Page:Address on the opening of the Free Public Library of Ballarat East, on Friday, 1st. January, 1869.djvu/14

 8 Hereunto it was upon the other part replied—"That it was meet for the ploughman's son to go to the plough, and the artificer's to apply to the trade of their parents' vocation, and the gentleman's children are meet to have the knowledge of government and rule in the Commonwealth; for we have as much need of ploughmen as any other sort, and all sorts of men may not go to school."

"I grant," replied the archbishop, "much of your meaning herein as needful in a Commonwealth; but yet utterly to exclude the ploughman's son and the poor man's son from the benefit of learning, as if they were unworthy to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon them as well as upon others, is as much as to say that Almighty God should not be at liberty to bestow His great gifts of grace upon any person, nor nowhere else, but as we and other men shall appoint according to our fancy, and not according to His most Godly will and pleasure, who giveth His gifts, both of learning and other perfections in all sciences, unto all kinds and states of people indifferently. &hellip; Therefore, if the gentleman's son be apt to learning, let him be admitted; if not apt, let the poor man's child that is apt enter in his room."

If such admirable, such large-souled sentiments ought to regulate those to whom is confided the direction of the primary tuition of youth, are we to trammel by vexatious prohibitions, by restrictions expensive, cumbersome, and useless, the government of institutions like these, intended for men responsible in every sense to every agency recognised as affecting the society in which they move?

Nevertheless, there still linger in existence timid