but vagabondism; but it is worse than trifling to compare such vitiated characters with those children who have had all their powers duly educated, and who have been instructed in their duties, relations, and Christian privileges. We allow that many who have had the name of being at school have not turned out well; but then a very little investigation into the quantity and quality of their knowledge would show us that not one of these has ever been properly educated. Neither the physical, the mental, nor the moral powers have ever been called forth. They know nothing of themselves, their condition in life, their civil and religious obligations, the happiness and independence of honest labour, or their own powers of turning their attention to almost any pursuit and arriving at excellence therein. Girls taught in a dame's school to read badly, to sow and knit imperfectly, are sent into the world as educated personages, and because they sometimes prove idle or unfit for domestic servants, all schooling is condemned! But it is a libel on knowledge to call such kind of instruction education. Nothing could have been more adapted to produce physical and mental inactivity. Such tuition is rather a pest than an advantage. Just enough learning is given to make its victim an idler and a simpleton. How true are the words, "A little learning is a dangerous thing." Myriads of boys, as well as girls, are ruined all their days by the inanity that was produced at school. But if, instead of this mockery of learning, we duly cultivate the whole inward man, we shall then have at the age when going to school ought to cease, a race of youths fit to turn their attention to any art, trade, or employment; and at the same time to go on with their own intellectual and religious improvement. We have nothing to fear from educating the due proportion of the people, and educating them well. Give children their full time at school, and we shall be great gainers in the end. To rob the young of their school hours is one of the most wicked and baneful of all robberies. The rights of education are among the most important of the rights of humanity, and ought to be guarded with the most scrupulous conscientiousness. II. SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. The foregoing remarks referred chiefly to day-schools; but, in estimating the state of education in the country, Sunday-schools must not be omitted. From the parliamentary returns of 1833 it appears that there was a greater proportion of children taught in Sabbath-schools than was under daily tuition. The numbers for England and Wales are,-day-schools, 1,276,947, or about one-eleventh of the population; Sundayschools, 1,548,890, or nearly one-ninth of the people. There was then also a considerable difference between England and the Principality. In England, in day schools, one-tenth and a-half of the people; in Wales, one-fourteenth and three-quarters. In Sunday-schools, in England, the proportion of the population is nine and a-half. In Wales, it is four and a-half-so that, while Wales is behind England in day-schools, it is far before us in Sabbath-school tuition. This, then, was the state of things in 1833, and we all know that since that period Sunday-schools have been rather increasing than otherwise. The great destitution of education in the manufacturing districts has, for some time past, been the subject of general remark. But, according to Mr. Baines's tables, there are in the counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire, not less than five and two-fifths of the population enrolled in Sunday-schools. We fear that an investigation of the whole country, and especially of the rural districts, would not exhibit so large a population. The distance of the houses of peasants from the schoolroom, the badness of the roads, the want of clothes, and the Sunday occupations in the farm-house and fields, greatly interfere with the increase of Sabbath-schools, and interrupt the attendance. I have often known promising children, whose minds were bent on improvement, early removed from school, and their education terminated, perhaps for life, because they were about to enter the service of a farmer. Making, then, every allowance for increase since 1833, we believe that one-seventh of the population would be the largest amount that could be granted at the present time for Sabbathschools. But here it should be observed that many of the children of the middle and higher classes never receive any Sabbath instruction in public, and some, we have reason to fear, are not blessed with much private religious superinendence. These, on the one hand, must be deducted; but then it should be observed that in many Sabbathschools children are admitted before five years of age, and not unfrequently the young people remain until they are twenty, Where the tuition is as intellectual as it ought to be, and the teachers are kind, the school is left with great reluctance. Both boys and girls are often deeply affected at the thought of quitting the Sabbath-school. Teachers and children shed many tears at parting. I have often found a