought to be made for the clergy who devote 
 themselves to this important service. But if any persons, after 
 having contributed the share which the law requires from them 
 for the support of the established clergy, choose to provide other 
 ministers for themselves^ Government has no interest to prevent 
 or molest them." And again \ " To a well- supported national 
 establishment, effectually discharging its duties, we are very sincere 
 friends. If any man, after he has paid his contribution to this 
 great security for the existence of religion in any shape ^ chooses to 
 adopt a religion of his own, that man should be permitted to do 
 so without let or molestation. We apologize to men of sense 
 for sentiments so trite."" 
 
 Lord Bolingbroke and the Edinburgh reviewers little dreamt of 
 the time when they should be accused of injustice by an Anglican 
 Churchman for maintaining the cause of an established Church ! 
 
 But, again ; Dr. Hook objects to the application of taxes to 
 the exclusive maintenance of one religion. And what does he 
 himself all the while propose to do \ He will not give a shilling 
 of the public money to religion^ and will vote eight millions at 
 once, and three millions annually, to promote irreligion ! Let 
 him not reply, that it is to promote what we call irreligion, but 
 what is education. This answer, even if it were true, will serve 
 him nothing : for by his theory of taxation " it is unjust'''' that we 
 should be taxed to maintain what we disapprove. If then it is a 
 persecution of Dissenters to apply taxes partly collected from 
 them to promote Church education, how much more outrageous 
 an act of persecution is it of Churchmen^ ay, and of Dissenters 
 too, to make them contribute, we know not how many millions, 
 not for the establishment of any thing, but for the dis-estahlishment 
 of all things ! 
 
 We now return to the question de facto. Have we an Esta- 
 blished Church, or have we not ? 
 
 Dr. Hook says that it is idle to argue the question de jure, for 
 that we do not possess a religious establishment. " It is a pure 
 fiction," he says (p. 38), '' to assert that the State by any Act of 
 Parliament has established the Church of England, or any other 
 form of Christianity to which it is exclusively bound to render 
 pecuniary support, or to afford any other support, than such as 
 every class of Her Majesty's subjects have a right to demand. 
 
 * EcUnburgh Review, Vol. xvii. p. 402.
 
 38 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 This is proved by tlie impossibility of producing any Act of Par- 
 liament by which this establishment was ordained." 
 
 And again, p. 37 : " Nor, again, can there be any objection on 
 the part of the State to admit Dissenters to an equality in respect 
 to State support ; because, so far as education is concerned, the 
 question is already settled. The State does assist both the Church 
 and Dissent" "(^. ^. through the British and Foreign School 
 Society) at the present time.'''' 
 
 In reply to these allegations, we repeat, in the first place, that 
 if England is without a religious establishment, she ought to lose 
 no time in establishing religion, — yes, in estabhshing the religion 
 which is true : and we are disposed to think that Dr. Hook would 
 be better employed in assisting her to do so, than in attempting 
 to persuade her that she cannot perform the duty which is laid 
 upon her by God. 
 
 But is it true that she has no estabhshed religion ? It seems 
 to us very strange, that our greatest statesmen and divines should 
 have supposed that she had a national Church, and should have 
 regarded it as one of our greatest national blessings, and that it 
 should have been reserved to Dr. Hook to discover that they had 
 been lauding Divine Providence for a phantom which has no exist- 
 ence but in their dreams. It is also wonderful that we should 
 have had to sustain so many attacks from our dissenting brethren, 
 Romanist^ and Protestant "^ on the ground of ours being a mQVQ par- 
 liamentary religion, and that none of the advocates of the Church 
 of England should have ever had the wit to discover that we have 
 no State establishment at all ! And what is strangest of all 
 is, that Dr. Hook himself, who at present " has no sympathy with 
 mere EstabHshmentarians," and questions the existence of an 
 Establishment, should a few years ago'^ have preached and pub- 
 lished, that " to dissolve the religious establishment of this country 
 would be, as it were, to tear the sun from the centre of our social 
 system !" 
 
 But where is the Act of Parliament, now asks Dr. Hook^ "which 
 has established the Church V Where, we ask in reply, is the Act 
 of Parliament which has established the monarchy, or the peerage, 
 
 2 See Bishop Sanderson, Judicium Acad. Oxon. de Solenni Liga. Sect. iii. 
 Solenne Papistis objectare nobis, esse I'eligionem nostram religionem Parlia- 
 mentariam. 
 
 ^ Towgood's Dissent, p. IG. " The Church of England is a political st)-ucture, 
 built on the foundation of the Lords and Commons, the King as supreme head being 
 the chief corner stone." 
 
 * In his Sermon " On the Church and the Establishment," p. 63. 
 
 ^ Dr. Hook's arguments on Church Establishments seem to us be derived from 
 one of the most hasty and ill-considered productions of the late Dr. Burton's pen, 
 his Thoughts on Separation of Chui'ch and State, 1834.
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 39 
 
 or the commons of the realm 'I Where is the Act of Parhament 
 which has estabHshed the sun or the sea? The clergy of the 
 Church (as Henry Wharton says*^) '' was anciently accounted, 
 and really was, not the thirds but the^rs^ estate of the realm," 
 and was anterior to Acts of Parliament^ and aided in framing 
 them, just as the Christian episcopate is prior to Church synods 
 and canons, and forms the one and frames the other. And Dr. 
 Hook might as well ask us for a Church Decretal establishing 
 episcopacy, as for a State Act of Parliament establishing the 
 Church. But if he asks for Acts of Parliament 7'ecognizing and 
 maintaining the Church, we can supply him with some hundreds. 
 For example, let him refer to the Statute of Provisors in 1350, 
 which declares that " the Holy Church of England was founded 
 in the Estate of Prelacy, and the Kings of England were wont to 
 have the greatest part of their Council of Bishops and Clerks' ;'"* 
 let him look at the Act of Uniformity of 1662, — of Union be- 
 tween England and Scotland in 1706, — of Union between England 
 and Ireland in 1800, — and even at the Roman Catholic Rehef 
 Bill in 1 829, — in all which the Church of England is declared to 
 be inviolably settled and established. Let him examine the Sove- 
 reign's Coronation^ Oath., by which the kings and queens of Eng- 
 land bind themselves to maintain " the laws of God, the true 
 profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion as 
 is established hy law., and to preserve unto the bishops and clergy 
 of the Church all such rights and privileges as appertain to them." 
 Let him, we say, consult these documents, and not ask for an 
 Act of Parliament establishing the Church which has aided in 
 making Acts of Parliament in England ever since there were 
 Parliaments. 
 
 But; " It is as larons^'' says Dr. Hook, " not as bishops^ ^ that 
 seats in the House of Lords are held by our English prelates. At 
 the Conquest the bishops, on account of the lands they held, were 
 made barons," and thus he accounts for their legislative position 
 in the Imperial Parliament. If this be true, we are greatly puzzled 
 
 ^ Notes on Burnet, p. 73. Ed. 1693. See also Hookei', vii, xv. 8. " By the 
 ancient laws the clei'gy were held for the chiefest of those three estates, which 
 make up the entire body of the Commonwealth, under one supreme Head and 
 Governor." * 
 
 7 25 Ed. III. St. 6. 
 
 8 Bishop Marsh in his celebrated discourse, entitled " The National Religion the 
 foundation of National Educatio7i,'' preached at St. Paul's in 1811, says, page 28, 
 "We are now concerned with the facts ; that there is a religion by law established 
 in this country, that the State has allied itself with the Church of England, that for 
 the security of this Church provision has been made, not only by repeated acts of 
 parliament, but by his Majesty's coronation oath.'' 
 
