You have seen that the opposition of the conservatives gave way before the corporations bill. It was not without deep mortification, as you may imagine, but prudence rendered it indispensable. It is necessary, at any sacrifice, to assume the appearance of not hating too violently the principles of reform. The plan is not without cunning.
But the opposition counts with confidence on regaining its ground on the question of Irish tithes and their appropriation. It is on this question that it has halted and offers combat. “We have abundantly proved,” say their proclamations, “that we are reasonable reformers, but our love of change cannot induce us to sacrifice the church.” And their church, that ungrateful and unnatural daughter, which has denied and plundered its mother, invokes with all its power the old prejudices of the Protestants to the aid of its champions; it sounds the tocsin with its bells taken from Catholic steeples. Every where it stations its bishops in its temples without altars, and makes them preach a new crusade against Catholicism. Hear them: Of the innumerable religious sects which encumber the three kingdoms, taking them in alphabetical order, from the Anabaptists to the Unitarians, there is not one so hateful and dangerous as the Catholic church. The Popish sect is the only one that endangers the state, the throne and the property of individuals. It is necessary to burn again the Pope in effigy and in processions, as formerly under the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and it would not be bad to burn on the same occasion that impious majority in the Commons, who wish to appropriate a part of the Protestant tithes in Ireland to the education of the poor of all religions! God be praised, the selfish and insensate voice of the conservatives has only cried in the desert. Their fanaticism will not succeed against the general good sense of the nation. Within as without the chamber, their defeat is inevitable. To use the beautiful metaphor of Mr. Shiel, the first Irish orator after O'Connell, the church of Ireland will be the cemetery of toryism and Protestant intolerance.
THIRD LECTURE
Of the Course on the Obstacles and Hindrances to Education, arising from the peculiar faults of Parents, Teachers and Scholars, and that portion of the Public immediately concerned in directing and controlling our Literary Institutions.
On the Faults of Teachers.
It will be recollected, my friends, that my last effort was to expose the vices and faults of parents, so far as they obstruct the progress of education. Those of instructers shall next be exhibited, since they are certainly entitled at least to the second in rank in their power to do mischief. I might sum up all their faults in one sweeping condemnation, by saying that they render the persons guilty of them enemies to themselves, to their professional brethren, and to the public. But specifications are wanting, and such I propose to give, as minutely and distinctly as I can.
In the first place, they injure themselves by the style and language often used when they tender their services to the public. The expressions are frequently such as to encourage the idea, already too prevalent, that they are the only party to be obliged—they alone to be the receivers of favors never to be adequately compensated. Whereas the truth is, if they are really fit for their business, and desirous to perform it faithfully, they never receive the millionth part of a cent for which they do not make a most ample return—a return, the real value of which can never be measured by mere dollars and cents. But the language in which they seek or acknowledge employment, often expresses a degree of humility below the lowest gospel requirement—a doubt of their own qualifications to teach, which, if true, ought forever to exclude them from the class of instructers. It sometimes, in fact, deserves no better name than a servile begging for patronage, as if they considered it a species of gratuitous alms. Ought it to be wondered at, when this is the case, that the public should understand them literally, and treat them accordingly? If they avoid this extreme in tendering their services, it by no means follows, as a necessary consequence, that they should run into the other, which is also very common, of making themselves ridiculous by extravagant pretensions. The middle course in this, as in many other things, is best. Let them always state plainly and explicitly, without exaggeration, what they believe they can do—their willingness to make the attempt with persevering fidelity, and the pecuniary compensation expected for their services. If this were always fairly and fully done, there could not be even the shadow of a pretext on the part of any who might then choose to accept their offers, for underrating their labors, and talking or acting as persons who had conferred obligations beyond all requital, by giving much more than they had received, or could be paid. When teachers are treated in this way, it is, in a great measure, their own fault, and it arises chiefly from the causes just stated. To render their intercourse with their employers what it ought to be, and what it certainly might become, there should be not only a feeling of entire reciprocity of benefit as to the money part of their dealings, but a mutuality of respect and esteem well merited on both sides. This kind of regard can never be felt towards teachers who receive such civilities as may be paid to them, like unexpected and unmerited favors; for if they themselves do not appear to hold their own profession in the honor to which it is justly entitled, who else can they expect to rate it any higher?