The Church clergy, as a body, with some notable exceptions, stood aloof from this movement at its origin. In the discussions of the last decade the Dean of Carlisle lays the irreligion of many to the injudicious character of the religious instruction given in the Sunday schools. Bishop Fraser, as a school Inspector, failed to find any which did not leave on his mind an impression of weariness and deadness, Sunday being made often the heaviest day of the seven to the children. (1) Making, however, all deductions, the Sunday schools have done a great work for education. Previous to the struggles for reform in 1832, they had produced many working men of sufficient talent and knowledge to become readers, writers, and speakers in the village meetings, (2) and had supplied to numbers the beginning of a process of self-education admirable in its results. During the same period we first hear of the establishment of county and foreign school societies, of orphan asylums, of literary and scientific societies, and of boarding schools for higher education, all attesting the gradual advance of opinion throughout society. (3) The movement in its entirety and comprehensive character was neither wholly religious nor philanthropic. It was social, industrial, and political, and was in fact the forecoming of the great wave of advancement which later times have witnessed. It was stimulated by many and various influences and forces, which had been slowly, but for a long time, gathering strength, and which acted and re-acted on each other. One of the most influential of these was the growing power of the press. Upon the Restoration a statute had been passed for the regulation of newspapers. expired in 1679, and with it the hopes of the ruling powers of suppressing free discussion in England. (*) In 1695 the This 1 Newcastle Commission, 53. 2 Bamford's Passages in Life of a Radical, 29. 3 Spencer's Descriptive Sociology. 4 Green's History, 647. Commons refused to pass a bill for the re-establishment of the censorship of the press. This refusal was followed by the issue of a crowd of public prints, (1) which now began to appeal to a widening circle of readers. Learning and literature were addressed no longer to a group of scholars, but to the public, and letters were recognised as an honourable and independent profession. Also there arose an increasing boldness in religious discussion, a higher love for independent research, a disregard of mere dictative authority, and in the discussion of principles of government and matters of spiritual belief, the subjection of them to the test of reason. (2) In 1709 the first daily paper was established. Pamphlets increased in number, and periodicals and magazines became common. Circulating libraries were established. Printing was extended to country towns. Debating and reading clubs were founded for the trading and working classes. The people also obtained a fresh means of influencing and controlling Parliament, for in 1768-70 we first hear of public meetings being held (3) for instruction in political rights, and at the end of the century the right of publishing Parliamentary debates was confirmed. Some severe laws were passed prohibiting the holding of public meetings and the lending of books, but they were powerless to check the current. The period was also distinguished for great mechanical inventions, which necessarily exercised a stimulating and educating influence on the popular mind. The foundation of all that has been achieved since-the social progress, the material comforts, the diffusion of wealth, the advancement of science and mechanics, the development 1 Green's History, 683. 2 Ibid, 603, and Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, Table 5. 3 Spencer's Descriptive Sociology. - of industry, the improvement in morals, and the stride in religious and political freedom was strengthened and firmly established in this early period; and in the struggle between the democratic and aristocratic principle, the former took definite form and asserted itself with all the consciousness and confidence of ultimate triumph. The declaration of Hobbes that the origin of power is in the people, and the end of the power is the good of the people, was about to be supplemented by Bentham's better-known formula, that the true end of government is "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." The history of education is a part of this wider history of the progress of society, and in its completeness is only to be found in connection with the general advance which has taken place during the last two centuries. CHAPTER II. PERIOD. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE EDUCATION GRANTS OF 1834-8. It will be seen from the preceding chapter that the modern movement for popular education sprang from the people, and that in this, as in other great reforms, "society was the instigator." The work of the Statesmen of the Reformation era was not carried out by their successors. The clergy neglected to follow up even the partial efforts which had been made by the friars. At a later period they took credit for resisting the attempts of philosophical and political theorists, (1) and they have never as a class adopted education as a political and social force, apart from the religious aspect. They were often illiterate themselves, and, according to Macaulay, their own children followed the plough, or went out to service. At the beginning of the eighteenth century they had recovered their social position, and on occasion could command a great deal of political enthusiasm, but as a class they were still greatly impoverished, and were ignorant and coarse. (2) Indeed in all the changes of the last eighty years there is none greater than that which has been effected in the character and conduct of the parochial clergy. Even so late as fifty or sixty years ago, a decent and regular performance of divine service on Sunday was all that the most exacting person expected from a clergyman. He might be non-resident, ignorant of books, careless of his parish and people, and be thought none the worse of. He was generally the keenest sportsman 1 Life of Blomfield, 191. 2 Lecky's Eighteenth Century, 76–79. in his neighbourhood, the hardest rider, the best shot, and the most expert fisherman. Crabbe's picture of the country clergyman is well known :- "A sportsman keen, he shoots throughout the day, And skilled at whist, devotes the night to play." (2) He was often devoted to worse practices, and it is related that when Bishop Blomfield rebuked one of his clergy for drunkenness, he naively pleaded that he had never been drunk on duty. (1) The duty of a parish priest to the poor was fulfilled when he preached to them, baptised them, and buried them. (2) "Nothing interfered with his sport except an occasional funeral; and he left the field or the covert, and read the funeral service with his white surplice barely concealing his shooting or hunting dress." (3) From this neglect and lethargy the clergy were sharply aroused by the religious revival, the establishment of Sunday schools, and an increasing popular power amongst the Dissenters. The peasantry of the kingdom, wrote Clero Mastix, had been so neglected by the regular clergy, who had the control over all the charities, "as to render the interposition of lay preachers absolutely necessary to snatch the souls of men from ignorance and vice.” (*) It was a necessary but a rude awakening. They resisted at first, and held back from the new movement. The Bishops denounced Methodists, Dissenters, Sunday-school teachers, and village preachers, as Jacobins in disguise and wolves in sheep's clothing, going about under the specious pretence of instructing youth. (5) It was not long, however, before the clergy saw both their duty and their advantage in obtaining the lead and control of the agitation; and they have been so far successful as to delude some historians, including Mr. Froude, into the belief, that 1 Bishop Blomfield's Life, 78. 2 Knight's Biography, 1, 200. 3 Walpole's History of England, 176. * Bogue and Bennett's Dissent, 4, 216. Bogue and Bennett, 4, 217. |