§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEMy Lords, in moving the Order of the Day, I beg to ask your Lordships' attention for a short time previously to laying upon the Table a copy of the Minutes on Education lately adopted by Her Majesty's Privy Council. I might lay upon the Table those Minutes without making any prefatory observation, inasmuch as no extensive and comprehensive measure is to be founded upon them; but I consider it more respectful to your Lordships, as soon as possible after the adoption of those Minutes by the Privy Council, and as early as possible after the commencement of the Session of Parliament, to put this House, and the public through this House, in possession of the views which Government entertains upon the subject of education, and what it is proposed to do with regard to it. My Lords, in stating these views to your Lordships, I confess it would have been a 859 source of the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to me were I enabled on this occasion to state to your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to bring forward a plan of general and public education in this country of so large and comprehensive a nature as would at once, or by quick strides, place the population of this country in such a condition, with respect to education, as that in which the population of some parts of Europe are already placed, namely, a condition in which an uneducated child is almost a solitary exception to the general state of things, and where, it may be strictly said, that amongst the great mass of the people education is universally extended. My Lords, I am bound in the outset to state that, upon the fullest consideration, it did not appear to Her Majesty's Government practicable and advisable to at once carry into effect a measure for the extension of education upon so large and comprehensive a plan. Undoubtedly it might be attempted; but if the attempt were made, it would be met with serious if not overwhelming difficulties. We could not attempt a measure on such an extensive scale without having it strictly comprehensive, so as to include in the same schools, under the sanction of the Government, children of all religious denominations; and I must say, that the longer I have had occasion to observe the bearings of the whole question, the more I became convinced of the difficulties of attempting such a general and extended and comprehensive plan of education. The difficulties which present themselves in opposition to the introduction of such an extensive measure, are very important, and I may add that they are not new. Indeed, that they are not so, I may show by appealing to the judgment and experience of my noble and learned Friend on the opposite bench (Lord Brougham), who has for so long a time been anxious to spread education in this country; who has stood so honourably, and consistently, and perseveringly forward in the cause of education; and, notwithstanding all the energy, all the ability, all the authority and influence of the noble Lord, he failed in bringing the question to which they were applied in this case to a satisfactory conclusion. He failed in doing this—others have failed; and although it may be said in reply, that what individuals have attempted in vain, might succeed in the hands of a Government, yet that observation ought not to be made without reflect- 860 ing that in this country any interference on the part of the Government with the ordinary habits and arrangements of the people, is calculated of itself to excite suspicion and jealousy with respect to those who undertake such an interference, thus creating at the outset a difficulty which it is scarcely possible for a Government constituted as ours is effectually to overcome. Such a wide and comprehensive plan as that to which I have alluded, is likely to be met by two classes of objectors: the first and most powerful class of objectors, those who, from motives the most virtuous and pious—motives which must be respected—dread even the contact at schools of young persons of different religious persuasions. However I may respect the pious feelings which lead to that objection, I will say that it is carrying such an objection further than I would carry it, being, as I am, full of confidence in the soundness and truth of the doctrines of that religion which I profess. However, many persons entertain that objection, to such a degree that they cannot be brought to consent to any system which would combine under the same roof and under the same system of instruction, individuals of different creeds and sects; and they form the first class of objectors to whom I have adverted. There is, my Lords, another class of objectors in this country from whom difficulties would be experienced by those who might attempt such an extensive system of education — it consists of persons not without power, and influence, and authority in this country — namely, persons who object to any interference at all with education on the part of the Government, and who consider that the same principle ought to be applied to education which they would apply to other subjects, namely, the voluntary principle and the voluntary system; and who also think that any interference of the Government on a large scale, would have the effect of damping and diminishing the efforts which individuals were now making in the cause of education, not indeed to a sufficient extent, but which they think would ultimately be made to an extent commensurate with the necessities of the case; and thus, to a certain extent, would injure the success which might otherwise follow the attempts of those individuals. When I state that these are the two principal classes of objectors, I am far from stating that they represent the universal opinion of this country; for though I am confident that no person in 861 this country deserving of the name of statesman, or deserving of any authority, can have ever contemplated the establishment of a system of education on a basis which would not admit of religious instruction, or who would suppose it safe or expedient that the mass of the people should be invited to enter into the great field of general knowledge, and yet that they should be allowed to travel there without the light of religion—
