subject that (whether happily or not, we have no present wish to inquire) every man is left to educate his children as he pleases; and that the public funds afford as little assistance to the poor in attaining this object, as the laws impose restrictions upon the mode of pursuing it.

The reverend author condescends to quote the example of Scotland, when discoursing of what he terms parochial education'- -a phrase absolutely foreign, and even unintelligible in England. The good effects (he says) of this system, in Scotland, on the religion there established, is (are) known to every man who is acquainted with that part of our island. Any man, however, but moderately acquainted with 'our island,' must know, that in Scotland there is an established national system of education, supported by the same funds which maintain the Church, and arranged on a similar plan. A preacher, who undertakes to lecture on this subject from the chair of St Paul's, might really have been presumed to know that every parish in Scotland has a school, as well as a kirk--that the supplies for its support are payable, by law, from the lands in the parish, as certainly as the stipend of the clergyman-and that the ecclesiastical courts hold themselves entitled to superintend the conduct of the schoolmasters, both public and private, exactly as they exercise their rigorous discipline over the lives of persons having the cure of souls. It is true, that there exist great doubts upon the matter of right, respecting this superintendance. It is equally true that, the Scotish church having no li turgy-no form either of prayer or of worship-no peculiarity, in short, except an absence of all peculiar ceremonials he who speaks in big terms of the conformity required of teachers, and the advantages resulting to the national religion in Scotland, from the adoption of its tenets by the parochial schools, uses a language whereof he knows not the import, and mouths large and sounding sentences, which in truth mean nothing."

But we need not go further than to state the essential difference between the two countries in the matter of education. The law, the canons, the liturgy, the rubrics, the ecclesiastical practice, in England, leave what is commonly called education wholly unnoticed and unprovided for ; leave reading, writing, and accounts, to be taught by what persons soever shall choose to teach those branches of knowledge; while they leave religion to be taught by a richly endowed and powerfully supported clergy: While the constitution of Scotland, on the other hand, has established an education as well as a religion; endowed a school as well as a church; and beneficed a body of schoolmasters as well as of priests. What should we say→→ what would the author of the war pamphlets of 1794 say (for sure

he

he must have the safe and loyal feelings on this point), were the American Government, which knows no established religion, and pays for none, to insist, all of a sudden, on superintending the spiritual concerns of the people, and dictating what churches should be frequented, and what deserted or run down? What then shall we say, who know full well that the Government and the land of England pay not a penny for the education of the people-when we find the minions of the Church, which contributes full as little-arrogating to their order a right, which, all the while, they dare not explicitly define, of interfering with the general education of youth throughout the realm? Have we not a right to say, at the least, this-Found a system of national instruction-adopt some plan for facilitating the path of knowledge to the poor-entertain with candour such measures as Mr Whitbread (for example) proposed to you-avoid branding with the name of levellers and atheists, such as recommend schemes for putting ignorance to flight; and then you will acquire some right, not, indeed, to control the whole system of education, or to prescribe the mode and manner in which all children shall be taught, but to be heard upon the subject with respect, and to superintend the system of education patronized and supported by yourselves. Imitate, if you will, the example of Scotland, by endowing a free school in every parish, and we will hear you with less impatience affect the office of regulators of education, and at any rate allow you to manage the establishments which you have formed. The most important thing, however, with regard to this example of Scotland, is, that our presbyterian clergy, who have thus a sort of legal right to interfere with all teachers of youth, and who certainly do not yield to the clergy of any other communion, in a sincere and enlightened zeal for their own peculiar doctrines, have never, in point of fact, thought it necessary to interfere, in any degree, with any of the additional schools which the friends of Mr Lancaster have established in this kingdom. Though divided into parties, and contending perpetually, upon points of discipline, in their presbyteries and synods, no one has yet ventured to allege, that an improved method of teaching reading and writing is dangerous to the national establishment; or that it becomes them to discourage such an improvement, because it was invented or brought to perfection by a Dissenter. On the contrary, the established clergymen, throughout Scotland, have been the warmest friends and the most efficient patrons of this most valuable institution...

The reverend Professor, through his whole discourse, bestows great pains-sometimes in plain statements, which he would

have mistaken for facts-sometimes in declamatory and wordy invective, which he wishes to pass for argument-not unfrequently in the way of insinuation, to have it believed that the system of Mr Lancaster is, both in its design and its tendency, hostile to the Establishment. The same line of attack is followed by Dr Bowyer, and all the other assailants of the new plan. With respect to the design, a very few words will suffice. Take this specimen of the fairness of these watchmen of the Church. Mr Lancaster had said, I long to see men who profess Christianity contend, not for creeds of faith-words and names-but in the practice of every heavenly virtue.' Mr Pope had uttered the same sentiment a century ago, without wishing the downfal either of the Romish or English Churches; and every pulpit in Protestant Europe, we dare to say, has promulgated the selfsame thought every year since the days of Luther. What is Professor Marsh's inference from this passage--the construction which, in his charity, he puts upon it? Mr Lancaster, therefore (says he), must long to see the Church of England abandon her creed and her name. (p. 13.) Some one having mentioned the institution of a school, in which bigotry and intolerance should have no share '-meaning, most obviously, a school which should be open to the poor of all religious persuasions→→ the Professor straightway complains, that already the doctrines of the Church are called bigotry, and its constitution intolerance.' (p. 15.) He takes it for granted, that the dissenters at all times are labouring to effect the downfal of the Church; and cannot imagine that either Mr Lancaster, or those who support him, should have any other views. He forgets, that their views are wholly confined to teaching the first elements of knowledge-elements equally necessary to the churchman and the dissenter, and altogether independent of the forms of faith which they enable the infant mind to imbibe. Great as this misrepresentation is, we find Dr Bowyer, in one passage, exceeds it; and we regret to find it, for it stands single, in a discourse other-. wise fair and liberal. It seems (he says), whatever may be the religious persuasion of the master, we are to suffer the children of parents belonging to all sects (for our Establishment is only treated as one of them) to be admitted promiscuously, and each child to be taught in one and the same school the peculiar ca-techism, or formulary, of his own sect; so that our children will have the edification of hearing the Unitarians deny the Divinity of their Redeemer, rail at the doctrine of the Trinity, and reject the atonement of the Mediator; another sect treat the holy Sacraments with scorn, as mere matters of human institution; a third division set forth the natural equality of mankind, and

