SCOTCH SQUABBLES.
THE friends of the poor, and all who desire the advance- ment of learning among the lower classes, and of harmony between contending factions in these realms, must have read the result of the debate at Edinburgh on the 10th of Octo- ber with feelings of disappointment, if not of disgust. With singular advantages, such as are enjoyed by few other Protestant nationalities ; with the example of English mis- carriages before their eyes ; with the greatest professions of a desire for harmony on their lips ; and with no substantial causes of disagreement, the representatives of educational pro- gress in Scotland have permitted the Lord Advocate to tell them without contradiction that it is impossible, owing to their domestic jealousies, to pass a bill for combined national education of the poor in Scotland. More than this, the gentlemen present, instead of proposing or discussing mea- sures for peace and union, wasted their time in fruitless and angry recriminations. The members of each faction occupied the time of the Association by vaunting the sacrifices which their several parties had been ready to make for the cause of harmony, exerting themselves to cast the blame and odium of failure on their opponents ; and the discussion, instead of being a step in the procession towards a Temple of Concord, was, as Mr. Campbell Swinton said, a proof in itself of the impossibility of successful legislation to bring about an united Management of schools in Scotland. So the Scotch ministers, although they dread the Revised Code, and say that it will not snit their genius or institutions, and though they hate the Downing-street system, dread and hate one another so much more, that they will adopt that system rather than shake hands and unite to teach their poor brethren. The opportunities for peace which we have thrown away, they wilt throw away. The chances of reconciliation for factions engaged in a good and Christian work which we have lost, they will lose. The anomalies, the waste, and the inequali- ties of our vicious denominational system, they will preserve ; and they will throw away these benefits and preserve these evils without our excuse, without our causes for difference, and our great issues in dispute.
A foreigner, or any one unacquainted with the history of our Board of Public Instruction, would be amazed at the anomalies of its administration. He would be astonished to find that, while it is unable to reach two-thirds of the country schools at all, it supports three different and antagonistic systems in each of the great towns. To find, for example, at Manchester, three highly educated, talented, experienced, and heavily paid officials, each conducting at a great expense a parallel and contemporaneous Government system, each unconnected with and not supporting the others, but rather antagonistic to the others, yet all emissaries of the same Government, of the same Ministry, of the same Office of Public Education. Besides the pecuniary waste occasioned by this unfortunate system, education itself is rendered thereby less efficient. Discipline is destroyed, instruction under- valued, attendance rendered irregular by the close proximity and rivalry of the schools, which, often standing in the same street, tout for the patronage of tho parents, to the sub- version of all efficiency and the degradation of learning. Ask any school manager in Manchester or Leeds why he dreads the Revised Code. He will say because of the irre- gular attendance of the children. Ask why they attend irregularly. He will say because there is too much rivalry of schools of different denominations. This state of things would appear monstrous and unintelligible without the light of history. But the fact is, that the history of our existing educational system, which is a chronicle of party feuds and wretched compromises, explains it all. The improved educa- tion of the poor, which dates from about 1830, was originated by the independent efforts of religious bodies, moved to those exertions mainly by a natural rivalry. The Dissenters were first on the ground; and they have reaped that credit which is due to the originators of a great movement, and that solid advantage which is called nine-tenths of the law. These religious bodies, though they differed toto ccelo in doctrines and ceremonies, were all agreed in believing that a system of education not based upon religion would be worthless, if not absolutely mischievous. They were also most of them agreed that Parliament must intervene to enlarge and systematize their isolated efforts ; and from time to time they called upon the Government of the day to appropri- ate public money for that purpose. When, therefore, in 1839, Lord Tolin Russell's Government resolved to respond to these demands, and, following the constitutional precedent of the Board of Trade, to create a Board of Education, it was assumed by that Government, and has been adopted as an un- questionable first principle by succeeding Governments, that national education in this country cannot be purely secular, but that religion must be mixed with the entire matter of instruction in our schools, and must regulate the whole of their discipline. This principle being assumed, the next question was—can the different religious communions of this country be combined in one system of education ? This is the identical question now agitated by our Scotch neighbours, and which there is much reason to fear will be answered by them, as formerly by us, in the negative. Four distinct efforts were made in this country, two by Government, and two by indivduals, for the erection of a combined national system. The first was made in 1839, by the Russell Government, which endeavoured to establish nor- mal and model schools on the basis of religious equality. In these schools it was intended that the general religious in- struction should resemble that given in British and foreign schools from the Scriptures without peculiar interpretation.
Special doctrinal instruction was to be given, as now, in some foreign schools, to the children of each denomination by their several ministers. This scheme was soon stifled. It met with such opposition from all the denominations, that not only was it very soon withdrawn, but the proposal of it endangered the very existence of the Committee of Council on Education.