… "Sola sub nocte per umbramPerque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna;yet there are many religious and learned persons in this country who think it would be practicable to unite under the same roof, and in the same school, for the purposes of education, persons of different systems of religion, if the same system of secular instruction were common to all, and without at the same time providing the same religious instruction. There are also many persons in this country who, although they are jealous in general of direct interference on the part of the Government, and are apt to view it with suspicion and distrust, yet have proclaimed themselves willing to adopt this system, believing that it is amongst the paramount duties of a Government to provide for the younger members amongst all its subjects the blessings of education. Those are some of the principal objections which might be anticipated; but those who make these objections are themselves classes; and you will agree that it would be impossible at this moment to introduce a system of general education under the authority of the law, without meeting with those difficulties, those apprehensions, those jealousies and mistrusts of interference, which would materially affect the progress of the system, and introduce dissension with relation to a subject which, of all others, requires harmonious and willing co-operation of all descriptions and classes of society, in order to carry it out—which would tend to perpetuate dissensions, impair the efficacy of the plan, and prevent a peaceful and amicable action where it was most desirable that such should exist. For these reasons, I, and those with whom I have the honour to act, as well as the Goverment which has preceded us, have come to the conclusion that it is not expedient to introduce any extensive and comprehensive measure on the subject of general education at present; but, nevertheless, it appeared evident to us that it is perfectly practicable, and without any great interference with the resources of the country, 862 to give, under various heads, to the extension and improvement of education in this country, an impetus beyond what it has hitherto received; and that provisions might be made, going beyond that restricted application of the means given by the public which confined them to the erection of schools and some other objects, which would so extend the efforts of those individuals who were concerned in the establishment and patronage of those schools, as well as those of the schoolmasters employed, as to be greatly beneficial, on the whole, to the general object which they have in view. I will now proceed to show to your Lordships, what it has been thought possible to effect with this view; and, in the first place, it is desirable that I should state what has been the operation of the system as it is, as regards the number of the schools, and of the children who are benefited by the education provided in them. It appears, then, that the Parliamentary grants made for the purposes of education, from the year 1833 to the year 1846, amount altogether to 490,000l. The school-houses which have been erected, will, when all are completed for which grants have been made, provide accommodation for 550,000 scholars. In addition to these, there are about 3,500 schools which have invited inspection, and which give accommodation for 150,000 scholars. And here I may call attention to the fact, that so many schools, which have not been assisted by the Government, or received money from the public funds, have, nevertheless, applied for inspection, as a strong proof of the confidence entertained in the system; for I am desirous, at all times when I address your Lordships, to impress on you the extreme importance of inspection. I hold it to be a consideration of great importance, and I look upon it with peculiar gratification, that besides the schools which receive Government assistance, and in which Government inspection is indispensable, a large proportion of schools which did not require the aid of the Government, have, nevertheless, petitioned the Council over which I have the honour to preside, for the benefit of inspection and advice. Including the number of scholars provided for in the schools assisted by the Government, then, and the 150,000 who are provided for in schools established by private funds, but which have applied to be subjected to inspection, it would appear that there is at present provision for about 700,000 scholars. But I should be deceiving your 863 Lordships if I allowed you to suppose that that number are really provided for; as, on a fair calculation, perhaps, 200,000 may be deducted, and still allow a provision for half a million of scholars. Besides these schools of a general character, there are also a great number of normal schools, all of which have received assistance. There are the schools connected with the Church of England in the dioceses of Chester, York, Salisbury, Ripon, and Durham; the British and Foreign normal schools; and the normal schools connected with the Church of Scotland—all of which receive assistance. I now come to a subject to which, I beg to say, I do not attach a particular importance, but on which I am about to ask your Lordships' approbation of steps which I believe you will admit are on a sound principle, and in the right direction, and which, as far as they will operate at all, will be likely to operate beneficially. In the first place, it is proposed to carry out further the system of inspection; that is to say, that the schools shall be more frequently inspected than they now are. I confess that my own opinion is, that the establishment for inspection should be sufficiently extensive to insure, with the industry and diligence of the inspectors, an inspection of every school once in each year. I cannot, however, say that even with the assistance of three or four more inspectors, that is an object likely to be accomplished. Hereafter it is possible we may be able to accomplish it; but at present the addition which we propose to the existing number of inspectors, is such as to insure an inspection of the most important schools, and an approach towards that most desirable object, a general inspection annually. The next subject which I have to bring before your Lordships' notice, is one to which I attach the greatest importance. Those of your Lordships who have read the reports of the Inspectors of Schools—many of which are written with the greatest ability, and all with the greatest attention to the duties of the station of the writers, must have found that one universal feeling existed among those who are placed in a situation which renders them competent to judge of the difficulties of the task of carrying out the system generally, to the effect that not only did the greatest difficulty arise from the want of schoolmasters, but also from a deficiency of assistant schoolmasters. You will find it stated that great difficulty has been experienced in 864 finding persons properly qualified to support the master in discharging the duties of his important office. To meet this inadequacy, it is proposed, that in the case of all schools of which the reports shall be good, a power should be granted to the master of each school to take apprentices, who shall be allotted to such schools, after having been selected from among the best scholars, and trained with a view to their being ultimately made schoolmasters themselves. It is further proposed, the masters having been reported qualified to receive such apprentices, that an allowance shall be made for each apprentice so permitted to be taken, and who shall have been recommended by the guardians, the patrons, or the committees directing such schools. I apprehend that this is a provision which will not only afford to the apprentice the means of learning his future duties, but would also operate as a reward to the schoolmaster, whose acknowledged zeal and good conduct in his station entitled him to be selected as the instructor of such apprentices; so that, in proportion as the schoolmaster is reported to be qualified to give such instruction, and the pupil to receive it, each will derive an advantage under this arrangement. Beyond this, it is further proposed that, from the apprentices so to be trained, to add to the general stock of schoolmasters, of those who conducted themselves well, and who had usefully