Читать книгу Leading Articles on Various Subjects - Hugh Miller - Страница 9

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Parties to whom the Educational Franchise might be safely extended––House Proprietors, House Tenants of a certain standing, Farmers, Crofters––Scheme of an Educational Faculty––Effects of the desired Extension––It would restore the National Schools to the People of the Nation.

It is the right and duty of every Government to educate its people, whatever the kinds or varieties of religion which may obtain among them;––it is the right and duty of every parent to select, on his own responsibility, his children’s teacher, and to determine what his children are to be taught;––it is the right and duty of every member of the commonwealth to see that the commonwealth’s money, devoted to educational purposes, be not squandered on incompetent men, and, in virtue of his contributions as a ratepayer, to possess a voice with the parents of a country in the selection of its salaried schoolmasters. There exist, on the one hand, the right and duty of the State; there exist, on the other, the rights and duties of the parents and ratepayers; and we find both parents and ratepayers presenting themselves in the aggregate, and for all practical purposes in this matter, as a single class, viz. the householders of the kingdom. But as, in dealing with these in purely political questions, we exclude a certain portion of them from the exercise of the political franchise, and that simply because, as classes, they are uninformed or dangerous, and might employ power, if they possessed it, to the public prejudice, so would we exclude a certain proportion of them, on similar grounds, from the educational franchise. In selecting, however, the safe classes of householders, we would employ tests somewhat dissimilar in their character from those to which the Reform Act extends its exclusive 40 sanction, and establish a somewhat different order of qualifications from those which it erects.

In the first place, we would fain extend the educational franchise to all those householders of Scotland who inhabit houses of their own, however humble in kind, or however low the valuation of their rental. We know not a safer or more solid, or, in the main, more intelligent class, than those working men of the country who, with the savings of half a lifetime, build or purchase a dwelling for themselves, and then sit down rent-free for the rest of their lives, each ‘the monarch of a shed.’ With these men we are intimately acquainted, for we have lived and laboured among them; and very rarely have we failed to find the thatched domicile, of mayhap two little rooms and a closet, with a patch of garden-ground behind, of which some hard-handed country mechanic or labourer had, through his own exertions, become the proud possessor, forming a higher certificate of character than masters the most conscientious and discerning could bestow upon their employés, or even Churches themselves upon their members. Nor is this house-owning qualification much less valuable when it has been derived by inheritance––not wrought for; seeing that the man who retains his little patrimony unsquandered must be at least a steady, industrious man, the slave of no expensive or disreputable vice. Let us remark, however, that we would not attach the educational franchise to property as such: the proprietor of the house, whether a small house or a large one, would require to be the bona fide inhabitant of the dwelling which he occupied, for at least a considerable portion of every year. The second class to which we would fain see the educational franchise extended are all those householders of the kingdom who tenant houses of five pounds annual rent and upwards, who settle with their landlords not oftener than twice every twelvemonth, and who are at least a year entered on possession. By fixing 41 the qualification thus high, and rejecting the monthly or weekly rent-payer, the country would get rid of at least nineteen-twentieths of the dangerous classes,––the agricultural labourers, who wander about from parish to parish, some six or eight months in one locality, and some ten or twelve in another; the ignorant immigrant Irish, who tenant the poorer hovels of so many of our western coast parishes; and last, not least, all the migratory population of our larger towns, who rarely reside half a year in the same dwelling, and who, though they may in some instances pay at more than the rate of the yearly five pounds, pay it weekly, or by the fortnight or month. We regret, however, that there is a really worthy class which such a qualification would exclude,––ploughmen, labourers, and country mechanics, who reside permanently in humble cottages, the property of the owner of the soil, and who, though their course through life lies on the bleak edge of poverty, are God-fearing, worthy men, at least morally qualified to give, in the election of a teacher, an honest and not unintelligent voice. And yet, hitherto at least, we have failed to see any principle which a British statesman would recognise as legitimate, on which this class could be included in the educational franchise, and their dangerous neighbours of the same political status kept out. There is yet a third very important class whom we would fain see in possession of the educational franchise,––those householders of Scotland who till the soil as tenants, whether with or without leases, or whether the annual rent which they pay amounts to three or to three thousand pounds. The tillers of the soil are a fixed class, greatly more permanent, even where there exists no lease, than the mere tenant householders; and they include, especially in the Highlands of Scotland, and the poorer districts of the low country, a large proportion of the country’s parentage. They are in the main, too, an eminently safe class, and not less so where the farms are 42 small and the dwellings upon them mere cottages––to which, save for the surrounding croft or farm, no franchise could attach––than where they live in elegant houses, and are the lessees of hundreds of acres. And such are the three great classes to which, as composing the solid body of the Scottish nation––to the exclusion of little more than the mere rags that hang loosely on its vestments––would we extend, did we possess the power, the educational franchise.

