We would therefore fix on the householders of a parish as the class in whom the right of nominating the parish schoolmaster should be vested. But on the same principle of high expediency on which we exclude householders of a certain standing from exercising the political franchise in the election of a member of Parliament, would we exclude certain other householders, of, however, a much lower standing, from voting in the election of a parish schoolmaster. We are not prepared to be Chartists in either department,--the educational or the political; and this simply on the ground that Chartism in either would be prejudicial to the general good. On this part of the subject, however, we shall enter at full length in our next. Meanwhile we again urge our readers carefully to examine for themselves all our statements and propositions,--to take nothing on trust,--to set no store by any man's _ipse dixit_, be he editor or elder, minister or layman. In this question, as in a thousand others, 'truth lies at the bottom of the well;' and if she be not now found and consulted, to the exclusion of every prejudice, and the disregard of every petty little interest and sinister motive, it will be ill ten years hence with the Free Church of Scotland in her character as an educator. Her safety rests, in the present crisis, in the just and the true, and in the just and the true only. ----- {6} _What ought the General Assembly to do at the present Crisis?_ (1833.) CHAPTER THIRD. Parties to whom the Educational Franchise might be safely extended--House Proprietors, House Tenants of a certain standing, Farmers, Crofters--Scheme of an Educational Faculty--Effects of the desired Extension--It would restore the National Schools to the People of the Nation.