IRISH EDUCATION.
ON this question there exists a more serious and conscientious difference of opinion than its own merits would seem to warrant. The Government Plan is opposed by all the Anti-Reformers, be- cause it is the plan of a Reforming Ministry ; but it is also op- posed by Whigs as well as Tories, and by Dissenters as well as Churchmen; and many of its opponents are above all doubt as to their intelligence, and above all suspicion as to their motives. In Devonshire, where the utmost efforts of the Tories could not press a couple of thousand names, in a population of half a million, into the service of opposition to the Refbrm Bill, ten thousand :names were attached, in ten days, to a petition against the Educe- Alan Plan. In Scotland, the great name of CHALMERS stands among its opponents; and with his name is associated that of .DPCRie, the historian of Ksrox, and the zealous advocate of civil Lana religious liberty. This distinguished person took the lead at msmeeting at Edinburgh a few clays ago ; where he moved and supported fin a more ornate strain of eloquence, by the way, than we should have expected from the stern Covenanter) a string of resolutions against the plan. At the same time, there was ano- ther meeting, of an opposite character, where the most distin- guished members of the late great Reform meeting (Sir JAMES GIBSON CRAIG, Sir T. DICK LAUDER, Mr. J. A. MURRAY, 84.0, and a number of Clergymen, concurred in a zealous support of the plan: A few days before this, a meeting at Glasgow, assembled on a requisition by the opponents of the plan, voted a resolution, by a majority of live to one, in its favour.
The question is certainly important, but we can see little diffi- culty init. Passing by those who find it a very convenient han- dle for embarrassing the Government, there are many pious per- sons who seem to have been seized with a sudden panic which has allowed.them only to cast an alarmed and hurried glance at the object of their terror, and deprived them of the power of cool and steady examination of its shape.
It is one of the functions of the Government to provide means ' for the education of the People. . The wise legislation of Scotland, by giving to every parish its schoolmaster,.to teach the elements of -useful knowledge,—a man of approved morals and tried capa- city; who instructs the children of the poor for a price suited to their means, and has his income made up by a trifling assessment on the proprietors of land,—has rendered every little parochial .metropolis a centre from which civilization has radiated over the land. But it is none of the functions of the Government to in- terfere-with the religious belief of the People. If Government has no right to make religious belief the subject of persecution, or of penal disqualification, neither has it the right to turn the educa- tion of youth into the means of biassing their religious belief. What is to be bestowed by education is—the elements of know- ledge, or, more properly, the means of knowledge,—the power • of perusing "her ample page," and the capacity of judging between good and evil. Of absolute knowledge, the quantity bestowed during the process of education is small, compared to the amount which every man, however low his station, has it in his -power to gain for himself in after life. His instruc- tor may render his lessons in reading the means of impressing him with the great truths of religion, or laying before him illus- trious examples of virtue ; but his character will depend on the use which he himself shall afterwards make of the means of know- ledge. Now, in regard to things sacred, the State has provided a great class of public instructors, whose special functions arc to tends religion by their precepts, and to exemplify its effects by their lives. -Whether the true religion requires to be supported by such an establishment, needs not be made- a question now. It is sufficient that it is so supported. But its support implies not the " slightest control (such as .would be exercised in a system of religious education) over the freedom of belief. As the servants of the State, the Established Clergy engage themselves to teach the religion of the State, whether their flock be few or ninny; and, thetefore, there is a reason for their being maintained by the State. In all other respects, they enter the field on equal terms with reli- gious teachers of every other kind ; and their comparative success will depend partly on the zeal of their labours and the impression created by their lives, and partly on the intellectual capacity of the-people. The better educated the people are, the more success- ful will be the teachers of pure Protestantism, provided they exer- cise their functions as zealously and well as the teachers of Popery.
Such being the case, it is very clear that the diffusion of educa- tion among the Irish people will conduce, above all things, to the spread of Protestantism. But how is the diffusion of education to be effected? Is it by adopting a system, which, by running full in'the teeth of the feelings and prejudices of the Catholic popula- tion, will be rejected by their whole body? or is it by adopting a syStem of which-all will eagerly avail themselves when they find that it contains nothing offensive ? Of the latter kind is the system so vehemently objected to. The • children, in the new schools, are to read extracts from the Bible, so selected as to contain nothing which involves controversy between the Catholic and Protestant modes of faith. The reading of ex- tracts, surely, can do no harm; and, in fact, it is just what is done in every school in England and Scotland where religious instruc- tion is introduced. The whole Bible is not used in any of these schools—why, therefore, in those of Ireland? Much of the Bible, . considered in relation to the instruction of youth, is indifferent; Isome of it (in this light) absolutely improper, nth) always with. held : and the selections, it is to be presumed, will be those which will give the best lessons of morality, and the simplest views of Christianity. As to the character of the extracts, when it is con,' sidered that they are to be made under the eyes of a board eons, sisting chiefly of Protestants, and having the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin at their head, it is idle to suppose that they will contain any thing improper, or that they will differ (extept, perhaps, in the greater care bestowed upon their selection) fronsthe extracts in common use in Great Britain.
But it is said, that, if the use of the whole Bible is not per- mitted in the schools, its interdiction by the priests will prevent the Catholic population from emerging, through its means, from the religious darkness which surrounds them. But, if the Popish priests have the power to forbid their parishioners to read the Bible, have they not the power to forbid them to send their chil- dren where it is read ? The only result would be, that none of the Catholic children would attend the schools ; and the great object of educating and civilizing them would be defeated. On the other hand, let schools be established to which Catholic parents can freely send their children ; let the Protestant clergy labour zealously in the vineyard; and in another generation it will be seen whether it is possible to withhold the Scriptures from a people prepared, by education, for their reception, and inflamed with an irresistible desire to possess the sacred volume.
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