We shall make no apology for calling again the attention of our readers to the important subject of education. At this time that subject rises daily into consequence, and as almost every individual in the land is engaged either as a patron, or a contributor to schools, it is one that comes home with interest to every one's feelings. More especially it is important, when we consider the great national societies labouring in Ireland, and the details of their operations that are presented to the public.

Mr. Glassford pays a just and merited tribute to the effects of the Kildare-place Society, with respect to the excellent school-houses they have been the means of erecting, the higher class of teachers they have produced, and the excellent cheap books for the poor that they have compiled. He is no friend as we shall see to the compromise which that society tacitly enters into of giving up commentary and exposition, if the scriptures be admitted into the School; a compromise that he conceives to be more especially injurious, because the Protestant part of it is maintained, while the other side too frequently evade the performance of its engagement. The education of the poor of Ireland must, to be beneficial, be such as to induce Roman Catholics and Protestants to intermingle in one common school-room, that as children they may prepare to resist the dominion of prejudices that would sever and alienate them. That no Protestant will consent for the attainment of this end, that the popish clergy should be entrusted with the superintendance of the education, we confidently anticipate; for as Mr. G. remarks, their civil and religious education is so mixed, and so committed to one person, that all literary instruction would be necessarily perverted. It remains then to be considsred, whether the education communicated by schools under Protestant patronage, and Protestant superintendance, should be of a character purely literary, or whether religion should form an essential part; and if so, whether that religion should be confined to the reading of the scriptures, or whether, laying aside all merely controversial books and catechisms, religion, its doctrinal

and preceptive fullness, should not be made the subject matter of instruction.

Mr. Glassford seems to think that the former system might be usefully employed; that if religious instruction were provided for those who would have recourse to it, on certain days in the week, at stated hours, the rest of the school occupation might be devoted to literary instruction; and that even if home and domestic teaching failed to inform the others, public channels are open to supply the deficiency. We regret to differ from Mr. G. on any subject; but we own that on this point we cannot agree with him: and we would argue against him from the very views that he himself has taken. The Roman Catholic clergy hold that the civil and religious system must be intermingled, and confided to one superintendant; and it is as great a departure from their system, and involves as much criminality to learn the multiplication table from a Protestant, as to read the scriptures under his direction. So far as principle is concerned, the attendance upon a school where the Roman Catholic clergyman is not the supreme head, is a violation of it a l'outrance, and in practice we know this has been, when possible, enforced. We have known a Protestant patron gradually remove commentary, and Bible, and Testament from his school in hopes of inducing attendance; but he finally found that his religion was considered so infectious that all the children were withdrawn. We have known a benevolent lady, when her religious and literary cares were disappointed by the Priest, open a school for instructing the neighbouring girls to work, and yet be compelled to close it, because as the Priest ingenuously confessed, she was a Protestant: and when such things occur daily, we confess we do not think that Mr. G's plan would be successful.

Mr. Glassford justly remarks that serious objections exist as to such a system being pursued by a national and legislative determination, and he adduces the impossibility of enforcing the religious part of the plan, while the literary might be carried into effect: surely a similar objection would hold against any person or body of persons attempting to pursue it; the same devices and evasion would take place, and the plan would terminate in a total separation of literature from religion. We certainly regard that divorce as of most serious consequence in its operation on the lower orders; as literature in its extended signification, never can become their property, we would fain give them that portion which may be theirs, clothed in a religious form, or at least accompanied by religious impressions and as the hours spent at school in early or advanced life, are a large proportion of the leisure that the poor man enjoys, we would gladly direct his attention to her promises and her precepts as an end, using all the improvements of intellect but as a means for its attainment.*

* On the subject of the experiment proposed by the Board of Education Enquiry, with reference to this point, we find the following interesting remarks, pp. 37, 38, "But I do not think it a subject for regret that this proposal was made, and

39.

To us the evil of giving the peasant an education distinct from religion appears to be a very serious one, and from our knowledge of popery and the Irish character, one that would be extensive and permanent. We know the creed of popery too well to trust it for the purposes of morality, and we know that no effective opposition can be found to it but in the scriptures.

With such views and feelings, we turn to the other part of the alternative: how can the existing system be best supported, and how can religious instruction be best communicated ?—and here we rejoice to find ourselves in perfect agreement with Mr. G. on, we believe, the soundest principles of moral judgment, and the justest views of human nature. He thinks, and we conceive, justly, that the systems hitherto pursued of scriptural education by the great societies have been defective; that an attempt at compromising, in obedience to circumstances, and the dictates of expediency, has been proved unavailing; and that nothing will really serve but a healthy return to the good (we will not say Protestant only, but) primitive custom of declaring the whole counsel of God. When Protestants living in Ireland discovered, and Protestants living in England and Scotland heard that there were some millions of beings whose existence was recognized by the laws, as men residing around the former, and within reach of the latter, yet almost devoid of education in any rational, and totally so in any religious sense, the discovery, for it was a discovery, produced immediate results. Christian benevolence was excited; Christian wealth employed; and Chris

that the preliminary efforts towards its execution were carried to the extent which they reached, and beyond which they could not have been pursued.

Among other deductions, it may safely be concluded, that no attempt to combine any useful amount of religious and scriptural education with the machinery of the common schools under the patronage of the Roman Catholic clergy, as a body, will be successful. For either the scriptures will not be taught, or the nature of the religious instruction will of course be solely and exclusively Roman Catholic.

