I E> R.ARY OF THE UN IVER5ITY Of ILLI NOIS %ftt people, Ctjucation, | tl)e C|)utc|). A LETTER TO THE RIGHT RKVEREND FATHER IN GOD, HENRY, LORD BISHOP OF EXETER, OCCASIONED BY A LETTER FROM THE REV. W. F. HOOK, D.D., TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, CONNOP, LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S. ALEXANDER WATSON, M.A., ©nratc of St. Hol^n's, Ci^eltcnf)am. LONDON : JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, CHELTENHAM : THOMAS SHIPTON, PROMENADE EAST. MDCCCXLVI. LONJJON' : rRlNTKD BY JOSEPH MASTERS, ALUERSOATE STREET. A LETTER, ETC. My Lord Bishop, It will be within your Lordship's recollection, that on the twenty-eighth day of May, Meeting at 1839, a meeting was held at WiUis's Rooms, having for Ti!^!g^^'' its object the improvement and extension of Popular Education. On that occasion the chair was taken by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and among the vastly crowded assemblage over which the Metropolitan then presided, were the Archbishops of York and Armagh, and a large number of the Bishops of our Church. There was also a large attendance of Peers and of Members of the House of Commons, as well as an influential body of Clergy and Laity. The speakers at this meeting were the Most Reverend the Chairman, the Earl of Chichester, the Bishop of Lon- A 2 Dr. Hook's 6 DR. HOOK*S SCHEME OF EDUCATION. tenable.* I speak advisedly, my Lord, when I say that the letter recently addressed to the Bishop of Bp!^of St. ^^- I^avid's, by the zealous and true-hearted Vicar of David's. Leeds, has taken the Church by surprise, and thrown us back upon the examination of first principles ; and that it is time to look accurately into the limits which separate principle from prejudice, when we hear one who bade the nation through its Sovereign "Hear the Church," now calling upon us to lay aside '* jealousy of Dissenters," asserting that " the Church of England has no more claim for exclusive pecuniary aid from the State, or for any pecuniary aid at all, than is possessed by any other of those many corporations with which our country abounds" ; and recommending a Board of Management for our schools, which "■ should be open to all persons without any reHgious disqualifications whatever, and should be of a mixed character, so as to be void of pohtical or sectarian bias."t And to those who love and revere Dr. Hook, for his long and successful maintenance of sound Church Principles, it cannot be otherwise than pain- ful to know, that the sanction of his countenance can be claimed for the establishment by the Government of secular schools, in which the authoritative teaching of religion shall be extraneous to the business of the school. But, my Lord, before proceeding further with my subject, let me give expression to my hearty convic- tion that whatever may be the merits or demerits of Dr. Hook's scheme, it would never have been pro- posed by him had he not believed that he might thereby advance the glory of God in and through the Church * See especially an article in the Westminster Review in which Dr. Hook's authority is claimed for its most extreme opinions, among the rest for the princi- ple that Governments have no concern with religion ! t Dr. Hook's Letter on Education, pp. 37 and 60. OBJECT OF DR. HOOK IN HIS LETTER. 7 which He hath purchased with His own Blood. That Dr. Hook's pamphlet has taken the Church at large by surprise and filled his admirers with grief, is most true. I speak not my own feelings merely when I say, that upon a first and a second perusal I would willingly have persuaded myself that a hoax had been played upon the Church, and that the letter was not his, but the production of one who would startle the Church from a lethargy by, as it were, an electric shock, such as the idea of such a scheme emanating from Dr. Hook would prove. But this notwithstanding Dr. Hook most truly describes himself as "a devoted Minister of the Church of England," and he is one with whom it is disheartening for any Churchman to be found at issue ; especially painful is it for me, who have found in him a friend and an adviser, to be unable to acquiesce in views put forth by one in whom in this particular province of opinion especially I had been accustomed to repose unhesitating confidence. And were it not, my Lord, that I have already on several occasions recorded my opinion on this very ques- tion, and that the announcement of Dr. Hook's letter interrupted a design I had formed of taking the view of this subject which I seek now to enforce, and which I had hoped Dr. Hook could not have written on the subject, without maintaining ; I would even now gladly shelter myself under the jus amiciti(d, and leave to others the task of exonerating the Clergy from that acquiescence in the plan which silence might be sup- posed to imply, and which Dr. Hook himself would thence infer. ^ I feel however that to be silent now would with my present convictions be to give to per- * " If we find that no objection is raised to this measure on the part pf the Clergy, although the concession is great to those who think mucli of the dignity O OBJECTS PROPOSED sonal considerations the homage which truth and prin- ciple alone can justly claim, and to forget that " the one great direction and command of our Lord as to the method of propagating the truth, would seem to be that the truth should be proclaimed at all eventSy without fear, and at any sacrifice, the only caution being that it should be proclaimed without unnecessary and useless oifence, without any courting of persecution." ^ Confiding therefore rather in the strength of my cause than in my own power to do it justice, and deeply mourning that the trials of our Church are to consist, not only of the draining of our life-blood by the schis- matical departure of our brethren into another Commu- nion than that in which they received their baptismal birthright ; but that among those who remain to main- tain the principles of our Ecclesiastical polity, and to fight for truth for truth's sake, there should be want of unanimity on this most vital of all vital subjects, the culture of the young ; I shall now proceed to show that ccnitcnts of I- Thc Educatlou of all classes of a people among Letter". whom is plautcd a branch of Christ's Church, devolves by Divine appointment upon that Church, and that no disinclination on the part of any to receive Education at her hands can exonerate the Church from the re- sponsibility laid upon her by her Lord's Commission, " Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe of the Establishment, it may be hoped and supposed that in other quarters also there will be a willingness to concede a point which does not involve a principle, in order to secure an important object." — Letter, p. 70. * The Duty of maintaining the Truth. A Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, on Whitsunday, 1034, by the late Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D. IN PRESENT LETTER. \) all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." II. That this duty, while it is of such a nature that the Church must seek at all hazards to fulfil it, must yet be discharged in that spirit of Christian charity which speaks the language of love and of kindness to those whose opinions are condemned, and that while Churchmen call upon the Government to do its duty by the Church, they are content not to interfere to prevent those separate from her Communion from re- ceiving back in pecuniary grants for educational pur- poses, a portion of the monies which have been levied in part from themselves by a Legislature, which has provided even more than the most ample toleration for every variety of religious belief. And then, having shown that there is not any neces- sity for departing from the existing mode of the co- operation of the State with the Church in the matter of Education, arising out of the apathy or incompetency of the Church in the matter, I propose to enter upon A detailed consideration of the causes of the imper- fect education of the masses, coupled with some sug- gestions for remedying the mischiefs which the errors of those who have gone before us are now working among us ; by which consideration I trust to make it appear that, even apart from higher considerations, the principle of getting the work done by those who can do it best, will require the nation to look to the Church to Educate the people, a result to be expected from the fact that the Church is a Divine Ordinance. And first, my Lord, I seek to show that the Church t?e^ TeaSer is the Teacher of the World, and that therefore where- Nation. 10 THE CHARTER OF THE CHURCH. ever a Branch of the Church is planted — although the number of its members is counted rather by units than by tens or hundreds, still — there, relying on Christ's Presence with them, according to their power — aye and beyond their power, — these two or three are to labour w^ithout respect to the efforts of those not visibly folded with them, for the enlightening of the darkness which surrounds them. The Church ^^ ^^^ ^^^ LoRD contiuually teaching His Apostles JhfwoiE "' that they were the Light of the World; and after His Resurrection, and w^hen the days were drawing to a close in which He went in and out among Charter of them, spcakiug of the things relating to the King- dom of God, we read, "then the Eleven Disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw Him they w^orshipped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in Heaven and earth. Go ye there- fore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Here then w^e have the basis of all sound Education : This Charter hcrc thc chartcr of incorporation whereby the Church duty^of' '^is constituted the Teacher of the World. In these Educating:. parting words of the Ascending Redeemer we have the Institution of the College of the Apostles with an endowment of the Divine Presence in perpetuity ; and so long as the w^orld lasts. Christians may recognize no other EnHghtener of the nations than the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Nor let it be said that, even if this be true of religious knowledge, it does THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 11 not extend to secular information. It is not possible to apphcs ■•• equally to separate the two without impairing the quality of both, leirskm? *"" As in religion, his is a perilous discrimination who ^"°''^'=^^^- distinguishes between faith and morals, so is there a wide door opened for the admission of every mischief, when a distinction is made between hterature and religion. Man is set in this world to be fitted by disciphne here for enjoyment hereafter, and therefore we may not speak of religion as a part of Education. The duty of making men meet for the Kingdom of Heaven, includes the duty of developing the mental faculties and training the powers of thought by con- templation on the Unseen. We must not only thank- fully accept the wisdom, which at the Reformation, provided for the reading of the Holy Scripture in the mother tongue ; but we must have a care that men understand that mother tongue. We must not leave to others the unfolding of the sacred uses of language, and the inculcation of the processes of reasoning. Men cannot learn to hold converse one with another, without something definite in the mind as the subject of that converse. Men cannot be taught to think and compare, apart from some standard of thought, and some prin- ciples of action. And as it is the duty of the Church to supply men with access to the unvarying shekel of the sanctuary, and to mould them for eternity ; so it is her wisdom, and therefore her duty, to seize the earliest moments of dawning intellect for the inculcation of truth : and we must be careful that all thought and all powers of reasoning expand under the fostering care of that Church whose servants we are. If it be our duty to proclaim the truths of the Gospel, it is also our duty to see that those to whom we declare them are capable of receiving them and appreciating them. JZ THE CHURCH THE WITNESS FOR GOD S RULE. If we are to secure and gather a harvest, we must sow the seed and prepare the ground. The first step of any process is included in the last. And this is especially the case in the matter of Education. Here in particular the twig must be trained if we would have the required form and fruit in the tree. Seles us To the Church's care the baptismal gift confides men. chuJch's If we are then marked for Christ's, it is the Church care, who IS answerable to Him the Lord that we re- main His. All Power All authority is from God. The powers that be are ordained of God. And it is through various ordinances and delegations that this Divine Rule is maintained in the world. Kings bear rule by Him. Governments are His terror to those who do evil, and for the praise of those who do good. The authority of the parent over the child is Divine, and the obedience of the child is a religious duty. And this is so, even though princes fail to show mercy, and parents are cruel. But as the special wit- The Church ness for His Spiritual Rule, the Church stands in the wTtSfor world a corporation distinct from all other corporations in this, that she is instinct with a living soul, and has a life and authority derived immediately from her Great Head Christ the Lord ; the tangible perpetuation of Whose human life she is. Under obedience to this manifestation of God's Spiritual Rule, all other dele- gations of His authority are drawn. And thus there is a sense in which parents and rulers are officers of the Church. She has, however, dynasties of her own, and each relation of life she fences and supports by officers, whose authority comes directly through herself, and whose bonds of influence are knit by spiritual ties. God's Rule. MODE IN WHICH THE CHURCH SWAYS THIS RULE. 13 Thus while she recognizes in parents the divinely Sy^SuS"' appointed guardians and guides of tender infancy, she dutyl^^*''' takes full cognizance of the fact that, in things spiritual especially, the mother may forget and neglect her sucking child ; and she makes due provision that all whom she blesses in the Saviour's Name, shall be led to lean on Him Who never forsakes His own. She requires that the parents add to their natural responsi- sponsors. bility the additional surety of the promises and vows of Godfathers and Godmothers ; and not content with the implied intention to that effect involved in bringing their little ones to Holy Baptism, she requires that parents give the security which sponsors afford, that their little ones shall be brought up in the faith and fear of Christ. And these sponsors she thus admon- ishes and charges : . . . "Ye must remember that it is your parts and duties to see that this infant be taught, so soon as he shall be able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and profession he hath here made by you. And that he may know these things the better, ye shall call upon him to hear sermons, and chiefly ye shall provide that he may learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, and all other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul's health.'' But it is not from this direction that we most clearly infer the Church's intention that all the in- formation given to the young should be subordi- nate to her influence. Her rulers knew full well that the hard struggle most men have to make for their livelihood, and the occupations which others engage in for their amusement, would entail upon men a perception of the value of information more appa- rently belonging to this time present, (although in fact 14 CANONS RELATING TO SCHOOLMASTERS. all knowledge pursued with a proper end and subject to a proper influence is a training of some part of us for eternity,) than that specified in the Baptismal Charge to sponsors : and that thus schools would be necessary in w^hich to impart knowledge beyond the reach of parental opportunities ; and therefore she wisely made Bishop's provision for the exigency, and ruled that none should School- teach her youth even grammar, without the Bishop's masters. . . license certifying his intellectual and religious meet- ness for the task : and she circumscribed the Bishop's power to license by a proviso, that he should give to the Curate of the parish the option of being the teacher of the youth within its precincts. Now these require- ments are Church requirements and independent of State influence ; though they have the force of law^ by Canons Parliamentary concurrence. Whatever qualifications relating to i n i • i • r ^ School- may be allowed m the construction of the extent to which the practice of the English Church is governed by her Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, there can at any rate be no room to doubt that it is the de- cision of her Ecclesiastical Synod — an unrepealed part of her written Law — that the secular may not be removed from the influence of the religious in Educa- tion. Whatever may be the feelings of those who own no allegiance to the Church, the dutiful children of the Church will at least pause ere they run counter to such manifest consecration of all learning by the hallowing influence of the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and the Ground of the Truth, as is provided for by the three Canons relating to Schoolmasters.'* For rich and * " LXXVII. None to teach School without License. — No man shall teach either in public school, or private house, but such as shall be allowed by the Bishop of the diocese, or ordinary of the place, under his hand and seal, being found meet as well for his learning and dexterity in teaching, as for sober and honest con- m asters. THE CHURCH BOUND TO CARE FOR ALL. 15 poor alike, without distinction or mention of either one or other, for all her children the Church provides that all their learning shall come from her who is not more the Channel of Divine Grace, than the Dispenser of true knowledge. Nor does the Church know any The ci.urch ^ to care for bounds beyond which her parental anxiety can cease ^^^^^'^at^'^ to yearn. As concerning those who love her quiet contiJTuY ways, her anxiety is to keep them within her sacred others, that . they may enclosure, so concerning the wanderers from her fold, becomehers. her one thought is how she may recover them from their straying, and rejoice over them as those recovered from doubtfulness and from danger. She should be ever seeking to win men to the oneness of the Faith : versation, and also for right understanding of God's true religion ; and also except he shall first subscribe to the first and third articles aforementioned sim- jily, and to the two first clauses of the second article. " LXXVIII. Curates desirous to teach to be licensed before others. — In what parish church or chapel soever there is a Curate which is a master of arts, or bachelor of arts, or is otherwise well able to teach youth, and will willingly so do, for the better increase of his living, and training up of children in principles of true religion ; we will and ordain, That a license to teach youth of the parish where he serveth be granted to none by the ordinary of that place, but only to the said Curate. Provided always, that this constitution shall not extend to any parish or chapel in country towns, where there is a public school founded already ; in which case we think it not meet to allow any to teach grammar, but only him that is allowed for the said public school. " LXXIX. The duty of Schoolmasters. — All schoolmasters shall teach in English or Latin, as the children are able to bear, the larger or shorter Cate- chism heretofore by public authority set forth. And as often as any sermon shall be upon holy and festival days within the parish where they teach, they shall bring their scholars to the church where such sermon shall be made, and there see them quietly and soberly behave themselves ; and shall examine them at times convenient, after their return, what they have borne away of such ser- mons. Upon other days, and at other times, they shall train them up with such sentences of Holy Scripture, as shall be most expedient to induce them to all godliness ; and they shall teach the grammar set forth by king Henry the Eighth, and continued in the times of king Edward the Sixth, and queen Eliza- beth of noble memory, and none other. And if any schoolmaster, being licensed, and having subscribed as aforesaid, shall offend in any of the premises, or either speak, write, or teach against anything whereunto he hath formerly subscribed, (if upon admonition by the ordinary he do not amend and reform himself,) let him be suspended from teaching school any longer." 16 PERSECUTION NO FIT WEAPON OF THE CHURCH. and that all may hold the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, it must be her constant aim to be ready to instruct all, and to be ever conscious that the young are her best seed-plot, that new wine must be put into new bottles, and that the reclaiming of a land to hoUness is through the young. Man's And the Church may no more acquiesce in the re- refusal to j x cShfno ^usal of men to be taught by her in things temporal, fiirSch? than she may fold her arms in apathy and refuse to go forth and do valiantly for the Lord against the mighty, because in things spiritual men prefer darkness rather than light. The whole Christian scheme is one of aggression. Into a life-long contest with evil, every Christian is enlisted as a soldier under the great Cap- tain of Salvation : and it is surely a sorry atonement for the neglect which has filled the land with schism to urge the organization of separatists into active communities and their zeal for the advancement of their ow^n view^s of religious truth, as a plea why the Church should attempt less than would otherwise de- volve upon her. Her duty is to speak, whether men Truth to be will licar or whether they will forbear. The call upon serted^ hcr Is to proclalm upon the house-tops that which she eSorcid lias heard in the ear. And although the day is passed by persecu- ^^^ goHC whcu otlicr wcapous than those of moral suasion are sought to be employed in the enforcement of her high dogmas, it is equally the duty of the Church to seek to win back the children of the sepa- ration, and to know of no Christianity to which God's covenants pertain, but that which has come down to our times through the long line of God's saints who have continued in the doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles. It does indeed fall strangely on the Church- man's ear to be told that what the world will not accept THE WORLD TO BE SUBDUED TO THE CHURCH. 17 the Church is not to be in a condition to offer. =^ If the Church of England be indeed a true branch of the One Vine, then it must be our aim that she shall bear fruit sufficient for the refreshing of our whole people. She derives none of her authority to minister in The state things spiritual from the State, and therefore the ad- J^'^j.^'^^f^j^g mission by the State of persons separate from her^^"'^''^' communion into the councils of the nation, and the substitution of sanction in the place of toleration in respect to them can in no wise affect the Church's true position or degrade her to the level of a sect. Still less may she relax in her duty to disciple the nation if from any causes the nation be indisposed to receive Christianity at her hands. It is the function of Christ's Church that she make Theworidto be subdued this earth the Kingdom of God and His Christ, church. and therefore wherever she is planted to her is en- trusted the enlightenment of the surrounding people. There is no nook nor corner into which her minis- ters can go, but there they must go. It is at the risk of her fealty to her Lord that she regard any JJ^^'j^''^ fortress as impregnable or abandon any post as hiar"the indefensible. — "Nor can we deceive ourselves with SU!^3.* /. thinking that the responsibility can be shaken off, because we may fancy that the world despises us and refuses to receive the remedy at our hands. It is not so ! Ardent as may be the desire and base the arts used to turn away all hearts and eyes from the minis- ters of the Gospel and to make them odious or con- temptible, those arts can but partially succeed. In spite of all, men, while they are God's creatures and the work of His hand, will seek the law at the mouth * ** the country will not accept the education of the Church : * * * it is useless for the Church to attempt the general education of the people." — Dr. Hook's Letter, p. 40. B 18 SUSPICION OF HERESY A DUTY TO TRUTH. of His messengers ; and their lips ought therefore of a truth to keep knowledge, because in proportion to this influence is their fearful responsibility.*" Yes, my Lord, it will be an evil hour for the Church of this land if ever her Rulers accept aid in any department of the great w^ork she has to do, on terms which in- volve the concession that she has only the title which the approval of numbers gives for the discharge of her functions as the Teacher of the people. Suspicion of It would seem to be jealousy for the Divine honour, Schism a J J ^ the Church, iiot worldly ambition, which refuses to be a party to a scheme which gives equal honour to religious instruction whether it be in accordance with the traditions of the Church or of Dissent. And yet, my Lord, it is the pro- position of no less an authority than the Vicar of Leeds : " Let this be a principle laid down that the State might endow schools in which instruction purely literary or secular should be imparted, with due care to impress upon the minds of the children the fact that this instruc- tion is not in itself sufficient ; but that to complete the system of education, religious instruction is also secured for them, in accordance with those traditions whether of Church or Dissent which they have received from their parents."! And it is of this proposition * Christians the Light of the World ; A Visitation Sermon by the late Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D. t Letter, p. 40. Surely this plan falls under Dr. Hook's own censure vfhen in another place he urges, " If the object be a specious one, the means for its accom- plishment are disregarded, though the means adopted may by implication involve principles of the first importance, and although by associating with Dissenters, we may pay a compliment to Schism at the expense of truth. Far diffeient were the feelings of good Bishop Ridley, when standing on this very spot he refused to move even his cap to the representatives of the Pope of Rome, lest, as he himself said, he should be thought to do it in derogation to the verity of God's Word." — Sermons before the University of Oxford, p. 48. If the State accept as sufficient proof of religious education the Sunday School Certificate of the Socinian, it is surely guilty of as great a derogation to God's W^ord as that to which Bishop Ridley refused to be a party. CONSEQUENCE OF DR. HOOK's SCHEME. 19 that Dr. Hook alleges that it might be acceded to with- out violation of principle on any side. Knowing for how strong a love of the Church, and for how stern a regard for principle, Dr. Hook has ever been remarkable, I have taken the most scrupulous care to examine this proposition in all its possible bearings ; and I cannot escape from the conviction that, tried by the principles of which Dr. Hook has all along been the able advocate, it will be found wanting, and cannot be otherwise than condemned by those who believe that " God's truth in the ark to which He has confided it, The Church, will be borne in safety over the waves of this troublesome world, when every human system has been swallowed up in the deep and is forgotten."^ For to what does this proposition lead, and what does ^°^^^;g ^^ it in itself involve ? First it involves that while it may proportion. be the right it is not the duty of the Church to direct the Education of the People, and that even in the case of her own children, she may yield up to others the control of " secular and literary'' information. Whereas the Church's Charter has no shorter limit in time than time itself — nor narrower bound in space than the world in which it stands as the Symbol of the Everlasting. And therefore even for those who are not her children now (and let it be always remembered also that many are her children who yet own it not),t she is bound to make provision that they might have their * The late Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D. f Very many Dissenters continue to bring their children for Baptism to the Church, thus voluntarily giving the Church a Mother's claim upon their obedi- ence, and a Mother's responsibility for their training. And indeed in so far as Dissenters are Christians at all, they owe filial obedience to the Church, and the Church owes them maternal love. '' Ecclesia omnes per Baptismum parit, sive apud sesive extra se ; Ecclesice jure quod est in Baptismo, nascuntur quicunque nascuntur." S. Aug. de Bapt. c. Don. i. c. 23, quoted by Wordsworth. B 2 20 LITERATURE AND RELIGION INSEPARABLE. portion of meat in due season in their Father's House, But the principle further involves the possibility of imparting *' literar}^ or secular" information apart from Religion, and the safety of entrusting the giving of such information to parties for whose religious faith we have no guarantee. The Master who is to give this in- struction may be of any creed, and, if the principle be fairly carried out, of no creed : and by the conditions of his appointment, whatever may be his religious views, he is not to be allowed to enforce them on his pupils. How he is to carry on moral discipline without show- ing his bias does not appear, but the instruction he is to give is to be purely literary and scientific ; and the rehgious instruction which is to complete the Educa- Divorce tiou is to bc dvcu by other functionaries. Now such between o J a divorce between Literature and Religion^ can only be effected at the cost of all that is high and noble, for no secular knowledge which is really desirable for the bulk of our population can be fitly taught apart from a constant reference to religion. To use the forcible DeJwent l^nguagc of tliC accomplishcd and indefatigable Prin- pofiitro" cipal of St. Mark's College, "Language with all its separating ^ggg^ hlstoiT iu all Its brauchcs, science itself con- secular and • i i • • i i reugiousin sidercd in its noblest aspect as an organ of reason and exercise of the mental faculties — these and every other study not merely technical attain their highest value when connected with religious truth — but degenerate into falsehood when pvirsued in any other connection, and this whether we refer to the simplest rudiments * That Dr. Hook's scheme is a virtual if not actual divorce between Literature and Religion, is to be seen in this, that thegiving of religious instruction as sup- plemental to secular information is supposed to make an education religious, while all the time the literary and scientific knowledge is withdrawn from any subordination to a religious authority. Upon such a plan the master must be devoid either of principles or of character. Literature and Religion. MORAL DISCIPLINE DEPENDENT ON RELIGION. 21 taught in a parish school, or to the abstruse researches of the cloistered student.^" The fallacy which vitiates the plan is simply this — ^^^^''^"^ that in an eager desire to find a comprehensive remedy p^-op^s^^^^"- for a great and acknowledged evil, Dr. Hook has over- looked the fact that it is not the giving of knowledge concerning religion, nor the care to make a child re- ligious by means supplementary to his instruction in literature and science, which constitutes Religious Edu- cation. Education can then and then only be said to be religious when the authority of the teacher is de- rived from a spiritual source, and the training alike in morals and in mental improvement has that full religi- ous sanction which an acknowledgment of Religion, as the leaven and strength of all knowledge, and the princi- ple of cohesion in all learning alone can afford. Now Dr. Hook's proposition is tenable only on the sup- position that the secular and the spiritual can be thoroughly severed in the work of Education, atid that morals can be enforced by a teacher who has no defi- nite spiritual function, and whose authority comes mainly from a State avowedly incapable of giving a professedly religious education.! And thus, unless we 51.Spiine are prepared to admit that strict moral discipline can "depemient be enforced without reference to the Church's doctrine of man's fall in Adam and his recovery in Christ, we cannot receive a scheme which shall hand over *' the ploughing of the soil preparatory to the sowing of the seed,'' and shall consign " the strict moral discipline!" of our youth to teachers of any and every * The Teachers of the People : a Sermon preached at the opening of the Chapel of St. Mark's College, Chelsea, by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, M.A. t Dr. Hook's Letter, pp. 'S6, 67. It will be said that when a parent selects a teacher for his child he delegates to that teacher a spiritual authority. I grant that this is so, but if at the same time he acquiesces in a rule by which the teacher shall have no spiritual function, such a delegation is a mere mockery. : Ibid. 22 HISTORY A TEACHER. form of error lying between the Solifidianism of the Antinomian on the one hand, and the carnal infidelity of the Socinian on the other. ^uencesof -^^^^ whilc this plan involves the separation of the nrreSe^cl doctHnal and practical in morals, and of the Literary ilooki""^ and Religious in Education, and implies that the Church is justified in transferring to others the duty laid upon her by her Lord to enlighten the nations of the earth, it leads to the following startling proposal in reference to educational books. "The books to be used must be selected or prepared under the direction of the Committee of Privy Council ; but as in history especi- ally, subjects might be introduced which might be re- garded by some parties as objectionable, provision should be made for the due consideration of any objections which might be advanced, on the one side by the Clergy, and on the other by Dissenting Ministers." Surely, my Lord, the bitterest opponent of the scheme could not hit upon an argument more subversive of its claims upon the acceptance of Churchmen than this statement of its requirements by its reverend Author. I wait not to determine the fate of general Literature^ and Philosophy under such a process as that suggested, but it is certain that if we can receive as the text-book of our children a history which shall have passed the prescribed ordeal, we must henceforward believe the definition attributed to a certain noble and learned Lord to be a just one, and acknowledge history to be but an old almanack. More than such a register of * Cobbett, when he wrote a Grammar to subserve his own views of men and things, but followed the example Home Tooke had set him in his Diversions of Parley ; and in fact Arithmeticf and Mathematical Analysis would seem to be the only subjects of instruction which are not capable of being used either for or against the Truth : and this being so, can there be a question among us, that tlie Cliurch is bound to press all into her service, especially in the case of those whom she has so short a time under instruction as the children of the poor ? f- And even the problems of Arithmetic may be so set as to be in fact dialectic statements of opinion. THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS LESSONS OF HISTORY. 23 dry facts, such a history could not be : and of what earthly value would it be that our youth should learn the facts apart from the lessons of history. " History, Functions of History. says Dionysius, 'is philosophy teaching by examples, m^^'^- The divine looks on it as Religion teaching by exam- ples. The moral Governor of the Universe adminis- ters man in the world of nature, as the incomparable Bishop Butler has proved, by that law which he has laid down for his guidance in the volume of revelation : so rewards and so punishes. The page of history therefore presents an illustration, to say the least, of the mind of God as unfolded in Scripture. The indi- vidual or the nation which rejects God may seem to escape His just punishment ; the individual altogether, the nation for a time. But that God is holy and just ; that He is Holy and abhors sin, that He is just and will punish it, are lessons which are written in letters of fire in the volume of history — in the awful punish- ments which have befallen sinners in the mass— -in the fearful scourges which have fallen on guilty nations — their extirpation — the scattering of the people, to the four winds of heaven — the blotting out their name and place from the face of the earth which they had defiled."