And upon which this calculation is found at present day-schools to hold them. Sunday-schools are also very principally composed of children who have learned to read and write at the day-schools, and are taken away by their parents at an early age. This is the legitimate use and application of the system; and it is fatal to Mr. B.'s theory of seven-ninths. Instead of calculating, therefore, that there are 100,000 only to be reckoned for the Sunday-schools, let us assume what is below the truth, that 200,000, or nearly four-ninths of the whole may be fairly counted. This number added to the 700,000 who receive daily education, will leave only half a million of uneducated people. Nor will it follow that the 50,000 children whom this half million ought to furnish to our schools, are destitute of the means of education. Very few of our large schools are as full as they might be. Ten per cent might on an average be added without inconvenience to the day schools, and a still larger proportion to the Sunday schools; and while we admit that the latter do not furnish as much as is required, except under very peculiar and favourable circumstances, still we cannot consent to set them wholly aside, or to speak of children who might attend them, as unprovided with the means of education. Another, and we fear a very formidable deduction must be made before we can ascertain the real want of school room, viz. the amount of those who would neglect, if they possessed it. It is usually said that children ought to continue at school from seven to fourteen years of age; and no doubt it is desirable that they should. But if Mr. B.'s calculation of one-tenth as the propor tion of the population that ought to be under education, rests upon this principle, we are quite convinced that it never can apply to a populous town, or a manufacturing county. In such places you may offer education gratis, and give clothes into the bargain, and half your children will be taken from The same thing may be proved in a different way. Sunday-schools are most numerous in manufacturing counties, where the labour of children is too valuable to be sacrificed to their education. Can it be believed that these children frequent day-schools in the proportion of seven-ninths? In fact there are not your day schools at twelve years of age. And what is worse, many children will never be brought to you at all; but will be suffered by their parents to wallow in filth and vice while they are little, and will be required to labour, perhaps, beyond their strength, as soon as they are old enough to work. In large towns, more especially in the worst educated of all towns, which according to Mr. B. is this metropolis, these habits have gained such a hold of the lowest description of people, and the size of our parishes has so much diminished the influence of the Clergy, that a rapid alteration cannot reasonably be expected. The theorist may calculate how many children out of every hundred ought to attend his schools; and may fancy that all who can will avail themselves of the privilege, and even contribute moderately to wards the remuneration of the teacher. But we never yet met with any practical man who affirmed that this was really the case in the neighbourhood of great towns. And we are confident that many years must pass away before all who are of an age to be educated will accept the offer, much more pay the price, the lowest price of education. On the whole, we conclude, from Mr. Brougham's own figures, that the number of children who are anxious, but unable to gain admission even to a day school, is very small, and that almost every child may attend a Sunday school if his parents please. We believe also that the deficiency which does exist is diminishing, and, therefore, that the real ground upon which Mr. Brougham's proposition must be defended, is that of the permanence and security which it promises to afford to the sacred cause of a national and Christian education. We proceed to consider the details of the plan. But as abstracts of both the bills have been already presented to our readers; as Mr. B.'s explanation of them, in his speech, has been widely circulated and generally read, and as the Edinburgh Review has also given a succinct account of the entire scheme, we shall not attempt at present to go over this ground, but content ourselves with expressing a favourable opinion of all those parts of the first bill which relate to the institution of the schools, and the choice, and appointment, and removal of the master, &c. &c. Here Mr. Brougham appears to have put forth his greatest strength. The enactment strikes us as being at Once simple and complete; and if he can prevail upon the House of Commons to assent to this portion of his scheme, he will neither do justice to himself, nor to the cause which is at stake, if he refuses to modify some subsequent provisions which in their present shape must ensure the ultimate failure of the whole. On one point, however, he has been guilty of an omission, or we would rather hope an oversight. There is no mention whatsoever of separate schools for girls, or of the election, appointment, or remuneration of school-mistresses. presume that this defect cannot have been designed, at least if it be, it renders the whole measure incom plete, and we should prefer the present system with all its insecurity, to one that would virtually abandon the female poor to