These questions exhibit to the reader an example of what was not infrequent in the Committee, a friendly sparring between the advocates and the opponents of free trade. Of the latter class Mr. W. Miles is one of the staunchest survivors, and he generally took good care, as in this instance, to keep Mr. Bright and his other enemies in check. We thank them both, however, for they rendered common service to the cause of education.

Mr. Baines (1717) then gives some details showing the relation of crime to education, which Mr. Fox (1718) thus sums up: "In any mode of classification this result obtains, that the per centage of crime diminishes in the case of the totally uninstructed, and also in the case of the well instructed; but that it increases, and increases largely, in the case of the imperfectly instructed.” So much for the effect of education! This general conclusion, however, was held subject to a slight modification.

1724. Mr. Bright (to Mr. Baines).—If of the whole number of prisoners apprehended or convicted in Manchester, the per centage of those uneducated is much fewer, and the number of imperfectly educated much larger, does that, in your opinion, afford a fair proof that, although education may not have advanced to the point at which we wish to see it, still it is steadily advancing and improving in that district ?

Ans.—Yes, I think so.

1725. Mr. Ker Seymer.—Taken together with the diminution of crime, does not it tell on the whole in favour of education ?

Ans.-I think so.

We make Mr. Richson welcome to this small allowance, for which we hope he will be thankful. We cannot conclude our remarks, however, without observing, that whatever the effect of education might be in diminishing pauperism and crime, and whatever the force of an argument thence derived for the extension of education, no argument is hence derivable in favour of the local scheme, or of a school rate.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RIGHT OF SOCIETY.

Another argument of a general kind, not adduced by Mr. Richson, but brought forward by a member of the Committee and a leading educational philanthropist, is indicated by the heading of this chapter. It was thus introduced.

2488. Mr. Fox (to Mr. Adshead).—When you speak of the voluntary prin; ciple as applied to parents, do you mean that a parent is not morally bound to educate his child ?

Ans.—I believe that a parent is morally bound to educate his child, and I think that any interference with that moral responsibility is not right.

2489. Has not society an interest in his fulfilment of that duty ?

Ans.—No doubt, society has an interest ; but I think that society has no right unjustly to interfere between me and my child.

2490. If society has an interest in the parent's fulfilment of that duty, may it not interpose so far as to see that the duty is not neglected, to the injury alike of the child and of the community ?

Ans.— Yes : but if society comes to me, and says to me, “Let me educate your child,” I should say to society, “Mind your own business."

2491. May not society insist upon the child being educated, without undertaking to educate it, or prescribing how it shall be educated ?

Ans.-If any act were passed to say that my child should go to school, and that if it did not go to school it should be subject to a penalty, I should probably be compelled to submit.

2492. You think that the right of society does not extend so far ? Ans.-Certainly not.

2493. Mr. W. Miles.—Would not that do away entirely with voluntary action on the part of the parent ?

Ans.-Yes, altogether.

There peeps out in these questions of Mr. Fox, one of the principles of social and political economy which lie, deep and broad, beneath the whole of the Manchester educational movement. Society, it seems, has a right to see to the execution of everything in which it has an interest, and consequently to the education of children. We do not hesitate to pronounce this general notion a glittering fallacy. It looks wise, but it is essential foolishness. Society, whatever conception may be formed of this vague but convenient impersonation, has an interest in ten thousand things which it has never dreamt of looking after, or of having a right to look after, by act of parliament; and profounder statesmen than Mr. Fox have long ago ranked among leading political truths the dictate of experience and common sense, that there are at work a thousand influences by which society does much more and better for itself than legislative interference could possibly do. Why should education be taken out of this category ?

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PETITIONS.

As a mode of favouring their respective designs in parliament, the advocates of both the local and secular schemes caused petitions to be circulated, and signatures to be solicited, throughout the school district. First in the field were the locals, whose petition was signed by 40,000 ratepayers; but after them came the seculars, and their petition was signed by 60,000 inhabitants. Mr. Entwisle naturally lays considerable stress on the fact that a petition so numerously signed had been presented in favour of the local bill; and he claims the weight of the secular petition, as aiding to establish " a large preponderance of public opinion in Manchester, as to the deficiency of the existing means of education, and their assent to the principle of the supply of that deficiency by means of a rate upon property," (1128).

A word or two first on the former of these petitions. Mr. Adshead, in giving an account of the discussion in the Manchester town council (2277), cited the following words from the speech of Mr. Alderman Bancroft.

* Remarking upon the petition to which reference has so frequently been made before the Committee, he observed, that he understood the signatures to the petition for the bill had been obtained towards the close at a cost of 4d. each ; and he could get 40,000 signatures for any plausible object by employing ten or twelve (men) on such terms, and indeed for less."

This, not without reason, called up the opposite party, and Mr. Frederic Peel was brought forward, to give the best explanation he might. This

gentleman's examination is to be found from 2401 to 2407, but we need not give it in detail. He expressly admits the fact as alleged by Alderman Bancroft, and his explanation is, that this was not an excessive remuneration to the canvassers, the other signatures having in fact cost 6d. a head. The thing, in truth, had been done on a principle of frugality, as they had gone about the petition in a very expensive way, and had already spent upon it no less than £1,000. Indeed, it had not paid the men so well as the general canvass, as they had previously been paid 5s. a day, and on the capitation system they earned on an average but 3s. 11d.

