28 AUGUST 1852, Page 10

THE OSCOTT MANIFESTO.

No candid man, considering the instinctive jealousy which churches have always exhibited towards education that was not under their own control, and also considering the difficulties which in Eng- land have hitherto foiled the efforts of those who wish to see es-

tablished a national system of education, will be disposed to cen- sure very strongly the recommendations made by the Romish ec- clesiastics assembled at Oscott with reference to the education of

the poor children of their communion. Undoubtedly it is very sad, that children should from their earliest years be trained to look with suspicion and dislike on their neighbours and future fellow-citizens ; that a theological cordon sanitaire should be drawn round them, beyond which they are taught to believe there is moral contamination. But this is no more than happens to most children born in England within the pale of the Church, or of any of her rival Protestant sects • and we must not be surprised or annoyed

that Papists should t:e as sensitive as ourselves on the religions

dangers to their children from coinmunication with heretics and unbelievers. Those who have been the leading opponents of what they term a godless education for poor children, will not perhaps regret the total withdrawal of the children of Roman Catholics from Protestant schools ; believing that the mere presence of children who do not belong to their own church tends to shake the faith and loosen the convictions of those who do. For the rest of us, we must be content with the efficiency of education supplied by the rivalry of sects instead of the efficiency that results from a wise economy of means, and the simple direction of school-labours to the one end of acquiring useful knowledge, and in the process forming such habits of mind as lay the foundation of happiness and virtue in maturer years. Nevertheless, one cheering fact is to be gathered from this Oscott pastoral. The Roman Catholic clergy have the credit of knowing the poor of their congregations much more intimately than the clergy of most of our Protestant denominations. 'Whether their superiority in this respect is genuine or not, their evidence on any point connected with the feelings of the poor English Catholics is noteworthy and important; and they recognize such a desire for sound secular knowledge among the poor, as to be apprehensive for the stability of their faith unless it can be satisfied in schools purely Catholic, and ground on this fact an earnest appeal to the wealthier members of the communion to provide the funds neces- sary for the erection and maintenance of such schools. This ex- , perience of theirs so exactly tallies with the progress made by ! the Queen's Colleges among the middle and upper classes in Ire- land, in spite of priestly denunciations, that it may fairly be concluded, upon the unexceptionable because reluctant evi- dence furnished by the clergy themselves, that the desire of knowledge is operating through all the strata of Catholic society in England and Ireland, and that the clergy, in order to prevent the total alienation of their flocks, are awakened to 'the necessity of satisfying this desire. 'Whether the Oscott appeal succeed or not, (and the slow progress made by the Catholic University in Ireland would rather throw doubt on the probability of success,) one thing is certain, that this new appreciation of knowledge and education will accomplish itself, and will bring with it such a change in the mental and moral condition of the Catholic poor as will neutralize and gradually annihilate the worse qualities for which they have hitherto been notorious. Their slavish dependence on the priests, their factiousness, their intemperate language and actions, will yield before the bracing and refining influences of even elementary knowledge and the habits formed in its acquisition. Nor, on the other hand, can a man's knowledge be increased and his reflective powers developed, and the man yet remain where be was in religious theory and practice : as a rule, he will become more self-reliant, have a greater respect for himself, have more faith in his own intellectual conclusions, in his ideas of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood. The causes which have driven so many of our learned men, and so many of our people that have nothing to do, to enter the communion of the Papal Church, and which might seem at first sight to show that there is nothing in education or intellectual accomplishments to save men and women from superstition, are not likely to operate upon those classes which have in the necessity for getting a living a mental tonic of invaluable efficacy. Over-subtilty, excess of logical acumen suicidally denying the ultimate grounds of all logic, morbid irritability of conscience,—these are not failings of either the middle or lower classes of a nation, whose practical duties and necessities train them to practical habits of thinking, when they are once taught that elementary knowledge essential as an origin for thought. So that we may expect, not only better citizens, higher men, as the result of a higher secular education among the Catholic poor, but that much even in their religious belief and practice would be altered in essence if not in form by the same cause ; and the residuum perhaps would be an inoperative dog- ma and a-harmless ritual, as their outward badge of distinction from other Christian sects. Of course this would be rather the point of tendency than the actual result reached, but every year of efficient secular education would be a step nearer the limit. Nor would the effect on the Roman Catholic clergy them- selves be less important. An ignorant people foster ignorance in their teachers, as surely as the reverse of this is true ; and a desire for knowledge among a people compels the teachers to acquire knowledge. Any improvement among the Catholic poor necessi- tates a similar improvement among their priests, or they lose their influence. In either ease the country is benefited ; in either case a bad influence is destroyed, and the legitimate influence of superior knowledge and worth is substituted for it. Whether the substitu- tion transfers the influence to teachers of another creed, is the con- cern of the Roman Catholic priesthood. This Oscott letter proves that they are alive to the emergency—that they see so far as to state on paper the conditions of the problem to be satisfied. Whether the Roman Catholic clergy can really give their people a sound secular education—can let them learn the truth about Na- ture and the history of the Church, and train their faculties to vigorous independent exercise, and to the faith in science which alone braces the human intellect to its full power— may be doubtful. But it is not doubtful that, if they fail to do this—if they attempt to adulterate the knowledge they impart, or to withhold any knowledge—the spirit they have themselves re- cognized in in their people will be the surest instrument of detecting the fraud, and of punishing the impostors by the rapid overthrow of the system thus attempted to be propped up. In any case, if the people are educated, either they will so far improve the reli- gious system of which they are the basis as to eliminate from it what makes it the curse of so many countries, or they will come out from it altogether, as the Irish are found to do in America. As, there- fore, we must not hope at present for a really national system of education for the children of our poor, we have no reason, either in the interest of Protestantism or of education, to do otherwise than wish success to the Catholics in their attempts to multiply and im- prove their schools. One piece of advice, however, which the reverend fathers give, may perhaps be counteracted by Parliament. They urge that, where a chapel and a school cannot both be erected, a school be built to be used as a chapel. Now, Government grants for school- houses certainly should be limited to bona fide school-houses, and not applied to buildings which, though used as schools, are in re- ality provisional chapels : otherwise we should soon have our scanty annual grant for education diverted from its original intention, into a church-extension fund for all the thousand-and-one sects which divide this happy island; a mode of indirectly and partially esta- blishing all religions, to which objection might reasonably be taken.