proposed were never established; and since that time the Roman Catholics have made a different sort of attempt to gain educational power, by obtaining separate sums for their own schools, and swamping the members of the Church of England, under the honourable but much abused appellation of Protestants, in the general quagmire of heresy and schism. However, this second effort, which was made with the sanction of the Government, was defeated chiefly (under Providence) by the zeal and ability of the Bishop; and whoever is desirous of seeing a noble specimen of clear reasoning and manly eloquence, will be gratified and improved by reading the Bishop of Australia's speech upon the occasion of this scheme having been proposed by Sir George Gipps in the legislative council. Certainly, when we consider how admirably Bishop Broughton demolished Sir George Gipps's scheme, we must own that the tact was very acute,--or at least the _mistake_ rather _suspicious_,--which shut him out of the legislative council when Governor Bourke's plan was in agitation. [219] See the latter part of Chapter XI. Besides the schools assisted by Government for the education of the lower orders, there are, of course, many private schools in the Australian colonies; and it is believed that these important establishments are no longer so commonly under the direction of men that have been convicts as they formerly were. Undoubtedly, one who has been transported _may_, perchance, turn out afterwards to be a good instructor of youth, but what christian parent would willingly risk his child's religious and moral progress upon a chance, a possibility, of this kind? The King's School at Paramatta is an excellent establishment, founded and conducted upon the principles of the Church of England. Sydney College is another well-conducted school, but its principles are more open to objection. "It is to be believed," as has been remarked, "that a desire to gain the support of men of all religious principles, led to the Sydney College being founded on none;" and it was scarcely possible to fall into a greater error than that of passing almost unnoticed the one thing needful. It is true, that prayers are used daily in this school, and there seems, from Judge Burton's account of it, to be much that is good and praiseworthy in its management and details. But a school where the children of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews, meet together, must be, at best, an odd jumble; and the religious tendency of such an education must be very questionable.