A LETTER, &c.

MY LORD,

THAT we are at length approaching a crisis in the great question of a NATIONAL EDUCATION for Scotland-which has so long and so deeply agitated the public mind-appears a conviction very generally entertained. I cannot, indeed, altogether agree with those, who represent this crisis as arising out of the incidental circumstance of the Schoolmasters' Act, 43 Geo. III., c. 54, requiring again to be renewed; while I am at no loss to understand why they should so greedily fasten on this incident, who are urging on the revolution in the School Establishment of Scotland, which they are bent on bringing about. Indications, however, are not wanting, that the day may still be at a distance, when the questio vexata is to be set at rest by Parliament, if, as a preliminary condition, it is demanded that the parties, now divided on the religious element involved in it, shall come to one and the same opinion. In the meantime, recent legislation, in one important branch of educational polity as regards Scotland, may very reasonably arouse an apprehension of changes the most material and fundamental in what may yet remain of that polity to be disposed of by Parliament.

During the discussions on the "University Admission Bill," errors the most important were fallen into on the origin and object of the Test Laws of Scotland;-errors which, from circumstances not fully explained, did not receive the notice or corrections that might have been expected from the supporters of the Church's cause. The mixing up of the mere machinery, by which these laws were worked out, with the great principles on which they rest, and have been enacted to secure, appears to have thrown the apple of discord very unnecessarily into the Established

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camp, and given an opportunity to the promoters of the Admission Bill to practise a ruse on the Conservative Members of the House of Commons, fair enough, perhaps, in Parliamentary tactics, but which, had it not been for these divisions, might have been easily defeated, and the Bill brought up and disposed of on its real principle,-viz. that of opening up the Lay Chairs in the Universities of Scotland to Professors of any religious creed, or of no religious profession whatever. A motion brought forward in the last General Assembly to meet the Test Bill of the Lord Advocate on this broad and distinct ground-without either revolutionizing or stereotyping, as it stands, the existing machinery-was lost, by an overwhelming majority refusing in any way to alter these laws. Hence, in the discussions to which I refer, these laws were represented by many as a code enacted, not only for the sole protection, but by the paramount and usurping authority, of the Church. This, however, is an assumption altogether unsupported by the fact: The Test Laws were not enacted for the protection of the Church, except as the adopted guardian of the Christianity and Protestantism of the country, and to give the stronger assurance to the pious and godly parentage of Scotland, that in consigning their sons to teachers, even in the Arts and Sciences, they were placing them in the hands of men sound in their religious creed, as that creed has been laid down in the standards of the Church, adopted and ratified by the State: And the question then was-Shall this protection to the Christianity and Protestantism of the land-this assurance to its pious and godly parentage that these great interests shall be maintained inviolate-be from henceforth overthrown? That question, so far as the Lay Chairs in our Universities are concerned, has been answered by Parliament in the affirmative; and there is now no statutory obstacle to these Chairs being filled by Jews, Papists, or Infidels. It is indeed passing strange, that the Free Church of Scotland, boasting so much, as she does, of her regard to the landmarks of the Reformation, should have extended her approbation to a measure, which, in place of the assurance once and so lately enjoyed by the pious parentage of Scotland, that the teachers of their children would leaven all their prelections with the spirit of a true and honest faith in the doctrines of the Gospel-has substituted a bare DECLARATION, that within their class-rooms they shall not call in question the rights of the Church as established by law, or vilify or deny the

mysteries and doctrines of the Bible, as laid down in the National Confession of Faith! Some, indeed, there may be, who will still find a Test of some weight in this provision, altogether worthless as it may be esteemed by others; and a bigot to the Establishment may console himself, that no other Church is so much protected within the walls of our Universities from having its rights and dogmata violated or held up to contempt.

Notwithstanding so truly inauspicious a commencement in the work of "reforming" the School Establishment of Scotland, I confess, that I am not among those who entertain any great fears, that the Parish Schools of Scotland will be dealt with after the same fashion, as have been the Lay Chairs of our Universities, and as much isolated as these Chairs now are from all relation to the religious element, happily not yet altogether banished from our educational legislation. Many of those, who are most loud in their demands for reform in these schools, seem quite alive to the deep-rooted determination which pervades Scotland, that religion shall not be divorced from education within her schools; and even the most wild are ready to acknowledge that "the pear is not yet ripe" for the introduction by Act of Parliament of the purely secular system of instruction. It is indeed a matter of not less sorrow than surprise, that so far as the Lay Chairs in our Universities are concerned, the pious and godly parentage of Scotland should have so easily surrendered the security they but lately possessed, that their sons shall be consigned to the tuition of good Christians and sound Protestants, even in the more advanced branches of education; and should have so tamely consented to hand them over equally to the teaching of the Jew, the Papist, and the Infidel Professor. But placing the chairs of Literature and Science among the more advanced schools, the test hitherto demanded from those who occupied these chairs might be regarded, as having simply given assurance to the parentage of Scotland, that they were confiding their sons to teachers in these branches, who were themselves Christians and Protestants;-and this, therefore, not as a pledge, that they would instruct them aright in religious knowledge,-for that is admitted not to be directly within their provinces,-but that their pupils should be protected as far as possible from the risk of having the religious and Christian feelings, imbibed at the elementary school and at home, violated or tampered with. In regard to those chairs or schools within our Universities, that are devoted to

