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prevent Catholic or Protestant , Churchman or Dissenter from unhesitatingly sending his children into the schools . He also hoped , that the management of those schools would be committed to persons chosen indifferently from all sects and parties , religious and political , i
l ^ itlrt : h ^ sr ^ FW' ^ h ^ w ^ D'M ™^ i ^ 6 Se the sentiment : —* We would express our hope that if any system of national education be proposed , it will be truly national , —such as will exclude none and favour none , but be adapted to the wants of all and admit the co-operation of all . '
The Rev . Epwv Hawkes in replying , referred to the opposition made by the Dissenters to Mr . Brougham ' s plan of public education , because there was a clause in the bill which made it imperative on every teacher in the proposed schools to be a member of the established
Church . Now that the people had gained their right as to a share in the representation , they had , a further right to look forward to the establishment of a national system of education , which should carry knowledge , the knowledge of their duties as fellow-citizens and subjects , to the most distant and deserted
portion of the population of our country . He looked forward with confident anticipation to the adoption of a system of that sort , and he would not exclude feroales from a participation in its benefits , for he thought it one of the greatest faults in Mr . Brougham's bill , that it contained no provision for their intellectual wants .
The Rev , Mr . Smith , of Bolton , said , that in asking for a system of national education , we demanded an establishment for the effectual training of our humbler brethren in the knowledge of their duties , ^ -an institution that would perform that work fully and freely , unimpeded by the shackles of sectarian feeling , and uncramped by the trammels of political partiality , —that would offer its
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aid and its encouragements to all , and would recognise no distinction amongst those to whom it tendered its blessings but that of the willing and the unwilling . It might be asked , would such a system of education justify the expenditure of a nation ' s resources which is already
pressed to the earth by a great and increasing burden-of taxation ? He hoped , that in replying in the affirmative he was embodying the opinion of the assembly he was addressing . He was persuaded they would repudiate the maxim that ignorance secured subjection to the laws , and
Was the parent of virtue . He was certain they would impugn that maxim , for they knew that it was invented by tyranny , and that while influenced by motives of ¦ ' self-interest , the mighty proclaimed its truth , the wise and good of every age declared it false , and that the experience of all time had confirmed their
opinion . Nor . did he , think that the burden of taxation need be increased for the purpose of national education . A reform in the Church was contemplated : why could not a portion of its revenues be appropriated , as they were once , to the support and benefit of the poor ? Better a portion of wealth should be abstracted from
that Church , than that one inquiring mind should be allowed to perish for lack of intellectual food . It might be objected , that in the system they desired to see in operation , by excluding sectarianism , they deprived education of a truly scriptural character . He would meet this objection by affirming , that no truly national ,, system could be otherwise
than deficient in this respect , and he iriust pity that man whose Benevolence would lead him to shut up the well of knowledge , unless he were permitted to mingle his own favourite ingredients with its pure and unadulterated waters . Such a system of education might be pronounced unholy by those who claimed for themselves alone the possession of
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CORRESPONDENCE . 119
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1833, page 119, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2611/page/23/
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