230

PROGRESS OF EDUCATION.

[1828. schools were the natural successors of the schools and chantries of the unreformed Church. This was the only system of education in England almost up to the time of the Revolution. The commercial classes had then grown into wealth and importance, and they began to think that schools in which nothing was taught but Latin and Greek were not altogether fitted for those destined to a life of traffic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were endowments and subscriptions in most towns, not for new Grammarschools, but for new Free-schools. During the progress of education in recent years, it has been common to speak with contempt of these schools and of the instruction afforded in them. With a comparatively small population, these Free-schools, we venture to think in opposition to modern authorities, were admirable beginnings of the education of the poorer classes. While the Grammar-schools were making divines and lawyers and physicians out of the sons of the professional classes and the wealthier tradesmen, the Free-schools were making clever handicraftsmen and thriving burgesses out of the sons of the mechanics and the labourers; and many a man who had been a charity-boy in his native town, when he had risen to competence, pointed with an honest pride to the institution which had made him what he was, and drew his purse-strings to perpetuate for others the benefits which he had himself enjoyed. The Reports of the Commissioners for Inquiry into Charities presented in 1842, showed that the annual income of the Grammar-schools (some, however, being exempted from the inquiry) was 152,0477., and the income of the Free-schools 141,3851. There was also an income amounting to 19,1127. belonging to charities for general educational purposes. This income was a small educational foundation for the whole population in England and Wales at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The first attempt to place the instruction of the poor upon a broader basis was by the establishment of Sunday schools in 1783. Mr. Malthus (in 1803) described these institutions as very few, some objectionable, and all imperfect. But the Parliamentary Returns of 1818 exhibit 5100 Sunday schools, attended by 452,000 children. In 1833 the number of Sunday school scholars exceeded a million and a half. In 1818, the Returns, under a Circular Letter addressed to the ministers of the respective parishes, showed that there were about 15,000 unendowed day-schools, containing about 500,000 scholars. Of these 336,000 were in the ordinary schools, -the private day-schools, such as have always existed amongst us, for the education of the middle and poorer classes. There were only then, when the systems of Bell and Lancaster had been in operation about twelve years, 175,000 scholars receiving instruction partly or wholly gratuitous through the operation of private benevolence. Four years after Mr. Brougham had declared that the Schoolmaster was abroad, the Government Returns showed that both the paying and the non-paying scholars in the unendowed day-schools were more than doubled.

Moving onwards in other roads than that of school education, the Schoolmaster was abroad. "The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" originated with Mr. Brougham in 1826. It had long been felt that books of sound information were, through their dearness, inaccessible to the bulk of the people. Constable, in 1825, was "meditating nothing less than a total revolution in the art and traffic of bookselling." He would issue "a

1828.]

ness;

MR. BROUGHAM'S SPEECH ON LAW REFORM.

231

three shilling or half-crown volume every month, which must and shall sell, not by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands-ay, by millions." The sanguine bookseller published his "Miscellany," which led the way in the combination of superior literature with comparative cheapbut its sale was numbered by hundreds rather than by millions. In 1827, "The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" commenced the publication of their Sixpenny Treatises-valuable manuals, but still far from supplying what the hard-worked classes wanted in the union of goodness and cheapness. Nevertheless the modern epoch of Cheap Literature was commencing. "The London Mechanics' Institution" was inaugurated in 1823 by Dr. Birkbeck; and gradually similar institutions were founded in populous towns of England and Scotland. In 1828, "The London University" was opened, the building having been in progress, and the organization nearly completed, in 1826 and 1827. To Mr. Brougham belongs the honour of being amongst the most zealous for the formation of this institution for the higher branches of education, independent of religious opinions. The opposite plan of "King's College" was developed at a public meeting in 1828. Unquestionably at this period "the schoolmaster was abroad." In setting forth upon his mission he had to climb the steepest hill, like the prince of the Arabian story, surrounded by a chorus of hisses and execrations. But he went steadily on his way, stopping his ears to these sounds of impotent fury; and the prize which he won was the power of accomplishing all needful reforms by moral force, so that those who once feared and despised the people should never more be ready to proclaim that "the soldier was abroad."