The church of Rome cannot, consistently with her principles, permit the reading of the Bible in their schools; not in the vulgar tongue, because she has no authorized version in the modern languages; nor can she admit it even in the authorized Latin Vulgate, if that version could be used by the people, while divested of commentary. Accordingly, in those schools which are conducted entirely under the superintendance of the religious orders in Ireland, and particularly of those whose professed object is to educate the people, schools which must therefore be considered as formed on the most perfect Roman Catholic model, I believe it may safely be affirmed, that the Bible, in its simplest form, and in the language of the country, is never read, nor even its existence made known to the children. A mistake is sometimes committed, indeed, on this subject by persons who have occasionally visited such institutions, if not previously acquainted with the discipline of the church of Rome; because in the familiar language of Roman Catholics, the term Bible is not unfrequently applied to those narratives which have been compiled from particular parts of scripture, as books of instruction in Roman Catholic doctrine.

The Bible, or at least the New Testament, is to be found, indeed, in many of the common pay schools taught by Roman Catholic masters. But this is not the effect of arrangement or calculation: it is the result of circumstances. It is the effect, therefore, not so much of choice as a sort of necessity; and it is not unusual to find the children in these schools reading promiscuously some portions of scripture, along with the romances of Fielding or Smollett, or the works of authors still more objectionable.

tian influence exerted to remedy the evils that were for the first time for three centuries seen to exist. But these evils had expanded, and grown under the fostering neglect of three centuries; Ireland was not as the reformation had found her: the sun that had poured fertility on Britain, had either converted Ireland into a barren desert, or produced the rank and noxious weeds of superstition and error. Ireland, from her religious neglect, and political excitement, had become POPISH, and the friends of education in the nineteenth century, had to contend not merely with indifference and infidelity, not merely with the fears of the ignorant alarmists who apprehended insubordination in the alphabet; but with the banded power of the priest and the liberal: of him who felt that the pillars of the Church of Rome were undermined by education; and of him who, indifferent to every church, subserved the interests of the worst and to the influence of the one, and the designs of the other, had the wretched Irish peasant been given over by British and Irish neglect. In such a situation did the first framer of these education societies find Ireland; and if to meet the awful ignorance of the scriptures of God, they compromised a part of what was perhaps their duty, in order the better to accomplish another part, the difficulty of this situation is equally the cause and the excuse. They were willing to sacrifice much to effect the great object of introducing the scriptures to the knowledge of the Irish poor, of teaching them that there was such a book; that it was of supreme and paramount authority in religion, and to procure the recognition of the priesthood for such a book. This has been effected, and although the compromise of reading without comment, and hearing without understanding has been a blot upon Protestant education, still much has been effected: the Bible has been heard of throughout Ireland, and the effects consequent upon even a partial perusal of that blessed and spirit-stirring book have been produced. The very hostility of the priests to its perusal and use, has proved its value to the people, and every natural feeling of the human mind is excited for its acquisition. The simultaneous exertions of other societies with other objects, have come in to aid the honest exertions of those we are now contemplating, and while we rejoice to believe, that, whether in hostility or in love, there are few peasants in Ireland who do not know the Bible; we trust that the apalling statement given in the nineteenth century, by a Roman Catholic on oath, will never be again repeated, that in some parts of this country, a peasant would not know what a Bible meant !

Such is our view of the origin, and of the extenuating circumstances that account for the nature of the present system. We defend it not on principle, but we think it was forced upon the friends of education, and that it has been made productive of great advantages. These have become unnecessary, or have been superseded; the Roman Catholic priesthood that acceded to the compromise have felt that even in its strictest interpretation it was inimical to their interests, and that the very presence of a Bible infected the orthodox school. After procuring money and books, and

*

aid for building, they have in many instances, with an ingenuity of purpose not disgraceful to the disciples of Loyola, thrown off the fostering societies, and have tendered their allegiance to the exclusive system. We regret this for the partial evil it may do, but we think it was to be expected, and in general not to de deprecated. We We are inclined to rejoice that education supported by Protestant funds, and directed by Protestant exertions, will at length be conducted on Protestant plans, and that without either the reality or the appearance of proselytism, (proselytism of children!) the scriptures of God will be read and understood generally. If the simple hearing and reading of the scriptures, and the imparting to the infant mind a scriptural view of the great doctrines contained in them be to proselyte, we glory in such an accusation; but if it be called liberality, though nearly connected with absurdity, to enforce the reading of a book which is not understood, or the committal to memory of a set of phrases without distinct ideas attached to them, if this be liberality, we disdain such principles for ourselves and our friends.

In fine, we would give in all Protestant schools, scriptural education; excluding all controversy, and during school-hours catechisms; we would make the Word of God the basis of that education. The system of the Kildare-place Society, so valuable in many respects, is assuredly defective in this; and the restrictions laid, as we believe, upon the schools of the Hibernian School Society, though they go a step further, must limit their usefulness. We know that compromise would not now produce any effect, and is not needed :-open hostility has been declared against the Bible as a medium of school instruction, and whatever effects may be produced among the people in any way, must be by the innate power of the system, not by the favor of pastors; when they have influence, they withdraw all the children, and if the children return, t the Bible may be read. This system will indeed require two things; a more attentive superintendance of the patrons-and a better order of school masters; and as the times imperiously require the one, so we trust the Societies will seek to provide the other. We would not at present trust even the verbal interpretation of the Scriptures to the country schoolmasters; but this only proves that more than one part of the system has been defective;-let this be amended ;in this the Kildare-place Society and the Capel-street Association may be made most useful; and if their training schools do not furnish Ireland with masters, new Societies should be established to meet the demand.

In times like the present, it is difficult to avoid considering what may take place in consequence of certain conjunctures :— -While

* Supported too in some instances by Protestants who yet speak as if they reverenced the Bible.

+ We could name many schools, some were in the dangerous vicinity of J. K. L. where perseverance in honest, uncompromising Protestantism, has been rewarded by the return of the children.