large portion of earnest men of all schools have united in disliking, suspecting, and opposing it; and that instead of allaying strife, it has itself been a source of strife. Churchmen, as representing a powerful and very independent body in the country, seem to have openly opposed it; and the Church Education Society's Schools have stood forth as their protest against it. The Roman Catholic Prelates, at first, appear to have partially accepted it. Since then many of them have denounced it; and latterly their opposition, instead of relaxing, has increased. Suspicion has never slumbered. The school-books formed an early and obvious ground of dispute. The position of school-rooms in immediate proximity to some Church or Chapel, the admission of non-vested schools and similar matters have sufficed as grounds for keeping active controversy alive. The flame has been fanned by political differences, and it can scarcely be hoped that we are now on the eve of more cordial co-operation, when it is proposed to adjust the religious injuries endured by Roman Catholics in past generations, by inflicting a substantial wrong on the descendants of those who are held to have injured them. As though there was something so sweet in revenge, something so satisfactory in stripping those whose fathers had wronged us, as to compensate for all the ills from which we are suffering, though we are inhibited from touching any portion of the spoil.

But beside this, there has been from the beginning dislike to a system which all felt to be shorn of something, that they looked upon as essential. For the minority the school would frequently not be opened with prayers, or when there were prayers they would not be such as they could heartily join in; whilst the majority, when Roman Catholic, would feel that the devotions were robbed of what was required to make them impressive by the inhibition of those visible material assistances, such as a crucifix, which they regard as necessary adjuncts. I fear that such a system of separate religious instruction has attracted but little help from the ministers of religion, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, and if so, the religious part of the instruction must be a failure.

In saying this, I feel bound to express my regret that there should have been such a severance of personal teaching by the clergy from the schools. The value of souls is so priceless, that under all circumstances the clergy are bound to do all that can be done for the religious training of the youth of their flocks. Let them toil for freedom, contend for freedom, do all that can be done to secure a sound system, but let them never fail to make the most of the opportunities allowed them. If they feel the educational system to be faulty, oppressive, clogged with a yoke of bondage, then better far to work in their chains than to emancipate themselves from labours, which are essential for the good of their people. We best work towards liberty by showing that our

heart is in our work, and by doing all that we are permitted to do, even though each act of ours is one of self-sacrifice and conscious humiliation.

Under such circumstances it seems well nigh impossible for your national school system to win the sympathies of the people. Whilst using they will dislike it, and there is danger that when their prejudices are appealed to, the costly efforts of the State for their intellectual advancement may be used as an instrument for fostering hostility against itself. To judge from the returns of national schools, I suppose there cannot be a Fenian in Ireland whose name has not been borne on the rolls of a national school; there cannot be an emigrant from your shores, old enough to have been at school, who has not been mustered in the ranks of national schools. If the Churches had cordially approved these schools, if the clergy had done what they could to instil affection for them into the minds of their flocks, one would have expected the spirit of loyalty at all events to have been implanted. I fear this has not been done, and whatever other successes the Irish system may have achieved, it has not welded the people of

the land into a united nation.

Let us next turn to the system which treats the Church and State as co-operating on equal terms in the work of education. In a country like England, where there is so large an amount of nonconformity, it is impossible to treat Church and State as identical. Provision must therefore be made for the education of those who dissent from the Church, and it seems politic, as well as equitable, that in this matter non-conformists should be placed on an equal footing with churchmen. It is upon this principle that our English system of national education is built. The State offers to co-operate with all upon the same terms; the national grants, whether for building or for maintenance, are apportioned to the number of children; they are made at the rate of so much per child; it therefore does not affect the National Exchequer, whether the children are taught in a large number of small schools or a small number of large ones. Over the religious instruction to be given in the school the State exercises no control, only such a supervision as shall help to secure the well-doing of that which is professed to be done. The Church and the non-conformists are alike free in imparting their own tenets, and both seem fairly to exercise those virtues of generosity towards dissentients, and of toleration towards opponents, which it might be difficult to enforce by State authority. In Ireland the efforts to secure unity must excite a feeling of controversy; for what could more continually bring before the minds of the children that they are aliens to each other, than the solemn pause and separation before religious instruction is commenced, and the warning board, announcing the fact, that is prominently stuck up in and about the school. In England there is no such kindling of disunion, and the consequence is, that I have

known Roman Catholics, as well as Protestant non-conformists, remain spontaneously in our schools whilst the directly religious teaching has been given, and of course upon all moral obligation is enforced upon Christian motives. It is remarkable, too, that notwithstanding the many small parishes in England and Wales, not one single well authenticated case has yet been adduced of violence having been done to the religious convictions of a single child in our schools, or of one single child having been deprived of education from unwillingness to submit to the religious teaching of the schools within its reach. I am well aware that assertions of a different character are constantly paraded before the country, but I boldly challenge those who make them to name one single well authenticated case-one single case in which the alleged facts were fairly examined in the presence of witnesses whose wishes and whose interests did not bias their minds to accept any evidence as sufficient-one single case in which those who disbelieved the statements adduced were allowed fully, fairly, and freely to sift the evidence. Those who wish for examples to support their theories have readily given heed to every story which promised to give the illustrations they needed; they have whispered their suspicions abroad, gravely shaken their heads, and asserted that there were plenty of cases which could be produced if it was desirable to do so; but they have never yet given us the name of one single child who was surreptitiously perverted from its own faith, or of the school in which it was accomplished, never yet told us of one single child deprived of education in consequence of the faith of its parents, never yet given us a chance of sifting their assertions, and proving, as I have no doubt we should do, their utter worthlessness and want of truth.