aided in carrying on the discipline of the schools during the time of their apprenticeship, a certain number shall be selected to be exhibitioners to the normal schools, so that they will make this a second step in their progress towards the station of schoolmaster from the moment they are so selected, whether under the denomination of Queen's scholar, or whatever other name they may receive. But, at the same time, as it is probable that out of the whole number who will have been prepared, or intended to be so, for the office of schoolmaster, there may be some who may not be considered finally peculiarly eligible for that office, and yet will have received benefit to a certain extent from their education, it is proposed to make an arrangement (in which I have the satisfaction to state my noble Friend at the head of the Treasury, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer fully concur) by which those young persons not being chosen as schoolmasters, shall receive employment in the great revenue departments. It is considered that by this 865 arrangement a double fund of encouragement will be provided for these young men, and that while an increase in the number of qualified schoolmasters will be insured, those who may not be deemed peculiarly fitted for the office will not lose the benefit of their education. It is also proposed that there shall be a periodical examination by the inspectors, which, it is hoped, will have the double effect of securing the selection of those best qualified for the office of schoolmaster, while, at the same time, it cannot fail to have the effect of exciting general attention even among those who could not be directly interested in the result of such examinations. Attaching, as I do, great importance to these proposals, I now come to another subject which is also referred to in the Minutes of the Privy Council, and which I consider also calculated to produce an effect on the general cause of education: I allude to the condition of the schoolmaster himself. There is no class of men in this country who, from all I have read or seen, or that has been reported on the best authority, of their exertion on the one hand, and their condition in society in the other, are better entitled to the attention and favour of Parliament than they, the great mass of the schoolmasters of England, are. There is no class of society who are less likely to receive, in a worldly sense, the reward of their merits and exertions. They are a class of persons, many of them most meritorious, and who are mainly instrumental in advancing the fortunes and future interests of those who are committed to their charge, and whom they often afterwards see advancing to prosperity, and even attaining to wealth, while they themselves are chained down to their laborious duties, hopeless and without requital, trusting, no doubt, to their own conscience and virtue for the faithful discharge of their duties, but in many instances dispirited by the hopeless state of their old age, their hearts chilled by want, and their hopes checked by penury. They are men who are placed in immediate contact with, and performing some of their duties in common with, the clergy; but at the same time, while they take their full share in the performance of those duties, they receive a most inadequate amount of reward. I do think that any extension of the system of education in this country will be imperfect which does not, to a considerable extent, ameliorate the condition of this class, and excite their hopes of reward. It is therefore proposed that a pro- 866 vision, small, undoubtedly, at first, but still which will be considered a very great object as a provision, however small, for old age, shall be made for well-conducted schoolmasters and schoolmistresses who shall be reported as having, for fifteen years, conducted unexceptionably schools of a certain size. Besides these retiring pensions, if I may so call them, it is proposed that a certain number of gratuities shall, on the report of the inspectors, be given to schoolmasters who have not retired, but who shall have been declared to have exercised their vocation creditably to themselves. This, no doubt, will prove a very useful stimulus. There is another provision, but of a different nature, which I think your Lordships will agree should be made when applied for. It has often made the subject of application to the Privy Council that the schools should be provided with a species of industrial apparatus, including that which is necessary for the cultivation of the soil, by means of which instruction might be conveyed to the scholar on subjects not usually included in any system of education. These plans the Government propose to follow out in the same spirit in which they have been commenced, but only to make the proposed advances where the local aid bears a due proportion to the Government grants; but at the same time to make advances freely to those schools which maintain a system of industry in connexion with their school system. In towns, it will necessarily be the most convenient course to supply the schools with industrial apparatus, and to hire workshops for their use; in agricultural districts, to hire fields for the exercise of industry and the cultivation of skill during the leisure hours of the pupils. This will be not only a great, and important, and a beneficial stimulus to great numbers of the children themselves, but a great benefit to the country at large. Such arrangements will not in the least degree interfere with the literary avocations of the children; and in my opinion there is nothing which would more reconcile parents to any system of education than that the children should, during their condition of pupilage, acquire the knowledge of some useful trade, by means of which they might subsequently obtain the means of being serviceable to their families. The effect of such a system would be, to remove the disposition which frequently prevails, of withdrawing children from school at too early an age, on the ground that their acquisitions there are of 867 no substantial value. Nothing would so reconcile parents to the continuance of their children for a sufficient length of time at school, as the belief that they were not, all the time they spent there, engaged in the pursuit of unprofitable learning, or rather what their parents consider to be unprofitable learning. Prejudices of this kind do unhappily influence parents at the present day; but I hope the time is not distant when a very material improvement will take place in their mode of thinking. At present there can be no doubt of the fact—as I find from the reports of the inspectors—that those schools are most successful where the parents are made practically to understand that their children, while at school, are for a considerable and useful portion of their time engaged in acquiring knowledge immediately profitable, and of skill which they can speedily turn to pecuniary advantage. The direct utility of the knowledge acquired forms its chief recommendation to parents in general. In favour of these views I may call your attention to testimony which I consider to be of the highest order. It is contained in a pamphlet recently published by the Rev. Mr. Dawes, of King's Sombourn, in Hampshire. He relates in a most gratifying manner the conquest which he