addressed the House as follows: I have to offer my sincere thanks to the House for the very kind and indulgent consideration it has extended to me whilst disabled from attending its service by my late accident. I have the satisfaction of knowing, that, owing to the very zealous and able manner in which the duties of the Chair have been discharged by the Chairman of Ways and Means, public business has not been impeded or interrupted in consequence of my absence. There is one circumstance, however, to which I ought to call the attention of the House. During my absence two Members, the Member for Aberdeenshire (Lord Haddo) and the Member for Bath (Mr. Tite) have been called to the table, and have taken the oaths and their seats. Now, the Acts which regulate the taking of oaths and the delivering in of the qualifications of Members of this House provide that it shall be done within certain hours of the day, whilst the House is sitting "with their Speaker in the Chair;" and I understand that doubts have been suggested whether these words do not make it absolutely necessary that the Speaker himself, and not any person appointed to act as Speaker in his absence, should be in the Chair at the time. No doubt the intention of the Legislature was, that the oaths should be taken in the most solemn and public manner possible, when the House was not in Committee; but I thin it very desirable that the House should consider the point. These two Members, before they took their seats, did everything, as far as they were aware, which they were required to do by law; but they may be placed in a very inconvenient position unless some legislative enactment be passed which would protect them from any penalties they may have incurred for having sat in this House without having been sworn in strict conformity with the provisions of the Acts. I do not venture to give any opinion as to whether or not these doubts are well founded. I only throw out the suggestion in the hope that an early step may be taken for the purpose of giving such relief to these Gentlemen as the House may think expedient under the circumstances of the case.

said, he was sure he was only expressing the universal feelings of the House, when he said that they deeply regretted the cause of the short temporary absence of the Speaker, and that it afforded them sincere gratification to find that the right hon. Gentleman was able to resume that Chair which he had so long filled, to the great advantage of the House and the public interest. With reference to the question to which the right hon. Gentleman had called attention, having previously received a private communication from him as to whether the two hon. Members referred to had taken their seats conformably with the strict letter of the statute, he (Sir G. Grey) had conferred with several hon. Members on both sides of the House, learned in the law, and others who were competent from their experience to give an opinion entitled to weight with the House, and they were unanimous in their concurrence with the view taken by Mr. Speaker, that a question might be raised whether the oaths had been taken strictly in accordance with the terms of the statute. They were of opinion further that the matter ought not to be left in doubt, and that some step should at once be taken to prevent that inconvenience to the two hon. Gentlemen who had taken the oath during the absence of Mr. Speaker, to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred. It was no fault of those hon. Gentlemen themselves that the informality had occurred; they were called upon by the right hon. Gentleman, who was at the time acting as Deputy Speaker, to come up to the table and take the oaths in the usual manner, and they did so. But to remove all doubts, and to relieve the two hon. Members from all liability, he proposed to introduce a Bill immediately to render all proceedings which had been taken during the absence of Mr. Speaker as valid and effectual as they would have been if the right hon. Gentleman had himself been present, and he hoped that Bill would meet with the support of the House.

said, he cordially joined in the expression of regret at the cause of Mr. Speaker's temporary absence, and begged to offer his sincere congratulation at his return. With respect to the important question raised by the right hon. Gentleman as to the strict legality of swearing Members in the absence of the Speaker, it was necessary, at all events, to confirm the acts which had been done; and he should, therefore, be perfectly willing to support the right hon. Baronet's Bill. As this was the first occasion on which they had had practical experience of the working of the suggestion of the late Sir Robert Inglis, of appointing a Deputy Speaker, he would suggest that if the Committee which sat some time ago on the subject was reappointed the hon. Gentleman who had filled that office during Mr. Speaker's late absence might be able to give many valuable suggestions as to any inconveniences that might occur in carrying out that suggestion, and the best mode of remedying them. He would submit that when the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) brought in his Bill, he should move for the appointment of a Committee to consider in what mode the appointment of Deputy Speaker might best be made, so as to avoid any doubts or inconveniences that might arise from acts done by the House during the absence of the Speaker in future.

said, he begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his suggestion, which he thought it might be very desirable to adopt.

said, he thought there would be no necessity for appointing a new Committee, as the evidence taken before the former Committee would be found to contain all the information requisite. The best mode would be for the right hon. Baronet to act on his own authority, and to introduce a clause in the Bill which he was about to bring in providing against such difficulties as this for the future.

said, he did not think it would be convenient, on a Bill relating to the relief of certain Members from penalties to which they might have subjected themselves, to raise a discussion as to the future mode of proceeding to be adopted by the House. The best mode in his opinion would be to appoint a Committee to consider the subject separately.

said, he would suggest that every arrangement necessary might be made by a Standing Order without an Act of Parliament. It was a matter of grave consideration whether they should alter those regulations in dealing with the office of Speaker which had been in use for centuries. The difficulties which had arisen proved, as he ventured to state the other day, when the Resolution for appointing the Deputy Speaker was proposed, that much caution was necessary on this subject. Whatever was done should be done with great gravity, after mature consideration, and with the authority of the Crown; which, in point of fact, was the source of the authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

said, he wished to inquire whether it would be necessary that the two hon. Members who had taken the oaths and their seats during Mr. Speaker's absence should be re-sworn?

said, that if the House should agree to the Bill he proposed to bring in it would not be necessary for those hon. Members to be re-sworn. With regard to what had been said by the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Sir W. Heathcote), he had to observe that the authority of the Crown had been given to the appointment of his hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means, as Deputy Speaker, during the temporary absence of the Speaker.

said, he proposed that the blank in the clause should be filled up with the word "seven," so as to make the notice one of seven days.

said, from his experience of building operations he was convinced that a notice of seven days would involve great delay and practical inconvenience to builders in opening the ground to lay their foundations. The existing Act regulating building in the metropolis only required forty-eight hours' notice to be given, and that period, he considered, would also be amply sufficient for the purposes of the Bill. An extended notice of seven days was quite unprecedented in such cases.

said, he considered that forty-eight hours' notice would be quite sufficient hi this case if the vestries had a proper staff of officers, and such a map of the levels of the different districts as they ought to possess prepared beforehand.

said, he thought two days would be inadequate for the surveyor to inspect and make his report, and then for the board to sanction his recommendation.

said, that the notice provided by the City Sewers Act was one of fourteen days, and he had already reduced that notice by one-half. However, he would further consider the point; and if the notice could be fixed consistently with the public interests below seven days, he would have no objection to insert words to that effect.

said, that, according to the clause as it stood, any house, building, or drain commenced without the specific authority of the vestry or district board would be liable to be pulled down. Surely there should be a limit to the time within which such authority should be given.

said, he proposed to introduce words requiring the authority of the vestry or district board to be given within a certain prescribed period.

said, that nothing could be more easy than to repeal all the local Acts, but there were some of them which it might be desirable to continue. He, therefore, hoped that the Committee would agree to the clause as it stood. It proposed merely to transfer the powers of the different Acts to the new boards. He looked upon this Bill as the commencement of good legislation for the metropolis, and he thought it would be better to postpone the consideration of the local Acts until they had the opinions of the representatives of the different boards on the subject. If the clause was passed, he had no doubt that the time was not far distant when there would be some measure brought in to deal with these local Acts.

said, he had no objection to upset all the constituted authorities of the metropolis provided something better could be substituted; but that something ought to be stated. He objected to the little consideration shown to the owners of property, and on that ground he would suggest that the clause should be postponed until some statement was made.

said, he would consider, before the Bill was passed, how far it was desirable to repeal the local Acts.

said, he thought it advisable that the clause should be postponed, inasmuch as it was desirable to get rid of the conflicting terms of the local Acts as soon as possible.

said, he did not propose to proceed any further with the Committee that day, but as the measure was one of very great importance, and expedition in its passing was most desirable, especially with reference to the present advanced season, he trusted that the House would allow him to go on with the remaining clauses at a morning sitting to-morrow.

said, he understood that morning sittings had already been appointed for Thursday and Friday next, and although it was no doubt desirable that this measure should be proceeded with without delay, nevertheless, it was to be remembered that there were limits to human endurance, and flesh and blood could not sit there day after day from twelve o'clock at noon till two in the morning.