We have no . wish to press hard on Mr. Peel and his friends in this matter, but we must say, that, in our judgment, this is not telling the whole truth. It must in the nature of things have been otherwise. The object of paying the canvassers so much for every signature obtained, rather than so much for every hour spent, was not to spend less money, but to get more names, not to pay less for labour, but to make labour more fruitful of results. It was to sharpen their wits, and increase their importunity; to make them resolved, in a word, to get names at all hazards, since, if they got no signatures, they got no pay. Men in such circumstances cannot but have been zealous.

There are, however, 40,000 signatures appended to a petition on behalf of the local bill, and 60,000 signatures to a petition against it, both being in common in favour of a school rate. * You are assuming," said Mr. Bright, to Mr. Entwisle, (1132), that these are “ different persons altogether." A very important assumption truly, and on a matter very worthy of investigation. We have reason to believe, (although it is not stated in the evidence), that a large proportion of the 60,000 who signed the second petition were actually the same persons who signed the first, and that they signed it the more eagerly in order to neutralize the sanction which they had given unawares to the peculiarities of the Local scheme. Were the two lists corrected and formed into one, there can be no doubt of this apparently formidable number being considerably reduced.

The significance of the Petitions is liable to a still greater reduction than the number of signatures. It is not, indeed, to be supposed that a hundred thousand persons, or half that number, being rate payers and inhabitants of Manchester and Salford, actually made themselves acquainted with the various important and difficult questions involved in this educational movement, or that the “50 or more canvassers who were paid to get sig. natures

were very capable of enlightening them. Mr. Entwisle admitted that the Committee did nothing to qualify these worthy persons for such a task, beyond “furnishing them with some printed papers of instructions, particularly one epitomizing the proposals and the general effect of the bill, drawn up by our society," (1131). Of this we shall speak presently, but now let our readers hear Mr. Bright.

1132. Mr. Bright (to Mr. Entwisle).- Is it not your opinion that, with regard to the 60,000, and with regard to by far the largest portion of the 40,000 who signed your petition, the whole of these signatures may be taken merely to represent their general opinion that the existing means of education are deficient, and that they have no objection to those means being made up by a rate ; but they are not fairly to be taken at all to represent how the religious difficulty is to be got over, and not at all to represent that difficulties should be thrown in the way of Catholics and Jews entering these schools, and they are not at all intended to represent the opinion that the people are indifferent to the payment of money for teaching the various modes of religion held by the people of

Manchester and Salford, some of which are held to be very erroneous and very false? How far do you believe that these petitions represent that more general opinion, or an opinion on those special points to which I have referred ?

Ans.— I have very little doubt, from the pains that were taken upon various occasions to explain the general scope of the bill now before the House, that a considerable number of the ratepayers who have signed our petition have signed it with a general knowledge of the principles which it involved; but I am quite willing to admit my belief, that, speaking generally, it would be to overstrain the importance of such petitions, if it were imagined that the whole, or the majority of the signatures, were given with a thorough knowledge of all the points at issue.

Mr. Bright subsequently took notice of the Instructions to Canvassers, and referring to No. 8, (which states that No Schools will be excluded from the benefit of the rate on account of their connexion with any religious community, but that all will be admitted on equal terms,”) in connexion with the restriction as to rate-built schools, asked, “Do not you think, that in these clauses, you offered an inducement to the people of Manchester to sign your petition, which inducement you have not carried out in the clauses of your bill ? ” To this Mr. Entwisle answers, and in our opinion justly, “I do not think so,” (1139). The fault of the Instructions is, not that they are intentionally deceptive, but that they are too brief and dog. matical not to be practically so. They assume and assert, what no attempt is made to prove, or even to explain, and so, we have no doubt, they have

To say that in such a document nothing more was possible, is only to confess that the effect of its circulation affords small ground for congratulation or confidence.

misled many.

PART II.

DETAILS OF THE LOCAL BILL.

CHAPTER I.

THE BILL SUPERFLUOUS, COSTLY, UNJUST, UNCHARITABLE, AND

PAUPERIZING,

As it was allotted to Mr. Richson to make out the case of the advocates of the Local bill, and to present a statement of the facts on which it is grounded, so it was assigned to Mr. Entwisle to bring forward the principal features of the bill itself, and to show the applicability of the measure embodied in it. To this part of the examination we proceed to give our attention.

Mr. Entwisle commences his evidence with an account of the formation and progress of the Manchester and Salford School Committee, and then states * the main principles which they had in view " in the preparation of their scheme. We do not know that we need trouble ourselves to state these precisely in his own words. It is sufficient to say, that the object of the Committee was to secure for education a religious character; to avail themselves of existing schools ; to make education gratuitous, the payment being provided for by a rate ; to make schools open to all, up to their capacity for the reception of pupils ; to provide for liberty of conscience, for the erection of new schools, and for school inspection ; and to place the whole under the administration of the town councils of Manchester and Salford, subject to the control of the Committee of Council in London, (656, 674).

It will not be needful for us to go into all these particulars. In some of them we most cordially concur, as in the necessity of popular education being religious, and in the wisdom of upholding existing schools. On the professedly gratuitous character of the education to be given we have already spoken our mind, and as to the right of admission for all, we have only to say that we think it adds to the present system, either nothing, or some. thing of very doubtful value. We have also little to say on the subject of inspection. Objections to the measure, either as a whole or in some of its parts, we have, and we will proceed to state them.

The bill is clearly objectionable in the first place, as a piece of superAuous legislation. It is an established maxim of political wisdom not to legislate without necessity. Now here is no necessity No case has been made out for it. Something is to be done, indeed—we may even say, much -in advancing the cause of popular education ; but the effectuation of this