theology, the rule or maxim is varied in its character and bearing. As the sciences embraced in these schools directly bear on a religious instruction, so may the test required of the teacher be regarded as farther affording assurance that he believes, understands, and is able to instruct according to the standards laid down to him. Hence may to some appear the propriety of the distinction which has been drawn between Lay and Theological Chairs; while others--and I confess myself of the numbercan admit no sound principle or good policy in the distinction that has been introduced between them-a distinction hitherto unknown in our educational polity. But in regard to the Elementary School-the properly called Parochial School of Scotland-direct religious instruction to the scholar is the great business of the schoolmaster;-the teaching of the art of reading itself, that through its acquisition the Scriptures of Truth may be opened up to the pupil, being subsidiary to the "godly upbringing," the highest and primary object of the institution. I am quite aware that it is now contended, that the Parish School has been, from its origin, more of a secular than a religious character, and the teaching of the "Three R.'s" its great and primary object; and consequently to disjoin our Parish Schools from all connection with instruction in any religious creed, and all dependence on the government and discipline of any Church, is just to revert to that object. Under this theory, which must sound strange to many a Scottish ear, the existing state of educational matters in Scotland, allowed, as it is on all hands, to be fortified by a huge volume of Scottish Acts of Parliament, guaranteed as unalterable in all time coming by the Treaty of Union between the Kingdoms, is nothing more than the fruits of an ecclesiastical invasion of civil liberty! I feel assured that your Lordship will regard such theorists as but poorly versed in the history of those struggles, out of which our existing educational polity, with all its rights and privileges, arose; and should you be prepared to sanction any change in this polity, it will not be on the grounds here taken. If I am right in the view which I have given of our Parish Schools, it will follow, that the demanding from the schoolmaster a test of a more strictly religious character, and corresponding more nearly with those still exacted from Professors filling our Theological Chairs in the University, becomes a matter of obvious propriety. When the parish schoolmaster proceeds to the teaching of Latin, Greek, Mathematics, &c. &c., he leaves "the Lecture" for "the Grammar

School" of our pious forefathers; and were he to be regarded as occupying this position alone, a less stringent security in the matter of religious creed and knowledge might be regarded by some as sufficient, and the present rigid subjection to the government and discipline of the Established Church might be dispensed with. It is, I think, the overlooking of the distinction between the elementary and the advanced school, and the bearing of a test-religious upon these severally, that has led to many great errors and misapprehensions on this subject.

But, on the very important question soon to occupy the attention of Parliament, other misapprehensions, also arising out of the overlooking of distinctions that ought to be regarded, are very generally entertained. Many of these are to be found on the very threshold of the question; and hence a confusion in the very terms employed has been introduced, leading to the most important errors in policy, and at this moment requiring to be more than ever guarded against. I hazard the raising of no distinction, that is either fanciful or unfounded, when I draw the line between EDUCATION and INSTRUCTION; and I venture on no paradoxical ground when I affirm, that the best educated country may be the least instructed, and, vice versa, the best instructed may be the least educated. EDUCATION I would define to be the art, which speaks to the conscience; INSTRUCTION that which addresses itself to the intellect of man. The one draws forth the fruits of the "Tree of Life" implanted in the very constitution of our nature as immortal and accountable creatures; the other pours in the seeds of the "Tree of Knowledge;" and a case is easily supposable, where the one has been highly cultivated, while the other has been greatly neglected. When, therefore, we are told, as we have been, that out of twenty-eight thousand of a population in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, only three or four thousand can read, write, and cast accounts, we are not to jump to the conclusion that this population is uneducated; and when, on the other hand, we find that, as in Prussia and other Continental States, six out of every seven can read and write, we are not to put down these countries as well educated. If it shall be found that a population, although little versed in the knowledge of the " Three R.'s," are deeply read scholars in piety towards their God-in honesty and benevolence in their dealings with their fellow-men—and in temperance and sobriety in their own walk and conversation; contented, moreover, with the lot which Providence has assigned to