So far all is well, and nobody, not even the rejector of the Gospel, will object to it. But is it possible to stop here? We do not imagine that it is. Our object being to keep the child from ever entirely forgetting its responsibility to the unseen Creator, we must supply it with means of exercising its feeble faculties in the contemplation, so to speak, of this Creator. Now this is to be done only by prayer; and the child is accordingly told, that if it desire to be good, it must say its prayers every morning and night. It naturally follows upon this, that some form of prayer shall be given to the child. may make it as short and simple as you please but there it is-prayer, and a distinct form of prayer, which your secular student is taught, long before he learns any thing else, to offer up continually to the Father of the universe. What is all this except religious training of the most vital and impressive kind?

You

And

how may you hope to keep any school in order, or to effect any good, -secular good, we mean, to the children who attend it by any other process?

Dr. Hook recommends that there shall be a complete and entire severance of the religious from the intellectual training of all young persons whom the state may educate. His plan is to append to every national school-house in the empire two apartments, or class-rooms, of smaller dimensions, whither at stated seasons the clergy and the Dissenting ministers shall repair, in order to communicate to the children of parents connected with their respective congregations the sort of religious teaching which may be in agreement with their own views. But it is right that the Vicar of Leeds should speak for himself:-

"Having conceded and asserted the principle that in any measure of education the State must admit the co-operation of Dissenters as well as that of the Church, let us proceed to consider what religious men of all parties would require before they would submit to the direct interference of the State. They would require a recognition on the part of the State of the solemn importance of religious training,-training in what is called special or doctrinal religion. Now, if the State were to establish a school in

which literary and scientific instruction only should be given by the master appointed by government, would not this principle be sufficiently affirmed, provided it were required of every child to bring on the Monday of every week a certificate of his having attended the Sunday-school of his parish church, or of some place of worship legally licensed, and also of his having attended for simi. lar religious instruction, at some period set apart during the week? Let this, then, be a principle laid down,-that the State might endow schools in which in. struction purely literary or secular should be imparted, with due care to impress upon the minds of the children the fact, that this instruction is not in itself suffi cient; but that, to complete the system of education, religious instruction is also secured for them, in accordance with those traditions, whether of Church or of Dissent, which they have received from their parents.

"To effect this object, there should be attached to every school thus established by the State a class-room, in which the clergyman of the parish, or his deputies, might give religious instruction to his people, on the afternoons of every Wednesday and Friday; another classroom being provided for a similar pur. pose for Dissenting ministers. Suppose this to be done, in addition to the requiring of the children an attendance at some Sunday-school, and I do not ask whether such an arrangement would be preferred to any other by either party, for each party would prefer having every thing in their own way; but I do ask whether there could be any violation of principle on either side? I ask, whether, for the sake of a great national object, there might not be a sacrifice, not of principle, but of prejudice on either side ?"

We see many objections to this arrangement, and so does the Rev. Richard Burgess, a veritable specimen of that class of Churchmen who value the Church only as far as it is established and endowed. Our perceptions, however, take a different range from those of the rector of Upper Chelsea. He is pleased to be facetious, and to say,

"Let us take a scene at one of those government schools on a Wednesday afternoon: you have allotted two classrooms for religious instruction, and you say to Dissenters and Churchmen, divide et impera. The minister of the Established Church is made comfortable enough; he has a room to himself, with Bibles on the shelves,' and he introduces a few copies of the Catechism and Prayer.

Book, obtained on the subscribers' terms from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; but would you turn the Roman Catholic priest, the Independent minister, the Wesleyan, the Socinian teacher, and maybe the Jewish Rabbi, into the same room? They all arrive at the secular school at the same hour, upon pain of public censure for a neglect of duty, and they all make their selections of the subjects which they contend ought to belong to their sect; but you must at least give each of them a room: the Bible on the shelf for the Socinian, to be provided by the State, must be Bellamy's translation; for the Roman Catholic priest the Douay version; and maybe for the Independent the most recent variorum edition of Dr. Conquest. And if all these various operations are to be carried on under the same roof, I know not to what building we could more appropriately apply the title of Harmony Hall! But you must rest assured that after a little time the minister of religion would cease to appear on the Wednesday, and soon grow slack on the Friday, and the religious teaching would be finally left to the secular master; let him transfer himself into some of the rooms which you call the school of religion, and the thing is done. I am persuaded the clergy of our Established Church will never co-operate in such a scheme, and that such separation of secu. lar and religious instruction will never be tolerated by the Orthodox Dissent

ers.