^ Better surely were it that History were not ^J^'g^f^'tlff - taught at all, than taught apart from its lessons. ggfo^J Its facts should be ensrraven on the memory not as in- EessoS ^ '' of History. sulated occurrences, but as issues and consequences oi laws and principles, and of given modes of thought and action. Let the child know that different lessons are being taught in the different religious class-rooms f with the same historical facts as their basis, and it is easy to predict it will only be the historical fact and * The late Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D. t The plan speaks of two class rooms ; a little consideration will show that one class room will not suffice the Wesleyan, the Anabaptist, the Socinian, and others. 24 DISSENTERS INTERESTED IN EDUCATIOiV. not the historical lesson which is graven on his memory ; even if the historical skeletons of the week be clothed with the living flesh and blood of their real teaching by the Wednesday and Friday instructors. fromlh?" Whether then we look at the question in the abstract foregoing. ^^ fouudcd upou thc Dlviuc Commission given to the Apostles to evangelize the world,* or whether we con- template the consequences of departure from the prin- ciple laid down under circumstances which, from the known feelings of the Author of the scheme towards the Church, may be fairly presumed to be as little prejudicial as possible to the proper discharge of her high duties — in either case, there appears to be no escape from the conviction that the Church's duty and right to teach the world, are an inalienable part of her constitution, and that she can no more concede to others, external to her communion and not subject to her con- trol and influence, the office of imparting secular in- formation, to her oivn children more especially, than she can transfer her authority to administer the Sacra- ments to parties who are in no subordination to her whether in doctrine or discipline. duty Tn '^''^'^ And since the principle for which I am contending inherenun docs uot dcpcud upou auy power claimed for the Church rai^f^harter, subscqucut to thc Apostolic age, but is involved in the ?n theirown vcry tcrms of the account given in Inspired Scripture of rouch'b^und the mode by which Christ's Gospel is to be made known * This interpretation of the force of the Apostolic Commission derives additional sanction from 1 Cor. xii. 8, and Eph. iv. 11. In a sermon on the former verse, Mr. Coleridge thus writes : — " Thirdly, Teachers, to whom appears to have been consigned the humbler duties of the Catechist, as the term is still understood. Thus the Catechumen would be prepared by the Teacher for the higher ministry of the Prophet, while both would exercise their important functions under the pastoral rule of the Apostles." — IVie Teachers of the People ; a Sermon, by the Rev. D. Coleridge, M.A. Churchmen. ABSENCE OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 25 in the earth, it follows that even by those who do not^/eethat ' *' Educatjon accept the doctrine of the " Apostohcal Succession," it'/eS will be acknowledged that religious Education includes secular instruction, and that thus Dissenters no less than Churchmen will require that all information be subor- dinate to religion. It would indeed involve much less sacrifice on the ^^^'l^fj^fy part of the Dissenters to recognize this division of Edu- hooSSi cation into secular and religious than on the part of churchmen. Churchmen ; since Dissenters are not accustomed to place much value upon dogmatic theology, and the spirit of eclecticism which so generally prevails among them might prompt them to tolerate the arrange- ment. They are in the habit of practically placing the importance of their religious views in certain opinions supplementary to a given body of truth held in common with other persons who to these opinions accord no sympathy, and which opinions they are not unwilling to waive on given occasions. Such persons, it is obvious, might regard the Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday teaching sufficient for their special religion, and trust to the general information afloat in society for moulding the regular school instruction to their purpose. And yet, my Lord, I think this is hardly to be The Biwe ,,.,. 1 apart from expected from those who thnik it not enough to accept the church. the Holy Scripture as the guide and rule by which God's Church is to teach God's people ; but who seek to exalt one of these gifts of God by thanklessly rejecting the other: giving to the Written Word both its own office and also the functions of the living teacher. It is hardly to be expected that such shall be content to have their children brought to be taught three days in every week, throughout which the Holy Bible shall be a proscribed book ; and during which there shall not of necessity be asserting Chnrcli's duty herein 26 LIVERPOOL CORPORATION SCHOOLS. one word or one thought inculcated in reference to No lack of their condition as deathless beings. So far then from charity to /• i • « t\' Dissenters in tlicrc beins; any want of charity towards Dissenters in asserting the o J •/ Chnrcli's ^ |-|^g refusal to concede the right of the Church to edu- cate the people ; or in a determination not to let the Church's sacred duty in the matter be superseded by the interference of Government on a non-religious prin- ciple ; it would seem that we are contending for a prin- ciple in which the rights of their own consciences no less than ours are involved.''^ Without doubt Dr. Hook * It cannot but be interesting to see how Dr. Hook's Scheme has been tried in Liverpool and failed. The following is from the Appendix to a valuable Sermon by the Reverend Cecil Wray, M.A., entitled, "The Suppression of any part of the Truth in the W^ork of Education unjustifiable." " The Liverpool Corporation Schools have lately been under three sets of masters, and have exhibited three distinct systems of Education. Before the new Municipal Law came into operation, they were strictly Church of England Schools, open to all parties, while one si/stem of religion only was taught, under the direction of the Clergy, who were made members of the School Committees. T^his was the orthodox era, when the Church systetn prevailed. " Upon the passing of the Municipal Reform Bill, the Dissenting interests pre- dominated in the Corporation, and the Ministers of all denominations were in- vited to come and instruct each the children of his own sect at a stated hour, appropriated for religious instruction ; thus sanctioning the edifying spectacle of a dozen different varieties of Christianity taught under the same roof. " This scheme, — as, of course, the Clergy could not sanction it, and the Dis- senting Ministers would not trouble themselves about it, — was converted by the Roman Catholics to their own purposes, and the schools became in a short time almost exclusively filled with children of the Romish Church. Such was the consequence of abolishing what was called the old exclusive system : viz., the members of the National Church felt themselves concientiously excluded from the public schools of the town. This second, may be called the ultra liberal system." [Alas ! that this should now be a system recommended by Dr. Hook !] "After the Conservatives acquired a majority of votes in the Town Council, the third, or Protestant Bible system, was introduced. But the Clergy have not been restored to their proper office, though some of them are in the habit of countenancing this system by attending the schools ; the teachers, however, are not under their control ; nay, are not even necessarily members of the Church ; nor is the Truth, and the whole Truth, allowed to be pressed upon all the pupils. " By the third and fourth Rules, the Church Catechism is not to be taught to those who object to it, tior are those children to be taken to Church on Sundays, who have a conscientious objection to the same. This system, too, boasts of being anti-exclusive ; but as the authorized version only of the Bible is used, it has in effect turned out the Romanists who, before, formed so large a proportion RECENT LEGISLATIVE TOLERATION. 27 Charter of National insist upon ious cation a right of con- was right when, in moving a resolution pledging the meeting to which I have already referred, to adhere in l^^l%,^^^ any plan for extending more widely the benefits of Education. Education to the principles embodied in the Charter of the National Society, he defied any Government to deprive him of his rights, and affirmed it to be " one of to insist the riaihts of conscience to obey our Saviour and our Education a •^ '' right of God, to educate the people of this country in His f_:;»^^science rehgion and according to the principles of His Church." Churchman And the assertion is one to which the religious Dis- to . np( senter will assent, merely affixing his own meanmg to R^hg the terms Religion and Church. Senc^Jin^a'l When then we come to apply the principle of the ^^jj^^'°"''^^- duty of the Church to undertake the Education of the chu^rch aSd 1 1 /^ • recent people, to the part to be taken by the Government m ^ej^f^^jve^ the matter, it naturally occurs to one to ask whether the alterations which have of late years been made in the constitution of the country, have been of that character, that it can no longer be said that as a people we have the Lord for our God. That the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the subsequent measures which followed in its train, have made a great difference in the position of the Church as to the exclusive right of her members to the enjoyment of offices of civil state and dignity is of course obvious enough, but I want some more conclusive evidence than the admission of Dissenters to the discharge of prescribed duties, the rights of the Church being, theo- retically at least, meanwhile preserved — to prove to me that the Church of England is other than an of the children. It is to be hoped that the Town Council will ere long find out that they are meddling in a matter which does not properly belong to the laity ; and that in the interminable discussion to which it gives rise, they are wasting a great deal of public time without doing themselves any credit." 28 TOLERATION IMPLIES AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH. The Church essential part of the British Constitution.'^ So Ions; of England, ,^ . i • i-i ii part of the as the Coronation oath remains what it does, and the British Con- stitution. statute law of the land recognizes the Body Politic as divided into ''Spiritualty and Temporalty , " "that part of the said Body Politic called the Spiritualty, heing sufficient and meet of itself to declare and determine all such doubts, and to administer all such offices and duties as to their rooms spiritual doth appertain"!: then it matters little that the Legislature have repealed all those statutes by which it was sought to make men religious by the wand of the parish beadle or the mulct of the county justice. Neither is ?ii?a?peeS; thcrc much in the fact, that " at the Conquest the Tenfporai*" Bisliops wcrc, ou accouut of the lands they held, made Barons."! Since previously to the Conquest, and while yet their lands were held in frank-almoigne, they had seats in the House of Lords ratione officii, which spiritual title was not annulled but only added to, when from the alteration in the tenure of their lands, they had a right in virtue of their possessions, no less than of their office. Toleration But thc vcry fact, that liberty to hold and teach implies a •iiiiii views, dissonant from a certain acknowledged standard, is styled toleration, plainly implies that the power of the party granting toleration is on the side of that polity, in liberty to depart from which certain parties seek to be protected. And therefore, the fullest toleration of all sects may exist, while at the same time the claim of a Branch of the One Holy Cathohc Church to be the I^Iational Church of a people, is acknowledged and acted upon by the Legislature. At all events, nothing has been effected by way of * 13Eliz. c. xii; 13 and 14 Car. II. c. xiv. f 24 Hen. VIII. c. xii. t Dr. Hook's Letter, p. 37. dominant religion THE CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH ON THE STATE. 29 change in the Constitution of the country of late, to disturb the title of the Church of England to make demands of the State in the character of a National Church ; if the terms on which she added Scotland The Scottish •• 1 iioiTiT Establish- to her territories, and merged the bcotch rarhament n^ent. in her own, were not sufficient to invalidate her title or annul her claim. Scotland became a part of Great Britain on a condition which seemed expressly and deliberately to prefer earthly policy to the immu- table law of God. And therefore, if the State, having consented to incorporate herself with a nation wherein the Church Catholic was not recognized, and having consented that the oath of the Sovereign, in pledge for the maintenance inviolate of an institution of human origin, as though it were God's Church, should be " a fundamental and essential condition of the Union, without any alteration thereof or derogation thereto, in any sort, for ever," — if this countenance, afforded by the State to the Kirk of Scotland, did not interfere with the fact, that the Convocation of the English church is a part of the British Constitution, or disturb the relation existing between the temporalty and spi- ritualty in the Body Politic ; then clearly the protection of various religious communities in the free and unre- strained practice of their own proper worship in this por- tion of the kingdom, and the admission of the members of such communities into the Legislature, cannot do so. While then, my Lord, I have as little sympathy as Dr. Hook with mere Establishmentarians, under- standing by that term those who ground the claims of the Church to the good-will and allegiance of Englishmen, on the mere fact that it is the Established Church, I must most respectfully beg leave to differ from him when he says, that the Church of England Sie^cSirch 30 THE STATE TO AID THE CHURCH. "oa^iTheatd " ^as HO inore claim for exclusive pecuniary aid from make'^tSe of. the Statc, or for any pecuniary aid at all, than is possessed by any other of those many corporations with which our country abounds." The commission and charter of the Church of Christ is that she is to bring all Jiations to the faith of Christ: and ever and anon she calls upon Governments and Rulers, through whom nations have an energetic being, to assist her in her work. Whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, the Church's cry to Kings and Queens The Church cvcr Is, that they are to be the nursing fathers and Kings and nursins: mothers of the Church. And when, as in this Queens to be ^ faSs^and ^ur rcalm of England, the cry has been for so many !h?church! years hstened to, in so far as this, that the law of England, as we have seen, expressly regards the Church of England as the exponent of the religion of its Sovereign ; it is strange to say, that the Church sustains no relations to the State beyond those in which the possession of property which requires protection, may be thought to place her. Even did neither law nor custom regard the Church of England as the National Church, — yet in that she is a Branch of the Church of Christ, she has a right to call upon the The state Rulcrs of the Land to grant her all the assistance they co-operate cau afFord and she can use for the christianising with the ^ ci.urch. Qf \]^Q nation. But when both law and custom combine to regard her Clergy as the teachers of the people, "^ — when it is a fact, that her Con- vocation is part and parcel of the Constitution, and that whenever the nation seeks to deprecate evil, or to ask a boon from the Majesty of Heaven, her * ** The Clergy are the teachers of the poor — not teachers of religion only : but in the eye of the law, they were teachers generally." — Speech of Mr., (now Lord,) Brougham, Sth June, 1 820. PROVISION FOR PASTORAL INSTRUCTION. 31 mouth-piece at the Throne of Grace is the Church of England ; then it does seem a doubly hard require- ment that we should be called upon to disavow our right to special and particular aid in training the youth of the nation, so that increased and increasing numbers may swell the chorus of national thanksgiving, or deepen the note of national humiliation, with accept- ance in the Divine ear. Were the Church of England the creature of yesterday, or had she been constituted the National Church because of her being the Church of the majority,^ then there might be some pretence for the equality with sects to which it is sought to degrade her, by those who will gladly quote Dr. Hook's words in a sense very remote from that in which he could have intended them to apply. I trust, however, my Lord, that the Church of England will ever continue to maintain her position in this land, as the bulwark of Apostolic Christianity, and that she will never cease to remind Parliaments and Rulers of their solemn obligations to eternal truth and to the eternal Fountain of all truth ; and of the privilege they enjoy in having planted among them a branch of the One Church, through which to pay this their bounden homage to the Most High. So Ions; as there is any one portion of the Duty of the empire in which two thousand immortal beings are J',^^fJ^^j^ congregated together without having an accredited &a"stor ancTa ambassador of God to watch, and warn, and premonish every°2.ooo among them, so long should the Church claim and population. demand every possible facility which a legislature can * " If what has now been said be correct, we may see at once the error of that opinion which, since the time of Paiey, has too generally prevailed : that if there is to be an established religion, that religion ought to be the religion of the majority ; that we ought, in other words, to inquire, not what is true in religion, but what is the most popular. ^^ — Dr. Hookas Sermons before University of Oxford, pp. 3G, 37. 32 CHURCH OF ENGLAND THE TEACHER OF ENGLAND. afford for the lengthening the cords and the strengthen- ing of the stakes of Sion. She must ever raise her voice in the effort to convince Governments that Christ's religion is but One — that the Grace it pro- mises is the gift of One Spirit, and the channel through which that Grace comes One Body ; and that all sects and parties are disfigurements to that Body Spiritual. She must never be content until by the zeal of her most faithful children, she has provoked the emulation of all lovers of good to join with her in her inroad upon vice and misery. And while she makes every effort to accomplish the work with her own immediate resources, she will invite the nation to continue to call itself Christian, and to take its share in the accomplishment — it being the peculiar grace and boon of the Gospel, that indefinite numbers can labour in its sacred field, and all receive a full reward, if only they labour lawfully. The point then to which we are brought is this : the fromVore-'' Church of Christ is the Teacher of the world; the going. Church of England is a true branch of Christ's Church ; it is therefore the duty of the Church of England to teach the people of England. And since the Law of England recognizes religion as an essential part of its constitution, and the Church of England as the constitutional expression of religion, it follows that the duty of the Church to teach involves a special duty on the part of the State, to assist the Church in its glorious work. While, then, we own that if the State will not assist us, we are bound ourselves, at whatever cost, to provide for popular Education ; we at the same time assert our primary right to State assistance, and we demand that it shall not only be occasionally and to secure a temporary CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS BETTER THAN PRISONS. 33 or temporal convenience, that the State shall recognize the Church of Endand as its relisrious or^an. Let the ° o o Better to Church continue to teach the Government, that in the pievent ' crime than discharge of its parental office towards the people, in p"""'^*" '*• the provision which it makes for their comforts, it is better to secure means of efficiently and religiously educating the people, than to waste all its energies on perfecting the means of punishing the crime which it mi2:ht under God prevent. And let her assert that The church o *■ to make she is set up in the land by Divine appointment to do fSm bT this great work, and claim protection for this first and^^""^^*' foremost of all her rights ; that it is hers to educate the people. In making this claim she must show herself ready to act upon her responsibility, and must shrink from no self-denial — forego no exertion that may be needed for the fulfilment of her high destiny. So long as the statute law remains what it is, and more especially so long as the poor of this great nation are, notwithstanding all past wrong and all past neglect, still in affection and in intention, as they are in fact, the Church's children, and so long as to the Church is mainly reserved the high honour of vindicating the proper rights and duties alike of rich and poor ; and of witnessing against the heathenism which gives to riches no higher function than self-gratification ; so long may we hope that the State will be as willing as she is bounden to assist the Church with pecuniary resources, which she finds the Church ready to apply in remedy- ing the gigantic evils which have resulted from the apathy and neglect of Church and State alike. But the State now has, even in her ledslative coun- Admission to ' o the Legisla- cils, a divided voice ; and there are those in the senate luseX!^^'' who will claim for others that which we claim for the Church. And the claim of separatists, under certain c 34 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. circumstances, to receive back for themselves a por- tion of the taxes which themselves have contributed to pay, is more easily set aside than refuted. Church- men will find no difficulty in recognizing the premises, Sxaumu that " those who pay the taxes are to be benefited by their expenditure:" for the object of taxes is the carrying on of Government ; and the end of Govern- ment is the benefit of the governed. But then the question arises, who are to be the judges of this benefit — who to determine how these benefits are to flow down upon those who claim them ? Churchmen have been wont to argue that every thing which increased the efficiency of Christ's Church in a land, was of necessity an advantage and a blessing to that land ; acTru^etJ"''^ aud that you could not in any way so benefit a people gSnsay the as lu sccuriug for them that happiness which comes of source from which they having the Lord for their God."^ They felt that even infidels had been gainers in secular knowledge by the light of Christianity, though they refused to own the source from w^hence the light shone upon them. And in like manner, although Dissenters may refuse to avail themselves of the blessings offered them in the Church ; yet even they gain when the Church of Christ is the channel through which the nation offers its homage to the Unseen. Efforts of It has, however, been for some time conceded by the Dissenters ' ^ ^ ♦' se^'cieSf" Legislature, though not without protest on the part of Church Churchmen, that Dissenters are to receive benefit out of the taxes, according to their own notions of benefit. The Regium Donum has been long, so far as it goes, a witness to the principle of this concession, and the recent mea- sures by which money is granted for the education of Protestants through the British and Foreign School Society, and for the education of Romanists through * PsaluQ cxliv. 15. THE CHURCH THE MOTHER OF SEPARATISTS. 35 the College of Maynooth, are still further recognitions ^^^'J'JJfg^'^ of the same concession. And when the circumstances ^splcfof under which the Church of Ireland was reformed, — ReSn. without any provision for the Irish having the benefit of one main principle of the Heformation, worship and instruction in God's Word in their mother tongue, — are taken into consideration on the one hand ; and the gross lack of opportunities for serving God in and through " the National Church " under which the English and Welsh have so grievously suffered, are taken into account on the other ; both coupled with the fact, that in Scotland a form of religion is encou- raged and supported other than that which we acknow- ledge to have come down from the Apostles ; it does seem difficult to tell upon what exact principle the State can refuse still further applications of the same concession, or with what grace the Church can now do more than enter its protest in bar of such appli- cation. The Church must at the same time look for- ward to a better state of things, and seek, by the increased energizing of its own influences, to reclaim all to the unity of the Faith. We cannot conceal from ourselves that in reference to the countenance shown to Dissenters, the State can hardly stand still. She must either go forward or retrace her steps. Nor can the Church well make its co-operation with the State contingent upon the State retracing its steps, until, by herself occupying the ground, she has in fact left the State no Dissenters Thechurch's ^ position in to patronize. On the other hand, she must not lend ""^l^l^'^^l^^^ her Divine sanction to the State's indifference in the ^^^ "'^''^^' matter. This one only course seems open to her. She must fearlessly but not less charitably than fearlessly assert, that the State is departing from her duty pro c 2 36 DISSENT TO BE TOLERATED, BUT NOT SANCTIONED. ta7ito in encouraging wilful schism. But she must SsmYucs remember that many schismatics are not such either notiawui. wilfully or willingly, and that the course of events has been such as to break down, in great measure, the barrier between the lawful and the expedient, in the estimate of the bulk of our people. And remembering this, she must, while she urges upon the State " the right and duty of showing a decided preference of a particular form of Christianity over every other religion,''^ be careful to circumscribe the influence of Dissenters rather by giving a fresh spur to her own exertions, than by calling upon the Government to refuse to them all aid and countenance whatever in the discharge of what they believe to be their bounden duty as Christians. We may not, cannot join with Dissenters in religious works. We must sternly pro- nounce upon the danger and sin of their separation ; and yet all the while, without at all committing ourselves to the optimism which treats all evil as providentially appointed for ultimate good, or adopting the more modern theory of Lord Lindsay, that it is only by the antagonism of extremes that the " mean" good is attained, we may hope that the over-ruling grace of Him Who at least has permitted the evil, will eventually reduce the rude chaos into a shape and form wherefrom good shall result. And thus, my Lord, we arrive at the conclusion, that the State was guilty of moral wrong and committed her- self to a worldly and short-sighted policy, when she exceeded the limits of bare toleration in respect of those whose schismatic acts have rent the Body of Christ : and yet, that a compact having been formally entered into with separatists, whereby they have a voice * Bishop of St. David's Charge, 1845. PRESENT EVILS ATTRIBUTABLE TO PAST NEGLECT. 37 in actual legislation, and access to all but the very highest offices of State, (those being still reserved for members of the Church of England,) it is difficult for the Church, now that the State has thus committed itself, to object to Dissenters, whether Romish or Protestant, receiving in the matter of Education support from the Government in which they are by themselves represented. Had the State done its duty to the Church of England, and J?the"sS? supported and strengthened her hands where and when, under God, she required the assistance of the temporal , power : had its acts been acts of munificence, instead of deeds of wrong and oppression and robbery, as they have but too often, from the time of Henry VIII. downwards, been, then we might well hope that, possessing her Convocation, wherein to " declare and determine all such doubts, and to administer all such offices and duties as to their rooms spiritual doth appertain,"* she would have been so truly efficient that in this portion of the empire at least, the pre- tence of the necessity for unauthorized teachers having no existence, those teachers themselves would be found but very few in number. And in Ireland, where and of the / ^ ' Church that great principle of the Reformation — worship in a SthSaws tongue " understanded of the people,'' has never been [S teaSg^ fully tried, a like discharge of her high responsibihty Tong^ue.^'' would have provided a system of Church instruction, which should be accessible to the bulk of the people : and so there would have been more hope of influencdng the masses who withheld affectionate obedience from rulers canonically set over them to minister in things spiritual . But these things, alas, are not so ! The Government of this country has not only failed to lend to the Church * 24 Hen. VIII. cap. xii. 38 THE CHURCH THE TRUE RESTORER. Thecwh of Christ among us, that measure of support to which to^icquSce shc Is entitled ; but contrary to sound principle has ren- sent^^n this de red State assistance to " all denominations." And things- having done this for so long a time the Church has no- thing left her, but submission to a state of things it is not in her present power to remedy ; and she must con- centrate her efforts on making the best of an admitted evil. With regard to the past it would seem that the zeal of Churchmen, which should require the State to break faith with Dissenters, in respect of the assistance rendered to them in the work of Education, w^ould very closely resemble the zeal of Saul which slew the Gibeon- ites : and for which his family were pursued with such unequivocal outpourings of the Divine Wrath. Israel had sinned in connecting themselves with these Gibe- onites, but the alliance having been entered into, its conditions were not to be treacherously departed from. And so doubtless the nation was acting from a love of expediency and an immediate peace, rather than upon principle to secure an ultimate good, when it sought to benefit Dissenters by affording facilities for their schism, and granted legal sanctions to their position and their acts. But from this condition of things the State cannot w^ell depart, until once again the influence of the Church being all but universal, those now separate from us shall be returned to the Church's maternal embrace, and themselves desire it. To effect such a consum- mation by such means must be the devout wish and earnest endeavour of every true Churchman. And to this end we must all labour. The Church is not com- promised by the acts of the State ; her own authorized organ, the Convocation, has passed no sentence upon the measures which have given a licence to schismatical bodies ; and therefore, the Church must frame all her COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION. 39 measures and arrange all her plans upon the basis of the whole population. She must never be content until for every family there is a Church and Pastor, and for every child a school.* And at the same time she must struggle against any further extension of this principle than has been already conceded. The acts of the State in sup- port of sects have always been proposed as exceptions, not precedents ; and against an effort to make them the rule instead of the exception, we must protest. To every measure having this tendency we must offer a decided opposition and hearty resistance. And this brings us, my Lord, to the system at present l^m^^^^ pursued by the Committee of Privy Council on Educa- arTcr'^Qts." tion, which makes it its business to assist in providing schools, where at present there exists a deficiency of the means of education, by meeting the efforts as of indivi- duals so especially of the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society, in proportion to the funds raised in connection with each. This system has its very obvious defects, but the Church is not responsible for them : nay may even accept the system as the best alternative under existing circumstances : and this without compromise of her true and proper regard for the lawful in preference to the expedient. I have now, my Lord, enunciated the principles upon Recapiuua- which alone, as I conceive, the Church can proceed in J^t^^'en ?he the discharge of her high commission as the Light of Sat?.""^ the world : and I have shown that while it is impossible for her by any act of hers to transfer to parties external to her Communion and owning no allegiance to her in the discharge of the delegated duty, the Education of * See Dr. Hook's Letter on the Proposed Subdivision of the Parish of Leeds. 40 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRESENT PRACTICE the people, she yet may forbear to agitate against as- sistance being offered by the State to others : provided she all aloncj seeks by her increased exertions to super- sede the necessity for any other efforts than those pro- perly and truly her own. I have shown how consistent Churchmen (without for one instant countenancing the State in its mere preference for the True Rehgion, while at the same time it supports several forms of re- ligion more or less erroneous,) may continue to avail themselves in their own way of the Grants for Educa- tion which are made by Parliament for the nation without respect to religious differences, committee ^^ ^^ liowcvcr in rcferencc to this mode of granting Gra^n^inf' mouey that Dr. Hook says, '' The State does assist both for Dr.^'' the Church and Dissent at the present time : and con- Hook's ^ scheme. scqucutly what I shall presently suggest will only be another application of a principle already conceded.'' I venture to submit that a double fallacy lurks in this sentence. Dr. Hook puts forward this remark to show that the opposition of the Church to his scheme would be inconsistent. But in order that it may have force in this respect, it must be shown that the Church has conceded this equality to Dissenters : whereas the fact is that it is a concession of the State arising out of a previous concession, against which at the time the Church did most loudly protest, but to which it no longer feels itself called upon to offer direct opposition. ^ But even were this not so, I altogether demur to the assertion that the scheme which Dr. Hook has put for- ward is in any true sense an application of the princi- ple in question. The theory upon which the State now proceeds is, (I.) the utter impossibility of separat- ing the secular and the religious in training immortal beings, on the one hand . and (II.) the impossibihty of AND DR. hook's SCHEME. 41 any such compromise being effected between the Church and Dissenters as shall allow of a system of joint reli- gious education, on the other. Whereas the measure proposed by Dr. Hook, first of all distinguishes be- tween Literature and Religion, and then calls upon the Church to submit her children for three days and parts of two others in each week to the teaching of a master who shall be of any or no religious belief. The mode in which the Committee of Privy Council now dispense the Parliamentary Grant pro- vides that the whole of the education imparted shall be in the opinion of the parties receiving the money — a Religious Education : and that portion of money which the Church receives is of course ex- pended on Church Education. But according to Dr. Hook's plan, whatever of religion there is in the educa- tion, is to be given at the expense of religious bodies, with no further aid from the State than a Class Room in which to impart it, while the whole of the -money expended by the State in the actual business of Ele- mentary Education would be expended on a non-reli- gious principle — or upon a system declared by Dr. Hook himself in 1843,^ to be a " system based upon Atheism." Let it not then be said that, because we Distinction between the acquiesce in the State's assisting both the Church and ^yst|;i*and Dissenters in educating, each upon their own integral Ji^'pSncipie. systems, those who will receive education at their hands respectively, we are therefore bound to take part in a scheme which allows neither to Church nor sect the fair and proper and entire education of those for whose moral and religious well-being they undertake to care. Dr. Hook is very anxious that his scheme should be * Letter to *' British Magazine," Oct. 1843, quoted in "John Bull," August 22, 1846. 