8
examination, such as is practised under the Revised Code in England, and as I hope will soon be practised in Scotland, is totally unknown, so that the assistance given to schools is granted there without any test of their efficiency. But this system has in it other recommendations. It is homogeneous with the habits and feelings of the people, particularly in the country districts of these islands; it enlists in its cause the best local agency that can be found—the gentlemen and clergymen resident in the parish. For these reasons I confess I should have been very unwilling to meddle with it. It has existed some time—it is existing—and to alter it will imply, I have no doubt, a very considerable sacrifice of efficiency, a great dislocation of energy and effort, during which much evil will accrue; but we have arrived at a time when we should no longer deliberate on these questions.
I am not going to enter on political matters, but we are all aware that the Government of the country, the voice potential in the Government, is placed in the hands of persons in a lower position of life than has hitherto been the case. It is not merely desirable, it is of the utmost importance, it is necessary for the preservation of the institutions of the country, that those people should be able properly and intelligently to discharge the duties devolving on them. Even supposing that the classes now enfranchised possess this knowledge, we require a much better guarantee than we have at present that those who are to come after them will possess it also; and if, as I fear is the case in many cases, they do not possess the knowledge, we are bound to strain every nerve to give it them. There is no effort we should not make—there is no sacrifice, either of money, or prejudice, or feeling, we should not submit to—rather than allow a generation to grow up in ignorance, in whose hands are reposed the destinies of all of us, the destinies of the nation. Therefore, gentlemen, though I should have been very glad to have allowed the system to have gone on quietly, peacefully, unostentatiously spreading itself, as it has hitherto done, I am firmly of opinion that the time has arrived when it is our duty to vindicate for the State its veal function in this matter. Nor is it our duty to make the