has obtained over the prejudices and feelings of his neighbours in a parish which had been remarkable for crime; and such was now the improved state of its morals, and striking exemption from crime, that many even of the higher portion of the middle class sought to have their children mingled with those of the lower in the business of education. Even some of the farmers of the surrounding neighbourhood sent their children to board in the immediate vicinity of the school, in order that they might enjoy those benefits of education which that school diffuses; the whole secret of its attractiveness being, that the children there are taught matters, in addition to the routine of school education, which their parents fully comprehend, and the value of which those parents are fully capable of appreciating. At that school, the children, out of their little savings, are permitted to purchase the books which have been used in the school; and in the fourth year of its existence there were as many as 158 children who so made purchases; the amount which they so applied being 15l. These 15l. worth of books the children were enabled to bring home to their own firesides, and preserve, to the great promotion of 868 their own comfort, and to the great satisfaction of their parents. Those books were not only a great resource to the children at home, but the possession of them had the effect of rendering their parents sensible of the utility of the system of education which is pursued at the school. Mr. Dawes connected the education of the child with the pursuits of the parent; and thus, while he benefited the one, he secured the goodwill and co-operation of the other; and while the children are instructed in general learning and religious principle, they are also carefully instructed in that particular knowledge which enables them when they return home to render assistance in the pursuits in which their parents are engaged. Upon the utility of those industrial schools I presume that it is now unnecessary for me further to enlarge; and, having said so much, I feel that I have nearly concluded all that it will be necessary for me to address to your Lordships. I have gone through a statement of nearly all the various Minutes which have been laid upon the Table of your Lordships' House. There are, however, some special Votes of the House of Commons respecting schools in workhouses, to which I shall now proceed to call the attention of the House. Those schools are in workhouses institutions of the utmost importance; and it is desirable that there should be inspectors for aiding in carrying out the large and liberal plan of education which Parliament had last year sanctioned. This plan, into the details of which I need not further enter, will, I trust, place the workhouse system on such a footing as to render them models of perfection, instead of being, as I fear they now are in many instances, models of everything defective. Means will be taken in future to supply all these educational institutions with cheap books. The complaint has long been universal, that they cannot get books sufficiently cheap; therefore, no time should be lost in placing at the disposal of masters, for the use of these schools, a sufficient supply of elementary works. I have now, I believe, stated all that is necessary, though I believe—indeed, I fully feel—that everything which Government can at present do must fall infinitely short of that which ought to be included in a general plan for improving the state and education of the people; far short of what ought to be done for the great mass of our fellow-countrymen, whose scenes of unceasing toil place them far away from those elements of thought and 869 means of intellectual culture upon which so much of their morality and their happiness depends. It falls so far short of what it ought to be, that I should almost despair of ultimate success, if from experience and observation I had not seen the zeal upon the subject of education which pervades all denominations of men in this country—if I had not witnessed the unceasing zeal of the clergy in that branch of their duties—if it had not come within my knowledge that scarcely a week elapses without applications and representations reaching my hands which show the steady and gradual mode in which the cause of education is advancing in every part of the country; while that most useful and respectable class of men, the schoolmasters, are improving their own condition, at the same time that they are advancing the best interests of their pupils. These circumstances united cannot fail, I hope, to result in effects most beneficial to the country, whilst they may, at some future day, lay the foundation of something more complete and more practically useful.
§ The noble Marquess then laid upon the Table of the House the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, in August and December, 1846.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that nothing could be fairer than the statement which the House had just heard from the noble Marquess, who very justly and most properly disdained the paltry affectation of saying, that what he had stated to the House was anything like a plan of the Government. It was no plan; and the noble Marquess frankly stated that the Government had no plan, and as frankly gave his reasons why they could have no plan. That which the House had heard was merely a statement of the manner in which they intended to dispose of such grants as Parliament might make; therefore, the House was now merely engaged in conversation respecting that which really constituted a great grievance, the very imperfect substitute for a measure promised and expected, but withheld. It was a grievous calamity, that now, in the year 1847, being just forty-six years since the attention of the public was first directed to the subject of education, and above one and thirty years after Parliament took up the question, by the appointment of a Committee to inquire into that subject, we appeared to be almost as far off as ever from having any national general and comprehensive system of education established 870 in this country. That was no fault of the noble Marquess; it was no fault of the present Government; it was not the fault of the late Ministry; it arose from the peculiar state of society in this country. He lamented, with the noble Marquess, that such a state of things should exist; and so long as its pernicious influence remained in full operation it must baffle all attempts to secure a beneficial system of education for the people. Far be it from him to say that education ought to be rendered compulsory. He had been asked, why not compel the people, as in Prussia, to accept the benefits of education? To that he begged to reply, that the people of England could not be compelled to accept that or anything else. Prussia was governed with military strictness; it was a country subject to rigorous discipline. The people of England could never be got to understand the Prussian system, which trained and drilled the whole community. If a man brought to Prussia a recipe written by Dr. Holland, or any of his learned brethren, no Prussian apothecary could prepare it; neither would they sell the drugs necessary for preparing it; they dared not; if they did, they would be sent to prison. In a case, the particulars of