undermine

undermine the foundations of all government; all concurring in the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures, &c.” (p. 17.) To all which we can make but one answer, That it is perfectly false; and wechallenge this reverend gentleman to produce a single school, either on Lancaster's plan, or indeed on any other, in which such doctrines are taught, and such demeanour held. In truth, if he can find such an instance, he may go before the civil magistrate, by indictment or information; for he has enumerated a list of temporal offences. Surely, surely, he must have known, while composing this invective, that in the Lancasterian schools Christianity alone is taught, from the Bible; and that as no particular Catechism is preferred (which is the very charge brought against the system), so it is impossible that any should

be attacked.

But the tendency of this neutrality is severely handled; and this is one of the chief topics of these reverend alarmists. The proposition is broadly stated, that if the children of the poor do not learn religion at school, they will not learn it at all. The parents of children, who are objects of public charity, are for the most part incapable of teaching religion to their children." And, if they send their children to a Sunday school according to their own persuasion, the peculiar doctrines, which the children will hear one day in the week, can hardly make a lasting impression, when they are continually hearing of generalized Christianity during six days in the week. Where children go daily to school, the religion, which they are afterwards to profess, should be an object of daily attention. They must learn their religion as they learn other things; and they will have much or little, according as their education supplies them. To assert, that our religion is not dependent on our education, is to contradict the experience of all ages and nations.' (p. 12, 13.) Here is a sly assumption, lurking under a single word, religion.' Does not Mr Lancaster teach religion? The truth is, that he teaches scarcely any thing but the Holy Scriptures: but the Professor gained a good deal, he was well aware, if he could confound the not teaching one particular creed, or form of belief, with the not teaching any religion at all. He then makes another stride; and asserts, but without even the pretence of an argument, that if children are not taught the National Catechism, they not only will grow up ignorant of the Church's doctrines, but inimical to its establishment; and then, as if he had proved this strange position, he enumerates the great powers of the new system, and the vast numbers which it is capable of educating--inferring from thence, that it is dangerous to the Church, in proportion to its powers-and that consequently this plan, being accompa

VOL. XIX, NO. 97.

&

nied

nied with such religious instruction as is calculated to create in difference, and even dislike, to the established Church-the most powerful engine that ever was devised against it, is now at work for its destruction.'

Upon reading this statement, and marking especially the very high tone in which it is conveyed, one is really tempted to conceive, that there are already provided by the Church the means of religious education, according to the Professor's notion of it; that all the poor of these realms may receive from the clergy of the Establishment the knowledge of its peculiar tenets, which, it seems, can only be obtained in early infancy, and which, if not imbibed with the alphabet, will never be received at all;-in short, that Mr Lancaster's system is in dan ger of disturbing one already completely established, and of substituting, for vast numbers of free schools where the poor are now trained in knowledge and religion, seminaries where temporal knowledge may be dispensed, but the interests of the soul are neglected. Yet it does so happen, that the National church hath done nothing towards the education of youth, except what we have already cited from the sermon of Dr Marsh himself that, leaving the ordiuary branches of instruction wholly untouched, she has only required, and most properly required, from her ministers, a careful regard to the religious éducation of youth;-that, consequently, Lancaster's schools, far from being a substitute for her institutions, or in anywise derogatory to her ordinances, form an appropriate and even an essential part of them; and that we who say-let the poor be taught reading in whatever way is most effectual, and let the clergy, upon this stock, and by the means which it affords them, engraft religious instruction-speak the very language of the Church of England, and conform to her spirit. Mr Lancaster goes, however, a step further than this; for he teaches, not merely reading, but Christianity and says, let the clergy of the various persuasions to which you and your parents may severally belong, continue the good work which I have begun, and build up their ereeds upon that foundation which I have laid deep in your minds, by imbuing you with the word of God as delivered in kis Scriptures. For it is in vain to disguise this matter, and, under a multitude of words, and by solemn sentences or frothy and turbulent declamation, to cover the real substance of the question. We return always to the plain statement which has so often been made, but which, in truth, comprises the whole gist of the controversy. The new system teaches reading, writIng and accounts; and it enables its pupils to learn every thing which books can afterwards teach them. On its enemies lyes

the