 9 P. 37.
 
 40 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 to discover how the bishops of the new creation — Oxford, Peter- 
 borough, Gloucester, some five hundred years after the Conquest — 
 found their way into the House of Lords. Lord Hale^ would 
 have told Dr. Hook that the English bishops sit by immemorial 
 usage in the House of Lords by virtue of their episcopal dignity ; 
 and Archbishop Laud, with whom we hope Dr. Hook has some 
 sympathy, — strenuous Establishmentarian as the archbishop was^ 
 — affirms, in his answer to Lord Say and Sele^, that "bishops 
 have had their votes in parliaments and in making laws ever since 
 there were parliaments, or any thing that resembled them, in this 
 kingdom," — and this was some centuries before the Conquest. 
 
 We need not follow Dr. Hook in his argument, that if the 
 Church of England " claims a right to the exclusive education of 
 the people, the bishops are bound to go down to the House of 
 Lords and seek powers to sell their estates and provide funds for 
 national education ;" for that "it would be better to have a, pau- 
 perized hierarchy than an uneducated peopW'' (p. 39) ; and " never 
 could the hierarchy be more respectable than when pauperized in 
 such a cause." 
 
 Many a man, we perceive, in these days sets himself up to be 
 an episcoims episcoporum besides the Pope of Rome. We regret 
 that Dr. Hook should have taken this office on himself. The 
 bishoi)s will doubtless do what is best for the Church and the 
 people without his admonitions. In the meantime, for our own 
 parts, looking at the manner in which episcopal revenues are, for 
 the most part, expended by their possessors, namely, in promoting 
 the erection of churches, and schools, and training-colleges, — to say 
 
 ^ Burn's Ecclcs. Law. (Ed. Lond. 1842. vol. i. p. 217.)— Unto all which may 
 be added what Lord Hale delivers, in a manuscript treatise touching the right of the 
 crown, as set forth by the very learned Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, in 
 his " Alliance between Church and State," p. 131, as follows : — " The bishops sit in 
 the House of Peers by usage and custom ; which I therefore call usage, because they 
 had it not by express charter, for then we should find some. Neither had they it 
 by tenure ; for regularly their tenure was in free alms, and not per haronlam ; and 
 therefore it is clear they were not barons in respect of their possessions, but their 
 possessions were called baronies, because they were the possessions of customary 
 barons. Besides, it is evident that the writ of summons usually went electo et con- 
 firmato, before any restitution of the temporalities ; so that their possessions were 
 not the cause of their summons. Neitlier a^*e they barons by prescription ; for it is 
 evident that as well the lately erected bishops, as Gloucester, Oxon, &c., had voice 
 in parliament, and yet erected within time of memory and without any special 
 words in the creation thereof to entitle them to it. So that it is a privilege by usage 
 annexed to the episcojxd dignity withui the realm ; not to their order, which they ac- 
 quire by consecration ; nor to theii* persons, for in respect of their persons they are 
 not barons, nor to be tried as barons ; but to their incorporation and dignity 
 episcopal." 
 
 2 See his Sermon on Psalm cxxii. 6. ^ P. 33, a.d. 1G41.
 
 Br. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 41 
 
 nothing of contributions for missions abroad, — looking also at the 
 effect produced by these contributions in eliciting others from lay 
 and other quarters, and considering the great probability, yes, the 
 certainty, that if bishops did not give largely, nothing^ or next to 
 nothing, would be given by an^ one to pious uses, we feel per- 
 suaded that a '-'pauperized hierarchy " would be one of the most 
 sure recipes for "an uneducated people.'''' 
 
 In a selfish age they who contend for the honourable mainte- 
 nance of bisho})s and clergy are imagined, by worldly-minded 
 people, to contend for wealth /or its own sake. Therefore we will 
 express what we think on this subject in the words of one who was 
 as far removed from ambition and covetousness as he was eminent 
 for charity, simplicity, and wisdom* : " In a Bishop great liberality, 
 great hospitality, actions in every kind great, are looked for ; and 
 for actions which must be great, mean instruments will not serve. 
 Men are but men, what room soever amongst men they hold. If, 
 therefore, the measure of their worldly abilities be beneath that 
 proportion which their calling does make to be looked for at their 
 hands, a stronger inducement it is than, perhaps, men are aware 
 of, unto evil and corrupt dealing for supply of that defect. For 
 which cause we must needs think it a thing necessary unto the 
 common good of the Church, that great jurisdiction being granted 
 unto bishops over others, a state of wealth proportionable should 
 hkewise be provided for them. Where wealth is had jn so great 
 admiration, as generally in this golden age it is, that without it 
 angelical perfections are not able to deliver from extreme con- 
 tempt, surely to make bishops poorer than they are were to make 
 them of less account and estimation than they should be. Where- 
 fore if detriment and dishonour do grow to religion, to God, to 
 His Church, when the public account which is made of the chief 
 of the clergy decays, how should it be but in this respect, for the 
 good of rehgion, of God, of his Church, that the wealth of bishops 
 he carefully preserved from further diminution?'''' 
 
 We regret to find that Dr. Hook lends his sanction to the 
 low, common-place cant (we can call it by no better name), which 
 makes an invidious and un-cathoHc distinction between the 
 bishops and parochial priesthood, by calHng the latter " the work- 
 ing clergy," (p. 16, 50,) as if the head and the heart do no work^ 
 because they do not the same work as the hands and the feet ; 
 and as if all the clergy are not working clergy^ each in his own 
 order. 
 
 For our own parts we greatly lament that our reverend prelates 
 
 * Hooker, vii. xxiv.
 
 42 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 are compelled to be worhing clergy to a degree, and in a manner, 
 not the most suitable to their position in the Church. AVe 
 deeply deplore that the tendency of events in our own country, in 
 late years, has been to deprive the highest order of clergy of 
 those opportunities of reading^ meditation^ conference^ and prayer^ 
 which are most deserving of the name of work in themselves, and 
 which serve to render all other work most profitable to the Church 
 and most conducive to God's glory. We regret that the bishops 
 of England are compelled to be working clergy in the mere 
 material sense of the term ; and we are persuaded that more 
 work could be done by the Church, and done in a better manner 
 and spirit, if they had less manual and mechanical drudgery to do. 
 For this reason we are very desirous to see a great increase in 
 the numbers of our Episcopate. 
 
 But to return to the question, Have we a religious establish- 
 ment in England \ Dr. Hook says, " The State does assist both 
 Church and Dissent at the present time*" with parliamentary 
 grants for education, and, therefore, the principle of iVo-esta- 
 blished religion has, he argues, " been already conceded ; the ques- 
 tion, as far as education is concerned, is," he says, " already 
 settled.'''' Conceded, we ask, by whom ? Settled by whom ? 
 
 Not by the Legislature. Not by the Church. We are fully 
 aware that grants have been made by Parliament for education, 
 and that part of these grants has been dispensed through the 
 J3ritish and Foreign School Society, and that it is a rule of this 
 Society, that " No creed shall be taught in its schools ;" and still 
 more, that this Society has pledged itself to exert itself to the 
 utmost " to exclude from all schools aided by Parliament the for- 
 mularies of any particular church ^" In a word, that Society's 
 creed is, — to have no creed, and to suffer no one else to have any. 
 This being the case, we do not hesitate to say, that when Parlia- 
 ment votes money for education to be dispensed by this Society, it 
 does violate the principle of an Establishment ; and they who ap- 
 prove that grant, and yet contend for an establishment, seem to us to 
 be guilty of a manifest absurdity. We are altogether of Dr. Paley's 
 mind in this point, that " The notion of a religious establishment 
 comprehends three things : — A clergy, or an order of men secluded 
 
 5 p. 37. 
 