The Parliamentary Grant of 1839 was, after a prolonged dis- cussion, only earned by a majority of two, and the House of Lords carried an address to the Throne on the subject by a majority of 111. The officials up-stairs in Downing Street must shudder when they think of those days. The next effort was made by Sir Robert Peel's Government in 1843, which proposed the establishment of factory schools on the basis of religious toleration. This measure was received calmly by the Church of England, but vehemently opposed by all the Dis- senting bodies. The Government was alarmed, and dropped it. The third effort was made in the same year by an independent member of Parliament. During the die- missions on the education clauses of the Factory Bill, Mr. Roebuck moved that in no plan of education maintained and enforced by the State should any attempt be made to incul- cate peculiar religious opinions ; because the cordial co-opera- tion of all sects and denominations, which is absolutely neces- sary to secure the success of any plan of public education, would thereby be rendered impossible. Mr. Roebuck's motion, though he supported it with his usual vigour and acuteness, was lost by a majority of 96. The fourth and last attempt to create a combined system of national education was made three years later by a clergyman of high position, and of well-known ability, sincerity, and zeal. Dr. Hook, in 1846, seeing around him the frightful effects of a want of education among the poor, despairing that the energies of the Church could be effectually exerted for the removal of these evils, and having no confidence in the voluntary system, invoked the interference of the Government to found a system of secular education, leaving only to the religious communions the estab- lishment and support of normal schools. When Dr. Hook pro- posed that instruction in the elementary school should be con- fined to secular knowledge, he provided at the same time that certificates should be presented of the attendance of the child on Sunday, and on two other days in the week, at a school of religion to be founded and supported by the religious com- munion to which the parents of the scholar belonged. By such means Dr. Hook expected to triumph over the defects of a school of purely secular instruction. He had personally the confidence of his Church, and his proposal was supported by the Quarterly Review and other influential journals, and by a few leading Dissenters. But the majority of Churchmen and Dissenters united in resisting his project. Especially was he opposed by Mr. Edward Baines, of Leeds, who ad- dressed to Lord John Russell twelve letters of the most earnest deprecation and warning. By these letters the Dis- senters were so alarmed and excited that not only was Dr. Hook's proposal lost past recovery, but much temporary opposition was excited among the Nonconformists against the right of Government to promote the education of the people at all. It is a melancholy task to recall those struggles in which our last chance of a combined national system was extinguished. But it is profitable to do so at the present juncture. The same game is being played in Scotland, the same chapter is being compiled in her history, the same suicidal animosities are stifling the people's advancement. Nor have the contending parties in Scotland the same excuse as ours had in England. Posterity, while it pities us, will accord them a greater share of blame. Our fights were for things which, a quarter of a century ago, were considered essentials. Our contending fac- tions were embittered by a long record of mutual persecutions and spoliations, a long roll of alternate triumphs and disasters. On either side were the prestige of antiquity and the sacred traditions of martyrdom. The Dissenters met the superior numbers, wealth, and the power of the Churchmen, by greater activity, keener political intelligence, completer organization, and that invention which is the child of necessity. With such antecedents and such external circumstances as these, it is no wonder that our hostile parties could not for a moment agree on a curriculum of religious instruction for their schools. It is rather a cause of wonder that they could harmonize so far as to agree in admitting Government inspection, in allow- ing public money to be given to each other, and in recognizing any system of grants which embraced them all as fair.
But with our Scotch neighbours the case is different. The faction of the Free and Established Churches is of later date than the Government system itself. Their schools were formerly inspected by the same Inspector. They have no persecutions, no mutual vexations to record. They sepa- rated in the days of toleration ; and have never known the struggle for empire or existence. More than all, they are agreed, as Sir Henry Moncreiff remarks, upon the mode of education, the manner of conducting it, the lessons to be taught, the doctrines to be inculcated. They disagree solely on the question of management and election. As Mr. Milne Home observed, the system of tuition is so uniform and alike in the schools of the Established and Free churches, and other bodies, that " you cannot tell by going into them to what church they belong." Agricola fortunati—sua si bona norint I These men are unanimous in their general desire for the in- crease of popular education ; in their practice and theories of school teaching; in their yearning for a combined national system ; in their aversion to our English code. They differ only on a few unimportant questions of administration. Their principles are the same. And yet they are fast throwing away their last chance of a national system. In the name of patience and common sense, what is there to prevent their union ? Will they shut their eyes to our example, and refuse to profit by our past experience? Will they sacrifice on the altar of a petty jealousy all the oppor- tunities for domestic harmony and its attendant blessings which the grand resistance of their fathers to Episcopacy gave to them ? If this is the best use they can make of their- religious liberty, and of the church of their choice ; if they,, though let alone, independent, and unshackled, are as impo- tent for self-improvement as the curbed and managed Irishmna is, they will afford the best apology that Europe has yet seen. for the Anglo-Irish system.
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