said, he would beg to ask the right hon. the President of the Board of Control, whether his attention had been called to the recent case of Græme v. Wroughton, in which the Court of Exchequer has decided that the practice of subscribing a sum of money to induce officers in the East India Company's army to retire is illegal, and a misdemeanor; and, if so, whether he intends to take any steps to remedy the effects of such a decision. The facts of the case were, that on an occasion of the officers of a regiment, to which Lieutenant Wroughton belonged, being called on to contribute their quota to purchasing one of the majors out, that gentleman declined on account of his inability to find the means, when Captain Græme lent him the sum, 4,000 rupees, on his bond. Mr. Wroughton had since himself been purchased out of the regiment, receiving 30,000 rupees, on which Captain Græme sued him on his bond, and he defended the action on the ground of illegality of the transaction, and the Court had decided in his favour.

said, his attention had not been officially directed to the case in question. He had read the account of it in the papers, and he must say he did not understand the grounds of the decision. There was no doubt that the practice in question, and which had been declared illegal, did exist to a certain extent, and, under proper regulations, he did not think it was prejudicial to the service. He would, however, consider the subject in conjunction with the Court of Directors, with a view to its being placed on some more certain footing.

said, he begged to inquire of the hon. Under Secretary for the Treasury what steps have been taken to restore to the inhabitants of the Australian colonies the advantages of steam postal communication.

said, the state of the Australian postal communication was at present very unsatisfactory. Previous to last November arrangements had been made by which a monthly mail was sent by way of Singapore, and another was sent round the Cape. In consequence of the steamer belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company having been disabled, the service by way of Singapore had been stopped, and the other vessels of the Company being engaged in the Crimea, they were unable to supply another. The Screw Company which carried the mails by the Cape had been applied to, and a proposal had been made by the Postmaster General and the Treasury for a monthly communication overland by way of Singapore, and that it should be performed, if possible, by the Peninsular and Oriental Company. The Admiralty had called on the Company for a contract for the service, and the Company some months ago communicated with the colony on the subject, but had not yet given the Admiralty any answer. At the same time the Postmaster General had arranged for a monthly service by clippers, which had on several occasions performed the passage as rapidly as the steamers. As soon as arrangements could be effected, it was intended to reopen the communication by way of Singapore.

said, that, referring to the present arrangement to obtain officers for the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers from civil colleges and public seminaries, he would beg to ask the hon. Clerk of the Ordnance, whether it was the intention of Government to take such cadets from the Military Colleges of Sandhurst and Addiscombe (the latter with the permission of the Honourable East India Company) as may on examination be found to be competent, seeing that such cadets are already militarily educated, that formerly it was considered essential that Woolwich cadets should first enter at Marlow, and that by giving commissions to officers volunteering from the militia, the line would be more than compensated for the loss of any cadets taken from Sandhurst to enter into the two scientific corps?

said, it was not the intention of the Government to select any cadets from the colleges at Sandhurst or Addiscombe. The cadetships to be given away in July would be given after the examination which had been appointed by the Secretary of State. It was competent for the gentlemen in these colleges to compete for the cadetships, and if their examination should be satisfactory, no doubt their claims would be fully considered.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Board of Trade whether Government intend to continue the collection of agricultural statistics in England, and, if go, whether it is intended to appoint the clerks of Unions as permanent collectors at a stated and liberal salary; and, whether it is intended to introduce any compulsory measure for making a certain class of returns imperative?

said, the English returns generally were not satisfactory. With the exception of the West Biding of York- shire, the attempt had proved a failure Of the eleven counties fixed upon, ten had not given returns to a sufficient extent to justify the Government in following up the plan which had been adopted. The returns which had been received did not amount to more than 16 per cent of the whole. The deficiency in the returns from the West Riding was only seven-tenths of one per cent. As the experiment had not succeeded, his noble Friend the President of the Board of Trade had given notice of his intention to move for the appointment of a Select Committee in the other House, to ascertain the best mode of procuring agricultural statistics. The experiment with regard to Scotland had, however, been eminently successful. The amount of failures of returns in Scotland was only one-fifth of one per cent. The Government proposed to continue the return from Scotland, and would consider what remuneration should be afforded.

said, he begged to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the appointment of the Dean of Christ Church has been made subject to any conditions or alterations as to emoluments, or otherwise, which may be recommended by the Oxford University Commissioners?

said, the Commissioners had the power of making such regulations as they thought proper, and having recommended to the Crown a gentleman whom he considered eminently fitted for the position, and one who was imbued with the right principles of improvement, he did not think it proper to exact from him any condition as to the course which he ought to pursue. He was quite satisfied that that gentleman would be most anxious to concur in any measures which might be suggested for the improvement of the University of Oxford.

said, before the House proceeded to the Orders of the Day, he wished to mention a question to which Mr. Speaker had called attention that day, relative to two Members having taken their seats during his absence, and suggesting that steps should be taken to secure the validity of the proceedings. He (Sir G. Grey) had been in private communication with Mr. Speaker and the right hon. Gen- tleman opposite (Mr. Walpole), and it had been arranged that a Bill should be submitted to the House for the purpose of removing all doubts on the subject. He understood that it was desirable that that course should be taken immediately, as until the Bill passed those Members would abstain from taking part in the proceedings of the House. He begged leave to move for leave to bring in a Bill for the purpose now, and that it be read a second time tomorrow.

said, he could not avoid taking that opportunity of expressing a hope that the House would avail itself of the occasion to place this difficult subject on a more satisfactory footing than it was in at present. He was one of the Members of the Committee to which this subject was referred, and looking to the difficulty of providing for such an emergency as he was sorry to see take place the other day, he thought it was undeniable that no statute or Act had been passed placing the matter on a satisfactory footing. A great many of the duties of the Speaker were statutory, and others were laid down by the Orders of that House, and it was desirable that the question should be placed on a satisfactory footing. He hoped the House would take the whole subject into consideration, and make some satisfactory settlement.

said, that the right hon. Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole) had suggested that the Committee on the duties of the Speaker should be reappointed to consider the question, but he thought it was the general opinion that it would be desirable to appoint another Committee.

