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tion may be your limit, and peace may be within your walls as long as you are there, and in all the land for ever after. But remember, that since the honour and service of his majesty, and the peace and prosperity of the church, the perpetuity of our fundamental laws, public justice, and the honour of all legal authority, the advancement of trade,

and the wealth of the nation is your design; remember, I pray, what warranty you have to expect all this; no less than the words of our Blessed Saviour, but it is upon these terms, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof, and all these things shall be added to you. Amen."

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

A Letter to Henry Brougham, Esq. M.P. on certain Clauses in the Education Bills now before Parliament. By S. Butler, D. D. F.A.S. Head Master of Shrewsbury School. 24 pp. Longman.

1820.

4 Letter to a Member of Parliament, shewing, (in these Days of Infidelity and Sedition,) the serious and dangerous Defects of the British and Foreign School, and of Mr. Brougham's Bill (now pending) for the general Education of the Poor. By Richard Lloyd, A. M. Rector of St. Dunstan in the West. 56 pp. Rivingtons. 1821.

THE great plan of parochial educa

tion submitted to the House of Commons by Mr. Brougham, was allowed, at his own suggestion, to stand over to another Session, that it might be fully understood and discussed by the country at large. But the circumstances of the times appear to have thwarted his design. For no question of equal importance which had been for six months before the country, was ever known to undergo so little examination or debate. The Edinburgh Review, indeed, has published an improved, and we presume, an authorized edition of the speech with which the was introduced by Mr. Brougham, and has further vindi.

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cated the plan against the objections of the Dissenters. Dr. Butler has turned his attention to those clauses which interfere with grammar schools, and as far as those clauses are concerned, has most completely done his work; and Mr. Lloyd has recapitulated and forcibly urged the dangerous consequences that may be expected from separating the national education from the national religion. But all these pamphlets put together, do not amount to any thing like an adequate discussion of the Bills. As the time is now approaching in which the consideration of the question will be resumed, we shall endeavour to supply a part of the deficiency of which we complain.

In the first Numbers of this work, we ventured to censure the proceedings of the Education Committee and its Chairman, and we remind the reader of this circumstance for the purpose of observing that the question then under agitation was very different from that upon which we are now to decide. The Universities and public schools are specially exempted from the provisions of the new Bills; the claims of the clergy have been unequivocally admittedample, if not speedy, justice has been rendered to their exertions and merits; and the prejudices of the dissenter have not been admitted as unanswerable arguments or as es

tablished laws. This being the case, Mr. Brougham is entitled to expect the same treatment as the author of any other great legislative measure. He must naturally be prejudiced in favour of his own plan; and he is guilty of that species of trimming which endeavours to render a system palatable to two opposite parties, by making civil speeches, and submitting in trifles, to both; but we are bound to give him credit for an intention to do good, and to assume that all the pains which he has bestowed upon the subject of education, are not merely to be set down to the cravings of ambition, or to the dictates of a liberal, that is, an anti-christian philosophy. Be lieving therefore, that he is anxious to improve the lower orders of his fellow-subjects, without transgressing against the general spirit of the institutions of his country, we proceed to offer our remarks upon the system which he advocates.

In the first place, we are perfectly ready to admit that the non-existence of parochial schools, is a defect in the existing laws of our country. At the time of the Reformation, it was certainly intended to establish such schools; but the lawgivers seem to have thought that it was sufficient to point out the authority under which schoolmasters should act, and the lessons which they should be bound to teach; and without making any specific provision for their maintenance, they left their remuneration to the persons who should be instructed (see the 77th, 78th, and 79th canons.) It is uncertain how soon the insufficiency of this system was discovered, but it appears to have been generally perceived and acknowledged, about the time of the Revolution, and to have paved the way for the foundation of the Charity Schools which were set up in London at the beginning of the last century. The origin of these schools we have in a good measure traced up to the celebrated Robert Boyle, and his rela

tions and friends. His sister, Viscountess Ranelagh, in the letter printed in the first volume of this Journal, p. 231, informs her correspondent, that they were consulting respecting the education of children, and says, " that, if at the beginning of the late profession of reformation, viz. in 1640, they had fallen to that practice, and paid as many school, masters as they had done military officers, listing regiments of children to be trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, instead of so many thousands of poor men to be sacrificed to the passions and lusts of their rulers, they had by that time reaped better fruits of their labours than disappointment, division, poverty, shame, and confusion." It is probable that charity schools had their origin from this source, and they were conducted, for many years, with great liberality and success.