great difficulty in persuading the elder scholars to leave their classes and become teachers. Their reply has been, "We are not fit, and we would rather learn more." I believe there are many in my own school that are approaching to twenty-one, and they are now more attached to the instruction than ever. When they go out of the neighbourhood they often say, "Our chief trouble is the thought of leaving the Sunday-school." In the children below five, and above fifteen, we have therefore an ample number to compensate for any reduction that may be made for the absence of the children of the middle and higher classes. We shall then not be very far from the truth, if we take one-seventh as the average of the people at present educated in Sabbath-schools. It is rather difficult, in this calculation, to arrive at anything more than a conjecture respecting the proportions taught in Dissenting and Episcopal schools. Mr. Baines, for the counties mentioned already, has returned for Church Sunday-schools 123,451, and for Dissenting Sabbath-schools, 285,380, giving to the Dissenters one-half more than the Church. In the British School Society's Report for 1839, I find the following return of Sunday-Scholars in the undermentioned places: | My observation has extended to a great number of parishes in different parts of the country, and I have generally found that the Dissenting-school is the greatest favourite with the mass of the people. So much has this been the case, that Episcopalians often find it necessary to resort to bribes and various other secular incentives to keep the children from going to the Dissenting school. There is no doubt that were those worldly inducements entirely withdrawn, and the parents and the children left perfectly free, there would be instantly a great increase in the number of scholars attending Dissenting Sabbath-schools. There is nothing wonderful in this. The Dissenters use nothing but persuasion; and this, even to the mind of a child, is far more inviting than force or compulsion. Then the teachers are, for the most part, of the same order as the children, so that there is none of that slavish dread awakened which is generally felt in the presence of a superior. The teachers also are colloquial, affectionate, and engaging, and always trying to impart as much knowledge as they can; and these various allurements are very pleasing to the children of the poor. To have recourse to bribes of any kind is always a demonstration of the want of moral power. The party at an election that is doomed to employ such means, or not succeed, must be as weak as it is wicked. If it were not wicked, it would prefer defeat to the corruption of the people; and if it were not weak, it would have no cause to resort to such nefarious practices. He who must resort to a pecuniary argument has no other argument on his side, or does not know how to use it if he has any, and therefore is madly wasting his property on a system which he cannot defend, or which is too silly or too iniquitous to be sustained by reason or religion. Dissenters when they open a school are compelled to say, "Silver and gold have we none; but such as we have we give unto you;" and, unlike the Apostles, they cannot work miracles; and, therefore, all they have to impart is knowledge. They also all appeal to the Scripture; for the chief design of every Sunday-school among Dissenters is to make the children acquainted with God's Word, and consequently they must be the patrons of learning; and there Total 86 14,833 167 34,582 Here the Dissenting schools are almost double those of the Church, and the scholars considerably more than double. In every place, except two, the Dissenters have the advantage. The exceptions are Reading and Exeter. In the latter city the Dissenting interest has hitherto been low, and in the former town there have been, from the days of the pious Cadogan, many very devoted and zealous Episcopalians. In every place much must depend upon the activity of ministers. In some parishes there are no chapels and no schools, though it is not at all unusual for the Dissenters to have schools where they have no separate places of worship, and in such cases the school-room is generally used for a chapel. In several localities, also, it would be found that therefore, where their principles are allowed fair are churches without any Sunday-schools. The repudiation of the voluntary principle, and the prejudice against lay agency, and particularly the agency of operatives and peasants, not unfrequently makes it difficult for the clergyman to keep up the Sabbathschool. In some instances the teachers are paid, and these hireling instructors, like hireling ministers, cannot be so efficient as those who engage in the work from the principle of love to God and love to man. play, they generally have larger Sundayschools than the Church. We have sometimes wondered, as we have heard Dissenters spoken of in the most contemptuous manner, that the Churchman doing it has not perceived that the parties he was execrating were stronger than his own body; for the very individual who thus vituperated his neighbours