42 THE STATE TO TOLERATE DISSENT. carried out in a spirit which gives preponderance to neither Church nor Dissent ; and it certainly does appear to me that he has so far succeeded in putting them on an equaUty by that scheme, as to postpone (I am equally sure without his intending it) the religious claims of both to the demands of the utilitarian spirit of the age, which measures all good by a worldly ad valorem standard,* and supposes that if a man be advanced in the scale of intelligence, he is thereby exalted as a moral and immortal creature. That Dr. Hook has overlooked this view of the measure he has proposed, I am certain. He knows full well that knowledge is not necessarily goodness ; but he has not taken sufficiently into the account how knowledge puf- feth up, unless at every step sanctified by the charity which edifieth ; and 1 am full well convinced that his authority will be quoted to justify the ascribing that to intellectual culture, which he himself acknowledges to be the work of Divine Grace. Though the While, therefore, I contend that there is a view toferates of thc casc which requires of the State that it Dissenters, *^™"^t assist Dissenters as well as Churchmen in efforts to continue SfSrsm^"* train the people as creatures with an immortal hope ; I am equally prepared to maintain that this assis- tance must not be rendered in any such manner as shall pledge the State to an indifference to the evils of schism and heresy. The State is bound still to show * " Riches, whether acquired by conquest or commerce, have ultimately brought on the ruin of every nation which possessed them ; and they will bring on the ruin of this, partly by inviting the avarice of foreign enemies, but prin- cipally by corrupting the morals, and debasing the manners, of its inhabitants. Desinit esse remedio locus ubi quce fuerant vitia mores sunt ; and to that state we are hastening. This contagion will never be eradicated whilst the malifomes subsists ; but its malignity may be abated and its progress retarded by the influence of the Christian religion on the minds of individuals." — Charge of Bishop of Llandaff, 1 802. DIFFICULTIES OF PATRONAGE OF DISSENT. 43 its preference for the Church of England, and although it may not be able to refuse to aid Dissenters, it is not justified in making such concessions to infidelity and irreligion, as must inevitably follow in the train of a measure which separates the secular and religious in Education ; and which, providing for the supremacy of mind by making the cultivation of intellect a daily duty, leaves the elevation of soul and spirit to be accomplished by instruction of a supplementary cha- racter given thrice a week. If I have appeared to dwell more upon the part to be allowed to Dissenters in the Education of the people than is altogether consistent with the claim I have set up for the Church, as that Divine polity whose duty and right it is to absorb all intellectual training within the influence of her own ofiice as the Teacher of the world ; it must be borne in mind that I have not been considering these labours as an element in the instruc- tion of the people in any sense which would justify the Church in curtaihng her own exertions : neither would J'/SV'^^^ I be thought to accord to them — whatever may be the no™recSt ^ - - , , for non-reli- proper praise for such labours, — any such permanence, giouseduca- as that because a certain portion of the educational territory is occupied by them, therefore nothing re- mains to be done by the Church in those quarters. I have been simply dealing with facts as they are ; and believing that the State is bound upon its present prin- ciples of action — bound as the legitimate issue of the measures affecting religious toleration which have become from time to time, within the last twenty years, the law of the land — to assist Dissenters, whether Romish or Protestant, in training their children as moral and rehgious subjects of the Queen, according Probable difficultie the State's 44 DIFFICULTIES OF RECOGNITION OF DISSENT. to their own notions of religion and morals ; it has been my object to ascertain whether the committing herself to such a line of action on the part of the State, has made it impossible for the Church to act as an Almoner of the State, in applying the funds which Parliament votes for the education of the people. difficulties of That the State wdll be eventually perplexed by the recog^nik)n dcmauds whlcli differing forms of religious belief or unbelief will make upon it, can hardly be doubted. That it will be compelled to set hmits to freedom of inquiry, and to say to the advancing tide of unbridled private judgment, " Hither shalt thou come and no further" — is all but certain. Then it may be, the State will sigh for the Divine boundaries of opinion, and wish that it had lengthened the cords and strengthened the stakes of the Church's fold, rather than sought to erect new enclosures for the people. And in proportion to the use the Church makes of her opportunities, wdll be the regard which statesmen will have to her claim as the one authoritative channel of Divine Grace in this land. Meanwhile, I conceive that I have shown that so long as the monies to be applied by the Church in this great work, are received by her unshackled by any condition implying a surrender of her rights as an aggressive polity, so long she may con- tinue to receive and apply them. And this the more since they are apportioned from funds contributed chiefly by her own members for the purposes of Government : one of such purposes, undoubtedly, being the Education of the People. But the case would be at once altered if the hopes now held out to the Church, by the unrestricted nature of the grants, of eventually fulfilhng her high office, and becoming in fact as she is in rightful theory the Teacher of the nation, were indefinitely postponed. We must be jealous of measures, which would divert discharge of THE CHURCH EQUAL TO HER DUTY. 45 into a non-religious channel, means of usefulness which the Church now sanctifies by directing them to her own high ends, subject to her own proper influence. But it may be said, and it has been said, that what- J^^^\i^?o"S ever may be the question of right, it is the wisdom of Her duty' the Church to surrender a privilege whose correspond- ing duties she is unequal to discharge. We are told that the experiment of " educating through the instru- mentality of voluntary associations, assisted by the State, has been made, and it has failed," — " failed so far as to convince practical men that further measures are absolutely necessary, and that the State must effect what voluntary associations will never accomplish."^ Now, while I confess myself utterly unable to under- stand how an experiment of such magnitude as the repair of the neglect of more than a century can be said to have been fairly made, much less to have failed, in the course of three or four years, I would admit that there has been time to judge of the wiUing- ness and power of the Church to make a good use of the means which the State places at the disposal of all parties who feel sufficient interest in the work of Edu- cation to meet the Parhamentary aid by private outlay. And I would urge that there has been time to show that the State must make very much larger grants and make very much ampler provision for the developement of the educational yearnings of this generation, than she has hitherto done. But there is nothing in the statistics of the Committee of Council to show that this is a juncture when the Church should willingly retire from a post of usefulness which she has occupied with such strong conviction of its importance. If Parliament had year by year made grants exceeding the wants or the willingness of those by whom she * Dr. Hook's Letter, pp. 32, 33. 46 WANT OF CONFIDENCE IN THE CHURCH. provided they should be distributed, then there might be some plea to justify the State in looking out for a The Grant different mode of distribution. But when the fact insufticient, ontl'disldl" stares us in the face, that a grant of £75,000 was dis- cient." '"''^' bursed in the lirst six months of the year during which it was to be appropriated, and that during the remaining six months of the year, the consideration of grants had to be deferred, until the grant made in August should become available ; and when we take also into the account that the awards from this sum were made upon the scale, the limits of which were suggested by much more straitened funds, — then assuredly what is needed that more may be done, is not an alteration in the machinery for expending the grant, but an extension in the amount and objects of the grant itself. At all events, my Lord, I very much mistake the character of my countrymen, if the enthu- siasm kindled in 1838, and to which such hearty expression was given in 1839, be already extinct and Sdence gonc. That less has been done in consequence of the cimrch as a movcmcnt thcn commenced, than the heartiness then ordinance. eUcitcd might havc been moulded to perform,^ — is but to acknowledge that more reliance has been placed upon Governments and upon Societies, than upon God's Church. Had it seemed good to the Queen to permit Convocation to deliberate and act, even though it were upon this one question only, and had a permanently ecclesiastical character been stamped upon that movement, we may feel confident that much more would have been accomplished than it has been possi- ble to do with a less perfect organization. Still, my Lord, towards the reorganization of our Dioceses upon the principle of their spiritual Unity and Government, there has been a very decided advance ; and we may reasonably infer that what has been done Grounds of hope from recent zeal. REVIVED ZEAL IN THE CHURCH. 47 with such good promise in so many Dioceses will soon be effected in all. And when once it shall have been brought about that again all plans of amelioration for our people radiate from the episcopal centre ; we may then fairly hope that the generous spirit of self-sacrifice, which ever bears most fruits when there is most of chi- valry and most of faith in the motives by which society is influenced, will be seen Budfelt among us. For can we doubt that it has its presence with us ? We cannot, if we turn our attention to what has been done within the last few years, in all the various departments of the Church's work. There has been a mighty rousing of the chuS °^ Church's energies, and like a giant refreshed with wine ^''^'^^^* she has started from her long slumber with a vigour which proves that long as she has suffered herself to waste her energies, she has confided to no enemy the secret of her strength ; but that now as in the days of old she is ready to go forth and do valiantly for the Lord against the mighty. Is it at such a momeut that she should obey the call of any to acquiesce in the trans- fer to other hands of the right and duty which is em- phatically her own ? I have no disposition to magnify with high praise exertions which after all are but a sorry atonement for past apathy ; neither would I be supposed to urge that more could not have been done than has been done ; but I cannot believe that it is other than a slighting of the most unequivocal testimony which can be brought to bear upon a question, to see in all that the Church has done in the last few years, as compared with previous years, other than the fruits of repentance acceptable as we humbly trust to our Great Head, and tokens that His promise to His Universal Church is fulfilled to us in this particular Branch of it in which we are called upon to serve 48 THE NATIONAL SOCIETY. Him. For what, my Lord, are the facts of this case, as regards the exertions of the Church within the last few years ? Let it be remembered that knowledge im- fnthfleUse parted in her schools for the young is but one depart- knowTc'ile, ment of the Church's great work of Education, and of the therefore, in estimatina; what the Church has done even Church's ^ work. jjj tj^g work of education, we must not confine our at- tention to the sums actually expended in providing Schools and School-masters. Still even in this one respect alone she has not been remiss. I am fully aware that I labour at considerable disadvantage in the endeavours to make good this assertion from the ne- cessarily imperfect character of the statistics available for my purpose. It is impossible to approximate even, with any sufficient accuracy, to the amount of good which has been effected by the Church in this one par- ticular ; but it may be worth while to see what has been done through the assistance of that Public Body to which, as having been the especial medium chosen by men most zealous in the work of education within the Church for giving efficiency and permanency to their plans, the Church is so much indebted, I mean the National Society. It was through the National Society that the friends of the Church sought to give effect to the zeal ehcited by the great educational movement in 1838 — 1839. It was on the basis of the Charter of the National Society, that the great meeting at Willis's Rooms declared it to be the wisdom of Churchmen to erect any superstructure which they might deem necessary as a provision for the intellectual improvement of the country. ^'^ And therefore to the National Society one * It was moved by Lord Abinger, and seconded by the Bishop of Salisbury, and carried unanimously — " That the Incorporated National Society for Promoting the Education of the The National Society IMPERFECTIONS OF SOCIETIES. 49 naturally looks to ascertain what the Church has done collectively in the matter of Education since the period referred to. Not, I repeat, that any statistical account of the Society's labours can furnish a clew to all that has been done by Churchmen for the cause of National Education. But I desire to show that this Society has fair claim to the gratitude of true Church- men for the manner in which it has done what in it lay, to occupy the ground which the Church should fill by organizations made more directly her own by due authority from Convocation. Of the imperfect manner in which societies can do the societies ^ ^ imperfect Church's work I am fully sensible, and shall gladly hail for^fhe"*^' the dawn of that day, when emulating the practice of ^^"°*** her daughter Church of America, the Church of England shall recur to the example of early times, and make every act for the evangelization of the world, emphatically and unequivocally her own. Meanwhile I thankfully acknowledge the aid that societies which conform themselves to their utmost to the Church's model, are capable of rendering to the cause of true religion. Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, by the formation of numerous Schools in immediate connection with the Church, has rendered eminent service to the cause of Christian Education ; and that the general principles upon which it was originally founded ought still to be adhered to in every plan for extending more widely the benefits of Education, whether by multiplying National Schools, or by enlarging the circle of instruction in those which already exist." It was also moved by Dr. Hook, and seconded by Lord Barrington, and carried by acclamation — *• That this Meeting contemplates with satisfaction the establishment of Diocesan Local Boards in connection with the National Society, having for their object the extension of the benefits of Education, contemplated in the foregoing Resolution ; as well as the establishment and encouragement of Schools for the Education of the Middle Classes, upon principles conformable to those which are embodied in the Society's Charter." Other resolutions equally laudatjry of the National Society were moved and seconded by the Very Rev. Dr. Chandler, Mr. R. Bethell, Archdeacon Bather, and Sir T. Acland, Bart. 50 EFFORTS OF NATIONAL SOCIETY. Some societies there are, my Lord, within the Church, which offend against the moderation for which the Church so strenuously witnesses, by the setting up of tests other than those upon which the seal of authority is set ; making it their boast that to them belongs the unenviable distinction of making better provision than the Church itself has done, that the stream of doctrine may run pure throughout its many channels. With such societies it does not seem possible that those who regard the Church as a Divine Ordinance, should N^nif ""' ^^^^ much sympathy. But when as in the case of the Society. National Society, strict regard is had to the importance of the guidance and patronage of the Bishops ex officio; and when also full provision is made for their being assisted in the government of the Society, by influential members of the Church both lay and clerical ; it seems that all has been done which in fairness could under the circumstances be expected. And when in addition to the regard had to sound principle in the constitution of the Society's executive, a catholic conformity to the Church's mind in tests of doctrine is also observable ; it is difficult to suggest what more could have been done to render the National Society theoretically wor- thy of confidence. The question, however, recurs, Has it practically recognized its office as the exponent of the Church's duty to educate the people ? Now it is obvious that service may be rendered to any cause, — S^bf'^'*'^ I. By zealous eflbrts to rouse zeal among those any'^cause!' capablc of supportiug that cause. II. By wise application of means in furtherance of the objects sought to be carried out. National lu both thcsc particulars the National Society has by this test, no occasion to shrink from an examination of its claims. To the National Society we owe it that the Church CONFIDENCE IN NATIONAL SOCIETY. 51 had it in her power successfully to combat the efforts made to rob her of her proper authority in educating the people of this country ;^ and he must be very hard to convince who does not see in the untiring efforts of the present Treasurer and Secretary of the Society, proof that this Society was fully alive to the task which it had to fulfil in directing the public mind to a due appreciation of the dangers by which we were threatened if we neglected, and of the blessings which would be ours if we encouraged, the extension of Education among the people. No fair argument has been left untried, no just appeal but has been resorted to, no available facts are there which have not been made use of, to convince the Church of the imperative call there is upon her to rescue the masses from ignorance, and train them in loyalty and love to God and man.f By ably drawn private documents for the consideration of the Committee,! public and private letters to the Clergy, by appeals directly addressed to the Laity and sfrongty setting forth their duties in the matter, by suggestions of the most valuable kind for school managers, school builders, and school teachers, have these most truly indefatigable officers proved the wisdom of the selec- tion which was made when they were appointed to the office of Secretary ; and in these same exertions we see * ** Equally successful in the following year was the protest of the National Society against the attempt to render inspection by means of state influence, and of secular instruction apart from the inculcation of Church doctrines, through the medium of Privy Council functionaries ; and above four thousand Collegiate and Parochial Clergymen, not to mention a far larger body of lay Churchmen, chiefly persons of weight and influence in the country, signed a declaration so stringent and decided that the most zealous liberals were obliged to confess as Lord Brougham to his honour did, that no government could take the education of the people out of the hands of the Clergy without lowering all the bonds of society." — Letter to Archbishop of Canterbury by G. F. Mathison, Esq. f Since this was written, two most urgent appeals in behalf of Education in Wales, have been put out by both the Secretary and Treasurer of this Society. X I have in my mind in particular one on the subject of the possibility of granting degrees for Schoolmasters. 52 PROPORTION OF PARLIAMENTARY GRANT. the evidence necessary to convince us of the Society's desire to enUst ail possible zeal in behalf of the righteous cause which it is its office to promote. But it is not the zeal of its Treasurer and Secretary only to which the So- ciety can point. Whatever efforts were made in this good cause, w^ere more or less connected with the National cfFriend?of ^ocicty and formed a part of its organic life. It was lsF""as "A Member of the National Society/' that that Society. most worthy and excellent Churchman, Mr. Mathison, laboured with such incessant and untiring energy and such remarkable success in this same cause. And in the service of the National Society the late Mr. S. F. Wood was willing to employ his commanding talents and influential holiness. In fact, so signal was the success of the Society's efforts in rousing the zeal of the country on the subject of Popular Education, that Churchmen of every political complexion enrolled themselves as its members, and it has never yet been possible to substantiate against the Society a charge of sectarian bias, or to show that she has any test other than those which attendance upon the teaching and Sacraments of the Church affords. We live however in times when the many are apt to test the value of every thing by what it will fetch in the market, and such persons will ask, But what fruits has this agree- ment, of men of adverse political interests, to be bound by the definite rules of the National Society, borne ? I answer that it has been mainly through the consistency given to the efforts of Churchmen by this Society, that the Church has proved herself mindful of her high office by making the efforts necessary to entitle her to nearly £200,000 or more of the money voted by the Committee of Council from Parliamentary Grants for the purpose of School Building. I am not able to as- certain the proportion in which the grants were awarded BATTERSEA TRAINING INSTITUTION. 53 previously, but for the last three years the returns are as follows. 1842-43. Description of School. Number r.„„„4.„ Grants accepted, &c. £. s. d. 30,431 15 2,202 498 Average amount of Grant accepted. National British Church and Parochial . Wesleyan Roman Catholic . . . 277 13 7 1 £. 8. d. 30,563 15 2,202 593 85 £. s. d. 109 17 2 169 7 8 71 2 10 1843-44. Description of School. I Number I of appli- cations. National | 438 British ! 16 Church and Parochial . 2 Grants awarded. £. s. d. 70,554 12 3 2,519 9 6 115 Grants accepted, &c. £. s. d. 70,554 12 3 2,519 9 6 115 Average amount of Grant I accepted. | £. s. d. j 161 1 7i I 157 9 4J I 57 10 I 1844-45. Description of School. National .... British Church and Parochial Number of appli- cations. 471 25 7 Grants awarded. Average amount of Grant awarded. £. 8. d. 48,102 3 10 4,940 310 £. s. d. 102 2 6^ 197 12 44 5 Si And in respect of these 471 applications made in the last year, I find that 127 are for the supply of schools in parishes where the population does not reach 1000, and where it is obvious that the need and the means of meeting it, are in an inverse ratio. But a remarkable testimony to the efficiency of the National Society is to be found in the transfer of the Battersea Training School to that body, by Dr. J. P. satierW Transfer of 54 TRANSFER OF INSTITUTION TO NATIONAL SOCIETY. SSutL Kay Shuttleworth, and Mr. Carleton Tufnell, in socieV""^ November, 1843. This School was founded in the year 1840, with the object of providing masters for the schools of pauper children. From the first it was felt to be important that there should be clerical countenance and co-operation, though the desire entertained by its promoters to apply the continental system in this country, (and possibly Dr. J. P. Kay's early associations in regard to the Church) would seem to have prevented their placing the Institution under the immediate control of the Church. But it was soon found that neither the co-operation of the Vicar of Battersea, nor the per- sonal influence of Dr. J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, nor both combined, were enough to secure for the Insti- tution that benefit which is the especial attendant of secular learning being duly and thoroughly sub- ordinated to religion. And accordingly, its promoters resolved to place the Institution under the direct and immediate influence of the Church ; and a surrender of the management into the hands of the National Society, was the mode determined upon for carrying out this resolve. Of the benefits which have accrued to the Insti- tution by this transfer of its management from an influential member of the Executive of the Govern- ment, to the National Society, I am glad to be able to speak in the language of one well qualified to form a just opinion. The Rev. Henry Moseley, M.A., F.R.S., one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, in his last published official Report, thus Result of speaks of this transfer. "For some time before the Report of lustitutiou was transferred to the hands of the Na- Rev. II. Moseley. tloual Soclcty, Mr. Kay Shuttleworth had ceased to ADVANTAGES OF CLERICAL SUPERINTENDENCE. 55 reside in it : and it had been felt by its best friends that the sanction of the residence of a clergyman, charged with a responsible control over it, was indispensable to its success. It was, accordingly, entrusted by the National Society to the care of the Eev. Thomas Jackson, M.A., of St. Mary s Hall, Oxford, as Principal. In the selection of this gentle- man, the Society was influenced by the success which had attended his labours as a parochial Clergyman in one of the largest of the suburban districts of the metropohs, and particularly by the liberal and enhght- ened spirit in which he had devoted himself to the cause of education in that district. " Of the talents and acquirements of Mr. Jackson, it would be presumption in me to speak ; having, however, been intimately acquainted with the Institu- tion before his appointment to the office of Principal, I cannot but bear testimony to the progress which it has made under his auspices. In its religious .aspect J^^J;s^«j« the ascendancy of a Clergyman of the Church of J England is apparent in a high standard of Christian doctrine, and an united and Christian spirit. In all its departments of secular instruction, the impulse is felt of an earnest character and an active mind. And in the cheerful subordination which pervades it, and the healthful tone of its discipline, it is not difficult to recognise the union of a firm purpose with a can- did, affectionate, and cheerful disposition. " In the routine of instruction, the part undertaken by the Principal is that which embraces the history, the doctrines, and the discipline of the Established Church. In his lectures, as well as in that friendly intercourse with the students which he is accustomed to cultivate, it is his object to impress upon their Church influence. 56 NATIONAL SOCIETY AND LOUD JOHN RUSSELL. minds— together with a deep sense of the responsi- bility of their office — those sentiments of love to the Church, loyalty to the Sovereign, and reverence for the Institutions of the country ivhose operations in the sphere of injiuence hereafter to be allotted to each, cannot hut contribute its just proposition to the public welfare. The sanction of that great public body [the National Society] under whose auspices it is now placed, and the funds at its disposal, supply means for the efficient operation of the Institution, which are beyond the resources of private influence and of private benevolence. "In consequence of the grant of £2200 from the Committee of Council on Education, previously alluded to, and other assistance from the National Society, there is an improvement in its materiel, and a corresponding increase in its domestic comforts. I am prepared, moreover, to bear testimony to some- thing more of that cast of mind and manners amongst the students which are proper to the literary cha- racter, but usually associated with a higher social position than theirs." This is a most important testimony alike to the main subject of this letter, viz., the necessity of giving the Church a " responsible control " over all know- ledge of every description which it may be wished to impart : and also to the particular competency of the National Society as an organ of the Church in providing for the due exercise of this control — a LOTdjoHN°^ competency to which the present Prime Minister of RU88BL1. ^j^.g country. Lord John Eussell, has recently borne witness. In the debate on Mr. Ewarf s motion on Education, his Lordship said, " The efforts of the National School Society have been very successful. INSPECTORS AND ORGANISING MASTERS. 57 and a vast number of children are educated in the schools in connexion with that Society." Again, to the National Society we are indebted for ^Jf/;^^''" ""^ the impulse which the work of School Inspection has received, and for the confidence with which the bulk of the clergy thankfully receive the visits of those, in whose judicious censorship they see the earnest of great and lasting benefit to the cause of Education. Another mode in which the Society has rendered organizing '^ masters. valuable assistance in this great and good cause, is by its judicious appointment of Organising Masters. It would, perhaps, not be saying more than is just, were I to place this means of improving the quality of education as among the measures of the utmost importance. It is certainly most desirable that the Schools we already have, should be efficiently con- ducted, and I have reason to know of many in which the visit of the Organising Master has been productive of the most manifest advantage. The visit of the Inspector is necessarily calculated rather to point out defects, and to suggest remedies, than to carry out these suggestions, or do away with these defects. But the stay of the Organising Master, being of longer duration, has more influence upon the School for good : and those clergy and school- masters who have had the opportunity of improving their schools by the visit of an Organising Master, are able to speak to the great value of his services. It would be easy to multiply testimony to the efficiency of those, upon whom the choice of the National Society has fallen in this department of its work ; but I may content myself with mentioning the following fact, which has just been made known. The Government having resolved on increasing the 58 TRAINING INSTITUTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 5iose?m-°^ efficiency of the Elementary Military Schools, among National othcr mcasurcs, with this view resolved on the estab- society. lishnient of a Model School. Advertisements for persons to fulfil the duties of masters were inserted in the public papers. The number of candidates was exceedingly large. The choice of the Examiners fell upon two of the Organising Masters of the National Society, to fill severally the office of Vice-Principal of the Normal School, and Second Master of the Model School. Society's But thc National Society is especially entitled to training In j i. ,/ Btitution*. ij^g praise and gratitude of the country, for the effi- cient manner in which it has applied the resources at its command to the establishment of Training Insti- tutions under the Boards of Education in the several Dioceses of the Church. Much remains to be done; but in St. Mark's College, and the Training Schools at Battersea, and Whitelands, we have an earnest of what the National Society wishes such Institutions to be; and the ready co-operation which the Society offers to the different Diocesan Boards — whether in grants of money for buildings as at York, and Ches- ter, and Durham, and Warrington, within the past year ; or, as at Derby and Worcester, in aiding to carry on more efficiently a system of training masters already employed, — shows that its zealous officers let slip no opportunity for improving and extending the education of the country. The following extract from the Eeport of the Wor- cester Diocesan Branch, will be read with interest : — ** The Inspectors' reports for the last year brought to light the fact, that as there was in many parts of the Diocese much want of education, so was the quality of it very defective. With a view as much as possible to mitigate this latter evil, it was determined by ASSEMBLING OF TEACHERS IN HARVEST HOLIDAYS. 59 the Board, in April last, to adopt a plan -which had been tried and proved beneficial in the Archdeaconry of Coventry and at Leicester, of assembling the Schoolmasters and Mistresses, for the harvest month, for instruction under a Teacher supplied by the National Society. With this view a Committee was appointed, and the sum of 568O was placed at their disposal, to enable them to carry out the design. Letters were written to the clergy of the Diocese, in- forming them of the proposed plan, and inviting them to send the names of such masters and mistresses as might be desirous to avail themselves of it. Thirty-three individuals assembled on the 3rd of August, for this object, and separated on the 22nd. Mr. Holland was deputed by the National Society, and was assisted for the first week by Mr. Wilson, the head-master of the Central School, West- minster. The men and women were formed into two distinct classes, and went through a regular course of instruction, in Scrip- ture History, the Church Catechism, Geography, Grammar, Arith- metic, &c. In the evening there was a singing class under Mr. Sefton. The attendance was most regular, and a great desire was exhibited on the part of all to improve the opportunity afforded them. It was very gratifying to see a number of adults willingly submitting to a routine of elementary instruction, and gladly con- forming themselves to rule and discipline. The period was too short to allow of the expectation that any large increase to theif amount of knowledge could be obtained ; but there is reason to think that none could go away without some enlargement of their ideas — with- out forming a juster appreciation of the duties of their position, and without having a stronger desire and more ability to discharge them. Could such a system of instruction be resorted to from time to time, it would tend greatly to the improvement of the existing race of teachers ; nor can it be doubted that the experiment, so far as it was tried, has been productive of good. " Much inconvenience was felt from the fact that there was no good Model School in Worcester, in which the masters could see the details of a National School ejficiently carried out. To supply this deficiency, the Board has determined on granting the sum of £2b per annum to the National School at Diglis, in the parish of St. Peter, with a view to secure the services of an efficient master, and to make it a good Model School for the whole Diocese. While the Board has taken upon itself this responsibility, the Committee of the National School have agreed to submit the appointment of the master to the approval of the Board ; and the incumbent and curate 60 STAFFORD AND DERBY. of St. Peter's have kindly promised to take the school under their special superintendence. Too much importance cannot be attached to the securing the object in view, and a portion of the funds of the Board can hardly be applied in a manner more conducive to the interests of the Diocese at large. It is most desirable that there should be in the cathedral town of this Diocese a School in which the clergy themselves may see a thoroughly good system of teaching and discipline, and to which schoolmasters may be sent for improve- ment. Above all, it is most important that our training scholars should have such a school at hand, in which they may learn the best means of imparting that knowledge which they are acquiring while under the charge of Mr. Elton. ** For preparing a more efficient supply of schoolmasters for the Diocese, the Training School (in the support of which the principal part of the funds are now expended) must be regarded as of great value. Applications are frequently made to it for the supply of masters; and those who have hitherto gone out, have justified their appointment. *' The state of the Commercial School under Rev. G. Elton is satisfactory, and the number of pupils more than, at any former time." The next extract is also interesting : it is from the Report of the Lichfield Diocesan Branch, in reference to the Archdeaconries of Stafford, Derby, and Salop: — " Stafford. — Of the 26 1 schools in Union in this Archdeaconry, 156 have been inspected during the last year by the Rev. H. Baber, and a Report has been made by him to the Archidiaconal Board. "Derby. — The districts of this Archdeaconry are now united into one Archidiaconal Board, agreeably to a suggestion made by the General Board on a former occasion : new districts have been recently formed, and great zeal and energy shown in extending and improving Church Education. An organising master has been engaged, who has already rendered good service by assembling together at Derby parochial schoolmasters, during the last har- vest holidays, and imparting as much valuable instruction as the limited period of three weeks would allow ; twenty availed them- selves of the advantages then offered, and the results have been highly satisfactory. ** The Diocesan Commercial School at Derby continues to prosper, and numbers sixty-three pupils. TRAINING COLLEGES CONNECTED WITH THE CHURCH. 61 "Salop. — A few additional schools have been added to those which were before in union, fifteen schools have been organised by Mr. Baker, a most efficient officer, sent by the National Society. The Board expressed its sense of the advantage which the Archdeaconry had derived from his visit, by a unanimous vote of thanks.'