I claim, then, for our English system, that it is founded upon a true principle, and the only one which is really applicable to the state of the country. It has been developed with great rapidity; with great economy to the State, and though still needing some enlargement for the convenience of the people, I question whether any children could be found, except, perhaps in very thinly peopled mountainous or moorland districts, who have remained uneducated, because there was no school within their reach. It has not so large a proportion of its population on the school rolls as you have in Ireland, but it has a much larger average attendance. It is content to leave the standard of the secular education it imparts to the State. This rises when the State wishes it to do so, and furnishes the necessary facilities for the purpose: it falls when the State practically urges the abandonment of higher subjects, by insisting solely on universal proficiency in the lower rudiments of education. No system could promote more complete friendliness and toleration amongst persons of different religious tenets, as is abundantly proved by the complete absence of any bona fide objections by those for whose benetit it has been framed, and by the state of the country; and yet, if the instruction

be not definitely religious, and if the children be not well taught to understand the creed they profess, it is the fault of individual teachers and of the clergy, whose province it is to superintend the schools, and especially the religious instruction imparted in them, and not the fault of the system. Complaints of the principles on which it is conducted have never been raised by active practical men busily engaged in carrying forward the education of the country, but by doctrinaires and theorists, who object to what does not conform to their own mental ideal. The men who have built up and sustained our national school system have never found anything in what was required for its development to interfere with their religious convictions, and with the exception of a few individuals, who from indifference to dogma would willingly accept anything tending towards latitudinarianism, it may be said, that all who do the work of education are on the one side, whilst the other is made up of those whose claims to be heard can never be founded upon what they have accomplished.

It were strange if the relations between the Church and the State had never been ruffled by a breeze, more especially when the department to which the State has entrusted the duty of superintending education, has ever shared in those infirmities which men, clothed in a little brief authority, are apt to exhibit; but in all that has not affected that which she felt to be essential, the Church has ever been ready to suffer wrong, and to shew forbearance; and to this, not less than to the zeal and self-denial of multitudes of her sons, the present happy position of national education is largely owing. Little do the theorists who would change the fundamental relations of the Church to the State in this matter of education, understand how much confusion and evil they would introduce; how much loss of faith, and lowering of morality they would entail on the poor of the land if they were to succeed in carrying out their plans. For when the Church ceased to work as an equal, she would soon appear in the field as a rival. When the State was no longer content with the toleration and forbearance which the Church generously accords to those who dissent from her teaching, but sought to bind her with fetters forged by her enemies, and intended to humble her, it would find that the open-hearted truthfulness of the free is a better safeguard than the grudging submission of the enslaved. Should such a change unhappily be made, suspicion and unceasing strife would probably replace the present harmonious union, and we could not hope that England would long continue to be what she now is, a loyal and united nation; the Church would gradually cease from the laborious efforts and the costly sacrifices she now makes for the religious education of the people; the schools would depend upon taxation, and not upon the benevolence of the religious, until in some hour of political need, with the diminished efficiency of its schools, and the ever-increasing demoralisation of its people, the State would be compelled to abandon the costly and unsatisfac

G

tory scheme into which it had been driven, and the country would be suddenly deprived of any system of national education. As a patriot, then, not less than as a Churchman, I say of the present combined action of Church and State in promoting the education of the people of England-may it be perpetual!

DISCUSSION.

The Ven. GEORGE A. DENISON (Archdeacon of Taunton) :·
:-

It is pleasant to hear many good things very well said, as in the papers just read. But

Medio de fonte leporum

Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat.

The subject we have in hand is not in a healthy state. It has been poisoned, and, as yet, no treatment has got rid of the poison; all treatment indeed has aggravated its effect; or, to take another figure from a source equally unpleasant, it is throttled and crushed, and almost dead in the coils and folds of the "Conscience Clause."

I am not going to say many words about the "Conscience Clause," at least in any detail, which, I have no doubt, is a relief to the Congress. It is not that it is to my taste a nicer thing than it was. I think it in any shape a thing so peculiarly nasty and offensive, that no gilding or silvering when taken solid; no dilution or disguising when taken liquid, can prevent nausea. I suppose no man or woman who has tasted it has not suffered at least to this extent. Indeed, I believe that no sound and healthy constitution has escaped injury from it. But it takes a long time to persuade some people that they are sick.

It happens, however, by a rare fortune, that there is no longer any reasonable excuse for taking up time, private or public, with inquiry into the nature and operation of this drug. It has now been placed beyond all reasonable doubt, by the researches of learned men, that the first father of the "Conscience Clause was Julian the Apostate. It may be found, so to speak, verbatim in the Latin of the Empire, in his Edict touching the schools of the Church, xv. kal. Jun., A.D. 362, and there I think we will leave it. There are some people, indeed, who esteem the parentage a recommendation. For there is nothing which men now-a-days do not contrive to turn topsyturvey. I am told that deeper consideration by learned, scientific, impartial, and truth-loving men has discovered many grounds for believing that Julian the Apostate is a much slandered and injured man; too enlightened only for his age; much, I suppose, like the men who do "Conscience Clauses" in our age. Well, if the philosophers affect Julian the Apostate, that is their affair; we make them a free gift of him and his Clause, so curiously recalled to life in the 19th century. All I have to say upon it is this: That as, under no circumstances or conditions could I have anything to do with a "Conscience Clause," so I can have nothing to do with advising any other man to accept it.

come what may.

All I have to do is to advise all men not to accept it, If the Church of England and Ireland cannot have assistance from the civil Power consistently with her mission, her doctrine, and