Documents which we have already quoted, (Christian Remembrancer, vol. ii. p. 591.) shew that in 1709, the number of children under education in London and its immediate vicinity, amounted to 3412, and that the sum of money collected in that year for their support, exceeded £6000. There were also, at the same time, 227 places in England, comprehending all the principal provincial towns, in which schools had been established upon a similar principle. And it is certain that, at this period, the system was still in its infancy, and that the numbers continued to increase during many successive years. We ascertain this fact, as well from the early reports of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, as from a circumstance which has been alluded to in the Edinburgh Review, and which applies, in a very remarkable manner, to existing circumstances. The famous, or rather infamous, author of the Fable of the Bees, published a gross libel against the Charity Schools and their supporters; and the attack was renewed by an anonymous writer in the Brit

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ish Journal, No. 39. which was pub. lished on the 15th June, 1723. The Middlesex Grand Jury presented this work in the following month, stating, that, besides blasphemously reflecting on God and religion in general, it particularly vilified and traduced the members of the Church of England for their piety in contributing to erect and maintain Charity Schools, and it also represented these schools as impious seminaries, set up to deceive the puble, introduce popery, and carry on the Pretender's interest. They further" think themselves bound to observe the insolent and reproachful manner in which the two Universities are treated," and they quote the following passages from the libel which they present. "The Universities have debauched the principles of our nobility and gentry;" "lands and revenues are given to saucy, as piring, and lazy Ecclesiastics;""the founding and endowing Universities, Colleges, and Free-schools, carries the appearance of promoting sciences, learning, and true religion, and yet they have been made use of to promote the kingdom of anti-Christ, to debauch the principles of the nobility and gentry, deprave their understandings, advance learned ignorance, load their heads with airy chimeras, and fairy distinctions, fill states with desperate beggars, and divines of fortune, who must force a trade for subsistence, and become the cudgel or tools of power and faction." These extracts are made from a copy of the original presentment, which is given as an Appendix to "A Defence of the Charity Schools, by W. Hendley, Lecturer of St. Mary, Islington," published in 1725. The controversy clearly establishes the importance which was then attached to the subject, and that the schools were in an advancing, not in a declining state. It also enables us to ascertain why they were not ultimately successful. It was not the education of the poor, as the Edinburgh reviewer would make us believe, that REMEMBRANCER, No. 26.

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Dr. Mandeville and his colleagues disliked; they stated (Defence, p. 40.) that ́“ they would not condemn every thing of that nature, for under a proper regulation, something like it may be commendable." "That is, I suppose," says Mr. Hendley, if the children were under such masters and mistresses as should be obliged to teach them no other formulary of faith than the Independent Whig or Freethinker, and no other system of morality than the Fable of the Bees, then it might be commendable enough; then many good things should be spoken of it, and many assisting hands lent to the support of it! For this would soon effect their hellish design, viz. the destruction of the Christian religion, and promotion of the kingdom of Satan."

This remarkable passage, or we might almost say, prediction, acquaints us with the real reason of the failure of the Charity Schools: their success would have given too much power to the Clergy, and too much strength to the Church; and therefore they were virulently slan dered by the infidel; and were neglected by a government which was not unreasonably jealous of the Clergy of that day, and which preferred the security of the House of Hanover to the general education of the people. The Charity Schools were thus suffered to continue under private regulation and support, and they so far diminished the crying wants of the uneducated poor, as to make people contented with what had been done, and to silence every demand for a legislative provision. Moreover, the conductors of the schools, were unintentionally guilty of some capital errors. They clothed, and in many instances, boarded and apprenticed, a favoured few, instead of teaching all. They patronized, perhaps even invented, workhouses, which are now universally acknowledged to be productive of far more evil than good. And thus they gradually lost sight of

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their original object, and adopted another in its place. While we maintain therefore, with the most sovereign contempt for sectarian sneers, that the earliest and most persevering friends to general education, always have been, and are to be found in the bosom of the Church, we admit that their first great effort failed; and now that the public mind is again alive to the subject, when the French revolution has produced a similar effect to our own civil wars, by opening the eyes of a nation and a government which had been asleep for a century, now that no jealousy can exist between the Crown and the Clergy, and their merits are admitted, and their exertions eulogized, even by Mr. Brougham, we shall sincerely grieve, if advantage be not taken of these circumstances, to pass a Bill of the same character and title as that which is now brought forward.

In delivering this opinion, we are compelled reluctantly to differ from many of the warmest friends to education and to the Church. Persons, whose sentiments are entitled to the most respectful consideration, have maintained, that it is best to let matters take their course. Charity has been represented as a sort of sensitive plant, which will curl up its leaves and wither at the approach of a government debenture, or a parochial assessment. And upon the strength of this single argument, and of a few hacknied quotations from writers upon political economy, which have been stripped of their borrowed plumes by the Edinburgh Review, the whole question of the Education Bill is set at rest in a moment. No attention is paid to the very obvious fact, that after Parliament has made the most liberal provision, there will still be ample room for the exertions of the benevolent. They forget, that if Charity be coy and retiring, she is also as capricious as others of her sex, and may either bestow her smiles upon some new favourite, or withhold them altogether. They

forget, what, to our minds is deci sive of the question, that experience is directly opposed to such as would entrust public education to voluntary contributions. Happily, our Governors and our Clergy are not left to such an uncertain support. Our schools for the poor have been hi therto confided to it, and it has not sufficed. It has accomplished, and it can accomplish much for a season; but when the first ardour is relaxed, and the first judicious conductors have quitted the scene, minor points will always be pursued with an undue degree of interest; and a part, and only a small part of the whole, will be carried into effect. This is the very result which reason would lead us to anticipate; which we all expect upon other subjects; and which history actually describes as having formerly occurred. Theory and practice are both on one side; and we are not bold enough to ap peal from their joint decision.