This may be very witty, but it is certainly not argumentative; because nothing could be easier than so to distribute the six days of the week as that each minister might have his season of religious conference with his young charges kept sacred to himself. But why complicate our plan by building religious classrooms at all? Are the tenets and dogmas which separate the various denominations of Christians so intricate that, to deal fairly by them, the afternoons of two week days are needed? If they be, then are the teachers and visitors of the National Society's Schools exceedingly to blame; for rarely, ifever, in the course of their teaching, do they touch upon these points at all. We have had the pleasure of visiting, among others, Mr. Burgess's school in Blacklands Lane, and it is but just to say, that the National Society's system is worked out as efficiently there as it can be any where; but we do not remember that the children were

asked a single question which might not have been put to them had the school been connected with the Wes

leyan Conference or with the British and Foreign School Society. For example, Mr. Burgess's boys are taught to declare that "the Church" comprises the whole body of be lievers, wherever scattered over the face of the earth. Not a word is spoken concerning the episcopal succession, or any thing else which is usually understood to distinguish the Church from Protestant Dissenters on the one hand, and Roman Catholics on the other. To be sure, the children learn the Church Catechism, and the explanation of the same which a Church society publishes. But is it necessary to devote one-sixth part of a child's time to this particular branch of study? Would not the Sunday-school, if well managed, suffice? What would any gentleman, whose son is at Eton, say, if even a whole hour daily were spent in the repetition of such formularies as these?

We are not blaming either the National Society, or the patrons and teachers of the schools in connexion with it, because, as much as possible, they avoid imbuing a controversial spirit into the pupils. On the contrary, we consider this absence of sectarianism to be one of the chief excellencies of the system; and we should be glad if both Romanists and Dissenters could see the matter in the same light, and trust the education of their children to the ministers of a Church which is, by principle, as well as through the personal habits of its clergy, the reverse of proselytising. But this they will never do. Being in the minority, they stand for ever in an attitude of defence; and denounce the Catechism, not so much because they object to the doctrines enunciated therein, as because they regard it as the Shibboleth of the Church. Why, then, should Churchmen insist upon its being used in day-schools supported by the nation ? Cling to it in the Sunday-schools, by all means; but what is there so very sacred in a formulary expressed in obsolete terms, and so obscure and unmeaning that the child, after he has learned it by rote, needs to have the

whole of his lesson explained ere he derive from it the smallest addition to his knowledge? We confess that we cannot see any reason why the Church Catechism should not be withdrawn from all secular schools in the nation. We are confident that till it be withdrawn, there can be no such thing as a national system of education in this country.

Again, Romanists object to the use of the authorised version of the Scriptures, and are not very fond of using the Bible at all as a school-book. We plead guilty to a coincidence of opinion with them in regard to this matter. The Bible is, in our estimation, too sacred to be thumbed and dogeared, as it is in all schools, whether Church or Dissenting, which profess to connect religious with secular training. To hear people speak, one would imagine that without accomplishing this process, young people cannot be imbued with a becoming love of God's word; whereas the sole result of putting it into their hand, before they have learned to open it with reverence and read it for the sake of the truths which it enounces, is to disgust them with a volume which, throughout the whole of their after lives, is associated in their minds with the recollection of labour and rebuke, and it may be of suffering. Why should we insist upon making the Bible a school-book at all? Is it so simple, that every child that reads shall be able rightly to understand it? Take, for example, the Book of Judges, or of Joshua, and cause a sharp lad to read it through, without offering a word of comment, and what inferences will he draw for himself? Certainly not those which a Christian teacher would desire him to draw. We repeat, then, that this anxiety for retaining the Bible as a school-book seems to be not only a mistaken, but a mischievous one. When the Bible is read, the teacher is compelled to extract from it the lessons of truth which it contains; that is, if he be commonly in earnest respecting the religious and moral education of his pupils. Why not transfer it, with the Catechism, to the Sunday-school; and use in its place some such extracts and compends as are to be found among the books of the Irish National Education Society?

"What!" the Establishmentarians will exclaim, "are you going to exclude the word of God from our schools? And do you pretend still to say, that they shall be conducted upon Christian principles? Are you going to throw overboard the Church Catechism, and yet tell us that our schools shall do no outrage to the feelings of Churchmen? What symbols of the faith do you propose to substitute in the room of these books? What assurance do you give, that the rising generation shall not be educated in mere deism or utter indifference ?" We answer, that independently of such religious and moral teaching as the masters, by oral lectures, and the use of well-chosen books, may convey, there are certain symbols of the Christian faith, on the excellency of which all are agreed; and these we would undoubtedly introduce, and keep in all our schools, impressing them on the hearts, as well as on the understandings, of the scholars. Such are the three things in which, in the exhortation which he gives to godfathers and godmothers, the clergyman requires that every baptised person shall be instructed, namely, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. They are accepted and reverenced by Christians of all sects and denominations. The Unitarians, to be sure, reject the Creed, yet call themselves Christians. But we do not so account them; and, therefore, we see no reason why, in deference to their prejudices, this Apostolic formulary should be got rid of. Besides, the Unitarians compose such an infinitesimally small fraction of the population, that to pay much heed to their scruples would be ridiculous. If they prefer educating their children for themselves, let them do so by all means. But we

cannot consent, out of deference to their mistaken opinions, to exclude from our secular schools the amount of religious teaching, without which there can be no foundation on which to raise up a system of morals that shall prove in any degree useful.

