Established Church, 4,238; Free Church, 6,305. | rity to Episcopalians and Roman Catholics Lanark Established Church, 24,539; Free that, when the Bill passed into law, they Church, 26,097. Perth Established Church, 14,313; Free Church, 17,096. Caithness-Es- should not be placed in a worse position tablished Church, 442; Free Church, 6,779. Bute than they were before, though it was in-Established Church, 1,457; Free Church, 3,691. tended, if possible, to better their position. Renfrew Established Church, 8,987; Free He had till now been dealing with the ob Church, 12,344. Inverness-Established Church, 3,790; Free Church, 10,583. Sutherland-Esta: jections to the Bill. From this it was not blished Church, 255; Free Church, 6,723. Ross to be thought that it was not also favourand Cromarty-Established Church, 1,411; Free ably regarded, for the Free Church, though Church, 20,237." not wholly satisfied with the Bill, yet considered, as it now stood, that it would form a good basis for future legislation, and they were anxious that it should pass the second reading. They had a large body in the Established Church who were not led astray upon this question-thinking men, who saw the evils with which we had to grapple, whose senses were not blunted by prejudice or party and sectarian feeling, and who, taking a deep interest in the welfare of their country, wished that this Bill should pass into a law rather than that there should be no measure carried at all. If he referred to the petitions, he found, by the last return, that there were 44,000 signatures in favour of the Bill, and 28,000 against it, and 10,000 for alterations; and if they added these 10,000 to the 44,000 in favour of the Bill-for it appeared to be not an unfair inference to do so, seeing that if they had been against the Bill they would have petitioned against it—it would be seen that the great preponderance was in favour of the measure. The convention of Royal Burghs had petitioned for the Bill, the only thing they required being, that the provisions with reference to religion should be made more stringent, and that the religion hitherto in use in the parochial schools should be practically embodied by enactment in the Bill. Therefore, though there was much opposition to the Bill, there was also a very large amount of public opinion in Scotland in its favour. This Bill had been criticised in a very partial and unfair spirit. In considering it, the people had been blinded by their prejudices and sectarian zeal, and, while they examined it line by line and word by word. and almost syllable by syllable, they had been led to condemn it unfairly, and had lost sight of that which was the main object of the Bill. Now, he thought such a question as this should have been approached in a very different spirit, because, unquestionably, the evil with which we had to deal was one of the greatest magnitude, and it was not denied by any party that there existed in Scotland, and especially in the large towns, a very great necessity for He would ask the House whether, in the face of such statistics as these, they could maintain exclusive tests? The abolition of tests was called for by reason, justice, and policy, no less than by the interests of the Established Church; for it must be evident that tests, so long as they were maintained, must prove a source of bad blood and ill-feeling, so that it was for the interests of the Church of Scotland that the change should take place-a change to which it could consistently agree, and without making any sacrifice of principle, because under the provisions of this Bill was found ample security for all that Church should seek-the establishment of a religious education. Objections had also been made to the Bill from an extreme portion of those who in Scotland held voluntary principles, who, rather than agree to the religious provisions of this Bill, would prefer that religion should be entirely separated from secular instruction in the schools under this Bill. He wished them to consider whether, in pressing their own views, they were prepared to enforce this separation, and so outrage the views and the opinions of three-fourths of the people of Scotland. He trusted, however, that this party would be induced to support the Bill on the ground that, though it fell short of their views, still it was a great improvement on the present system. As to the objections raised by Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, he thought that these might be satisfactorily met. He, as an Episcopalian, of course, felt deeply interested in all that concerned that sect; and his votes in that House on Roman Catholic questions were proofs that he would never be a party to a Bill which made no provision for the education of Roman Catholic children. To meet the views of these parties the 36th clause would be struck out of the Bill, and in Committee every assistance would be given to his right hon. and learned Friend to make such provisions as would afford every secuLord Elcho our extending the means of education. The the rev. gentleman and others in the returns of the last Prisons' Report for Church of Scotland-surely it was Scotland, that of 1853, showed how ineffi- duty, as far as lay in our power, to reach ciently the population had been educated. these great evils; and he therefore hoped Of a total of 21,336 prisoners, 4,388 that the Members of that House, uninflucould not read at all; 10,482 could only enced by sectarian or party feeling, would read with difficulty; 10,282 could not enable the Government to resist the Motion write at all; 539 could only sign their of his hon. Friend opposite, for he would names; 8,360 could only write with