We concluded our course of educational articles; and though we afterwards saw the distinguished man to whom 23 our eye so frequently turned, as, under God, the wise pilot of the Free Church, and were honoured by a communication from him, dictated to his secretary, we did not again touch on the subject of education. We were, however, gratified to learn, from men much in his confidence and company––we hope we do not betray trust in referring to the Rev. Mr. Tasker of the West Port as one of these––that he regarded our entire course with a feeling of general approval akin to that to which he had given expression in his note. It further gratifies us to reflect that our course had the effect of setting his eminently practical mind a-working on the whole subject, and led to the production of the inestimably valuable document, long and carefully pondered, which will do more to settle the question of national education in Scotland than all the many volumes which have been written regarding it. As in a well-known instance in Scottish story, it is the ‘dead Douglas’ who is to ‘win the field.’
But we lag in our narrative. That melancholy event took place which cast a shade of sadness over Christendom; and in a few weeks after, the posthumous document, kindly communicated to us by the family of the deceased, appeared in the columns of the Witness. We perused it with intense interest; and what we saw in the first perusal was, that Chalmers had gone far beyond us; and in the second, that, in laying down his first principles, he had looked at the subject, as was his nature, in a broader and more general aspect, and had unlocked the difficulty which it presented in a more practical and statesmanlike manner. We had, indeed, considered in the abstract the right and duty of the civil magistrate to educate his people; but our main object being to ward off otherwise inevitable bankruptcy from a scheme of our Church, and having to deal with a sort of vicious Cameronianism, that would not accept of the magistrate’s money, even though he gave the Bible and the Shorter Catechism along with it, we had 24 merely contended that money given in connection with the Bible and Shorter Catechism is a very excellent thing, and especially so to men who cannot fulfil their obligations or pay their debts without it. But Chalmers had looked beyond the difficulties of a scheme, to the emergencies of a nation.
At the request of many of our readers, we have reprinted his document in full, as it originally appeared.[5] First, let it be remarked that, after briefly stating what he deemed the optimity of the question, he passes on to what he considered the only mode of settling it practically, in the present divided state of the Church and country. And in doing so he lays down, as a preliminary step, the absolute right and duty of the Government to educate, altogether independently of the theological differences or divisions which may obtain among the people or in the Churches. ‘As there seems no reason,’ he says, ‘why, because of these unresolved differences, a public measure for the health of all, for the recreation of all, for the economic advancement of all, should be held in abeyance, there seems as little reason why, because of these differences, a public measure for raising the general intelligence of all should be held in abeyance.’ Such is the principle which he enunciates regarding the party possessing the right to educate. Let the reader next mark in what terms he speaks of the party to be educated, or under whose immediate superintendence the education is to be conducted. Those who most widely misunderstand the Doctor’s meaning––from the circumstance, perhaps, that their views are most essentially at variance with those which he entertained––seem to hold that this absolute right on the part of Government is somehow conditional on the parties to be educated, or to superintend the education, coming forward to them in the character of Churches. They deem it necessary to the integrity of his meaning, that Presbyterians should come forward as Presbyterians, 25 Puseyites as Puseyites, Papists as Papists, and Socinians as Socinians; in which case, of course, all could be set right so far as the Free Church conscience was concerned in the matter, by taking the State’s grant with the one hand, and holding out an indignant protest against its extension to the erroneous sects in the other. But that Chalmers could have contemplated anything so monstrous as that Scotchmen should think of coming forward simply as Scotchmen, they cannot believe. He must have regarded the State’s unconditional right to educate as conditional after all, and dependent on the form assumed by the party on which or through which it was to be exercised. Let the reader examine for himself, and see whether there exists in the document a single expression suited to favour such a view. Nothing can be plainer than the words ‘Parliament,’ ‘Government,’ ‘State,’ ‘Legislature,’ employed to designate the educating party on the one hand; and surely nothing plainer than the words ‘people,’ ‘men of all Churches and denominations,’ ‘families of the land,’ and ‘society at large,’ made use of in designating the party to be educated, or entrusted with the educational means or machinery, on the other. There is a well-grounded confidence expressed in the Christian and philanthropic zeal which obtain throughout society; but the only bodies ecclesiastical which we find specially named––if, indeed, one of these can be regarded as at all ecclesiastical––are the ‘Unitarians and the Catholics.’ It was with the broad question of national education in its relation to two great parties placed in happy opposition, as the ‘inner hall of legislation’ and the ‘outer field of society,’ that we find Dr. Chalmers mainly dealing. And yet the document does contain palpable reference to the Government scheme. There is one clause in which it urges the propriety of ‘leaving [the matter of religion] to the parties who had to do with the erection and management of the schools which [the rulers of the country] had 26 been called on to assist.’ But the greater includes the less, and the much that is general in the paper is in no degree neutralized by the little in it that is particular. The Hon. Mr. Fox Maule could perhaps throw some additional light on this matter. It was at his special desire, and in consequence of a conversation on the subject which he held with Chalmers, that the document was drawn up. The nature of the request could not, of course, alter whatever is absolutely present in what it was the means of producing; but it would be something to know whether what the statesman asked was a decision on a special educational scheme, or––what any statesman might well desire to possess––the judgment of so wise and great a man on the all-important subject of national education.