* It appears from the last Minutes of the Committee church of Council on Education, that in February, 1846, the S'^^'^^^^- Rev. H. Moseley furnished the following statement of the number of students actually under instruction in the Training Colleges of the Church;* and when it is remembered, that Worcester is not included in the list, and that a Training School for Mistresses is in course of organisation at Derby, and that all is con- sidered but a beginning, and not as all that is required, we may safely thank God, and take courage. * I have not had the means of testing all the details given in this table. There seems, however, to be some inconsistency or omission of information in respect of the numbers which can be accommodated, and those actually in training at Canterbury. And there is a want of accuracy in the case of Lichfield, where the period of training should be stated at two to three years. 62 STUDENTS IN CHURCH TRAINING COLLEGES. 4; 73 ^ i i .2 c S I. s s s -S ^ S.2 2 2 •sga a e g .. .. "^ a o o =«-s2 a rt f £ o o ■^S OHO «o 1! .£>. |i •E« 2 a «3 o « 57 0.4> 2 M o>5.SSS3 0) cj 2 I ^a- >>^ a^ o b o O I' J3 21 " 09 IS 2 ^'^ ^.s^a gi o o u s' a ^55 ^^2 03.6 ar oi o ^a (O S ^a o a> a>- mo ;i a II *^ §-| J 5 s e^ 3 C o ^2 a« § l-^ISoS 5 36 M 20 M eof mg— mor ^ m to C rj 1^ rs en to Oj'S ^ D, OI •2 o2 §5 -^o^S ".^ SB o 5^ .2 •sa I .2Q^_r 2i-i^« ■§6-1 "ca^ 25a'' ■s "« o h oo ? o 1^5 ;^ CO ^^ 111 2 ^!^2c5 ° £f 5 c 4'.2-S C.5 a O bD U (S X O 4) u ifc.S i'^ a 1 JS to 53§- g-g- OJCO S 2 1 resident clergymen. IMPERFECTIONS OF OLD SCHOOLS. 71 First and foremost, among the hindrances to the extension of education, I would place the imperfec- tions observable in too many of our present schools. I should be very sorry if anything that I have written in praise of the labours of the National Society, or of the efforts of the Church at large, should be con- strued into an unqualified approval of the present state of things among us, or as an index of satisfac- tion with things as they are. On the contrary, I am fully alive to the need there is, that new life and vigour should be infused into all our old schools where improvements have not been of late years intro- duced, and I know that in many places we have only the name and not the reality of rehgious education. But whose fault is this? The blame does not rest upon the National Society ; nor is the cause of the evil to be found in the inferiority of the Church to the State as the Director of Education. The truth is, there has been too much confidence in the routine of system, and too much reliance on masters, unas- sisted and unsupported by the constant presence of the Clergy, to whose vigilance the Church looks for the efficiency of her schools. And until there be that improvement in education, which the National Society is labouring so zealously to effect, an extension of it is not to be looked for : nor even to be wished. Men will not labour for that of which they do not realise the value. And by the majority, reason and argument are set but little store by, especially in those cases where the testimony of observation might be readily afforded. In order that " the education which is now general may become universal," it must be felt to be the interest of all parties concerned that it should be so. And this 72 IMPERFECTIONS OF OLD SCHOOLS. will never be effected otherwise thaa by that practical appeal to the judgment which experience is supposed to afford. Men are content to act upon faith in things of this life only so long as shall be necessary for the trial of the plan or system in which they are disposed to place confidence. If this confidence be abused by failure, real or alleged, then faith is chilled, and men refuse to re-invest their confidence upon other testi- mony than that of sight. This it is which makes it so very important that the good to be expected from any scheme or plan, should always be rather under- stated than over-stated ; and that great care should always be taken to make people, whom you are about to enlist in any undertaking, thoroughly understand what it is that you design by that undertaking to ac- complish. To an absence of this accurate apportion- ing of hopes and promises to means, may be traced the rapidity with which the flame of enthusiasm so often wanes and dies. And the neglect which suffers plans to fail from want of energy and exertion, to give them due effect, has a like damping influence upon that confiding temper, in the absence of which great works can never be accomplished. The deficiency of interest felt in education, (for want of interest, espe- cially on the part of those to whom it is offered, at all commensurate with the need for interest, there un- questionably is) may be attributed mainly to the operation of these two causes, — an inadequate corre- spondence of the means formerly employed, with the hopes and promises held out — and the mischievous folly that treated the school as a piece of machinery, which, like a clock, had but to be wound up, and let run down as a mere mechanical process. Men speak justly when they assert that a properly THE MADRAS AND LAKCASTERIAN SYSTEMS. 73 educated people will be found orderly and peaceable ; but our predecessors had to learn that they erred when they gave the name of education to systems which took credit for cheapness, for rapidity, and regularity of drilling, as though these things in themselves consti- tuted excellence. That the generation which took part in expecting marvels from the Madras and Lancaste- rian systems, as the ne plus ultra of educational sys- tems, and which prided itself on the prospect of repairing in weeks or months the evils which had been the growth of years, or that those who flattered them- selves that they had hit upon a Royal Road to the tem- ple of learning,* should find themselves grievously disappointed, is only what, 7ve now at least can say, might have been expected. And we can well imagine, that having been disappointed in the effects produced by the schools which they were instrumental in estab- lishing, they should be slow to take part in any fresh educational movement in which there was not made apparent a desire to repair the defects which they had reason to lament in existing institutions. Accordingly,whentheNational Society came forward. Grounds on . I 1 1 ' p . • . 1 . which the seven years asro, with the object oi mcitmoj the nation National so- J O J J O ciety claimed to the performance of its duty towards the multitudes f;^;j3»3"pp°rt of its poor, it was careful to put prominently for- ward the need there was for improvement in the quality, no less than of increase in the quantity of the education afforded; and I feel assured, that the supply of educa- tion will never be commensurate with the demand until our existing educational establishments are rendered * " The invention of printing did not come more opportunely for the restora- tion of letters and the blessed work of reformation than Dr. Bell's discovery to vaccinate (!) the next generation against the pestilence which has infested this." — Quarterly Review, December, 1812. 74 APPEALS FOUNDED ON NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT. more thoroughly efficient, so that they may become centres from which may radiate the light which is so much needed in the neighbourhoods where they are placed. Let our present schools be what they would be, if conducted on a loving confidence in the power and authority of Christ's Church : let the feeling of dependence by which the human sympathies are held in balance have an Authoritative Teacher, in leaning upon whom that feeling might find its expression, and then there would be no lack of funds fort hegreat work the Church has to do. Willing hearts would soon find able hands to carry forward the great work for the accomplishment of which they yearn. Funds no Let us but once make our schools what experience culty.' ' now teaches us they should be, and then we may be sure that a people so thoroughly practical as the English will not, on the score of expense, debar them- selves from the benefits which would accrue from such schools. It is computed that, to carry into effect the 257 railways for which leave was given ii: the session of Parliament just closed, a sum of fifty millions annually for the next three years will be required.* Now, if the love of pecuniary gain will provide for an outlay of fifty millions annually in facilitating loco- motion, surely it is not too much to expect that, if the people of this country were once fully convinced that * Railways. Session 1846. No, of Acts of Parliament passed . . 257 Length of Railways (miles) . . 3951 Capital stock ^98,814,298 Money authorised to be borrowed beyond the Capital 41,383,462 £140,197,760 The required Parliamentary Deposit in the hands of the Accountant General amounts to . . . £4,460,641 DANGER OF OVER-HASTE IN REPAIRING PAST NEGLECT. 75 men were made more industrious and more frugal by the education we give them, that then they would venture an outlay of a few millions, with the pro- spect, not merely of diminishing the poor's rates ; (which have, in the ten years since the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act amounted to £47,271,812,) but with the far higher and nobler aim of increasing the comforts of the homes of those '' without whom a city cannot be inhabited," and whose it is to ** maintain the state of the world," though all the while " their desire is in the work of their craft."* But of the value of education the people will never Dangers of be thoroughly convinced if we go on multiplying 'oo much at schools in which most or many of the evils arising from past indifference or niggardliness or ignorance are necessarily perpetuated ; for we are in danger of committing this folly if we seek to undo in a dag the mischief which has accumulated in gears. If we are not content to repair this mischief patiently, we must necessarily have imperfect schools. We* may multiply schools as it were by steam, but mental and moral improvement is not the work of a moment : and competent masters cannot be found at the bid- ding, even were there funds at hand for their support. We may be sure of this, which is as true of educa- tion generally, in respect of a people, as of the teaching an individual child, that to dispel ignorance is a gradual work, which can no more be accom- plished on a sudden, than can a narrow-mouthed vessel be quickly filled by pouring hastily into it. There will be a flushing over in the one case as in the other. Let us, therefore, be content to go on surely and safely, rather than swiftly and uncer- * Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 31, 36. Lesson for St. Matthew's Day. 76 THE ASSISTANCE TO BE AFFORDED BY THE CLERGY. tainly. Let us perfect what we do as we go on, and let us feel it to be the first part of our duty to the present and the future, not only to avoid huiio repair the shortcomings of the past. Of the vast number of schools which are to be found in the country, there are comparatively few which are used as they might be, or which are fulfill- ing the intentions and promises with which their erec- tion and establishment were attended. And whatever may be the necessity which demands that this number of schools shall be increased ; this would seem to be a want which will be best met by rendering efficient the machinery already at our disposal. caiiuponthe I^ I ^.m askcd, as it will be asked, "How is this to ^^"*^* be done?" — I answer, that it can only be effected by much patience, and after many disappointments ; and that the parties on whom the obligation of seeing that it is done especially rests are the Clergy of the Church of England. There has been much already done in the way of remedying the evils and defects of our educational policy, by the renewed zeal of the Clergy and the increased facilities for improving edu- cation, which have arisen out of the recent exertions of the National Society, and the visit of the Queen's Inspectors of schools. But much yet remains to be done by the clergy themselves; until as one man they rouse themselves to feel that, whatever else they neglect, to the school they must give a high place amongst their duties, it is in vain to hope for any great or real improvement. When a clergy- man shall have offered the morning sacrifice, and attended upon the sick and dying, I know not of any duty which yet remains to him, over and above the duties of study, and meditation, and prayer, which shall prefer a superior claim upon his atten- cause i besides VARIOUS CAUSES OF IMPERFECT EDUCATION. 77 tion to that made by his school. All the Inspect- ors set high value upon the presence of the clergy- man in the school ; and it is clear that all share the opinion of the Rev. John Allen, whose painful and accurate estimate of the difficulties of the work of education is of the utmost value to all concerned in school management. In the report made by this In- spector in the year before last, the following sentence occurs: " It has been a common maxim, 'As is the teacher so is the school.' My experience would rather lead me to make this statement, * As is the pains bestowed therein by the clergyman so is the school /"* If we would arrive at a satisfactory explanation of other *^ ^ beside _ the disproportion of our means of education to the ^p^t^y- numbers for whom education should be provided, we must not ascribe all to apathy. Much indeed of the disparity of our means, as compared with our needs, must be ascribed to love of money, and the desire to accumulate money, which has never given a thought to the necessity of any further education for the poor than such as barely qualified them for the par- ticular handicraft in the exercise of which they were to minister to the rapid growth of the monied interest. The increase of wealth had so widened the chasm between rich and poor as to have almost ingulfed therein the reverence of the one, and the kindliness of the other. But much must also be ascribed to other causes, seeds of re- ... , p.-,,. ii-i production in especially to the want oi vitality in what has been sound know. formerly done : the lack, I mean, of that power of reproduction which is inherent in sound knowledge. In nothing are the affinity and sympathy of like with like more clearly shown than in the matter of educa- tion. To educate is to enlighten — and Hght cannot be hid It will purify — it will enlighten — it will 78 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD SCHOOLS. spread far and wide. And this it is which leads me to say, that to extend education, we must continue to improve already existing Institutions. Much re- quires to be done with our present schools to make them really efficient, but when they are improved, it will be found that the time bestowed upon their improvement, has had a direct influence upon the quantity no less than the quality of education. Hence the importance of giving a minute consideration to the causes of the inadequacy of our present educa- tional establishments. In ascertaining these causes of imperfect education, we shall, of course, be assisted by a review of the particulars in which the worst schools differ from the best. On a careful review of these differences, coupled with a diligent perusal of the various rej)orts of Inspectors, (both those employed by the Committee of Council, and those acting more immediately under the direction of the Church through her Diocesan Boards,) the whole tested by no small experience of the various difficulties with which a school manager has to contend, I am disposed to believe that the chief attention of the friends of edu- cation is required to the following points: — I. The want of provision for the full development of the whole man, body, mind, soul, and the defi- ciency of aim and purpose in the education we impart. II. The character, acquirements, authority, and station, of the Masters of Elementary Schools. III. Want of good school books. IV. The apathy and indifference of the parents of those to whom we would offer Eleemosynary Educa- tion. V. The evils arising from want of contact with superiors as seen in the domestic habits of the poor. system. EDUCATION THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WHOLE MAN. 79 I. It is most important that everythins; be avoided Education *■ JO the training in our schools which has a tendency to confound °^i!;j%'ni intellectual acquirements with education, such being*""'" neither more nor less than putting a part for the whole. To know, is one thing ; to be able to use what we know aright, is another. This truth is recognized when an assertion is made of the necessity of basing all education on religion ; and it is an inten- tion to act upon this truth which stipulates that the bulk of the information given to the children of the poor shall be religious knowledge. But the experience of all who have taken any interest in the matter must have been painfully sufficient to convince them, that a knowledge of the fiacts revealed in the Bible is very commonly all that is meant by religious education. The dull monotonous manner in which the Holy Monitorial Scriptures are read under the correction (!) of a monitor, scarcely raised, either in acquirements or conduct, above those he is professedly instructing, is a thing which should not be tolerated for another hour ; neither, I believe, is it permitted in schools where the clergy take an active part in the business of instruction : and it is now fast becoming the rule and not the exception, that the lessons in religious subjects, and the hearing the reading of the Holy Bible, are the joint province of the clergyman, and of the master acting under his authority. Still the multi- plication of schools of a size far beyond the adequate control of one master, is an evil which can hardly be said to be counterbalanced by the nominally having such and such a proportion of our poor under instruc- tion. The monitorial system, as it is called, was put forward with the laudable view of repairing with the greatest possible speed the neglect of previous years in the matter of education. To the gross abuse of 80 MONITORIAL SYSTEM. Limits to .he employ- ment of mo- nitors. Therimrch's neploctofthe middle claa&es. this system — through ignorance in some, and indolence in others — we owe it that the education given in our National Schools is in many instances so much below that standard of excellence to which it should be the desire of all to approximate. And if we would remedy the defects arising from identifying education with infoimation, we must revise the monitorial arrange- ments of our schools with no sparing hand. On no account should monitors be entrusted with imparting any knowledge which needs an authori- tative teacher, nor should these be employed in any manner in which it is not self-evident that they are merely a part of the school machinery working under rules which allow of no variation. They may be use- ful enough in mere routine work, but they should be very carefully guarded from the temptations inci- dental to control over children of their own age. Much harm has, doubtless, resulted from the oppor- tunities afforded by their little brief authority for the paying off some old grudge, or the indulgence of some petty spleen. At all events, it is impossible that children, however efficiently they may assist in instruction by rote, can be in any real sense capable of conferring upon others the moral power to use knowledge. It is only by a hearty recognition of the need of an authoritative teacher, that the defi- ciencies of our present education can be met; and it is satisfactory to know, that the education of the poor is, on the whole, less deficient in this respect than that of the middle classes. Towards these the Church has enacted a much more unfaithful part than to the poor; and she will never have done her duty as the Teacher of the people, until she once again take her rightful place in the education of the middle order. The nobility and gentry of the land have as it were, occu- ALIENATION OF MIDDLE CLASSES FROM THE CHURCH. 81 pied the Universities, and the poor have the Na- tional Schools, which she from time to time adapts to increasing wants ; but as to schools, — of which the Grammar Schools would form so desirable a nucleus — for the middle class, the Church has been sadly wanting to herself, and her neglect has been punished by the alienation of the affections of these of her children from her. But although the Church has through the National Society all along sought not simply to teach, but to educate in the fullest sense of that term, she has been thwarted in her endeavours by two causes besides those to which I have already alluded. (1.) The deficiency of means for developing the character of the scholars entrusted to her care ; and (2.) the early age at which children are removed from school. It is obvious that the young require constant watch- school hours ing, and that, as regards habits of devotion in parti- of y^uthM^^* cular, the absence of fixed rules is a most serious evil. Now, when it is remembered that it was not tfntil a generation or two had grown up in fearful ignorance and irreligion, that there was any effort worthy of the name, to educate the children of our poor, — the chil- dren, in fact, of these irreligious generations, — it must be clear to the commonest observation, that the Church would have a very difficult task when she sought to mould their character and habits. How much disappointment is inseparably connected with human plans, when formed upon the most favourable model, cannot be strange to any : and, therefore, it need occasion no surprise that there has not been all the benefit that could be desired from our National School system. Its function is supplementary to the parental office. An instructor cannot fully per- F 82 SUPERINTENDENCE AND EXAMPLE OUT OF SCHOOL. form the duties of the parental office, except he stand in every way in loco jmrentis ; and this, it is obvious, a National School teacher does not : seeing the many hours in each day there are during which the children are withdrawn from his superintendence. The mind is stored in school, and care must be taken that it is stored with such facts as shall be available in the formation of Christian character ; but this character cannot be properly moulded amid the necessary irksomeness of laborious application. It is a great hindrance to the work of education, when the only intercourse a master has with his scholars is in the routine of daily lessons. And though an intelligent master will do much to lighten the weariness of instruction, and to make learning pleasurably minister to the cultivation of the moral habit : still as it is only in schools where children are boarded as well as taught, that upon the master can be fairly laid the praise or blame, as the case may be, of a child's character : so might very much more be done than is done to combine intellectual improvement with moral Want of training, and to impart knowledge so that it shall be playgrounds, <^' ^ ^ ^?ine out'of ^ ^^^^ good iustcad of a dangerous weapon, if only all our schools were provided with those means of eliciting and guiding character which a well-appointed play- ground, and a judicious use of recreations of a some- what scientific character, would afford. Much seems to be promised to us eventually in this way by the establishment of Classes for Singing, and of Schools of Design : and until we rescue our children from the contamination of the example of those not subject to our influence, we shall have done but half our work, and that half but very imperfectly. It is in the unsuspecting hours of relaxation that tastes are school hours. EARLY AGE AT WHICH CHILDREN ARE REMOVED. 83 formed ; and they betray a sorry ignorance of human nature, who place the chief good in theoretical know- ledge of the difference between good and evil. But even were our means never so perfect, the Eariyageat ^ ' which chil- early age at which children are removed from our ^^^'J^J^*''^ care, would render them comparatively ineffectual. For manifest as is the important good we may effect by keeping up the connexion of children with their school after they shall have ceased from daily attend- ance, it certainly is a serious discouragement to find that, by the operation of various causes, the children in our rural districts are removed from school at nine or ten years old, on the average, and that those in our towns are not found to remain beyond twelve years of age.* To remedy this evil seems to ])e the pro- vince of the Church, for its most effectual antidote would be the substitution of Christian charity for selfishness as a principle of action. It is very well to compulsory ^ ^ *^ education. refer us to the compulsory requirements of foreign governments in the matter; but such enactments offer little or nothing which is congenial with the habits and feelings of Englishmen. The Warwickshire nailer, who toils his fourteen hours a day, and the miner who knows not what it is to enjoy the pure air and light of heaven for long together, are wholly uncon- scious of inconsistency as they give the full energy of their voices to the boast that " Britons never, never will be slaves ;" and though thousands of our home population incur toil and pain to which a slave po- pulation are strangers, yet, there is something in the very notion of coercion and compulsion which always arouses opposition in the English breast. And even * These are outside averages, but I have thought it better to err on this side. F 2 84 COMPULSORY EDUCATION. if it were practicable to compel education by penal enactments, there is nothing in the present condition of countries where the experiment has been tried, to induce us to adopt it.* It may, however, be a ques- tion, whether the same measure of protection against themselves which has been accorded to the manu- facturing districts by the Factory Regulation Acts, should not be extended to our agricultural popula- tion. But it is something more than this which is needed in order to meet the evil of which I now complain. We ought to retain the children of the poor under instruction at least until the time of their being presented to the Bishop for Confirmation. To lose our hold upon them just at the age when pas- sions and intellect alike are putting forth new strength would seem to be most unsatisfiactory, and a course the very opposite of right; and yet that is the course to which we are forced at pre- sent to submit. It is easier to see the evil than to pronounce how the Christian charity of the few may interpose a barrier to the selfishness of the many. mlist be en- ^^ would appear that the method most likely to be iide ofTdl?-^ crowned with success is that which shall enlist self- interest on the side of duty. Such is the course adopted by our heavenly Father in making us choose the good and shun the bad : and we may, therefore, follow a similar one, provided always that we are careful not to in any way postpone religious interests to temporal. How we can so enlist parents * The Rev. C. Wordsworth's very instructive " Diary in France" may be con- sulted with advantage on this subject : and there are many valuable facts in connexion with education in France brought out in the current number of the English Review. PARENTS TO BE TEMPTEDTOKEEPCHILDREN AT SCHOOL. 85 among the poor on the side of education as to prevail upon them, from a sense of its value, to suffer* their children to remain longer at school, is a subject well worthy our consideration ; and at the risk of partially anticipating the remarks I shall presently have to offer on the general apathy and indifference of the parents of those to whom we would offer eleemosynary education, I would most respectfully submit to your Lordship, and through your Lordship to the Church at large, this question, — '^ Is not the education we pro- vide for the children of the poor deficient in aim and purpose relatively to thefoct, that those we teach have to look forward to bodily toil, and to manual, in contra- distinction to mental labour as the means of obtaining their daily bread?''' Let me not for a moment be 5^"^^^?/^^*^ understood to urge that we are at too much pains to educe the mental powers, or that we have carried intel- lectual training to too high a pitch in our elementary schools. On the contrary, it is the desire to give a larger measure of book knowledge, which has forced upon me the conviction that we do not in those schools sufficiently consider that man's constitution is threefold — body, mind, and soul. Our schools undertake to care for mind and soul, but they comparatively neglect the body. But the education of the body is that which brings the most direct return for pains and labour, and the service which the body can render is that which those who live by daily toil chiefly desire for their children. * It would, perhaps, be more appropriate to use the word require rather than suffer. "When the clergy remonstrate with parents upon the folly of with- drawing their children from school at so early an age, they are too often told that since their children have begun to support themselves, it is but fair to let them " do as they please :" and of course they do not please to prefer control to independence. Rule of St. Paul. 86 INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENTS. They have not sufficient faith in learning to believe that by mental improvement bodily labour can be economised and made more productive, and that, therefore, even the education of the body is taken into account when the mind is cultivated. They know that men can no more plough or sow or plant, or make shoes and clothes, or build houses, without instruction in these particular crafts, than they can read or write without instruction in read- ing and writing. They know, moreover, that their children are little likely to gain their livelihood by reading and writing, while they know that they have themselves made their several crafts minister to their necessities ; and, therefore, they grudge the time which is spent in book learning to the exclu- sion of that training of the bodily powers which it is most unwise to neglect. In the earlier stages of boyhood it is enough that there be that de- velopment of bodily energy which the arrangements of a well-appointed play- ground afford for the sys- tematic and " graduated trials of strength, activity, and adroitness by which the muscles are developed and the frame is prepared for sustaining prolonged or sudden efforts."* But, subsequently, it would be most desirable that an industrial system, upon a large and comprehensive scale, should be engrafted upon the other teaching of the school. Were this so, pa- rents would at once see the importance of continuing their children longer at school, and the children them- selves would acquire a feeling of manly independence similar to that to which St. Paul gave utterance, when he made it his boast, — " neither did we eat any man's ♦ Report of Dr. Kay and Mr. Tuffnell on Training Schools' at Battersea, 1841. INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENTS. 87 bread for nought, but wrought with labour and tra- vail night and day that we might not be chargeable to any of you : not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us ; for even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work neither should he eatT^ I am aware that there are difficulties in the way of difficulties ^ not insuper- carrying out such a joint system; but what is this *^^®* but the consequence of there being a good to be gained ? Nothing worth the having was ever attained without labour \ and it is satisfactory to know, that the difficulties vary in the same ratio with the power to meet them. In towns the number of trades which would require to be taught would be more numerous, but there would be greater facilities for teaching them and more to learn them : while in rural districts attention might be confined to agricultural pursuits, as those which every artisan living in the country would find to be useful knowledge to him in after life. In respect of these Industrial Schools, the*princi- pal difficulty would be the first outlay — an expense to which Government could not fail cheerfully to lend its aid, even if it did not take the whole cost upon itself. Let the Government hold out to every existing school in the country, or to every conve- nient combination of two or more schools in adjoin- ing districts or parishes, facilities for erecting buildings and worksheds : and of renting land for the pur- poses of industrial training in connexion with intel- lectual culture : and the experiment would assuredly be tried on a sufficient scale to test the practicability of requiring that in all schools, it should be re- * 2 Thess. iii. 8, 9. 88 INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENTS. membered, that man has a body which requires developing, no less than a mind which needs teach- ing, and a soul that should be enlightened and saved. If the mind is advanced in the scale of intelli- gence, and no effort made to inure the body to toil in the case of those who yet have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, it can hardly be expected but that disappointment and failure will be the result of such partial plans. A like deficiency impedes the greater usefulness of our girls* schools ; they are wholly without training in the duties of domestic servants, and a multiplication of establishments in connexion with our schools, in which these duties could be learned, would be a great gain. The laudable desire to increase the comfort of the poorer classes by the establishment of baths and washhouses, might be turned to good account in this respect. All that is needed is, that too much be not attempted at once, nor too much hope staked upon the first or second trial. Well shall it be if experiments, carefully conducted through two or three years, shall result in a well-organised scheme, not too rigid in its details, but sufficiently elastic to allow of application to the varied wants of various localities. A most important step in this direction has recently been made by Mr. Monro, at Harrow- Weald. It is premature to speak of the success of this scheme ; but as a Churchman, I cannot but regard it as some- thing more than the trial of a mere experiment. There is about the whole scheme so much hopeful confidence in our position as a branch of Christ's Church, and the whole scheme is so dutifully based on the requirements of our Book of Common Prayer, that I cannot doubt of its commending itself to the COLLEGE OF ST. ANDREWE, HARROW- WEALD, 89 prayers of the devout children of the Church, and of its receiving, in answer to those prayers, God's rich and abundant blessing. There is something hopeful in its very title — '' Cl)e College of ^amt autrrelne FOR GOD, THE CHURCH, AND CHRISt's POOR;" and right-hearted is the reference to the commission under which its zealous founder acts. — " Pasce Agnos,'' is the fitting motto of such an Institution. The following are the Eules of the College : — 1. C]^l£l ^c!)00l is begun in the name of the ever-blessed Trinity, for the benefit of the poor of Christ's Holy Catholic Church. 2. ^11 toljo nre itMembetiS of it shall in all things obej^ and serve, to the best of their power, Christ's Holy Catholic Church, and the Bishops and Governors placed over them by her ; and shall daily attend her services, and observe her appointed seasons of fasts and festival. 3. %\)t ^f})olar£l shall in all things strictly obey the Superiors placed over them in this College, since we are told *'to obey them that have rule over us." 4. %\)t ^cl^olarsl shall attend and assist in all ministrations of the Church, in which the Priest may find his need of them : such as attending him in the performance of the Marriage or Burial Ser- vices, and in other ways aiding his ministrations. 5. CJ)e ^ci^olarjJ shall devote a portion of each day to the relief of Christ's Poor, and those afflicted by God with sickness, by carry- ing food to their respective houses, and waiting on them when they are the guests of the College : they being ** blessed who provide for the Sick and Needy." 6. Cf)e 3Poor, OTitJoiusJ, (J^rpjanjg, and all friendless and desti- tute persons, shall be liberally provided with such help as they need from the College, and shall at least twice in each week dine at the College-table : the selection being made by the Superiors under authority, ** since inasmuch as we do it unto the least of them, we do it unto Christ." 7. Ci)C ^ci)oIav£{ will devote a portion of each day to the attain- ing such knowledge as shall fit them to be useful and faithful Mem- bers of the Holy Church of which they are children, and to whom 90 COLLEGE OF ST. ANDREWE, HARROW-WEALD. they are devoted for life and for death. The divisions of such work shall be as the Superiors shall direct, between learning from good books, the care of cattle, and the tillage of the ground, as hereafter described. 8. Clje ^cl)o\(iVi shall especially observe rules of devotion and reverence in their respective bedrooms, they being the places wherein they approach God in prayer, wherein they pass the perilous hours of darkness and helpless sleep, wherein also they may some day pass through their last sickness and the gate of death. 