said, that, after an interval of six weeks, he felt considerable difficulty and distrust in resuming a debate which was suspended under the influence of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), which for long-sustained argument, fair statement, manly sentiment, and deep religious feeling deserved the high praise it had obtained. But it would be a grave calamity if the House, under the influence of arguments and sentiments, the application of which were wholly unjustifiable, were to decide against the principle of the Bills now before them, because there could hardly be a Member of that House so possessed of patience, courage, and perseverance as again to urge upon it propositions which had received such repeated disappointment. The question had been brought before the House in every possible form. It had been the subject of a private measure and a public measure. It bad been treated as a local question and as a general question. It had been carried in the shape of Resolutions in both Houses, such as those moved by Lord Brougham in the other House. It had been recommended to Parliament in the Reports of Select Committees. It had also been met by the most contradictory arguments. When a private Bill was brought in, it was said that the subject was too large for private legislation, and that it must be dealt with by a general measure. When a general measure was brought in, it was said that educational provision must be made for distinct localities, and that the state of education varied so much in different places that no general measure would apply. Seven years ago a majority of all the ratepayers of Manchester petitioned Parliament for liberty to tax themselves for the purposes of education. This permission was then, and had ever since been refused to them. They might rate themselves in every way—for the punishment of ignorance, and for almost every other object—but not for the diffusion of knowledge and religious education. He objected to the dangerous and unparliamentary course of reading all these Education Bills a second time pro formâ, and then shaping them in Committee. He maintained that the principle of a Bill could not be adopted pro formâ; but should be decided by the second reading. At length the question of National Education was placed before the House in the classical form of three courses, and was, therefore, ripe for solution. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) was content with the principle of the present system, which, he thought might be developed to a satisfactory extent so as to suit all the requirements of the country. The second proposition, embodied in the Bills of the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) and the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington), was that, where private resources failed, public rates for education might be allowed to come in, these rates being distributed under the control of religious bodies which had been recognised in this country for a number of years. The third proposition was that of the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson), who, agreeing in the necessity of public rates, was for sweeping away all the existing schools, mapping out the kingdom anew for the purpose, but wholly ignoring religious instruction. Such a system, to say the least of it, was distasteful to the country, and had no chance of adoption. With regard to the Bill of the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Pakington), although his (Mr. Adderley's) name was on the back of it, he thought it complete without the clauses which provided for new schools, and that those clauses were incongruous in principle with the rest of the measure. This supplement was unnecessary, because the zeal of religious bodies will never leave unsupplied the supposed deficiency. Religious jealousy was the obstacle which they had to meet on the very threshold of this question; but, he believed, the Bill once passed, that jealousy, in the form of rivalry, would itself be the mainstay of the system which would be established, and as the new school clauses were also open to objection in principle, he hoped they would be expunged. The Bill would then be identical with the Manchester Bill which he introduced last Session. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich, by endeavouring to introduce theoretic completeness, had arrived at practical contradiction. He needlessly exposed the whole proposition to cavils, nine-tenths of which were inapplicable to its main principle. It was an utter misrepresentation of both the measures of the right hon. Baronet and the noble Lord the Member for London to say they were either intended or calculated to supersede the existing system—they merely supplemented it. Where the existing system was in full work, where 'squires and gentlemen were willing to maintain schools in their own villages, and the clergy were wasting precious time in begging sums and losing half their influence by incurring obligations, in those places the Bill—either of the noble Lord or the right hon. Baronet—would never be adopted. There would be no rush of ratepayers to relieve such paymasters. But in some places there was no such support, and yet a cry for means. It was only in places like Manchester, where the deficiency was felt, that the rate would come into operation, and, instead of superseding, would stimulate private charity. In comparing the proposition which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) supported with the system embodied in these two Bills, it would be observed that the principle of the right hon. Gentleman was one of private patronage, aided perhaps by Government patronage, but essentially a system of patronage as opposed to self-support. The principle of the two measures was, on the contrary, to take advantage of private patronage as far as it went, and to provide for any deficiency out of the public funds and by local taxation. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) called his a voluntary self-supporting system; but, if it were self-supporting, what need was there of the 300,OO0l. which Parliament voted annually, and about another 300,000l. of forced loans, upon condition of which the grants were made? The advance in national education dated exactly from the period when these subsidies commenced, and therefore, the right hon. Gentleman, in referring to the improved state of public education to support his views, was really using an argument which belonged to his antagonists. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to say, "Let well alone—let there be no alteration;" and his opponents replied, "if there had been no alteration, these grants would not have been made, and education would not have improved as it has." He was told that if he introduced this principle of popular rating he should be sapping all those sources of benevolence which now existed in the country. What was this but saying that the spirit of charity on which the present system rested wholly was so languid that the instant it received assistance from any other source it would shirk its task and wither away. The existing system was voluntary, not as depending on the will of the people, but on that of the patron—the 'squire, the clergy, or of some wealthy manufacturer. If the good-will of the 'squire or the clergyman, failed, the result of this voluntary system became nil, and the system itself died. The next objection which the right hon. Gentleman had taken to the support of education by a system of public rating was that it would be pauperising the whole system. But why should this be? Is it not really the reverse? Local rates were raised for the formation of public parks, for public libraries and museums, for lighting the streets and highways with gas, and none of these public enterprises were considered to bear the character of pauperism; why, then, should the collection of local rates for the purposes of education be regarded as pauperising? He should have thought that money collected from the bounty of the rich or by the clergy going about from house to house with begging-boxes, would rather have been regarded as eleemosynary and degrading than a contribution from the whole body of the people, necessarily including the parents and friends of the children who were to receive the benefit of the funds so contributed and imposed by the people voluntarily upon themselves. There was no one feature in the present state of Canada more indicative of progress and its future success than the development of the education of the people based upon the principle of contributory rates. Their educational institutions were supported by local rates as well as by voluntary subscriptions, and in the opinion of the people there was nothing more pauperising in the one than in the other. Let hon. Members read Lord Elgin's Report upon Canada, and they would find that that upon which the noble Lord had prided himself most in that country was the development of education upon a self-reliant system based upon municipal institutions. Were schools of design pauper schools he would ask? Yet they were supported out of national funds. Were the very Privy Council grants, on which the present system so much relied, less eleemosynary than grants locally voted? The right hon. Gentleman had said that such a system as this now proposed must be irreligious, as though the wealthy patrons of existing schools monopolised all the religion of the country. In such an objection as this made by men of such different opinions as Mr. Colquhoun and Archdeacon Denison, he saw only the desire of each to obtain for his own form of religion the monopoly of all the schools. But if it were granted that all that the right hon. Gentleman had said in favour of the existing system were true, that it was self-supporting, voluntary, independent, sufficient, and exclusively religious—in short, everything which he (Mr. Adderley) said it was not, still he would ask, how did it perform its work? Did it do it satisfactorily or not? No doubt there had been great results from the present system; but who were the primary objects of that system? The children of the poorer classes? No. But they ought to be the first chief, if not the only, object of any system of national education in England. It was not intended to provide for the education of all classes of the community as in America, but for those who were not able to provide it for themselves. The statistical question, whether one-eighth or one-ninth ought to be at school, was not so important as of what class the deficient fraction consisted. It would be found that they consisted wholly of the class which ought to have been primarily provided for by the present system, but who, instead of being educated by the national schools, were only treated exceptionally in ragged schools, pauper schools, reformatories, or, after neglect had worked out its result, in prison schools. You may read in the brutalised features of the children wandering about the streets a record of the defects of this boasted system. Another defect in the present system was its reducing the adult population—the parents of the children whom it should educate themselves—to a state of pupillage. It did not enlist the sympathies of the parents in the children's education, but took from them all responsibility and share in their children's schooling, and substituted private patronage. The present system was also imperfect in its adaptation to its objects, industrial instruction being the last thing thought of, but instead, instruction in branches of knowledge, which, even if practicable, could never be useful to the labourer's son. But, while in some places the character of the instruction given was much too high, in others it was as much below, or aside of what should be the true standard. If children do not come to this kind of instruction we are told education is not wanted; schools are already empty, the parents are abused for ignorance and cupidity, while the patrons ought to blush for their pedantry. If industrial education fitted for the future life of the children of the labouring classes, there would be no difficulty in procuring the willing attendance of pupils, as was evidenced by the fact that in Cornwall, where the pursuits of the mining population required some amount of scientific instruction, which being provided in the schools of that county, the children attended them from three, four, or five miles round, and their parents left them in the schools a sufficient time to acquire the knowledge necessary for their future career. The right hon. Gentleman admires dames' schools as a proof that the Church has followed the population to their own doors. He forgets that they are suitable not to small localities, but to small boys. The comparative states of education and morality in England and in Austria were therefore adduced against the proposition, but the failure of education n the latter country to render her people more moral arose from the character of her institutions. But the House was told that to supplement the present system by rates they must fall into the Austrian system. There was no reason why the zeal of Austria for education should not be engrafted upon the freer institutions of our own country. The proposed municipal rates bore no resemblance to Austrian Government patronage, the principle of which the existing national schools of England rather embodied. But there were countries which based on institutions as free as our own a system of education as complete as the Austrian. But if he alluded to America, he was told that the system, which he advocated was the same as the system which existed in America. That was not the case. Misrepresentation never went further than in the attempt to identify the proposed system with the American secular schools, which agreed only in the feature of the rate, or to argue that the one grew out of the other. There never was a denominational system of education in America, or the means of establishing one; and when the right hon. Gentleman said the secular system there was the development of the religious system which went before it, he must be either ignorant or oblivious of the history of the country in that respect. The truth was, that the religious system of education which prevailed in America previous to its emancipation, especially that established in the New England States by the old Puritans, might be said to have been swept away with the religious foundation which accompanied it. The present secular system there was saved from its irreligious tendency by the religiousness of the people, produced by the former state of things, which amply secures Sunday schools and parental teaching. The same feeling, had there been denominational schools at the time of Independence, would have led America to make them the basis of their educational system; and if England now ignores the denominational foundation already laid, the people will not go without education, and their only alternative will be a secular system like the American. He had endeavoured to draw a comparison between the Bill of the noble Lord and that of the right hon. Gentleman, and he believed that between them they contained elements from which a Select Committee would be able to strike out something satisfactory. He had been surprised to hear remarks made which indicated a preference for the Bill of the noble Lord, and more particularly a statement in a pamphlet laudatory of the religious clauses, for those clauses appeared to him to have been rather hastily drawn up, a circumstance which might be accounted for by the short time which the noble Lord had to prepare the Bill.

