HC Deb 13 February 1832 vol 10 cc259-65
Colonel Conolly

presented a Petition from the inhabitants of Mayne, in the county of West-meath, against the proposed plan of education for Ireland, and deploring the withdrawal of the grant from the Kiklare-street Society. The petitioners deprecated, in the strongest possible terms, the project advanced by his Majesty's Ministers under the pretence of conciliating all parties in Ireland and which was about to be generally carried into operation, having for its object the limitation of the diffusion of the Sacred Scriptures. The petitioners implored the House not to permit such a plan to be carried into effect, and they declared that it was utterly impossible that the Protestants of Ireland could coalesce in this plan, for, as Protestants, it must be odious to them, and as Christians, they could not submit to it. They therefore, prayed the House to withdraw their sanction to the measure, and to continue the grant to a society which was one of the principal means of spreading peace and happiness through the country, by the dissemination of the Sacred Scriptures in their full and unmutilated form. He most cordially supported the prayer of the Petition, as it was in his opinion, a monstrous proceeding to call upon people to submit to the mutilation of the word of God. It was an absurd endeavour of a few persons to set up their own private judgment against the laws of their Creator and to attempt to modify or alter them at their pleasure. It was, in point of fact, waging war with the dignity of Heaven.

Colonel Rochfort

felt great pleasure in supporting the prayer of the Petition just presented by his hon. friend, the member for Donegal, and which he could state was most respectably signed. Whilst on his legs, he would take the opportunity to refer to a petition presented on a former day by his hon. colleague (Mr. Chapman), when he unfortunately was not in his place. That petition was stated to be signed by a clergyman of Westmeath. He considered it due to the clergy of that county to state, that the gentleman alluded to, was not a beneficed clergyman, or even a curate; he was several years ago admitted to orders, but had long since given up the Church. He begged further to remark, that the petition did not appear to have been signed by even those few landed proprietors who generally agreed with his hon. colleague in politics. He must take this opportunity of expressing the satisfaction he felt at what was said in another place some evenings since by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and expressed his conviction that if it had been made before, it would have saved many lives.

Mr. Chapman

was willing to bear his testimony to the respectability of the parties who had signed the petition just presented; but, nevertheless, he must assert, that it did not express the sentiments of the majority of the county with regard to the new plan of education for Ireland. That this new system was opposed, he did not deny; but the opposition was limited to one party of Protestants. The Moderator of the Synod of Ulster observed, that without some plan of this kind, education could not be carried to any great extent in Ireland. He regretted that his hon. colleague was not in his place on the occasion to which he had referred, as he appeared to have misunderstood him with regard to his having said that a certain petition was signed by a Protestant clergyman. He had not said so, but he begged, in conclusion, to assure the House, that the feeling in favour of the present system of education was much more general than was imagined.

Sir Robert Bateson

apprehended that the hon. Member was quite mistaken on one point. The remarks which he attributed to the Moderator of the Synod of Ulster emanated from a Mr. Cooke, who was a very distinguished individual, but not the moderator.

Mr. O'Connell

thought the hon. member for Donegal was filled with religious zeal, when presenting a petition against the proposed plan of education for Ireland. If any system of education went to leave out a part of religious information or doctrine which was disputed between Protestants and Roman Catholics, they were told this was a mutilation of the word of God? Would the hon. Member compel Catholic children to be taught those doctrinal portions of religion in which their fathers did not believe? Would he have Protestant children forced to learn the Roman Catholic's creed. What was the principle upon which this system proceeded? It was that of education in common—of educating the children of Protestants and Roman Catholics together. The hon. Gentleman wished the Roman Catholics to submit to his decision; but would it be right for Protestants to submit to a Catholic education? Certainly not! In like manner the Roman Catholics were unwilling to submit to a Protestant system. The Government had wisely endeavoured to unite both parties, adopting a plan recommended by the Rev. Dr. Sadler (of whom he would say, that there existed not a man more entitled to public praise). He, with the Roman Catholic Bishop of Dublin, came to this arrangement. They agreed that, for four days in every week, the children should read certain extracts from the Old and New Testaments, so selected that no objection could rationally be made to them by Protestant or Roman Catholic. A difference of opinion prevailing upon certain points, they deemed it wholly unadvisable to put the Bible in its entire form into the children's hands. They looked out those general passages which inculcated universal charity and benevolence. On this course, then, there surely could exist no difference of opinion among real Christians. From these passages they formed a book for the perusal of the children four days a-week. Was that mutilating the word of God? To this plan every rational man must assent. Two days in the week the Protestant and the Catholic children were taught their respective catechisms. The Roman Catholic children, on these two days, were instructed in religion exclusively, and apart from the Protestants: if they chose to bring a Bible with them, they were at liberty to do so. Thus four days were devoted to the perusal of these selections from the Scriptures; and two days (besides the Sabbath) to doctrinal religion exclusively, each child being taught according to the doctrines in which it was to be brought up. Could there be a fairer system proposed? He asked men of common sense, whether those persons who opposed it were not deceived by some interested individual? Might not the learned Member, the Recorder for Dublin, be wrong, when, in the height of his zeal, he offered a determined resistance to such a system, and, as it were, cried out "To your tents, oh Israel?" He felt satisfied that the Government had acted with great discrimination in adopting the plan in question. But if there was a feeling against it, he met the opinion of the parties opposed to him with that respect which he was always disposed to shew to the sentiments of those who differed from him upon religious questions. But let them have no forced consciences. He had seen the misery arising from a course calculated to coerce them. It was that course which originated the tribunal of the Inquisition—it had been that course which had led, in Ireland, to the cruel treatment of landlords. To such a course was to be attributed the worst of horrors.