It appears, then, that we differ from both Dr. Hook and Mr. Burgess in this, that we are not able to see the insuperable obstacles which they have discovered to the management of schools, supported and controlled by the state, in which secular

learning shall be grounded upon a general acceptance of the common principles of our common Christianity. If we be asked where these common principles are to be found, we reply, in the assent which believers of all parties give to the doctrines of the atonement, of grace, of a general resurrection, and of man's responsibility in a future life for his proceedings in this. If we be farther pressed to exhibit some brief exposition of this general faith on which teachers may fall back, we put into the hands of the inquirer, "the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments." And for the more minute lessons to be learned from these things, as well as from such passages of Scripture as are read in our classes, we cheerfully depend upon the integrity and ability of our teachers; not one of whom, be it observed, is admitted into a place of authority till he shall have been trained in an authorised normal college, and licensed, after a rigid examination, by the functionary to whom the power of granting schoolmasters' licenses shall be committed. . Our readers will be good enough to bear in mind, that we assume the combined existence and flourishing condition all this while of Sundayschools--as well Dissenting as Church -operating, so to speak, side by side with our national day-schools. Over these, however, we do not think that the State ought to aim at exercising the slightest control. To instruct her children in her own peculiar

doctrines is the business of every church, whether regularly constituted or not; and we hold that the civil government oversteps the legiti mate line of its authority, if it interfere in any degree with the proceeding. But thus far the State has a decided right to go,-that every child shall be required to bring with him, to his day-school on Monday, a certificate that he was present in the Sunday-school, and at some place of worship on the Lord's day. And if this be enforced, and the children well taught during the week, in those great leading points on which all are of one mind, it does appear to us that, while private conscience is guarded sufficiently, the public good will be largely and most harmoniously forwarded.

And now comes the question, by what process do we intend to surmount difficulties with which, according to our present shewing, neither Dr. Hook nor Mr. Burgess has fairly grappled? What steps are we disposed to recommend, as preliminary, -what as consequent upon the first preparation which shall be made by government in order to work out an effective school-system for the people? The subject is too wide, as well as too important, to be disposed of summarily; and, therefore, as it is our wish not to weary, but to win the public attention to the point and keep it there, we shall defer what we have to offer in the way of suggestions to a future opportunity.

UNTIL recently the attention of the civilised world has been but little directed to the commercial relations or political importance of that vast Archipelago, containing, in the opinion of the Orientals, upwards of 12,000 islands, which, stretching eastward from the Straits of Malacca to beyond the longitude of Torres Straits, constitutes one of the richest and most extraordinary divisions of Asia. It was while exploring these strange groups that the Mahommedan navigators, who visited and traded with them long before the Europeans had acquired a knowledge of their existence, collected the materials of many of those wild tales so familiarly known to us as the Arabian Nights. The Portuguese and Spaniards, after the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, followed slowly and timidly in the track of the Muslim adventurers; and, lastly, the Dutch and English, with infinitely more energy and perseverance, came to reap where they had not originally sown, and to found colonies and empires where their predecessors had only dreamt of them.

At present the field is almost entirely abandoned to us and our neighbours of the Netherlands, whose enterprise and success in this part of the world have hitherto far exceeded VOL. XXXIV. NO. CCII.

ours, though, with an uncommon degree of modesty, they have endeavoured to conceal, rather than to put forward, ostentatiously their commercial and political achievements. Few persons are, consequently, aware how much these industrious people have effected in Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas, and other islands to which they have no claims save those which may be supplied by their own persevering energy; nor is it our intention at present to celebrate their conquests or describe their settlements. They have, however, effected a great deal, and will obviously accomplish much more, as may be inferred from their recent operations in Bali, Sumbawa, Timor, Celebes, and the southern parts of Pulo Kalamantan, incorrectly denominated Borneo.

Without desiring to excite any feeling of rivalry with the Dutch, whose power is too inferior to justify any such sentiment, we merely design to shew that we also have a great mission to accomplish in the Indian Archipelago, and that it is the duty of those who are intrusted with the management of our public affairs not to neglect the favourable opportunity with which Providence is now presenting us. Our manufacturing industry, which has hitherto more than

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