resolutions of the grand juries, at the reports of public officers,
at the reports of voluntary associations. All tell the same sad and
ignominious story. Take the reports of the Inspectors of Prisons. In
the House of Correction at Hertford, of seven hundred prisoners one half
could not read at all; only eight could read and write well. Of eight
thousand prisoners who had passed through Maidstone Gaol only fifty
could read and write well. In Coldbath Fields Prison, the proportion
that could read and write well seems to have been still smaller. Turn
from the registers of prisoners to the registers of marriages. You will
find that about a hundred and thirty thousand couples were married in
the year 1844. More than forty thousand of the bridegrooms and more than
sixty thousand of the brides did not sign their names, but made their
marks. Nearly one third of the men and nearly one half of the women, who
are in the prime of life, who are to be the parents of the Englishmen of
the next generation, who are to bear a chief part in forming the minds
of the Englishmen of the next generation, cannot write their own names.
Remember, too, that, though people who cannot write their own names must
be grossly ignorant, people may write their own names and yet have very
little knowledge. Tens of thousands who were able to write their names
had in all probability received only the wretched education of a common
day school. We know what such a school too often is; a room crusted with
filth, without light, without air, with a heap of fuel in one corner
and a brood of chickens in another; the only machinery of instruction a
dogeared spelling-book and a broken slate; the masters the refuse of all
other callings, discarded footmen, ruined pedlars, men who cannot work
a sum in the rule of three, men who cannot write a common letter without
blunders, men who do not know whether the earth is a sphere or a cube,
men who do not know whether Jerusalem is in Asia or America. And to such
men, men to whom none of us would entrust the key of his cellar, we have
entrusted the mind of the rising generation, and, with the mind of the
rising generation the freedom, the happiness, the glory of our country.
Do you question the accuracy of this description? I will produce
evidence to which I am sure that you will not venture to take an
exception. Every gentleman here knows, I suppose, how important a
place the Congregational Union holds among the Nonconformists, and
how prominent a part Mr Edward Baines has taken in opposition to State
education. A Committee of the Congregational Union drew up last year
a report on the subject of education. That report was received by the
Union; and the person who moved that it should be received was Mr
Edward Baines. That report contains the following passage: "If it were
necessary to disclose facts to such an assembly as this, as to the
ignorance and debasement of the neglected portions of our population in
towns and rural districts, both adult and juvenile, it could easily
be done. Private information communicated to the Board, personal
observation and investigation of the various localities, with the
published documents of the Registrar General, and the reports of the
state of prisons in England and Wales, published by order of the House
of Commons, would furnish enough to make us modest in speaking of what
has been done for the humbler classes, and make us ashamed that the sons
of the soil of England should have been so long neglected, and should
present to the enlightened traveller from other shores such a sad
spectacle of neglected cultivation, lost mental power, and spiritual
degradation." Nothing can be more just. All the information which I
have been able to obtain bears out the statements of the Congregational
Union. I do believe that the ignorance and degradation of a large
part of the community to which we belong ought to make us ashamed of
ourselves. I do believe that an enlightened traveller from New York,
from Geneva, or from Berlin, would be shocked to see so much barbarism
in the close neighbourhood of so much wealth and civilisation. But is
it not strange that the very gentlemen who tell us in such emphatic
language that the people are shamefully ill-educated, should yet persist
in telling us that under a system of free competition the people are
certain to be excellently educated? Only this morning the opponents of
our plan circulated a paper in which they confidently predict that free
competition will do all that is necessary, if we will only wait with
patience. Wait with patience! Why, we have been waiting ever since the
Heptarchy. How much longer are we to wait? Till the year 2847? Or till
the year 3847? That the experiment has as yet failed you do not deny.
And why should it have failed? Has it been tried in unfavourable
circumstances? Not so: it has been tried in the richest and in the
freest, and in the most charitable country in all Europe. Has it been
tried on too small a scale? Not so: millions have been subjected to it.
Has it been tried during too short a time? Not so: it has been going on
during ages. The cause of the failure then is plain. Our whole system
has been unsound. We have applied the principle of free competition to a
case to which that principle is not applicable.
But, Sir, if the state of the southern part of our island has furnished
me with one strong argument, the state of the northern part furnishes
me with another argument, which is, if possible, still more decisive.
A hundred and fifty years ago England was one of the best governed and
most prosperous countries in the world: Scotland was perhaps the rudest
and poorest country that could lay any claim to civilisation. The name
of Scotchman was then uttered in this part of the island with contempt.