was at the same time obliged to use all the arts of bribery and intimidation to keep parents and chil loudly, even in our day, against too much learning; but be that as it may, it is evident that as the Church can do its work without knowledge, it has not those incentives to educational activity that it would have, were its existence and support based upon the intelligence and thorough education of the masses. dren from the school at the conventicle. | is certain that many Churchmen exclaim very Dissenters are not the wealthiest portion of the community, and especially those who engage in Sabbath-schools are among the least wealthy of their body, and the voluntary principle draws so largely on their means, that they have nothing left for bribes. Indeed, they would not set the least value upon an individual who, like Simon Magus, would make religion a marketable commodity, or like Judas or Demas could be bought with money. They would blush for their own weakness and wickedness, if they had to look upon an assembly of children or adults who had been attracted to the school or meetinghouse by "the love of money," or the anxiety to be fed "with loaves and fishes." Now it is a well-known fact, that Episcopalians at the present day, in a great number of localities, resort to numerous secular motives to deter the people from sending their children | to Dissenting schools, and therefore there must be something in the principles and mode of tuition adopted by Methodists and others, much more popular than has yet been employed by the Church, and which, when left to itself, generally commands the greater attendance at the chapel Sabbath-school. One supposed explanation of this phenomenon may here be stated: Dissenters wish for no funds but those which are obtained from the voluntary offerings of their congregations. They have little superfluous wealth to enable them, were they disposed, to bribe the people; they have no sacraments with which to regenerate their hearers, and fit them for heaven; they have no forms of prayer for the laity; nor ready-made sermons for the clergy of their own denominations to borrow. Most of these deficiencies are often brought forward by Episcopalians, as proofs of the weakness of Dissent, and therefore their mention here can give no offence to the most fastidious Churchman. On both sides these facts are granted: by clergymen they are adduced as a reproach to Dissenters; by the latter they are hailed as a glory. We need not stay here to ask which is right, because we are now rather inquiring into what is, than what is right; and to show the influence of existing principles on Sabbath-school tuition. The Church, then, can support its ministers without the voluntary contributions of the people; it can by worldly influence induce a great number to attend its services; it can, in its own opinion, save the people by its sacraments; and it can by means of the Prayer Book supersede the use of extempore prayer: consequently the Church can sustain herself independent of knowledge. Indeed, many of her members think that the less knowledge the people have the better; and often refer to the ignorance of past centuries as the golden era of the establishment. Some suppose that in Episcopalian philosophy there is an anti-educational principle, and it But how stands the matter with Dissenters? "Silver and gold they have none," to spare on bribes; their worldly influence is small ; they have no compulsory support for their ministers; they have no saving sacraments, and no Prayer Book. With them, therefore, everything depends upon knowledge. Without knowledge and persuasion, they cannot induce the people to build places of worship and support their ministers; without knowledge, the people cannot offer extempore prayers; without knowledge they cannot be regenerated and saved. They believe that James referred to knowledge as an essential element of regeneration, when he said, "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth." Hence, without education and knowledge, Dissent is annihilated. In the Church, people must support the priesthood, whether they have knowledge or not; in baptism, children are allowed to be regenerated without knowledge, and before they are capable of knowledge. A man may repeat all the creeds and prayers of the Prayer Book, and yet not employ more intellect than a parrot; indeed, the Church may call upon him to respond with his Amen, without giving him secular learning enough to enable him to understand the words used in the form of prayer; and in the Lord's Supper, the saving efficacy is not in the knowledge, but in the bread and wine, and the apostolic office of the priest. