HL Deb 26 May 1862 vol 166 cc2181-91
THE EARL OF CLANCARTY

rose to move an address for the following papers:—

  1. "1. A Memorial addressed in the Month of March to The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by The Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore, and by certain of the Clergy and Laity resident in that Diocese, relative to the use of the Holy Scriptures in the Irish National Schools:"
  2. "2. A Letter from The Lord Lieutenant to The Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore, dated 25th March 1862, with a Communication therein enclosed from the Commissioners of National Education on the Subject of the said Memorial:"
  3. "3. A Letter from The Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore to The Lord Lieutenant on the same Subject, dated 27th March, 1862:"
  4. "4. The Reply of the Lord Lieutenant thereto, dated 16th April 1862:"
and said: My Lords, although I do not apprehend that any objection will be made to the production of the papers for which I am about to move, relating as they do to a matter of so much public importance as the education of the poorer classes in Ireland, a few observations may be necessary to explain their purport and their special bearing upon that subject. The papers consist of a Memorial from the bishop and other residents in the diocese of Down and Connor to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and of a correspondence which grew out of it. The prayer of the Memorial was that the Board of Education should grant permission to the managers and teachers of National schools to make, during the hours of united education, such occasional references to the Word of God as they might deem necessary for the moral improvement of the National school pupils; and from the correspondence it appears that the Commissioners would deem such a practice to be subversive of the fundamental principle of the National system of Education. There is, my Lords, no doubt, much diversity of opinion regarding the principles and regulations best adapted to national education, but upon one point there is a very general agreement, and I think it is also the opinion of your Lordships, that education ought to be based upon religion. In Ireland, formerly, as at present in this country, every grant of public money in aid of it was made upon that principle, and prior to 1831 it formed, in fact, an essential condition of any support being given by the State to the schools under its patronage for the education of the poor, that a portion of the Sacred Volume should be daily read by each pupil in attendance. Some of these Schools were under Roman Catholic superintendence, and attended only by Roman Catholics; others were wholly Protestant, and some were mixed; but in all alike it was required that the Bible should be read. Without discussing whether or not it was right, or conducive to the interests of religion, or consistent with the principle of religious liberty, thus to en force the reading of the Bible in every school, I may observe that when, at the period I have referred to, that requirement was given up, or rather reversed, it was still strongly insisted upon by the Government that some religious and Scriptural instruction should be interwoven with the general teaching in the Irish National schools. The views of the Government were expressed in the letter of the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Stanley, in which the principles and regulations to be observed in the new plan of education were first promulgated. After stating in what manner denominational religious instruction was to have been separately provided for, and the nature of the control to be exercised by the Commis- sioners of Education over all the books, but especially those of a religious character, for the use of the schools, the letter goes on to say— Although it is not designed to exclude from the list of books for the combined instruction such portions of sacred history, or of religious or moral teaching, as may be approved of by the Board, it is to be understood that this is by no means intended to convey a perfect and sufficient religious education, or to supersede the necessity of separate religious instruction on the days set apart for that purpose. Such are the terms in which the views of the Government were announced. From the evidence of the Archbishop of Dublin, taken by the Select Committee of your Lordships' House in 1854, we learn in what manner this new plan of education was at first carried out— Complete religious instruction, he said, it was plain, could not be given in common to those of different denominations; but, as there are some points on which all Christians are agreed, it was desirable that in these the children should be instructed together, leaving a fuller instruction to be supplied to them separately. Accordingly, a summary of sacred history and Scripture lessons, comprising a large portion of the Old and New Testaments, were drawn up and supplied by the Board. On the same subject the opinions of Dr. Carlisle, the first resident Commissioner of the Board of Education, were given to the Committee. He described the system as having been "an experiment how far Roman Catholics and Protestants could proceed together with perfect unanimity in introducing Scriptural light among the population generally." Such, my Lords, were the views of the two most eminent of the Commissioners first appointed to carry out the plan of education. It purported to be, and they so regarded it, "a system of national education based upon religion." That it was not favourably received by the Protestant clergy, those especially of the Established Church, your Lordships are aware was mainly owing to the restrictions it put upon the use of the Bible in their parochial schools. Their opinions upon the whole subject were embodied in the firm, temperate, and impressive protest of the Irish bishops, headed by their now venerable Primate, which has so often been referred to in the debates on education in this House. It received at the time the assent of the great body of the clergy, and still is, at the end of thirty years, the exponent of the views of four-fifths of that body. By some their rejection of the National system has been censured: by others— and I confess myself to be of the number—it has been commended; and it is my belief that the existence of the Reformed Church in Ireland, at this day, as the Established Church of the land, is very much owing to their faithful, disinterested, and uncompromising conduct, as ministers of the Gospel, in refusing to give up the unfettered use of the Bible in any department of their ministry. But if the clergy have been consistent in declining to accept aid for their schools upon such terms, not less consistent and determined have been the Commissioners of the Board of Education in disregarding their conscientious scruples, and in refusing to the oft-repeated prayer of the Protestant population the opening of a single school in connection with the State, wherein the authority of God's Word might be openly acknowledged. Nevertheless, the system of education was in its origin, intended to be