troduce dissension into our own camp. The mind of the country is not ripe for a school extension bolstered up by parliamentary grants, and managed by a government board. To a large and increasing portion of the talent and patriotism of the country, such boards seem inconsistent with the spirit of our free constitution ; and such grants, not only a useless but a pernicious waste of public money,-pernicious to the cause of popular education, and sure to arrest, or at least greatly delay, its improvement. But even if we were all agreed that such a measure is safe and salutary, it would not be easy to agree on the arrangements it involves. These arrangements are very complicated. They require the adjustment of many clashing interests,-a far-seeing provision for practical difficulties,-an almost prophetic perception of future abuses,-a distinct presentiment of social changes of which we, in 1852, dream as little, as did the men of 1707 of the Reform Bill or the Disruption,-of steam-ships or electric telegraphs. No wonder that there should be diversity of opinion; no wonder that wise men should pause, and confess that they cannot see their way. Those who are least afraid, are, as usually happens in such cases, the very persons who know least about the matter. Those who think they see the whole thing clearly, are looking upon a mirage,—those who fancy they are guided by the pole-star, are following an ignis fatuus.

In such circumstances, surely the wise course is, not to press those points on which there is diversity of opinion, nor to wait indefinitely for a time when opinion shall be harmonious on all points; but to do, AT ONCE and COMPLETELY, that on which all educational reformers are agreed, and which, when done, will serve materially to clear up the difficulties that embarrass the other parts of the subject.

"But the means of education," I have often been told, " are fearfully deficient, and this destitution is fraught with many grave dangers to the country, which will brook no delay; we must have school extension at once; your plan would lose much time." No such thing, I reply-it will gain time. Such is generally the result of adhering to the maxim, "One thing at once ;" and your Lordship must be familiar with the proverb which says that injudicious haste (I anglicise the Scotch epithet) " comes nae speed." So it has happened in the present case. I am fully persuaded that if the efforts which the National Association has expended in endeavouring to enlist public opinion in favour of their at once defective and redundant scheme, had been employed in expounding and advocating a well-considered measure for opening both schools and universities, it would have been carried ere now, and we should have been at this moment rejoicing in the first movements of a school extension, natural and healthy, buoyant and expansive. Had Scotland been properly appealed to on the simple question of the emancipation of her national seminaries, she would have demanded it with a voice so unanimous and so loud as to secure the immediate compliance of the Legislature. But as to government grants for school extension, and government boards for making schools more efficient, be they right or wrong-salutary or mischievous-calculated to promote education or to mar it, they cannot be had at present; the opinion of the country is divided about their principle; the opinion of those who approve their principle, is divided about their details.

I have been told that my plan does not go far enough. But that is nothing to the purpose. Farther at present we cannot go; and the question is,-shall we take this step (which we are sure is a safe one) now while we can, and a second, perhaps a third, when we can agree on what it is to be; or shall we stand where we are, whining like spoiled children, and refusing to stir until we are allowed to take the whole distance at a leap? And then, what if we should leap into the

mire-the jobbery of a government board, and the national degradation of a pauperised school system?

Such are my views of the course of action which will best serve the cause of educational reform; DESECTARIANISE first, and attempt nothing till that is done. Then IMPROVE and EXTEND by the help of the new vital energy which your emancipated schools and colleges will possess. By what ulterior operations we may render this new power most effective for promoting the improvement and extension we desire, it does not belong to this stage of our inquiries to discuss; but I shall take up the subject in its proper place. The questions which now demand our attention are-On what principles ought a desectarianising measure to be founded; and, What ought to be its provisions? To the former of these points I shall address myself in my next letter.-Meanwhile, I am, &c.

LETTER II.

PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A MEASURE FOR DESECTARIANISING THE SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES OUGHT TO BE FOUNDED.

MY LORD,-In my former letter I have shown, that the sectarian character of our schools and universities is ruinous to the highest interests of Scotland,—a blight and a canker-worm to her otherwise admirable system of public education. I have also shown that the removal of this incubus from the schools and universities ought to be simultaneous; and that, without this, any attempt to improve and extend popular education, would only accelerate and aggravate the degradation into which it has for some time been sinking.

And now comes the practical question, How is this to be done? On what principles shall a measure for desectarianising our schools and universities be founded, and of what provisions shall it consist?

Before a physician will prescribe for his patient, he endeavours to form a precise conception of the nature and cause of the disease. The quack takes no such pains. He observes some prominent symptom, and fancies that in striving to repress it, his whole work will be done. We must imitate the philosophic physician: we must inquire what it is that gives their present sectarian character to our schools and colleges in no other way can we learn how to effect a radical cure by the mildest possible means. We must not, like the quack, take a single glance at the surface, and say, "Oh! desectarianising just means abolishing the tests. You have only to do away with the subscription to the Confession of Faith, and your object is accomplished." For the tests are not the only element in the sectarianism we would remove; and subscription to the Confession of Faith is only one of "the tests."