which he had heard, a patient holding a prescription from an English physician was obliged to order post-horses to go to the frontier and get his medicine compounded; he had no other means of saving his life. Such was Prussia. Would the English endure such a system? They could not. The greater the efforts made to force an Englishman to do something that he did not like, even if good for him, the more violent would be his resistance. To make education compulsory would be to make it hateful to the people of England; they even hated what was good when it was forced upon them. But there might be interference without force. This was a perfectly distinct question from that of free trade. He would not interfere with the supply of food, clothing, or furniture, for men would take good care to supply themselves with those necessaries of life; but it was not so as to knowledge: the ignorance of men prevented their knowing the value of knowledge; and thus the more they stood in need of education, the less they wished and would try to have it. If the Government provided cheap schools, the people would, by degrees, be induced to send their children to them. One of the great uses of privately sup- 871 ported schools was, that they had the effect of inducing the neighbours of those who supported them to send their children to such schools, or to some schools. The Government, it was true, might establish some schools at their own sole expense; but to do so to any useful extent would cost great sums, and the Government had not great sums at their disposal—they had not much money to give, and it would be costly to mate the experiment. It therefore appeared to him of the utmost importance that the Committee of the Privy Council should not interfere except in aid of local establishments. If they did give help, it ought to be in such a way as to stimulate private beneficence. They should give half, or a third, according to circumstances. It was only in the year 1833 that the recommendations of the Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1818 were attempted to be carried into effect. Over the inquiries of that Committee he had the honour to preside, and of the Government of 1833 he was a member; but the principle recommended by the Committee in 1818 was never adopted till Lord Grey came into office. The Government, as he had already said, ought to give assistance in proportion to local contributions; this was the resolution reported by the Committee. They might, for example, give outfits; but if they went the whole length of defraying all expenses, their attempts would not succeed. The resolutions of the Committee were the foundation of the measures adopted in 1833 by himself and his colleagues, and of the whole proceedings since that period down to the present time. Again, he could not help lamenting that the importance of education was not more generally acknowledged—that the principle had not struck its roots deeper, as well among the people at large as among thinking persons. The Christian pastor felt that education was the best aid to religion, and the greatest assistance to morals. Judges, Home Secretaries, justices of the peace, felt that the punishment of crimes had little effect in deterring those who were under the influence of temptation. Mr. Bentham and Sir Samuel Romilly, with both of whom he had discussed the subject, contended that if punishments were rendered certain, they would have the effect of preventing crime. If the thief felt assured that in eight and forty hours he must restore stolen property, he would cease to steal. But punishment never was 872 certain; in the present state of society it could not be made certain; nor in any state of society could it be made absolutely certain. Men who committed crimes did not calculate—their minds were not in a frame to reason; if they looked forward to consequences they would not offend; lust was inflamed, and a rape was committed—jealousy was excited, and murder ensued — a bankrupt was guilty of forgery, and, if he did not intend to run away, he confidently reckoned upon being able to take up his Bill before it became due. Now that frame of mind precluded reasoning, prevented calculation, and incapacitated men from thinking rationally and calmly; and, therefore, the motives they applied to the law by the example of punishment were thrown away, because in such a state of mind the criminal regarded every thing, as the French called it, of a rosy hue. If the crime were a forgery, they expected money to meet the bill before it arrived at maturity; if it were any other crime, they expected that it would never be discovered; or, when discovered, that they would never be prosecuted; or, if they were prosecuted, they reckoned on the technical defects of the law, or upon the skill and ability of an eminent counsel; and, if that assisted them not, then they reckoned on the humanity of the judge to spare them; and if that failed them, they reckoned on a defect in the judgment and on a writ of error to revoke it; and, last of all, they reckoned upon making interest to get a pardon; and such sanguine views at the moment of wrong-doing got rid of all the terrors of punishment. Not that he said punishment was of no effect; it certainly was of some, but very little, compared with what it was thought and generally supposed to produce. His own judicial experience, and still more his experience as a Minister, had brought him to this conclusion, and he had found his noble colleague (Lord Melbourne) arrived at the same result from presiding over the police for some years. The operation of punishment was small in deterring from crime. Now, what was to be recommended in place of it? Why prevention of another kind: mending the character—improving the habits of the class among whom criminals were found. Train up a person in such habits that he never would think of committing those offences. None of their Lordships—hardly any one of the other House of Parliament—belonged to that class: he should say almost none in either 873 House belonged to that class from among whom criminals were taken. They were not persons in their Lordships' rank in society, or in the rank of Members of the other House, with few exceptions. They did not raise a breed of criminals. If they had 1,500,000 persons in London, 200,000 or 150,000 of those persons were the miserable class from among whom came criminals; but not from the upper or the middle classes, or the more respectable portion of the artisans, or even from the more respectable of the day labourers; it was a very inferior class from amongst whom came all criminals. Now, if they could find the means of training the infants of that class—he did not mean the boys and girls, but the infants from three years of age to six or seven—to those honest and amiable habits which they acquired, and universally acquired, and without any exception acquired, at the common infant schools, they would eradicate, in ninty-nine cases out of a hundred, the seeds of crime, and make it all but impossible that those individuals should afterwards be guilty; because they were brought up with tender and kindly affections, with a horror of everything obscene and cruel, sordid and base—they were placed from the earliest age in the state of mind precisely the same with that which made it utterly impossible that persons in their