On the ninth day after the meeting of Parliament, Mr. Brougham took that position which he has ever since maintained, of being the most indefatigable and persevering of Law reformers. The reformation of the Criminal Law was no longer opposed, except by a few whose opinions had very speedily come to be considered as worthless as they were obsolete. A Commission had been appointed to inquire into abuses in Courts of Equity. The course of improvement which was open to Mr. Brougham was to promote an inquiry into the defects occasioned by time and otherwise in the laws of this realm of England, as administered in the Courts of Common Law." Mr. Brougham introduced his motion in a speech of nearly six hours. It has been said of this speech, "its huge length and unwieldy dimensions compelled attention." These are not the qualities which usually compel attention in the House of Commons. During that extraordinary exhibition of the rare ability to mass an infinity of details, so as to make each contribute something to the general effect, the attention of the House was uninterruptedly sustained. The first listeners were amongst the last. Whilst the orator exhibited no signs of physical exhaustion, scarcely one of his audience seemed to feel a sense of weariness. The peroration of this great effort of memory and judgment was the only portion that could be properly deemed rhetorical:

*Lockhart's "Life of Scott," vol. vi. p. 31.

+ Roebuck, "History of the Whig Ministry," vol. i. p. 50.

We speak from personal observation, having sat under the gallery with the object of preparing the speech for publication in a more enlarged shape than the reports of the daily papers.

232

THE NEW METROPOLITAN POLICE.

[1828.

"It was the boast of Augustus-it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost-that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble; a praise not unworthy a great prince, and to which the present reign also has its claims. But how much nobler will be the sovereign's boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found it a sealed book-left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich-left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression-left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence!" On the adjourned debate of the 29th of February, upon Mr. Brougham's proposition for a Commission, the Government, through the Law Officers and the Home Secretary, expressed its intention so far to concur in the motion as to consent that separate Commissions should issue-one for inquiry into the progress of suits at Common Law; the other into the state of the Laws affecting Real Property. Mr. Brougham concurring in this alteration, the two Commissions were forthwith appointed.

The House of Commons was now fairly engaged in the work of improvement. On the motion of Mr. Peel a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the Public Income and Expenditure; to consider measures for an effectual control on all charges connected with this receipt and expenditure; and also for reducing the expenditure without detriment to the public service. No one can trace the course of our parliamentary history after the close of the war, without feeling how much of the tardy recognition by the government of principles of financial economy was due to the unwearied exertions of Mr. Hume. His views, however they might at times be impracticable, produced as a whole the inevitable triumph of all zealous and continuous labour. Mr. Secretary Peel early in the Session proposed another measure which, he said, might at first sight appear limited in its application, and local in its objects, but which was connected with considerations of the highest importance to the well-being of the country. He proposed that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the state of the Police of the Metropolis. In the next Session of Parliament Mr. Peel carried his great plan for abolishing the local establishments of nightly watch and police, for forming the Metropolitan Police District, and for appointing a sufficient number of able men under the direction of the Secretary of State to be the police force for the whole of this district. For several years a prodigious clamour was raised against this force, not only by thieves and street-walkers, but by respectable upholders of the Ancient Watch, and by zealous friends of the nation's freedom, who dreamt that the New Police would have the certain effect of depriving us of our inmemorial liberties. The New Police was to be “the most dangerous and effective engine of despotism." Sensible men were satisfied to believe that Mr. Peel's innovation would have no other effect upon our liberties than that of depriving us "of the liberty we have hitherto enjoyed of being robbed and knocked on the head at discretion of their honours the thieves."*

A great parliamentary struggle was at hand in 1828, which was the prelude to a still more important conflict in 1829. This was lord John Russell's motion, on the 26th of February, for a Committee of the whole House to con

* Fonblanque, "England under Seven Administrations," vol. i. p. 266.

1828.]

REPEAL OF THE CORPORATION AND TEST ACTS.

