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committee resolved: * "That after the information which has been laid before them by the sub-committee of correspondence, the board are of opinion that no sufficient case has been shown for departing from the terms of union......but they recommend that every facility which those terms admit be given to the managers of schools for the education of factory children."

Well may it be asked:-"And now how teach religion?-By plying with liturgies, catechisms, credos; droning thirty-nine or other articles incessantly into the infant ear? Friends! In that case, why not apply to Birmingham and have machines made, and set up at all street corners, in highways and byways, to repeat and vociferate the same, not ceasing night or day? The genius of Birmingham is adequate to that. Depend upon it Birmingham can make machines to repeat liturgies and articles; to do whatsoever feat is mechanical. And what were all schoolmasters, nay, all priests and churches, compared with this Birmingham iron church! Votes of two millions in aid of the church were then something. You order, at so many pounds a head, so many thousand iron parsons as your grant covers; and fix them by satisfactory masonry in all quarters, wheresoever wanted, to preach there independent of the world. In loud thoroughfares, still more in unawakened districts, troubled with argumentative infidelity, you make the windpipes wider, strengthen the main cylinder; your parson preaches to the due pitch, while you give him coal, and fears no man or thing. Here were a 'church-extension' to which I, with my last penny, did I believe in it, would subscribe."+

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If the saying of Raleigh that "there is nothing in any State so terrible as a powerful and authorized ignorance" be true, as most undoubtedly it is, then is it lamentable indeed that differences about catechisms and formulas should stand in the way of united efforts against the common foe. "Powerful and authorized," the classes that are now ignorant must eventually become. Society has yet to decide whether the removal of ignorance shall, or shall not, precede the attainment of power.

None can doubt that the exclusive direction of popular education by the clergy of the established church is no longer possible. At least, to doubt it would seem to involve the expectation of a miracle. The separation of religious instruction into general and special; the former to be given by the schoolmaster, the latter by the ministers of the various religious denominations to which the parents of the children belong, appears to be the fairest and best course that could be adopted under existing circumstances.*

But, if the objections to it be found to continue for the present insuperable, there is yet an alternative which would enable the State to establish schools in districts neglected by voluntary societies. It consists in the adoption of the principle already acted upon in respect to the schools connected with Poor Law Unions, that, namely, of employing salaried clergymen to visit such schools statedly in order to afford religious instruction to the children attached to the Church of England,

* In the pamphlet entitled, "State Education," already more than once referred to, the Rev. Baden Powell has shown conclusively that religious instruction neither is nor can be in practice afforded at all, without the very division into general and special, which has been so much clamoured against.

leaving all other religious instructors admissible upon special demand.

However this point be settled, I cannot, for my own part, entertain a doubt that the difficulty will, ere long, be removed from our path. We have no want so great or so urgent as this of a truly National Education. Many noble-minded men, and women too,-for in this work they must take no unimportant a part-are devoting their best energies to its realization; and believing, as I devoutly do, that 'man's aspirations are God's promises,' I cannot doubt of their full and enduring

success.

And that success will be the heritage, not only of Britain but of the world.

"Change wide and deep, and silently performed,

This land shall witness, and as days roll on,
Earth's universal frame shall feel the effect,
Even till the smallest habitable rock,
Beaten by lonely billows, hears the songs
Of humanized society, and blooms
With civil arts, that send their fragrance forth
A grateful tribute to all-ruling Heaven.
From culture, unexclusively bestowed
On England's noble race, in freedom born,
Expect these mighty issues; from the pains
And faithful care of unambitious schools,
Instructing simple childhood's ready ear;
Thence look for these magnificent results!"

Additional Note.-School Inspection, (p. 284.)

Since the observations in the text were written, this point has been settled, as respects the objections of the clergy, by an arrangement that the inspectors of schools in connexion with the established church shall be appointed by the Committee of Council, subject to the approval of the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, each for his own province. The following is an extract from the minutes of the committee on the subject, dated July 15, 1840:—

"Resolved, 1. That before any person is recommended to the Queen in Council to be appointed to inspect schools receiving aid from the public, the proprietors of which state themselves to be in connexion with the National Society, or the Church of England, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York be consulted by the Committee of Privy Council, each with regard to his own province; and that they be at liberty to suggest any person or persons for the office of inspector, and that no person be appointed without their concurrence.

"2. That the inspectors of such schools shall be appointed during pleasure, and that it shall be in the power of each archbishop at all times, with regard to his own province, to withdraw his concurrence in such appointment, whereupon the authority of the inspector shall cease, and a fresh appointment take place.

"3. That the instructions to the inspectors with regard to religious instruction shall be framed by the archbishops, and form part of the general instructions to the inspectors of such schools, and that the general instructions shall be communicated to the archbishops before they are finally sanctioned.

"That each inspector at the same time that he presents any report relating to the said schools to the Committee of the Privy Council, shall transmit a duplicate thereof to the archbishop, and shall also send a copy to the bishop of the diocese in which the school is situate for his information.

"4. That the grants of money be in proportion to the number of children educated, and the amount of money raised by private contribution, with the power of making exceptions in certain cases, the grounds of which will be stated in the annual returns to parliament."-Commons' Papers, No. 490.

CHAPTER XII.

GENERAL REVIEW, IN CONCLUSION, OF THE ADMINISTRA

TIVE ECONOMY OF THE ARTS OF DESIGN IN ENGLAND,
ITS STATE AND PROSPECTS.

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