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plain of new establishments of which they must bear their quota of the pecuniary burden , at the same time that they are excluded from all management of them , and are , indeed ,
expressly excepted from even the humblest offices in them , on the ground of their Dissent . From causes that might easily be explained , they reckon in their communion a , far greater number of schoolmasters than
corresponds with their proportion of the population . But none of these meritorious individuals , how much soever wanted , could be employed in Mr . Brougham ' s schools ; though these schools would certainly break up many
private ones , and deprive the masters of their present means of subsistence . ( Defence , p . 7- ) Education would indeed be still open to Dissenting children ; but , in lieu of " schools for all , ' * we should have schools with distinct forms , and the back seats on which the little Nonconformists would
sit , would bear the inscription of " heresy and schism . " The tone which the projected plan would give to all public schools already existing would also be an evil to the Dissenters . Many of the " Freeschools" throughout England are
exempt from connexion with the Church ; some of them have disentangled themselves within our memory ; but it is one of the objects of Mr . Brougham ' s Bill to bring these establishments under clerical influence , and the managers could save themselves from this
bondage only by introducing into them such rules and observances as would prevent the clergyman from complaining of their being destitute of proper religious instruction . So far the Dissenters Lave , in our view , peculiar reason to object to the Bill : but it is said that national
education is so great a good , that for tire attainment of it they ought to be willing to sacrifice their separate interests . Is it to be taken for granted , however , that Mr . Brougham ' s is the only practicable plan of public education ? Other
plans have been suggested which are unexceptionable on the score of religious liberty , and more available as to the end in view . ( See Report of the Parliamentary Education Committee , and the Defence , p . 8 , &c . ) These ought in decency to be tried in Parliament before the Dissenters are sum-
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moned , on pain of being taxed with selfishness , to acquiesce in a measure that is both oppressive and insulting . The advocates of the Bill seem to think that an Act of Parliament is all that is wanted , forgetting that the act
would be only waste paper unless it carried with it the opinions and feelings of the people . A parliamentary enactment may raise school-rooms and salary masters , but it cannot of itself fill the schools . Eveiy one that has been conversant in charitable
education knows the difficulty with which the poorest part of the population are brought to consent to the schooling of their children : we have found , in some instances , the inducement of
comfortable clothing insufficient . There need the reasonings and persuasions of intelligent and active individuals , at least to set the machine going ; but all such voluntary efforts are superseded , not to say spurned , by the projected Bill . Instead of this living machinery , the proposer would introduce an engine of
parchment . But , as the author of the Defence very wisely remarks , ( p . 14 , ) te Benevolent feelings may be checked , but cannot be created by Act of Parliament . " The clergy are not universally popular , and there would be too great a likelihood of schools under their
exclusive management being out of favour with the people . Wherever this should be the case , education would be at a stand . One part of this very Bill of Mr . Brougham ' s is designed to correct
the enormous abuses that have crept into endowed schools , which have been chiefly under clerical controul ; and what is to prevent the new establishments from sharing the fate of the old ? Their poverty ! But there may be as much unfair influence , and as much jobbing , in the appointment of an exciseman as in that of a lord of the treasury . The clergyman may choose to have no school at all , unless he can make a certain favourite the master . The Bill invites him to nominate the
parish-clerk , and he may insist on this half-laic , half-clerical personage , for the precise reason that under him the boys would not learn too much . la it uncandid to suppose some of the priesthood inimical to the instruction of the poor ? Pamphlets and even sermons might be quoted in which this hostility is avowed . * Supposing it then
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114 Review . —Mr . Brougham * Education BilL
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 114, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/50/
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