It will be found that the following valuable letters from Dr. Guthrie and the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule determine the meaning of Dr. Chalmers on his own authority:––
2, Lauriston Lane, March 5, 1850.
My dear Mr. Miller,––When such conflicting statements were advanced as to the bearing of Dr. Chalmers’ celebrated paper on education, although I had no doubt in my own mind that the view you had taken of that valuable document was the correct one, and had that view confirmed by a conversation I had with his son-in-law, Mr. M’Kenzie, who heard Dr Chalmers discuss the matter in London, and acted, indeed, as his amanuensis in writing that paper; yet I thought it were well also to see whether Mr. Maule could throw any light on the subject. I wrote him with that object in view; and while we must regret that we are called to differ from some most eminent and excellent friends on this important question, it both comforts and confirms us to find another most important testimony in the letter which I now send to you, in favour of our opinion, that Dr. Chalmers, had God spared him to this day, would have 27 lifted up his mighty voice to advocate the views in which we are agreed.
Into the fermenting mind of the public it is the duty of every one to cast in whatever may, by God’s blessing, lead to a happy termination of this great question; and with this view I send you the letter which I have had the honour to receive from Mr. Maule.––Believe me, yours ever,
Thomas Guthrie.
Grosvenor Street, March 4, 1850.
My dear Dr. Guthrie,––When you wrote me some time since upon the subject of the communication made to me by the late Dr. Chalmers upon the all-important question of education, I could not take upon myself to say positively (though I had very little doubt in my mind) whether that document took its origin in a desire expressed by me to have Dr. Chalmers’ opinion on the general question of education, or merely upon the scheme laid down and pursued by the Committee of Privy Council. My impression has always been, that Dr. Chalmers addressed himself to the question as a whole; and on looking over my papers a few days since, I find that impression quite confirmed by the following sentence, in a note in Dr. Chalmers’ handwriting, bearing date 21st May 1847:––‘I hope that by to-morrow night I shall have prepared a few brief sentences on the subject of education.’
None of us thought how inestimable these brief sentences were to become, forming, as they do, the last written evidence of the tone of his great mind on this subject.
Should you address yourself to this question, you are, in my opinion, fully justified in dealing with the memorandum as referring to general and national arrangements, and not to those which are essentially of a temporary and varying character.––Believe me, with great esteem, yours sincerely,
F. Maule.
CHAPTER SECOND.
Right and Duty of the Civil Magistrate to educate the People––Founded on two distinct Principles, the one economic, the other judicial––Right and Duty of the Parent––Natural, not Ecclesiastical––Examination of the purely Ecclesiastical Claim––The real Rights in the case those of the State, the Parent, and the Ratepayer––The terms Parent and Ratepayer convertible into the one term Householder.
Wherever mind is employed, thought will be evolved; and in all questions of a practical character, truth, when honestly sought, is ultimately found. And so we deem it a happy circumstance, that there should be more minds honestly engaged at the present time on the educational problem than at perhaps any former period. To the upright light will arise. The question cannot be too profoundly pondered, nor too carefully discussed; and at the urgent request of not a few of our better readers, we purpose examining it anew in a course of occasional articles, convinced that its crisis has at length come, just as the crisis of the Church question had in reality come when the late Dr. M’Crie published his extraordinary pamphlet;[6] and that it must depend on the part now taken by the Free Church in this matter, whether some ten years hence she is to posses any share, even the slightest, in the education of the country. We ask our readers severely to test all our statements, whether of principle or of fact, and to suffer nothing in the least to influence them which is not rational, or which is not true.