diffi- say, not as a Member of the Government, culty. Of 438 prisoners who had been in and therefore deeply interested in the sucthe Model Prison at Perth three months cess of a measure brought in by them, but and upwards, eighty-three, on admission, as a Scotsman who had the welfare of his were unable to read at all; 175 could read country at heart, that he believed it would with difficulty; 151 could not write at all; be an evil day for Scotland if the House thirty-three could only sign their names; of Commons rejected the Bill now upon and 204 could write with difficulty. The its table. chaplain appended to these facts the following statement 'As regards their moral and religious condition, the generality of the prisoners are, on admission, deplorably ignorant. Many of them, indeed, are insensate, and, humanly speaking, impervious to conviction. Notwithstanding, however, this their natural depravity of heart, their innate propensity to every evil, their intaught aversion to every good-the result of a Godless, Christless upbringing, it is gratifying, nevertheless, to observe the anxiety with which they, sooner or later, in the course of their confinement here, avail themselves of the many advantages they possess of acquiring religious knowledge.” The language in which his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate characterised the danger that threatened us from the growth of our criminal and uneducated population had in some quarters been characterised as exaggerated, but the sentiment of his right hon. and learned Friend had found an echo within the walls of the General Assembly itself; for Dr. Robert son, one of the ornaments of the Church of Scotland, in a speech of great liberality, which did credit alike to his head and heart, and which had been circulated among the Members of that House, spoke as follows MR. C. BRUCE said, that if the noble Lord had gone on and read the whole of the speech of Dr. Robertson from which he had just given a quotation, he would have found what was the essential principle of this Bill characterised by Dr. Robertson in strong and expressive language. His noble Friend had stated truly that there was a great difference of opinion with respect to this Bill. As to the Free Church of Scotland, he believed they were almost unanimous in favour of the Bill; and there could be no doubt that since its secession the Free Church had done much to forward the cause of education in Scotland. Their schools were more numerous than they could probably well support; and, as they wished to see them kept up in a state of efficiency, they looked to the right hon. and learned Lord to take them under his care. On the other hand, the Bill was opposed by the Established Church, by nearly the whole of the landed proprietors of Scotland-at least, 2,000 of the most important of them had signed a petition to that effect-and also by those who held what was called "the voluntary principle.' He found, in a resolution adopted by this last party, a statement to "We cannot disguise from ourselves the truth the effect," that the measure contemplated that, be the cause of the evil what it may, thou- is unsound in principle, hostile to liberty, sands, and even tens of thousands, are growing up in the midst of us, from youth to manhood, and opposed to the Word of God." Cerwhose education is grievously neglected. For tainly, with such views as these he could these masses of society nothing is done, either not wonder that they joined the Established intellectually or morally, to fit them for the im- Church in their opposition to this Bill. He portant place which they ought to occupy, and which, were they qualified for its duties and privi- did not deny the immense importance of leges, is waiting to receive them. In the degraded this measure, and the greatness of the condition to which their parents have been re-object which it had in view. duced, it is scarcely too much to say, that the training which they receive is but fitted to make them pests and plagues of society." Now, when the evil with which we had to deal was thus generally admitted-when words such as these came from the lips of As his right hon. Friend near him (Mr. Walpole) said, on the introduction of the Bill, it had a worthy and noble object, and the speech of the learned Lord on that occasion was characterised by such great ability and conceived in so good a spirit that it was impossible not to go along with it; but to extend to the Bill of the learned Lord the same favourable opinion that was extended to his speech must depend on the character of the Bill itself, and, besides, it must be proved that such an amount of deficiency in the means and in the machinery of education in Scotland existed as would justify the sweeping and extensive change proposed. In February he had moved for returns to ascertain what was the actual state of education in Scotland, but these returns he had been unable to obtain. The Census returns could not be relied upon as giving a just view of the religious and educational state of Scotland; and he did not at all wonder that the case should be so, for when they remembered the great tendency which existed among all ecclesiastical bodies to exaggerate their numbers and importance-and certainly the Free Church had not shown an example which ought to be followed in that respect-they could not but attach great suspicion to the statistics which had been laid on the table. He held in his hand an extract from a speech delivered by a distinguished elergyman of the Church of Scotland-he referred to the minister of Forgendenny-in which he stated that the number of schools specially connected with the Church of Scotland was 