based upon religion; and had it not been so recommended, and by many so regarded, it could never have been established. Its tendencies, however, soon became of so opposite a character, that the Archbishop of Dublin, as well as Mr. Blackburne and the late Baron Greene, whoso very names had been a claim to public confidence, were at length, in 1853, driven to resign their seats at the Board. The system, as soon afterwards appeared in evidence be fore the Select Committee, had failed in the very important object of affording (except in the modern schools of the Board) separate religious instruction to the children of different religious denomination. Hence, when the selected extracts from Scripture, the Book of Evidences of Christianity, the Sacred Poetry, and other works of a religious character prepared and recommended by the first Commissioners for general use in the schools, were afterwards, one after another, prohibited from being so used, the scheme of united education forfeited all title to be any longer regarded as a system of religious education. The Archbishop of Dublin, in his evidence before the Select Committee, on the 10th of March, 1854, made this remarkable statement. He said that "he knew it to have been the design of some of the Commissioners to weed out, bit by bit, everything relating to religion from all the reading books;" and, further on, that he "considered such proceeding to have been a breach of faith with the public, inasmuch as he knew that some who had at first been opposed to the system, as irreligious, had, upon further inquiry, joined in when they found the amount of religious instruction conveyed in the books." Such was the view taken, in 1854, of the practical development of the system of national education in Ireland, by one who had been its most influential patron and most efficient supporter. Whether it has, or could have, since fallen lower as a system pretending to be religious, I cannot say; nor can I conceive for what reason, more cogent in 1862 than in 1853, it should have occurred to the Bishop of Down, and the other supporters of the National Board who were associated with him in the memorial to the Lord Lieutenant, to pray after so many years of a total eclipse of the light of the Gospel in the National schools, to be allowed to make during the hours of general instruction such reference to the Word of God as occasion might demand. But the application and the answer are, nevertheless, instructive, and very important, inasmuch as they have established, upon the authority of the Government and of the Commissioners, the fact, before disputed, that the moral training of the rising generation in the National Schools is not based upon religion, at least not upon the religion of the Bible, and that any attempt to make it so would be subversive of its fundamental principle. The correspondence is further remarkable as indicating the reluctance with which the Commissioners yielded to the necessity of revealing to the public a fact so condemnatory of a system that had always before been represented as fraught with religious training. The memorial itself I have not seen, but it is substantially set forth in the answer of the Commissioners of Education, which was enclosed in the first letter of the Lord Lieutenant to the Bishop of Down, Addressing his Excellency on the part of the Commissioners the secretaries thus write— May it please your Excellency,—We have had the honour of laying before the Commissioners of National Education the memorial ad dressed to your Excellency by the Bishop and eighty-seven of the clergy, and by Viscount Massercene and Ferrard, and one hundred and nine teen laymen of the United Church of England and Ireland, resident in the united diocese of Down and Connor and Dromore, praying that the rule of the Board as regards the reading of the Holy Scriptures shall not be enforced to prevent the manager or teacher of any school from making such reference to the Word of God as occasion may demand during the hours of general instruction, provided that under the appearance of exercising this just right, no religious teaching of a denominational character be introduced. We are directed to acquaint your Excellency, that with the most anxious desire to extend the benefits of the National system as much as possible, the Commissioners cannot approve of the modification of the rule with regard to the reading of the Scriptures as proposed by the memorialists, the Commissioners being decidedly of opinion that such modification would be subversive of the fundamental principle of the National system of education. In thus answering the memorialists, the Commissioners appear desirous to evade the question submitted to them; but the Bishop, perceiving it, immediately wrote the following reply to the Lord Lieutenant, dated March 27:— My dear Lord,—Whilst I beg to thank your Excellency for the kind and friendly spirit in which you have acknowledged the receipt of the memorial which I had the honour, in company with a deputation from my united diocese, to present to you on the subject of National education, I must, at the same time, on the part of the memorialists, draw your attention to an error in which the Commissioners of National Education have fallen. We did not seek any modification of their rule with regard to the reading of the Scriptures during the hours of general instruction, but simply permission to make such reference to the Word of God as occasion might demand. Your Excellency will perceive the marked distinction existing between the reading of Scripture during ordinary school hours, and the occasional reference to the same in the exercise of what will be, we hope, considered as a just right in imparting that combined literary and moral instruction which is required under the rules of the Board. Under these circumstances, I trust I am justified, on the part of the memorialist, in requesting your Excellency to refer the memorial and its accompanying statement to the Commissioners for their reconsideration.—I have, &c, (Signed) "ROBERT DOWN AND CONNOR. Some difficulty appears to have been felt by the Education Board in dealing with this reply of the Lord Bishop, and it was only after an interval of nearly three weeks' deliberation that the Lord Lieutenant was enabled to announce to him their final decision. His letter conveying it is dated April 16, 1862. He writes— My dear Lord,—I have received an intimation from the Commissioners of National Education that the reconsideration of the proposal made by the deputation from the clergy of your diocese to which you invited them, has not led them to think that they can see their way to make any alteration in the present practice.