 ^ See p. 21 of an important parajjlilet, not published, but circulated anonymously, 
 entitled " National Education, the present State of the Question Elucidated." 1839 
 " Here (says the author, p. 20,) we have the principle distinctly stated by the 
 British and Foreign School Society, that public money ought to be given to schools in 
 which the British and Foreign System is adopted, and no other ; therefoi'c no aid 
 ought to be given to National Schools . This is what we are to look forward toJ'
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor, 43 
 
 from other professions to attend upon the offices of religion ; a 
 legal promsion for the maintenance of the clergy ; and the confin- 
 ing of that provision to the teachers of a particular sect of Chris- 
 tianity. If any one of these three things be wanting ; if there 
 be no clergy, as amongst the Quakers ; or if the clergy have no 
 other provision than what they derive from the voluntary contri- 
 bution of their hearers ; or if the provision which the laws assign 
 to the support of religion he extended to various sects and denomi- 
 nations of Christians ; there exists no national religion or esta- 
 blished church, according to the sense which these terms are 
 usually made to convey ^'"* 
 
 Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that the principle of No- 
 establishment has been conceded by the Legislature, by its grants 
 to the British and Foreign School Society. We then say that 
 the question is, not whether it has been conceded^ but whether it 
 is right. According to Dr. Hook's mode of arguing. States can 
 have no repentance. Reformation is impossible. How would he, 
 with his principle, that any act of the Legislature, however bad, is 
 to be hke the laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not 
 — how, we ask, with this principle, would he now have in 
 England what he rightly calls the " old Catholic Church reformed 
 from middle age corruptions?" " The principle" of Popery had 
 been conceded. " The question had been settled," and we must 
 have been all Papists to doomsday, and Dr. Hook would have been 
 now saying mass at Leeds, instead of vindicating " the old Catholic 
 Church reformed.'''' If, then, the principle of No-establishment 
 has been conceded by the grant to the British and Foreign 
 Society, and if this principle is a false and pernicious one, then 
 by all means let it be reformed; and let Dr. Hook employ 
 himself in correcting the evil, instead of calling upon us to propa- 
 gate and perpetuate it. 
 
 But has this principle been conceded by the State I He says, 
 " Yes ; it is conceded by this grant." We affirm, on the other 
 hand, that the contrary principle^ that of an Established Church, 
 is directly asserted by the Legislature in numberless statutes, some 
 of which we have already cited, and by the nation in the corona- 
 tion oath, so that we have affirmations against concessions, rules 
 against exceptions ; and what after all is conceded by the State is, 
 that it " halts between two opinions ;" and if Dr. Hook has the 
 spirit of an Elijah, he will ask it, " Why it does so ?" Besides, 
 whatever the State has done, the Church can never concede that 
 
 ' Dr. Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, chap. x. p. 430. 
 London, 1821.
 
 44 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 a commonwealth can prosper without a national religion. She 
 may be compelled to suffer evil, but she can never be forced to do 
 it. The State may be untrue to her, and she may be compelled 
 to tolerate ills at its hands ; but she may not, therefore, be false to 
 the State, and flatter it that it can endow various creeds and be 
 guiltless. If the Church were to concede this, she would be a 
 false witness and prophesy lies; she would be faithless to her 
 Divine Head. Whatever, therefore, any of her lay members, or 
 even her clergy, may do, she can never approve the grant of 
 public money to the British and Foreign School Society, or re- 
 cognize any national teacher of religion but herself. And if 
 she ever should make such a concession (as Dr. Hook says has 
 been made for her), then every true son of the Church would rise 
 up and remind her that she was giving away what she had no 
 ricfht to give away ; for the commission to teach is hers to execute^ 
 but it is Christ's alone to give. 
 
 We will now bring these remarks to a close : but before doing 
 so we would request leave to address ourselves, in respectful terms, 
 first to the State, and next to the Church ; or rather, in more 
 correct language, to the people of England, first in their civil, 
 and next in their religious capacity. 
 
 We take for granted that unity in true religion is the strongest 
 preservative of public peace. In England we are too apt to speak 
 of Churchmen and Dissenters as if they had no bonds of unity 
 between them, but were like two distinct and antagonist races of 
 human beings, whereas they are joined by the ties, not only of 
 humanity and citizenship, but also of certain articles of the true 
 faith, which they hold in common. 
 
 This being so, there appear to be foundations for a fabric of 
 amity and union, if both parties will " labour for peace,"*' and not 
 for division ; and will endeavour to be of one mind, and to main- 
 tain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 
 
 For this purpose we would provide an adequate supply of 
 places of worship, of learned and pious clergy, and of Church 
 schools and Church schoolmasters ; and we cherish a confident 
 hope that by these means our unhappy divisions would, in a great 
 measure, be healed, and we should become an united people. 
 
 We do not doubt that every enlightened and sober-minded 
 man among our dissenting brethren would approve, yes, and 
 would promote, this design : we are sure that as citizens they must 
 desire unity, and as Christians they must pray for it, as Christ 
 did ; and though the individual Dissenter may prefer his own form 
 of doctrine or worship to that of the Church, yet since he differs 
 as much, or more, from other Dissenters of other denominations
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 45 
 
 than he does from the Church, and since there is no one form of 
 Christianity in this country which can compete even in the nume- 
 rical strength of its adherents with the Church, the truly hberal 
 and conscientious Dissenter will, for the sake of unity, desire its 
 prosperity, and promote its advancement. He may, indeed, wish 
 that those points in which he differs from the Church icere the 
 doctrines of the Church, but he cannot desire that those articles 
 of faith in which he agrees with the Church, and by virtue of 
 which he is himself, in a certain sense, a member of the Church, 
 were not taught by the Church, or that division were endowed 
 by the State instead of unity. 
 
 Let us now address ourselves, with all due respect and submis- 
 sion, to our civil rulers. 
 
 It is usual to speak of the education question in this country 
 as one of difficult^/. For our own part we cannot in any way 
 participate in this language. The question now before us is, to 
 our minds, an exceedingly simple one, if we do not approach it 
 with a determination beforehand to make it difficidt. Dr. Hook, 
 as we said at the beginning of this article, has somewhat per- 
 plexed it by calling it the question of the education of the people^ 
 whereas it is the question of the education of the poor. This 
 simplifies the matter exceedingly. Among the iniddle classes dis- 
 sent has made considerable inroads, but there are few nominal 
 Dissenters, and fewer real ones, among the poor ; the f>oor belong 
 either to the Church, or to no Church. " The great mass of the 
 parents of the destitute children,"' (says Mr. Cotton in his evidence 
 before the Committee on Education \) "who are commonly called 
 Dissenters, have very little feeling on doctrinal points at all ; and 
 care very little on the subject, provided their children have the 
 benefit of instruction." Mr. Dorsey was asked by the same com- 
 mittee ^ whether there were many Unitarians in the working 
 classes, to which he replied, " Extremely few : I have had, 
 I suppose, since I commenced teaching, 1000 children, and I 
 have only had six Unitarians.'' On the whole, it is too true, 
 (as Mr. Bowles ^ said in one of his excellent pamphlets on educa- 
 tion,) especially in large towns, " that the persons who stand 
 most in need of education, are in general too indifferent on the 
 
 9 The Church population of England and Wales, says Mr. Mathison (p. 18), ex- 
 ceeds thirteen millions ; the whole being sixteen millions. 
 
 1 A.D. 1834. (p. 142.) See also ibid. pp. 147, 148. We would commend the 
 whole of this evidence to our readei's as most practical and judicious, and forming 
 a refreshing contrast to what we feel compelled to call the conceited and pedantic 
 charlatanerie of Mr. Simpson's evidence before the Irish committee. 
 
 2 1835, p. 45. 3 1808, p. 24.
 