Those clauses were drawn up last summer, and were taken principally from Lord Brougham's Bill.

said, he thought the wording had been inadvertently transposed, the stipulation being, not that no child should have a creed forced on him against his parent's wish, but that no child should be taught a creed without a written parental consent, which, in most cases, would be wanting altogether. Of the two, he preferred the Bill of his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington) to that of the noble Lord, not only on this point, but inasmuch, among other reasons, as he could not agree to the kind of blank check which the measure of the noble Lord left to the Committee of the Privy Council to fill up. He was not prepared to give that body such an extraordinary power. They carried on too much by legislation on this most important subject already. What the country wants is something between these two Bills. As to those who sigh after some ideal perfection, who wish to see the Church the sole national educator, or hope to stimulate the voluntary efforts of various religious bodies to be independent of legislative aid, he sympathised with their wishes, but could not spend the rest of his life in concert with their unavailing regrets, and in detecting flaws in every proposed scheme. There are two classes of good men—one, who have high aspirations, but so fastidious a sense of the imperfection of all human processes as to preclude the possibility of their putting any of them into practice; the other, who, with the same high ideal before them, are content to forego half its pretensions in order to realise the other half. They are equally good, but not equally useful. The first are all, in their graves, forgotten by posterity; the second has supplied all the benefactors to whom mankind is grateful, and are the instruments of all progress. The two classes are engaged in this discussion, and seeing the grievous defects of the present national provision for the education of the poor, he could not wait, in hopes of some perfect system, without an attempt at an immediate practicable proposition for supplementing and invigorating what we had.

said, he was surprised that the hon. Gentleman should recommend that the three Bills should be sent to a Select Committee. Whether such should be the decision of the House he was unable to say, but he considered that it certainly was not a wise Parliamentary course. Should the Bills go to a Select Committee, he would invite the attention of the Committee to the question of the attendance of children at school. How was it that 1,000,000 of children were not receiving instruction? Mr. Horace Mann said it was not the want of schools, or the poverty of parents, so much as their indifference and apathy. The real difficulty was to induce attendance in schools. The last Report of the Committee of Council on Education was most valuable. That Report pressed on the public a most weighty consideration—that while they were increasing the number of trained masters, and local teachers, and all the machinery, of an advanced and improving system of education, the children attending schools were daily becoming younger and less suited to that system. Mr. Moseley, in his Report, stated that a hope had been entertained that as the children of the poor derived from the schools greater benefit than they had hitherto done, their parents would desire to send them for a longer period, but he could not conceal that they were disappointed in this hope, because in many cases the parents reasoned that the schools were so good that the children obtained all the learning necessary for them earlier than hitherto, and, therefore, they could take them away sooner. Mr. Moseley also stated that the only remedy for this would be to make, up to a certain age, attendance at school obligatory. In confirmation of this opinion, Mr. Horner, an Inspector of Factories, stated that the Factory Act, by which attendance at school was rendered obligatory on the part of the children, was most successful. Opinions similar to these ran through all the Reports presented by the Committee of Education. Mr. Norris, in his Report, gave an interesting account of a prize scheme which was tried in the mining districts of Staffordshire, by which as much as 400l. or 500l. were given in the schools as premiums for long attendance at schools—thus showing the disposition on the part of the master manufacturers to counteract the evils of the present system. But Mr. Norris said that this scheme did not remedy the present evils, and that nothing would do so but the interference of the Legislature to make attendance at school obligatory. How stood the question of compulsory obligation? Every child of a pauper in the workhouse receives compulsory education in the workhouse school. Under the Factory Act, every child working in the factories was also obliged to receive instruction for a certain portion of the week. Was it to be permitted, then, to take a little child and put him in a field to watch crows without any care or consideration for his instruction? Legislative intervention was more required in this direction than in that taken by the Bills before the House, it would be less distasteful to the people to apply some portion of the wages earned by children to the purposes of education, than to raise a general rate which would be the subject of constant controversy. If any one doubted how labour and education might be made to go hand-in-hand, let him visit Mr. Price's factory, a few hundred yards from their door. There labour prepared for study, and study sweetened labour. This question of the attendance at schools was becoming more important day by day, and without venturing to express any positive opinion as to the course which ought to be pursued, he considered it would be well worthy the attention of the Select Committee.

said, in rising to oppose a Bill which had for its object the promotion of education, he experienced peculiar pain; but, being conscientiously convinced that the measure of his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington) would tend most materially to interfere with the existing system without improving it in the least, he could not have any hesitation in opposing it, both by his vote and his speech. The hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) in supporting the Bill, oddly enough said that the half of it, which related to new schools, had not his concurrence; and he had given a convincing argument against the other half of the measure, which related to existing schools, when he said, with respect to the existing schools, he had no wish to apply to them the machinery of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman, however, had told the House with great truth that on this all-important subject of education statistics were not to be relied upon. If they wanted any confirmation of that, it would be found in the magnificent array of statistics with which his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington) had illustrated and supported his views in introducing the Bill; and the equally formidable number with which his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), in his great oration on this subject, had driven his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington) from the field. Let them first of all consider how the Bill before the House would supply, as it professed to do, the poor populous places which they alleged the existing Minute of the Privy Council deprived of public educational support. If his right hon. Friend was convinced that these poor and populous places were not properly supplied with education, why did he not propose to the House to relax the restrictive Minute of the Privy Council in every case in which that was proved to be its effect? By that means he would have had a certain and efficacious cure for the evil complained of. Again, did his right hon. Friend propose to make the educational rate in those places compulsory? He believed his right hon. Friend would not be offended with him if he said that he dared not make it so. The truth was, that he proposed to leave it to the option of the people of those places whether they would tax themselves or not. Now, he (Lord J. Manners) would ask whether rates of this kind were so popular with the poorer classes, who had mainly to pay them, that the poor would voluntarily submit themselves to those compulsory payments? Were schools the only requisites of civilisation which were deficient in those places? Were churches and chapels in abundance there? Take the case of Bethnal Green. Would the poor people residing there be ready to tax themselves for the promotion of education, or the endowment of churches or chapels? Hon. Members would find, on the contrary, that the very districts which stood most in need of education and instruction were precisely those which had the least means, and consequently the greatest objection to tax themselves for providing those means of civilisation. But what was the second object which his right hon. Friend proposed to gain by his Bill? He assumed that there were above 900,000 children who were prevented from attending the existing schools by the deficiency of the present system of education. There were, however, children who were prevented from attending any school on account of their being engaged at work in gaining a livelihood, and so in fact there would be only between 400,000 and 500,000 children with whom this Bill had particularly to deal. Now, he would ask, how would they be induced to go to school by the Bill proposed by his right hon. Friend? His right hon. Friend assumed that these children were prevented, by the poverty and the apathy of their parents, and by the deficiency and the badness of the education provided, from attending the existing schools. It was, however, extraordinary that since the adjournment of this debate a great authority had given his opinion in print, and so far from agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman as to the character of the education now provided, he came to a very opposite estimate of the present quality of education. Mr. Moseley, in his last report to Parliament, stated that it was the very excellence of the existing schools which diminished the number of scholars, by inducing parents to withdraw their children from school at an earlier age than they formerly did. But no doubt the poverty of parents was a great cause for the non-attendance of children at school, and the Bill of my right hon. Friend would have little or no effect upon that class of non-attendants. But there was another class—those who were engaged in earning a livelihood by dishonest and criminal means. Did his right hon. Friend think he could induce this class of children by his Bill to go to school? There was a third class—all those who were prevented going to school by the culpable indifference and apathy of their parents. There was a fourth class—and that he admitted that the Bill of his right hon. Friend would benefit in a little degree—those who were willing and able to provide their children with clothes, and were willing to send them to school, but who were unable to pay for their schooling, or to obtain cha- ritable assistance in doing so. This, however, he did not think was a large class. The largest class was undoubtedly the third, and the parents of the children belonging to this class would not be more willing to send their children to the new schools than to those at present in existence. It was particularly important to consider whether the institution of free schools would not greatly endanger the attendance of children of the labouring class. Since the Whitsun recess he had conversed with a clergyman who was conversant with questions of education, and who had a free school in his own parish, and he had stated that, so far from finding this free school an advantage, he was endeavouring to change the system established there, and to have a school with payment substituted for the free school. This clergyman said that the children did not regard the free school, and that the parents did not scruple calling their children away from it every hour in the day, and that out of twenty-eight scholars the average attendance was only 15½. He (Lord J. Manners) was on the Committee on the state of the stockingers of the Midland Counties the other day, and it was there stated that the attendance of the children of stockingers at a free school in one of the manufacturing villages was smaller than at schools in the same locality where small fees were demanded. He offered these observations as elements of the question which the House had to consider—namely, whether the Bill proposed by his right hon. Friend would induce those 400,000 children who do not now go to school to go to the new schools. Supposing the Bill would have the effect of inducing these children to go, then the House would have to inquire whether the measure was not based on the contravention of the principle of independence and spirit which happily existed throughout our population; whether it would not go to break down their spirit, and destroy their independence of mind. They all knew that the poor did not set much store now on what they did not earn or purchase by their own free will, and the House should not lightly tamper with or do anything to impair that feeling. But were the provisions of the Bill likely to be practically carried out? It was all to be effected by the majority of the taxpayers. Farmers, small traders, and artisans, were, it seemed, so enamoured of paying rates that they were to propose to impose on themselves a new rate. Hon. Members at his side of the House had for years been contending that local taxation pressed too heavily on the people. What at that moment was the great question which was convulsing England from one end to the other? It was the question of church-rates. Now, was there any great difference between a church-rate and a rate for education? There was certainly a difference which he willingly admitted. Church-rates have a prescription of a thousand years. He knew of no authority which was in favour of this rate imposed on a nation divided in religious feeling. Would not this education-rate soon be regarded as a religious grievance? The Bill was assuredly calculated to excite religious differences and party contention; and, as if to prevent the return of peace to the harassed communities, it was provided that the rate should be proposed every year. If he had to choose between these Bills which had been proposed to the House, he should say give us the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson), for he knew what that Bill meant. That right hon. Gentleman, above all, gave the unfortunate parishioners a little respite from contention, for, by his Bill, a whole year must elapse before the proposal to bring them under its operation, if rejected, could be renewed. The Bill offered by his right hon. Friend introduced confusion, conflict, religious bickering, every element which should be kept out of play in a question of education, and therefore he (Lord J. Manners) called on the House to deal with it in a manly straightforward way, and to reject it and the other two Bills at once, and not to tamper with the feelings of the people on this important subject. He came next to the third point of his right hon. Friend's Bill. They were told that the existing education was meagre and deficient, and they were referred to the systems existing in Austria, Prussia, France, and even the slave states of America, as worthier of imitation. They had had a vast amount of foreign statistics brought forward; but who could unravel foreign statistics? They might be told that in the slave states of America, in Austria, in Prussia, in France, a great number of children were brought under the State schools, and were receiving instruction; but he denied that with respect to education we could come to any conclusions from such statements. It was in the battle-field, and in missionary enterprise, and in all the various engagements of an industrious people, that they should seek for the results of education. Subjected to this test, it could not be said that the education established in England had failed. Looking at the whole subject, could it be affirmed that the system had failed, and would the House hazard and endanger a great system, which had the general concurrence of all religious denominations in the country—a system which at this moment was educating 2,000,000 of children, in 20,000 schools, out of a population of 18,000,000, and through the means of which 1,000,000 a year was obtained in private charity? Every form of Protestant dissent, and even Jews, received education under the existing system, and was this to be hazarded for the sake of some visionary object that would never be carried out with the consent of the great body of the people of this land? Should the measure be carried, in less than ten years, Gentlemen would rise in that House and deplore the folly and the failure of this attempt to impose what was called the "voluntary will" principle of education. It was better for the House to open their eyes, and not in a blind and hasty way give a second reading to this Bill. For the reasons he had stated he should give his cordial and determined opposition to the Bill of his right hon. Friend, and he entreated the House to reject it. Either the Bill of his right hon. Friend would be inoperative, and then it would be useless to pass it, or it would be operative, and then it would affect the system of education established in this country in a most mischievous—perchance in a most fatal, manner.

