It is equally well known, that neither would the dissenters agree among themselves as to a national system of education. Of these members of the community, a large proportion would object to any system which excluded the Bible and the Shorter Catechism from the schools; and another large proportion--all who are voluntaries--would be equally bound, on their own principles, to oppose any plan which did NOT exclude the Bible and the Shorter Catechism--the latter class holding that the state cannot, without sin, interfere in any way in the religious instruction of the people, as strongly as the former class holds such interference to be the duty of the state. But this is not all. Thus, for instance, the Free seceders have shown, in the most unequivocal manner, that their objection is not only to the parish schools, as at present organised, but to all schools not under their own special superintendence. What the views of the present rate-payers would be remains to be seen. The endowment of the parish schools cannot be called national. It comes exclusively out of the pockets of the landed gentry and other heritors of the country, who, as far as we are aware, have never as a class expressed any dissatisfaction with its present application, or any wish to interfere at all with the general ecclesiastical system with which it is connected. How far their concurrence to a radical alteration in the appropriation of funds, for which they originally consented to assess themselves on specified conditions, could be secured, we do not know; but we have strong suspicions that not the least of the difficulties would arise from this quarter, which is not usually taken into account. In short, let the question be put to the test. Propose a substitute for the enactment of 1696. Draw up a bill in which the details of a workable national system of education are intelligibly set forth, and let that system be what it will, liberal or illiberal, exclusive or catholic--a system in which all sects are endowed, as in many of the German states, or from which all religious instruction is excluded, as in America--let it be the wisest, most comprehensive, most flexible scheme ever devised--and see the result: see whether the true difficulty in setting in motion a more extended and more strictly national system of education than at present exists, lies in the connexion between the parish schools and the Established Church, which an act of parliament might remedy any day, or in causes which no strong-handed measure of the legislature can reach--in the irremediable differences of opinion on the subject of education, and on the subject of religion, and on the subject of national endowments, prevalent at this day in Scotland, to a degree, and with complications, perhaps, nowhere else to be found in the world.