One feature of the recent debates is a source of no little regret to the friends of education. The fact of the want of means of instruction for the people was admitted; but little or nothing transpired indicating that the extent of the void was known.Had the fearful breadth of this chasm in our National Institutions been perceived, we cannot believe that so much time would have been expended in exaggerating every difficulty obstructing the extension of education to the entire people, whether those difficulties be referable to the religious divisions which unhappily separate the middle classes into hostile camps, or whether they originated in the opposition of any of the existing voluntary associations for primary education. Assuredly the privileges of the Established Church, and also the rights of conscience must be respected, and the religious education of the people is of paramount importance. Neither are we inclined to disparage the value of any of the existing voluntary associations; but it is of infinitely greater importance that the feuds of sects and the interests of bodies incompetent effectually to deal with this national question, should not rob the people of England of the heritage which the Government, after periods of ruinous deprivation, was about to restore to them. The griev ance would not be greater if the administration of justice was impeded, or rendered partial, by any attempt to extend spiritual jurisdiction from the Ecclesiastical Courts to the Civil, or to renew the interdicts upon the enjoyment of the civil advantages of society in consequence of some slight to the representative of the Church, or some interference with his spiritual power. But if the whole of this kingdom were placed under an ecclesiastical interdict; if marriages could no longer be solemnized; if the dead were left unburied; and the Churches closed, terrible though the calamity would be, we find a parallel to it in that wide-spread and demoralizing ignorance which paralyzes all the healthful influences of society, if it does not convert its elements into engines of mutual destruction. District. TABLE, No. I. Number attending superior private schools, and be- Number of children of working classes from 3 to 13, Number of children of working classes attending en- 30,400 8,285 4,103 11,624 14,641 26,265 1,776 3,357 3,172 6,509 13,500 11,336 9,418 20,754 652 1,648 860 2,508 1,926 1,294 731 2,025 533,000 133,250 8,786 80,050 21,957 29,259 28,822 58,061 Ratio to population Ratio to children of working classes who ought to be in attendance on school The table contains the following results for Ratio to children of working classes who ought to be in attendance on school See Reports as to average expense of education in Schools. Lond. & Manchester Statistical Societies. Estimated population at period of inquiry Number of children of working classes who attend en dowed and charity schools, and schools attached to public institutions and infant schools Number very ill educated in dame and common day schools Number uneducated in weck day schools* : 28,822 11,827 • Of these several receive some instruction (chiefly religious) in Sunday Schools. See table No. IV. A Summary of the proficiency of the Prisoners in Norwich Castle, in "Reading &c. at the time of their commitment, taken at different periods from 1826 to 1835. N.B. All recommittals are omitted, and also those prisoners who may have been committed for too short a time to come under the chaplain's regular and continued instruction. |