said, he could not avoid expressing his disappointment at the speech of the noble Lord who had last spoken. He had expected to hear from the noble Lord, after objecting to the proposed measure, some broader principle propounded to encounter and remove the causes of that ignorance and crime which unhappily prevailed in the country. But, instead of that, the noble Lord had confined himself to objecting to various points of detail; and even then had not suggested any more efficacious modes by which to accomplish the objects which all must equally desire to see effected. The noble Lord had stated that the municipalities and parishes would not rate themselves, and yet he at the same time had said that these same muni- cipalities and parishes were overflowing with benevolence, the voluntary exercise of which would amply supply all the deficiencies of education in this country. In opposition to the statement of the noble Lord he begged to say that it was well known there were some localities which were most desirous of rating themselves for the same benevolent purpose of educating the people. The people of Manchester had actually petitioned Parliament to be allowed to do so, and surely those who were desirous of taking such measures ought to be indulged, and every legal sanction given to their praiseworthy efforts. It was argued by the noble Lord that the Bill would have no effect in removing the objections of parents to send their children to existing schools. It was said that some were too poor, and that some were indifferent; but this important element was overlooked by the noble Lord, that supposing every locality to rate itself, and supposing education to be extended by this or any other measure, the popular estimate of education would rise. Those who rated themselves and thus became voluntary payers for the instruction of the children of their neighbours, would be solicitous that their money should produce the desired benefit; they would give a tone to the paying class in the neighbourhood, which would extend itself to the non-paying class, and would raise their appreciation of the education thus brought within their reach. But it was not a fact that education was despised on account of the smallness of the payment. As in Prussia, if education were provided by the Legislature, it would cease to be regarded as a charity; patrons of schools would no longer go begging poor people to send their children to the schools they patronised; education would become a public right, and, as such, would be claimed. For the poor people of this country were quite as forward to demand a right as they were to reject a boon of charity, which they deemed degrading. The noble Lord had referred to the question of church-rates; but one of the three Bills before the House was free from that objection; and if the Bills were sent to a Committee he hoped that one, at all events, would have the noble Lord's support. But Dissenters had again and again declared, in their remonstrances against church-rates, that they would be perfectly ready to pay them if they were an education rate; and that change had been many times proposed in the discussions on that question. There was another consideration—the Dissenters were, to a large extent, true, earnest, zealous friends of education—and he believed the time was come when all who belonged to that description felt that some compromise was necessary in the conflict of opinions that prevailed, and that concession must be made on one side as well as on the other; and that there was an earnest and general desire to have some great measure adopted which should redeem the country from its present condition. He trusted he rightly understood the noble Lord to have renounced the opinions he formerly professed, which were against education altogether; his Utopia was—

"Knowledge on them no lurid light hath shed;

But faith stands there in education's stead."