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone more than insinuates that those who attach importance to knowledge in these matters are far gone in German neologism; but in Dissent, knowledge accompanied with God's Spirit is everything: deprived of these influences, Dissent is a nonentity. Here then we have two systems; the one capable of getting on without the education of the people, the other owing its existence and dependent for all its influence upon knowledge; and hence we conclude, that among Dissenters there is an educative principle, which always has, and always must show itself; and as the knowledge of the Bible has hitherto been the chief thing contended for, this principle has been particularly active in the promotion of Sabbath-schools; and wherever the two agencies, Episcopacy and Dissent, have been at work and allowed fair play, Dissenters number the larger amount of Sabbath-school teachers and children. It is easy to show that where Dissent is most active, there we have the greatest number of children attending Sunday-schools. For example, in Yorkshire, according to the tables of Mr. Baines, there are in Sunday- | each of these counties, Dissenters are very schools five and one-third of the population; numerous. The following table will illustrate in Lancashire, five and two-thirds. Now in this point : Here the numbers are very striking; where the chapels are few, as in Surrey, Sussex, and Herefordshire, the Sunday-scholars diminish also, but where the chapels are numerous, the proportion in the Sabbath-schools is greatly increased, as in Cornwall and Yorkshire. It should be observed, that in these calculations the proportion of children includes all who, according to the parliamentary returns of 1833, were taught either in churches or chapels. The only census I had of places of worship was published in 1829. Since that period Dissenting chapels have greatly increased, and with them the zeal and activity of Dissenters. Between Yorkshire and Berkshire there is a greater disparity in the number of Sunday-scholars than might have been expected from the relative proportion of chapels; but this seeming discrepancy is accounted for, if we reflect that in Berkshire the chapels are not so large as in Yorkshire. Mr. Baines has given the number of sittings for the latter county, but I have no such calculation for the former. The facts stated are, however, sufficient to prove, that where Dissent abounds, there Sunday schools prosper; and there is nothing marvellous in this, because Sabbath-school tuition is at present one of the most powerful agencies of Dissent. The activity of Dissenters in education, and especially Sabbath-school tuition, has been acknowledged by many Churchmen, and has had a powerful influence in awakening the slumbering energies of the Church. I have known several places in which there was no Sabbath-school in the Church until the Dissenters commenced one in the parish. An instance a few years back came under my notice, of a Sunday-school being opened at the chapel; as soon as this was known, there was no small stir in the village, and a rival school was opened in the Church. The squire's lady canvassed the neighbourhood, and at every house the question was asked, "Do your children attend the Sunday-school at the chapel?" If the reply was "No," nothing more was said; but if the answer was "Yes," then the command was given, "You must send them to church." This proceed. ing may appear very strange, but the fact was, the clergyman had a great dread of the evils arising from popular education; and, therefore, it was a matter of conscience with him to keep the masses in ignorance, and he adopted Sunday-school tuition only as a defence against the efforts of Dissenters. It is, I believe, generally allowed that the country was in a sad state until the days of Whitfield and Wesley; till then the Reformation had not reached the masses. These men of God were the conductors of that spiritual influence with which Wickliffe had intended to illuminate the popular mind, but which, like latent heat or light, for a long time had seemed to be inactive. Many therefore, who loudly condemn the Methodists of our day, are willing to grant that these great reformers not only aroused the people, but awoke the Church. The same may be said of Dissenting Sabbath-schools. The proposal of Raikes and others to employ Sunday tuition for the young would in all probability have been rejected but for the Dissenters; they seized on the idea immediately; among them the principle ran like lightning. For some years they were loudly denounced as the enemies of all social order, of the Church and the Throne, for it was stoutly maintained that nothing would be safe if the people were educated; and when it was found, that whether through "evil report or good report," they were determined to proceed, the Church in a majority of cases adopted, with no little reluctance, an agency which it was not able to annihilate; thus proving, that Sabbath-school tuition is a most energetic principle in the operations of Dissenters. Some who are staunch friends to the Establishment admit that this active and aggressive spirit. though a great evil, should be tolerated, because of its influence in preventing the Church from falling asleep. I have somewhere read in the works of Dr. Chalmers, I rather think in his "Civic Economy of Large Towns," a remark of this kind, intimating that " Dissenterism" should not only be tolerated but encouraged, that its aggressive spirit may prevent the endowed clergy from becoming idle. Even the