“One of the great social questions of the day is the necessity and importance of a general or national system of education for the humble classes, upon such a comprehensive plan as shall give every child born in the United Kingdom a certain amount of book knowledge, and also of moral and religious training, as they are, or _ought_ to be, entitled to as juvenile members of a civilized community--such training as may prepare them to fill useful and honest positions in life, or, perhaps, be the first step to those high stations so often filled by honest, hardworking, mercantile men, or ingenious mechanics. Now, every thinking and right-minded person will agree that this object is a most desirable one, and that no innocent child should be so neglected as to be allowed to grow up in a state of savage ignorance; and at the first blush nothing seems more easily to be accomplished, in a wealthy and intelligent country like ours, than to arrange such a general system as is here alluded to, and to provide the ways and means. Well! all this _would be_ simple and easily accomplished, but for one obstacle--namely, the differences in the religious opinions of a portion of the adult population. Yes, strange as it may appear,--nay, monstrous as it is,--nevertheless these religious differences have been, and are now, the only bar to the adoption of any wide and general system of secular education.” “It is of course impossible to please all parties; but few persons, I imagine, could surely object to a national system of education upon the following plan:--In the first place, an Act of Parliament should be passed, making it _imperative_ that every child should receive some education, and where the parents are destitute or depraved, then that the State shall take the position of the parents, and educate and train up all the neglected and helpless children. In the second place:--In the schools, let reading, writing, and arithmetic be taught (with other branches of education, if possible, or required), and such moral training as will teach a child the difference between Right and Wrong--and here let the schoolmaster’s duty cease, and that of the ministers of religion begin. And in the third place:--Let it be the duty of the clergyman, and ministers of all denominations, to instruct all those children who belong to their particular church, chapel, or sect, in the religious belief of their parents; but when the parents do not attend any place of worship, or profess any particular creed--then, that the clergy of the Established Church be allowed to instruct all such children in the religion of the State. By such an arrangement as this, it appears to me that if all the poor helpless children of the land were schooled in the common elements of reading, writing, etc., for five days in the week, and the clergy and ministers of all denominations were to instruct these children one day in the six in the religion of the class