233

sider of so much of the Acts of the 13 & 25 of Charles II. as requires persons, before admission into any office in corporations, or having accepted any office civil or military, or any place of trust under the Crown, to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the practice of the Church of England. The motion was opposed by Mr. Huskisson, lord Palmerston, and Mr. Peel. It was opposed, says sir Robert Peel in his Memoirs, “with all the influence and authority of the Government recently appointed." Nevertheless, on a division on the motion of lord John Russell, it was carried by a majority of forty-four, there being two hundred and thirty-seven in favour of the motion, and one hundred and ninety-three against it. Sir Robert Peel says, in his Memoirs, that the administration considered that they should not be justified in abandoning the service of the Crown in consequence of this defeat, and farther, that it would have been very unwise hastily to commit the House of Lords to a conflict with the House of Commons on a question of this nature. Mr. Peel eventually proposed a measure of compromisethat a declaration should be substituted in place of the Sacramental Test. The Bill as amended passed the House of Commons, and met with very little effectual opposition in the House of Lords, the two Archbishops and three bishops speaking in its favour. Sir Robert Peel says that the conciliatory adjustment of the question was what he earnestly desired; that had any other course been taken by the Government the final result of parliamentary discussion would probably have been the same-namely, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; and that it may fairly be questioned whether the repeal would have taken place under circumstances more favourable to the true interests of the Church, or more conducive to the maintenance of harmony and goodwill amongst the professors of different religious creeds. It was in vain that lord Eldon described the bill to be as bad, as mischievous, and as revolutionary as the most captious Dissenter could wish it to be." He nevertheless prophesied truly when he said, "Sooner or later, perhaps in this very year, almost certainly in the next, the concessions to the Dissenters must be followed by the like concessions to the Roman Catholics." * Mr. Huskisson opposed the repeal of the Corporation and Test Act upon the same principle which had determined Mr. Canning's opposition. "I am convinced," said Mr. Huskisson, "that the present measure, so far from being a step in favour of the Catholic claims, would, if successful, be the means of arraying an additional power against them." However eager for the application of religious toleration to themselves, the greater number of English Dissenters were ready to make common cause with the Brunswick clubs, who, without the slightest reference to political dangers, clung to the extremest assertion of Protestant Supremacy.

The support which Mr. Huskisson's opinions derived from his position as a Minister of the Crown very soon came to an end. He entered the Cabinet as a suspected man who was desirous of carrying forward his policy upon the questions of Corn-laws and commercial restrictions much faster than the head of the Government and the majority in Parliament deemed prudent and profitable. There were two cases of borough corruption before the House of Commons, those of Penryn and East Retford, which

* Twiss, vol. iii. p. 38.

234

MR. HUSKISSON'S RETIREMENT FROM THE MINISTRY.

[1828.

imperatively called for disfranchisement. On the discussions with regard to these disfranchisements it had been proposed that the seats of these offending boroughs should be transferred to Manchester and Birmingham. The Ministry opposed the proposition for giving both seats to these great communities. The bill for disfranchising Penryn and giving its seats to Manchester was expected to be thrown out by the Lords. The seats for one borough only would have to be transferred. Mr. Huskisson, in one of these debates, had declared that if there were only one case before the House he would have no hesitation in transferring the franchise to Birmingham. On the 19th of May Mr. Calvert moved that the franchise of East Retford should be extended to the neighbouring hundred. Mr. Huskisson in vain desired the postponement of the question; but when his vote was claimed for Birmingham, upon the ground of consistency, he yielded, and voted with the minority against the Government. He went home, he says, observing the intelligible looks of some, and hearing the audible whispers of others, and, perhaps magnifying the impression which his vote might make, wrote, before he went to rest, a letter to the duke of Wellington, offering him the opportunity of placing the office of Colonial Secretary in other hands, "as the only means in my power of preventing the injury to the king's service which may ensue from the appearance of disunion in his Majesty's councils." The duke immediately took the letter to the king, regarding it as an absolute resignation. The letter was marked "private and confidential.” Friends of Mr. Huskisson went to the duke, contending that Mr. Huskisson's letter did not convey a formal resignation; that it was a mistake: "It is no mistake,” said the inflexible premier, and the words passed into a common form of speech. Those of Mr. Canning's ministry who had joined the government of the duke of Wellington felt that this stern and resolute attitude was intended to get rid of them altogether. Lord Dudley, Mr. Grant, lord Palmerston, and Mr. Lamb resigned their offices. Sir George Murray succeeded Mr. Huskisson as Secretary of War and the Colonies; sir Henry Hardinge became Secretary at War in the place of lord Palmerston; the earl of Aberdeen Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the place of earl Dudley; and Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald President of the Board of Trade in the place of Mr. Charles Grant. Other changes in civil and diplomatic appointments were the necessary consequence of this rupture.

The able French minister, who had ample experience of party conflicts during the term of representative government in his own country, at once assumes that the duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel, in eagerly seizing the opportunity of removing the four Canningites from the Cabinet, and of supplying their places with Tories, "thus manifested their anxious desire to rally all Protestants beneath the same standard, and to restore unity of principles and purpose in the government."* A little more than a week before the discussion on the disfranchisement of East Retford, sir Francis Burdett had obtained for the first time in the parliament of 1826 a majority of the House of Commons in favour of the Roman Catholic claims. The resolution was affirmed by a majority of 272 to 266. Sir Robert Peel says in his Memoirs that he should have declined to remain Minister for the Home

Guizot, "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," p. 37.