We agree, therefore, with Mr. Brougham as to the expediency of a legislative enactment; and shall be very glad to find that the Edinburgh reviewer was authorized to declare that Parliament is ready to pass a Bill upon the subject. But should this assertion prove incorrect, should the reviewer turn out as ignorant of the inclinations of Parliament, as he is of the sentiments of the Clergy, there will still be no necessity to despair of future success. And while we agree with Mr. Brougham upon the justice and wisdom of parliamentary interference, we are so satisfied that he is mistaken in his estimate of its urgency, that it is a matter of perfect indifference to us whether a Bill be carried now or five years hence; indeed, except upon the principle of striking while the iron is hot, we believe that the more distant day would be the safer and most effectual. Mr. Brougham contends that there are only 7,500,000 people in England, who enjoy the benefits of education; and that as the popula tion amounts to 9,500,000, the dif

ference between these two sums will represent the present number of uneducated persons. The following extract from the Edinburgh Review gives the result of Mr. Brougham's calculations, in a more concise, and, we presume, a more authentic form, than any of the reports of his speech in the House of Commons.

"The result of the tables may now be shortly referred to, as establishing beyond all controversy, the want of education which now exists. The endowed schools in England teach about 165,000 children; the unendowed day schools 478,000. But this includes 53,000 taught at the dame schools, where infants are generally sent before they are of an age to go to school, or to learn almost any thing. It includes

also the lace and straw schools of the midland counties, where we much fear little that is useful is in general learnt. If, then, se deduct for these schools, we shall have about 590,000 children taught at day schools; and we must add about 10,000 for deficient returns, several parishes having made none. To this number of 600,000 are to be added the children belonging to persons in the upper and middle classes of society who educate their chil. dren, particularly daughters, at home or at boarding schools, not noticed in the Tables, though frequently in the Digest. Mr. Brougham, from the population returns, considered 50,000 as a proper allowance for this class, but if any thing, too small; and the next addition made was

incontestably much too large, except that he was desirous of rather understating than overstating the deficiency. He allowed, of the 452,000 taught at Sunday schools, 100,000 as attending those institutions beyond the numbers included in the column of day schools; the known fact being, that a greater proportion than seven-ninths of the Sunday scholars attend week-day schools. The grand total of children edueated in any way, even in the scanty meaSe dealt out by Sunday schools, is thus only 750,000. Now the lowest estimate of the means of education for any country, requires that there should be schools for one-tenth of the population; but from the Digest it clearly appears that a larger proportion is requisite, especially if we include the means for all classes, high as well as low. Mr. Brougham reckons rather more than one-ninth; but taking onetenth as the scale, it thus appears that there are only the means of educating seven millions and a half of the people of England, leaving no less than two millions

without any education, and three millions without the only effectual education, namely, that obtained at day schools. Let us shortly compare this with the state of is supposed to be well attended to." other countries, where popular education Edinb. Rev. No. 67, p. 227.

We consent to take the figures as they are given in this extract, but we cannot admit that they prove Mr. Brougham's case. He takes the number of children in day-schools at 600,000, and adds 50,000 for the children of the upper and middling classes who are taught at home or at boarding schools. It seems to be admitted that this last number is too small; but still it is used in the subsequent calculation. That it is too small by at least one half we have no manner of doubt; and our opinion is confirmed by a subsequent observation in the Review, respecting the comparative state of education in Middlesex and in the northern counties. It is in the former and other populous districts that the deficiency appears; and it is in them precisely that we find that prodigious number of boarding schools and day schools, which it is almost out of the power of a Clergyman to investigate. The charity schools, the free-school, if there happen to be one, and perhaps one or two conspicuous boarding schools may be accurately registered; but if Mr. Brougham really believes that he has procured a return of all the boarding schools which surround the metropolis, and of all the day schools, and evening schools, and night schools, which swarm in its allies, he is a more credulous man than we could have imagined. We shall take the liberty, therefore, of assuming the number of children educated in boarding schools, or at home, to be at least 100,000, and will proceed to point out a more important error. The Sunday schools contain 452,000, of whom Mr. Brougham asserts that seven-ninths attend week-day schools also: and, therefore, ought not to be reckoned. We are not furnished with the data

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