The state shall establish schools in which literary and scientific instruction shall be given by the master appointed by the government ... it being required of every child to bring on the Monday of every week a certificate of his having attended the Sunday-school of his parish church, or of some other place of worship legally licensed, and also of his having attended for similar religious instruction, at some period set apart during the week. To effect this object, there should be attached to every school thus established by the state a class-room, in which the clergyman of the parish or his deputies might give religious instruction to his people on the afternoons of every Wednesday and Friday; another class-room being provided for a similar purpose for dissenting ministers.'-Pp. 40, 41. The leading features of this plan are, 1, the absolute equalizing of Dissenters with Churchmen which it professes; 2. The introduction of a race of schoolmasters to be appointed by the government, who shall give only secular not religious instruction; and 3. The making attendance on religious instruction' obligatory. : We are not of the number of those who can fairly be called Establishmentarians. We see fully as much mischief as advantage resulting from the union or alliance (call it as we may) which at present subsists in this country between the church and the state. We expect that the course of events will at no very distant period render it necessary for the church to dissolve the connexion, and declare itself altogether independent. Meantime, however, while the connexion continues, and the church is subject in consequence to trammels and shackles which are almost unendurable, we are certainly not prepared to forego the few counterbalancing advantages which our state connexion has hitherto secured to us. Of these the very chief and principal in our eyes is, the plain declaration on the part of the state in our favour the unambiguous avowal which she makes that we and we alone are the church in this land-that we are right, and our adversaries wrong-that they ought to yield to us. Dr. Hook, indeed, considers that the state makes no such declaration. In what way,' he says, the Church of England is established even in this portion of the British empire, it is very difficult to say.' (p. 37.) And he argues that there is no introduction of a new principle in this part of his scheme, since the state does already, so far as education is concerned, place Dissenters on an equality with Churchmen. But surely, notwithstanding all that has been done of late years, notwithstanding her support of Presbyterianism in Scotland, and Romanism in Canada,-notwithstanding Test and Corporation Act Repeal, and Emancipation Bills, and Religious Opinions Relief Bills, nay,-even notwithstanding Maynooth grants, and godless college establishings, and grants of money to Dissenters for educational purposes, still the state - 6 has not as yet unestablished the church, or ceased to bear witness that the religion of Churchmen is in her eyes genuine Christianity. All these various proceedings have about them clearly an exceptional character, and thus tend to prove, not to upset, the rule. While the sovereign and the highest state officers are necessarily members of the church,-while the coronation service is retained,-while bishops sit in the House of Lords, while the judges of assize attend the church service,-while the House of Lords has its chaplain and daily prayers, while church-rates are maintained, it is absurd to assert that the state has not established the church, because of the impossibility of producing any act of parliament by which this establishment was ordained.' The establishment was no act of parliament work, but prior to all acts of parliament; they do not constitute it, but throughout acknowledge and imply it. All that has been done recently has not undone what was effected in the very infancy of our nation, and has so become thoroughly engrained into our national life. Ask Dissenters whether the church is established or no,-whether they are put on a par with it even educationally, as yet, and see what reply they will give. They feel keenly enough the declaration of the state against themselves, which is involved in the existing relations between the state and the church; they, whatever particular objections certain individuals may take to the details of Dr. Hook's plan,* will, we may be sure, as a body, gladly catch at it, as removing in a measure that inequality of which they complain, and proclaiming openly (and this is the main point) that the state does not know which religion is right, that she cannot venture to pronounce, that individuals must determine for themselves. It will, of course, be said on Dr. Hook's side-he urges the argument himself more than once, (pp. 37, 58,) The state has already taken up this position, so far as education is concerned. The principle is established. By giving money grants equally to dissenting and to church schools the government of the country does in fact declare itself incompetent to pronounce between the church and dissent, and does throw individuals upon themselves, and bid them make their choice. There will be no difference in this respect if Dr. Hook's plan be adopted.' To us, however, it appears that there will be practically a great difference. The effect upon the minds of the children will be very different. At present our children in the national schools escape all knowledge of that inconsistency and hesitation on the part of the state, which to one who takes in at a glance the whole present position of church and state is apparent. They have nothing put before them that militates against the plain appearance * Letter on Dr. Hook's plan, by Mr. Edward Baines. which the grand features of the case present, that the church alone is established, the church alone thought by the state to be in the right. Not only is the government support of dissent a thing which they have not their attention called to, which does not strike them, does not press upon their minds, but in ninetynine cases out of a hundred they escape all knowledge of the fact. They know that their own school has received government support in common with the whole church system to which it belongs they do not know that the dissenting school in a neighbouring town, or even an adjoining parish, had a government grant also. This fact to them is as if it existed not. They have no cognizance of it. But place all children together-the sons of Dissenters with the sons of Churchmen-assign them one building, one master; admit equally into that building the dissenting and the church teacher; make the certificate of the one as necessary to continuance at the school as that of the other, and you place at once before the mind of the child most prominently and strikingly two things-first, the fact of our religious diversities; secondly, the indifference of the state in respect to them. You force the child upon considering long before he is fit to judge soberly concerning it, the strange anomaly that there is scarcely a doctrine of religion concerning