In order, however, to render a franchise thus liberally restricted more safe and salutary still, we would demand not only certain qualifications on the part of the parents and ratepayers of the country, without which they could not be permitted to vote, but also certain other qualifications on the part of the country’s schoolmasters, without which they could not be voted for. We would thus impart to the scheme such a twofold aspect of security as that for which in a purely ecclesiastical matter we contended, when we urged that none but Church members should be permitted to choose their own ministers; and that none but ministers pronounced duly qualified in life, literature, and doctrine, by a competent ecclesiastical court, should they be permitted to choose. There ought to exist a teaching Faculty as certainly as there exists a medical or legal Faculty, or as there exists in the Church what is essentially a preacher-licensing Faculty. The membership of a Church are unfitted in their aggregate character to judge respecting at least the literature of the young licentiate whom, in their own and their children’s behalf, they call to the pastoral charge;––the people of a district, however shrewd and solid, are equally unqualified to determine whether the young practitioner of medicine or of law who settles among them is competently acquainted with his profession, and so a fit person to be entrusted with the care of their health or the protection of their property. And hence the 43 necessity which exists in all these cases for testing, licensing, diploma-giving courts or boards, composed of men qualified to decide regarding those special points of ability or acquirement which the people, as such, cannot try for themselves. In no case, however, are courts of this nature more imperatively required than in the case of the schoolmaster. Neither the amount of literature which he possesses, nor yet his mastery over the most approved modes of communicating it, can be tested by the people, who, as parents and ratepayers, possess the exclusive right to make choice of him for their parish or district school; and hence the necessity that what they cannot do for themselves should be previously done for them by some competent court or board, and that no teacher who did not possess a licence or diploma should be eligible to at least an endowed seminary supported by the public money. With, of course, the qualifications of the mere adventure-teacher, whether supported by Churches or individuals, we would permit no board to interfere. As to the composition of the board itself, that, we hold, might be determined on very simple principles. Let the College-bred teachers of Scotland, associated with its University professors, select for themselves, out of their own number, a dean or chairman, and a court or committee, legally qualified by Act of Parliament stringently to try all teachers who may present themselves before them, in order to be rendered eligible for a national school, and to grant them licences or diplomas, legally representative of professional qualification. Whether a teacher, on his election by the people, might not be a second time tried, especially on behalf of the State and the ratepayers, by a Government inspectorship, and thus a check on the board be instituted, we are not at present called on to determine; but on this we are clear, that the certificate of no Normal School, in behalf of its own pupils, ought to be received otherwise than as a mere makeweight 44 in the general item of professional character; seeing that any such document would be as much a certificate of the Normal School’s own ability in rearing efficient teachers, as of the pedagogical skill of the teachers which it reared. The vitiating element of self-interest would scarce fail to induce, ultimately at least, a suspicious habit of self-recommendation.

Such, then, in this matter, is our full tale of qualification, pedagogical and popular, of the educators of the country on the one hand, and of the educational franchise-holders of the country on the other. And now we request the reader to mark one mighty result of the arrangement, which no other yet set in opposition to it could possibly produce. There are in Scotland about one thousand one hundred national schools, supported by national resources; and, of consequence, though fallen into the hands of a mere sect, which in some localities does not include a tithe of the population, they of right belong to the Scottish people. And these schools of the people that extension of the educational franchise which we desiderate would not fail to restore to the people. It would put them once more in possession of what was their own property de facto at the Revolution (for at that period, when, with a few inconsiderable exceptions, they were all of one creed, the ministry of the Established Church virtually represented them), and of what has been de jure their property ever since. But by the ministry of no one Church can the people be represented now. The long rule of Moderatism,––the consequent formation of the Secession and Relief Churches,––the growth of Independency and Episcopacy,––and last, but not least in the series, the Disruption, and the instantaneous creation of the Free Church, have put an end to that state of things for ever. The time has in the course of Providence fairly come, when the people must be permitted in this matter to represent themselves; and there is 45 one thing sure,––the struggle may be protracted, but the issue is certain. Important, however, as are our parish schools, and rich in associations so intimately linked to the intellectual glory of the nation, that, were they but mere relics of the past, the custodiership of them might well be most desirable to the Scottish people, they represent but a small part of the stake involved in the present all-engrossing movement. It seeks also to provide from the coffers of the State––on a broad basis of popular representation, and with the reservation of a right on the part of the people to supplement whatever instruction the State may not or cannot supply––that fearful educational destitution of the nation which is sinking its tens and hundreds of thousands into abject pauperism and barbarous ignorance, and which neither Churches nor Societies can of themselves supply. It is the first hopeful movement of the age; for our own Free Church educational movement, though perhaps second in point of importance, only serves irrefragably to demonstrate its necessity.

