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    tion , the parsonage becomes ' the local centre and shrine of knowledge , and charity , and sympathy , and order ; ' and to shut it up would be to ' shut up , in many a village and hamlet of our land , not only the parsonage , but the school and the dispensary / and to ' leave the people without any antagonist principle to counteract the workings of a corrupt nature . ' Now who could

    possibly imagine , but for the fact , that all this was preached and printed in a country where education ( unless they be paid for it in addition ) is no part of the business of a clergy which is in the annual receipt of several millions sterling" ; where there are school endowments to an amount which , though not ascertainable , is probably sufficient , alone , for the education of all the

    children in the nation , but those endowments , chiefly in the hands of the clergy , and either perverted into absolute sinecures , or rendered as unavailing as if they were , to the great mass of the community ; where the first great public effort for rendering education general was made by a poor Quaker , jvhom the clergy would have put down , but that the spirit of humanity , to which he appealed , was too strong for them , and so they did the next

    bad thing that was to be done , and started opposition schools , increasing the expenditure , diminishing the chance of success , and infectin g the pure benevolence of the scheme with sectarian exclusiveness and domination ; and where the political influence of the church is notoriously the great difficulty which renders

    hopeless , for the present , any legislative establishment of a properly national education ? So it is , however , and very admirable is the Bishop ' s boldness in holding up this church as a ' chosen instructress / and the only means by which ' any impression is to be made upon the mass of ignorance . ' A chosen instructress , indeed ! Did he not know that the dame ' s school

    is out of date , because it was so utterly inefficient ; the old lady contenting herself with pocketing the parish money , and whipping the children instead of teaching them ? Out of the school and church revenues the education of the entire population might be well provided for ; and it ought . They are amply sufficient to endow ' schools for all , ' and leave abundant funds for the spiritual and moral instruction of adults .

    But the clergy must not be trusted as the agents . For fit and responsible public schoolmasters there must be other modes of training , and other authorities to appoint and superintend . With a people universally and well taught in their youth , can there be a doubt that religion and morality would thrive , even

    though the support of places of worship-should be left solely voluntary contribution ? The Bishop talks of the c moral improvement' of the peop le . Now , the Established Church not only omits to lay the best foundation of morals , in the education of the young , but grossly neglects the moral instruction of the adult members of the com-

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    250 On the Bishop of London's ]

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/18/