Lordships' rank should ever go out on the highway, or commit any of those deeds to which he had referred. Those who had had any experience in schools knew full well that after children had reached seven, or eight, or nine years of age, their evil habits were deeply rooted, and it was almost impossible to extirpate them. It was by infant training that those great and blessed effects were to be produced, if at all. Now, if they established infant schools for all infants of a tender age, among the bad portion of a population of 1,500,000 in the metropolis, depend upon it they would do a vast deal more to extirpate crime, than with all their criminal courts, and all their executions, and all their transport ships, and imprisonments, and penitentiaries. That was his deliberate and firm opinion as a practical man. He did not give into any extravagant theories on penal law; he did not conform his opinions to the popular views and prevailing feelings on that or on any legislative question. He differed from many persons in his ideas of punishment; but above all he differed from those who 874 said that there never should be capital punishment for any offence. It had been the punishment for forgery: but he had been one of those in the other House, perhaps the person, who had obtained that most excellent change in the law with respect to that offence. He said so to show he was not wedded to his opinion in favour of capital punishment where it was inapplicable. But he was not for giving up capital punishment, and the terror it inflicted, because it operated powerfully to deter men who looked forward with indifference to the lesser punishment, when stripped of its salutary and restraining effects. Thus he utterly denied that Scripture confined it to murder by denouncing it against murder. He utterly denied that its being irrevocable if erroneously inflicted, was a reason for never inflicting it. Every punishment was in a sense irrevocable—who can restore to a convict the fourteen years of his time spent in Botany Bay, or the six months passed on the treadmill? It was only a reason for being careful how you inflict it. These were his reasons for wishing for a public national and general system of universal education, beginning with infant schools, and ending with training schools, which he highly approved of when they were practicable in this country. But why could not such a system be adopted? He could tell their Lordships frankly, very frankly: it was because they had two classes of the community, for both of which he had the most profound and inviolable respect—he meant the members of the Church, and members of dissenting congregations, each in their sphere great promoters of education, and deeply interested in the training of youth. He was not speaking of the clergy, but of the community, although the clergy were most zealously bent on the promotion of education; and he should be most ungrateful if he did not acknowledge that in all his little efforts on this subject, they had been his most valuable and strenuous supporters, both when he was in the other House as well as in that House of Parliament. He never could forget that to every one of the 14,000 circulars which he had issued to the clergy during a dissolution, and so without compulsory authority, he received an answer—to their great labour, and his great advantage. Both Church and sects loved education much; but there was one thing which both the Church and the Dissenters loved more, and that was controversy, which made them neglect the 875 great object of education, and made them prefer more than everything else—Victory; they lost sight of the main object in the glory of the victory: that was what he universally found. The Church would have education; but they would rather have a triumph ever the sects. The Dissenters would have education; but they far rather would triumph over the Church. In the contest for victory, they forgot the object in view. In their eagerness to outstrip each other, they did not care how far they fell short of the goal. They lost sight of the game in the heat of the chace. The Church would have no system which was so comprehensive as not to allow of any clerical interference; the Dissenters would not have any system which allowed the least interference on the part of the Church; and, therefore, unhappily, between the two, education went more or less to the wall. Now, he was quite prepared to support a comprehensive plan of education which gave some superintendence to the Church—and why? First, because there must be some superintendence, and the Church was established; secondly, because it was the Church of the majority; thirdly, because it was one, and the sects were many, and so it was possible, and any other impracticable. It was impossible to have such a system of supervision as would suit all Dissenters, so numerous were they; and his belief was, that it would be better to give the Church a proper superintendence, and leave the Dissenters to take it or not, as they pleased—the rational part of them would very soon come to like it. Although it seemed that they were not to have a general national system of education—the gain of which he thought inestimable—yet he was glad they were to have something approaching to it. He approved of that part of the system of the noble Marquess which related to inspectors; but he would suggest that the inspectors ought to be instructed never to let it be known beforehand what particular schools they intended to visit. He would have the inspectors, as it were, sporadic, to move about a little more unexpectedly. He would also say, let them get their money in the first instance, and then plant in York, Lancaster, Exeter, Maidstone, or perhaps Lincoln, or somewhere in the cast, training schools at which masters should be trained at the public expense. That would not require any exercise of private beneficence; and then let persons who were desirous of establishing schools in different 876 parts of the country, send up teachers to be trained at those schools, as he himself knew, from the correspondence he had had, many were most anxious to do. By those means they would have the advantage of sending forth, every year 500 or 600 persons well trained for teaching. At present the ignorance of teachers in schools was only to be believed by those who had had personal experience and observation of it. There was another suggestion he wished to make, that they should endeavour as much as possible to encourage the taking of quarter pence from the scholars. It was the greatest possible benefit; it saved the independence of the parents, and next to that it saved the money and cost to the country, and, above all, it made the recipients value the education the more because they paid for it. He approved, also, of the plan of giving pensions to the best of those who were trained at the training schools by making them gaugers.
§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, he had alluded in that respect to those apprentices who had other merits, but were not fit for schoolmasters.
LORD BROUGHAMThen his fear was that the schoolmasters would not desire to be successful, because they would prefer such a situation. But he entirely approved of a system of retiring pensions, but disapproved of the rule by which they were to be entitled after fifteen years' service.
