A SEQUEL TO MR. WARD’S “REPLY.”

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 186, 31 July 1869, Page 4

A SEQUEL TO MR. WARD’S “REPLY.”

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sir, —I am not desirous of intruding on your valuable space to the extent of a column and a half, nor do I wish to inflict on your readers lengthy historical extracts or a formidable array of chronological data—yet I cannot allow Mr. Ward’s letter to pass unanswered. / However much 1 may differ with film in opinions, I can respect his motives j and I am pleased to find that there is at least one man in Marlborough, besides you and I, who takes sufficient interest in the well-being of the rising generation—to ventilate the important question of Education. I fully agree with Mr. Ward that “reading, writing, and a little cyphering is not Education neither do I think with the addition of “ grammar and church music ” it is calculated to make him or any other man necessarily virtuous. Knowledge, like bodily strength, is a power for good or evil, nor did I require Lord Lytton, Sir A. Alison, or Mr. Ward to make me cognisant of the fact. Mr. Ward makes a handle of one word which I used in my letter on which to hang a sneer, but I would beg to assure him that my “assumption” is based on personal experience, and the daily observations of an active life. Had my education stopped at the usual requirements accepted by the bulk of society as Education, I might perchance have been like some of those model settlers so eloquently eulogised by Mr. Ward ; I might have believed that touching my hat to the squire, going to church on Sunday, and always voting with the strongest party, constituted the cardinal virtues. They are virtues that frequently lead to worldly success ; but should we at this present time enjoy the glorious privileges of civil and religious liberty had there not been men who have made the knowledge “doled’’out to them the stepping stones to a study of mankind. I have used the term “ doled out ” advisedly, because while I know as well as Mr. Ward that, during the turmoil of the middle ages, the priesthood were the principal, I might say the only guardians of learning, so were they the dispensers of it to the laity ; but is Mr. Ward prepared to deny that the priesthood of all denominations look upon the revelations of science very like the monster conjured up by Frankenstein. Whenever knowledge overstepped the limits prescribed by Mother Church, the stake and the thumbscrew were ready to check her wandering footsteps. When I wrote of “power-loving priests,” I meant not only those of Mr. Ward’s church, but of all ages and creeds. Who prepared the poison cup for Socrates ? The priesthood ! Who crucified Christ ? The priesthood ! Who persecuted Galileo ? Who ?—but why should I reiterate the question, when even in the memory of the present generation the discoverer of one of the greatest boons to suffering humanity was denounced from the pulpits of the Protestant Church, Gould knowledge be kept within the narrow limits' of priestly influence, the laity might even, in this 18th century, be satisfied with “reading, writing, a little cyphering, grammar, and church music but the barriers that shut it in have indeed been burst. There are thousands who, like myself, prefer poverty, and independence of thought and speech, to worldly prosperity at the price 6‘f frefedom, to whom truth is more valuable than gold, and who profer the right of free discussion to the patronage of the wealthy and the great—whose hearts, warmed by the love of their fellow-man, bear them bravely up amidst the sneers and suspicions of their equals, and “ the rich man’s contumely,” while they willingly toil to achieve that glorious end when—- " Science and her sister Poesy Shall clothe in light the fields And cities of the free.” I am, &c., C. J. Rats. July 27th, 1869.