On National Education.

ew things are more surprising to those who are old enough to look back over a period of say thirty-five years of the history of the country, still by most of us called "home," than the growth there of intelligence amongst the masses, and consequently the development of the power of public opinion. This is doubtless attributable to a variety of causes, tending in one direction, but a few of them have mainly, I think, produced the result. The others have followed, as it were, in their train.

Sunday-schools have been so important an agency, even in this respect, that I believe it would be very difficult to over-estimate their effects, without taking in their value as a means of spiritual good to the people. In the earlier history of these institutions they were very much more devoted to teaching the elements than they are now. I presume that, excepting the infant classes, most of the scholars are now taught, at least to some extent, to read, before entering these schools, and also principally attend schools of some sort during the week. I also believe that, even in the infant classes, the teachers' time is given to higher objects, which is an incidental recognition of the other means of obtaining the first rudiments. In the earlier days of Sunday-schools, however, it was almost entirely different. At that time a very large proportion of the scholars entered without any knowledge of the alphabet, and the teachers had a great deal of preparatory work to do, which is now done either before, or concurrently with, their work. The working classes, at the time I refer to, may be described as a stolid mass of ignorance, and without the desire to be otherwise. Parents amongst them were only anxious to make their children assist as soon as possible in earning the means of sustaining a merely animal existence. Sunday-schools may truly be called the thin end of the first wedge which was driven in below this almost immovable mass—their advocates had not only to teach the children, but frequently to overcome the obstacles in the minds of parents and others against their being taught. Some labourers who entered this field at the beginning of the day lived to see a blessed change in this respect, and witnessed parents and children alike in the list of Sunday-scholars. I page 8 remember well, a class of men advanced in life regularly in attendance at a Sunday-school, that their Bibles might be of use to them in their cottages.

The Legislation of the last forty years may also be very properly considered as a means of National Education. My memory just takes me back to the passing of the great Reform Bill of 1832, and the contrast between the British Empire of to-day and that date is something to make any man marvel! and to feel that, in relation to us as a people, the former days are not better than these. That great measure was not all its authors and champions desired it to be. It had to be accommodated to the jealousies of the Lords by the admission of the "Chandos clause," which fixed the county franchise at £50 tenants at will, and thus laid the counties at the feet of the Tories. It was, nevertheless, a splendid instalment of the peoples' liberties. It took them for the first time into the councils of the nation. It gave the people so much of what was due to them that it became impossible to withhold the balance, and laid them under a debt of obligation to its champions, such as Grey, Russell, and Brougham, which on many later occasions they have been too ready to forget. Lord J. Russell was, perhaps, above all the others, the hero of that measure, and of him at least I believe it may be truly said, that he was actuated by no merely political party motives, but by those proper to a great constitutional reformer and true friend of mankind. Except on unimportant occasions, when his temper has got the better of his heart and his head, he has all through his long political career been consistent with himself and with his early professions as the advocate of liberty. One of the predicted results of the measure I have referred to has been the growing interest ever since taken by a continually widening circle of the people in the affairs of the country, and that has quickened the national intelligence, and been a most important means of educating and raising the community. There is now vastly more respect for the institutions of the country, and the people are more law-abiding, as might have been expected, seeing that they are now conscious of exercising some influence in the making of those laws by which they are governed. In my early days soldiers were necessary up and down the country in the centres of population, and "riots" and "Riot Act" were familiar terms, but now a few "Peelers," assisted occasionally by some special constables, are all that is required. No doubt we have a dangerous population in the large cities in every part of the empire, and I would by no means speak lightly of this element. But are they not numerically a small minority? Is it not a bright sign of the times, and especially of activity in the Christian Church, that the conviction should be so general, that this is an evil for which a remedy must be at once found? I believe that page 9 in the past this evil would have been unheeded, until it had culminated in disaster, and then have been a matter of brute force.

They arc, however, at home, a long way from the enjoyment of that equality before the law, especially in ecclesiastical matters, which is I believe the birthright of every man, but it is all obtainable by constitutional means, and is so evidently approaching, that its advocates and friends calmly await the result of public enlightenment, and of political agitation and discussion.

The question of National Education has been one of very voluminous controversy during the period of which I have been writing, and I had intended to have given a short sketch of it, and to have shewn the stand-point of the different parties engaged therein, especially in relation to the Elementary Education Act, 1870, but I fear I have already taken up more space than I am entitled to, and must therefore lay down my pen. Should it, however, be considered suited to the columns of the Congregational Magazine, I will endeavour to do this in a future number.J.L.