If the noble Lord still maintained that opinion, was there no difference between faith associated with knowledge and faith associated with ignorance? He regretted to hear the objections of the hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) to sending the three Bills to a Select Committee. All the Bills were founded on the same principle so far as to warrant their being subjected to a common treatment, and, if practicable, to an amalgamation. They all went on the principle of localities rating themselves—they all provided for local authority in the management of the schools—they all endeavoured to furnish a check and a guidance for that local authority by the intervention of a central authority in some form or other—they all either included the direct inculcation of religion, or provided, as in the case of the third Bill, facilities for its being given, so as to extend the advantages of the instruction to that form of religion which the friends and parents of the children thought most desirable. And they all admitted, either to a greater or less extent, the principle of free schools—a principle which was most important. With such an amount of agreement, the difference was necessarily one comparatively of detail, a difference which might be adjusted, he considered, by a Committee; and those portions of the measures which should be deemed the least obnoxious might be severed from the rest, and put forth in the form of a national measure, which might be expected to realise the most important results. Indeed, the very circumstance of there being these three Bills before the House indicated that we had arrived at a species of crisis in this education question. Each class of thinkers on the subject had given its lucubrations a definite and tangible form; each told the way in which it would legislate for the entire country. There was only one other mode—adhesion to the present mixed system of public grants and voluntary exertion; and we had arrived at a moment when the contest might be fairly tried between the present mongrel system, the present combination in which one part seemed incongruous with another part, and the adoption of some general and comprehensive scheme. He knew that some objected altogether to the interference of the State in this matter. But he would ask them—Where is the duty of education? Where has Providence devolved that duty? On the parent; and devolving that duty on the parent, it gave a correlative right to the child to be educated. If a parent neglected that duty, he committed a wrong—a wrong upon his own offspring, which the State had a full and competent right to interpose and correct. Interference by the State to prevent the abuse of parental authority had been one of those great progressive measures which had marked the advance of civilisation. And if we kept the child secure from physical ill-treatment, as we did, at the hands of his parent, we surely had the right to protect him from that moral ill-treatment—that defrauding him of one of the best and most valuable rights, which the parent committed who left him altogether uninstructed. Then, society had a right of its own. Its own self-preservation was among the first laws that ought to guide its movements; and the very existence of society—assuredly, its well-being at all times—was endangered, if ignorant and vicious parents might at their pleasure turn forth one generation after another of semi-savages, to disturb the order of society, to imperil the safety and comfort of the honest and well disposed, and to bring confusion into that national existence which ought to be the bond of harmony, of peace and progress. It had been asserted that the present system had been very successful. Now, he looked in vain for evidences of that success. He did not accept for success the number of schools and scholars upon paper. He asked for other evidence; and he found other evidence, both as to the extent and the quality of the education given. An hon. Member said go to the gaols. He did so, and found that the great bulk of those committed were those who had been at school, in such schools as now existed. The utterly untaught, who had had no vestige of training at any school whatever, were a comparatively small number. The well-taught were a number so small that it was difficult to find a fraction or decimal low enough to express its proportion to the remainder. They had all been at such schools as now existed, and they had been there to no such purpose as served to make them honest and useful members of society. Take another class of evidences—the mechanics' and literary institutes, which were springing up latterly in abundance all over the country. What was the universal complaint as to those institutes—a complaint made by the Bishop of Manchester in Lancashire, by Professor Maurice in London, and everywhere where good institutions existed? That their benefits were limited, their advantages crippled, by the want of a rudimentary training. That was the complaint in every case. Young men were not sufficiently qualified beforehand; even those who were so desirous of intellectual improvement that they willingly joined these institutes and enrolled themselves in the classes, were continually turned back for want of that key of knowledge which enabled them to unlock even its outer courts. In the People's College in London—that noble institution—Professor Maurice was obliged to establish a rudimentary school, to prepare the young men for its advantages. What was that but a strong condemnation of the existing system of education? They might look abroad, if they would, at our army—those brave and gallant fellows, who had plenty of the constitutional English courage. Might not a moiety, if not more, of the misery which they suffered last winter have been averted, had their intelligence been a little more cultivated, had they been but able to do those common matters the teaching of which was now to be introduced into our schools, and which would not have left them the helpless beings they were, the victims of their own ignorance, in not knowing how to make the most of the scanty materials which were within their reach? Look again at our churches. Look at that census which told the extraordinary and humbling fact that one-third of the population of this country were never to be found within the walls of either church or chapel. If rudimentary education were but better, that number must inevitably be decreased. On this point he would appeal to the United States of America, so much condemned for its merely secular education. The statistics of the American churches showed that almost the entire population was imbued with one form of belief or another. That was the effect of knowledge, imparted on merely secular principles. Their gaols told the same tale against us as the churches. The great bulk of the prisoners were not natives who had had this training, hut emigrants from Europe, and unhappily too many of them from this and the sister country. He would try the question of success on the lowest ground—that of numbers. We were told, in the language of boasting, that since 1818, we had advanced from one in seventeen to one in eleven in 1835, and that now one in eight and a fraction were at school. There was a gross fallacy in this way of stating the progress. It showed an increase in the number at school compared with the gross population; but what did it show as to the number of children who required education? He had gone through the calculation of the number of children who ought to be at school, and who were not at school, and found that it was a regularly increasing number; it mounted up by tens, and scores, and even hundreds of thousands. There were now in Great Britain more children who should be at school, and who were not at school—more by many, many scores of thousands—than there ever were before. This was an odd kind of progress; he called it retrogradation. The real test was, how many children are uninstructed that should be instructed? and their number far exceded the 900,000 of Mr. Horace Mann's calculation; it was much nearer 2,000,000, if it did not surpass that number, taking into account the proper age at which children ought to be under instruction. How different was that from the state of things in Prussia. In Mr. Joseph Kaye's admirable book on the state of education in Europe and in England, he gave this account of Prussia—

"As I before stated, every child in Germany, Holland, and Switzerland, for the last twenty or thirty years, has been receiving a good education. Of the men and women under the age of thirty-five, nine-tenths are well educated. They can all read, write, cypher, sing, and chaunt. They all know the Scripture history, and nearly all know the outlines of the history of their own country. Throughout all parts of these countries there are many of the poorest people who have learnt more than this, and know something of the general principles of science, or the principles of some particular science. Four years ago the Prussian Government made a general inquiry throughout the kingdom to discover how far the school edu- cation of the people had been extended, and it was then ascertained that out of all the young men in the kingdom who had attained the age of twenty-one only two in every 100 were unable to read. This fact was communicated to me by the inspector general."

What a contrast with this country! where we found that, even of our common soldiers, who had enjoyed the advantage of regimental schools, only one in five were able to read; and throughout the country, in every two marriages one person signed with a mark, instead of writing his or her name. This was a subject, he maintained, which pressed most urgently upon the attention of the Legislature. It was eminently pressing at the present moment. The state of our troops was one form of that pressure; and we should do immeasurable good to future armies that might be sent forth if they were better qualified to take care of themselves than those who were last sent out—to say nothing of the other advantages of the development of their intellect. The question pressed also on account of the public feeling in the country. Who could doubt that the time was coming when the great mass of the population must and would have a more direct influence on the choice of Members of that House? Who could doubt that the time was coming when there must and would be a large extension of the suffrage? Now, was not that an inducement, and a most powerful one, to raise the standard of that education by which they were to be prepared for the wise, and safe, and useful exercise of their privileges? He thought it would be no undesirable thing if the enlargement of the suffrage were made conditional on the attainment of a certain quantum of education, which might be raised as high as any one thought necessary for the purpose, and would still operate with the best effect, would still be a stimulus acting with peculiar force and power upon the great body of the working population. The suffrage was an object of their ambition, their constant aspiration; it was what they often endeavoured to obtain by unwise means; and, without doubt, the hope and prospect of gaining it would induce them to practise mental culture. This would be especially the case at that period of life in which our modern education entirely failed; he meant that important period when the boy left school, and the young man was not able to avail himself of the advantages of the institute. It was in that time that whatever had been learnt was forgotten. They continually found those who had been two or three, or even four or five years at school, from whose minds every trace of what they had gained there was obliterated, worn out for want of exercise and intellectual operation. But let them have some such prospect as the franchise in view, and they would apply themselves to keep up their attainments; the infallible result of application would be to extend their knowledge; and thus they would become better members of the institute and of society, and better qualified for the exercise of the political franchise. In every point of view the good that would thus be realised for the country was of the most inestimable character; and its extension had a most urgent claim upon the consideration of Parliament. When they spoke of the present plan as a system, they gave it a name to which it was not entitled. They should not talk of its permanence; for it was a thing not of a nature to be permanent. We were in a transition state as to education, a state which limited its own duration by the very conditions of its existence. How had this great movement of popular education begun? With private benevolence; in the form of Sunday schools—first by that excellent man, Raikes, of Gloucester. From the individual it extended to the religious body with which he was connected. That was the first step, the approach towards organisation; there was association, combination, union. From single or isolated congregations, or churches, it extended itself to sects, and to those large associations which had been from their prominence, taken to represent the education of this country. It was only another step in the same progress that was now sought to be made. The principle of organisation and combination which led to the action of the Church and of the association were still at work; and if progress was to exist at all in education, it would be found in that direction. These combinations must go on till it became strictly and properly a national concern, and till, in the view of all ranks of society in all their grades, we had arrived at the conclusion that universal education was a national institution.