9. CJje ^djolariS shall be reminded of their various duties at their respective seasons by the ringing of the College bell, the call of which they shall watchfully and punctually obey at all times, it being the likeness of that call we must one day all attend. 10. Ci)e ^ci)olcixS shall solemnly observe the appointed hours of devotion, at morning, noontide, and evening, and shall reverently observe the striking of the hours, seeing how quickly time is pass- ing away and eternity coming on. 11. ^f)t ^d)Q\ni'S shall rise early, and be active in their ap- pointed works throughout the day ; watchfulness and industry being the duty of all Christian people and faithful sons of the Church ; sloth and idleness the doors to all evil spirits. 12. Wi)t ^d)olclv^ shall specially observe a respectful and rever- ential manner to all their superiors and betters, the poor, the aged, and those afflicted by God's Providence, *' not answering again." 13. Cj^e ^fJotatJJ shall be very careful to observe cleanliness in person and dress, it being a likeness of inward purity. 14. CI;e ^(Ijolavif shall each have his own respective work, for the care and wellbeing of the College, in the tending of cattle, cul- tivating the soil, and carrying on the other works of the College, as they shall be directed ; and that cheerfully and with alacrity, with- out jealousy and discontent, counting it joy to have their work appointed to them, since we are all ignorant of what is for our own good. 15. CJe ^cjolavii shall strictly observe all hours, seasons, and bounds of places appointed by their Superiors, and shall be careful to appear in the dress of the College. 16. Ci)e ^ci)olar£S shall pay deference and attention to the four head boys, who are bound, with God's help, to be themselves pat- terns and examples, " in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity," for the glory of God and Christ's Holy Catholic Church and the Brotherhood to which they belong. ST. John's college, bishop's Auckland. 91 '* ij3ot unto tt£{, (© Hoirtr, not unto U£{, but unto ^l)v i^ame fltbe t^t slori), for CJn mercn antJ Ci)n trut!)'^; iSafee.*' For the due carrying out of these rules there are J^;;|f «f^°"- minute regulations for conduct, assigning to each hour in the day its allotted work. Of these regula- tions it is enough here to say, that they contain a provision for the due discharge of all the duties of the social state, and proceed throughout upon the Scrip- tural and consoling truth, that in Christ all Chris- tians are one, and that we are all members one of another, bound to feel for and to succour each the other. Strict attention is paid to the Church's holy times, and mental instruction is combined with moral discipline, and hard labour and cheerful sport are interwoven among the daily routine. There are at present eighteen boys in this college, whose ages average eleven and fourteen ; all taken from the la- bouring classes : and there are at least 100 waiting for admission so soon as there shall be room. At present the outlay for each of these boys ranges from £20 to £25 per annum ; but it is obvious that, as their numbers increase, and their ages increase, the Institution will be very likely to prove self-sup- porting. At all events, it is a beginning in a right direction, and all true-hearted men may well wish it God speed. And while this is going on at home, a similar plan st. john'sj . , * Bishop's IS m operation on that most hopeful field of the Auckland.; Church's labours — New Zealand. Through the wis- dom and pious self-sacrifices of the zealous and apostolic Bishop of that portion of our Colonial Empire, we have seen the foundations of the St. John's College, Bishop's Auckland, in which the industrial system is to be carried out to the full. 9t ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, BISHOP'S AUCKLAND. The objects and rules of the College, seem to offer so many valuable suggestions for the improvement of education at home, especially in reference to our Normal Schools, of which I shall directly have to treat, that I gladly avail myself of the kindness of the Rev. Edw^. Coleridge, M.A., to vs^hose exertions, in connexion vy^ith the Missionary College of St. Augus- tine, at Canterbury, the Church is so much indebted by making public the following facts in connexion with this College. The following are its GENERAL PRINCIPLES. The general condition upon which all students and scholars are received into St. John's College, is, that they shall employ a defi- nite portion of their time in some useful occupation in aid of the purposes of the Institution. The hours of study and of all other employments will be fixed by the visitor and tutors. No member of the body is at liberty to consider any portion of his time as his own ; except such intervals of relaxation as are allowed by the rules of the College. In reminding the members of St. John's College of the original condition upon which they were admitted, the visitor feels it to be his duty to lay before them some of the reasons which now, more than ever, oblige him to require a strict and zealous fulfilment of this oblisiation. The foundation of St. John's College was designed — 1. As a place of religious and useful education for all classes of the com- munity, and especially for candidates for Holy Orders. — 2. As a temporary hostelry for young settlers on their first arrival in the country. — 3. As a refuge for the sick, the aged, and the poor. The expenses of those branches of the Institution which are now open, already exceed the means available for their support; and a further extension will be necessary to complete the system. The state of the Colony has made it necessary to receive a larger number of foundation scholars than was at first intended. The general desire of the Maori people for instruction will require an enlargement of the Native Schools for children and adults. The rapid increase of the half-caste population in places remote from all ST. JOHK's college, bishop's AUCKLAND. 93 the means of instruction must be provided for by a separate school for their benefit. The care of the sick of both races, and the reUef of the poor, will throw a large and increasing charge upon the funds of the College. The only regular provision for the support of the Institution is, an annual grant of three hundred pounds for the maintenance of students,* from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. It is the intention of the visitor and tutor to devote the whole of their available income to the general purposes of the College : but as the sources from which the greater portion of their funds is derived are in some measure precarious, and as this supply must cease with their lives, it is the bounden duty of every one to bear always in mind, that the only real endowment of St. John's College is, the industry/ and self-denial of all its members.^ * The Legacy of the late Rev. Thomas Whytehead has been invested in land, which will not return any rental for several years. t We ai*e now able to give a few extracts from letters to a friend, which record the Bishop's joyful surprise at being thus quickly extricated from his difficulties : — [Auckland, Oct. 20, 1845.] " Now for my overflowing thanks for your patronage of the little St. John's, which I could scarcely have expected in the midst of your other exertions. Your letter removed at once all doubts which began to be upon my mind, whether I should be solvent at the end of this year : I have not been rash in expenditure, tho' I indulged in one stone building, as a key to the rest of the College — this would cost about ^1300, and is now partially completed. " Less expense was incurred in removing and re-establishing the College, than I had expected ; about ;C600 enabled us to re-open at the usual time, with 7 Students, 27 English Boys, 25 Native Boys, 1 Adult Native Scholar, and attend- ants, wives, and families, in all 100 souls. A little Raupo, (or rush house,) is the head-quarters of the Tutor of St. John's : at the distance of about a hundred yards we look down upon the School and School-yard, surrounded by the Raupo houses of the students and College servants, forming a quadrangle. We are within hearing of the merry voices of boys at play, which remind us of Eton, as the distance is too great to allow us to distinguish the Maori sounds which mingle with the Enghsh. " Part of our College Land is at present a wilderness of fern, but Mr. Fisher, the Junior Bursar, and Mr. Samuel Williams, the Senior Bursar, each with a team of six oxen, are rapidly subduing it. Next year we hope to have more than a hundred acres under cultivation, and to double our Schools. Our little native boys, none older than 15 years, have broken up and planted with potatoes about 4 acres of land ; and the English boys have cut in the College wood, as many trees as have fenced one-fourth of the circuit of the College Estate. " The good tidings in your little note are good indeed — JS55,000 for the W ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, BlSHOP's AUCKLAND. Even if industry were not in itself honourable, the purposes of the Institution would be enough to hallow every useful art, and manual labour, by which its resources might be augmented. No rule of life can be so suitable to the character of a Missionary Col- lege, as that laid down by the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and recommended by his practice, — *' Let him labour y working with his own hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." It will therefore be sufficient to state once for all ; that any un- willingness in a theological student to follow the rule and practice of St. Paul, will be considered as a proof of his unfitness for the Ministry, and that incorrigible idleness or vicious habits in any stu- dent or scholar will lead to his dismissal from the College. DETAILS OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM. The Industrial System is intended to provide in a great measure for a supply of food and clothing to the schools and hospitals ; for the improvement of the College Domain ; for the management of the printing press ; and for the embellishment of Churches with carved wood and stone. Some parts of the system are already in oper- ation, and the remainder, it is hoped, will be gradually developed. The industrial classes are divided under the two heads of active and sedentary employments. Every student and scholar, when not hindered by any bodily infirmity, will be required to practise one active and one sedentary trade. The classes for active employments will be arranged according to age and strength ; but in the seden- tary some liberty will be allowed. The classes for active employments are the following : — I. GARDENERS, lower school. Duties. Care of the Flower Gardens and Apiary. Weeding. Pick- ing. Handsowing. Propagation of choice plants and seeds, &c. II. FORESTERS, upper school. Duties. Care of the "Woods, Plantations, and Roads. Clearing. Planting. Roadmaking. Fencing. Propagation of choice trees. Seasoning Timber, &c. III. FARMERS. ADULT school. Duties. Agriculture in all its brunches. Care of stock, &c. &c. Missionary College, and £1500* for St. John's— God be praised for both: and may His blessing fall abundantly upon the friends who have thus at once ex- tended the Ministry- of the Church to the uttermost parts of the earth." * Since increased to £5000. ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, BISHOP's AUCKLAND. 95 IV. SACRISTS. THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS. Duties. Care of the Churches, Chapels, and Burial Grounds. Cleaning and beautifying the Churches and Chapels. Clearing, Fencing, Planting, Turfing, Draining the precincts of the Chapels and Burial Grounds. The classes for Sedentary trades will be arranged in a similar manner. The trades at present open for selection are. Carpenters, Turners, Printers, and Weavers. The time allotted to manual industry will be divided between active and sedentary employments, according to the state of the weather, and other circumstances . Every class will be placed under the direction of a foreman, who is expected to study the best practical books, explaining the princi- ples of the arts and employments practised in his class, and to be able to teach them to his scholars. After a certain probation every foreman will be allowed a deputy, whom he will be required to instruct in the practical duties of his office. When the deputy is suffi- ciently instructed, the foreman of the class will be allowed to devote a larger portion of time to study, with a view to his admission into the class of Theological Students. CONCLUSION. In conclusion, the visitor desires to impress upon the minds of all the members of St. John's College, that it is the motive which sanctifies the work ; and to urge them to carry into the most trifling detail of their customary occupations the one living principle of Faith, without which no work of man can be good or acceptable in the sight of God ; and to endeavour earnestly to discharge every duty of life, as part of a vast system, ordained by Christ himself, *'from whom," St. Paul teaches us, "the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint suppliethy accord- ing to the effectual working in the measure of every part^ maketh increase of the body ,unto the edifying of itseif in loveT (Eph. vi. 16.) Much may also be done in furtherance of this desire Apprentice to enlist self-interest on the side of education, if we secure for each of our schools an apprenticing fund, which might be distributed in the way of rewards to 96 PROVIDENT SOCIETY, ABBOTT'S ANN. such of the boys as made most use of their oppor- tunities in the elementary and industrial schools. Sjck^and SJck aud clothing clubs will also be found of great clubs. value in making the school felt as a temporal benefit, and will serve as a hold upon the children in after life. There are some most valuable suggestions on this head in an account of the Abbott's Ann Provident Re"s^"iie8t. Society, by the Hon. and Rev. Samuel Best, Rector of the parish ; which forms Appendix A. to Mr. Allen's Report in the last Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education. This letter is too long to allow of my reprinting it here; but the following remarks, which form its conclusion, will be read with interest : — " I send with this the rules, on the cover of which will be seen an abstract of the objects of the Society, and a reference to the rules by which each object is carried out : they blend in one system, first, mutual assistance ; secondly, medical attendance in sickness ; thirdly, allowance in old age, and payment on death ; fourthly, provision for apprenticeship, or the advancement of the interests of the member in life ; fifthly, provision for clothing or bedding, fuel, or home-brewed beer; and lastly, any other un- foreseen wants by loans on easy terms. To blend these in one system has been the object, which experience enables me to say, with some confidence, has been attained. In a poor agricultural parish of 620 people, without any assistance whatever but that which my neighbours the tenant-farmers of the soil have kindly and cheerfully lent me, I have for fourteen years carried out this system with success. I was told, on entering my charge, by the people that they were too poor to do anything for themselves, and, on the other hand, by one who has ever taken a deep and local interest in every part of his diocese, on the occasion of my insti- tution, that there must be something very wrong in the parish from the amount of the rates compared with the population. I must not speak of the practical result, but while a very large sum has in fourteen years passed through my hands, :£80(). is now permanently invested with the Commissioners for the Reduction of INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM. 97 the National Debt, and more than another 56IOO, remaining in my hands as Treasurer, is out on loans or in the Savings Bank. If commenced with the school, and steadily carried on with those who have so commenced, I have no doubt that a healthy independ- ance, notwithstanding every discouraging circumstance, may, by degrees, be given to any parish ; and while its blessing is felt individually, education will have its greatest clog removed in the educated peasant being placed in that moral state, which gives his education the fairest chance of being of the greatest service to him in improving his worldly condition." With these examples before us, we may hope that many will be found desh'ous of appropriating as much of these plans, and of the industrial systems pursued at the Battersea and Chester Training Institutions for Masters, as shall give a more definite purpose to our elementary schools, and commend them at once to the hearty co-operation of the parents of those whom we seek to instruct in them. It must be always remembered that elementary schools for the poor differ from elementary schools for the rich in this, that they are the whole of the schooling* which such receive. Our National and other Day Schools stand in the same relation to the poor that the Uni- versities do to the richer. And as in our Universities Anaiogyfrom the theory of theoretical^ care is taken to qualify those who there conjtituuoi of our Uni- vcrsitics * " The circle of faculties has almost disappeared in the one faculty of arts ; or, at most in the two faculties of arts and mathematics. Medicine, music, physics, law, common and civil, and the like, linger yet as theories, but as a professional discipline have been superseded : the practitioners in such faculties, if graduated in our Universities, are formed and qualified elsewhere. As pro- fessional men, their relation to the Universities is slight: it is rather social and natural than professional. The very defence set up for the Universities by some, namely, that they educate what is universal in man, that is, man as man, and not professions as professions (good as it is in their behalf as great lay schools of popular education) is a direct inversion of the true order and even name of an University, which is a system professing to teach in all faculties as such. The defence proves the indictment. *' Now when we remember how great a mass of able and powerful minds are engaged in all branches of professional labour throughout our dense population. 98 IMPORTANCE OF READING WELL. gain their learning, for every department in the social polity, so our elementary schools should prepare those who therein are trained for, and even instruct them in, their future callings and handicrafts. And just as the Universities have suffered the intellect of this vigorous and energetic nation, to a great extent, to outstrip their care, by departing from the compre- hensive principles of education upon which they were founded, so we have no right to hope that we can retain a hold upon the poorer classes of the people where we still have it, or regain it where we have lost it, unless in all our schools we recognize how necessary it is that we should give our children a further qualification for their future occupations than mere knowledge of reading and writing.* Importance lu rcspcct of intcUectual training, unquestionably the of intelligent ^ , . , . i i i reading. first aud most important thmg we have to teach them is to read well — not only intelligibly but intelligently ; and then in this age of book-making, we may fairly hope that they will make good progress in book knowledge, f Let arithmetic and penmanship have, and that -without so much as the honorary relationship of an University degree, we cannot but entertain great and reasonable fear that tbe day may come when our Universities may lose the intellectual supremacy of the people." — Jrch. Manning's Charge, 1846, pp. 33, 34. * Among many other hints of a practical nature in reference to the short time during which we have our scholars under instruction, the Inspector for the Northern District, Mr. Watkins, suggests that a class of schools which might be called " Half Day Schools" or " Second National Schools" would secure to us some training of those who now are not at all subject to our influence, and this without interfering with the rules of our National Schools in respect of regularity of attendance. The remarks of the Rev. F. C. Cook, as to the admission of elder boys at irregular intervals are also worthy of con- sideration with a view to their adoption. — Minutes, p. 103. t Upon this point I cannot forbear to quote the very pertinent remarks of the able Principal of St. Mader College — ** Granting, however, that the state of a school in which the children of hard-handed men receive their modicum of learning has been fully and fairly tested, and it only remains to pass judgment, IMPOKTANCE OF READING WELL. 99 too, the best and fullest attention. Then let geography and its attendant sciences, with history — the history of God's world and God's Church — proceed hand in hand with instruction in some useful trade or mechanical profession : and we shall send forth our confirmed Churchmen capable for the work they have to do in the world ; and shall be no Enthusiasts when we anticipate that greatness shall not prove our ruin, nor an extended empire work our downfal. And this brings me to consider — II. The cha- racter, acquirements, authority, and station of the masters of our elementary schools. And first, as to SSterl^of"^ their character. Whatever else we require as neces- sS"!^^^ — upon what criteria is this to be founded ? Upon what ground is the school to be accounted good or bad — suitable and efficient, or the reverse ? Waiving for a moment — though it can only be for a moment — the question of moral and religious improvement, the excellence of such a school will be determined, not, I venture to urge, by the geography or natural history, not by the p^manship, nor even by the arithmetic, but, in the first place, and above all, by the reading, in which a marked proficiency will be required before any other acquirement is allowed to count for much. If oral teaching be the first gate of knowledge, reading is the second — a magnificent portal, opening into the whole domain, by whatever wicket particular preserves may afterwards be entered. Let this be thrown, if possible, wide open to every child ; in which case it will remain so during his life. While he retains his senses, it will neither close of itself nor ever be shut against him. Alas, in most cases it is only opened a little way, and falls back almost as soon as the hand of the teacher is withdrawn !*" t In the school of reform in the Isle of Wight, ninety-five per cent, of the juvenile offenders are school-boys, educated, for the most part, in National or British and Foreign schools. It is not said for how long a time they may have enjoyed this advantage ; but many of them, as I ascertained in conversation with the excellent chaplain, Mr. England, have been in Bible- classes. Yet of this number some " cannot read at all," many " scarcely at all," and almost all the remainder " a little, but not well," — the standard of good reading, I have reason to think, not being placed extravagantly high. This determines nothing against education, not very much perhaps against this class of schools, which may have had insuperable difficulties to contend with,— may, afler all, have been doing good, and preparing the way for something better : but it points to a sad defect somewhere, and, at all events, justifies what I have said in the text, that unless English reading be acquired thoroughly, it is of little use, and soon for- gotten. And Mr. Allen, in his last report, writes, " One evidence of the goodness of a school is afforded by noting the proportion which the no. of readers bears to the whole no. in attendance." g2 100 CHARACTER OF SCHOOL TEACHERS. sary, first, let us place in the foreground the need there is that the teachers of our schools should be men of character. They must be men meet '' for sober and honest conversation, and for right understanding of God's true religion,"* and they must be also well- affected members of the Church. f We must not trust the teaching of our youth to men of whose religious principles we have no satisfactory knowledge. We must not trust them, at the most jjliant and critical period of their lives, to teachers ivho, if they have any religion, are not permitted to let the fact j)g^P out before their scholars during school hours. We must act upon the following excellent advice given by Testimony of Bishop Watsou to the clergy of Llandaff, in 1802. Bisliop Wat- ■'■ ^"^ ' portlncTof '' ^^ schools are entrusted to the care of any of you, schoof"'° think it not a mean office to be zealous in stamping upon the young mind the first impressions of piety, the first principles of religion. These early impres- sions may in more advanced age, chance to be ob- scured for a time by thefilthiness of the flesh, or cor- roded by the sordidness of earthly cares, but they will never be wholly effaced, nor if they should, will your labour fail of bringing to yourselves a great reward. A diligent, virtuous, and pious schoolmaster appears to me to be one of the most important and praiseworthy characters in the community. And 1 am strengthened in this opinion by what £Jrasm/(5 has said in his Anti-barbarorum, — * Tria sunt unde potissimum rerum publicarum salus aut etiam pestis mihi pendere videtur; a principe recte aut secus instituto, a con- cionatoribus, et ludi magistris.' The minds of chil- dren are, in the hands of a school-master, like clay in the hands of a potter : he may fashion them as he * Canon, 77. f Ibid. SCHOOLS SHOULD PRESENT ONLY GOOD EXAMPLES. 101 thinks fit, ; at home they may be marred by vicious- ness, unskilfully formed through the ignorance, or wholly neglected through the carelessness of parents, hut at school they ought to see nothing hut the punish" ment of vice and the rervard of virtue, ought to hear nothing hut the commendation of good morals and good manners, ought to he instructed in nothing so sedulously as in piety towards God, in reverence for their parents, in self-government, in goodwill towards all.^^ And in respect of the importance of character in our schoolmasters, even in reference to their fitness to impart secular knowledge, I would cite the testimony of one of the Queen's Inspectors of Schools, to whom I have already referred : — ** The amount of moral training afforded by a school," says JJ.ependenc© Mr. Alien, "must depend mainly upon the character of the Gaining on * . . Character of teacher. Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of master. ,,. . , Rev. J. Al. our schoolmasters being men who love their work, and live in the len. fear of God. Even in an intellectual poiyt of view, it requires but little experience to be assured that no natural qualifications nor acquired advantages can compensate for the absence of faithfulness grounded upon a religious sense of duty. It is comparatively easy for a teacher fresh from a training establishment, with the excite- ment of a new position and the interest created by his first efforts, to go on well for a time ; but after a year or two the trial comes, and all observers can then see whether the teacher has fixed his aim with seriousness, and labours to attain it in self-denial."* But in the present day when the tide of intelli- gence is advancing with such strange rapidity, it is not enousrh that our schoolmasters have character; their ~ TO • 1 1 Attainments attainments must be oi a superior order — they must "^ masters, have acquired knowledge, and be able to impart knowledge. And here again the Canon comes to our assistance, and describes what is needed, viz., learn- * Minutes of Committee of Council, 1845. 102 ATTAINMENTS OF TEACHERS. ing and dexterity in teaching — two things widely distinct, and capable of being separately possessed, but indispensable as a joint recommendation in any who would instruct youth. There must be a fund of knowledge, itself reproductive — there must be a readi- ness in communicating to others the knowledge thus acquired. The successful teacher is ever learning, ever gaining information, ever so adding to his own stock of knowledge, that his pupils are replenished as from a constantly flowing fountain, which re- freshes all with whom he is brought in contact. In estimating, then, the acquirements of the teachers of our schools, we must of course have a care that they are well informed, but we must also see that they are dexterous in imparting that information — a quali- fication belonging rather indeed to character than acquirements, seeing that it depends much upon having the heart in the work, and yet a faculty capable of much improvement by artificial training, even if such training be not sufficient to produce it in the first instance. Upon this point I would again Rev.j. Ai- quote Mr. Allen: — *' Whereas," he observes, *' the formal teacher becomes gradually contented with a continually decreasing measure of success, and, degenerating into habits of routine, presents the same front to every member of his class, he who loves his work is continually profiting by past experience, and acquires daily new skill : instead of letting his mind lie stagnant, he takes care to keep it evermore replenished with new suppUes, so that his scholars (to borrow an illustration from Dr. Arnold) may drink, not from a pond, but from a spring. By a discrimination, almost involuntarily exercised, he adapts him- self to the several characters and acquirements before him, varying the tone, manner, form, and substance of his questioning, as if he would throw himself into the separate mind of each child : such a teacher needs no mechanical help from medal stands, or taking of places, to ensure the attention of his class, and his school will require no bribery to keep it always full." ATTAINMENTS OF TEACHERS. 103 Masters such as this, it is obvious, cannot be formed in a day. To supply them must be a work of time. There must not only be much patience in moulding suitable persons to their work when found, but there must be much diligence and care in select- ing those it is proposed to train. It is comparatively easy to exact a certain amount of attainments, whilst it is a much more difficult thing to find those requisites of cheerful vivacity and ready ingenuity in varying the mode of instruction, without which it is difficult to make the most of the faculties and time of the young. To persons with certain natural temperaments, progress in the art of teaching will be a matter of little or no difficulty, but in the case of all much more may be acquired than would at first sight be supposed. Let it then be our aim to keep the standard of character and attainments to which we desire the masters of our Elementary Schools to be conformed sufficiently high : content to bear with occasional shortcomings, and seeking from time to time to remedy these defects as opportunity may offer. Let it be thoroughly understood, that the Schoolmaster's office is not a Kefuge for the Destitute, but that we desire to conse- crate the most promising of our scholars to that duty as one full of hope and reward. Nor let us think that nothing can be done to improve. '-' ^ ment of pre- improve our present teachers. The majority of them '^""^^''^^"• will be found glad to bestow time and pains upon increasing the efficiency of their schools. And it is very cheering to know that the National Society has sliewn itself quite competent to provide the means necessary for the purpose. But, he who looks to character and attainments alone as all that are necessary in a teacher, is leaving out of the consideration one most important element, 104 AUTHORITY OF TEACHERS. viz., auilioriiij. In order that the best qualified may secure due attention — their learning and their conduct must be certified by authority, and authority to impart of their learning, and their influence must be conferred upon them, or they will fail to exert that influence which it is most desirable they should have. There can be no safe education apart from authority, and if the Church would fulfil her duty as the Autho- ritative Teacher of the Nation, she must fall back upon her Canons, and see that all her teachers have the Bishop's License. Necessarily the teachers of our schools will in many cases be taken from among the classes to which the children they will have to instruct belong ; and unless there be some more tangible difference between the schoolmaster and the parents Superior at- of thc childrcu than is afforded by his alleged supe- rior education, and his mere setting up of himself as a schoolmaster, it is certain that he will not be likely to receive that share of parental confidence, and that transfer of parental authority, which are indispensable to the due discharge of his office as an educator of youth. And here we see the wisdom of the Canon which provides that, '' no man shall teach either in public school, or private house, but such as shall be allowed by the Bishop of the Diocese or Ordi- Licenceof narv of the place, under his hand and seal.'' Nor the Bishop. *' ^ can we expect our Church Schools to be the nurseries of sound learning and religion which they should be, until there is a due and careful observance of this Canon. We all know the importance which is attached to a diploma, and if it should seem fit to your Lordship, and your Right Reverend Brethren, to require that none should be candidates for this Episcopal diploma until they had first procured a BISHOP*S LICENSE FOR PRESENT MASTERS. 105 certificate of character and ability from such a Board of Examiners as has just been constituted by the National Society, and which would be readily secured by the professional staff of the several Diocesan train- ing schools ; then a most important and long neg- lected element in educational efficiency would be restored to us. Although there might be some hard- ship in making it compulsory on all present school- masters to obtain this certificate, there could be nothing invidious in permission being given to such as choose to avail themselves of the opportunity, to obtain this official testimony to their " learning and dexterity in teaching:" and in the case of all at present engaged in tuition, it might fairly be required that they should have the authority of the Bishops' License, supposing it should seem good to your Lordships to grant this license on the recommendation of the Clergyman of the parish in which the school is situate. Certain it is, that until to good character and ability be added authority, we shall not find our schools in that state of efficiency which is found to be uniformly dependent on that degree of discipline, which cannot be maintained apart from the confidence and co-ope- ration of parents. The next point to be settled is, the station in The mnk the social economy which the proposed improvement of schooi in the qualifications and authority of the school- master should secure for him. The remarks which have been made under the last head will show, what it is that is to be aimed at in this respect. His influence must come of his admitted and certificated meetness for his office, and not from his worldly rank. He must be regarded as an officer of the Church, and take his place accordingly. There would 106 STATION OF SCHOOLMASTERS. be very little difficulty in this respect when once the spiritual function of the school teacher was recog- nized. The testimony afforded by all who have observed upon them to the influence of the mem- bers of the '* Institution," des Jreres des ecoles chreliennes, or Christian Brothers, freres chretienSy is quite sufficient to show, that it is not worldly influence which is needed, nor worldly station that we should seek to confer, would we make our school- masters truly efficient. They must have the con- fidence of the clergy, and no clergyman whose heart is in his- work will need to be told that the school- master must find in him a friend. But it would be much to the injury of all parties concerned, that the schoolmaster should be so far removed from the parents of those he has to teach in habits and mode of life, as to deprive them of that inter- course with him, which is of such importance to the success of his work with their children. And, this as it would seem to me, throughout, is the principal Value of in- valuc of industrial employments as a branch of the dustrial ^ '^ leSrl^''' training of a schoolmaster. There is need that the schoolmaster should have some separation, and the intervention of a few conventional distinctions, it may be, to give him weight with those whose children he has to instruct; but I am sure, that no distinction of caste can give the same importance, that a license duly authenticated by the Bishops* sign manual and seal would confer.* And, therefore, if only prepara- * Since the above was written — but in time to insert a notice of a paragraph in it in this place — the article on Education in the current number of the Quar- terly has fallen under my observation. This letter has already so far exceeded the limits my intention assigned it, that I cannot notice, as I could have wished, several assertions and arguments, which seem to me strangely out of place in a Review enjoying the reputation for affection to the Church, which is accorded by STATION OF SCHOOLMASTERS. 