the curative of error and evil. Unquestionably the nation has a direct and deep interest in the intelligence, morality, and good conduct of those of whom it consists. In this age of progress and improvement, the ignorant and unskilled can neither maintain themselves as truly beneficial members of society, nor can they contribute their share of the public burdens, and therefore in the mere mercenary point of view, they are unproductive citizens; but as facts and the statistics of crime prove that the untaught and neglected classes mostly supply the offenders against laws and morality, the reasons are irresistible why ignorance should be banished from our country. To illustrate the partiality of our public educational provisions, a fact may be mentioned, fraught with the deepest sympathy for the neglected, and admonitory of the vital necessity for a change in the present imperfect systems under which education amongst the very poor is rather retarded than promoted. Nct long ago, in the city of Manchester, a boy was found guilty, which, indeed, he pleaded, of feloniously stealing a few lead pipes; and on the court being about to pronounce judgment, he exclaimed, "Please send me to prison for five years," when he was told that he could not be heard; but he importuned and said, "I have no parents, I can neither read nor write, I know no trade, and if you send me to gaol for a short time I shall come out only to commit another theft, because I stole the pipes to be sent here; but if I can be kept in prison for five years, I shall learn a trade, and be taught useful knowledge, and to be an honest man."

Looking, however, at the prostrate mental condition of the transgressors of our laws, it is evident that respect and obedience to those legal enactments cannot be obtained from the classes who are too frequently ignorant of them, and whose inability even to read what they are called upon to obey, leaves only the alternative of punishment as the re

ward of ignorance. Beyond prisons and workhouses, the legislature has provided partial national education, by enacting that no child under thirteen years of age shall labour in cotton, woollen, silk, flax, or printing factory, without presenting a certificate weekly to his employer of having received three hours instruction daily; and here an invidious distinction is raised between those classes of children and the other working or non-working infants of our country; but in the provisions in the education clauses of the Factories' Act, no restrictive conditions are enacted touching the nature or quality of the education to be given, nor as to the inculcation of any religious principles whatever. Imperfect, partial, and devoid of prudential provisions as the factory system of education is, it has certainly been productive of beneficial results to the rising generation in manufacturing districts, and if the young in every other pursuit were equally well taught, the evils of ignorance would be less injurious than they have been proved to be. Without venturing to meet the evils of neglect in the education of the young in the whole United Kingdom by a comprehensive and liberal system of national education, our legislature has invaded all sound principles in providing partial teaching, and in delegating to the privy Council the unusual authority to distribute public funds for educational objects unsanctioned by the immediate direction of parliament. Under the minutes of council strange inconsistencies are perpetrated. Religious errors are supported at the cost of the state, under the guise of education. In one excellent dissenting school in the city of Manchester, not only are the religious dogmas of the sect daily taught, but attendance at the Sunday school of the body is enforced upon the pupil teachers, whose parents desire for them only sound secular teaching, blended with the palpable truths of Christianity; and because no other school exists in the same

vicinity, this violence is done to the consciences of the pupil teachers, and this particular school obtains nearly £300 per annum from the privy council. In many cases the Scriptures are merely introduced into schools as money qualifications for the council's grants. Where the schoolmaster is required to be a religious instructor, in schools obtaining governmental aid, the duty is often performed in the most ineffectual manner, and not unfrequently he is rather seeking to qualify himself for preaching and talking, than to discharge the solid duty of enabling the children confided to his care to become useful, intelligent, and honourable members of society. Yet, with all the imperfections of the system countenanced by the minutes of the privy council, and with the direct support given to erroneous and opposing theories of religion, no doubt valuable advantages are obtained and rendered practically beneficial in the performance of the duties of life by many children from the educational aid so afforded. The Irish system is also imperfect, but still much benefit has been derived from it. Of the voluntary Sunday school plans of teaching pursued by the various religious denominations, according to their creeds and convictions, it may suffice to remark, that parents send their children to Sunday schools, not, as the conductors of those schools often fondly hope, to be indoctrinated in the dogmas of their sects, and to obtain religious teaching, but the children are sent to obtain such general knowledge and acquirements as may be useful to them in working their way through life.

To remark upon the high and multifarious systems of education bestowed in our universities, grammar and private schools, is uncalled for, because these exist to teach the ignorant rich, and not to enlighten the ignorant poor. Well did the "Times" recently write upon this vital subject, and upon the governmental plan of education-"If it can be called

a

plan,' it has all the defects of a usurpation. It only spreads where it is received; for its reception it requires not only good will, but wealth. The Gospel was preached to the poor, but parliament only educates those who can afford partly to educate themselves. We give light to the enlightened, and leave the blind in total darkness. The thousands that

swarm in the streets of our great cities, and the other thousands that are early absorbed in hard labour, we leave to take care of themselves." Such, therefore, are the provisions, public and private, for imparting knowledge to the children of the greatest nation upon earth.

In Prussia the children under teaching are 1 in every 6 of the whole inhabitants, the United States 1 in 5, whilst in Great Britain they are only 1 in 9.

Under these circumstances, what is the duty of the intelligent portion of the people of this country and of the legislature? Ignorance is certainly the bane of the age. Great mental achievements and vigour characterise great numbers of well-educated individuals, but lamentable ignorance renders unproductive to themselves and to the nation, multitudes who, if wisely taught, would obtain the means of comfort, and become worthy members of the community, contributing to the resources of their country, and increasing the shoulders of those who sustain the nation's burthens of taxes and duties. What can be done? The state has tried to enforce uniform opinions upon religion, and has failed. The state confided the teaching of the young to its established clergy, but many parents and children have recoiled from any universal domination of religious and secular teaching. The dissenting bodies, like the Established Church, have not generally succeeded in allying religious teaching with the teaching of useful knowledge; and no system, yet acted upon, has kept in subjection that morally and mentally ruinous ignorance which now devastates an extensive portion of the poorer families of the United Kingdom.

Even in those ancient seats of learning, our universities, the final tests of religious opinions have been abandoned in granting common degrees. The factory education law has provided for no religious teaching. If we look to the practice in private families of affluence, we find that usually the best masters are procured to implant the great and good principles of universal knowledge in the minds of the young, irrespective of religious opinions. Very seriously has the religious element retarded the progress of general and public education in this country; but now the time seems to have arrived when ignorance must be diminished or removed, that it may no longer i.apede the intellectual progress of the people of our country, nor remain the costly charge which it now is upon the resources of the tax-paying and State-supporting subjects of the realm. More schools. are needed, not only that fewer may be the encroachments of prisons and poorhouses, but that the beauties of truth and of knowledge may solace the humble labourer, and enable him to surmount all those difficulties of life with which he almost always has to struggle and contend. Seeing, then, that the existing teaching systems and institutions of our country have not banished ignorance, and that neither public nor private benevolence has amply provided for the removal of this great grievance of ignorance; and also seeing that the state has the deepest interest in the welfare of all its people, in their morality and intelligence, and in all their social virtues; can any other deduction be arrived at than that a national system of education, with a responsible minister of public instruction, who shall be accountable to and have a seat in parliament, should be called into existence?

No wise man, no good man, desires to see the beneficial and beautiful truths of our common Christianity withheld from the people of this or any other country; but, after the enumerated difficulties which