which religious teachers are agreed; and you exhibit to him the state as indifferent, and utterly unable to decide between the rival teachings. How shall he not himself become indifferent and uncertain when so circumstanced? What a comment on the dogmatic declarations of his religious instructor thrice a week,-the varied faith of his comrades, the studied silence of his regular teacher, and the known neutrality of government! Will he not laugh at his minister's earnestness to impress upon him the truth, when he knows that in an adjoining room a dozen other ministers are each labouring to impart to their disciples a different truth; and when he finds that his schoolmaster holds the balance even among all the contending systems, and that the supreme civil authority is wholly indifferent which of them is professed by any citizen? Surely, Indifferentism, that moral pestilence which has made such deadly ravages among continental nations, and now threatens us from so many quarters, will receive from the establishment of such a system of education as this, not only no sufficient check, but fresh vigour, a new impulse. This is our first objection to Dr. Hook's plan. It takes from us in a great measure that vantage ground on which we have hitherto stood with respect to dissent by reason of the state's open preference of our form of Christianity to any other. We do not, we trust, over-value this circumstance: but we do value it. It does not, of course, prove anything with respect to us; but it does give us a title to consideration, it does give our assertion that we are the true church of Christ in this land a claim to be carefully weighed on the part of every inhabitant of it. It is an external testimony creating a certain presumption in our favour-quite a sufficient one to make it incumbent upon all persons to examine into our claims, and even to justify an anticipation of their validity. We are not inclined to forego this advantage, which to our mind concerns not the dignity of the establishment,' (p. 41,) but the efficiency of our branch of the church catholic. Least of all are we inclined to forego it in favour of such a scheme of education as that which Dr. Hook has recommended to us. error. For, apart from this, the plan is altogether most unsatisfactory. The position in which it places the schoolmaster is its great Dr. Hook has, we doubt not, worthy ideas of what a schoolmaster should be. Not, surely, the communicator of useful knowledge merely-not a speaking automaton wound up to deliver a certain amount of information within a given time to the scholars under him; but the former and fashioner of their minds, -the director of their tastes, feelings, and opinions, the instiller into them of principles. Alas! for the state schoolmaster, he may not aspire to these lofty aims; he must have no principles, or he must hide them; he must have no religious bias, or he must carefully conceal it; he must teach his history, and moral philosophy, and natural philosophy, and other such subjects, so as to satisfy all parties; he must take care that he be not accused of favouring any particular set of opinions in his instructions on these points. His school is to be open to the public, and he is to be jealously watched, lest heabuse his trust; if he be caught tripping, the government is to remove him.* Imagine a zealous Churchman lecturing his class on the history of Christianity, or of the Reformation, and feeling that he was to express no opinion at which either Dissenter or Roman Catholic could reasonably take umbrage. Imagine him conscious that all he said was being taken down by persons anxious to have him removed: would not his position be absolutely intolerable? Yet either the church teacher must be made liable to all this, or we must be exposed to the danger of having our church children seduced to dissent, or Romanism, or infidelity, by the introduction of the principles which lead to them in the instructions on such subjects of dissenting, or Roman Catholic, or infidel schoolmasters. There is but this choice of evils under the system contemplated. * We do not know why Dr. Hook speaks only (p. 42, note) of a clever master of infidel principles' abusing his position in this way, and being removed in consequence. It is evident that the exhibition of any bias on the scholomaster's part must, under Dr. H.'s plan, be assigned the same punishment. Again, what a miserable and heartless occupation will the schoolmaster's become, if the instilling of principles, the formation of minds, be forbidden him! Who that knows the wearisomeness of the drudgery of teaching, and the exhausting nature of the task of pouring knowledge into others, would deprive the unfortunate being who consents to undertake such a task, of the one single solace which alone can cheer him, and sustain him in his laborious and despised employ? The feeling that he is establishing a sympathy between the minds of some of those whom he teaches and his own; and so impressing himself upon them, and (as Plato phrases it) reproducing himself in them.* We cannot conceive that any human being with a soul and feelings could long submit to be the mere teacher of dry facts to children whose minds, tastes, sentiments, and opinions, he was prohibited from influencing. There may be certain arid intellects, certain human automata, accustomed to consider themselves and others as mere machines, who might consent to so mechanical an employ; but Heaven preserve us from the curse of having such men as these for schoolmasters! Dr. Hook, indeed, speaks of the government schoolmasters as charged, not only with the instruction, but also with the moral training' of their scholars (p. 67); but here, surely, he is inconsistent.Faith and works, doctrine and morality,' he told us in an earlier part of his letter, are like body and soul. To separate the morality of the gospel from the doctrines of the gospel, every one who knows what the gospel is, knows to be impossible' (p. 35). How then is the schoolmaster, who is to have nothing to do with religious doctrine or precept,' or with the 'religious training' of the children, to enforce in his secular school strict moral discipline?' What means this distinction between moral and religious training? Is it any other morality than that of the gospel, which the government master is to enforce? Gospel morality, as Dr. Hook himself urges, is inseparable from gospel doctrine. Either, therefore, the schoolmaster must teach and enforce doctrine, or it must be no part of his office to enforce moral discipline.' He must be content to be the mere instructor of such as choose to attend to his instructions. This, we take it, is clear enough. Yet how absurd does it show the scheme to be! Let it be considered what the absence of moral discipline implies. The abolition of punishment! The avoidance of praise or censure! Silence concerning the object of instruction, concerning every moral law, concerning the duties even of attention and diligence! Surely the very name of 'schoolmaster' would be delusive. - Are we making difficulties? Is the morality of the gospel a |