107 tion for the master's office partake of such instruction as our training schools afford ; and if his meetness for his work be judged of by such standards as those to which the Bishops would be likely now to expect a conformity : then, when once he has his Epis- copal Diploma the Schoolmaster will need no other passport to the esteem and respect of those among whom he has to labour.* I am aware, that in pro- portion as the master is advanced in the scale of in- tellectual proficiency, he is also surrounded in a greater degree with temptations to cease to be a schoolmaster, at least a teacher in the schools of the poor; if such teachers are not to take higher rank in society than they now do. The remedy for this is however, to be found rather in the inculcation of Christian humility through the instrumentahty of such discipline as that afforded by the Training Schools at Chester and Battersea, and more espe- cially la the Colleges of St. Andrew's Harrow- Weald, and St. John ^ Bishop's Auckland, than in any un- many to tlie Quarterly. It is true the writer gives us in some sort to expect that his views are rather Erastian than Cathohc.t but there is something very start- ling in the concluding paragraph of the article : " There can be no national system of education," says the writer, "till the schoolmaster is a recognized public servant, certain of an adequate remuneration, liable of course to the strictest superintendence, to dismissal, in case of incompetence or misconduct by proper authorities. * Si on veut que le maitre d'ecole soit utile il faut qu'il soit respecte : Et pour qu'il soit respecte, il faut qu'il ait le caractere d'un founctionaire de I'etat.' So spake M. Guizot some years ago." And some years ago the Quarterly would have told M. Guizot, that for Vetat he should substitute l'Eglise. * It is no objection to what I am now urging that I am suggesting remedies and modes of operation which Dissenters cannot adopt. I am not laying down a plan of State education, but of Church education : a mode in which the Church may best do its part as one of the voluntary agents of whose efforts the State avails itself. Let Dissenters organise their plans as they please. t Inter alia, " Our Churchmanship, indeed, is not 80 haughtily independent as that of Dr. Hook !" &c. 108 TEACHERS OFFICERS OF THE CHURCH. tiachwmus't natural elevation of the peasant or the mechanic to a a™SIr" worldly position considerably higher than his rela- tives occupy, because he has become a schoolmaster. Let the authority of the teacher emanate from a spi- ritual source, and it will matter little whether he be seen working with his own hands, like St. Paul, at his former occupation, lest he should be chargeable to any. If the tradition of the Church be just, that our Lord Himself laboured at His reputed father's trade, it need be no disparagement to a schoolmaster that he is able to turn his leisure hours to advantage, and is forced to physical no less than mental labour. Nothing is so likely to set the inhabitants of a small parish against "education," leading them to under- rate its value, as finding that it has made one of their number ashamed, as it were, of his origin, and too proud to associate with the companions of his youth and childhood. In our larger towns necessarily the masters will be of a different class, and from various circumstances j)ersons of a somewhat higher grade in society than the artisan will be found seeking the situation of school- master, and encouragement will probably be held out to such, by so multiplying the number of Deacons, that more choice will be allowed to our Bishops in selecting those who have "used" that office "Well" for advancement to the more honourable degree of the Priesthood. When this is the case, paid moni- tors and apprenticed pupil teachers will be the links necessary to keep up the desired connexion between the teacher and the taught in the matters of daily life and toil. The true secret of rank and position is to be found in such regulations as those by w^hich the Freres Chretiens are governed; and happy would it Increased number of Deacons SALARIES OF MASTERS. 109 be for us, if we had among us many institutions of which it could be said severally, '' The spirit of the institution is a spirit of faith, which ought to encou- rage its members to attribute all to God, to act as continually in the sight of God, and in perfect con- formity to His orders and His will. The members of this association should be filled with an ardent zeal for the insti'uction of children, for their preservation in innocence and the fear of God, and for their entire separation from sin." In fact, the question of the position of the school- t^^eSool- master, is one which has a tendency to settle and "djSng'^^'" adjust itself. In country parishes, the emoluments of'^''^''""- the office are hardly likely to be sufficient to support a master without such assistance as the cultivation of some portion of ground and possibly the pursuit of some superior calling or handicraft may afford. Here, then, it is well that the master should have been trained to look upon toil as respectable, and to regard labouring with his hands an honourable part of his daily duty. In towns the salaries mav be expected to be saiades •^ ■•• higher in sufficient to retain the entire services of the master ^''""'- in the work of direct instruction : the preparation of recreation more or less scientific, and the direc- tion of the habits of the pupil-teachers and paid monitors, who should, if possible, reside with him — being sufficient to occupy the time not spent in the actual routine of the school, or in reading and re- laxation, in ways not exactly defined, but all more or less bearing on the moral discipline of those under their care. In either case, whether the master be, in a worldly point of view, in a higher or lower position, care must be taken to render him independent of the 110 CHURCH NORMAL SCHOOLS. caprice of parents, and of the unnecessary interference of the supporters of the school; and it must be seen and felt in the parish, that the Bishop's license is not a mere form ; but that the schoolmaster enjoys the confidence, is benefited by the pains and sympathy — and the social converse, too — of the Clergyman, whose help-meet he should be found on all occasions to be. Noma"/ If th^ vj^w I have taken of the character, attain- ments, authority, and position of the teacher of the poor, be correct, it follows, that we must have in every diocese Normal Schools, alike for males and females ; that the industrial system should form a feature in the training given in these institutions, and that those teachers who are likely to be employed in rural districts, should devote a larger portion of their time to industrial pursuits than those who from manner, and address, and other circumstances, are better calculated for, or more likely to undertake, the charge of town schools. Importance Thcsc Nomial Schools should be strictly ecclesias- of Liturgical *' training. \\c^\. m their discipline — diligently and scrupulously conformed to the Church's rule. In them the future masters of our Parish Schools should become familiar with the rationale of our well-ordered ritual, and ha- bituated to the observance of all the Church's solemn times : her seasons of humiliation and of joy : her days of fast and festival: her hours of Matins and Even- song. And over and above the times of public wor- ship, there should be hours allotted to private prayer ; and, from day to day, the constantly recurring, yet never monotonous, round of duties, should prepare and discipline the mind for the trials of this ever- changing and shifting worhL Into these schools none SUPPLY OF CANDIDATE TEACHERS. Ill should be admitted without the strictest scrutiny into Previous *' character of moral character, and the most satisfactory testimo- gj^mai^ '" nials as to reh'gious earnestness, so far as due and ^''''"°^*' regular discharge of Church duties can afford an index thereof, and none should be continued in them who do not after a three or Jour or six months' proba- tion give promise of future usefulness. To be able to enforce rules thus stringent, the cost Mode of de- of these establishments must be defrayed, for the most ofTilese*^''^ •^ Schools. part, independently of the parties to be benefited by them. The admissions must partake of the character of exhibitions or scholarships, tenable during good behaviour and steadiness of application. These exhi- bitions should be held out as rewards to the most de- serving pupils in the Elementary Schools, the question ofmerit to be determined by examination at the Training College. And if it should be found, as it probably might under a better state of things be found, that the number of candidates was disproportionately large, as compared with the rewards to be bestowed ; and that unnecessary disappointment was thus caused to the candidates, brought from a distance to stand this exa- mination, advantage might be taken of the Inspector's knowledge of the state of proficiency in his district, and his certificate of fitness to apply, might be deemed a ground for the expenses attending an unsuccessful application being defrayed from some fund set apart for the purpose. And while the majority of those trained in these institutions might be expected to contribute but little more than such services as the College can employ them in, there should still be opportunity afforded to those who do not require gratuitous training, to avail themselves of the advan- tages of the Training College at a cost merely remu- 112 CHURCH NORMAL SCHOOLS. nerative of the outlay necessary for their accommo- dation and instruction. uJnSl"en'in Aud hcrc it may not be out of place to offer a Sloii^a suggestion worth the consideration of those who fotiir ^''"" object that we supply, in these Normal Schools, an Church and ^ i i ^ cease to be school teachers. rAheVraiMed cducatlon which will make those who receive it impa- tient of the drudgery of school teaching. I will put out of question the influence of the training we pro- pose to give : the probable consequence of blending industrial occupation with intellectual culture : the influence of religious discipline with an especial view to the scholastic office: the possibility of affixing a prospectively valuable spiritual character to the Bishop's License, or the attaching to it a temporary disqualification for more secular pursuits : putting out of view also all those more stringent measures which an extensive abuse of these institutions, and an alienation of their proper means of usefulness, might render necessary, I would boldly look the fact in face, that we shall in these schools receive many who will not perform any length of service as school teachers, at all commensurate with the pains and trouble bestowed upon their education. Shall we grudge that they are centres of light in spheres where the more direct teaching of the Church does not enter ? Shall we see nothing but loss in one more properly trained person being launched upon society to leaven it with a healthy influence? Shall we not rather, on the contrary, rejoice that we have thus occasioned a still wider spread of knowledge than we at first anticipated ? And so be that we all the while fill our schools with good teachers, may we not be thankful that in quarters whose needs our Elementary Schools do not meet, tlie influence of our Normal demand icr ser- vices. TRAINING DURING HOLIDAYS. 113 Schools is felt? Let us never grudge being made the means of increasing the truly wise among us — seeing that " the multitude of the wise is the welfare of the world."* But experience shows, that at present it is easier to supply of A ' ■'■ candidate provide the means of training, than the persons to be ^^^^^=^^7^" ;j\°^^ trained. It is, therefore, important not only to seek tS to obviate this by additional inducements in the shape of exhibitions to be enjoyed during the time of training; but it would seem also to be desirable to allot to a certain number of schools in each Diocese, concerning which the Inspector could report favour- ably, grants, to meet others locally raised for assist- ing in the maintenance of the more promising pupils during the interval which elapses between the age at which they would otherwise leave school, and that at which they would be qualified for admission into the Training College. With these pupils especially, consi- derable attention should be paid to industrial pursuits: the more as it is possible that the promise of boyhood as respects meetness for teaching, may not be realised as youth is about to merge into manhood. And the risk should not be run of their additional knowledge being even apparently to their friends comparatively valueless to them in after life. The question of teachers already engaged in their JjJ^5"e„. work still remains. There are two ways in which these IcIook ^'^ may become better qualified for that work. Either by the visits of organising masters to each separate school, or by the assembling the masters of several schools together, and placing them under temporary instruction. On this subject the following extract from the last report of the National Society, will be * Wisdom vi. 24. H 114 TRAINING DURING HOLIDAYS. Meetingsot read with interest. To the case of the Worcester teachers for dudnThol] Board I have already drawn attention :* — days In addition to tlie plan for improving the existing teachers of schools by the visits of organising'masters, there is another method of effecting the same object, vv^hich, so far as its operations extend, is found to be extremely beneficial. Your Committee refer to the assembling of teachers together in some town from the surrounding districts during the harvest holidays, and placing them under the tuition of some duly qualified person. In the course of last autumn a meeting of this kind was held in Worcester, and was very numerously attended by the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses of that neighbourhood. Their studies were mainly directed by the Society's organising master, Mr. Holland ; though during the first week of the meeting the arrangements were settled, and the pro- ceedings opened, under the guidance of Mr. "VVilson, the Head Master of the Society's Central School. On the 22nd of last August, the Rev. H. J. Hastings, the Secretary of the Worcester Board, wrote as follows on the subject of the meeting : "This day closes the meeting of schoolmasters and school- mistresses for instruction in Worcester ; and I am desired by the Committee to forward to you the resolution which they have come to, expressive of their thanks to the National Society for their promptness in sending the desired assistance, and also of the value of the services rendered by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Holland. I beg leave, as having carefully watched the proceedings throughout, to add my own individual testimony to the very satisfactory way iu which both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Holland have discharged their duties. Their services have been very highly valued by the masters and mistresses, whose attendance has been most piinctual and regu- lar; and I have no doubt that as much benefit will result as could be expected in the short time during which the instruction has been given. I am quite sure that it will be very efficient improving education wherever the plan is adopted. I trust it will prevail very generally." Your Committee concur in the opinion here expressed by Mr. Hastings ; and they are inclined to think, that the Diocesan and Local Boards might accomplish much good by encouraging and superintending such meetings annually upon the plan pursued last year by the Worcester Board, and in former years by the Coventry ♦ Sec pp. 58, CO. TEACHER*S DIPLOMA. 115 and Leicester Boards. In order, however, to effect the greatest amount of good, it would be expedient to make arrangements for the meeting some months beforehand, to furnish every master and mistress who purposes to attend with a complete list of the subjects to be taught, and also to see that they were provided with good books treating upon these subjects. Probably the most satisfactory mode would be a Further sug- gestions. combination of these two plans. First let the various masters have due notice of the intended opportunity of improvement, and let them, as suggested in the foregoing, have a supply of books bearing on the subjects in which they are to receive instruction. Let them have the assistance of the Clergyman in making use of these books in their spare hours. Then, after they shall have attended the proposed course of teaching, let them return to their schools with definite instructions in respect of the peculiar difficulties with which they have to contend, each in their several localities — and then, let the same Organ- ising Master from whom they received their instruc- tions, visit, after an interval of some two or three months, each school, remaining a week, if necessary, at such school, to see how far advantage has been taken of the instruction afforded, and to supply what is still wanting in the way of arrangement and method. I think I am not over sanguine in anticipating that the impulse thus given would be found to be suffi- ciently sustained by the watchfulness of the Clergy- man, and the periodical visit of the Inspector, to insure a gradual and steady and efficient improve- ment in each school, to which this means of usefulness shall be afforded. It misrht be well, also, to ejive notice in the case Present ^ ' ' O teachers to of all teachers under thirty or thirty-five years of S H 2 exami- nation. 116 SALARIES OF SCHOOL TEACHERS. age, that if they had not, by the close of the year 1848, sufficiently improved themselves to be able to pass the examination insisted upon by the Bishops preparatory to granting their License under the Canon, they might expect to be removed from their situations to make way for others better quali- fied to instruct youth. In the case of older teachers, their deficiencies must be grappled with according to each separate exigency : though the Legislature might be fairly called upon to provide for the summary re- moval of all teachers whose immoral or non-religious conduct, or glaring incompetency, rendered it impos- sible for the Clergyman to give the necessary recom- mendation* for the obtaining of the Bishop's License without the ordeal of examination, Higher qua- j^ jg obvious, that in proportion as we exact higher qualifications in our teachers, they in their turn will expect higher rates of remuneration ; and, it is to be hoped, that there will be no want of effort on the part of the Church to meet this reasonable expectation. The following statistics in respect of schools inspected by the Rev, F. C. Cook, show but too much correspond- ence with the tables which follow them in respect of others visited by the Rev. John Allen, not to convince us that there is, generally speaking, very inadequate remuneration provided for our school teachers : — 111 the first place I find that the salaries of the teachers vary, — In Essex, from £\0. to 566O. ; and average, 3632. In Suffolk, from ^10. to 3690. ; and average, 5833. In Bedfordshire, from 3615. to ^650. ; and average nearly 3628. In Cambridgeshire, from ^13. to 3650. ; and average about a635. In Huntingdonshire, from 568. to 566O, ; and average 3626. \0s. In Norfolk, from ^8. to 366O. ; and average ^628. 15*. The teachers who receive salaries below ^15. are generally lifications entail higher Balariesk Salaries of teachers. Report of Rev, F. C Cook. * See p. 105. SALARIES OF SCHOOL TEACHERS, 117 boarded and lodged in the Clergyman*s house ; and a fair propor- tion of the others are provided with apartments, and some with light and fuel. But after making every allowance for these advan- tages, it is manifest that the average payment of the teachers is considerably below that sum which would be a fair remuneration to a person of fair abilities, who devotes himself to the work of instruction. Accordingly we cannot be surprised to find that a large number of teachers have been domestic servants, some com- mon labourers, or broken tradesmen, and that after contending for a time against the difficulties of their condition, many relinquish their employment in disgust.* Amount of Salaries of Teachers. Mistresses. Masters. | 1 3 2 CO t: X 2 V J 4 15 9 10 1 1 2 1 2 10 4 1 >i i 2 3 2 00 1 6 3 1 1 1 si 2 2 1 6 2 6 g 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 i > . . 1 1 Under Jei5 15 and under i]25 25 and under 35 35 and under 45 45 and under 55 55 and under 65 65 and under 75 75 and under 85 85 and under 95 95 and under 105 105 and under 115 115 and upwards Rev. John AUen. Amount of Salaries of Teachers. Masters and Mistresses conjointly. 1 Berks. Bucks and Herts. Hants. Kent. Surrey. Sussex. Wilts. Under £15 £\b and under £25.. 25 and under 35 . . 35 and under 45.. 45 and under 55. . 55 and under 65.. 65 and under 75.. 75 and under 85. . 85 and under 95.. 95 and under 105. . 105 and under 115.. 115 and upwards .... i 1 2 2 1 i 4 7 3 5 9 4 2 1 i 1 1 2 2 *2 4 3 5 3 4 3 5 3 5 2 1 1 1 i 2 4 .. * Minutes of Committee of Council, 1845. 118 IDEAL OF MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. ofte^h^rs' It is true, Mr. Moseley finds the salaries of teacherb Moseiey. in tlie Midland District to average between £50 and £60, and he draws attention to the fact, that masters trained in the Colleges of the National Society, obtain salaries ranging from £50 to £100; and from this we may reasonably infer, that when schoolmasters shall become better qualified for their work, there will be funds found to remunerate them. Still, we must not be content with taking too much lor granted here. The principle, that the labourer is worthy of his hire, must be fully recognised, and a resolute determina- tion shown to act upon it. Everywhere it is desirable that there should be residences for the teachers, and in populous places it would be a great advantage to all parties concerned, if the clergy, teachers, and apprentices, could all be formed into a sort of colle- coiiegiate priatc establishment, with a common hall for meals, a mode of life ^ ' Kg?^" common library, and separate studies, and separate sleeping apartments. The heathenism of our large towns will never be overcome eflfectually, but through some such agency as the Freres Chretiens, and the Sceurs de Charite. We want the principle of unselfishness, which is the ideal of monastic institutions, separate from the unconditional vows of ex'cessive asceticism which led to so many abuses in the medieval times. And, unless the Church rouse herself to organise some such agency, it is much to be feared that zeal and piety will continue to seek in other communions opportunity of exercise. Me- thodism on the one hand, and Romanism on the other, will drain our life blood, and aflford a refuge for much that is enthusiastic and self-devoting : much that, under the direction of the Church, might forward and towns SCHOOL BOOKS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 119 hasten instead of impede and delay the work she has to do. What we require next to good teachers is, good ^[J'^,^,;,^^;^ books — a difficulty not so easily met by positive ''^"''^"''"' directions in words ; but not, I would humbly trust, of such magnitude as to offer any serious hindrance to the work of education in practice. In proportion as schools are rendered more efficient, and teachers are more competent to their work : and funds are more accessible for the maintenance of the schools, the demand for books will be greater, and the supply will be found to keep pace with that demand. Hitherto, there has been no sufficient recognition of the need of school books, nor any adequate machinery for the use of such. Now, however it may be expected that a need of such works will be felt ; and in meeting this want of books, the writers of such books must keep in view the separate needs of teachers and scholars, and seek in the first instance to meet the requirements of the former; a good set of elementary Teachers' Manuals is of the ^I'^^^f^ ^°^ first consequence, though it is important that no time should be lost in providing a regular series of school books for the use of the children themselves. I am not disposed to think that either Government or Societies will fully and effectually give us what is required in this department, but each might fairly lend their quota of assistance in meeting the present deficiency. The National Society is actively engaged in remedying past neglect, and the Government has shown some acknowledgment of its obligations in this matter. The most efficient assistance, however, which Duty on paper to be the Government could, under present circumstances ^^^^^^J^^f/j^ render, would seem to be the allowing the drawback Soks!'"" "^ books. 120 SCHOOL BOOKS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, of duty upon paper used in works strictly educa- tional, securing this indulgence against abuse by limiting the price at which such works shall be sold. And possibly something might be gained, though the experiment is not without hazard, were the Committee of Privy Council to offer premiums for the best works on Geography, Arithmetic, Natural History, Gram- mar, Etymology, and the like branches of learning. i^r^MhJS" There would be a difficulty as to the adjudication of merit, but as these duties would be merely temporary, a Special Commission might be appointed for one year, or even two if necessary. At least this good would come of such a measure, that even if no one work proved all that was desired, the Commissioners might be expected, from the various works submitted to them, to be in a condition to draw up most useful directions for the guidance of future authors. The particulars in which the several works submitted for competition differed one from the other, would be suggestive of what was needed in the way of method and arrange- ment to make a complete manual. If proper care were taken in making known the terms on which authors submitted their works, it might be arranged that those to whom prizes should be awarded, should receive, in addition to the prize, a further remunera- tion for making such alterations in their books as the Commissioners might suggest, provided they were themselves willing to recognise the fitness of such alterations. The spirit of enterprise is, however, in this country sufficiently strong to ensure a good supply of books; and there are demerits no less than merits in an uniform series for the whole country, possessing a less authoritative sanction than that of the Church herself. INDIFFERENCE OF POOR TO VALUE OF EDUCATION. 121 And this brings me to consider a hindrance to indifference O and apathy education, the magnitude of which it is not easy to fhlvSueof over-rate. I mean the indifference and apathy of the parents of those to whom we would offer eleemosy- nary education. One evil of this indifference I have already considered, namely, the early age at which the children of the poor are removed from school. But the evil consequences of the want of the co-ope- ration of parents are not confined to this. It would be well if this were all. But alas ! from first to last, the absence of anything like a postponement of pre- sent personal convenience for the sake of the ultimate good to be gained by the child, is observable. The infant-school is valued not because education is valued, but because the children are in the way : and the same principle of selfishness which sent them to school in infancy keeps them away from school, the moment they can be made of the least use at home. The girls are kept away to nurse the baby or mind the house, while yet they are hardly more than babies themselves ; and the boys are kept to take their father's breakfasts and dinners, or run other errands, without any regard being had to the injury that is done them by the interruption in the regu- larity of their attendance at school. Much of this has been fostered, if not created, by the unworthy efforts too often made to swell the numbers of a school, for party purposes, at the ex- pense of its discipline, and, by consequence, of its efficiency. Parents have not been made sufficiently [JSe?b to feel the obligation which they incur when they ^^'^"^'• avail themselves of the eleemosynary education afforded to their children. A spirit of rivalry, far ^^f^ys^" removed from that genuine spirit of Christian charity 122 IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. which seeks to reclaim the erring, has led to unworthy measures, having for their end the swelling of our admission lists ; and the eager boasting which has been made of the number of scholars in the Church school, or the dissenting school, as a plea whereon to found statistics as to the progress, or otherwise, of some fresh schism in the affections of the people, has been taken advantage of by parents, (themselves possessed of little or no true or real sympathy with one form of religious belief in preference to ano- ther,) in a manner most injurious to the well-being of the children. The effect of such a state of things is that parents come to think that they can make such use of a threat to remove their children to what they deem a rival school, as shall ensure their having all their own way in reference to their observance or Interference nou-observauce of the school rules. The evils re- with d.sci- 1 • (> 1 p • • 1 r» piiue. sultmg from the want ot appreciation by parents of the education offered to their children, are, that such parents invariably deprecate strict discipline, and break down in their children's minds all proper re- spect for authority by themselves putting authority at nought. Education must necessarily be imperfect where there is a constant yet arbitrary change of teachers, and learning can never be a boon which is inculcated without discipline. Nor will these mis- chiefs be wholly overcome, — as I have suggested that other hindrance which parents offer by early removing their children from school may be, — by making the education offered in our schools such that parents shall at once see that it is their interest to keep their children under our care. Nothing will be effectual in arresting this mischief which makes an appeal to any lower principle than that of Church Authority. SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 123 Our schools must be clearly felt to be Church x^nXpe'JuJ . , Chui ch au- nurseries ; we must seek through them to regam the thonty. respect in which the Church's censures should be held. Having armed our masters with the episcopal licence, they must be supported by the episcopal sanction ; parents must be made clearly to under- stand that on the admission of their children into our schools they transfer the independence of their own rule, and that henceforth their authointy over their children must be exercised in concert with the dis- cipline of the school. What is needed to effect this is that the Church shall put forth a front of Apostolic zeal, or it will be in vain that she claims Apostolic origin. It must be seen and felt by the poor, that what the Church wants is not theirs, but them; that she desires to shelter them beneath her wing, to pro- tect them from oppression and from wrong, and to become in fact what she is by constitution, their earthly home, and the means of their exceeding great reward in heaven. And here, my Lord, at the risk of differing from snn.'ay many, my superiors in every respect, I would attri- bute to the system of Sunday Schools as it exists in our large manufacturing towns, much of the mis- chievous disregard for general education and contempt of discipline which it is now the Church's province to counteract. It would indeed be difficult to estimate the extent and disinterestedness of the benevolence which has found in Sunday Schools its well-intentioned expression ; and I know full well the care and pains which have been taken in many parishes, to make the Sunday School instinct with Church life : but I feel confident that it is rather the exception than the rule, which gives to the Sunday School teacher 124 SUNDAY SCHOOLS A TEMPORARY PROVISION. his proper place as a servant of the Church acting under the strict control of the Clergyman, as a Sunday tcniporary agent for the discharge of duties, which femporl?y uudcr a hcalthicr state of things, would devolve upon sippiy°pia?e parcuts and sponsors, to whom nature. Scripture, and ^^ the Church assign them. Subsequent experience does Sponsors. ^ i J but confirm the opinion to which I gave expression six years ago, upon a consideration of the working of the Sunday School system in Manchester and its neighbourhood, and which I beg here to transcribe : *' Church Sunday Schools are a temporary human provision, constituted to supply, as far as may be, the absence of the Divine Ordinance of parental teaching. # * # Would any magnify the Sunday School system as of more than a provisional nature, let them remem- ber that it is defective in authority as a permanent ministerial agency, and that unless administered with the greatest possible deference to the paramount right and duty of the parent where qualified, to instruct his own child, it fosters a notion already too much engendered by the habits of these neighbourhoods,* that the mother's obligations to her infant cease, if not with its weaning, yet very soon afterwards : while, unless these schools be kept under the Clergyman's direction, they will foster a spirit of schism, which having for its end apparent good, will be productive of real harm."t It is surely not the proper employment of the Lord's * " It is no part of my province to enter into the evils, real or imaginary, of the factory system. That the bodily hardships of the factory population are much exaggerated, is without question ; but it is their spiritual destitution which is more to be deplored. The chief evil which appears to belong to the system, is the manner in which the relative position of parent and child is affected. A factory population knows little oi filial dependence.'^ t " Sunday Schools a Means to restore the Christian Office of Parents and Sponsors." — Sermons by Thirty-nine Living Divines. Simms and Dinham : Manchester. EVILS OF LARGE SUNDAY SCPIOOLS. 125 Day, to so occupy little children with their A, B, C, that attendance in Church must necessarily be a wearisome penance, nor is the desecration of the Bible or the Parables of our Lord as Class Books made one whit the less ; because the day on which reading is taught is holy, as well as the book from which the lesson is Sr^^esiTS learnt. Neither is it training children in reverential s^^°°^^' habits, to connect the v/eekly festival of the Resurrec- tion with no other associations in their minds than those supplied by the school-room, as is done in the case of one of the largest Sunday Schools in Manches- ter, where, until very lately, and I believe now, the business of instruction is varied by the reading of the Church Service by a Layman, the w^ork being con- cluded in sufficient time to allow of the teachers arriving in Church before the commencement of the sermon. What notion shall children thus trained have of the sacrificial character of Christian worship ? or how shall we expect that such a system shall do more than perpetuate the evils and mischiefs of schism already so rife among us ? In proportion as our National Schools become more abundant and more efficient, it w^ill be found that the Sunday School will be less and less necessary ; and an intelligent partici- pation in the solemnizing of Divine Service, will be that to which we shall look as quite employment enough for the mental faculties on the Lord's Day. Had all the Clergy the same burning zeal and intense energy and great powers of influencing others which Dr. Hook so singularly enjoys, or the same affection- ately accurate knowledge of the yearnings of the human heart as characterizes the devoted Vicar of Bolton-en- le-Moors ; or the same persevering appreciation of the difficulties of general education which gives efficiency 126 PARENTS AND SPONSORS. to the labours of the indefatigable Rector of Warring- ton ; then it might be hoped that Sunday Schools would uniformly exhibit that order which Dr. Hook so well knows to be necessary, when he says, " the children act in subordination to the teacher, the teacher to the superintendent, the superintendent to the Cler- gyman;" and then might we hope for some general realization of that exquisitely affecting picture of self- denying love by which Dr. Hook seeks to delineate the Sunday School system. And until our National Schools shall have received the full benefit of the im- pulse now so generally felt upon the subject of Educa- tion, it is most desirable that the Clergy should find in the Sunday School system a help in their work of labour and love. But assuredly, my Lord, in a healthy state of things, the half hour before afternoon Service or after the afternoon's Second Lesson is the Church's Sunday School, and the Clergyman the Church's Sunday School Teacher. Class of And it would seem to be a consequence of an effi- persons now a sSooi'' cient system of Church Education, that parents and nSKl sponsors should be found equal to their duty, and Sunday Suudav Schools become unnecessary. In which case the goodly band of faithful and devoted ones who gladly consecrate their Lord's Day leisure to the tending Christ's lambs, might be well employed in making Sunday a day of feasting and joy, and of sending por- tions one to another and of gifts to the poor ; of send- ing portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared,* seeing that the day is holy to the Lord, Whose mission had for its object the heahng of our bodies in order to the saving of our souls. * Esther ix. 19, and Nehem. viii. 10—12. PAROCHIAL SUBDIVISION. 