In order to understand the whole subject, we must attend to the distinction (too generally overlooked) between the RESTRICTIONS Which exclude so large a majority of Scotchmen from educational offices; and the TESTS, which are one means of enforcing their exclusion. A RESTRICTION is an enactment or a regulation which declares, either openly and in so many words, or indirectly and by implication, that only persons of a certain description shall hold the offices to which it refers. A test is something which, applied to a candidate for office, shall at once decide whether he belongs to the privileged or the excluded class, without giving us the trouble of collecting, and sifting, and weighing evidence ;—something which, if he is not of the right sort, will at once detect him, as the chemist

B

detects an alkali by his litmus-paper, or convicts a baker of mixing chalk with his flour, by dropping a piece of the bread into an acid. The sincerity of a converted Jew used to be sometimes tested on the same principle, by asking him to eat bacon. In the case before us, the tests employed are certain oaths and declarations which persons belonging to the excluded classes cannot honestly take, and which the law therefore assumes they cannot possibly take.

I need not remind your Lordship that the laws, whose operation in the present day is to give our national seminaries a complexion so scandalously sectarian, had their origin in no sectarian feeling. However injudicious they may have been,— how much soever they may breathe of the spirit of a fierce and semi-barbarous age, there can be no doubt that they were prompted by an earnest and honest desire to guard the newly-born and dearly-bought liberties of the country against the house of Stuart and the court of Rome. There could be no greater mistake than to regard them as springing from intolerance or bigotry on the part of their framers on the contrary, they were measures of self-defence against that bigotry and intolerance on the part of others, which had drenched Scotland with the blood of patriots and saints. They aimed at RESTRICTING all educational offices to the trusty friends of that civil and religious freedom, which the two reformations and the revolution had won; and at excluding those who would have done their utmost to influence the rising generation in favour of the restoration of the exiled family, -an event which would have placed the neck of the country once more beneath the feet of an abandoned court, and a profligate, persecuting clergy.

The provisions for carrying this restriction into effect were

I. That all persons then holding, and thereafter to be admitted into, offices in the schools and universities, should take the oaths and make the declarations referred to, as TESTS. These were 1. the oath of allegiance; * 2. The oath of assurance; 3. The oath of abjuration; 4. Subscription to the Confession of

* The following is the form in which this oath is at present administered; originally, I believe, it was much longer, and more specific :—“ I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria; so help me God."

"I, A. B., do, in the sincerity of my heart, assert, acknowledge, and declare, that her Majesty Queen Victoria is the only lawful and undoubted Sovereign of this realm; as well de jure,—that is, of right Queen, as de facto,—that is, in the possession and exercise of the government; and therefore I do promise and swear that I will, with heart and hand, life and goods, maintain and defend her right, title, and government against the descendants of the person who pretended to be Prince of Wales during the life of the late King James; and since his decease pretended to be, and took upon himself, the style and title of King of England, by the name of James the Third; or of Scotland by the name of James the Eighth; or the style and title of King of Great Britain; and their adherents, and all other enemies who, either by open or secret attempts, shall disturb or disquiet her Majesty in the possession and exercise thereof."

"I, A. B., do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare on my conscience, before God and the world, that our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria is lawful and rightful Queen of this realm, and of all other her Majesty's dominions and countries thereto belonging: And I do solemnly and sincerely declare, that I do believe in my conscience that not any of the descendants of the person who pretended to be Prince of Wales during the life of the late King James the Second; and, since his decease, pretended to be, and took upon himself, the style and title of King of England, by the name of James the Third; or of Scotland by the name of James the Eighth; or the style and title of King of Great Britain,— hath any right or title whatsoever to the Crown of this realm, or any other the dominions thereunto belonging; and I do renounce, refuse, and abjure any allegiance or obedience to any of them; and I do swear, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to her Majesty Queen

Faith, and a solemn promise of submission to the government and discipline of the Church of Scotland.*

II. That for certain offices in the universities, ordination as a minister, or at least license as a preacher in the Church of Scotland, should be a QUALIFICATION.

III. That ministers of the Church of Scotland should have, "ex-officio," a large share in the PATRONAGE of the schools in their respective parishes; and that each presbytery of that church should have a certain amount of jurisdiction over the schools within their bounds.

