THE BISHOP OF CHESTER ON EDUCATION.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 403, 31 January 1872, Page 2

THE BISHOP OF CHESTER ON EDUCATION.

The llipln Rev. Dr. Jacobson has held his triennial visitations at Chester, Macclesfield, and Liverpool, and in the course of a lengthened charge delivered at eachplace referred to the subject of elementary education. His Lordship remarked that the extension of education, they must all of them feel, was now rendered more than ever necessary by reason of the sudden and wise extension of tint franchise and the proposal, of the Act was to secure to every child in the country between o and 13, instructions in reading 1 , writing, and arithmetic. The Church of England, they> might say with thankfulness, had heretofore done much. The Church of England had been credited with the education of ?0, or, according 1 to some calculations, ?5 per cent, of the population. It would be a waste of time to investigate now whether mure could not have been done— -whether a more generous support and direct local effort on the one hand, or the agency of diocesan Boards on the other, might not have offered a supply even nearer to the demand. As a matter of fact, the activity of voluntary zeal on i^he part of the Church of England and of those who differed from her had gone on increasing for half a century, and had for many years been fosrered and stimulated by Government aid; but yet it failed to reach and brin<* into their schools many thousands of their population, the failure being more conspicuous in towns than in the country. The Act of 18/0 did not subvert existing* educational arrangements. It availed itself of them, and proposed to supply all ascertained deficiencies. What they had to aim at was that such arrangements should be at least maintained upon their present scale of efficiency, and invigorated and improved wherever and as far as ever it might be practicable. Districts already provided with sufficient and efficient schools would continue to receive pecuniary grants, but on a somewhat more liberal scale than heretofore. The working of this Act could not iail to insure that a greater number of children would be educated. What was tuught, it might be safely taken for granted would be thoroughly and soundly taught; teaching would be given in well-ventilated rooms under conditions that would go -far to make the maintenance of good order easy without severity. Everything would be done to render the secular teaching as good as possible, and to insure its being valued by those who received it, and really good secular teaching was a great boon* It would go far towards raising the intelligence of the people, enlarging" their command ol language, and enabling them to follow an argument ,* and those results^ as far as they were attained, would abate if not remove some of the most serious obstacles to the reception of religious teaching being secured, ior, generally'speakingj they could not safely rely on it being given to any good purpose at home, either in ■. town or country, And since religious teaching was now spvered from secular, the latter having been appropriated by the State, it plainly remained for the Church to adopt the former as her own peculiar province. Two hours in the forenoon and iwo in the afternoon — four hours in the course of the day — given to secular instruction satiifies the requirements of the Act. One additional hour would not be very burdensome. Whatever local circumstances admitted of it, the hour proceeding morning school should by all means be secured ior religious instruction. The muulss of the children would then be freshest, and instruction, strictly so called, should be made more welcome to them by being- varied with a prayer and one hymn, or possibly more. Whatever arrangement might ha made for the time, the clergyman would find it his wisdom :is well as his duty to make it a point of being present, if not of himself teaching. The hour assigned to him would be his great opportunity for winning and retaining the affections of the children as well as for grounding them in the Christian faith. The time-table and conscience clause would lie set forth on the .vails of the school-room, as the Act re- ; quired, but the clergyman in a school not supported by the rates was, of course, free to give iiis teaching as marked a Church of England character as lie might think fit. It whs now of more importance than ever to save Sunday-school teaching from being in any way wearisome, and to make it acceptable and attractive. Their best * care and pains would be well bestowed in sectuiug this. As the Government inspection no longer noticed religious instruction, it wus t'iftir obvious d'i:y to avail themselves of the hint, it not t'ue iuvitarion, . conveyed in the. 7Q'\\ section, which promises thaf there may be one or two days devoted to examinations not conducted by / Her Majesty's inspector. Compulsory attendance upon such examinations could not be (■•nforceu, and it would be hiii'tlly worth while to have made th-tt provision if the time whs not to !>< j reckoned in the children's attend -.nee. Tuis would admit ,• of the appointment of a diocesan inspector, ,; : who would l>e prepared to give all his #■ time to an examination of the results of < Christian teaching in Church of England schools. It was well to bear iv mind that the chief work of this Act was to make education universal. If tecent legislation fell short of that, and more compulsory power -v'ould assuredly be given. Any increase of compulsion could not fail to it 11 iv the direction of secular teaching. Their unhappy divisions made that simply unavoidable.