The ablest Scotch statesmen contemplated the degraded state of
their poorer countrymen with a feeling approaching to despair. It is
well-known that Fletcher of Saltoun, a brave and accomplished man, a man
who had drawn his sword for liberty, who had suffered proscription and
exile for liberty, was so much disgusted and dismayed by the misery, the
ignorance, the idleness, the lawlessness of the common people, that he
proposed to make many thousands of them slaves. Nothing, he thought, but
the discipline which kept order and enforced exertion among the negroes
of a sugar colony, nothing but the lash and the stocks, could reclaim
the vagabonds who infested every part of Scotland from their indolent
and predatory habits, and compel them to support themselves by steady
labour. He therefore, soon after the Revolution, published a pamphlet,
in which he earnestly, and, as I believe, from the mere impulse of
humanity and patriotism, recommended to the Estates of the Realm this
sharp remedy, which alone, as he conceived, could remove the evil.
Within a few months after the publication of that pamphlet a very
different remedy was applied. The Parliament which sate at Edinburgh
passed an act for the establishment of parochial schools. What followed?
An improvement such as the world had never seen took place in the moral
and intellectual character of the people. Soon, in spite of the rigour
of the climate, in spite of the sterility of the earth, Scotland became
a country which had no reason to envy the fairest portions of the globe.
Wherever the Scotchman went,--and there were few parts of the world to
which he did not go,--he carried his superiority with him. If he was
admitted into a public office, he worked his way up to the highest post.
If he got employment in a brewery or a factory, he was soon the foreman.
If he took a shop, his trade was the best in the street. If he enlisted
in the army, he became a colour-sergeant. If he went to a colony, he
was the most thriving planter there. The Scotchman of the seventeenth
century had been spoken of in London as we speak of the Esquimaux. The
Scotchman of the eighteenth century was an object, not of scorn, but of
envy. The cry was that, wherever he came, he got more than his share;
that, mixed with Englishmen or mixed with Irishmen, he rose to the top
as surely as oil rises to the top of water. And what had produced this
great revolution? The Scotch air was still as cold, the Scotch rocks
were still as bare as ever. All the natural qualities of the Scotchman
were still what they had been when learned and benevolent men advised
that he should be flogged, like a beast of burden, to his daily task.
But the State had given him an education. That education was not, it is
true, in all respects what it should have been. But such as it was, it
had done more for the bleak and dreary shores of the Forth and the Clyde
than the richest of soils and the most genial of climates had done for
Capua and Tarentum. Is there one member of this House, however strongly
he may hold the doctrine that the Government ought not to interfere
with the education of the people, who will stand up and say that, in his
opinion, the Scotch would now have been a happier and a more enlightened
people if they had been left, during the last five generations, to find
instruction for themselves?
I say then, Sir, that, if the science of Government be an experimental
science, this question is decided. We are in a condition to perform the
inductive process according to the rules laid down in the Novum Organum.
We have two nations closely connected, inhabiting the same island,
sprung from the same blood, speaking the same language, governed by the
same Sovereign and the same Legislature, holding essentially the same
religious faith, having the same allies and the same enemies. Of these
two nations one was, a hundred and fifty years ago, as respects opulence
and civilisation, in the highest rank among European communities, the
other in the lowest rank. The opulent and highly civilised nation leaves
the education of the people to free competition. In the poor and half
barbarous nation the education of the people is undertaken by the State.
The result is that the first are last and the last first. The common
people of Scotland,--it is vain to disguise the truth,--have passed the
common people of England. Free competition, tried with every advantage,
has produced effects of which, as the Congregational Union tells us,
we ought to be ashamed, and which must lower us in the opinion of every
intelligent foreigner. State education, tried under every disadvantage,
has produced an improvement to which it would be difficult to find a
parallel in any age or country. Such an experiment as this would be
regarded as conclusive in surgery or chemistry, and ought, I think, to
be regarded as equally conclusive in politics.
These, Sir, are the reasons which have satisfied me that it is the
duty of the State to educate the people. Being firmly convinced of that
truth, I shall not shrink from proclaiming it here and elsewhere, in
defiance of the loudest clamour that agitators can raise. The remainder
of my task is easy. For, if the great principle for which I have been
contending is admitted, the objections which have been made to the
details of our plan will vanish fast. I will deal with those objections
in the order in which they stand in the amendment moved by the
honourable Member for Finsbury.