ignorance, and, perhaps, expose them to other evils, compared with which ignorance itself would be a blessing. We The clauses which relate to the teaching and instruction of the children are drawn up with less precision than the preceding parts of the bill; and like other half measures, they are calculated to give universal dissatisfaction. Mr. Brougham has been defended in the Edinburgh Review, by some one who is intimately acquainted with his views and wishes, against those objections to his scheme which the Dissenters were so eager to express. If the character of that journal for consistency, and honesty, had not long since breathed its last, the article upon the New Plan of Education for England, would certainly give it a death-blow. The writer argues half in jest and half in earnest, for a Church-establishment, and a regularly ordained ministry. As to his ancient allies, the conductors of the British and Foreign School Society, he laughs at them almost as openly as a friend of his once laughed at Dr. Wood. Mr. Fox, and Mr. Allen are treated by the Review in the same way that the Universities and the Clergy were treated by the Education Committees. And the Quakers must now perceive that they owed the triumph of that day to the wit and sarcasm of an indivi. dual who spares neither friend nor foe. It must be owned, however, that in their case the pill is cunningly gilt. But unless their minds are as simple as their raiment, they must feel insulted by the ironical compliments which are lavished on them; and unless they have thrown away that shrewdness which is gerally concealed beneath the broad-brimned beaver, they must laugh at the sophistry by which they are assailed. They are honest open Quakers: they do do not love the Church, and cannot conscientiously promote its enlargement or security. They see that it has derived strength from the National Schools; and they think that the establishment, connected with parochial schools in any manner, must contribute more or less to produce the same effect. We cannot deny that they are in the right; and we cannot think that even Mr. Brougham will ever persuade them that they are in the wrong. And if he attempts to get over their scruples by half measures and palliating clauses, he will in fact only rivet their scruples and confirm their suspicions, while at the same time he may very possibly alienate and offend the only body who really desire to see his plan carried into effect; the only persons who must always be friendly to parochial schools; viz. the parochial Clergy, and their supporters. But what are these half measures which are to reconcile vinegar and oil? The Clergyman has his veto upon the master elected by the parishioners; he has a right to enter the school, and examine the master and the scholars, to point out what portions of Scripture shall be read, and what parts of the Liturgy shall be learned: the Catechism is to be taught for three or four hours in the course of the week, and for three hours on the Sunday afternoon, and the children are to attend divine service in the Church once on every Sabbath. But then per contra, Mr. Allen and Mr. William Smith, and any other Quakers or Unitarians who take an interest in the bills, will find that they secure to him the following advantages. "No form of prayer or worship is to be used in the school except the Lord's Prayer, or other select passages of Holy Scripture in the authorized version." And " if any parent or guardian shall notify to the master that he desires that his children may not attend on the days and at the hours when such Catechism or portions of the Liturgy are taught as aforesaid, such scholar shall not in any manner of way be obliged to attend." And under the same circumstances no scholar shall be obliged to attend the worship of the Church of England, provided such scholar attends at some other place of public worship. These are the sops which Mr. Brougham throws out to the Dissenters; and we imagine they will be rejected on the following grounds. In the first place, the schoolmaster having been approved by the Clergyman, affords a strong presumption, as Mr. Allen said in his evidence before the Education Committee, that he will not be the best man that might have been selected. And it is a serious grievance to send children to the school of an inferior master, when a first-rate master might have been obtained by applying to the said Mr. Allen, British and Foreign School Society. In the second place, the Clergyman may at all times enter the said school and "examine the scholars touching their proficiency:" and it is not said that any other person shall enjoy the same privilege. Now it is notorious that on the National System the principles of the Church are always inculcated by way of examination; so that the Clergyman, seriously speaking, may convert all the little heretics in his parish. To remedy which inconvenience another clause must be added, providing that whenever the Clergyman enters the school, the young Quakers and Socinians shall be at liberty to decamp, and "shall not be punished, rebuked, or otherwise chastised for 50 doing." taught his disciples, is not only a These the In the third place, though the prohibition of all forms of prayer, except the Lord's Prayer, or other select passages of the Holy Scripture, appears to be a master stroke of latitudinarian legislation; yet it does not by any means meet the wishes of the whole body