Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/26

22 patriotic intentions, framed with equity and forbearance, and introduced with conciliation and kindness, it was the education scheme embodied in the Factory Bill.

I am the readier to acknowledge this, because I for one rejoice at its withdrawal. At the first proposal it seemed more than questionable; afterwards it became still less to be desired: and we may now be thankful that it has been laid aside. I trust it will never be renewed; and have seen with great pleasure that some who are foremost in the question have declared themselves against any new experiments of combined education.

My reasons are, first, because any such scheme of general education would probably end in withdrawing from the Church the education of the English people, and in transferring, at some future day, her schools, teachers, training-colleges, and the whole matériel of education to the control of those who may from time to time hold the powers of Government. This appears to be the inevitable though perhaps remote consequence of establishing a system such as that lately proposed. That scheme gave so great an apparent prominence to the Church as to excite from opponents the objection that it was simply a system of Church Education. Had it been carried into effect, it is not to be supposed that it would have been ultimately confined to the factory district: still less is it to be believed that two systems of Church Education should long co-exist. The one would in