First among his objections he places the cost. Surely, Sir, no person
who admits that it is our duty to train the minds of the rising
generation can think a hundred thousand pounds too large a sum for that
purpose. If we look at the matter in the lowest point of view, if we
consider human beings merely as producers of wealth, the difference
between an intelligent and a stupid population, estimated in pounds,
shillings, and pence, exceeds a hundredfold the proposed outlay. Nor
is this all. For every pound that you save in education, you will spend
five in prosecutions, in prisons, in penal settlements. I cannot believe
that the House, having never grudged anything that was asked for the
purpose of maintaining order and protecting property by means of pain
and fear, will begin to be niggardly as soon as it is proposed to effect
the same objects by making the people wiser and better.
The next objection made by the honourable Member to our plan is that it
will increase the influence of the Crown. This sum of a hundred thousand
pounds may, he apprehends, be employed in corruption and jobbing. Those
schoolmasters who vote for ministerial candidates will obtain a share
of the grant: those schoolmasters who vote for opponents of the ministry
will apply for assistance in vain. Sir, the honourable Member never
would have made this objection if he had taken the trouble to understand
the minutes which he has condemned. We propose to place this part of
the public expenditure under checks which must make such abuses as the
honourable Member anticipates morally impossible. Not only will there
be those ordinary checks which are thought sufficient to prevent the
misapplication of the many millions annually granted for the army, the
navy, the ordnance, the civil government: not only must the Ministers of
the Crown come every year to this House for a vote, and be prepared to
render an account of the manner in which they have laid out what had
been voted in the preceding year, but, when they have satisfied the
House, when they have got their vote, they will still be unable to
distribute the money at their discretion. Whatever they may do for any
schoolmaster must be done in concert with those persons who, in the
district where the schoolmaster lives, take an interest in education,
and contribute out of their private means to the expense of education.
When the honourable gentleman is afraid that we shall corrupt
the schoolmasters, he forgets, first, that we do not appoint the
schoolmasters; secondly, that we cannot dismiss the schoolmasters;
thirdly, that managers who are altogether independent of us can, without
our consent, dismiss the schoolmasters; and, fourthly, that without
the recommendation of those managers we can give nothing to the
schoolmasters. Observe, too, that such a recommendation will not be one
of those recommendations which goodnatured easy people are too apt
to give to everybody who asks; nor will it at all resemble those
recommendations which the Secretary of the Treasury is in the habit of
receiving. For every pound which we pay on the recommendation of the
managers, the managers themselves must pay two pounds. They must also
provide the schoolmaster with a house out of their own funds before they
can obtain for him a grant from the public funds. What chance of jobbing
is there here? It is common enough, no doubt, for a Member of Parliament
who votes with Government to ask that one of those who zealously
supported him at the last election may have a place in the Excise or
the Customs. But such a member would soon cease to solicit if the answer
were, "Your friend shall have a place of fifty pounds a year, if you
will give him a house and settle on him an income of a hundred a year."
What chance then, I again ask, is there of jobbing? What, say some of
the dissenters of Leeds, is to prevent a Tory Government, a High
Church Government, from using this parliamentary grant to corrupt
the schoolmasters of our borough, and to induce them to use all their
influence in favour of a Tory and High Church candidate? Why, Sir, the
dissenters of Leeds themselves have the power to prevent it. Let them
subscribe to the schools: let them take a share in the management of the
schools: let them refuse to recommend to the committee of Council any
schoolmaster whom they suspect of having voted at any election from
corrupt motives: and the thing is done. Our plan, in truth, is made
up of checks. My only doubt is whether the checks may not be found too
numerous and too stringent. On our general conduct there is the ordinary
check, the parliamentary check. And, as respects those minute details
which it is impossible that this House can investigate, we shall be
checked, in every town and in every rural district, by boards consisting
of independent men zealous in the cause of education.
The truth is, Sir, that those who clamour most loudly against our plan,
have never thought of ascertaining what it is. I see that a gentleman,
who ought to have known better, has not been ashamed publicly to tell
the world that our plan will cost the nation two millions a year, and
will paralyse all the exertions of individuals to educate the people.
These two assertions are uttered in one breath. And yet, if he who made
them had read our minutes before he railed at them, he would have
seen that his predictions are contradictory; that they cannot both be
fulfilled; that, if individuals do not exert themselves, the country
will have to pay nothing; and that, if the country has to pay two
millions, it will be because individuals have exerted themselves with
such wonderful, such incredible vigour, as to raise four millions by
voluntary contributions.
