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CHAP. had been predicted as to the effects of the currency bill passed so unanimously in the preceding year by both Houses of Parliament."

1820.

The Parliamentary debates of 1820 embrace fewer topics than usual of general moment, in consequence of the engrossing interest of the proceedings regarding the Queen, to be immediately noticed. But three subjects of

* The revenue of Great Britain and Ireland for 1820 and 1821 stood thus:

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1820.

56.

subjects of

this session.

lasting importance were brought forward-namely, that CHAP. of general education, introduced by Mr Brougham; the disfranchisement of Grampound, by LORD JOHN RUSSELL; and Free Trade, by Mr Wallace of the Board of Trade. Important On the first point it is superfluous to give the speeches, debate in even in an abbreviated form, because the subject is one upon which the minds of all men are made up. It is no more necessary to prove that the sun's rays will give light and warmth, than that the lamp of knowledge will illuminate and humanise the mind. But the subject, as all others in which the feelings of large bodies of men are warmly interested, is beset with difficulties; and Mr Brougham's speech was replete with valuable information on it. His project, which was for the establishment, as in Scotland, of a school, maintained by the public funds, in every parish, failed chiefly from its proposing to connect the schools with the Established Church, which

at once lost for it the support of all the Dissenters. But 1Martineau,

the facts which he had collected were of lasting value i. 265. in the great cause of moral and social improvement.1 *

57.

education in

According to Mr Brougham's statement, there were then 12,000 parishes or chapelries in England; of these, 3500 Statistics on had not a vestige of a school, endowed or unendowed, England and the people had no more means of education than the and Wales, Hottentots or the Caffres. Of the remainder, 3000 had Brougham. endowed schools, and the remaining 5500 were provided only with unendowed schools, depending entirely on the

"No scheme of popular education can ever become national in this country, which gives the management of schools and appointment of masters to the Church, while Dissenters constitute a large proportion of the inhabitants in almost every district, and especially in the most populous, where the Dissenters bear their full share in such education as already exists. This difficulty was immediately fatal to Mr Brougham's measure, and has been so in every scheme proposed in succeeding years; the members of the Established Church insisting on direct religious instruction as a part of the plan, and the Dissenters refusing to subject their children to the religious instruction of the Church, or to pay for a system from which their children are necessarily excluded."-Miss MARTINEAU'S Thirty Years of Peace, i. 265.

by Mr

X.

1820.

CHAP. casual and fleeting support of the parents of the children attending them. The number of children annually receiving education at all the schools, week-day and Sunday, was 700,000, of whom only 600,000 were at day-schools, where regular attendance was given and discipline enforced. Fifty thousand were estimated as the number educated at home, making in all 750,000 annually under tuition of one sort or another, which, taking the population of England at 9,540,000, the amount by the census of 1811, was about one-fifteenth of the whole population.

But in reality the population of England was proved, by the census taken in the succeeding year, to be considerably greater that he supposed, for it amounted to no less than 11,260,000, besides 470,000 in the army, navy, and mercantile sea-service. Thus the real proportion receiving education was not more than one-seventeenth of the entire population; a small figure for a country boasting so great an amount of intelligence and civilisation, for in many countries with less pretensions in these respects the proportion was much higher. In Scotland the proportion at that period was between one-ninth and onetenth; in Holland it was one-tenth; in Switzerland, oneeighth; in Prussia, one-tenth; in Austria, one-eleventh. In France to its disgrace be it said-the proportion was still one-twenty-eighth only, though 7200 new schools had been opened in the last two years. But though England presented a much more favourable aspect, yet there the deficiency was very great; for the total children 1 Parl. Deb, requiring education were about 1,000,000, and as 750,000 ii. 61, 65, only were at any place of education, it followed that 1820; Ann. 250,000 persons, or a quarter of the entire juvenile population, were yearly growing up without any education whatever.1*

June 28,

Reg. 1820, 50, 51.

Mr Brougham stated that in endowed schools 165,432 children were educated, and 490,000 in unendowed, besides 11,000 who might be allowed for the unendowed schools in 150 parishes, from which no returns had been obtained.

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1820.

58.

of this sub

an assess

It is abundantly evident from these facts, and the CHAP. same has been proved in other countries, that no reliance can be placed on the voluntary system for the support of education, and that unless the means of instruction Difficulties are provided at the public expense, the education of the ject, and people will always be in a most unsatisfactory state, and necessity of its blessings in a considerable portion of society wholly ment. unknown. Whatever ministers to the physical necessities or pleasures of the people is easily rendered selfsupporting, but it is otherwise with what tends to their moral improvement or social elevation. These can never be safely left to private support, for this plain reason, that a large portion of society, and that the very one which most stands in need of them, is wholly insensible to their value, and will pay nothing for their furtherance. Had the property which once belonged to the Church still remained in its hands, and been righteously administered, it might have solved the difficulty, because it was adequate to the gratuitous support of the whole religious and educational institutions requisite for the country. But as so large a part of it had been seized on by private cupidity, and been alienated from the Church at the Reformation, this precious resource was lost, and nothing remained but assessment, and there the difficulty at once is felt.

59.

ties, and

At first sight, it appears easy to solve the difficulty by simply establishing a school-rate in every parish, to be Its difficulcollected along with the poor-rate and prison-rate, and attempts at which, at a trifling cost to the community, would afford to tion. the children of all adequate means of instruction. This was what Lord Brougham proposed in England, and

Of this number 53,000 were at dame schools, where only the rudiments of education were taught. Small as the proportion of educated children was, it had only become such as it was of late years, for of the total educated about 200,000 were at 1520 Lancasterian schools, which only began to be established in 1803, so that before that time not more than one-twentieth of the population was annually receiving instruction.-Ann. Reg. 1820, 50.

their solu

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CHAP. which has been long established with great success in America. But a difficulty, which has hitherto been found 1820. insurmountable, lies at the very threshold in this country, which is the more serious that it arises from the combined sincere convictions and selfish jealousies of the ministers of religion and their zealous followers. What religion is to be taught? Is it to be the Episcopalian, Catholic, or Dissent? If the last, which Dissent, for their name is legion? So great is this difficulty, that it has hitherto been found insurmountable both in England or Ireland, and caused all attempts at a general system of education to fail. Each sect not only gives no support to any attempt to establish any general system of education connected with any other sect, but meets it with the most strenuous opposition. Nor is this surprising, for each considers its own tenets and forms the ones most conducive to temporal wellbeing-and not a few, the only portals to eternal salvation.

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Scotland is the exception. Its parochial schools were established in 1696, when the fervour of the Reformation in a community as yet only agricultural had produced an unusual degree of unanimity on religious subjects, and the burden was laid entirely on the landholders. No general school-rate could by possibility succeed now, in the divided state of the religious world in that country. The difficulty might perhaps be solved by simply levying a rate, and dividing it in each parish, for the support of schools, in proportion to the number of families. belonging to each considerable persuasion; and possibly this is the way in which alone the difficulty can ultimately be overcome. In urban parishes, at least, where the evils of want of education for the poor are most strongly felt, it would be easy to establish in every school a room or rooms, in which the elements of secular education are taught to all, while in an adjoining apartment the children of the different persuasions are in succession in

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