EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS.
ON the surface, Mr. Cobden's Public Schools speech at Manchester last week was one of the flattest that he ever delivered, and yet there lies in it one of the most startling announcements ever made by a man given to take the practical rather than the imaginative view : he not only foretells the speedy approach of a great religious commotion, but gives it so much present interest as to urge it in immediate modification of the public conduct. First let us understand the point of departure. Mr. Cobden avows that he was not originally in favour of education separated from religion : and most educationists would agree with him, that the development of the religious faculties is too important a part of training to be omitted from any complete system—if men could only agree upon it. But there lies the pinch of the whole_ sues- ton. The public educationist argues thus with Mr. Cobden : if we could all agree in defining religious trade and 'arranging the proper mode to impart it, we would place religion'at the head of our educational programme : but that agreement is nonexistent, and seems to be practically impossible ; shall we then forego edu- cation altogether, or make our arrangements cording' to known facts and practical necessities ? You cannot agree upon the religion to be taught, though you all agree in Ate necessity of teaching religion : but the fact is, that yett. hive- a machinery in churches and chapels for religions instruction,. thettgli it is not applicable for secular instruction; the thing- deficient, therefore, and to be supplied, is effective secular instruction; Auld the ques- tion is, whether you should defer giving that upini which you can agree, until you can give it together with that Upon which you cannot agree. The State of Massachusetts, founded 'by the Pilgrim Fathers, has made it a fundamental principle in the statute for erecting common schools, that no sectarian doctrine.sliall be taught. Holland has done the seine. If you limit your religious instruc- tion to the reading of the Scriptures—the- list Standing-point of those who object to purely secular instruction--yon tire pulled tip by the further question, whether you will use thisTretestant ver- sion, which would ipso facto exclude a large portitinof the poor in Manchester ; or whether Protestants will take active part in promoting the use of the Douay version. Per thObe reasons, Mr. Cobden goes with other advocates of religions education, in con- fronting and confessing the practical necessityIbr't,idatt...g_reliflious and secular instruction separately.. All this' wig excellently ar- gued—put With that clearness which justifies -the expectation of those who welcomed Mr. Cobden's not hurried adhesion to the Public School movement.
But he had .a further argument, and here lay the startling part of his announcement, If it has hitherto been necessary to se- parate religious instruction from Secular, it is peculiarly so at the
present time. .
"We have arrived at that period when all the world is agreed that secular education is a good thing for society.. All are agreed that it is a good thin that English boys and girls should be taught to read and 'write and spe4 and as much grammar and geography -as they can possibly imbibe. There its no difference of opinion about putting the elements of knowledge into the minds of every child in this land, if it can be done. But while we are united on that point, can any one who moves in society for a moment conceal front himself that we have also arrived at a time when we have probably most religious discord impending over us than at any other period of our history. When I speak of religious discord, I don't mean merely the dissensions be- tween the Roman Catholics and Protnitants ; I will not allude to them except so for as they lend to schisms and controversies in the internal state of other religious bodies. But I think there is, no doubt, at this moment looming in the distance, though not in the very remote distance either, a schism in the Church of England itself. You have two parties in 'that Church, the one perhaps stronger than the other in numbers, but the other far more strong in intellect and logic, which are going to divide the Church. Then I seo the Wesleyan body also torn asunder by a schism which thia moat sanguine ealt hardly hope to see healed. I do not think several other • religious bodies are perfectly tranquil in their internal organization. NOw, while we have the prospect of these great internal dissensions in religiousbodies, and while tre are all agreed that secular edueation is a desirable-thing, would it be de- sirable if it could be effected, if it were practicable---which I believe it is not—that our national system of education should be one united and booed up with the religious organizations, and by which the scbisms which prevail in the churches must necessarily be transferred with increased virulence to the schools ?"
To this formidable list of schismatics Mr. Cobden added another, later in his speech-
" As there is in certain districts reason to fear that a great number of the working classea are not in community either with Dissent or Church, he feared it would very much alienate them from those who took an impracticabbi course—s course which should prevent the diffusion of education among the working classes by setting up obstacles which it would be, impossible for ra- tional men to remove."
Now Cobden, we say, is not among the imaginative men—you would not class him with the poets or the romance-writers of the day he sees things as they are, or if he has a fault it is in being behind the foremost to recognize a new fact. He has a peculiar sympathy with the average mind of England : as those which are equal to the same are equal to one another, if Cobden and the Times agree, you may deduce the third term that the People of England agrees also. It will startle many moderate unobservant folks, therefore, when Cobden describes every section of the reli- gious world as moved by schism and threatening to divide ; still more, when he makes that commotion so imminent as to use it among the facts necessary to be taken into the account now, while concerting arrangements for a system of public school education.
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