127 The Lord's Day is not more a day of rest than of Sy/'"'"'' praise and bounty. In the early ages of the Church certain offices of charity and labours of love, such as the visiting of prisoners and relieving the wants of the indigent, were expressly prescribed to be regularly per- formed on the Lord's Day, and it were well that the poor and destitute should have this office of the Lord's Day restored to them. And it is most of all important that our youth should not grow up with notions of gloom and drudgery in connection with the Day which should bring them rest from worldly toil and oppor- tunity for worship. Let us do what in us lies to carry out in all parishes sub.division -^ ^ o\ Parochial of the kingdom the sub-division of parishes of which ^^yst^m. the Vicar of Leeds has set so noble an example, and the necessity for the Sunday School as distinct from the day school will be found to have ceased. Let the Church influence the masses, let her ministrations be adapted to their wants, let our Clergy be at home to their people twice each day in their Master's *House, let our Churches be open throughout the day for the private devotions of our over-crowded poor, let the relief of indigence and the cultivation of frugal habits become once again emphatically the Church's pri- vilege, and there shall then again be confidence in her as a Divine Ordinance, and we may hope to see the children of the separation won back to her loving embrace, and intercommunion restored with other branches of the Church. Certain it is that until the School be thoroughly appreciated as a nursery of the Church, and confidence placed in the School teacher as a functionary of the Church, there will not be that efficiency of discipline which is the result of the hearty co-operation of parent, teacher, and pastor in 128 MAINTENANCE OF RULES. the work of education. Let us but organize such a system of education : let us go forth to our work of training the children of the poor as men conscious that it is their pecuUar province thus to do their Master's work on earth, and then assuredly we shall find that the poor still love their fathers' Church, and that they will not be content with a stone when their spiritual JMother offers them an abundance of bread. rSlir^oS ^leanwhile I believe that the difficulty in respect of rules. ^Y^^ non-co-operation of parents will be best overcome by a firm carr}'ing out of rules, care being first had not to make those rules more stringent than we shall have the nerA'e to carry out. Our duty to those who will observe rules makes it imperative upon us to withdraw the benefits of our schools from those who will not. Smis'^on a Aud I belicve I shall be borne out by the experience il^Vrta^ce. of all who havc tried the same system when I urge surrounding admission into our schools with circum- stantial difficulties,^ and enforcing discipline by the expulsion of those who will not observe it. The system of allowing parents to break the rules with impunity is very false kindness to them, and when once they see that it is our determination to teach and train a few well, rather than many indifferently, they will learn to appreciate our system and gladly fall in with our rules. But it is not enough that the parents place that con- * " The making the admission to a school a matter of some solemnity, by allowing such admissions only at stated periods and in the presence of the Cler- gyman, and the requiring payment whether the children be in attendance or not, can scarcely help an indifferent school ; but by impressing the parents with a feeling of the importance of regularity, and by lessening the interruptions of the teacher, may contribute materially to the efficiency of a good one." — Report by the Rev. John Allen: February 24, 1846. ENFORCING OF SCHOOL RULES. 129 fidence in us, which makes them see that their children Domestic habits of the observe the rules of the school. There is yet another ^'°'''- hindrance to the progress of education in such a man- ner, as shall satisfy Churchmen, and that is to be found in the domestic habits of the poor. It is worse than folly, to think that the teaching of our schools, even assisted by the additional moral training to be had in the playground and in industrial occupation, and by the spiritual culture of our pubUc worship, shall have due influence upon the characters and tastes of those we seek to influence for good, so long as the homes of the poor in our large towns are what those who have laboured as Pastors in densely crowded districts know them to be. The lesson of the school is jostled out of memory by the practice of home, and the decency, and order, and purity, which we would enforce at school, are impossible and impracticable things in their application to daily life. We teach our children the duty of private prayer. Difficulties and of thinking about the Saviour Who died for them, ^I^Jng the and of the duteous Angels who do that Saviour's bid- ^''°''' ding, in respect of them. But alas ! to quiet, they in their homes are strangers : and decency and purity are things of which they can form no practical idea.''^ So long as there exist spots in the midst of this country, calling itself a Christian country, to which the annals of heathenism give us no parallel, we may be sure that more is wanted than education in the sense of head- learning to restore a healthy tone among us. I was informed, not long ago, by the Clergyman of a Lon- * While revising these sheets for press, I learn with joy that the Bishop of London has given the weight of his sanction to the opening of our churches for private prayer. It is a thing imperatively called for in densely populated districts especially. I Sanatory arrange- ments. 130 DESTITUTE SENSUALITY don parish, that one room of one house in his parish was inhabited by different famiUes, numbering in all thirteen : that they could only contrive to sleep by lying as so many radii of a circle, their feet meeting at the centre, and their heads forming the circumference, and that on one occasion of his visit to this room, there were two lying ill of fever — one dead of fever, and that the coffin in which the dead body rested, was being used by two of the party as their carousal board ! ! It is to this brutal sensuality and ignorance, that the Church has to address her energies, and it is obvious that efficient sanatory arrangements are as essential a portion of her duties as the Educatrix of the Nation, as the multiplication of school buildings and school teachers. Until the Church shall have regained a hold and possession among her children, for the truth that they are all members of One Body, bound the one thepoorwith to care for and succour the other ; until the rich shall superiors. have learnt the duties of property, and the privilege of personal charity;^ until there shall be that full and adequate provision for the intellectual developement of * Already are there symptoms of a recognition of this truth. The following Prospectus shows that there is a yearning for something deeper and truer than satisfied the last generation. Houses of Charity for Distressed Persons in London. Steps have been taken during the present year for founding a House of Charity for Distressed Persons in London, with a view to two principal objects : 1 . To afiford temporary relief to deserving persons specially recommended or selected. 2. To enable persons whose time is much occupied by professions, or other active duties, as well as those who have more leisure, to co-operate in works of charity,* under fixed regulations. An Association is now formed for the conduct and support of such an Insti- tution ; and a very suitable house has been secured by individuals, and will be engaged by the Association as soon as a sufficient amount of funds has been promised. It is desirable not to define too minutely, at the outset, the class of cases to be relieved, in order that no poor persons, really in want of food and lodging, IN LARGE TOWNS. 131 the middle class, which the Church is bound to see provided : until thus the chasm between rich and poor is filled up by the interchange of kindly offices among all ranks and classes of the community, it is idle to who, by temporary aid in the house, might be enabled to provide for themselves elsewhere, may be shut out by an arbitrary rule. But it requires little con- sideration to perceive the great care requisite to avoid the evil of encouraging indiscriminate applications ; and on full consideration of the working of existing charitable societies, and of the poor law, it has been decided not to attempt to deal with what are commonly called the " casual poor." Still there are several classes of deserving poor whose case is not met by any other existing institution. There are many who stand in need of food and lodg- ing, and still more of considerate treatment and personal sympathy, who, by temporary care, judiciously administered, might be put in the way of providing for themselves in London, or returning to their friends, if they belong to the country. I. Perhaps there are no persons to whom such a house as is proposed might be opened for a short time with less risk of abuse, and more certain good, than in-patients discharged from hospitals, and out-patients, unable to do full work, wanting good food, quiet, and rest, and unable to obtain either without assist- ance. II. Many special cases, also, present themselves among the applications to the Mendicity Society, and to the Houseless Poor Asylums, requiring, for a time, continuous relief, and individual attention. Such cases, selected by the benevolent and experienced officers of those institutions, would rarely ftiil to be suitable objects for the House of Charity. There are several other heads of cases, such as those enumerated below,* to whom relief might be available, if there were room in the house ; but it will be well, in the first instance, not to enter on too wide a field. No case will be entertained unless upon satisfactory recommendation from persons who have had the means of ascertaining its real merits ; such as — the Parochial Clergy, — District Visitors,— Medical Men,— and Officers of Public Institutions. The house will provide lodging, plain but good food, the means of washing, * The following heads of cases were suggested for consideration in an earlier Prospectus : — 1. Persons dependent on those who, by accident or sudden disease, have been taken into hospitals. 2. Persons suddenly, and by no fault of their own, thrown out of work, as in the case of a fire, or the bankruptcy or death of an employer. 3. Persons who come to London in search of friends or of work, and are not successful in their object. 4. Persons, especially females, whose health requires a short respite from laborious work, though they cannot afford the loss of wages which it would involve. I 2 132 DESTITUTE SENSUALITY IN LARGE TOWNS. hope for any substantial improvement in the domestic habits of the poor ; — and until there be such an improve- ment, it is idle to hope that Education in the restricted sense of imparting information and knowledge will benefit the poor as it might be expected to do, though doubtless, a sound system of education for the children will effect its good upon the parents. Still, what we need is, that there shall be more contact between rich &c. ; and suitable measures will be taken for the encouragement of industry and the prevention of idleness, among the inmates. The conduct of the house will be of a religious character, in accordance with the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England — though all poor people will be admissible. Means are to be taken for providing Divine Service daily ; and it is hoped that a consecrated Chapel may ultimately form part of the Institution. The Bishop has kindly signified his readiness to license a Chaplain for the Institution, provided that the arrangements, when matured, are satisfactory to his lordship. It is intended, as a fundamental principle of the whole plan, that some of the supporters of the Institution should undertake to be responsible in turn, and according to fixed regulations, for taking a practical part in the duties of the Institution: such as examining into applications, admitting and discharging cases, attending in the house at meals, and in the evening : reading to the sick, and teaching children or adults, if a school should be established ; and that an engagement to take an assigned share of such active duties, shall be an indis- pensable requisite for election into the administrative body. The government of the Institution, and appointment of all officers and ser- vants, is to be vested in a Warden and Council, not exceeding twenty-four in number. Vacancies in the Council to be filled up by the associated members, provided always that no one shall be elected who is not eligible as stated above. A pecuniary contribution is not necessarily required in order to become an associated member ; but instead thereof, a written engagement to promote the objects of the Institution; either, 1, by discharging the active duties of a visitor; or, 2, by discharging the duties of a corresponding member ; or, 3, by giving or obtaining contributions. In any printed list of the associated members, and other supporters of the Institution, the sums subscribed by individuals will not be specified. A meeting of all the associated members will be held at least once a year. It is hoped that when the Institution has assumed a permanent form, the Bishop of London will accept the office of Visitor, with the same powers as those vested in the visitor of an incorporated foundation. The Council will endeavour, as far as possible, to act in concert with other societies of a similar charitable nature, and with individuals engaged in relieving the wants of the poor. NATIONAL HOLIDAYS AND SPORTS. 133 and poor — more intercourse between the employers and the employed, in the hours of relaxation.^ Symp- HoMays -^ -^ ' ./ X and Sports. toms there are of a recognition of this truth, and we may hope that the day is not far distant when there shall be a revival among us of manly games, and the more healthful EngUsh sports ; when the peer, the squire, the yeoman and the peasant — the merchant, the clerk, the shop-keeper and the artizan — shall have broken through the barriers which now separate them one from the other, and be found contending with mutual good humour and in fair rivalry for superiority in the cricket field, or the palm in the tennis court. Give us back our Ecclesiastical holy days, and let them be observed by cheerful pastime, subordinated to the softening influence of religion. f Let our Church festivals be days of religious joyousness, and freedom from the corroding influences of worldly traflic, and let them be days which shall witness for Christian fellowship — and if only the higher orders of society are careful to maintain, in addition to this, a personal intercourse with the lower, in acts of kindliness and charity amid the sanctities of home, it shall be found It is humbly hoped that this Institution may be enabled to offer to those who are sunk in the depths of temporal, and frequently of spiritual wretchedness, the example of the discipline of a Christian family, — to refresh and encourage them by the presence of active sympathy with their sufferings, as well as to afford them temporal relief. The attempt will he made in the belief that it is almost impossible to rouse them to a sense of their spiritual responsibilities, while their temporal condition is so degraded and wretched ; or to improve their condition without much personal attention, patience, and discrimination. It is estimated that an annual income of nearly One Thousand Pounds will be required in order to begin operations. Subscriptions may be paid to the account of the Treasurer of the Charity, at Messrs. Hoare's, 37, Fleet Street ; or at Messrs. Cocks and Biddulph's, Charing Cross. * A little work entitled the *' Claims of Labour," Pickering, is well worthy the attention of the advocates of Social Improvement. t See Note, Appendix B. 134 THE church's duty that rank shall receive its just respect, and that the homage paid to station shall have love rather than the obsequiousness of self-interest as its constraining motive. If the homes of the poor were oftener visited by the steps of the wealthy, the needs of the poor would find warmer sympathy in the hearts of the wealthy — and the contrast between the mansion and the cottage, would consist, not so much in cleanliness and airiness, as in size and in costliness. Increase intellectual proficiency as we will among the poor we shall not by that means alone advance the masses in the scale of excellence or of goodness as moral, physical, and spiritual beings. And it is quite of as much importance to improve the existing sana- tory condition of the parents, with a view to their own moral improvement and on account of its influence on the education of their children, as it is to improve the intellectual attainments of the children, in the hope that the future generation of parents will not consent to herd like so many cattle. And now, my Lord, I trust I have shown that there are other grounds than party spirit and petty jealousy, for refusing to make over the instruction of the peo- ple to the State, on a non-religious principle, merely retaining for ourselves the opportunity of the Wed- nesday and Friday Class Room, and the Sunday School, as our means of influencing the people as im- mortal beings. I have dwelt but little upon the merits of this scheme in its practical working, for believing that the surrender of a principle was involved in its adoption, I have confined myself to a consideration of the question of the Church's duty in the matter IN THE MATTER OF EDUCATION. [ 135 of education ; and if I am right in the conclusions I have drawn from the various sources of information Causes of at my command, the present ignorance of the masses [g„oranceof arises not so much from a want of school buildings, ^^^ "^^^ses. or from any indisposition to erect such buildings, as from a generally prevailing difference of opinion as to the functions of our schools for the poor, and from the apathy and indifference and unsatisfactory do- mestic habits of the parents for whose children' we desire to provide education. This^ then, is an evil no Government can remedy effectually unless it call in the aid of Religion. Quite as much has to be done in making the middle classes less selfish and the higher classes less exclusive as in making the lower classes less brutish. And no influence save a religious one is competent to effecting this gene- ral change in the face of society. Let us not then be led^ by even such magniloquent declamation as the following, to suppose that any mere concentration of effort on what is popularly understood by National Education will produce good, equal in amount to that prophesied by the deifiers of intellect. " At all events, we avow ourselves to shrink from the fearful re- Quarterly sponsibility of arresting the course of national education under any ®^^®^" auspices ; we will deliver our souls from this awful weight ; and we solemnly remind every one — Tory, or Conservative, or Whig, or Radical : Economist or Anti-Economist — Churchman or Dissenter — that if by any one act, by any one vote in Parliament, by any suf- frage on the hustings, by any rash language in public Journals, by an inconsiderate petition by any party, or class, or rank, or sectarian jealousy — they unnecessarily impede any Government whatever in the amicable advancement of this work : if they act otherwise than under the most grave, deliberate, well-advised, and dispassionate con- victions ; if they are not prepared to make the most generous self- sacrifice of all which is not Christian principle — not what passion may dignify by that sacred name, but what asserts and proves itself 136 THE CHURCH CALLED TO AROUSE HERSELF. to the enlightened conscience as such ; — if it be not Christianity in its vital, absolute essence which is at stake — they are guilty of im- perilling the life of the nation without due cause — at least, if not doing their bounden endeavour to avert the death of anarchy and ruin which may await, if we be not wise in time, this most glorious, this most wonderful people of England."* ou?ua'tkfnai Be it that we are a most glorious and a most won- derful people ! Whatever of greatness we have or whatever there is to be admired in us, we owe to our religious common sense, as a people professing to love God and honour His Church, and not to proficiency in reading and writing. And whatever there is of mis- chief to be overcome, must be overcome by measures far more comprehensive than the multiplication of schools for the poor : measures which must depend for their efficiency mutually the one on the other, and which must be held in unity by the Church's sanction. I say not this to discourage any effort in any quarter for the improvement of the intellectual condition of Evils of the poor; but simply to urge upon Churchmen the measures. solemn necessity which is laid upon them that they do not address themselves partially to the great work of national reformation — that they do not delude themselves with the hope that a vast increase of secular learning among the poor, even though it make them more susceptible of religious training, will suffice to banish crime and misery from among us. t?e"clfurch Let the Church of England arouseherself yet more her^sSr^ as she has done in the time of late past, let her con- tinue to remind the rich of their duty, and seek to * Quarterly Review, October, 1R45.— Among the many strange views put forth in this article, is one which distinguishes between religion and religious- ness. The Leeds Intelligencer of October 24, I observe, quotes this notion with approval, and in its zealous advocacy of Dr. Hook's scheme, impresses the late Dr. Arnold's authority into the service. How far Churchmen can accept either Dr. Arnold or the writer in the Quarterly (whom the editor of the Leeds In- telligencer atsumes to be a layman [?]) as authority, is a question. PARTIAL FAILURE OF NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 137 recover the middle class to her care, and to deserve and rivet the affection the poor continue to entertain and cherish for her, and then gradually making the People and the Church coincident in boundary, the Education of all classes of the people shall proceed by that uniform rule which shall assign to intellectual culture its proper place in Christian training: and provide for the due growth of man as God designs man to be — rather than for that developement of some few faculties in such disproportion as shall constitute a monster rather than a perfect being. I am ready to acknowledge I deeply mourn over Present » ^ I V« 1 • deficiencies the imperfect measures taken for the Education of ^^^i^^^^^^^'^^*^ the young, but I prefer the Church to the State as the Ihtat^" Agent of Reformation. I would rather trust a Divine Ordinance divinely commissioned to accomplish this very work, and owning her dependence upon Divine support for its execution, than I w^ould trust a system which though Divine in that it is a constituted autho- rity yet disavows its connection with religion, though professing to do what can only be done well when effected religiously. I am well aware that our existing National Schools Reasons of have failed in much of the obiects their friends de- failure of •^ National signed them to accomplish ; but the cause of this ^^^^oo^^- failure is not to be found in their having been con- ducted too much as Church institutions ; nor in their lacking State authority : but in this, that the Clergy of the several parishes in which these schools were situated, have not realized their educational mission, and have left the school to depend far too much on the master, apart from the sanction of their own daily presence, and the influence of their own daily teach- ing. If our National Schools have failed to make 138 THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENT. children what we desire the children of the Church to be, the evil is to be found in the want of practical confidence in the Church's system, and the remedy is to be found in a hearty subordination of all to her rule. The National Society at least is not to blame. That Society leaves all management of schools to the Parochial Clergy ; and if the alarm of being super- seded in their parochial influence by a functionary of the State, shall still further quicken the zeal of the Clergy in the conduct of their schools, it will not be without its use that the cry of danger shall have been The theory raiscd. Lct thc Clergy as a body restore the daily Parochial sacnficc of praycr and praise,* and daily instruct, for one half hour at least if possible, the children of their schools ; and it will be found that schools thus at- tended to will rise superior to difliculties w hich could be overcome in no other way. Let the Sick Benefit and Burial Club, the Savings' Bank, and the Allot- ment System, and improved provision for the cleanli- ness and comfort of the poor, keep equal onward pace with the restoration of Church seasons and Church practices, and the people will soon refuse to have their teeth any longer set on edge with sour grapes — they will ask once again for the old paths, and their eyes will look right on, and their eyelids right forwards, and their feet will turn neither to the right hand nor to the left. The Govern- But it wiU bc Said, that though the Church may ment also- ^ , \^. .,.,.. haveaj^uty ^^e right iu taking this view ot its responsibilities, and in cherisViing this hope of ultimate success ; that yet, the State has also a duty to perform, and that it is bound to care for the education of the people. I grant it to be a most proper function of * See Note, Appendix B. THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENT. 139 Government to care for the moral and intellectual Snno?*^ well-being', of the governed; but then I hold that pSmed this duty of the State cannot be discharged at all agency. times and in all particulars by its own direct servants ; there are times and occasions when it must see that a thing is done rather than do it itself. Such a time is the present — such an occa- sion is the Education of the people. Under our present circumstances — until the popular voice shall have demanded a setting up again of the old land- marks — until, that is, the Church shall have again gathered the children of the separation under her parental wing, and so left no claimants for the equal privileges now accorded to heresy and schism, the State cannot educate the people so as to refuse assistance to Dissenters. Under our present circum- stances — of a population, large portions of which are alienated in affection from the Church, and yet repre- sented in the government of the country, — it follows, that though from old habit the State may contkiue to evince a strong preference for the Church, that yet it cannot afford her an exclusive support; but that in all present educational legislation, assistance must, upon the principle of toleration as now received, be accorded to all sects and parties in the body politic. This being so, the principle being ceded by the State that Dissenters are entitled to its sympathy, it follows, that the Government cannot devise any mea- sure for State Education which shall have religion as a constituent part, except at the price of some reli- gious scruple somewhere. Dr. Hook would now meet the difficulty by boldly separating the secular and the religious in education ; and asking the Go- vernment to give the secular, relies upon the efforts 140 INCREASE OF NUMBER of voluntary bodies for the religious culture of our population. But surely this is to avow that nations hold no responsible position in the eye of God ; that Governments have no conscience ; and that this coun- try is never to hope to be one in Christian faith again : and it is to give up as an impossible theory the restoration of Dissenters to the bosom of the Church. Manner in Rathcr Ict thc Governmcut 2:0 on as it has done of which c5 S^nrcan l^tc ; Ict it coutinuc to ascertain the amount and perfom) this ^^^jj^y ^f prcscut cducatlou ; and let it vote funds to encourage private bounty in improving the one and increasing the other. But let it show that it is in earnest, by very much extending its staff of inquiry, and by very much augmenting its vote for educational purposes. Let the Government give to schools and school work their due importance, as an indispensable part of the care they are bound to show for the well- being of the people ; and they will not fear to con- struct their machinery for improving the quality and increasing the quantity of education, to an extent iumiTer^of vcry much beyond their present operations. The present number of Inspectors is ridiculously inade- quate. Each school should be visited at least twice in the year — not that three or even four times would be too often under a really sound and efficient system. If Government be really in earnest in the matter of Education, it must not shrink back from increasing the annual grant for this purpose until it reach even five times the amount of the present one. Such a grant would be amply sufficient for all ordinary expenditure ; and what is £500,000 a year for this country to ap- propriate from its taxes to the purposes of Education *? It is not even a tithe of the amount it receives from Inspectors. OF INSPECTORS OF SCHOOLS. 141 the Property and Income Tax alone, nor one hun- dredth part of the whole revenue of the country ! There should be at least one, and in some cases piocesan more Inspectors for every Diocese, for schools in connection with the Church. And for the schools in connection with the British and Foreign School Society, there might be also a corresponding staff of Inspectors. The appointment of the Inspectors should be subject to the same regulations which now obtain, and their office should he as circumscribed as it now is by instrcutions leaving them powerless as to authoritative alterations. But it is well worth the consideration of the rulers of the Church, whether they might not make the Cathedral institutions minister to the greater efficiency of the staif of the Inspectors of Church schools; and so give a more permanently ecclesiastical character to the inquiries which such Inspectors institute. It must have occurred to every reverent Churchman, to deplore the abuses which have crept into our Cathedral Choirs : and ik could not be otherwise than a matter of rejoicing among all who wish well to Sion, that such abuses should be done away. Obviously the singing men and singing boys are officers of the Church : they should have their defined and settled rank, as the subordinate ministers of religion. The men might be deacons, the boys acolytes or sub-deacons ; each in their several station ministering to the honour and glory of God in and through His Church. Let them thus take rank as spiritual persons, and they would seem to form at once the nucleus we require ; the one class for organizing masters, the others as candidates for our training colleges for masters of elementary schools. 142 ECCLESIASTICAL CORPORATIONS, EFFICIENT. Chartered Until, mv Lofd, somethinff be done in real earnest Ecclesias- ' '' ^ ^ ^ Jat?ius"to°be by the chartered ecclesiastical corporations, to show Sficient. that they compass the end and objects of their institu- tion, it is in vain to expect that fresh foundations will be laid to any considerable extent. Already the cathe- dral institutions have paid the penalty of teachin^i; the world that the duties of their body could be performed by a very much smaller staff than that for which their original foundation provided: and it is hardly to be expected that the work of confiscation will be arrested in its onward course, unless, with the resources still at their command, our Deans and Chapters as one man address themselves to the glorious work of stamping* upon all religious works an ecclesiastical character. They possess ample machinery for this purpose ; and it may reasonably be expected that, taught by the experience of the past, there will be a readiness on the part of those concerned in the matter, to act in concert with the Government in making our capitular institutions more fully and efficiently subserve the encouragement and extension of learning and piety among us. As opportunities for learned leisure, and as rewards for diligent service in the Church's cause, these institutions are confessedly crippled. What share the alleged non-fulfilment of the object of their institution had in this diversion of cathedral revenues from their original destination, it does not concern me to determine ; though it is clear, that whether justly or unjustly, there must have been a strong feel- ing that the Prebendal Stalls were sinecures,* or the country would not have looked tamely on at the * ** Those appointments in the Church which are usually called — I will not say rightly or wrongly — sinecures." — Speech of Sir 11, Peel in House of Com- mons, Feb. 2\th, 1835. GRANTS TO NORMAL SCHOOLS. 143 wholesale measures of confiscation recommended by the Church Commission to be carried out by the Crown. It would seem, however^ to be a fulfilment of, rather than a departure from, the intention of these foundations, to make the choir funds available as the nucleus of exhibitions for good Normal Schools ; musical knowledge being itself a most important qualification in a school teacher. That the sacred services of the cathedrals would not lose but rather gain by the change, an attendance upon Divine Ser- vice at St. Mark's Chapel, Chelsea, where the choir consists wholly of the boys and masters in training, would satisfy the most fastidious. An honorary canonry might be secured for the Government In- spector, and one of the forfeited Prebends might be restored as a means of providing the Principal of the Normal Schools with ecclesiastical dignity and ade- quate pecuniary emolument. The Government grants ^l^^""^^ towards the support of the Normal Schools might be '° formal set apart to increase the stipends of the Minor Canons, in consideration of their being required to assist in the scholastic duties of the Normal School ; and under their rule, the pupils, and the organizing mas- ters, in esse and in posse^ might live as members of a collegiate establishment. This, my Lord^ is a crisis when the Clergy must think no toil too great, no labour too intense, that by God's blessing the kingdom may be reclaimed from heathenism and from schism. The withering, palsying hand of indifference, seems now to be taken off the Church's energies ; and zeal and activity are everywhere to be found : what now we most need is, that our spiritual fathers the Bishops speak as with one voice and assure the world, that there is no truth ment Grants to Norm£ Schools . 144 CHELTENHAM OLD CHARITY SCHOOL. in the taunt that our trumpet gives an uncertain sound, and that none can prepare for the battle. A few there may be here and there who are impatient of authority and of rule ; but the authoritative enforce- ment of the Church's law by the determination of an united Episcopate, could not fail to have its weight with even the least submissive. And little as I desire to see the State interfere with the proper functions of the Church, I cannot but think that good results might follow from the adoption by Parliament of well-considered measures having for their object the facilitating redress in cases, be they many or be they few, where old foundations intended for the extension and improvement of Education, fail of their benevolent purpose, and are mere sinecures ; not only effecting no good themselves, but lying like an incubus upon the charitable feelings of the nation, and preventing the further flow of Christian liberality in channels similarly intended for the advancement of sound learning under an ecclesiastical rule. Much may indeed be done without the intervention of Parliament, and it would doubtless be better that individuals should do it ; but better that Parliament do it than that it be not done at all. As an instance of abuse on the one hand, and of what may be done by personal exertions on the other, I may instance the "Old Charity School " in this town. Charity This School was established a.d. 1713, by the volun- cheitenham. tary Contributions of the Inhabitants of Cheltenham, for the Education and clothing of twenty poor boys, under the immediate superintendence of the Minister of the Parish. In the year 1721, Lady Capel (who had been a subscriber since the commencement) died, leav- ing the annual rental of some land in Kent for the bene- CHELTENHAM SUNDAY SCHOOL. 