—Believe me, my dear Lord, yours very faithfully, CARLISLE. Thus very reluctantly have the Commissioners unveiled the naked deformity of that system of united education which was so often represented as conferring upon ' the poor of Ireland the inestimable blessing of a sound moral and religious educa- tion. They practically declare it to be a system that so entirely casts off the Word of God that to permit a reference to be made to it, however necessary for the repression of vice, or for the inculcation of right motives of moral conduct, would, in their opinion, be subversive of its fundamental principle. Hence it appears, that if the Lord Bishop of Down, who has been, and, it is said, still continues to be, a zealous patron of the National system, should at any time visit the school under his patronage, he must for the occasion lay aside his character of a Christian bishop, he must submit to present himself bereft of that "just right," for which in the correspondence he so properly contended, of making such occasional reference to the Inspired Volume as might conduce to the moral improvement of the poor children sent to be educated at his schools. If he should notice among them any profane speaking, or taking of the Lord's name in vain, or the disregard of Sabbath observances, or the addiction of any of them to any kind of vice, or if the teacher should call up to him any pupil that had been guilty of lying or stealing, or of any other crime, he may perhaps direct the infliction of punishment, or he may admonish, pointing to the rod, the gaol, or the gallows; but he may not point to the Divine command, or attempt by aid to be derived from Scripture, to awaken and to cultivate better dispositions. Envy, covetousness, hatred, and revenge are dispositions that often manifest themselves in the characters of children. Should he have occasion to notice any such manifestations among his pupils, he may not attempt to repress or correct them by any reference to the beautiful and impressive lessons of unerring wisdom and love with which the Gospels abound. No; the seeds of vice must be left to germinate, the weeds must be left to strengthen, no otherwise checked than as they may be by unaided reason. Is such, my Lords, the kind of education that can elevate the national character?— is such the kind of education that would be tolerated in England? Is such the kind of national education that a Christian Government should uphold? I know my poor countrymen to be by nature warmhearted, generous, brave, and intelligent; but that they are also excitable, revengeful, and easily misled. When, therefore, you hear of such atrocities being committed as have at times, and particularly within the last few weeks, brought dis- grace upon the Irish name, let it be recollected that, owing to the kind of education you have provided for them, the greater part of the population have been brought under no religious influences; that the natural disposition to evil has rather been left to its more certain development by the restrictions put upon moral training. It is, my Lords, by the influence of education that the character and habits of a people are formed; and no Christian can doubt that early religious impressions are necessary to produce right dispositions, as well as to aid in the development of reason and intelligence in the manner most conducive to social happiness and national greatness. It is therefore an important duty on the part of the Government to see that the element of religion is not wanting in the education of the people, as the foundation of the moral character. Great is the responsibility of its being neglected, but still greater is it if, as now under the Irish so-called National system, it is rendered impossible. I do not intend, in these observations, to make any charge specially against the present Government; the responsibility rests quite as much with preceding Governments, and, perhaps more so, as after the inquiry before the Select Committee in 1854, while the facts brought out in evidence were still fresh upon the mind, there was certainly no justification for leaving the education of the poor in the very unsatisfactory state in which it was then shown to be. The expectation was very general at the time, and the hopes entertained very sanguine, that important modifications of the system would have been proposed; but time passed on, the two great parties that divide and alternately govern the country were too much engaged with other interests to care for the educational interests of the Irish poor. Whatever, therefore, have been the abuses of the system, whatever its defects, they hare been allowed to continue. No change of any consequence has since been made, except an increase in the number of Roman Catholic Commissioners — a vain and weak attempt to satisfy the Roman Catholic hierarchy. It was, no doubt, the leading object of the Government, in 1831, in the plan of education as then introduced, to obtain the support of that body as essentially necessary to its success; and Mr. Cardwell, the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, probably thought that after all that had been done they might have been satisfied by the further concession of a preponderance of Roman Catholic Commissioners upon the Education Board. It is not, however, thus that the claims of the Roman Catholic body are to be satisfied. It, no doubt, afforded them consider able satisfaction in the first institution of the National system to find that it expressly recognised the principle of their Church of denying to the laity the free use of the Bible, and it may have been with feelings of triumph that they witnessed the rejection from all future countenance and encouragement by the State of every school conducted upon the principles of our Reformed Church for the scriptural education of the poor; but, however gratifying may have been to them the dishonour thus done by a Protestant Government to the principles of the Reformation, they were not disposed in return to do any dishonour to the principles of their own Church. They ask, and I see nothing unreasonable in their claim, that they should be allowed to conduct their own schools upon their own principles. The Church Education Society demands no more and no less; and I do not think it can with any truth be said that there exists in Ireland complete religious toleration, while the clergy alike of the Established Church, and of the Church of Rome, or of any other Christian denomination, are debarred, under rules laid down for public instruction, from affording to the children that may be sent to their schools such moral and religious education, and in such manner, as they may deem most conducive to their best interests. The Government, by means of proper inspection, could effectively check or prevent any abuses, and by proportioning the aid given to the several schools to the number and proficiency of the pupils, there would be imparted to the work of education the powerful stimulus of emulation. But it is not to discuss the principles and details of an altered system of education that I have risen to address your Lordships, but only to point out to the House, and to Her Majesty's Government, the necessity there exists for a change, and, on the other hand, the grave responsibility with respect to the future moral condition and character of the people, of leaving the education of the poorer classes in Ireland to be conducted upon such principles as those laid down by the Commissioners of National Education; and I think that the papers for which I now beg to move fully demonstrate the necessity for a change of system.

