become identified with the growth of liberal principles and the progress of all liberal measures. They felt, therefore, that the demand of the clergy for the exclusive control of education was opposed to the general spirit of the laws and the current of feeling through society. If in later struggles they committed errors of judgment which for a time retarded education, they were made honestly, in defence of principles which were sacred, no less by reason of the travail which had secured their recognition, than on account of the benefits which had resulted from them to national life. The Church had failed to recognise the growth and effect of historical changes; and her endeavour again to set up in education the . rules of ecclesiastical instead of civil law, was justly felt to be an anachronism, and an attack on the hardly-won rights of Nonconformity.

Such were the condition of education and the relations of parties, when, in the Session of 1839, Lord John Russell stated the views of Lord Melbourne's Ministry upon the question. The historical reasons for the formation of the Committee of Council vary as they are considered from different aspects. It had undoubtedly been led up to by the exertions of the Central Society of Education, which, by its agitation, had increased the pressure out of doors, and compelled the Government to take action. It was the motion of Mr. Wyse, the Chairman of the Society, in the former Session, which had forced the hand of the Ministry. It had been intimated to the Society that their zeal embarrassed the Government. (1) There were many Liberal Members of Parliament who supported it, including the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Melbourne, and Lord John Russell, all members of the Government. It had incurred the dislike and dread of the Church party, as likely to disturb their claim to a monopoly in the control of education; and when the 1 Westminster Review, 51, 182.

political and religious freedom for which they had striven, and in a great measure obtained. They had a noble history, which gave them a title to be heard as a part of the people, on questions affecting popular welfare, which it would have been ignominious to surrender. They had by immense sacrifice, exertion, and courage, defeated the design of the ecclesiastical leaders of the Reformation, that our Church government should be made to embrace the whole body of the people. From a despised and persecuted minority they had grown into a power. They had been especially the missionaries of religious and political instruction to the poor, and had defended the rights of minorities. They had obtained a paramount influence over the middle classes, and had shaken to its foundations the traditional authority which the Church claimed over the lower orders. In the Civil Courts and in the Legislature they had upheld the title of the people to equal participations and rights before the law. Their history had been one of continued progress towards religious emancipation, from the days of the Revolution to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The Church had neglected the religious instruction of the nation. That was not denied. "There has been a heavy sin somewhere-granted; let us not attempt to hide it. The clergy have had the heaviest share in that evil.

Let this be

66

confessed, too, both secretly and publicly." (1) There was then, so to speak, no parish school-the nursery of the parish church-seventy or eighty years ago." (2) In this gross abnegation and neglect of duty the Dissenters had taken up the work, and they became naturally the instructors of the poor. Their constitution was democratic, and they had strengthened and consolidated their influence by the habits of self government which they had taught, and the political knowledge they had spread. Their life and discipline had 1 Maurice's Lectures on Education, 238. 2 Notes of my Life, Denison, 115.

become identified with the growth of liberal principles and the progress of all liberal measures. They felt, therefore, that the demand of the clergy for the exclusive control of education was opposed to the general spirit of the laws and the current of feeling through society. If in later struggles they committed errors of judgment which for a time retarded education, they were made honestly, in defence of principles which were sacred, no less by reason of the travail which had secured their recognition, than on account of the benefits which had resulted from them to national life. The Church had failed to recognise the growth and effect of historical changes; and her endeavour again to set up in education the rules of ecclesiastical instead of civil law, was justly felt to be an anachronism, and an attack on the hardly-won rights of Nonconformity.

Such were the condition of education and the relations of parties, when, in the Session of 1839, Lord John Russell stated the views of Lord Melbourne's Ministry upon the question. The historical reasons for the formation of the Committee of Council vary as they are considered from different aspects. It had undoubtedly been led up to by the exertions of the Central Society of Education, which, by its agitation, had increased the pressure out of doors, and compelled the Government to take action. It was the motion of Mr. Wyse, the Chairman of the Society, in the former Session, which had forced the hand of the Ministry. It had been intimated to the Society that their zeal embarrassed the Government. (1) There were many Liberal Members of Parliament who supported it, including the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Melbourne, and Lord John Russell, all members of the Government. It had incurred the dislike and dread of the Church party, as likely to disturb their claim to a monopoly in the control of education; and when the 1 Westminster Review, 51, 182.

Government plans were found to correspond in a measure with its suggestions, the suspicion that the Ministry was acting under its influence ripened into conviction. Bishop Blomfield declared that Ministers were acting under the advice of an association whose object was the destruction of the Church, "knowing perfectly well that through the medium of the Church, the Monarchy might be most successfully assailed." (1) To Archdeacon Denison the formation of the Education Department was a Whig plot for revolutionising or destroying the parish school, concocted to please the Nonconformists. (2) Later, it became in the eyes of a section of Nonconformists, a monstrous machine for establishing a tyranny over literature, journals, the pulpit, and for destroying the vitality and independence of national life. From its origin, however, the Committee of Council had one able and adroit defender and apologist-the first Secretary, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth. On all occasions when it was attacked, he was ready to take a brief on its behalf, and honestly could see nothing in the Department but the perfection of statesmanship and human wisdom. To him it was a grand inductive experiment. The Government recognised two principles-that of separate (Church) education, and combined (British and Foreign) education, and then left them to work themselves out and see which would predominate. (3) He had qualities for his position which were invaluable for the extension of the influence of the Committee. His history was sometimes at fault, and capable of an easy adaptation to the necessities of his argument, but he never failed in his estimation of the wisdom and sufficiency of his Department. That which was acknowledged on all hands to be a mere expedient, a tentative scheme adopted in utter perplexity and confusion of counsel, he magnified

1 Blomfield's Life, 198. 2 Notes of my Life, 117.

3 The School in its Relations to State, Church, and Congregation.

into a deliberate State policy, having a settled purpose and confident of its capacity to meet all emergencies.

With such a permanent officer at its helm, it was almost inevitable that the power of the Committee should steadily grow but the truth about its formation has been told by those who were the authors of its existence. It was neither plot nor policy. The arrangement was never intended to be ultimate or permanent. It was a compromise between the necessity of education, and the difficulty of devising a general system acceptable to the country. (1) Lord Althorp's Committee of 1834-35 had been so fairly constituted of members of utterly opposite opinions that they came to a dead lock, and, after taking evidence for two years they shrank from pronouncing any opinion. The formation of the Committee of Council was an expedient to evade the difficulty of constituting a Board of Education.

Lord John Russell explained that no confidence would have been felt in a Board of different persuasions, and they had therefore resolved on appointing a Board from the official servants of the Crown, who would be responsible to Parliament. It was practically a Board of one persuasion, notwithstanding which it never received the confidence of any party. The definite proposition was, that the President of the Council, and other Privy Councillors not exceeding five, should form a Board to consider in what manner grants should be distributed. (2) The constitution of the Board has remained much the same since its formation, with the addition in recent years of a Vice-President, who has sat in the House of Commons, and occupied the post of a financial Education Minister. The members of the Committee have consisted of the principal Ministers of the Crown and have changed with the Ministry. (3) Lord Lansdowne was the first President of the Council, and undertook to carry out the measures of the 1 Newcastle Commission Report, 90.

3

2 Hansard, T. S., 45, 273. Newcastle Commission Report, 26.