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tempt made in the present age to degrade man into a mere holder of a certain amount of exchangeable capital, called labour, which should be bought as cheaply as possible, and be so set in operation as to produce the largest possible profit, we feel bound to protest. Manufactures we do not object to, profitable investments we have no quarrel with; contracting for a constant supply of the motive power and skill existing in human muscular fibre is a legitimate enough bargain, but the usual commercial idea of man as an exquisite piece of machinery out of which profit may be got, does seem to us very objectionable. The National Educational League seems to us to wish to school men, to improve them as machinery; the National Education Union appears to wish to school men because they have high responsibilities and a lofty destiny; and this is the first reason which induces me to maintain that the system of education propounded by the Union is superior to that of the League.

The Union and the League have the same object so far. They both aim at "securing the primary education of every child in the country;" but they differ most materially in the means and the method of carrying out the object to which they are devoted.

The first difference we may notice is the motive. The League finds that uncultured workmen greatly interfere with the progress and profitableness of manufactures; hinder the commerce of this country from being so extensive and so expansive as its merchants would like, expose the trade of the land to close competition, and generally interfere with the steady prosecution of the great aim of the leaders of the industries of Britain-money-getting. So long as the trade and commerce of the country could be carried on by bone and sinew, the great contractors for labour cared for nothing but the brute-strength which formed portion of the machinery for their enrichment. They upset the whole balance of population, and when they had drafted into the large centres of commerce crowds of people from the country villages, they left them schoolless and churchless, and felt quite resigned to the brutal ignorance in which the people, thus left to their animal instincts, lived around the mills and potteries, the foundries and the forges, the warehouses and workshops in which they toiled like draught-animals to make their masters rich. Now that, in the race for riches, they have seen that intelligence among workmen is an appreciable gain, the master traders, fearing that their craft is in danger, are desirous of perfecting their machinery by increasing the skill and dexterity of the labourer; but they wish them to have as little sense of soul as is possible, lest they should come to think that there are higher purposes in life than enriching and being enriched, especially than being the drudging engines by which money-making is attainable. Great landed proprietors acknowledged, in some form or other, the humanity of their tenants and work-people; but the mighty manufacturers looked on men only as parties to a contract, as people who had labour to sell, and who must make what they can

of it, and, when they had paid the market rate, concluded that their duty was done when Saturday's wages were given. Robert Owen and some other benevolent men endeavoured to create a higher feeling among manufacturers and to introduce a nobler sense of responsibilities, but they failed; money could be made without the education of the people, and so long as that was possible they held on their old path, and did nothing to educate or elevate the working classes; but now that training is required, they wish to get all their workers educated, and that out of the taxes too.

We maintain then that the selfish motive from which the leaders of the League appear to be acting is a great argument against settling education on the principles of the League rather than the Union. The Union represents those who have made and are making sacrifices for the sake of educating the people. The parties interested in it are those who have higher views of the destiny of man than that he was to be a mere labouring animal. They think of man's immortal destiny, and they desire that he may know something more of his destiny upon the earth as a human being than that which is merely secular. They have a higher motive, and it is always advisable to act on the highest motives possible to us-the possession of a noble motive and a holy aim is in itself a valuable element in education.

The Union plan provides for what is absolutely necessary, a sound, religious education, over and above the demands of the League, in regard to primary education in reading, writing, and accounts. This is essential to anything like education. The human being is a religious creature; his nature, that is, the peculiar nature which distinguishes him from all other animals on the earth, cannot be cultured in him unless he is religiously educated. The duties of life are indeed religious duties, and no one can adequately perform them unless guided, prompted, and urged on by religious considerations.

I have to assert now that the principles of the Union are superior to those of the League in the means they suggest for "securing the primary education of every child," because the principle advocated by the Union is the utilization of all the presently existing schools, by increasing their efficacy and bringing them all into the service of the country; while the League proposes to cast off as worthless, useless, and, in fact, injurious, all those schools which have been in past times the only means of spreading the light of education. They offer new lamps for old ones, on the condition that you throw away the old as useless, and pay for the new ones without a grudge, and by compulsion.

Again, the Union acts upon the good, sound principle that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," as well as on the holier principle that "the Lord loveth a cheerful giver." Hence it is desirous of holding and keeping in the service of the country the numerous schools already built; hence it is not willing to cast

back the hand of munificence in which there is held £499,782, nor is it inclined to send away, with scorn for the meanness of the offering, the little children who bring in their hands to pay in part for their schooling, £430,279; nor is it willing to allow the £91,121 of endowments and bequests, which are available for education, to be transferred to other uses. The League proposes to be economical in throwing away all this money, which, if once cast aside, would be like water spilled upon the ground, that cannot be gathered up again.

I do not myself see any good reason for the League's demand for "the establishment of a system," when, as the Union more sensibly proposes, the judicious supplementing of the present system would be more easy, more economical, and speedily ac complished. Why should we waste the energies of teachers and the liberality of school patrons, or the endowments of our ancestors, and, ignoring these, set up a bran new and untried system of scholastic establishments, at the expense of the tax-payers? To begin a national system of education by an act of national extravagance and profusion does not seem to be highly judicious or greatly wise. When we look at the proposal, however, a little more narrowly, we see the prudence and worldly wisdom of the project. Existing schools are mostly under the management of men earnest in their belief that man is more than a tool-using animal, and that technical secular education is not all that is good for man and profitable to the State. They believe in religion and duty, and that while the body is more than meat and the life mor than raiment, the soul of man requires to be taught not only to labour for the meat which perisheth, but for the bread of heaven. The Union would have the soul and the life consecrated to God, while the members of the League would immolate the life and the soul at the altar of Mammon.