said, he had never risen under feelings of deeper anxiety than he did on the present occasion, being aware, as he was, of the vast importance of the issue which had to be decided that night. He felt also that he was about to address the House under a disadvantage to which he thought no member of that House ought ever to be exposed. He did not intend to impute any blame to the Government; on the contrary, he admitted he had received from them on this subject every possible courtesy, fairness, and kindness. But he thought that there must be something wrong in their forms of proceeding when it was possible in an Assembly like that to hang up the discussion of so vital a question as this for six weeks, and to adjourn for that period any reply which could be given to the arguments used in the first part of the discussion. It was under such a disadvantage that he proceeded to make some reply to the able and remarkable speech delivered by his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) six weeks ago. He admitted that that speech was marked by great ability, and that it had deservedly created a very great impression both in that House and in the country. He would tell the House and his right hon. Friend frankly at the outset the substance of his reply. His right hon. Friend had spoken with a published copy in his hand of the speech which he (Sir J. Pakington) had delivered on introducing his Bill, and he avowed that he was replying to that speech. His answer to the right hon. Gentleman was, that he had either omitted or had evaded all the strongest points on which he (Sir J. Pakington) had justified the introduction of his Bill. With the permission of the House he should supply the omission. His desire to do so was greatly increased by the line which the right hon. Gentleman had adopted, and which had also been followed by the noble Lord the Member for Colchester (Lord J. Manners). His right hon. Friend and the noble Lord had abstained from criticising his measure, or instituting a comparison between his proposals and those of any other Bill, but they boldly and broadly asserted that no change was required; that, as respected education, the country was doing well at present; and the House was told to beware how they disturbed a system which had been productive of such beneficial results. They were told to-night, too, that that system had not failed, was not failing, and would not fail. Undoubtedly, if such observations were just, it would be a mere waste of time, both by himself and the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell) to ask the House to consider the provisions of a Bill of this nature; but he utterly denied the accuracy of such assertions, and if Parliament consented to leave the matter where it was, it would be abandoning one of the first duties of a Legislative Assembly. His right hon. Friend must not suppose that such a question as this could be decided against him on the paltry ground as to whether he had been correct or not in quoting from Mr. Kay's book as to Austrian crime. The question must be decided by a consideration of the facts as they existed in this country, and by the truth. If it could be shown that he was wrong he would be thankful to the right hon. Gentleman if he could do so, for it was not without some reluctance that he had arrived at the conclusions to which he had come upon this subject. He had in his speech drawn a comparison between the state of crime in Austria and England, as compared with the population, and had stated that he gave it only for what it was worth. The right hon. Gentleman had applied his microscopic eye to the table, and had discovered that it should not include what were termed the summary convictions. He would admit he had fallen into an error upon that point, but the right hon. Gentleman had forgotten to mention another which told in favour of his (Sir J. Pakington's) Bill. He stated on that occasion that the summary convictions in England in the year to which he referred were, leaving out the fractions, 35,000; but, on further investigation of the Report of the Inspector of Prisons, he found that they were in realty 60,000; so that he had, in point of fact, understated his own case by nearly a third—the whole number of convictions in England in that year being nearly 90,000, instead of 60,000. He would not, however, dwell any further on this point; he attached no weight to it at the time, and had said that the statement was merely to be taken for what it was worth. Indeed, no comparison could be properly drawn, for he was sorry to say that the amount of undetected crime in England was so serious that any calculations founded upon the number of convictions must prove fallacious. He had, by the kindness of the Ministers of Denmark and Holland, two of the best educated countries in Europe, been enabled to refer to the statistics of crime in those kingdoms, as compared with the population, and he found that the convictions in Denmark were much less in number that in England; and those in Holland also less, though in a smaller degree. But the right hon. Gentleman also accused him of an error as to the proportion of the population of Austria that were educated. The right hon. Gentleman, quoting from an unofficial book in the library, said that the number of persons receiving education in Austria was below what it was in this country. Since then he had had access to official papers, and he found that in 1847 the proportion of educated persons was one in eight in the whole of the Austrian Empire, excepting Hungary, Vienna, Lombardy, Italy, and the military frontier, but including Galicia, where the education was very low. The right hon. Gentleman bad made the comparison in a most inaccurate manner, for he had taken the year 1846–7 for his Austrian statistics, and had compared it with those of England for 1851. If the right hon. Gentleman had taken 1847 for this country he would have found a much, worse per centage than that of Austria. Take the following statement as indicating the condition of education in Austria:—

In 1847, the population of the provinces of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Tyrol, Bohemia, and Silesia, was	12,435,731
The number of children, in the above provinces, between the ages of six and twelve years, was	1,498,243
The number of children, in the above provinces, actually attending primary schools, was	1,332,367
Therefore the number of children, in the above provinces, between the ages of six and twelve, not attending school, was	165,876
In 1847, in the whole of the Austrian Empire, excepting Hungary. Venice, Lombardy, Siebenburgen, and the military frontiers:—the population was	18,043,241
The number of young persons attending schools and colleges, was	2,130,853
The total number of young and adult persons attending educational institutions, was or about one in eight of the population.	2,140,117
In1847,the population of the Austrian Empire, excepting Lombardy, Hungary, Venice, Siebenburgen, and the military frontiers, was	18,043,241
In 1847, the number of children in the above-mentioned part of the empire, between the ages of six and twelve, was	2,118,334
In 1847, the number of children between the ages of six and twelve, actually attending the primary schools in the above-mentioned part of the empire, was	1,434,258

In 1847 therefore, the number of children between the ages of six and twelve, not attending school, out of a population of 18,043,241,was

684,076

Whereas he showed that the number of children not attending schools in England was nearly 1,000,000, or about one third more than in Austria. The number in Lower Austria and in the Tyrol was one in six higher than in any part of England. He would remind the House of what it was he really said on this part of the subject. He had not drawn an elaborate parallel between Austria and England at all. What he said was that in this great matter of education, England was, with perhaps the exception of some small states, lagging behind the civilised world. He did not allude to Austria, in particular—he alluded to the large nations of Europe and America. He repeated the statement, that what he said then was correct. This statement was borne out by documents. Why did not his right hon. Friend touch on those subjects. The right hon. Gentleman thought he had made an error with respect to Austria, and that was why his right hon. Friend had only referred to Austria. The fact was too humiliating for him not to wish that it was not true or could be corrected, but he feared it could not. But, after all, the great question was, not as to the state of education at home. He had been accused of exaggeration in his former statements. He did not acknowledge the justice of the charge. He knew his statements would be unsatisfactory to many, and he was careful, therefore, to make no statements except on the best official authority he could obtain. If there was any exaggeration, it was in the official statements. In the first statement he made, he had referred to the condition of eight metropolitan parishes, four situated on the north, and four on the south of the Thames. In four parishes there were 110,449 children, of whom 35,306 were at some sort of school; he allowed and believed his allowance to be too large that 27,611 were at private schools, and there then remained 47,532 who were not at school at all. To this statement his right hon. Friend never alluded, and he did right in so doing, for this was one of those statements which made it very difficult to contend that they were going on well, or that they ought to rest contented with the present system. The next statement which he made had reference to five counties in the West of England with which his right hon. Friend did attempt to deal, and said that he (Sir J. Pakington) had, in support of his statement, unfairly quoted Mr. Ruddock's Report. His right hon. Friend, in his speech, had almost entirely limited himself to stating his own opinions, and did not attempt to support them by official authority, except in two instances, in which he referred to Mr. Ruddock and to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth. It was unfortunate for his right hon. Friend that both those gentlemen had written to him (Sir J. Pakington), protesting against the construction put upon their opinions by his right hon. Friend. He would read Mr. Ruddock's letter to him in reference to his right hon. Friend's (Mr. Henley's) remarks, which was to the effect that his (Mr. Ruddock's) statement had not been based on workhouse experience of children, but on the experience of all children in the five counties quoted.

"Education Department, Council Office,

"Downing Street, London, May 3, 1855.

"SIR,—I have read in The Times of to-day, Mr. Henley's reply to your speech on moving the second reading of the Education Bill introduced by yourself, Sir E. L. Bulwer, and Mr. Adderley.

"I trust you will pardon me for troubling you with a few remarks on the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in so far as any statement of mine has been commented on—assuming the report of The Times to be correct.

"I have not by me a copy of the report whence your quotation was taken, but I know that I expressly limited my description of the ignorance of pauper children to such as had not been in the workhouse school before. My statement was, I believe, that nineteen out of twenty of the children admitted to the workhouse for the first time were totally and heathenishly ignorant. From this fact I drew the inference, that notwithstanding the zealous efforts of the Committee of Council on Education, and of the friends of voluntary education, the grossest ignorance was still extant in a Christian country.

"Mr. Henley's remark, that 6,000 children only were visited by me, is beside the purpose of his argument. The nature of my acquaintance with the educational dearth of this country is to be measured, not by the number of children contained in the workhouse of my district at one time, but by the area whence these children have been drawn, in constant succession, for a period of eight years.

"The counties of which I have now had considerable experience are—Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, Hants, Berks, Oxford, and part of Bucks and Gloucester; and I speak of all in the same terms as of the five quoted by you.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"JOSHUA RUDDOCK,

"One of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. "The Right Hon. Sir J. Pakington."

He (Sir J. Pakington), in this letter, was shown not to have exaggerated, but to have understated, the facts with respect to the condition of education of children in those five counties, He would beg to remind the House of a most important consideration which was not sufficiently borne in mind by those who talked of the percentage of those who were at school, and that was the quality of the schools and of the education of this country. In proof of this he had quoted Mr. Horace Mann's Report, in which it was stated that above 700 school-masters and mistresses could not sign their own names. His right hon. Friend had tried to dispose of this by saying it was not important, as these were masters and mistresses of infant schools; but he could not say what proof there was as to this, and though he (Sir J. Pakington) was ready to admit that a portion of them were so, still he asserted there was no proof as to the number of them who were so engaged. He maintained his opinion that no person in such a state of ignorance was fit to have the charge of children, and the fact itself was a proof of the unsatisfactory state of education in this country. His right hon. Friend went on to say that—

"The only other evidence he had adduced with regard to the quality of the education afforded was a quotation from some work which mentioned the number of men in a militia regiment who were unable to write their names, and were obliged to make their marks."