 46 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 subject of relii^ion to care lohat kind of religious instruction their 
 offspring receives." Hence the question of education of the poor 
 is a very simple one. Their poverti/ entitles them to education 
 from the State. Education to be a blessing, and not a bane, nmst 
 be relif/ious^ must be doctrinal. The poor have a right, therefore, 
 to be educated in the doctrines of some Christian connnunity : and 
 since the Church is the branch of the universal Church planted 
 in these realms ; since it is Chrisfs institution ; since it is the 
 religious community of the nation, established by law ; since it is 
 the community of the great majority of the people, therefore there 
 is no one Christian community by which the poor ought to be 
 educated, or can be educated, but the Church. We therefore con- 
 clude, that the Church ought to be enabled by the State to edu- 
 cate the poor. 
 
 We would also observe, that all other methods of educating the 
 poor, except by means of the Churchy have failed ; and thus the 
 problem has become much simpler than it formerly was. The 
 " general religion system,"' or rather, as Dr. Hook justly calls it, 
 (p. 35,) the no-religion system, has been tried and failed ; the 
 secular-and-sacred-severance system has also been tried and 
 failed ; and thus by the method of exhaustions we are brought to 
 the Church system of education ; which, we are persuaded, loill 
 never fail. Without the Church, especially in England^ where 
 the Church has ten thousand schools, it is impossible for the 
 State to educate the poor ; with the Church, and hy the Church, 
 it may educate them all. 
 
 Another facility offered to the statesman for making Church 
 education universal, arises from the nature of Church instruction. 
 What is the symholum concordiw which binds Church schools 
 together I The Catechism. And what is the Catechism ; Simply 
 the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's 
 Prayer, and the doctrine of the two Sacraments. If the Cate- 
 chism were like the Creed of Pius IV., adding twelve new 
 articles to the Nicene Creed, and imposing them as necessary 
 to salvation ; or if it were like the Westminster Catechism, 
 discussing the most abstruse questions of theology, such as pre- 
 destination, free will, and final perseverance, then the State 
 would have great difficulty in making Church teaching universal. 
 But seeing Catechisms are necessary in education (and let any 
 one who doubts this look at the results now produced in Ger- 
 many by their abandonment) ; and seeing that the Church Cate- 
 chism is idhai it is, seeing also that it is not imposed on the pupil 
 in our Church schools, to be suhscrihed by him as an article of faith, 
 but received by him from the teacher, on the principle (without
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 47 
 
 which there can be no education,) that oportet discentem credere, and 
 with a full understanding that licet edocto judicare ; we are satis- 
 fied, that if men will only set themselves to labour for peace, and 
 not for party, they will find no difficulty whatever in educating 
 the poor of England together in the same schools, from one end of 
 the land to the other, — we mean in the schools of the Church. 
 
 Here is a glorious result proposed to all : one worth living for, 
 yes, and worth dying for : and the statesman who brings it about, 
 or labours to do so, will confer an inestimable benefit on his 
 country, and will earn immortal renown, not only on earth, but 
 in heaven. 
 
 In the last place, let us be allowed to say one word to the 
 Church. 
 
 Dr. Hook would lead the Church of England into the same 
 false position in which the Church of France now stands. At the 
 French Revolution of 1830, the Charte decreed the equality of three 
 religions, Romanism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism, to which was 
 soon, alas ! added a fourth, Judaism. All these are now endowed 
 by the French State. 
 
 In an evil hour the Church of France accepted the Revolu- 
 tionary Charte as her watchword, because, like Dr. Hook's plan, 
 it promised liberty of teaching {Liherte d^ Enseignement) to all. 
 '' We plead our cause (said the Church champion in the House 
 of Peers, M. de Montalembert) — we plead our cause, ^¥ith one of 
 our hands on the Gospel, and with the other on the Charte.'''' 
 He might as well have said, " with the other on the Koran.'''' 
 
 The bishops of that Church have been unhappily deluded into 
 using the same language, in the vain hope, as it seems, of making 
 their cause popular with the democracy ; and instead of asserting 
 their own inalienable right, and indispensable duti/, to teach, by 
 virtue and obligation of their pastoral commission from Christ, 
 they put forward a miserable plea for liberty to teach, derived 
 from the Charte of July ! 
 
 Let us mark the consequence. Having thus abandoned the 
 ground of right and dutT/, they contend in vain for that of liberty. 
 "" You have renounced your right to teach," says the State to the 
 Church. '' Education is too serious a matter to be left free to 
 every speculating adventurer. I must take it into my own 
 hands. The State must be the Church.'''' 
 
 And so it has become. Witness the present condition of 
 secondary and primary education in France, as described in the 
 preceding pages. 
 
 What further has been the result ? Not merely separation of 
 Church and State, but bitter hostility between them ; in fact, a
 
 48 r>)\ Uook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 deadly ciml war, by which no party can be the gainer, except that 
 of Popery and Infidehty ; 
 
 " Bella geri placuit, nullos habitura tr'iumphos." 
 
 Let the Church and State of England take warning from this 
 example, and not engage in a conflict by which nothing can be 
 won, and every thing may be lost. 
 
 Taught by this practical lesson, let not the Church abandon an 
 iota of her claim to be the religious teacher of the nation. Let 
 her admit no partner in this sacred office. If she consents to 
 divide the child, she proves herself a /a/^e mother. Yes, we repeat, 
 let her maintain her right to be recognized as the religious teacher 
 of the nation, first, as being the Church of the majority of the 
 people; secondly, as being the Church established by law ; thirdly, 
 and above all, as being the branch of Christ's Church planted in 
 this country. On these grounds let her claim aid and encourage- 
 ment from the State, to enable her to perform the great work of 
 national education, no less on the State's behalf than on her own; 
 and blessed will those statesmen be, who lend a willing ear to 
 her claim ! 
 
 We close these remarks with the words of one who, from his 
 office as Poet Laureate, has a special right to address the Ckown 
 and the Country, and who from his wisdom and genius is entitled 
 to a respectful hearing from the World. 
 
 " Hail to the crown by Freedom shaped — to gird 
 An English sovereign's brow ! and to the throne 
 Whereon he sits ! Whose deep foundations lie 
 In veneration and the people's love ; 
 Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law. 
 — Hail to the State of England ! And conjoin 
 With this a salutation as devout, 
 Made to the spiritual Fabric of her Church; 
 Founded in truth ; by blood of Martyrdom 
 Cemented ; by the hands of Wisdom reared 
 In beauty of Holiness, with ordered pomp, 
 Decent, and unreproved. The voice that greets 
 The majesty of both, shall pray for both ; 
 That, mutually protected and sustained, 
 They may endure long as the sea surrounds 
 This favoured land, or sunshine warms her soil ^." 
 
 * "The Excursion." Book VI. London, 1832. "Church-yard among the 
 Mountains." — p. 19}).
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 49 
 
 Speaking of the right of the Poor to religious Education by 
 State provision, he says, 
 
 *' This sacred right is fruitlessly announced. 
 This universal plea in vain addressed, 
 To eyes and ears of parents who themselves 
 Did, in the time of their necessity, 
 Urge it in vain ; and therefore, like a prayer 
 That from the humblest floor ascends to heaven, 
 It mounts to reach the State's parental ear ; 
 Who, if indeed she own a mother's heart, 
 And be not most unfeelingly devoid 
 Of gratitude to Providence, will grant 
 The unquestionable good ; which England, safe 
 From interference of external force. 
 May grant at leisure ; without risk incurred 
 That, what in wisdom for herself she doth, 
 Others shall e'er be able to undo *." 
 