It is, we repeat, to the people of Scotland, and not to any one of the Churches of Scotland, that our scheme of a widely-based and truly popular franchise would restore the Scottish schools. Mr. George Combe is, however, quite in the right in holding that religion is too intimately associated with the educational question, and too decidedly a force in the country, to be excluded from the national seminaries, ‘unless, indeed, Government do something more than merely omit the religious element.’[7] All is lost, Mr. Combe justly infers, on the non-religious side of the 46 question, if the introduction of the Bible and Shorter Catechism be not prohibited by Act of Parliament; for, if not stringently prohibited, what Parliament merely omits doing, a Bible and Catechism loving people will to a certainty do; and the conscience of the phrenologist and his followers will not fail to be outraged by the spectacle of Bible classes in the national schools, and of State schoolmasters instilling into the youthful mind, by means of the Shorter Catechism, the doctrine of original sin and the work of the Spirit. Nay, more; as it is not in the power of mere Acts of the Legislature to eradicate from the hearts of a people those feelings of partiality, based on deep religious conviction and the associations of ages, with which it is natural to regard a co-religionist, more especially in the case of the teacher to whom one’s children are to read their daily chapter and repeat their weekly tale of questions, denomination must and will continue to exert its powerful influence in the election of national schoolmasters popularly chosen. And as there are certain extensive districts in Scotland in which some one Church is the stronger, and other certain districts in which some other Church is the stronger, there are whole shires and provinces in which, if selected on the popular scheme, the national teachers would be found well-nigh all of one religious denomination. From John O’Groat’s to Beauly, for instance, they would be all, or almost all, Free Churchmen; for in that extensive district almost all the people are Free Church. In the Scottish Highlands generally, nearly the same result would be produced, from, of course, the existence of a similar 47 constituency. In Inverness, and onwards along the sea-coast to Aberdeen, Montrose, St. Andrews, and the Frith of Forth, the element of old dissent would be influentially felt: the great parties among the people would be three––Establishment, Free Church, and Voluntary; and whichever two of them united, would succeed in defeating the third. And such unions, no doubt, frequently would take place. The Voluntaries and Free Churchmen would often unite for the carrying of a man; and occasionally, no doubt, the Free Church and the Establishment, for the carrying of a principle,––that principle of religious teaching on which, in the coming struggle, the State Church will be necessitated to take her stand. To the south of the Frith of Forth on to Berwick, and along the western coast from Dumbarton to the Solway, there would be localities parcelled out into large farms, in which the Establishment would prevail; and of course, wherever it can reckon up a majority of the more solid people, it is but right and proper that the Establishment should prevail; but who can doubt that even in these districts the national teaching would be immensely heightened by a scheme which gave to parents and ratepayers the selection of their teachers, and restricted their choice to intelligent and qualified men? Wherever there is liberty, there will be discussion and difference; and the election of a schoolmaster would not be managed quite as quietly under the anticipated state of things, with the whole people of a parish for his constituency, as in the present, by a minister and factor over a social glass. But the objection taken by anticipation to popular heats and contendings in such cases is as old as the first stirrings of a free spirit among the people, and the first struggles of despotism to bind them down. We ourselves have heard it twice urged on the unpopular side,––once when the rotten burghs were nodding to their fall, and once when an unrestricted patronage was imperilled by 48 the encroachments of the Veto. There will, and must be, difference; and difference too, Scotland being what it is, in which the religious element will not fail to mingle; but not the less completely on that account will the scheme restore the Scottish schools to the Scottish people, as represented by the majority, and to the membership of the Free Church, in the de facto statistical sense and proportion in which the Free Church is national. It will not restore them to us in the theoretic sense; but then there are at least three other true original Churches of Scotland, which in that respect will be greatly worse off than ourselves,––the true national Cameronian Church, the true national Episcopalian Church, and a true compact little Church of the whole nation, that, in the form of one very excellent minister, labours in the east.

Meanwhile, we would fain say to our country folk and readers of the north of Scotland: You, of all the Free Churchmen of the kingdom, have an especial stake in this matter. Examine for yourselves,––trust to your own good sense,––exercise as Protestants your right of private judgment,––and see whether, as Christian men and good Scotchmen, you may not fairly employ the political influence given you by God and your country, in possessing yourselves of the parish schools. There will be deep points mooted in this controversy, which neither you nor we will ever be in the least able to understand. You will no doubt be told of a theocratic theory of the British Government, perfectly compatible, somehow, with the receipt of educational grants from which all recognition of the religious element on the part of the State is, at the express request of the Church, to be thoroughly discharged, but not at all compatible with the receipt of an educational endowment of exactly the same character, from which the same State recognition of the same religious element is to be discharged in the same degree. You will, we say, not be able 49 to understand this. The late Dr. Thomas Chalmers and the late Rev. Mr. Stewart of Cromarty could not understand it; we question much whether Dr. William Cunningham understands it; and we are quite sure that Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Begg do not. And you, who are poor simple laymen, will never be able to understand it at all. But you are all able to understand that the parish schools of your respective districts, now lying empty and useless, belong of right to you; and that it would be a very excellent thing to have that right restored to you, both on your own behalf and on that of your children.

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