The British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical ...

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.” A writer in the last “ Edinburgh Review," from whom truth occasionally drops with the air of an indiscretion, laments that no respectable class in society is favourable to the party now in power. “ The church, too,” he adds, “ is against them, and regards them, most absurdly, and most wildly, as the source of all its perils."

Without inquiring into a point,--not desirable to discuss here, and certainly with the earnest wish to believe that whoever is minister of this great country, is not hostile to its church,-it may still be permitted to observe, that it is much to be lamented that ministers allow the church to be spoken of as it is, in quarters which they publicly countenance. Let us look at a publication of the most elaborate and imposing pretensions, entitled “ The Quarterly Journal of Education,” issued under the sanction of a committee, including the names of Lord Brougham, Lord John Russell, Lord Denman, Lord Spencer, Lord Ebrington, Lord Nugent, Right Hon. J. C. Hobhouse, &c.

It is, perhaps, one of the few favourable symptoms of the time, that this farrago has failed to attract sufficient attention to make it pay its way; for this is the plain English of the concluding

; article of the last Number, and is probably also the existing cause of the concentrated malice in its final volley. But can the committee just named be in the slightest degree aware that the Church is arraigned in such terms as the following, in a work which they countenance ?

“ The early friends of general education-(mark, not religious education)-were the seceders from the orthodox mother-church; probably they had in view the ulti

VOL. IX.-Jan. 1836.

mate increase of their own sect-(qu., sects? how will their dissenting friends relish this unparliamentary imputation of motives?)—by instilling into the rising gene. ration their own principles and religious tenets. Be this as it may, the church took the alarm, and seeing that there was some danger in remaining passive, the clergy belonging to the establishment, almost simultaneously, actively promoted the cause of education throughout the country."--(No. xx., p. 323.)

“ The knowledge of reading and writing is no more education than feet are walking, or eyes seeing; they are the organs by which these acts are performed. [Is this one of the discoveries of the nineteenth century?] If we turn out hungry boys, unskilled in simples, into the woods to suck their food, where for every edible plant there grows a hundred of a poisonous nature, who would express surprise at their falling a sacrifice to their ignorance? If we substitute the mental appetite for that of the stomach, [this, surely, is precious stuff!) such is the condition of the nationalschool children when they leave off what is termed their education. Still the nation proudly boasts that she gives her children education.

“ Knowledge she gives enough to make them know

How abject is their state, how deep their wo;
The worth of freedom strongly she explains,
While she bows down, and loads their neck with chains.
Faith, too, she plants, for HER OWN ENDS IMPREST,
To make them bear the worst, and hope the best ;
And, while she teaches, on VILE INTEREST'S PLAN,
As laws of God, the vile decrees of man,
LIKE PHARISEES, of whom the Scriptures tell,

SHE MAKES THEM TEN TIMES MORE THE SONS OF HELL. “ It is incontrovertible that the children of the poor derive no moral instruction, (strictly so understood,)--[what is meant by a strict understanding of moral instruction?)—and no mental training that exercises their reasoning powers from the national schools. The system is tiresomely iterative and monotonous: the mind, when it is sequacious-wax to receive and marble to retain-is wholly neglected; it goes into the school ductile, and capable of being moulded, but comes out stupified and hardened, in a condition to receive only the worst impressions."—(p. 324.)

The writer goes on to ridicule, with surprising wit and vivacity, the school questions “ about Joseph and the Virgin Mary,” subjects, of course, in his estimation, utterly devoid of moral or mental edification ; and he censures the conductors of national schools, in no mild nor measured terms, because they cease to educate lads exactly at the time when the controul of education is most needed, --when “ they are cast upon the great sea of life, with all their passions growing into full power;" but he does not inform us by what authority the clergy - the principal managers of national schools—are to “bow down and load with chains the necks” of young men, who, at this dangerous age, become their own masters, refuse to submit to discipline, and, to our deep regret, quit our schools, and plunge into all the temptations of humble life.

“ But we shall be told by the directors of these schools, that they inculcate both religion and morality, besides teaching the Catechism and making children acquainted with the Scriptures; and then they will ask if this is not education ? We reply by referring to our previous remark, that education, to be effective, must draw out and expand the reasoning faculties : the encumbering the memory with matter UN

* In the name of goodness, what chains ?

« Föregående Fortsätt »

Böcker

The British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and ..., Volym 9