 A letter addressed by the late Chief Baron of the Exchequer 
 to Lord Ashley, in 1839, seems to us deserving of serious atten- 
 tion at the present time, on account of the station an^ authority 
 of the writer, and also as stating very clearly the rights and 
 duties of the Church and State in the great matter of national 
 education. We therefore subjoin it for the consideration of our 
 readers by way of Postscript : — 
 
 " Dear Lord Ashley, 
 " I send herewith my first subscription to the National School 
 Society. The lateness of this subscription is the result of circumstances 
 
 ^ Book ix. p. 311. — Mr. Wordsworth thus expresses himself in the Postscript to 
 Yarrow Revisited, 1835, p. 344, concerning certain other topics which have been 
 brought before the public by Dr. Hook, and in the preceding pages : — " For the 
 preservation of the Church Establishment, all men, whether they belong to it or not, 
 could they perceive their true interest, would be strenuous. But how inadequate 
 
 are its provisions for the needs of the country ! Means should be used to 
 
 render the province and powers of the Church commensurate with the wants of a 
 shifting and still increasing population. This cannot be effected unless the English 
 Government vindicate the truth, that as the Church exists for the benefit of all 
 (though not in an equal degree), whether of her communion or not, all should be 
 made to contribute to its support. (Compare Dr. Hook as quoted above, p. 28.) 
 If this ground should be abandoned, the not remote consequence will be the inflic- 
 tion of a wound upon the moral heart of the English people, from which, till ages 
 liave gone by, it will not recover." — See also Dr. Whewell's Elements of Morality, 
 Arts. 1096, 1097, " The Established Church can Educate the People, and ought to 
 be enabled to do so."
 
 50 T>r. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 purely accidental, and not of any chanfije effected by recent publications, 
 or by any otber recent occurrence, in those opinions which induced me 
 to take an active and public part in support of the society. Those 
 opinions are contained in the following propositions : — 
 
 '* 1. That man is by nature a moral and religious as well as an 
 intellectual being ; and that the cultivation of his intellect, without a 
 simultaneous development and direction of his moral and religious 
 sentiment, would make his intelligence a source of evil instead of 
 benefit to his race. 
 
 " 2. That the endowment, that is to say, the establishment of a 
 national religion, and the uniformity of religious observances and 
 opinions, as far as it can be attained without violating the liberty of 
 conscience, are very great public advantages. 
 
 " 3. That the Church of England, independently of the advantage 
 which it now possesses of being already established and moulded up 
 with our civil institutions, is more tolerant, has a better foundation in 
 truth, and is of greater utility, than any other form of religion that 
 could be substituted in its place. 
 
 " 4. That the clergy of the Church of England, already the autho- 
 rized teachers of the national religion, are better qualified, by their 
 attainments and their high moral character, to be the teachers of every 
 part of useful knowledge than any other class of persons who could be 
 appointed for that purpose. 
 
 *• 5. That though it is an essential part of toleration to permit those 
 who dissent from the religion of the state to educate their children 
 after their own fashion, there ought not to be any system of education 
 at the national expense that does not comprehend, as an essential part 
 of it, instruction in the established religion. To tolerate is one thing — 
 to cherish and to propagate quite another. The sower of good seed, 
 though he may not separate or gather the tares before the harvest, is 
 not enjoined to sow them with the good seed. 
 
 " 6. That the application of the national funds, for the propagation 
 of any but the national religion, is an exception from a general prin- 
 ciple, to be justified only by some obvious political necessity of ex- 
 pediency. 
 
 "* * * * * * * 
 
 " 7. That the application of the national funds for the propagation of 
 any other than the established religion, merely to secure the political 
 interest of a party, however it may be masked under the specious 
 names of toleration and liberty of conscience, is, in effect, nothing less 
 than treachery to the state and to the sovereign. 
 
 " 8. That no restraint or political exclusion should take place on 
 account of any religious opinions or observances, except when they 
 lead to the depravation of morals, or characterize some political hos- 
 tility to our social institutions. The aberrations of conscience, when 
 they turn upon the fashion of a button, or the form of a dialogue, are of 
 no importance ; but when they lead to the destruction of life, or pro- 
 perty, or liberty, or take the form of avowed hostility to the State,
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 51 
 
 they will justify, if they do not imperiously demand, exclusion from all 
 political powers. 
 
 " These principles, formed in early life, and corroborated by the re- 
 flections and experience of maturer age, I think it my duty in the pre- 
 sent times not only to avow, but steadily to act upon. I shall, there- 
 fore, endeavour to support the Society, with the most anxious wishes for 
 its success. 
 
 " I am, my dear Lord, &c., 
 
 *'Abinger." 
 
 ''Abmger Hall, Oct. 1839." 
 
 NOTE. 
 The document referred to in p. 19, is of so important a character, 
 that we print it entire, with the king's reply, both in a French transla- 
 tion. Our readers may there learn not to be too sanguine about the 
 results of what some persons have been pleased to call a perfect system 
 of educational organization. 
 
 "Sire, les mouvements qui, dans ces derniers temps, se sont manifestes dans 
 notre Eglise, semblent devoix- tellement fixer la serieuse attention des hommes 
 devoues a leurs pays, que, dans nos rapports relatifs aux eglises de la ville, nous 
 n'avons pas ci'u convenable de nous dispenser de les prendre en consideration, ainsi 
 qu'il est de notre devoir. Si, par suite de ces motifs, nous osons nous adresser avec 
 le plus profond respect a Sa Majeste en personne, et lui exposer tres-humblement 
 nos vues, nos de'sirs et nos prieres, nous le faisons dans I'intime conviction que ces 
 mouvements ne sont pas des symptomes ephemeres, mais qu'ils rdvelent une nouvelle 
 phase dans le developpenient inteliectuel de la nation. D'un autre cote', non moins 
 profondement convaiucus que, dans notre vie nationale, dont le principal element est 
 la fidelite du peuple a son monarque, tout mouvenient progressif ne pent se de- 
 velopper dans des conditions salutaires, s'il n'est dmge par la pre'voyance et I'inter- 
 vention de Votre Majeste' ; nous pensons que, de cette maniere, il pent s'identifier 
 avec I'Etat meme, et concourir a la prosperite publique. Dans I'Eglise dvangelique, 
 les questions religieuses, qui pendant longtemps ont excite I'interet general, et qui 
 e'taient plutot du domaine de la vie prive'e que de la vie publique, font maintenant 
 invasion et jouent le premier role dans la vie nationale. 
 
 " La diversite des vues et des croyances religieuses qui jusqu'a pre'sent n'ont ete 
 diametralement oppose'es que dans les re'gions scientifiques, et y ont donne naissance 
 a plusieurs tentatives de transactions, apparait maintenant dans la vie politiq-ue et 
 dans I'Eglise. Ces croyances diverses se montrent maintenant sous I'aspect de pai'tis 
 religieux. II en est surtout deux qui sont opposes a notre Eglise : I'un s'attache a 
 I'ancienne tradition et s'appuie sur elle comme sur son droit historique, se consi- 
 derant comme la seule Eglise evange'lique et la revendiquant comme sa propriete 
 exclusive ; I'autre parti affirme avec assurance que le Saint-Esprit, qui constitue, 
 maintient et gouverne la veritable Eglise, n'est lie ni a Rome, ni a la lettre de la 
 tradition. L'Ecriture et les symboles sont les temoignages des premiers chre'tiens 
 et de I'Eglise qui se forme. (Euvres des hommes, ils attestent et proclament la foi 
 des hommes, et, ainsi, la conception et \2i forme portent I'empreinte du caractere de 
 I'epoque et des auteurs de ces tdmoigiiages. Ce n'est pas la que reside la verite 
 absolue, mais c'est I'esprit de verite, de saintete et d'amour qui agit et se meut 
 eternellement dans I'humanite. Celui qui s'est manifeste au monde par les auteurs 
 des saintes Ecritures est aussi, par nous et en nous, I'interprete de ces memes 
 Eci'itures et le juge de leur verite. 
 