The motive of these enactments becomes apparent on the slightest acquaintance with the political state of Scotland at the time they were passed. The partisans of the Stuarts, though vanquished, were still very formidable, both from their numbers and from their fanatical zeal. All the friends of the revolution were Presbyterians; and all Presbyterians (except a mere handful of Cameronians) belonged to the Church of Scotland. The Roman Catholics and the Scotch Episcopalians were all Jacobites; and it was an object of the last importance to prevent them from instilling their principles into the minds of the young. Whether the legislation adopted for this purpose was right and expedient at that time, we need not inquire. Granting that it was, its continuance now is most impolitic and most absurd. The special dangers of those days have long since passed away, and the circumstances of the country are entirely changed. The race of the Stuarts is extinct, and no rival disputes the title of Queen Victoria. Late occurrences have made the loyalty of Roman Catholics doubtful; but Episcopalians, high-church and low-church (except a few half-crazy Oxford men), are as good "Hanoverians" as their Presbyterian neighbours. The present race of Presbyterians cherish a still more intense and more unqualified attachment than their fathers to the principles that placed the House of Brunswick on the throne; but the great majority of them have seceded from the Church of Scotland. "In these altered circumstances, what possible

66

excuse," one naturally asks, can there be for keeping up the old restrictions? An insurrection may justify a temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, but not its permanent repeal." The answer (such as it is) that is usually given to this question, runs as follows: -"Other perils not less formidable, though from the contrary direction, threaten Victoria, and her will defend to the utmost of my power, against all traitorous conspiracies and attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against her person, crown, or dignity; and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to her Majesty and her successors all treasons and traitorous conspiracies, which I shall know to be against her, or any of them; and I do faithfully promise, to the utmost of my power, to support, maintain, and defend the succession of the Crown against the descendants of the said James, and against all other persons whatsoever; which succession, by an Act intituled "An Act for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject," is and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess-Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. And all these I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear, according to these express words by me spoken, and according to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words, without any equivocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever; and I do make this recognition, acknowledgment, abjuration, and renunciation, and promise heartily, willingly, and truly, upon the true faith of a Christian; so help me God."

* No precise form, I believe, is prescribed for this declaration, but it is usually nearly as follows:-"I do acknowledge, and profess, and subscribe to, the Confession of Faith as the confession of my faith; and I will practise and conform myself to the worship presently in use in the Church of Scotland, and submit myself to the government and discipline thereof, and never endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion of the same."

us in the present day. If we need no longer fear Jacobitism and slavish superstition, yet we are in very serious danger from their opposites, socialism and infidelity. There are among us many Deists and Atheists. There are also many persons who would demolish the constitution, subvert the throne, and set up an unmixed democracy. The old restrictions, if strictly enforced on the one side and honestly submitted to on the other, would exclude such persons." True-but in the first place, they would exclude at the same time multitudes of the most orthodox Christians and most devotedly-loyal subjects, amounting to more than half the population of Scotland; and secondly, even this very questionable result hangs upon an "if." To sacrifice more than sixty per cent. of the talent and piety of Scotland, is a fearful price to pay for the exclusion of perhaps one per cent. of infidelity, even if that object were gained. But gained it is not. To men of high religious principle, who differ from the Established Church on some single point of ecclesiastical polity, to loyal men who would shed their blood in defence of the constitution and the house of Hanover, but who think that the oaths involve an unqualified approbation of the ecclesiastical as well as the civil part of the revolution settlement, these restrictions are a wall of brass-to infidels, and red republicans, and Jesuitical Oxonian Jacobites, they are a fence of gossamer. In the case of the parish schools, they compel an external conformity to the Church of Scotland; in the case of the universities, even that paltry result is not secured. This has been most convincingly proved a hundred times over; yet the public mind is not satisfied; the desectarianising movement has met with a comparatively feeble support. It would be uncandid to ascribe this wholly to bigotry on the part of Churchmen, or apathy and want of public spirit on the part of Dissenters it is in a great degree owing to the fact, that no measure for opening our national seminaries which has hitherto been proposed, commends itself to the understanding and conscience of the country.

Nobody can deny, that in the Established Church of Scotland there are many men whose generous sentiments and catholic spirit would gladly open both schools and universities to their brethren of other denominations, if they saw how this could be done without admitting at the same time those who are the mortal enemies of all Christianity. It is equally certain that the great body of the Free Church, and a large proportion of the members of the United Presbyterian Church, though feeling keenly the wrong and insult of their own exclusion, share in the misgivings of their Established brethren with regard to the removal of all restrictions, and generously regard it as a smaller evil to remain shut out themselves, than to have infidels let in along with them. It is to no purpose that we demonstrate to such persons the utter powerlessness of the present law to exclude infidels of the worst description. They reply-" Very true; but there is at least a recognition of the principle that religious character is a necessary qualification for the office of a teacher; and there is an attempt to demand it—an inefficient attempt no doubt, and made in so bungling a manner as to exclude the very persons it ought of all others to admit: but, bad though all this is, we think it would be still worse to make Deists and Atheists legally eligible to the most important positions in education, and recognise them formally as fit to be trusted with the formation of the rising mind of the country. Show us how this may be avoided in removing the existing restrictions, and we will heartily join you ;-till then, we will

'Rather bear the ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of." "

In this state of public opinion, our obvious course is to ask a relaxation of the