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    Untitled Article

    rapidity , there has evidently been a provision made from the beginning of time for universal , education ; and men may leave off talking , some of its probabilities , and others of its inherent good or evil , and all may bestir themselves to direct the process which cannot be stayed , and modify it so as best to suit the circumstances of those among whom it is to take place .

    Indignant as we cannot but feel at the attempts that have been made to baffle the national desire , to evade the national demand for education in France , it is animating to know what has been done towards rendering the French people worthy of a better political state than they have yet enjoyed . That so much has been effected among the hindrances of bad institutions , is a matter of wonder , and affords ground for unbounded expectation of

    what may follow , when the most important educational influence , that of government , shall have been made to co-operate with , instead of opposing other agents of discipline . It affords abundant encouragement to England , where such impediments need never now exist , and where it is only wanted that there should be the same demand for national education to produce much finer results than in France , great as is the work which has already been

    achieved there . The instance of Ireland may illustrate the probabilities of the case , as affecting all the three countries ; and , from a comparison of the three—so unlike in their political and social states—a rule for calculation and for guidance may be formed as to what is the pressing duty of the governments which are responsible for the social morals and happiness of the people . In Ireland the eagerness for education is universal . There is

    no cabin so miserable where one or more books may not be found ; there are few parents so poverty-stricken but that their greatest anxiety is , that their children should have an education . The provision for education is , one way or another , very considerable ; but the children are usually taught much that is pernicious , and more that is absolutely useless . They can read , and are much given to arithmetic ; but the trash which is given them

    to read , only helps to make them as remarkable as they are for an absurd application of their resources . Superstitious legends and tales of lawless violence are their common studies , and prepare them to be yet further injured by the political influences under which they are disposed to break or evade the laws in every possible manner . Nothing can be more complete than the

    perversion of power , the misapplication of a people ' s best resources , in the case of Irish education . The intellectual qualities of the people are just so far exhibited as to prove what they might be made ; and they are seduced and driven into crime by management and oppression , so as conspicuously to show how mighty an , agent education is for evil , if it be not made one for good . If , with the new plan for education in Ireland , there be united a better course of policy , we may behold the reverse of the picture ;

    Untitled Article

    National Education . 691

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 691, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/41/