 " C'est ainsi que les partis expriment leur conviction sous les formes le plus 
 diametralement opposees ; ce qu'il y a surtout de dangereux, c'est q^tte si I'un ou 
 
 d2
 
 52 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 I'autre de ces partis vent I'emporter, I'Eglise evangelique sc divlse en sectes. Sajis 
 doutc, il ne nous appartient pas dc nous prononcer sur le droit que peuvent avoir 
 ces partis, et nous nous garderons bien, dans cette humble representation, d'avoir 
 la teni^rit6 de nous etendre sur la question theologique. Toutefois, d'apres les ob- 
 servations que nous avons faites au milieu de cette grand capitale, nous ne croyona 
 pas devoir taire que la grande majorite des classes eleve'es de la population penche 
 evidemment en favour de la maniere de penser du dernier parti que nous avons 
 mentionne ; tandis que le premier qui se regarde comrae le seul vrai croyaut, porte 
 ses regards vers le passd, et se raj)proche du point de vue du parti catliolique, le 
 parti rationaliste se tourne tout a la fois vers le present et I'avenir ; nos convictions 
 out leurs racines dans I'etat actuel de notre civilisation et dans toute la vie sociale 
 de I'e'poque. Bien que I'expose' de la v^ritd chrdtienne donnd jusqu'a present par 
 ce parti ne puisse repondre au besoin gdne'ral religieux, et que des elements inipurs 
 se melent, comme il arrive d'ordinaire, a ces mouvements de'i'dglcs, nous ne pouvons 
 cependant radconnaitre que cette direction ou cette tendance a pour base la libertd 
 intellectuelle et chretienne. 
 
 " Quiconque ne voudrait y avoir aucun dgard condamnerait la base ou le fonde- 
 ment sur lecjuel repose cette tendance, c'est k dire, I'histoire et le ddveloppement des 
 trois derniers siecles. C'est a cette consequence que la chancellerie romaine serait 
 condamnde. Quant a nous, nous tenons fermement aux conquetes de la reformation 
 et k sa marclie progressive. Nous ne voulons pas nous de'partir de notre cliristia- 
 nisme, mais nous savons aussi que ce christianisme eternel, invariable dans son es- 
 sence, se renouvelle dans le coeur humain, qu'il suit le de'voloppement de 1 'esprit de 
 I'homme dans I'histoire, et revet les formes nouvelles de la pense'e, de la parole, 
 ainsi que celles de I'existence de I'organisation de I'Eglise, a laquelle il donne I'ex- 
 pression et la vie. Nous estimons sans doute la tradition ; nous ecoutons ses en- 
 seignements, et nous nous formons a sa discipline ; mais nous devons reconnaitre a 
 tout Chretien le droit et le devoir de s'approprier, par la liberie d'examen, la verite' 
 chretienne qui lui est offerte sous une forme determinee, comme fait exterieur dans 
 la tradition de I'Eglise. La vie chretienne et la liberte evange'lique ne sont possi- 
 bles qu'a ces seules conditions. 
 
 " Aussi regardons-nous comme une erreur dangereuse de pretendi'e restreindre 
 
 I'esprit divin dans I'humanite', de I'attacher a des formes et a des formules prescrites, 
 
 et de vouloir en faire dependre la felicite chretienne, comme si la verite dternelle 
 
 re'sidait dans ces memes formules. En outre, il y a encore, selon nous, plus de 
 
 gravite a porter cette erreur jusqu'a contester a ceux qui pensent autrement, la 
 
 libre manifestation de leurs convictions et leur droit de rester dans le sein de 
 
 I'Eglise. Nous sommes places, en ce qui concerne nos convictions religieuses, a la 
 
 limite d'un temps ancien et nouveau, et nous nous trouvons dans cette crise. Ce 
 
 que des hommes profonds ont annonce' depuis longtemps, a savoir que ce siecle ne 
 
 'ecoulerait pas sans que la vie religieuse et ecclesiastique de votre peuple re9ut une 
 
 orme nouvelle, semble vouloir s'accoraplir. La science a ecarte beaucoup de formes 
 
 t d'ide'es dans lesquelles s'est exprimee la conscience religieuse des temps primitifs 
 
 du christianisme et plus tai'd de la science. Mais la science a egalement de'veloppe 
 
 et mis en lumiere ce qui existait deja dans une forme plus obscure dans I'esprit du 
 
 peuple. 
 
 " Les re'sultats de la science penetrent chaque jour davantage dans la conscience 
 du peuple et donnent par conse'quent une autre forme a ses convictions religieuses. 
 Si les anciennes idees de I'Eglise, ses dogmes et formules, ces vases sacre's dans 
 lesquels la croyance chretienne des premiers temps du christianisme nous a e'te 
 livrde, dtaient inseparables de son contenu, et identiques avec lui a un tel point, que 
 quiconque ne voudrait pas accepter ses idees et les tenir pour vraies, ne pourrait 
 pas comprendre la doctrine et I'esprit du Christ, nous serious certainement force's 
 de douter que le christianisme put devenir une verite pour nous et pour la plupart 
 de nos contemporains. Mais pour notre consolation, nous avons la ferme convic- 
 tion que les formes dograatiques et I'esprit du christianisme ne sont pas identiques, 
 mais que le christianisme lui-meme et notre Eglise evangdique nous ont debarrassds 
 pour toujours de tout esclavage, tant du culte exterieur et des bonnes ceuvres que 
 de la lettre et de la foi-mulc. 
 
 " Nous avons la conviction que Jesus- Christ est hier etanjovu'd'hui et dansl'dtemite,
 
 Dr. HooJc on the Education of the Poor, 53 
 
 la base de notre felicite et le rnaitre de son Eglise, mais que ce maitre n'est autre chose 
 que I'esprit de Jesus-Christ en nous ; I'esprit de saintete et d'amour ; que tous ceux qui 
 en sont animes sont des enfants de Dieu et completement Ubres. Cette conscience plus 
 ou moins d^veloppe'e rempht notre temps, et la crise dans laquelle nous nous trouvons 
 nous parait consister prdcisement en ce que le sentiment I'eligieux tend a s'exprimer 
 dans une forme nouvelle la verite eternelle du christianisme qu'il ne pent abandonner 
 sans se d^savouer lui-meme, et que cependant il ne pent raettre d'accord dans la 
 forme ou la doctrine la lui presente avec tout ce qu'on doit d'ailleurs considerer 
 comme verite. 
 
 " Notre temps se trouvant a ce point de developpement, un parti r^agit au sein 
 de notre Eglise contre ces efforts. Ce parti craint que la perte des vases sacres 
 n'entraine la perte de leur contenu, celle de la lettre, celle de I'esprit, celle du 
 dogme, celle de la croyance. du sentiment et de I'amour chretien, et enfin que la 
 ruine de la religion n'entraine celle de I'Etat. Redoutant ce danger, il croit ne 
 pouvoir trouver son salut que dans le dogme de I'Eglise, et le saisit comme ancre de 
 son espe'rance. II identifie le dogme et le christianisme, la lettre et I'esprit, la 
 forme et I'ef-sence. La ve'rite' chretienne, il ne la voit que dans I'Ecriture et les 
 livres symboliques, et I'homme doit Taccepter et la reconnaitre, et voila ce qu'il ap- 
 pelle croire. La croyance vivace au christianisme, qui vit eternellement dans le 
 coeur et dans I'esprit de ses enfants, ce parti en fait une croyance a la confession de 
 I'Eglise. II ne considere pas comme vrais membres de I'Eglise et ses seuls repre- 
 sentants ceux qui sont rempHs de I'esprit du Christ, et le prouvent par leur vie et 
 leurs actions ; mais ceux qui sont anime's de I'esprit de I'Eglise de ce parti et qui 
 le prouvent en reconnaissant la confession de I'Eglise. 
 