§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEThey were not to be entitled to the pension merely by fifteen years' service, but before they became entitled to it it was requisite they should have served for that period.
LORD BROUGHAMThat was the same period as with the judges; but then the reason was this, that the judges were fifty years of age before they were raised to the bench. He therefore thought that in this case the period of fifteen years was too short a time for them to serve for the purpose of procuring a pension. It was highly important that a better kind of education should be attained. In the French schools reading, writing, and cyphering, were not considered enough. He had examined many of their schools, and he found that to those branches of education they added that of drawing; it was of the greatest use in after life; and, above all, it had the effect of leading to accurate habits of observation, and more to a distinct knowledge and mechanical facility than almost any other kind of manipula- 877 tion. It was a sovereign remedy for correcting idle habits, and of the greatest benefit to the scholar; it was indeed a most admirable adjunct to education. He hoped, above all, that infant schools would not be kept out of view, and more especially because no controversial question could interfere with them. He had only risen to express his hope that the liberality, indeed the justice, of Parliament, would have been extended further, and to express his deep regret that it was necessary to abandon that plan of a national and universal system of education, which he had hoped to have heard proposed by the noble Marquess, though he admitted that the blame of abandonment did not properly fall on the Government, but upon the controversy in which the question was involved.
The BISHOP of LONDONwould trespass only a short time on their Lordships, to say but a few words on a subject which had provoked no difference of opinion; but he could hardly suffer the opportunity to pass without making one or two observations, and expressing the satisfaction with which he had heard the clear and candid statement of the noble Marquess of the views of the Government with respect to this question. He thought the course pursued by the Government was exceedingly wise and prudent, as it involved no unnecessary interference with the present system of education, while at the same time they proposed to take advantage of the existing system, and of the facilities it afforded to expand and improve it. The important features of the plan appeared to be an enlargement of the system of inspection, and the encouragement of those most important educational institutions, training schools. With regard to inspection, he was intimately convinced that no system of education, however wisely contrived, would answer its intended end, unless placed under effective inspection, and kept in a proper course of operation by a system of vigilant and regular superintendence, not the superintendence of idle curiosity, nor of suspicion, nor of unnecessary interference, but of judicious friends and well-wishers, whose only object was, that the means of education should not be diverted from the ends they were intended to answer, nor be wasted or flung away. When first the system of inspection was established, he had impressed on the clergy the great benefit and advantage they might derive by calling in the aid of the Government inspectors, in the way both of en- 878 couragement and direction; and he was convinced that the prejudice which for some time prevailed among many supporters of the Church schools on the subject of inspection, was gradually giving way, if, indeed, it had not already entirely disappeared. And he felt bound in justice to say, as far as his own inquiry and observation had extended, that the Government inspectors of our national schools had discharged their duty, not only with courage and fidelity, but most judiciously, most zealously, and most unobjectionably. The testimony borne by the clergy and local managers of schools was uniform as to the good effect produced by their efforts; and as long as they persevered in the same line of conduct, as there was every reason to believe they would, so long would the clergy be anxious to welcome them in their periodical visits, and to avail themselves of their influence in keeping their masters and committees in a right direction; for the clergy would derive from the inspectors that weight and authority for their own suggestions, which could not be derived from any other source. With regard to the normal or training schools, their Lordships must be perfectly well aware that one of the chief difficulties to be contended with in the promotion of national education, was the want of effective men to work our schools. Whatever system they might adopt; under whatever name they might exist; whatever machinery they might employ—their utility must mainly, after all, depend on the character of the masters: such as the schoolmaster was, such would the school be; and there could be no doubt that institutions, to which theoretical objections might exist, would nevertheless be of more real benefit with good teachers, than others more perfect in theory which did not possess this advantage. He was satisfied, therefore, that the Government had acted most wisely in determining to promote and extend training schools. This he thought they proposed to do in a well-considered manner, and that they could not fail to do well whilst they trained up an improved class of schoolmasters. It would be a great advantage of the plan now proposed, that it would at once supply a succession of candidates for instruction in the training schools, and furnish a considerable part of the means required for carrying on those schools. He could not dismiss the subject of training schools without suggesting to the noble and learned Lord who had spoken with so much knowledge and so much feeling on the ques- 879 tion, the expediency of paying a visit to some of their best normal schools, where he would have the satisfaction of finding that all the suggestions which he had just thrown out to the Government had been for some time past carried into effect, and were now in full operation. He would find, for instance, linear drawing, the importance of which, as a branch of education, he appreciated equally with the noble and learned Lord, taught not only in the normal schools, but also in some of the best national schools. His noble and learned Friend had suggested the establishment of normal schools in most parts of the kingdom; but he would find that they had them already in nearly every part. He would find them in Chester, in York, in Durham, in Salisbury, and in Exeter, as well as in the neighbourhood of London; so that, in fact; the great want to which his noble and learned Friend had pointed, was already partly supplied, and no doubt would speedily be more effectually supplied, and in the least objectionable manner. His noble and learned Friend had also advised that quarterly payments should be required for the education of the children; but, in point of fact, there was scarcely a national school in which these payments were not made weekly—a more convenient as well as a more sure mode of obtaining the object in view; indeed, in some places, a very considerable portion of the expense of these establishments