every other instance, from record, but recollection) was admitted, perhaps inadvertently, into the Asylum at an early period. He was stupid, sluggish, and pusillanimous. His schoolfellows made a mocking-stock of him, and treated him with every insult and indignity. Inured to this treatment at his former school, he had no spirit to resist, or even to complain. As soon as I observed what was going forward, and looked into the boy, it appeared to me that ere long he would be rooted and confirmed in perfect idiotism, of which he already had the appearance. I summoned the boys as usual. The stranger, whom they scorned and treated despitefully, I adopted as my protegé, because he stood most in need of protection. I told them that his disorder seemed to me to be in part owing to the manner in which he had been treated; and I spoke of the event, which I apprehended from the continuance of such treatment. I pointed out the very different line of conduct, which, at all events, it was our duty to observe towards a fellow-creature and a fellow-christian, who, by reason of that infirmity which they mocked, was tenfold the object of commiseration; and I said something of the hopes I entertained in regard to the mind of the boy, if they would all treat him with marked kindness and encouragement. I promised and threatened, and called upon all my young friends, as they wished me to think well of them, and be kind to them, to do as I should do, and shew kindness to my ward. I told him how to regard me, who was placed there to do him all the good I could, and encouraged him, on every occasion, to apply to me. I put him under the charge of a trusty boy, who was to explain to his pupil all I had said. I had the high satisfaction of seeing, in good time, the boy's countenance more erect and brighter; his spirit, which had been completely broken, revived; and his mind, which had sunk into lethargy and stupidity, reanimated. Henceforth his progress, though slow, was uniform and sure; and there was a good prospect of his becoming an inoffensive and useful member of society.'-pp. 192 to 194. This conduct was indeed founded upon a thorough knowledge of the nature of boys, and derived from just and philosophical reasoning,' but it proceeded also from that goodness of heart, and that faith in the kindness of human nature, in which all just and philosophical reasoning' upon such subjects must have its root, and without which no reasoning can be true. When Mr. Lancaster published the third edition of his 'Improvements in Education,' he had made so many additions, good, bad, and indifferent, to the Madras system, that he began to suppose the system itself was his own, and to arrogate to himself the merit of the discovery. This was not done at first in direct terms. The plain and unequivocal admission in his former editions, that Dr. Bell had two hundred boys who instructed themselves,' that his own plan was nearly similar,' and that it would have saved him much trouble, and some retrograde movements,' had he been earlier acquainted with it, were now withdrawn, and the assertion was was hazarded that the 'result' of his experiments had been a new and efficient system of education.' This false assumption past for a time uncontradicted; his success was such as must have surpassed his most sanguine hopes, the Royal Family approved and patronised his plans, and the first persons in the kingdom subscribed liberally to his publications. His career, however, was now to be interrupted. Before any question concerning his claim to the discovery had arisen, a few persons became alarmed at seeing how rapidly a system of educating the poorer classes was becoming general, by which they were to be bred up, not indeed in principles of dissent, but certainly not in the tenets of the church of England. Education,' these are Mr. Lancaster's words, ought to become a national concern; and this has been so long the public opinion, that no doubt it would have become so, had not a mere pharisaical sect-making spirit intervened to prevent it, and that in every party. A system of education which would not gratify this disposition in any party, is requisite in order to obviate the difficulty. Above all things education ought not to be made subservient to the propagation of the peculiar tenets of any sect, beyond its own number; it then becomes undue influence, like the strong taking advantage of the weak.' And in proposing that a society should be formed for improving the state and facilitating the means of education among the industrious classes of the community, he says, a society for this purpose should be established on general christian principles, and on them only.'' It most probably would not be thought proper to insist upon or enforce any particular modes of tuition, religious systems or creeds.'§ Let the friends of youth, among every denomination of Christians, exalt the standard of education, and rally round it for their preservation, laying aside all religious differences in opinion. As a Quaker, Mr. Lancaster could hold no other language than this. If he had been disposed to confine his school to his own sect, he could not have done it, for the Quakers have so few poor members in their community, that sufficient numbers for his experiment could not have been found among them; and to have used the school as a means of extending the sect would neither have accorded with the policy nor the temper of the existing community. In their first age they aimed at high game. William Penn converted the Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate, aunt of George the First, and seems to have produced some effect upon her sister Sophia; and some of their self-elected apostles went abroad to Lancaster, Introduction, page 8. § Ibid. p. 29. ↑ Ibid. page iv. attempt attempt the Grand Turk and the Pope. But that spirit has evaporated, and in disclaiming any wish of instilling his own tenets into the minds of his pupils, Mr. Lancaster acted in conformity to the practice of the present Quakers. Of this the persons who first took the alarm at his success were ignorant; they attacked him because he was a Quaker; and the ignorance and bigotry with which he was thus assailed gave him all the advantages he could wish. Some, however, of Mr. Lancaster's opponents objected, upon better ground, to the general extension of his schools. A good old lady, whose writings for the nursery display much talent and uniform goodness, calmly represented the ill consequences which might arise to the national church, if the children of the labouring classes were not trained up in its doctrines. She expressed her disapprobation also of the principle of punishment which he had chosen to introduce. Speaking of the tin or paper crowns, with which it is his custom to dress up an offender in inockery, surely,' she said, it should be remembered, that the Saviour of the world was crowned with thorns in derision, and that this is a reason why crowning is an improper punishment for a slovenly boy.' The association may not have been judicious; but it proceeded from a deep sense of piety: and precisely to the same association we owe the disuse of the dreadful punishment of the cross in all Christian countries,-humanity alone would not yet have effected its abolition. For this passage a judge more conspicuously gifted (as it should seem) with a sense of ridicule than of justice, not only condemned the authoress as a weak and silly woman, but bade her attribute to his opinion of her imbecility the milk and mildness with which she was treated;" for, otherwise, he would have drawn blood from her at every line, and left her in a state of martyrdom more piteous than that of St. Uba.'