145 fit of the School, which now produces from £30 to £35 a year. This Charity has also for many years been indebted to the Trustees of the late Mr. Townsend, for the annual sum of twenty pounds, which they pay to the master. The Townsend Apprenticeship (fifteen pounds a year,) has generally been given to this School by the same gentleman. Now, notwithstanding the considerable endowments enjoyed by this School, the education given in it has been very inadequate ; and although there appear at one time to have been collections made for a Building Fund, subsequently appropriated to a National School in another part of the parish ; yet a small badly-ven- tilated chamber over the North Porch of the Parish Church, is the only room in which this School can be carried on. The School had sunk to a very low ebb, when about two or three years ago a member of my con- gregation* commenced an inquiry into its capabilities, and having instituted a personal canvass for subscrip- tions, he obtained the co-operation of the Rev. F.-Close, the Incumbent of the Parish, who has intimated his in- tention of giving boys educated in this School the pre- ference in his appropriation of Stanby's Apprentice- ship Charity, of which he is officially Trustee. In addition to an increase in the amount of annual sub- scriptions, a considerable sum has been raised towards the building of a new School-room and Master's cot- tage, the plans for which have been adopted at an estimated cost, exclusive of fittings-up, of £620, and an appropriate site obtained at a nominal rent, on a Building Lease for ninety -nine years. This is but one of many instances which show how much may be done by individual perseverance. * F. Richardson, Esq., the present Honorary Secretary of the school. K 146 ENDOWMENTS SOMETIMES A HINDRANCE. Some Of individual perseverance there is indeed now endowed » raSa every need. At the present moment there are I be- thairi"'^'' lieve many endowed schools which are rather a hin- toeducation. di'ancc thaii an assistance to Education, owin»; to the abuses which have crept into the management, and the difficulty of removing incompetent masters ; and the many obstacles in the way of a revision of their laws and rules. I am fully alive to the importance of surrounding the alteration of the minutest particulars of bequests and of trust deeds with difficulty : but it has long been laid down as a principle of equity law that in the construction of bequests and trusts regard is to be had rather to the intention than the precise letter of the terms in which Donors make their gifts ; and though in ordinary cases it may not be well to dis- pense with the usual forms of legal process, still it Mould confer a great boon upon the cause of Educa- tion if there could be some more expeditious and less expensive machinery than a suit in Chancery by which the endowments for Parochial Education could be made fully to answer the wishes of their benevo- lent founders. In many a parish there are to be found one or more small ancient endowments for the gra- tuitous education of the poor on the principles of the Established Church, — endowments which are not only utterly inadequate to the educational requirements of the present population, but which operate most in- juriously by checking the establishment of a school suitable to the existing wants of the locality.''*' * For instance, it not unfrequently happens that an endowment exists of the present annual value of £20 or thereabouts, to be paid to a person for instructing the children of the parish freely and gratuitously. This salary is manifestly inadequate for a good schoolmaster ; and yet in many cases it cannot be augmented by requiring some small weekly payment from the children. The consequence too often is, that the endowment is made an alms to some one EXTENDED BENEFITS OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. 147 The same remark is applicable to Grammar ^"conae of *■ I Grammar Schools. The income of these Schools throu<»:hout ^^^"^^^ the country is variously stated at sums ranging from £300,000 to £500,000, but there is every reason to believe that a judicious administration of the various trusts of these schools would be likely to produce a sum considerably exceeding even the larger of these two amounts. Now it cannot be for a moment alleged that at the present time these Grammar Schools fulfil the function in respect to the middle and poorer classes of society, which a wise application of such an amount of funds might be reasonably expected to discharge. It may be a ques- tion for the consideration of the Legislature whether the provisions for improving the condition and ex- IJ'fension of tendino; the benefits of Grammar Schools contained of Grammar ^ Schools as in the Act of 1840,* might not be advantageously pjovj^^ed for carried into effect by compulsion, where an insensi- bility to the benefits to be derived from their adoption, prevents the voluntary effort to secure their being carried into effect. Nor need there be any jealousy on the part of those who think that by making the Grammar Schools sub- quite unfit for the oflSce of teacher ; while the existence of the school is made the reason or the excuse for the non -establishment of a school of a better order. This difficulty might be obviated by an enactment to the effect that the words " free," " gratuitous," ''charity school," and the like, should not be construed to preclude the trustees from requiring any payment from the children not exceeding twopence a week, or at that rate. In some parishes there are several petty endowments, all of a similar kind, and yet the trustees have no power to combine them so as to produce one good result. Such power might be conferred on trustees. Power likewise should be given in all cases to remove teachers for ill conduct or incompetency. The Committee of the National Society will be happy to receive communications on this subject from any parties who may have information to offer. — National Society's Report, 1845, p. 21. * 3 and 4 Vict. c. Ixxvii. K 2 148 DESKJN OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. serve the purposes of General Kducation, less attention will be paid to Greek and Latin. In many schools, the number who learn Greek and Latin could not be less than at present ; the Master's office beinj^; already a sinecure in but too many cases And even where there is a disposition among the inhabitants to avail them- selves of Grammar School Education, it will, I am of opinion, be found, that they are not of the class who take the Grammar School system because there is no other, but that they prefer it to others. In Man- chester the number of boys whose parents avail them- selves of the proper classical studies of the Grammar School, is about two hundred, being the full number for the education of whom provision is made. This is exclusive of the English School. This English School has been in existence, I believe, about twelve or thirteen years, and contains about one hundred and sixty scholars. The instruction given in it, like that given in the Grammar School, is gratuitous to all comers, and I have the testimony of one of the Masters of the latter to this effect; " I do not believe that the English School affects the Grammar School proper in any way, as it is rushed into by a different class of boys ; perhaps a very few who go to it might have gone to the classical school had there been no other." At a time when every exertion is needed to place iTZL^oi Education on a satisfactory basis, it is most important that so considerable a means of Education as our Grammar Schools afford should not be overlooked. It is wisely observed by Archdeacon Manning, " We may assume it as a social law, that next after the food necessary for life, there is no demand of man which will provide for itself so certain a supply as the Grammar Schools designed to be means o Education. DUTY OWING TO THEIR FOUNDERS. 149 demand of his intellectual powers. The human mind will organize itself and found its own systems. As, among- other causes, the narrow area of our unen- larged parish churches has led to religious systems and establishments which should never have been forced into existence, so if the Universities and great schools of instruction within the communion of the Church fail to find room and provision for the intellec- tual life of the people, imperfect and dangerous sys- tems formed by individuals, or, still ivorse, founded without religion by the State, will rise up and render the reunion of the people upon our old basis of Chris- tian Education impossible. We see this already. Numberless institutes and associations are already springing up on every side."^ And when we see in the very towns where Gram- mar Schools exist, with remunerative emoluments and sundry University Scholarships and Exhibitions, new Schools rising up, and completely occupying the ground which the Grammar School ought to' have filled: we cannot but fear that to mismanagement, which a vigilant inspection would have prevented, is to be traced the imperfect manner in which Grammar Schools fulfil the intention of their founders. It is the function of Government, not more to protect the holders of property in the enjoyment of that property, than to see that they fulfil the duties which the possession of that property entails. And it would seem to be a duty which Government owes to the representatives of those who founded our Grammar Schools, that some efficient means be taken for rendering these founda- tions more commensurate with the design of their in- stitution. Possibly the manner in which this could * Charge, 1846, pp. 37, 38. 150 EDUCATION OF ALL SUBJECT TO INQUIRY. be done with the least risk of departure from the let- ter as construed by the intention of these trusts, would be that Government should appoint three or four In- spectors of high University repute, to examine into the present condition and probable capabilities of the Endowed Grammar Schools throuohout the country. Such Inspectors to make annual reports to the Queen in Council on Education : extracted copies of these Reports to be forwarded to the trustees and visitors of each school, so far as each school is concerned : and extracted copies to be sent also to each of the Bishops respecting the several schools contained in their res- pective Diocese. Exemption from the imputation more or less involved in such a system of inspection might indeed be fairly claimed for certain schools, whose overflowing numbers and adequate instruction, as tested by the success of their scholars in the Uni- versities, would take them out of the operation of the measure which, it is hoped, might be founded on such a system of inspection ; though possibly the managers of those which need inspection least would be most ready to grant facilities for inspection ; provided due respect were paid to their chartered privileges, and the authority of the Visitor of the school, ivere added to that VdlcBtwnof of the Queen, and the Archbishop * The Church is as be subject to much bouud to care for the instruction of the one class as of another, and all alike merit the attention of the Government. It is to be hoped, then, that measures may be devised which without giving reasonable cause of offence in any quarter, may secure to the country the services which the Grammar Schools are so well calculated to render, and which I firmly believe niany * Those institutions where ah'eady efficiently conducted |niblic examinations are periodically held, would hardly seem to need inspection. LAW OF MORTMAIN. 151 Grammar School Masters whose energies now have no sufficient occupation, would gladly lend their assist- ance to bring about. The next mode in which Government may aid in the improvement of Education, is by a new revision of the laws of Mortmain, and of the clauses of the Charitable Uses Acts."^ It is to be hoped that the per- severing exertions of Lord John Manners, will eventu- aiiy secure a comprehensive settlement of this vexata qucsstio^ but meanwhile the example of the Church Endowment Act of the sixth Vict, may be advan- tageously followed. In the twenty -second clause of that Act, (I quote from a copy of the Bill as amended in committee,) it is ruled that so much of the Act 17 Car. II. Cap. 3, as enables and * * * and autho- rises any Parson, Vicar, or Incumbent, to receive lands, tithes, or other hereditaments without license of Mortmain, shall be, and the same is hereby revived," &c. Now if, as a beginning, the same principle were applied in the case of lands and other hereditaments, which their possessors desired to grant for educational purposes, it surely is not beyond the wisdom of Parlia- ment to devise the nature and limits of the trust, and once established it could not but give a great impulse to the increased efficiency of our Educational Estab- lishments. It may be laid down as an axiom that * The National Society has recently accepted on trust, in its corporate capa- city, the sum of ^1000, the interest of which is to be voted to the support of the National Schools at Alton in Hampshire. The Society holds other trusts of the same kind. Great assistance in this important matter might be given by a legislative enactment relaxing to a certain extent the mortmain laws, in favour of the endowment of schools. Very recently a benevolent individual was much disappointed at finding himself unable to make a bequest of £\Q(i a year out of his real estate for the purpose of endowing a school in which he was interested ; there were reasons which restrained him from making over the property to the school during his life. — Nalional Society" n Report, 1845, p. 20. Law of Mortmain. endowe Sclux be made more instru mental to the 152 GOVERNMENT GRANTS FOR corporate establishments are essential to the success of sound Education. And the permanency of such establishments must not be allowed to depend wholly on annual gifts. Better do less for the present, that some portion of the annual gifts may accu- mulate in an Endowment fund, than not look forward Jndowe.r^ to our Normal Schools, and eventually our Elemen- ^" tary Schools, becoming permanently endowed. But before we can expect on any large scale a supply of ^''FuSmn"^ funds for endowing our schools, the present endowed schools must be made more instrumental to the effi- ciency of Education. The abuse of old foundations acts as an obstacle to the endowing of new ; and at the same time, in making the old meet present exi- gencies, there must be such regard shown for the in- tention of founders as may not beget in present donors a feeling of uncertainty as to the ultimate use to which monies given or bequeathed by them, for a specific purpose, may be diverted. Assista ce It has bccn suggested that the Committee of Coun- ren.iemiby ^[[ qj-j Educatiou shouUi uo lonp'cr confine the appli- Governnieiit ^ ^ *■ maintenance catiou of thc Parliamentary Grant to the purposes of School Building and Inspection, and the support of Normal Schools, but that it should also make Grants to meet others locally raised for the maintenance of new and already existing schools. This is a most valuable suggestion, and one which the Prime Minister of this country may be reasonably ex- pected to adopt and act upon, by recommending to Parliament such an increase in the amount of thc Grant for Educational purposes, as shall render it practicable for the Committee of Council thus to ex- tend their operations. It would seemthat^ in 1844-5, £256,260 were voted for various purposes more or less MAINTENANCE OF NEW SCHOOLS. 153 educational, but of this sum only £40,000 was for paiiiamen- '' Public Education in Great Britain." If this one for Education. vote for Public Education, this year increased to £100^000, be next year doubled or trebled in amount, and in the three or four years following be made, as circumstances required, into £500,000, we should I think have all that is needed in the way of Parlia- mentary assistance. Let £100,000 be set apart exclusively for School Building, and let the Committee of Council give its first attention to Normal Schools and industrial arrangements in existing schools In this way up- wards of £300,000 annually would be employed in increasing school accommodation. This sum, in addi- tion to the amount expended by private individuals, would be found more than sufficient for the wants arising out of the annual increase of population, and would in fact be overtaking the arrears of past years, as compared with future needs, at the rate of at least three to one.* And such a supply of Schools- would not only be as great as could be readily supplied with teachers, but would provide accommodation for more scholars than we can reasonably expect would avail themselves of it. Already our schools are capable of * Those who are sceptical as to the reliance to be placed on statistics, may find food for their scepticism in the various calculations to which Dr. Hook's extraordinary assertion, that the whole of the daily increase in population is to be provided with additional school-room, has given rise. Dr. Hook may be right in saying that there is an increase of 365,000 in the population each year, if he merely means that nearly 1 000 children are born daily into the world : but is there no allowance to be made for the number of children who die before they are of age to come into our schools ;* none for the numbers which will pass out of our schools into the world during the same period ? No accurate calcu- lation can be made, except from the actual statistics of population at any par- ticular time ; of which population, I am of opinion, one in nine is all that need be provided for in our elementary schools of eleemosynary education. * In the lowest districts of Manchester and Leeds, out of 1000 children born, 570 die before they attain their fifth year. Diocesan inspection. 154 EFFICIENT INSPECTION REQUISITE. holding a far (jr eater number of scholars than are sent to them. In fact, it is estimated by an accurate classifier of facts, that the means we at present pos- sess of giving' Elementary Education are at this time more than double what those, for whom this Educa- tion is provided, use !^ It is therefore a most unnecessary waste of means to multiply schools with a speed or rather hurry which could only be necessary on the supposition of there being vast numbers willing and waiting to be instructed, over and alcove the number for which our present schools and our present annual increase of schools afford the opportunities of instruction. There may be some few cases where the need cannot be met in the ordinary way ; but with a Grant of £100,000, specially appropriated to School Building, the Com- mittee of Council would find little difliiculty in provid- ing special means of meeting special exigencies. What we most require is the improvement of our present system of Education. For this purpose, as we have seen, three things are principally needed. — I. More efficient inspection on the basis of our ecclesiastical organization. II. An increase in the number of Normal Schools III. A more permanent source of income, and a higher rate of remuneration for the teachers of Elementary Schools. I. We need a more efficient system of inspection. It would be well that this inspection should be com- pulsory, in the case of all Elementary Schools: but then for our Church Schools we should insist that the * See pp. 89, 91. " Some Remarks on Dr. Hook's Letter. By one of tlie Clergy of the Manufacturing District and Parish of Manchester." This pam- phlet is very full of statistical information, and exhibits much accurate research, and will be invaluable to all who have confidence in figures. NUMBER AND INCOME OF INSPECTORS. 155 inspection be based upon the system of our ecclesias- tical organization. The National Society, through its present most indefatigable Secretary and its other of- ficers, supported by episcopal sanction, urged this upon the late Government, but without success. Let the Church, however, be firm, and she must gain her point. Let us demand of the State, either that there shall be Inspectors of their own for every Diocese ; or that they facilitate our own opportunities for efficient Diocesan inspection. In either case the Government ought to grant funds sufficient for Diocesan inspection. No one will consider that the present Inspectors are income of overpaid when the duties they have to perform are taken into account ; and as it is not proposed by the increase in the number of these officers to require a less exclusive dedication of their time to the services in which they are engaged, but only to provide for their doing what they have to perform more effi- ciently, as regards the whole of the education now given to the children of the poor in our Elementary Schools ; we may calculate that the new Inspectors would require to be as well remunerated as the present. The present cost of an Inspector of schools to the country is, I believe, not much under £1000 a year ; at all events, in making a calculation as to the probable expenditure involved in increasing the number of Inspectors, it will not be safe to take less than £1000 a year as the sum : we have therefore the following as the outlay in this department alone. All Inspector to each Diocese .... the lowest calculation which can be safely adopted is, that in addition to one in each Cathedral town, Lon- don still retaining its four Institutions of St. Mark's, Battersea, Whitelands, and Westminster^ there should be one in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Plymouth, and Hull,— in all thirty-eight. I am aware that a calculation made upon the basis of the whole number of pupil teachers, and the num- bers which it is possible to educate in one school, would give eight or nine less than this number ; but the principle for which I am contending is respect to the Church's Diocesan organization, and having regard to it, thirty-eight would seem to be the very least num- ber with which we should be content. Out of this thirty-eight we have already got twenty-three The further supply, then, may safely be left to be furnished in a similar manner. Let the Committee of Council, INCOME OF ELEMENTARY MASTERS. 157 ill allotting its £100,000 for School Building, give a preference for a year or two to Normal Schools, and let them grant sums at a rate not exeeding £20 for each pupil teacher to be accommodated, and it is no rash augury which predicts that in a very few yeas, there will be the requisite supply of Normal Schools. In respect of the maintenance of these schools, were £50,000 a year to be set apart, and be granted to meet sums locally raised in the ratio of two to five, the Church would find but little difficulty in support- ing its Normal Schools, especially if it should seem good to the Rulers of the Church to press the Cathe- dral Choirs into the service ; and if one Prebendal Stall were restored for each principal of the Normal School in a Cathedral town, it would be found that Govern- ment would have annually a considerable surplus from this £50,000,^ which might be invested to form an Endowment fund for those Institutions which seemed most effectually to answer the purposes of their insti- tution : a rule which practically would, it is* to be hoped, amount to an equal division of the surplus fund among all the training Institutions. III. To secure a more permanent source of income Jj^^g^^^^f and a higher rate of remuneration for the masters of IchSoS.^'^^ our elementary schools, is a question which it is im- possible to settle by any general array of figures. To * Even taking Mr. Moseley's calculation, that to minister fully to the edu- cational necessities of the country, the different training institutions should have continually under education a body of 3190 students, the annual cost of teaching them would not be ^80,000, of which Government would only be called upon to provide £32,000, leaving a surplus of .j^l 8,000, as a sinking fund for endowment. But as far as I can deduce the teaching of the various statistics under which my table groans at the present moment on this very subject, I am of opinion that, though figures may show that 3,531,000 of the children of the poor should be under teaching, experience will show, that when we shall have one third less than that number under instruction, we shall have reached a very high standard of intellectual culture. 158 INCOME FROM CHILDREN'S PAYMENTS. arrive with accuracy at what is required, we should be in possession of exact data as to the sum at present expended in this manner. But if, as has been sugt^ested, the grammar schools be made efficiently to minister to the educational needs of the country, it will be found that there will be a juster general appreciation of the value of sound learning — a result which will also be assisted by the proposed increase of Normal Schools, and by the measures in progress for the improvement of existing elementary schools. And when this shall be the case, a much larger sum may be expected to arise from the payments of the children : so that the expense attendant upon the improvement of education, will be to some extent met by the increased rate at which parents will be content to pay for such education. The cost of such education will at the outside not exceed, taking the country round, one pound for each child: in towns where there are large schools, it will be less. Now, in the superior schools, there will always be many who are ready to pay sixpence a week, and in towns fourpence and threepence would be very easily obtained ; while even in country places there is every willingness to pay twopence a week. And therefore, were the experiment uniformly tried, of raising the school wage, I do not doubt but that, on an average, four-sevenths of the whole cost of Educa- tion might be raised from this source ; and if, of the remaining three-sevenths. Government undertook to provide in the proportion of one to four, there would remain for the Church to provide nine twenty-eighths, or rather less than one-third: so that even were we to adopt Mr. Moseley's data, and seek to provide Education for 3,283,830, we should only have to Government Grants necessary. assistance needed from overument AMOUNT NEEDED FROM GOVERNMENT. 159 raise in various ways, £1,048,373. 18s. 6d. ; while the Government grants necessary to make this outlay Amount of sufficient, would be £262,093. 9s. lOd. But if, as I fjS"" believe, Mr. Moseley's estimate is nearly one-third higher than our habits as a nation require, then the Government grants needed to insure an adequate remuneration for these numbers w ould be considerably less. Taking the numbers at 2,200,000, which I be- lieve to be an outside calculation, we have — Sum to be provided independently "1 of Government and of School Wage J ^707,142. 17s. By Government .... 5^170,785. 14s. 6d. Thus, my Lord, it is sufficiently established, that if only Amount of the Government of this country deem the Educational ^* Question of sufficient importance to expend upon it one- hundredth part of the revenue derived from taxation, that then there will be provided far more educational assistance than the people are in a condition to avail themselves of Let it then be our prayer to Govern- ment, that they will proceed, as for some years past has been their habit. Only let us insist that there be at least £250,000 or £300,000 granted next year, with a promise of £50,000 or £75,000 a year additional, until it shall reach the maximum which the educational needs of the nation demand. It is not well that Par- liament should vote sums of money larger than the country can avail themselves of; and as school build- ing and inspection, and Normal Schools, will not re- quire ultimately more than £200,000 a year, it is to be hoped that there will, for the present^ be sufficient sur- plus arising out of this £200,000, to allow of liberal grants for masters' houses, in those cases where as yet there are no teachers' residences; and the £50,000 or £100,000, with its annual increment of 160 FINANCE NOT THE REAL DIFFICULTY. £50,000 or £75,000, will be found an assistance in the maintenance of schools, which the country will find to be a boon, and of which, it is to be hoped, the Church will be on the alert to avail itself Sereaf "°* I atu, my Lord, almost ashamed to have dealt even difficulty, ^i^^g much in financial detail. A tax of three and a half per cent, produces out of the wealth of the coun- try five millions and upwards per annum. God claims a tithe of our means ; and makiii; : God is not with him: no ministerino* anj^els wait upon him : by his own worldly wisdom he must stand or fall : and if he fall, men will wag their heads at the ruin of his abortive speculations, and say, * This man began to build, and was not able to finish/ " But if a work be begun in faith, with a single eye to God's glory ; with an entire devotion of heart and soul to the object in view ; and above all, with a per- fect reliance on the sufficiency of Divine Grace ; that work is not the work of man, but part of that great work of grace, which God will bring to pass ; a part of the daily employment of the ministering angels ; a work for the accomplishment of which the interces- sion of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, is offered up continually before the throne of God : a work in short which cannot fail, because the truth of God is pledged to its completion. " There is, therefore, this great and essential comfort in all spiritual undertakings ; that however inadequate the means employed may seem to be to the object pro- posed to be attained, let it only be clearly proved that the work is the work of God, and we may rest assured that our means will be multiplied, like the widow's barrel of meal and cruse of oil, till the work be finished, which God has given to us to do." Conclusion. Let US addrcss ourselves to the work of popular Reformation in this temper and spirit, and there shall be a multiplication among us of deeds of self-sacrifice like that of the accomplished founder of the College of St. Augustine, at Canterbury ; and of self-devoted- ness, such as is to be seen in the Colleges of St. An- drew's, Harrow Weald, and St. John's, Bishop Auck- land in New Zealand. Collegiate Institutions shall CONCLUSION. 167 rise up rapidly around us ; the world shall own the Church's supremacy, and be glad once again to wait upon her in duteous love, and of us it shall be true, that, trusting neither in chariots nor horses, but in the Name of our God, it shall be seen that God is amongst us, and that the Most High is our defence. The Sceptre of England's Queen shall be a fit em- blem of her rule, and in the Cross surmounting the orb shall be seen the token, that Victoria is in truth a Nursing Mother of the Church, and that her con- quests are hastening the day, when nation shall no more go out in war against nation, but all shall peacefully rejoice in the blessings which flow in luxuriant fulness among them, when the earth shall be full of the know- ledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. I am, My Lord Bishop, With all dutiful respect. Your Lordship's Faithful and obedient Servant, Alexander Watson. Cheltenham, October 29, 1846. 168 APPENDIX A. Note to^. (j7. Incorporated Some idea may be formed of the very inadequate approximation Buiidhig which tliis amount shows to the sum really raised and expended by Society. ^^g Church, when the following facts in connection with the Incor- porated Society for the Enlargement, Building, and Repairing of Churches are taken into consideration ; showing, as they do, that in the one department of Church Building alone more than Two Mil- lions and a half have been expended. Until the year 1843, no yearly account was kept by this Society of the estimated cost of the works, in aid of the execution of which, grants were made by the Board, and therefore the amount contributed to meet those grants can only be guessed at. I find that the estimates for the last four years were as follows ; — 1843. Estimated Cost jgl48, 744 Society's Grants . . £16,370 1844. Ditto .... 183,122 Ditto 22,020 1845. Ditto . . . 198,647 Ditto 23,721 1846. Ditto .... 196,657 Ditto 22,395 Total . . . j^727,170 Total .... £84,506 The Grants are therefore rather more than one-eighth of the esti- mated cost of those works which have been undertaken during the last four years ; but the grants are now in less proportion to the es- timates than during the first years of the Society's existence, and it would seem that at least five-sixths of the whole amount required to complete the operations commenced with the aid of the Institution must have been contributed from private sources and local Church Building Societies. Therefore as the total amount of grants made by the Society to the 31st of March, 1846, was ^407,511, the whole sum expended was not less than ^62,500,000. This estimate does not include all that has been contributed by the public in the cause of Church Building. No account has yet been obtained of the number of Churches built wholly at the expense of private individuals, but it is beheved that they are very numerous ; and the amount contributed to meet the sums advanced by the Com- missioners who were appointed in the year 1818, to appropriate the Parliamentary grant of ^61, 500,000 is not known, except in those cases aided also by this Society. APPENDIX. 169 A Table showing in one view what the Metropolis Churches' Fund has already accomplished, gives the following results : — Population 944,236 Church Accommodation, exclusive of New Churches 67,438 Number of New Churches 65 Cost of Site ^24,440 Cost of Building 229,017 Grant from the Metropolis Churches' Fund 127,019 Population of District attached 266,428 Number accommodated in New Churches 48,7l6 Number of Clergy 70 Number of Services weekly 95 Siui. 16 daily. Schools , 68 Number of Children 8,979 There are Six Churches in progress of erection, to Vhich grants have been made, and Sites for seven more have been obtained. APPENDIX B. Note, pp. 133, 138. It is impossible to overrate the good effect of training the children of our schools in the observance of the Church's holy times, and habituating them to attendance on the Daily Service, at least once a day. My own practice is to let the children attend the Afternoon Service : the day's work, which was begun with prayer and praise in the school, is thus ended with prayer and praise in the Sanctuary — the psalms and hymns being chanted by the children. The reverence and inteUigence which this system eUcits and fosters is most satis- factory. On the Church's Holy Days I allow no school work, beyond the saying of the Collect and a slight preparation for the catechizing in the Afternoon Service. I have found no difficulty with parents in enforcing this kind of discipline, and am glad to corroborate my own experience by that of the Rev. Cecil Wray, M.A., Incumbent of St. Martin's, Liverpool. He has been able to try the plan on a scale upon which I am unable to try it, owing to my non- parochial position. " In St. Martin's Schools, the experiment of giving instruction to the children of the middle classes under the same roof with the ordi- nary National School children, but in separate rooms, has been tried, and found to answer satisfactorily ; so that these higher schools are paying their own expenses. At present, twenty-seven boys, paying M 170 APPENDIX. 7s. a month, or 36 1 a quarter, have the advantage of the exclusive attention of an intelhgent master, trained at St. Mark's, Chelsea, receiving £75 per annum, with an assistant receiving ^20. In another room, about the same numher of girls, paying 5s. a month, or 14s. a quarter, are under the care of a schoolmistress receiving ^55, also with an assistant. Thus, more than fifty children, of an influential class, are receiving a substantial education upon moderate terms, in connection with the Church ; who otherwise, (since their parents will not send them to the National Schools,) would be alto- gether shut out from Church influences in the only sort of commer- cial schools ordinarily open to them, which are usually conducted by Dissenters. *' In St. Martin's Schools, no difference is made between these higher and the National Schools in the religious system pursued. All are equally under the daily superintendence of the Clergy ;— -all attend the Daily Service on Wednesday and Friday mornings ; — all have an entire holiday on the Festivals of the Church after Divine Service. And it is a remarkable fact, that not a single objection has been made by any of the parents to what, it was feared, might be considered a serious loss of time in the estimation of the world." I.ONnON : PRINTER BY JOSEPH MASTERS, AI.DERSOATB STREET. ^>-. ^•'■' ^^rt-T- m X '« *.!■ •^ •^ 1 ■•^] A " " m l^ ,v^ gy n .r« ) * ■ • . •• ^ ' rd ■ ■ ^ ■•*>-.' \ i il I 1 J • ' » -4 M 1 1 ■ ^fi >^ yv -*-, ; ♦. ':■» %:* iflfV iw. \ .1? 4 ■^ i .v* /' r > ,-,-<, / !^ ^i.'- \ . \ V ^ ^ - . -K \;