was actually provided for by these means. His noble and learned Friend seemed hardly aware of the extent to which the system was carried out; and it would do his heart good to visit the Church training schools, and to judge, from personal observation, of what was already accomplished. He would venture to say that the students from the training school at Chelsea, St. Mark's College, as it was called, would pass an examination which would reflect credit even upon those literary and philosophical schools—to say nothing of the question of religion—which existed in that seat of learning with which the noble and learned Lord was most familiar, and which had been termed the Modern Athens. With regard to geometry and drawing, they were very accurately taught, and the doctrines of the Established Church were inculcated, not he hoped with any admixture of bigotry, but with a just estimate of their value as being derived from Scripture, and as being most important, as subjects of accurate knowledge, to the teachers of schools, beyond all other men 880 except the clergy, to be inculcated by them upon the children entrusted to their care. There was one point in the speech of the noble Marquess, in its concluding part, on which he (the Bishop of London) wished to reserve his opinion till he had heard more of the proposal: he alluded to the workhouse schools. In dealing with that part of the subject, their Lordships must not forget that it was intimately connected with the subject of national schools; and that indirectly, though more seriously than could be at first conceived, the national schools would be operated upon by the workhouse schools. It had fallen to his lot to visit some workhouse schools, and one in his own parish; and he would venture to say there could not exist more happy or contented children, or any more sensibly amused. He could not but contrast the state of those children, carefully tended, kindly treated, and religiously brought up, with the state in which the same children would have been if they had remained under their parents' roofs. The workhouse schools might be of great advantage to the country if they were properly worked; but they would require a very careful system of management: if they were not well managed, they might discourage the national schools. With respect to infant schools, his noble Friend knew, that, for many years he had interested himself with reference to them; and that he had been instrumental in establishing some of the first of the Church infant schools. Nothing that could bear the title of "controversial" had been introduced into those schools, and he had ever looked upon the infant schools as the training seminaries for the national schools. Like his noble and learned Friend, he was deeply sensible, that if they were to produce a permanent effect on the understandings and the morals of the children of the poor, they must begin at the earliest possible age, at the very dawn of reason, because where the facilities were great of procuring remunerative employment for children, as they were in large towns, they could not expect the children to stay at the schools beyond the age of eleven or twelve years; and they must begin by saving at one end what they lost at the other. He had thought it right to express—and he spoke only individually—his thanks to the Government for the plan as far as he understood it, and to the noble Marquess for having made so clear and candid a statement.
LORD BROUGHAMhad been aware of the existence of the district schools, but he had not known that linear drawing had been introduced into the national schools in this country.
The BISHOP of ST. ASAPHonly wished to make one observation on the plan which met everybody's approbation. He thought he saw one slight objection; the tendency of the plan appeared to him to be that it would draw all the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses from the lowest order of society. He had no objection to raising a certain portion from that class; but he believed it would be a great evil to this country if all the schoolmasters were taken from the lower orders; and the plan would inevitably tend to that unfavourable result. If they took the present schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, they would find that they came from the rank in life of the little shopkeepers and the small farmers. He had lately asked at the national school for the training of masters, and he found that out of twenty persons under tuition only two were of the lower classes. This was the way in which the country had been supplied, and he wished to preserve some who were a little above the rank of the lower classes. The Government ought to encourage schoolmasters a little above that class, and for this purpose they ought to begin by reforming and improving the establishments called grammar-schools.
§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEThey are under the control of the Court of Chancery.
The BISHOP of ST. ASAPHThe Court of Chancery had machinery that could not touch these little matters, and he thought that by reforming and improving the grammar-schools of this country they would secure a good class of schoolmasters, better than by any other means.
The EARL of WINCHILSEAthought that a system of general education, connected with the Established Church, would meet with general approbation in this country, and he was prepared to contend that a large part of the worthy Dissenters would not object to such a plan; but national education ought not to be taken out of the hands of the clergy, on whom this most important duty rightly devolved. He was convinced, if they were to have an Established Church, that the clergy ought to devote themselves to the education of the great body of the people, and so save the expense of instructors. Great efforts had 882 been made of late years to promote religious education; and he could bear testimony to the exertions of the clergy during the last twenty or twenty-five years to meet the religious wants of the great body of the country. It was one of their duties to meet fully the religious and spiritual wants of the people. They had met their temporal wants with an unanimous feeling; and, if England had done her duty, she would not have allowed an immense population to spring up without any means of religious instruction, without places of worship, and without the superintendence of religious pastors; and they ought not to have allowed, in a great country like this, large districts to remain in a state of infidelity and heathenism, which was a moral and a national disgrace to the country.
§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEexplained that it was not the intention of the Government to confine the selection of schoolmasters to the class of apprentices; but it was merely intended to enlarge the sphere of choice.
The ARCHBISHOP of CANTERBURYsaid, that his sentiments with respect to the measure had been so fully and so well expressed by the right rev. Prelates who had addressed their Lordships, that it was unnecessary for him to add anything, except to offer his thanks to the noble Marquess the President of the Council, for the great attention he had paid to the subject, and the evident care with which the materials on which the propositions had been founded had been prepared by Her Majesty's Government.
§ House adjourned.