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Untitled Article
nearly concerns themselves , should be the wretchedest purveyors for the wants of others ? What wonder that , as Sir William Molesworth affirmed in his speech on seconding Mr . Roebuck's motion , * The so-called education , provided for the working classes of England , deficient as it is admitted to be in quantity , is immeasurably more deficient in quality ; as instruction , it is lamentably meagre , incomplete , and inappropriate ; as education ^ as nearly as possible , absolutely null . All instruction consists in the mere repetition by rote of certain words , to which the children affix either no idea at all , or ideas too indistinct to have any hold on their minds , or influence on their conduct . '
The schoolmaster / ( says the Cornish paper * from which we take our report of this excellent speech , ) ' the schoolmaster may be abroad , but it is in quest of his daily bread , which he earns hardly and ungratefully / and with as little thought and as little labour to himself as possible . Well was it said by Sir W . Molesworth , that ,
• In order to obviate all doubts upon this subject , and at the same time to provide us with the data required for legislation on it , some means should immediately be adopted to ascertain distinctly what is actually taught in the popular schools throughout the country . * Such should be the main object of the committee recently appointed by the House of Commons : and a committee being essentially an unfit instrument for conducting inquiries which
must be protracted far beyond the duration of the session , and for collecting from all parts of the country evidence much of which can be obtained only on the spot ; the best proof which the committee could afford of wisdorn and zeal in the cause , would be to follow the example of the committee on municipal corporations , and recommend an address to the king for the appointment of a commission , to inquire into the quality of the existing popular education in all its branches . The sort of facts which such an inquiry would elicit , may be judged by the passages we are about to quote from a series of
Lectures on Christian Education , delivered in 1829 and published in 1830 , by Dr . Biber ; a man of remarkable powers and attainments , and a most unexceptionable witness to the narrowing and perverting tendency of the religious instruction pretended to be given at our schools ; as his own religious sentiments are most fervent , and his hostility to latitudinarianism in religion touches the verge of intolerance . Of the Church-of-England , or self-styled National , schools : — ' What affords tlie most convincing evidence on this subject , and what I wish , therefore , all those that are interested in it to witness themselves , if they have the opportunity , is the yearly public examination of the central school at Baldwin ' s Gardens . 1 have been present * The Cornish Guaidian and Weitera Chronicle , published at Truro , ( June 13 , 1834 . )
Untitled Article
506 Reform in Eduction .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 506, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/46/
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