Rev. Thomas Page, who possesses but little sympathy for his old friends, has the following remarks in his Letter to Lord Ashley :"-"Let the Government act upon the principle, which Mr. Dunn says is a simple deduction from the Bible, ‘Protect, and let alone.' I would 66 even go further than this, and continue the assistance which such (Dissenting) schools at present receive, subject to the same conditions and restrictions; and like many other evils, they may be made to answer some beneficial purpose, not only as supplying some means of instruction to those who will not or cannot conscientiously embrace such as the national organization provides, but as serving by the rivalry awakened to preserve the Government schools from sinking into a dry, cold, lifeless piece of Church-and-State formality." p. 135. In this sentence, it is granted that the Church is in danger of becoming "dry, cold, lifeless, and formal" in education; that Dissent is neither "dry, cold, lifeless, nor formal," and that its active spirit may give animation, warmth, vigour, and energy to the members of the Church. This tacit admission exhibits a large proportion of the influence of Dissent, and shows, that in education, and especially in Sunday-schools, Nonconformists have generally been active; and that the great and permanent blessings which the country and the world have derived from these noble institutions, may be traced, to a very great extent, to the zeal of those who have been unconnected with the Established Church. Indeed, I have generally found that among the clergy the most active and useful persons in the cause of education have usually been those whose early years were spent among Dissenters. I have seen many clergymen, not only opening Sunday and day schools, but making them the means of giving to the people a very extensive education; and in almost every instance these gentlemen had sprung from Dissent. We query whether "The Rev. Thomas Page's Letter" had ever been written but for his early associations with the Dissenters of Gloucester. In the Report of 1839-40, Mr. Seymour Tremenheere says, of the "Mining District of South Wales, that of forty-seven teachers of dayschools, thirty-six belonged to the different denominations of Dissent"-p.159. The same gentleman, p. 170, gives a table of Sundayschools for five parishes, and the numbers are:-"Church of England, six; Dissenting Sunday-schools, eighty." He adds, "Unquestionably these schools have done inestimable service in communicating widely among the rising generation the elements of religious knowledge." In his "Report of the state of the school at Farland Lodge," 1842, the Rev. J. Allen, Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, quotes, with approbation, a short paragraph from the "Educational Magazine,"—" If there are in any neighbourhood commercial schools conducted decidedly upon religious principles, they will, I apprehend, be generally found to be those of dissenters from the Church of England; for Dissenters, to their credit be it said, have hitherto paid more attention to the education of the middle classes of society than the members of our Church"-p. 156. This, be it remembered, is the testimony of a Churchman. These remarks have been introduced to show that there is an educational spirit inherent in Dissent; and that while, as seen in the last quotation by the Rev. J. Allen, its ministers and members have not been inattentive to daily tuition, they have been especially zealous in the promotion of Sabbath-schools. This fact is remarkably confirmed by a reference to the Returns of Church of England Sunday-schools made by the National School Society in 1832, and the Parliamentary Returns of the whole of the Sunday-schools in England and Wales, for 1833. The numbers are as follows: 648,865 Substracting the latter from the former, we have or a greater ratio than two to three taught in Dissenting Sabbath-schools. Since the period given above, the zeal of neither party has diminished, and therefore this proportion may very well stand for the present time. Now, as Dissenters are always said to be very poor; as they have had no State nor compulsory support; as they have had to contend with almost every kind of opposition, and to depend solely upon persuasion and the voluntary principle; the fact that they have, in the face of all, instructed a larger average than two to three of the Sunday-scholars of the country, is a striking demonstration that among them there is an inherent educational spirit. Indeed, it is allowed that this activity in diffusing Scriptural knowledge has done more than anything else to arouse the zeal of the Church of England. Doubtless the 648,865 Sunday-scholars of 1833 have now risen, to say the least, to 800,000; and, allowing six children to a class, we have 120,000 teachers all voluntarily and gratuitously engaged in teaching others; and all these must have received some instruction themselves. What then shall we say of the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Page, the Bishop of Winchester, and Archdeacon Wilberforce, that only about fifty-one thousand children " are |