* The grand basis of Christianity alone,' says Mr. Lancaster,' is broad enough for the whole bulk of mankind to stand on, and join hands as children of one family.' Happy would it be if this wellsounding sentence contained any practicable meaning. The basis,' he continues, is glory to God, and the increase of peace and * Who St. Uba may be, the critic has not informed us: our knowledge of the noble army of martyrs is, we believe, somewhat more extensive than he can pretend to; but St. Uba is unknown to us. Perhaps her history may be in the same volume which confutes certain hitherto established facts in American history, and contains that passage marked in inverted commnas as Mr. Thelwall's, which, unluckily happened not to be in the work from which it was quoted. The writer wanted a martyr, and not improbably hit upon St. Uba as a patron-saint for the town of St. Ubes, as Setubal is vulgarly called: it was less trouble to invent a name than to look for one. good good will among men; but he himself narrows this basis by professing to instruct youth in the leading and uncontroverted truths of Christianity.' His temple, therefore, is not an open building; he makes a door to it, and establishes a principle of exclusion: even if Socinianism be suffered to pass, the Deist and the Jew cannot obtain admittance. Mr. Lancaster finds that some tenets must be presupposed, and holds it an essential part of education to teach what, according to his creed, are necessary religious opinions. We entirely agree with him; but the question thus arises, upon his own grounds, what religious opinions are necessary; and here the well-being of the state must be considered, as well as the moral improvement of the individual. A state is secure in proportion as the subjects are attached to the laws and institutions of their country; it ought, therefore, to be the first and paramount business of the state to provide that the subjects shall be educated conformably to those institutions; that they shall be trained up in the way they should go;' that is, in attachment to the national government and national religion. The system of English policy consists of church and state; they are the two pillars of the temple of our prosperity; they must stand together or fall together; and the fall of either would draw after it the ruin of the finest fabric ever yet reared by human wisdom under divine favour. Now to propose a system of national education, of which it is the avowed and distinguishing principle that the children shall not be instructed in the national religion, is to propose what is palpably absurd. This position is irrefragably stated by Dr. Herbert Marsh. The religion by law established,' he says, must always be regarded as the national reli gion. But in every country the national education must be conducted on the principles of the national religion. For a violation of this rule would involve, not only an absurdity, but a principle of self-destruction; it would counteract by authority what it enjoins by authority.' (p. 5.) The same able reasoner (to whom the country is so much indebted for the manly and decisive manner in which he has delivered his opinions upon this important controversy) exposes the specious and insidious argument that no injury is done to the national religion, because Mr. Lancaster teaches nothing hostile to it, and appears in his school as a Christian only, teaching nothing but what all Christians agree in revering.' 'Whether our religion, when thus curtailed, does not lose the character of Christianity altogether, or whether enough of it remains to satisfy the demands of any other religious party in this country, it is certain that the doctrines of Christianity, as taught by the Church of England, have no admission there. That dissenters therefore, dissenters of every description, should join in promoting such a plan of education, is not a matter of surprise. To supersede the parochial and charity schools, VOL. VI. NO. XI. T which which our forefathers had founded on the maxim in the text, of training up a child in the way that he should go, and to raise up seminaries in their stead, where the children should not be trained in the way of the Established Church, was to them an advantage, too obvious to be overlooked. If no predilection for any peculiar sect was thereby excited, one point at least was gained, and that an important one-that the children educated in such seminaries, would acquire an indifference to the establishment. And not only indifference, but secession from the Established Church will be the final result. Education, on whatever principles it be conducted, must have some influence, either favourable or unfavourable, on the established religion. Even neutrality, however strictly observed, is in this case a kind of hostility. It is hostility to the Establishment, to deprive our children of that early attachment to it, which an education in the church cannot fail to inspire, and which, if lost in their youth, can never after be recovered.'--Sermon, pp. 10, 11. These consequences are as perilous as they are certain. Let it, however, be distinctly understood, that no part of the censure which we have past upon some of the practices of Mr. Lancaster, nor of the heavier condemnation which we must pass upon his conduct, arises from this consideration. Believing, as he believes, it is his duty to exclude from his institutions all means of instruction which might prepossess the children in favour of the Church: believing, as we believe, it is our duty to see that this very object should be one special end of national education.-The fathers of the English Church knew this to be their duty, and, therefore, they enjoined the curate of every parish to instruct and examine, openly in the church, on Sundays and holidays, so many children of his parish sent unto him, as he shall think convenient, in some parts of their catechism.' They enjoined parents to send their children, and masters their servants and apprentices, (if they have not learnt their catechism,) obediently to hear and be ordered by the curate, until such time as they have learnt all, that is here (by the rubrics) appointed for them to learn.' Thus, then,' says the Margaret Professor, it appears that our reformers themselves laid at least the foundation for a system of religious education, to be conducted under the superintendance of the parochial clergy.' As a farther security, it was required by the canons that every schoolmaster should not only be licensed by the bishop of the diocese, but previously subscribe to the liturgy and articles; and all schoolmasters were enjoined to use the church catechism, and to bring their scholars to the parish church. Upon these principles the parochial and charity schools, founded or new modelled after the Reformation, were invariably conducted; and had this system of parochial education,' says Dr. Marsh, been carried to a greater extent, or |