Now, this short statement contained two decided mistakes. He had adduced other evidence, for he had referred to the important tables in Mr. Horace Man's Report upon, the Census, which showed what proportion of children in each of our schools was taught certain specified branches of education, and he had contrasted with those tables the education required by law to be supplied to children in Prussia, Switzerland, and France. And, instead of referring to a "militia regiment," he had quoted from the Report of the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, a statement respecting all the militia regiment of five counties in the East of England, from which it appeared that out of a total of nearly 6,000 militiamen, almost two-thirds were unable to sign their own names. He adhered to his opinion that this fact was a proof of the unsatisfactory state of education in those counties. His right hon. Friend said that these militiamen were twenty years of age, and the statement only showed, therefore, what was the state of education six or eight years ago. But he had procured a letter from Mr. Mitchell on the subject of the progress made in education during the last six or eight years. The following is the letter:—

"Education Department, Council Office,

"Downing Street, London, June 7, 1855.

SIR,—In reply to your communication of the 5th, I have to state that a slight and very gradual progress seems to be making in the improvement of the schools for the working classes generally. In those in towns that are under inspection, great progress has been made, and I consider it will not be possible materially to add to the efficiency of many of them, considering all the circumstances attending them.

"My colleague and myself have been able in the last year to inspect nearly all the schools (in our five counties) that are under Government inspection, and I lament to say that his opinion agrees with my own—that the instruction and education of the greater number of agricultural schools is such as to give us slight hope that the condition of that part of the population of the country will be much advanced in the next eight or ten years. In truth, the support of these schools is mostly thrown upon the clergy, and the incomes of many of these is little more than adequate to their own needs. The consequence is, that the buildings are unwholesome, the apparatus and books deficient, and the teacher illiterate and of uncouth manners, and too frequently with little moral tone.

"In Essex, lately, I have had instances of schools given up for want of funds, and many clergymen have written to state their schools were in such a condition they thought it would be only waste of time to inspect them.

"I have made some calculations from the census return of 1851, of which the following is the result. The number of parishes and hamlets in the five counties is 2,068.

moved the adjournment of the debate.

said, he would move that the debate be adjourned till Monday next.

said, he should move as an Amendment that the debate be adjourned for four weeks. He thought that it was hopeless to expect the Bill to pass that Session, and to debate it was useless.

said, he thought that a month's adjournment was too long, and as the Limited Liabilities Bill was to come on upon Monday, he would propose Friday week, instead of that day week.

said, he thought Monday next more convenient. It was of great importance to determine on the principle of the Bills.

said, that his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington) had accused him of making use of figures which he was not authorised to make use of, but he could inform the House that he had used those figures on the authority of a book to which his right hon. Friend himself had referred in the course of the debate.

said, he would suggest that it would be convenient to the House if some understanding were come to with respect to the mode in which the public business was to be carried on. On every day during that week there were to be morning sittings, but the arrangement had not been made in a formal manner. He begged hon. Gentlemen would consider what would be the consequences of having morning sittings every day. He felt he would not be able to bear a morning and evening sitting every day, and no one, he thought, could bear the consequences of an arrangement of that kind. Last year it was a later period before they had recourse to morning sittings to enable them to carry on their business, and they only took place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But on every day during this week important business was fixed for morning sittings, while business of equal interest would occupy their attention in the evenings. On the next day the Metropolitan Improvement Bill would be taken, and in the evening there would be a Motion brought forward with respect to Decimal Coinage. The Capitular Estates Bill was fixed for a morning sitting on Thursday, and in the evening there would be a discussion on the colonial measure of the noble Lord. On Friday there would be also a morning sitting for the discussion of the Tenants' Compensation Bill, and in the evening there would be the adjourned debate on the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill. He thought that, as a general rule, the rule of last Session should not be exceeded, and that the morning sittings should take place only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

said, that during the present week measures of great urgency had to be considered, but he thought that in future it would be better to adhere to the rule mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, that Tuesdays and Thursdays should be fixed for morning sittings. Last year, and also in the present year, the House of Lords had adopted regulations with respect to the period beyond which they would not consider Bills brought from the House of Commons, which made it important that the measures should be carried through the House of Commons so as to reach the House of Lords in due time. He was disposed to adhere to the rule that Tuesdays and Thursdays should alone be selected for morning sittings, un- less later in the Session, it should appear necessary to have morning sittings more frequently.

said, he saw that the Episcopal and Capitular Estates Bill was fixed for Thursday morning. That was a most important measure, with respect to which it was absolutely necessary to learn what was the opinion of the Government, and as yet they had expressed no opinion whatever on the subject.

said, that they were approaching the time when, in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House of Lords, the House of Commons must dispose of the Bills which it was important to pass during the present Session. It was, therefore, important that the House should come to some decision on the subject of the law of partnerships in the present year, not only on account of the magnitude of the subject itself, but because the practice of granting charters by the Board of Trade in suspension of the general law seemed to be universally condemned. Therefore, he hoped that an early day would be fixed for the consideration of the Bill relating to that subject.

said, he was afraid that on the days when morning sittings were appointed hon. Members would reserve themselves for the business of the evening, and not attend to that which came on during the morning. Instead of fixing the Tenants' Compensation Bill for Friday morning, he hoped that he would fix it for some time when the English Members would have an opportunity of hearing the discussion.

said, Friday had been fixed as convenient for those interested in the Bill. If it was not so, some other arrangement would be made.

said, he must protest against the Scotch Education Bill being put down for a morning sitting, as he understood was proposed.

said, that in fixing the second reading of the Limited Liability Bill for Friday, he must deny that there was any intention on the part of the Government to withdraw the measure.

said, he wished to observe that there were grave objections to taking the Scotch Education Bill at a morning sitting. He also hoped that the Irish Tenants' Compensation Bill would not be brought forward at a morning sitting, and certainly not on Friday next. It appeared that there was to be a Com- mittee of Supply on Friday and that the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) was to have an opportunity of bringing forward his Motion on that occasion; but this was not consistent with a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that other measures would be brought forward on Friday evening at a late hour. He wished the House to have a clear understanding upon this point, and he thought it would be more convenient if the hon. Member for Aylesbury brought forward his Motion as a substantive Motion, and not on going into Committee of Supply.

said, the hon. Member for Aylesbury had stated that he would bring on his Motion on going into Supply, and it would be taken just as he moved it. He was not prepared to say that the Tenants' Compensation Bill would not come on at a morning sitting, but it would not be brought forward on Friday.

said, he had come over from Ireland at great inconvenience, but he now found that he could have spent his week better in Ireland than here. He had fully expected that the Tenants' Compensation Bill would come on upon Friday.

said, there had been no greater disadvantage than that to which large numbers of coach manufacturers in London, Birmingham, and other parts of the country had for many years been exposed by the very high duty charged on spirits of wine, which they used extensively in their trade. The subject had engaged the attention of every Government during the last twenty years; and the Board of Inland Revenue, acting on the advice of certain eminent chemists, had recommended that, by the admixture of a small quantity of naphtha in spirits of wine, the wine would be effectually spoiled for ordinary use, but not at all injured for the purpose for which manufacturers used it; and they might thus be relieved from the high duty they now paid upon it. The Board of Inland Revenue had recommended that course to be adopted, and the Government had acted upon that recommendation in bringing in the Bill.

said, he wished to ask what the loss to the revenue would be under this Bill?

said, it would be between 70,000l. and 80,000l., but that was only the measure of disadvantage which our manufacturers laboured under as compared with their competitors in France and other continental States.

said, he would now beg to move for the Returns respecting this Establishment, of which he had given notice.

said, he must oppose the granting of the Returns. No Commissioners had been appointed, and therefore no Report had been made. The Attorney General had been instructed to institute an inquiry, and such inquiry had been commenced. He believed that the hon. Member was acting as the agent of Mr. Holloway, whose object was to compel Lord Guilford to refund all the moneys he had received as Master of St. Cross Hospital. If he succeeded in that, he would prove himself stronger than the Courts of Law. Should the inquiries now in progress result in showing that the funds of the hospital had been mismanaged, the hon. Member might then move for the Returns.

said, he would admit at once that he had moved for the Returns at the request of Mr. Holloway, and he thought the House was bound to render that gentleman every assistance in its power in compelling Lord Guilford to disgorge some of the funds which he had secured as Master of St. Cross Hospital.