Mr. Shaw

had not intended to trouble the House upon the present occasion, had he not been called up by the observations of the hon. and learned Member. He was persuaded that the Table of the House would be covered with petitions of a similar character to that presented by his hon. friend. He himself had one to present, which would deserve the most serious attention of the House, coming, as it did, from the most influential and respectable persons in Dublin, including many of the highest characters of the church and the law. He had never wished to draw any invidious distinction between Protestants and Catholics in a religious sense, but he differed wholly from the view taken by the hon. and learned Member, when he said, that the proposed system of education was in accordance with the Bible: he asserted the very contrary. What the Protestants desired was, not that extracts from the Scriptures should be forbidden, but that the Government should not attempt to put down one system, founded upon the whole Bible, to substitute another, founded upon a part of it. The hon. and learned Member said, Catholics ought not to submit to Protestant dictation; but, in answer to that, he would tell the hon. and learned Member, that Protestants would never allow the Bible to be withdrawn from their children at the dictation of Catholics. Protestants had already gone to the very verge of compromise to effect a mixed education. In the plan of the Kildare-street Society, they had allowed the Bible to be read in the schools without note or comment. They excluded all catechisms and books of religious controversy, and they admitted Catholic in common with Protestant teachers. He would not disturb the panegyric the hon. and learned Member had pronounced upon the Catholic Bishop of Dublin, and Doctor Sadler, further than by saying, that the Protestants of Ireland of every denomination were opposed to the proposed measure, and would never submit to leave the standard of the Bible for a book of mutilated extracts. The hon. and learned Member had so directly alluded to what he had said in another place, that he felt it necessary to reply in a few words. He had there said, that the Protestants were willing to obey their superiors "in all things lawful," that they continued to yield a willing obedience to the laws, even after these laws had ceased to protect them, but if it became a question between God and man, between human authority and the Scriptures, then the Protestants of Ireland would be found ready to lay down their lives for their Creator and his doctrines, rather than desert them for any human authority whatever.

Mr. Wyse

said, the simple question was, whether the funds of the whole country were to be applied for the good of all, or for the use of a part only, of the people. If the former position was correct, then the Catholics had a right to their full share. The great error in the late system was, that the Bible was to be read without note or comment; this the Catholics objected to, and the Protestants then said, "you must take this, or none." Let any system whatever be adopted, the Catholics had no desire to interfere with the education of Protestant children, and they only required the same measure to be dealt out to themselves; and surely it was worth while to endeavour to promote cordiality by educating children of both persuasions together, by which early union of sentiment mutual good feelings might result in after-life. As to the mutilation of the Bible, which had been so much insisted on, he begged leave to ask, whether there were not passages in that Book unfit for the eye of youth, and for females more especially. And whether there were not other passages so subtle and abstract as would only lead to confusion and error by being placed in the hands of youth. These reasons guided the Catholics in their wishes not to intrust the whole Bible in the hands of children of either sex, and the Protestants themselves acted on this very principle, for they used an abridgment of the Scriptures, and a history of the Bible drawn up by some of the greatest divines of their creed. Further the proposed plan of education was very nearly similar to that of several of the continental states, and of the United States of America, in which the object contemplated was, to educate the youth of all persuasions together, and he could not conceive that the Exclusive Protestants of this country had higher claims to religion than the people of other countries. He, therefore, hoped the Government would persevere and go through with that plan which they had already so well begun.

Mr. Lefroy

said, it was well known that the Catholic opposition to the Kildare-street Society was founded on a Bull from Rome, so that the Government was presenting the extraordinary spectacle of legislating in common with that court, an event which had not been seen since the reign of Mary. As to a selection being-agreed on from the Bible, between the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and Doctor Sadler, he had not before heard of it, and very much doubted the fact. With respect to the assertion of the hon. member for Tippeiary, that portions of the Bible were not fit for the eye of children. That hon. Member's fastidiousness might find such passages, but no Protestants ever met with them.

Mr. Wyse

had never attempted to throw the slightest imputations upon the Scrip- tures, he had as high a veneration for them as any man, but what he meant to convey was, that from the time at which they were written, and from some peculiar expressions they contained, certain parts of them were not fit for the perusal of young females; and the more recondite parts were not adapted for youth generally.

Mr. Ruthven

thought the question was one of good Government, rather than of religion, and he regretted to see so much heat on both sides. The hon. and learned member, the Recorder of Dublin, had declared, that the Protestants were ready to support their religion against all human authority; he, as a member of the Protestant Church, wished to see it supported on its own merits; his ideas of it were, that it preached peace and good-will unto all, and did not require blood for its support. He knew that many Protestants of Ireland were of the same opinion, and, therefore, approved of the proposed plan of education, but the exclusive Protestants, he verily believed, would rather have no education at all, than share it with their Catholic countrymen.

Petition to be printed.