public opinion in Scotland, that such a Bill, as the present should be brought forward. He denied that the Bill would separate religious from secular education, and he believed that it would in a great degree do what the House ought to do-leave education to the parents of the children, and the different congregations to which they belonged. He should support his right hon. and learned Friend in carrying this Bill into effect.

Scotland. By opening the parish schools to schoolmasters of all denominations it would raise a feeling of enmity between the schoolmaster and the clergyman, which would act most injuriously to the cause of education, as had been demonstrated by the experience of the last few years. Another objection was the substitution of the supervision of an inspector for that of the clergyman. The parish schools of Scotland were originally founded, 200 years MR. G. DUNDAS said, he was not will- ago, in connection with the Kirk, and ever ing to allow the House to go to a division since that time the clergymen of Scotland without stating the reasons why he should had watched over those schools, and revote against the second reading of this Bill.garded them as a sacred duty, which, in He trusted the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate would not class him among the determined enemies of the Government, many of whose measures he had supported, and whose measures, whenever he considered that they were good, he should not oppose. No one knew better than he did how anxious that right hon. and learned Lord was to promote every good cause, and, as the title of the Bill expressed it, to make further provision for the education of the people of Scotland. He felt much regret that he could not go along with him in the measure he had introduced. He had given it every consideration, and during the recess had had ample opportunities of conversing with those who were acquainted with all the workings of the existing system, which had stood the test of centuries. He lamented exceedingly that the right hon. and learned Lord had struck the blow he had at that system, which had worked well and extended great benefits to the people of Scotland. All were agreed on the great importance of making further provision for the education of the people of Scotland. No one expressed a doubt that in the large towns there was a very great want of education, and that the children of the lower orders were in that respect greatly neglected. It would be of immense advantage if education were extended to them; and he would even go further, and say it would be very advantageous if they could compel the children of the very lowest orders to be educated, for then, perhaps, many who now swarmed in the streets, almost without clothing, and their minds thoroughly brutalised, might turn out after a time useful members of society. He disagreed, however, with the way in which education was proposed to be afforded by the provisions of this Bill. It would change the whole character of parochial schools in

Mr. J. Macgregor

his opinion, rendered the change extremely ungracious. The right hon. and learned Lord Advocate said the system of superintendence and management was greatly defective. Defects there might be; for where was the system in which there were no defects? But surely it was within the scope of the Government to remove them without interfering with the superintendence of the clergyman. Another point of the Bill to which he objected was the general centralisation of management. It appeared everything was to be referred to the general Board. He would just remind the House that it was centralisation which lost us our American colonies; for if selfgovernment had been permitted, he believed we should have possessed them to this day. With regard to the separation of religious and secular instruction, he was much gratified to hear from the right hon. and learned Lord that no sort of objection would ever be made to allusions to Scriptures in illustration of what was taught in the school, and in many schools there would be no interference from the inspector. The clause, however, which made provision for stated hours in which religion was to be taught, also left it voluntary to the parents to allow their children to attend, and it was to be feared that some parents might act capriciously, and withdraw their children from those hours of sacred teaching. Reverting to the examination of the schoolmasters and the schools, he thought that men who had been educated at the colleges of St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh-men well learned, and of acknowledged religious principle-were much more fitted for those duties than an inspector, of whom they knew nothing. It was to be regretted that the measure was one of such a sweeping character. Another in a much smaller compass would have answered

every end. troduced, increasing the salaries of the schoolmasters, providing for their retirement when past work, taking care that those who were incapable should be removed, and extending the means of education to new districts-whether in the distant Highlands, where miles of moor intervened between the scattered villages, or in the no less dreary yet populous towns where vice and ignorance were to be found -he was quite sure the Government would have earned the thanks and gratitude of every Scotchman.

If such a Bill had been in- to remove to be augmented by further delay. He would not detain the House with any observations upon other parts of the Bill, but, as a member of the Established Church of Scotland, he could not help alluding to the provisions that had more immediate reference to the parochial schools. He deeply regretted the character of the opposition that had been offered to these provisions by the majority of the established clergy. It was impossible for him to imagine that the true interests of the Established Church had been consulted in their wholesale condemMR. G. S. DUFF said, that the Bill nation of this Bill. On the contrary, he before the House was one of such vital felt persuaded that the course which they importance to the best interests of the had taken was one which could not fail to people of Scotland, that he was unwilling be prejudicial to the Establishment, and he merely to give a silent vote in its favour, could not but think that they, and all as he had done upon two former occasions, others who had at heart the prosperity of when Bills on the subject of education in the parochial schools, ought to be the first Scotland were brought in by the noble to thank the Government for the manner Lord the late Member for Greenock. He in which they proposed to deal with them. had then no other intention than of signi- For by the provisions of this Bill new life fying a general opinion as to the necessity would be infused into them, and under of some considerable alteration being made their operation there was every reason to in the whole system of education in that hope that the parochial schools would once country, but he now wished to express his more resume their proper position as the hearty concurrence, not only in the prin- great educational institutions of Scotland. ciple, but also in most of the details of The general Board, which had been so the simple and efficient measure, the pro- much condemned, would in his opinion, visions of which had been so well and with some alterations in its constitution, clearly explained by the right hon. and but invested with the powers conferred learned Lord who introduced it. This was, upon it by the Bill, form a body really reindeed, a Bill which, without paying ho- sponsible for the character and the qualifimage to the sectarian prejudices of any cations of the schoolmaster, and candidates one class of the community, went honestly of superior attainments would no longer be and straightforwardly to carry out what it excluded by a useless and vexatious test, professed; namely, to amend the laws of while the superintendence of the presbyeducation in Scotland, to inquire into the tery would be advantageously replaced by existing educational means in that coun- the more efficient inspection guaranteed try, and to make such further provision by the Board. He was glad likewise that for extending them as that inquiry might the Government were prepared to reconshow to be necessary. He believed that sider the question of the schoolmaster's it was, in fact, the very fairness and im- salary and the retiring allowance, for he partiality of the measure that had given was decidedly of opinion that they must be rise to much of the opposition that it had considerably augmented in order to secure now to encounter, for nothing was more the permanent services of those best qualinatural than that those who combated for fied as teachers, who had hitherto in most the predominance of the sect to which cases regarded a parochial school as a mere they belonged should endeavour to arouse stepping-stone to the Church. Altogether, against a measure like this the intolerance considering the difficulties with which this of that Presbyterian spirit which, like all question was surrounded, he could not conother great mental qualities, possessed its ceive that a more ingenious, a more comshadowy side. He rejoiced, however, that prehensive, and at the same time a more the good sense of the great mass of the conciliatory measure, could well have been laity in Scotland was too well able to ap-devised. In giving it his most unqualified preciate the practical merits of the Bill, to be persuaded to reject the benefits that it offered, or to allow the evils that it went VOL. CXXXIII. [THIRD SERIES.]