THE BISHOP OF KILLALOE

said, he did not understand the noble Earl intended to make it an absolute condition that in all schools subsidized by the Government the Holy Scriptures should be compulsorily read. His noble Friend spoke of that as a thing which had existed in times gone by; but as a thing that could not be asked for now. What his noble Friend seemed to want was a system of denominational grants. Now, if such a system were to be established, in the Roman Catholic schools the education of the people would still, no doubt, be based upon religion; but it would be based upon a religion which both the noble Earl and himself considered erroneous. Next came the case of schools in connection with Protestant bodies, particularly those belonging to the Established Church. With respect to religion, so far as it influenced common morality, and, indeed, to a far greater extent, it was to be remembered that the ordinary reading-books of the National Board, which patrons might require to be used at all hours in the schools, were full of such instruction, with most distinct and repeated references to Holy Scriptures. They contained a great mass of Scripture history and moral tales and lessons. Moreover, in the schools were hung up the Ten Commandments, and it had been expressly and repeatedly declared by the Board that they would consider it no breach of their rules to refer to those Commandments for the purpose of common instruction. It would be perfectly impossible, consistently with the principles of the system, to frame a rule giving that liberty which his right rev. Brother the Bishop of Down and Connor asked for without at the same time giving a great deal more. If they were to frame a general rule by which a patron was to be allowed to give religious instruction which he should deem not denominational, the state of things would become vague and uncertain, and it would be impossible to avoid constant collisions between the managers of the schools and the parents of the children. He might mention that in a parish in his late diocese, Cork, in which there were some few years ago only 137 children on the rolls of the schools, the number had increased to 307, at which it stood at the present time; and the religious instruction was every day given by the rector of the parish to the children, and the school opened by prayer. It was true that at that instruc- tion no child was required to attend whose parents objected to his doing so; and he could assure the noble Earl, that if such attendance were made compulsory — for that, no doubt, would be the effect of having the schools opened by prayer—it would be impossible to carry such a system into effect. At many of the schools the majority of the children were Dissenters; and with regard to the Roman Catholic Schools, he did not see how the noble Earl's proposition would improve their position.

THE EARL OF BANDON

contended, that it was not right that Protestant schools should be the only ones which were practically denied Government aid, observing, that while the conscientious scruples of Dissenters were respected in recent legislation, those of the members of the Established Church seemed to be ignored. All that was asked for was that aid should be given to the parochial schools in connection with the Established Church. It was utterly vain to expect to carry out a system of united education in the non-vested schools in Ireland, and he earnestly hoped that the Government would calmly consider whether it was not possible to bring this question to a settlement.

THE EARL OF CLANCARTY

in reply observed, that the right rev. Prelate had rested his defence of the National system mainly upon the religious character of many of the books in common use; but if he knew anything of the system, he ought to know that those books had been eliminated from the combined instruction; and when he said they were full of references to Scripture, he must have overlooked the fact that in the correspondence moved for, such references were distinctly stated by the Commissioners to be at variance with the fundamental principle of the system. The right rev. Prelate had stated that the Church Education was improperly so called; but if he knew anything of its rules and practice, he would have known that it provided catechetical instruction in Church doctrine to Church children, besides extending to all, of whatever Christian denomination, that knowledge of the Holy Scriptures which they were denied under the National system. Their schools were not proselytizing schools; but it was the duty of the Established Church not only to confirm her laity in her doctrines, but to extend, as far as possible, the blessings of Scriptural education.

Motion agreed to.