1,890; the total number specially or virtually connected with the Church of Scotland 2,959, including 258,698 scholars; while the total number of schools connected with the Free and dissenting churches were 875, with 77,443 scholars. There were, besides, of private schools, 838, with 57,215 scholars; and Mr. Wilson in this way showed that oneseventh of the population of Scotland was under education. The Census returns came to something very near the same result. The minister of Forgendenny proceeded to state that, of all the schools in the country, about two-thirds were either schools belonging to, or schools immediately connected with, the Established Church. The number of scholars attending the schools belonging to the Free Church was stated at 59,896, while the number at tending the schools under the superintendence of the Established Church was stated at 258,698, showing an immense majority in favour of the latter. The House would see, therefore, that there was no disinclination on the part of the people of Scotland to receive education in the schools belonging to and connected with the Established Church, and that there Mr. C. Bruce was nothing in the present state of things which could justify them in abolishing a system which attached the parochial schools to the Established Church, on the ground that that connection was distasteful to the people of Scotland. So far, then, as the allegation of deficiency went, no sufficient reason could be shown for the proposition of Government. Before proceeding further, he must strongly protest against their making the hardships to which the parish schoolmasters would be exposed from the operation of the present law a ground for forcing upon the people and the Church of Scotland any such measure as that now proposed. He thought that would be a most unjust and ungenerous proceeding. The fact that the parish schoolmasters, from the working of the present law, would have their already too small salaries reduced by about one-third for the next twenty-five years, and that, too, at a time when the price of all articles of subsistence was rising, should induce a generous Government to make some better provision for those to whom the great and important work of education was intrusted. The opponents of the present Bill were desirous that a short measure should be introduced to fix the salaries of the schoolmasters for the next term at the maximum of the present rates, and he thought it would not be difficult in the same measure to make those alterations with respect to the pensioning of deserving teachers who, from ill health or other circumstances, were no longer able to discharge their duties satisfactorily, and to the dismissal of incompetent or immoral schoolmasters, which all admitted were necessary in the present system. They would then be in a position to take up the whole question, and to consider those means for extending education in Scotland which he was not prepared to say were not, in some places, absolutely required. He did not deny. when he saw it asserted on the authority of such a man as Dr. Guthrie, to whom the cause of education in the large towns of Scotland and among the most destitute of the population was so greatly indebted, that there was a deficiency of the means of education in the large towns, or that they ought to approach that subject with an earnest desire to remedy the evils of which Dr. Guthrie so justly complained. At the same time that he admitted this deficiency of educational means in the large towns, he might be permitted to mention a curious fact, which was stated to him by a gentleman of great respect- the new system might fairly be tried in ability connected with the county of Edin- the large towns, where there were difficulburgh—namely, that he had been informed ties to the extension of the parochial sysby the Inspector of the House of Correc- tem, but he trusted that they would not tion in Edinburgh, that for the first year attempt to extend it beyond the districts after the introduction of ragged schools where it might appear to be wanted. into that city, the number of juvenile Within such limits he was quite willing offences greatly diminished, but that, un- that they should try their new system with happily, for the last two years the number some modifications, because it would be had greatly increased, and that the chil- necessary to have some test of the Chrisdren who came back to him were children tianity and Protestantism of the teachers who had attended the ragged schools esta- in the new schools; but he was utterly blished by Dr. Guthrie. He did not men- at a loss to see why they should seek tion that fact to damp their zeal in the to interfere with the parish schools. They cause of education or to persuade them not said they attached great value to the to do all they could to educate the desti- union of religious with secular instructute children of large towns. What he tion. In the parish schools they had wished to show was, that mere education that union; and they themselves acwould not suffice to stem that tide of knowledged that the opinion of the crime and immorality and infidelity by which our large towns were likely to be deluged. He believed that the sources of crime would not have existed to so great an extent as they did if they had extended the system of education followed in the parochial schools to the large towns; for crime and infidelity were much more the child of false wisdom than of brute ignorance; though, as he had already said, he was disposed to admit that there was a deficiency of the means even of ordinary education in the great towns, and was willing to do all he could to remedy that deficiency. They