support, although he could not admit of the expression used on a former occasion by the hon. Member for Elginshire (Mr,

K

C. Bruce), "Experimentum fiat in cor- aid that which the House believed itself pore vili," he would imitate that hon. well qualified to perform. In that spirit Member in calling the careful attention of he asked, what was it that this Bill was English Members to this Bill, as one emi-intended to accomplish, what was its pronently adapted to the wants of Scotland; posed object, what was the evil it meant and he trusted that no dread of its being to remedy, what the mischief with which sent out as a pilot balloon to some projected it was to grapple? Was it the general measure for England would induce them existence and alarming growth of popular to withhold a boon which was so earnestly ignorance in Scotland? The right hon. desired by the people of Scotland. and learned Lord Advocate, in introducing the measure, did not produce any evidence of a fact so melancholy and significant as that in Scotland education was diminishing and ignorance increasing. It was usual to support a proposal with a solid array of facts. Why did the right hon. and learned Lord not follow so laudable a custom? His office gave him easy access to the records of crime in his own country, and he might have ascertained without difficulty the broad and general results, though the Census tables of Scotland were not published at the time he introduced his measure. Statistics might not be interesting, but it would, perhaps, have guided the House in its impression, if the right hon. and learned Lord had informed them that one in every seven in Scotland were under scholastic training, and that nearly fourfifths were under training through other agencies than those which sprung from public provisions for education. Far from blinking the truth upon this matter, he felt that no good could be gained by any person shutting his eyes to the real state of affairs. He admitted, and he deplored as much as any Member of that House, the growth and rapid increase of a class

MR. MIALL said, he could not reconcile it with his duty to refrain from taking part in this discussion; though, as the measure was limited in its application to Scotland, it might be more proper if it were left exclusively to Scotch Members. The principle of the measure was, to make further provision for the education of the people of Scotland. It was one which the House received with unusual cordiality, and he was not disposed to object to it. It was certainly not on light grounds that he should put himself in direct opposition to what he knew to be the general opinion of the House, but he would state as concisely as he could the reason why he should vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Perthshire (Mr. Stirling). In the first place, he might declare, without any circumlocution, that he objected to any scheme of what was called "national education." It was right he should state that broadly, that there might be no misapprehension as to the position he occupied. He would not ask the House to go into the merits of any abstract principle. He would assume that with regard to this the decision of the House was correct, and his judgment was entirely mistaken. He conceived that so vast were the interests involved in a measure like this, and so materially would they be affected by the determination of Parliament, either on one side or the other, it was hardly safe to be guided exclusively by abstract principles, however capable of demonstration. He would go further than that, he would declare that if he could but arrive at the conviction that the education of the people ought to be provided by Parliamentary enactment or legal provision, that supposing no greater evil than the evil intended to be remedied were produced, he would willingly surrender any theory of his own, either political or economical, in order to accomplish the attainment of so desirable a result. The measure presented itself to his mind in a practical aspect, and the spirit in which he wished to address himself to it was, as a proposal submitted to Parliament to accomplish by Parliamentary Mr. G. S. Duff

not, perhaps, actually criminal, but susceptible of crime-a class which so easily took the contagion, so tenaciously retained it, and held so cheaply all the miseries which it produced, that wherever it was numerous it must of necessity also be dangerous. He admitted that this class was universally distinguished by profound and brutal ignorance as one of its characteristics, but was it not prudent for the Legislature to inquire whether, supposing they got rid of the ignorance, they could alter in any respects the nature of the class itself. It was of the utmost importance that the question should be looked fairly in the face, in order to ascertain whether there were not evils far deeper than those generally described as ignorance, which neither this nor any similar measure could meet. The class to which he referred was peculiar to crowded towns and large cities. It might be found in Prussia and France, as well as