of Dissenters. A British and Foreign Schoolmistress at Swansea, is known (vide Christian Remembrancer, vol. i. p. 224.) to have declared that she would not read any prayers: she belonged to the New Jerusalem, and had long ago rejected prayer as one of the beggarly elements of the law. The Quakers, according to their writings at least, for with their practice we are not acquainted, reject all set times and all set forms Lastly, the great body of the prayer; and the great body of Dissenters would undoubtedly dethe orthodox Dissenters are so far clare that Mr. Brougham had defrom feeling that exclusive attach- fended them when they were in no ment to the Lord's Prayer, which danger of an attack; and left them Mr. Brougham and his Reviewer exposed to the assaults of the only imagine, that in the Directory for enemy whom they fear. The PresPublic Worship, which was agreed byterians, the Baptists, the Indeupon by the Assembly of Divines at pendents, the Methodists, do not, Westminster, in the year 1645, and cannot consider it an important which is still the only acknowledged advantage, to escape from the Lirule of the genuine English Presby- turgy, the Creeds, and the Cateterians, and is actually the order for chism-For they all contend that the Established Church of Scotland, their fundamental doctrines are to only mentions the Lord's Prayer be found in the formularies of the once, and speaks of it on that oc- Church; and they complain of the casion in the following words; "And Church, and leave the Church bebecause the prayer which Christ cause, as they say, it has renounced of the real sense of its own formularies. gether, if they could get rid of the Trinity at the same time; who make up for the paucity of their numbers by the vivacity of their vociferations; and whose faith, or whose no faith, is not professed by one thousand th part of those persons for whose benefit parochial schools are intended. Mr. Jeremy Bentham has undoubtedly declared that the Catechism consists of nothing but lies. But the Nonconformist objection to the Catechism is, that it does not go far enough: that the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, justification, sanctification, &c. are not explained and insisted upon; that it might be improved, not as Bentham and other unbelievers assert, by curtailment, but by amplification. (History of Nonconformity, p. 174, and 307.) These were the opinions of Baxter and his pious associates; these were the opinions of Watts, and of Doddridge, and of Wesley; and their successors and disciples occupy the most respected place among modern dissenters, though they are treated by Mr. Brougham with the least respect. And what would these good men particularly desire, if they might introduce a clause into the bill for parochial schools? The rejection of creeds? The denial of the Trinity, and all its kindred mysteries? The debasement of Christianity to the level of natural religion? Or its elevation to the heights of their own enthusiasm, with a liberty to be themselves the instruments of the blessed work? Ascertain the real sentiments of the real dissenters, and it will be found that what they dread is the influence of the clergy; and that what they covet is the advancement of their own. And they will give us up our Liturgy, our Creeds, and our Catechism, and we almost think that they would allow their children to attend Church once on every Sunday, if in return they might be permitted to have an equal right with the clergyman to enter the schools and examine the children. It is plain that Mr. Brougham considers their wish as unattainable; and therefore it is also plain, that his enactment in its present form, can never give satisfaction to the majority of the dissenters. It is merely calculated to silence his friends at the "British and Foreign," who would give up education alto. These are the grounds upon which the dissenters object to Mr. Brougham's middle way; and if they are satisfied with his sneering answers and unintelligible explanations, they are the most simple, credulous, good natured men alive. But he has given no answer to a set of men whose sentiments we will not advocate, even in jest; and who are neither simple, nor credulous, nor good natured. He has not told, and he cannot tell, the Carliles, the Hunts, the Woolers, and the Hones, why their children should be present at any worship whatsoever. They have as good a claim to consideration as any other separatists; they will be rated to the school rate, they will have a vote in the appointment of a schoolmaster; and yet their children will not be able to attend the school, without running a risque of being taught to believe in the existence of God. Let Mr. Brougham, or the Edinburgh Review, answer this specious reasoning; and after that it will be time enough to turn to the following paragraph, in which we shall endeavour to enumerate a few of the objections which churchmen entertain to the part of his bill under consideration. The Edinburgh Reviewer assures us, that "the plan in question confessedly and openly connects itself with the Church Establishment; it avows and claims this alliance :" and it is on this ground alone that the plan can be entertained by churchmen for one moment. For from the moment that the Bishop of Peterborough's celebrated sermon was published, they have declared, one and all, that they never will consent to separate the national education from |