 " Ce parti n'hesite pas, en laissant de cote tout amour chretien, de qualifier la 
 confession de I'Eglise de blasphdmateurs hardis qu'elle n'est pas oblige'e de souffrir, 
 meme exterieurement, au milieu d'elle, que par suite de son profond abaissement. 
 
 " L'organe de ce parti, c'est la Gazette de V Eglise evangelique, publiee ici par le 
 professeur Hengstenberg ; on peutle comparer au judaisme a la naissance du christia- 
 nisme et a I'Eglise de Rome a I'epoque de la reformation. Par suite de c-ette erreur 
 fondamentale que la ve'rite chretienne n'est contenue que dans la forme traditionnelle, 
 n'est qu'un objet exie'rieur de la croyance, et non pas I'essence v^aie et la plus 
 intime de I'homme, ce parti perd la vdrite meme et re9oit \k, en place de la verite', 
 sa forme et son apparence ; au lieu de la liberte il a I'esclavage ; au lieu de TEvan- 
 gile le dogme, et au lieu du protestantisme le pi'incipe du catholicisme. Nous 
 sommes bien loin de condamner les hommes de cette tendance comme tels, au con- 
 traire, nous reconnaissons qu'eux aussi cherchent la veritd, mais leur principe est 
 contraire a I'essence du protestantisme ainsi qu'au de'veloppement et a la conscience 
 de notre temps. Aussi ne sommes-nous pas etonnes que I'opinion publique se 
 prouonce contre eux, et que les tendances pratiques aient provoque des pi'otesta- 
 tions ouvertes. 
 
 " Nous reconnaissons devant Votre Majeste royale, avec un respect profond et la 
 sincerite que nous devons a Votre Majeste, comme fideles sujets et repre'sentants de 
 la bourgeoisie, que ces protestations et les excitations qui s'y rattachent nous 
 paraissent me'i-iter une serieuse appreciation. Une opinion et une direction dog- 
 matique seule pent bien de nos joui-s provoquer une polemique litte'raire, mais non, 
 comme c'est le cas ici, occuper la presse quotidienne et remuer les masses. Bien 
 plus, ces excitations ne nous paraissent venir que de la crainte et de I'opinion que 
 les autorite's de Votre Majeste auxquelles la direction de I'Eglise est confiee, 
 n'agissent dans le sens du parti contre lequel les protestations sont dirigees, et ne 
 donnent suite aux nombreuses sommations qui lui ont ^te faites de se prononcer 
 contre une maniere plus libre de concevoir le christianisme. 
 
 " Une pareille intervention, bien que nous ne la craignions pas, en egard a la 
 liberte de conscience et de croyance que Votre Majeste a toujours accordee a ses 
 sujets et qu'elle a energiquement protegee, serait profondement regrettable non- 
 seulement en elle-meme, mais aussi a raison des consequences facheuses qui en re- 
 sultei'aient. Le christianisme et I'Eglise evangelique n'ont pas besoin d'une pro- 
 tection exterieure pour conserver la purete de leur doctrine, et ne peuvent se sou- 
 raettre a une pareille protection.
 
 54 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 **L'EgHse nc progresse qu'a la condition de combattre toujours et de triompher 
 de toute erreur et de tout ce qui est inipie ; mais cette lutte est purement intellec- 
 tuelle, ct I'Eglise protestante possede dans son principe profond, mais dans ce 
 principe seulement, la puissance de soutenir victorieusement cette lutte. Qui done 
 oserait se poser comme juge de la verite dans une Eglise qui ne reconnait d'autre 
 chef que Ic Christ et n'accorde I'infaillibilite a aucun inortel I Le syrabole jugera- 
 t-il la v6rite ? Mais le symbole est tire de la parole de Dieu r(5velee dans la 
 Bible, et la parole biblique a besoin d'interpretation ; et pour cela il faut I'esprit 
 eclaire. La Bible elle-meme dit qu'elle n'est pas une loi de la croyance. 
 
 " L'esprit de Jesus-Christ est seul juge de tout ; et si Ton pouvait supposer que 
 I'Eglise fut jamais abandonnde de cet esprit, elle serait morte. Elle trouve dans 
 les actes do sa fondation et de son passe le fil conducteur qui la conduit hors du 
 labyrinthe des erreurs humaincs, ainsi que la regie des d6veloppements de sa doc- 
 trine ; mais l'esprit de Jesus-Christ, qui doit survivre en elle, si elle doit etre une 
 Eglise, est son veritable guide et son unique juge, ainsi que I'unique juge des siens. 
 Pour donner carriere a cet esprit, il faut assurement que I'Eglise ait un developpe- 
 ment et une constitution qui mettent ses membres en etat de travailler serieusement 
 au temple du Seigneur. Quoique I'Eglise soit dans I'Etat et se trouve dans de 
 nombreux rapports avec la vie politique et celle du peuple, I'Eglise, considerde dans 
 son essence, n'est pas une institution de I'Etat. Mais notre Eglise a re§u, par son 
 ddveloppenicnt historique, une forme qui ne lui permet pas developper aveceiiergie 
 toute sa force vitale. Nous prenons la liberte' de manifester des a present nos voeux 
 et nos prieres modestes sur le mode et la forme de cette institution. Mais, apres 
 avoir examine I'etat actuel de nos rapports ecclesiastiques, nous avons cru que 
 notre devoir nous comma ndait de declarer respectueusement a Votre Majeste que 
 I'Eglise evangelique, si elle veut aspirer avec une force nouvelle a sa haute destina- 
 tion, a besoin d'une nouvelle constitution qui lui en donne le moyen avec la par- 
 ticipation energique de ses membres. 
 
 *' C'est pourquoi nous prions humblement Votre Majeste de vouloir bien ordonner 
 aux autorites charge'es du gouvernenient de I'Eglise de ne limiter en aucune 
 maniere la liberte de la doctrine dans I'Eglise e'vangelique, autant que ces doctrines 
 nc sont pas en opposition avec la morale publique et ne compromettent point la 
 siirete' et la prosperite de I'Etat. Nous prions en outre humblement Votre Majeste 
 de vouloir bien ordonner qu'une commission de membres ecclesiastiques et laiques 
 de I'Eglise protestante soit convoquee dans toutes les provinces du royaume pour 
 pre'parer un projet de constitution de notre Eglise qui soit en rapport avec les 
 besoins actuels et qui devra, apres discussion dans les sy nodes provinciaux, et 
 d'accord avec un synode general, devenii*, avec la haute sanction de Votre Majesty, 
 la base de la vie religieuse de I'administration et du gouvernenient de I'Eglise dans 
 notre Eglise evangelique. — Suivent les signatures. 
 
 « Berlin, 22 aout 1845." 
 
 Voici la reponse du Roi : — 
 
 " J'ai donne a la municipalite de Berlin un long ddlai pour qu'elle eut le temps 
 de reflechir a sa demarche. Je n'ai consenti a ecouter I'adresse que sous la con- 
 dition qu'elle me sei'ait presentee et lue par la municipalite elle-raeme. Je me 
 plaisais a esperer qu'elle envisagerait cette question sous un autre aspect, et qu'elle 
 finirait par voir ce qu'il y a d'etrange a ddbiter en ma prdsence, face a face avec 
 moi, une longue dissertation theologique. Enfin, Messieurs, vous Tuvez voulu et 
 j'ai sousci'it a votre voeu. J'accorde volontiers a la premiere autorite' de ma cliere 
 ville natale ce que je I'efuserais a d'autres. C'est un privilege du aux sentiments 
 de veritable fidelite au Roi, dont cette municipalite a constamment donne I'exemple 
 aux habitants de la capitale. Vous avez parle, j'ai ecoute ; maintenant je vais 
 repondre, autant que je le puis, apres avoir pret6 I'oreille h votre adresse. 
 