Denominational education has been much and undeservedly traduced in comparison with secular education. National education may be quite as thoroughly given under the denominational system as under the secular method; while denominationalism has special advantages of its own. It at least recognises something spiritual in man's nature, and professes to know and to teach the duties of life, but the secular system ignores all culture for life except such as may fit for this world and the needs of trade. Denominationalisa is in earnest for higher things than the world can satisfy, while secularism has proved itself to be only in earnest from the lowest motives-the sense of the risk of pecuniary loss, or the prospect of pecuniary gain. This is made evident by the fact that the extension of education has formed no regular part of the programme of the Leaguers; they have made few or no steps towards helping on the noble cause at their own expense. They are willing to be liberal with other people's money to secure a better class of machinery for themselves. They will use the improved article when others have provided it, and when they have worn out the nerves

and muscles of this superior article they will cast it off their hands to be taken up by the local boards again as a pauper. It will be brought up in pauperism, and it will be permitted to go to the Union when the League has got its ends served.

The League denies the necessity of teaching religion, and would extrude from the school all reference to God's law and all popular teaching in regard to the laws of moral conduct revealed in his Word. How the character of the pupils is to be educed, and how the teacher is to regulate the morals of his scholars without teaching which may be called religious, and which may therefore be fruitful in discussions and heart-burnings, in secular school committees, I am quite unable to comprehend. Denominationalists propose a conscience clause, but the secularists do not so much as recognise a conscience. They propose to kill the conscience by inanition, while the advocates of religious teaching wish to protect its just rights and to provide for the recognition of the supremacy of conscience. How can a boy be told that lying is wrong, that it is an evil thing to steal, unless reference is made to the law of God, and the teaching is based on that? How can a child be told that help is ready in his efforts after goodness, through prayer and by the Holy Spirit, if God is not to be named and dogmas are not to be permitted in our national secular schools? To do so would be denominationalism, and the State is asked by the League to affirm solemnly before heaven and earth that education should be confined to the things of this world, to the mere secular concerns of humanity: and hence I cannot believe that the League is superior to the Union.

It was pertinently remarked at Newcastle by the Rev. A. R. Ashwell, M.A., Principal of the Durham Training College-"The religious bodies have worked hard and spent freely; they have thousands of schools waiting to profit by Government assistance. What schools have the secularists founded? What schools have they waiting for assistance, and only awaiting a relaxation of Government rules to get that aid? Oh no! with them the State must do all, but they put their shoulder to the wheel, and did not spend their time and energy in vain invocations to Jupiter." Those who teach on the principles of the Union have provision made for 2,500,000 children; 350,000 are said to be without the means of education. The League says, Begin anew, make a clean sweep of all the existing schools, or ignore them; "let the dead past bury its dead," and let us have from Government sources, i. e., grants and local assessments; i. e., taxes, £8,000,000 a year, to provide a worldly education for worldly purposes, to suit the aims of worldly men, who are worldly wise enough to ask others to pay to provide them with men-machines for mines, factories, potteries, mills, and workshops, whom they will consign, when they are worn out, to the poor-rates, as the proper source whence useless members of the State, worn out in making profits for them, should find an easy passage smoothed towards the grave.

What have a world of worldlings, a society of trained and skilled men and women, who know nothing of life and its duties but what may fit them to be better producers of worldly wealth! Oh, surely a league of devils could wish no more thorough a transformation of earth than to find this greed of gain triumphant over all godly endeavour. If we want to have educated men, we must have an education for them which will give a chance to their higher nature. To weave round the soul a network of worldliness, from the cradle to the grave, will not be tolerated now. We must have a recognition of the spiritual element in man.

I have only now to remark that the Union, by accepting of and supplementing to the full extent that is necessary all existing efficient schools, is making a much more rational and moderate proposal than the League. The religious bodies of the country have been striving might and main to bring up the education to the level of the country's needs, but they have only been aided by Government in proportion to their generosity, not the national requirements. It is Government therefore, and not the denominationalists, who deserve blame. But most of all it is the secularists of the League, who have withheld the means which would have brought out the requisite Government aid to have educated the whole people.

The League advocates compulsory education, enforced by fine and imprisonment they intend to constitute that very ignorance which they, in their worldliness, have initiated and perpetuated a crime. They say make your child fit to serve as an instrument for getting money, or you shall be regarded as a fit person for the persecuting energies of the commercial rulers of England. But the Union is willing to use suasion and persuasion, and is content to propose that only those who resolutely withhold education from their children, due opportunity being provided, shall suffer, and that by declaring that his own fault shall be his punishment, as he shall only profit by the labour of educated children.

Once more, I note that the local rating system advocated by the League would only perpetuate and extend the evils already suffered by the poor-law, and on the present system of education, for the poorer districts would be overburdened and the richer would be scarcely touched. That is, the country districts, whence trade drafts her recruits, would require to pay for the training of those from whose labours the wealthy towns engaged in manufactures would reap the profits-so enriching the rich by the impoverishment of the poor. I go in for the Union method of settlement, not for that of the League.

M. T.

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