The next objection made by the honourable Member for Finsbury is that we
have acted unconstitutionally, and have encroached on the functions of
Parliament. The Committee of Council he seems to consider as an unlawful
assembly. He calls it sometimes a self-elected body and sometimes a
self-appointed body. Sir, these are words without meaning. The Committee
is no more a self-elected body than the Board of Trade. It is a body
appointed by the Queen; and in appointing it Her Majesty has exercised,
under the advice of her responsible Ministers, a prerogative as old as
the monarchy. But, says the honourable Member, the constitutional course
would have been to apply for an Act of Parliament. On what ground?
Nothing but an Act of Parliament can legalise that which is illegal.
But whoever heard of an Act of Parliament to legalise what was already
beyond all dispute legal? Of course, if we wished to send aliens out
of the country, or to retain disaffected persons in custody without
bringing them to trial, we must obtain an Act of Parliament empowering
us to do so. But why should we ask for an Act of Parliament to empower
us to do what anybody may do, what the honourable Member for Finsbury
may do? Is there any doubt that he or anybody else may subscribe to a
school, give a stipend to a monitor, or settle a retiring pension on a
preceptor who has done good service? What any of the Queen's subjects
may do the Queen may do. Suppose that her privy purse were so large that
she could afford to employ a hundred thousand pounds in this beneficent
manner; would an Act of Parliament be necessary to enable her to do so?
Every part of our plan may lawfully be carried into execution by any
person, Sovereign or subject, who has the inclination and the money.
We have not the money; and for the money we come, in a strictly
constitutional manner, to the House of Commons. The course which we
have taken is in conformity with all precedent, as well as with
all principle. There are military schools. No Act of Parliament was
necessary to authorise the establishing of such schools. All that
was necessary was a grant of money to defray the charge. When I was
Secretary at War it was my duty to bring under Her Majesty's notice the
situation of the female children of her soldiers. Many such children
accompanied every regiment, and their education was grievously
neglected. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to sign a warrant by which
a girls' school was attached to each corps. No Act of Parliament was
necessary. For to set up a school where girls might be taught to read,
and write, and sew, and cook, was perfectly legal already. I might have
set it up myself, if I had been rich enough. All that I had to ask from
Parliament was the money. But I ought to beg pardon for arguing a point
so clear.
The next objection to our plans is that they interfere with the
religious convictions of Her Majesty's subjects. It has been sometimes
insinuated, but it has never been proved, that the Committee of Council
has shown undue favour to the Established Church. Sir, I have carefully
read and considered the minutes; and I wish that every man who has
exerted his eloquence against them had done the same. I say that I have
carefully read and considered them, and that they seem to me to have
been drawn up with exemplary impartiality. The benefits which we offer
we offer to people of all religious persuasions alike. The dissenting
managers of schools will have equal authority with the managers who
belong to the Church. A boy who goes to meeting will be just as eligible
to be a monitor, and will receive just as large a stipend, as if he
went to the cathedral. The schoolmaster who is a nonconformist and the
schoolmaster who is a conformist will enjoy the same emoluments, and
will, after the same term of service, obtain, on the same conditions,
the same retiring pension. I wish that some gentleman would, instead
of using vague phrases about religious liberty and the rights of
conscience, answer this plain question. Suppose that in one of our large
towns there are four schools, a school connected with the Church, a
school connected with the Independents, a Baptist school, and a Wesleyan
school; what encouragement, pecuniary or honorary, will, by our plan, be
given to the school connected with the Church, and withheld from any of
the other three schools? Is it not indeed plain that, if by neglect or
maladministration the Church school should get into a bad state, while
the dissenting schools flourish, the dissenting schools will receive
public money and the Church school will receive none?
It is true, I admit, that in rural districts which are too poor to
support more than one school, the religious community to which
the majority belongs will have an advantage over other religious
communities. But this is not our fault. If we are as impartial as it
is possible to be, you surely do not expect more. If there should be a
parish containing nine hundred churchmen and a hundred dissenters, if
there should, in that parish, be a school connected with the Church,
if the dissenters in that parish should be too poor to set up another
school, undoubtedly the school connected with the Church will, in that
parish, get all that we give; and the dissenters will get nothing. But
observe that there is no partiality to the Church, as the Church, in
this arrangement. The churchmen get public money, not because they
are churchmen, but because they are the majority. The dissenters get
nothing, not because they are dissenters, but because they are a small
minority. There are districts where the case will be reversed, where
there will be dissenting schools, and no Church schools. In such cases
the dissenters will get what we have to give, and the churchmen will get
nothing.