 *' La municipalite parait prendre un grand inte'ret aux affaires ecclesiastiques ; il 
 faut done supposer qu'elle connait a fond la situation legale de noti*e Eglise dvan- 
 gdique ; elle doit savoir que lorsqu';\ I'dpoque de la I'e'formation le pouvoir eccld- 
 siastique perdit ses chefs, I'Eglise et les reformateurs eux-memes transmirent I'auto- 
 ritd spirituelle au souveraiu du pays. Cette autoritd est done une des prerogatives
 
 Dr. Hook on the Education of the Poor. 55 
 
 de ma couronne, et en augmente le fardeau. EUe m'impose une penible tache ; 
 mais elle me coufere aussi le droit incontestable et inconteste de veiller k I'organisa- 
 tion de I'Eglise. Je m'abstiens de I'exercer ; les cinq anne'es de mon regne le prou- 
 vent ; et remarquez ceci, Messieurs, car c'estl,e point culminant de ma reponse, je 
 m'abstiens, parceque je suis d'avis que I'Eglise doit procdder par elle-meme. Feu 
 le roi, mon pei-e, lui a fait un don precieux en la dotant des synodes. 
 
 "A la verite, I'ancienne administration du departement des cultes n'etait pas 
 favorable a cette institution, aussi la ue'gligea-t-elle. Sous le ministre actuel, qui 
 s'effraie aussi peu que moi des lumieres et de la publicity, ces synodes ont repris 
 une vie nouvelle. Les synodes sont les organes compdtents pour proclamer I'opi- 
 nion de I'Eglise. S'ils prennent I'initiative d'une nouvelle organisation de I'Eglise, 
 alors je mettrai volontiers la main a I'oeuvre, et je benirai le jour ou je pourrai 
 remettre le pouvoir eccMsiastique a qui de droit ; mais sans cette initiative des 
 organes legitimes, je ne ferai rien. Du reste, je dois contester a la mimicipalitd 
 toute initiative ou toute intervention dans I'organisation de I'Eglise evangdique ; je 
 lui reconnaitrais volontiers le droit moral, si elle avait rempli a un degre eminent 
 ses devoirs de patronage ; si, en d'autres circonstances, elle avait manifesto le 
 m^me interet pour les affaires ecclesiastiques ; si, enfin, elle avait respecte les liens 
 de la fraternite protestante. 
 
 " Mais, la main sur la conscience. Messieurs, il ne m'est vraiment pas possible 
 de vous reconnaitre ce droit moral. Jetez un regard sur la situation du clerge de 
 cette capitale. En aucune ville, grande ou petite, de ce royaume, on ne prend si 
 peu de souci de la charge des ames ! II est un fait qu'il importe surtout de ne pas 
 perdre de vue, quelque incroyable qu'il paraisse, et pourtant, il est vrai, c'est que, 
 sous Frederic-Guillaume l^^", lorsque la ville ne comptait que de 60 a 70 mille 
 habitants, le nombre des pretres etait en realite, et non pas proportionnellement, 
 beaucoup plus considerable qu'il ne I'est aujourd'hui, que le chiffre de la population 
 de Berlin s'eleve a 400,000. — On a souvent tente' de mettre fin a cet intolerable 
 etat de choses. 
 
 " Des particuliers, des communes, feu mon pere et moi-meme, tons nous avons 
 entrepris cette oeuvre. Mais tons ces efforts ont toujours dprouv^ de si facheuses 
 entraves, que ce n'est qu'a force de temps et de labeur que quelqu€«-uns ont eu du 
 succes, tandis que tons les autres ont echoue. 
 
 " R^cemment encore, Messieurs, la fraternite protestante a re9u de douloureuses 
 atteintes, quand vous avez rejete la requete que vous adressaient des protestants 
 Anglicans pour avoir temporairement la jouissance en commun d'une des eglises 
 dependant de I'autorite municipal e, et cela au moment ou, sans avoir, a ce que je 
 crois, re9u la demande, vous offriez aux dissidents de I'Eglise romaine I'usage de 
 deux temples. Les choses etant ainsi, je ne puis malheureusement accorder a la 
 municipalite un droit moral que je voudrais bien lui reconnaitre. Pour finir, je 
 vais aborder ce qui m'a le plus peniblement affecte dans votre adresse. Vous 
 designez sous le nom de parti les veritables fideles de I'Eglise dvangelique. Rien 
 ne m'a plus vivement afflige. Mais vous ne vous etes pas arrete la. Vous accusez, 
 bien que d'une maniere detournee, mais cependant assez explicite, mon gouverne- 
 ment de favoriser un parti. Sur ce dernier point, Messieurs, je contiens mon 
 ressentiment par respect pour ma propre dignite et pour celle de la magistrature. 
 Du reste, j'ajouterai quelques mots. 
 
 " La municipalite s'est laisse tellement aveugler par son zele, qu'elle profere un 
 nom et le donne comme banniere d'une opinion a laquelle, avec plus de calme, moi- 
 meme ou chacun de vous, nous ne pourrions reprocher qu'une trop grande ardeur 
 dans I'accomplissement des devoirs imposes par votre serment, et une maniere de 
 les com prendre dans un sens etroit. En cela, je serais parfaitement d'accord avec 
 vous. Vous accusez ces hommes aupres de moi, en un moment ovi notre Eglise est 
 le plus affligee et le plus outragee par ceux qui ont prete a notre religion le meme 
 serment que les hommes qui sont en butte a vos accusations. Ces serments ont 
 etd pretes spontanement, solennellement, a la face des saints autels, et ceux qu'ils 
 tiennent lies prechent I'apostasie, emploient des moyens illegaux, excitent le peuple 
 et le convoquent en assemblees. 
 
 " L'adresse n'en mentionne aucun, et ne frappe pas d'une juste reprobation ces
 
 56 T>r. TFooJc on the Education of the Poor. 
 
 menc'es inouies. Toute I'Europc a les yeux sur nous et sur les agitations de notre 
 Eglise. Que Joivent penser de I'ctat de notre Eglise et de notre patronage les 
 confessions etrangeres et les liommes impartiaux cntre eux, lorsque la municipality 
 de Berlin e'leve, en presence de son roi, des accusations si dures contre ceux qui 
 sont trop fideles, tandis que, pour les autres, qui ont tous les criterlums {denen audi 
 nicht ein Criterium fehlt), qui ddsigncnt un parti et un parti tres dangereux, le cori- 
 seil municipal n'exprime aucune plainte ? Voila ce qui m'a profonddment afflige ; 
 je le ddplore comme un malheur, et je vous en exprime toute ma desappro- 
 bation. 
 
 " La ve'ritable amitid ne consiste que dans la sincerity: sous ce rapport, j'ai 
 fourni ma part, en vous exprimant franchement et serieusement, selon ma con- 
 science, mon opinion, a vous, que je me plais a appeler mes amis, li existe depuis 
 400 ans, entre ma dynastie et votre ville un beau lien qui a produit les plus 
 heureux resultats. Dans I'assurance que mes paroles, bien interprdtees, fortifieront 
 et resserreront ce lien, je vous congddie en vous donnant I'assurance de ma bien ■ 
 veillance." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Gilbert & Riyington, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

 
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