professed to desire the union of secular with religious education. Now, the parochial schools of Scotland had solved the problem of that union; it had shown that the two could be united. Why, then, should they interfere with a system which had worked so well and so long? The longer these schools existed the more their advantages seemed to be extended in Scotland; and he maintained that the parochial schools were never at any time more efficient than they were at the present moment, and they only wanted proper encouragement to be more efficient still. The average attendance at those schools was greater in point of numbers than the attendance at any other class of schools in Scotland; and, before they attempted to abolish them-before they tried to approximate them to a new system which circumstances of recent growth might induce them to establish-he thought they would do well to ascertain that the experiment which they wished to make was likely to produce as good results as those which Scotland already possessed. He did not deny that people of Scotland was unanimous in favour of a combined religious and secular education. It was a strange way to show their respect for the opinions and feelings of the people of Scotland to propose to sweep away, not only the test taken by the schoolmaster, but the superintendence of the presbyteries, which gave them the only security they possessed for the teaching of religion in the national schools. He could not help thinking, when he remembered, on the one hand, the promises held out by those who advocated this measure, and, on the other hand, when he looked at the provisions of the measure itself, that in this case we were exemplifying the adage of "keeping the word of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope." When they told him that they relied on their preamble, in which they gave a general acknowledgment to the advantages of the union of religious and secular instruction, he must say that theirs was not a preamble on which he should be disposed to rely, even if he were disposed to rely upon any preamble, which, without enacting clauses, was always a broken reed to lean upon; and as to the present measure, to do so would only be to rely upon the very worst part of the Bill. What were the terms of this preamble? In the first place, they cast a slur upon the presbyteries of the Church, which had not a shadow of truth for its foundation, by saying that their superintendence over the parochial schools was extremely defective. He received a letter the other day from a minister in Kircudbrightshire, in which the writer stated that the thirty days of the hardest work he had in the year were those in which he was engaged the people of the United States in 1796, in the superintendence of schools; and when he retired into private life after his that statement was fully confirmed by second presidentship. On that occasion another clerical correspondent. In his this great and wise man said:own county (Morayshire) he knew that the superintendence of the parish minister and of the presbyteries was of the most efficient kind, and he was convinced, from what he had observed himself in various parts of Scotland, that the statement in the preamble was unjust and untrue. The preamble further stated that the union of religious with secular instruction was "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labour to subvert those great pillars of human happiness, those foremost props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution inceded to the influence of refined education on tained without religion. Whatever may be conminds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." consonant with the opinion of the people of Scotland." They did not rest it upon the duty and advantage of cultivating the religious and moral as well as the intel-dulge the supposition that morality can be mainlectual faculties of the people-upon the tendency of that union to elevate and improve the education given in the schools -upon what was due by a Christian nation to the Great Author of all knowledge -or upon what was due to man's immortality; but they rested it, forsooth, upon "the opinion of the people of Scotland.' He thanked God that it was consonant with the opinion of the people of Scotland; but the ground upon which they put it would just be as applicable in Spain and Italy for the exclusion of the Bible, as in Scotland for the union of religious with secular instruction. Only let it be consonant with the opinion of a great majority of the people, and, no matter how gross the infidelity or debasing the superstition might be, they were bound, according to the principle stated in their preamble, to support and encourage it. But even if their preamble had offered to a great principle a juster and nobler homage, he would not even then have been disposed to rely upon it independent of any clause which gave force to its spirit. In considering such a measure as the present, it would be as well to look across the Atlantic, and see what America had done, and done without any such Bill or preamble as that now boasted of. No one would deny that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers were as anxious to combine religious with secular instruction as the Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Americans had not speculated, but acted in this matter, and their advances were at once practical and solid. While speaking of America in connection with this subject, he could not help recalling the parting address of that great man, who was almost as much an Englishman as he was an American, Washington, to Mr. C. Bruce obser He did not mean to say that America had |