SIR JOHN PAKINGTON'S EDUCATION PLAN.
IT has been a fashion to laugh at " the Quarter-Sessions Cabinet," and of that Cabinet perhaps the most Quarter-Sessions member was Sir John Pakington ; yet it has been his fortune to furnish an ex- ample of liberal intelligence which many professed Liberals might imitate. Sir John Pakington was set over the Colonies, and we all anticipated a specimen of ill-informed arbitrary misrule; yet he adapted himself with so much of well-disposed good sense to the settled course of Colonial reformed administration, that the Colonies count him among their wise and popular rulers. When he took up the subject of national education, people expected a presentable version of Exeter Hall sectarianism • instead of which, he produces the most promising and the most liberally conserva- tive measure of any yet advanced on the subject. Other plans may have been more abstractly perfect—if any can deserve such an epithet; but none has appeared more capable of wide extension. The plan of the Secular Educationists, who advise public schools in which no doctrine shall be taught, leaving religious tuition to the ministry of the different sects, is the most logically apt to a country with nearly a million of children absolutely untaught, and with a hundred sects disputing what to teach ; but the plain fact is, that neither the Commons, nor Lord John Russell, nor the public out of doors, will " swallow" the bare idea of tuition apart from religion : so,justified as that plan is by the practical expe- rience of moral and religious New England, we may conclude that it cannot be imported. On the other hand, the compromises proposed are too much localized, like the Manchester and Salford plan, or are too slight an improvement on the present state of things, to be worth a contest. When Sir John Pakington took the matter in hand, we seemed to have arrived at a settled con- clusion on these points- 1. That the uneducated or ill educated condition of immense numbers in this country is a disgrace to us, aggravated by the opposite examples of Arbitrary Germany and Republican America.
2. That a national system based on the doctrine of the Esta- blished Church, or of any sect whatever is impracticable, as parents will not let their children enter the schools.
3. That the proposal to omit religious teaching, and to leave it to the ministries of sects, will not be accepted. 4. That to leave public education to voluntary efforts is to do nothing.
5. That "something must be done."
Probably none but a comparatively small minority would dis- pute any one of these points ; and yet in the best measures hither- to proposed at least some one of the conditions thus laid down is violated in the highest degree. Sir John Pakington's suggestion complies with all the conditions. It does not, like the law of New England, compel every township to provide a school; but it en- ables and encourages two-thirds of the ratepayers in a town or union to do so. It admits religious teaching in all the schools. Instead of taking any one faith, or all, or none, as the bases, it follows the ascendancy of the local majority ; so far simply ac- cepting a local fact. By the offer of and from the State, it re- wards private or local schools for enrolling themselves as national schools. By the condition that no child be excluded for the reli- gion of its parent, or obliged to receive the religious instruction given in the school, it secures education for all. It is thus national, popular, adapted to the actual state of the country ; it makes use of the old schools, establishes new schools, and provides for the extension of both.
The example of New England is still useful in two respects : it shows that a higher Fade of general instruction prepares for im- proved religions training; it proves that instruction in the common schools can be given without proselytism. But Sir John Paking- ton's plan is in itself amply secured against unfair proselytism; while it is impossible not to expect from it one species of conver- sion witnessed in the United States. Roman Catholics prefer to send their children to the common schools, where they are better taught than in the sectarian schools, and where they do not en- counter any attempt at conversion. Nor do such conversions take place—in the school : yet it is remarked, that notwithstanding the immigration of Roman Catholics, the numbers of that sect do not
• See for a very interesting resume of the plan and operation of the New England system, a pamphlet by Mr. Twisleton, published by Mr. Ridgway .—" Evidence as to the Religious Working of the Common Schools in the State of Massachusetts," &c. increase : freedom and education have their natural effect ; although the children are not " converted," the adults somehow turn out to be Protestants.
We do not yet know what Lord John Russell's plan is to be : it may be even more ingenious and complete than Sir John Peking- ton's ; but there is at all events one way in which Lord John might generously and powerfully equal his rival—by adopting the prin- ciple of Sir Johns measure.
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