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has been already done, that certain principles are pretty well agreed upon and established among us. I shall not waste time in demonstrating these principles, but merely state them and pass on to the matter which appears to me to be disputable.
I think we may assume that it is now agreed on all hands that the education of the poor is not a matter to be left wholly or entirely to private enterprise, but is a duty of the State. I do not say at this moment to what extent; but after we have now for twenty years been in the habit of giving aid out of the State funds to carrying on these schools, it would be too late for any one to argue that the State had neither duty nor care in the matter.
Then, I think, we are at liberty to infer also that we are agreed that the State represents in the matter of education not the religious but the secular element. The plan of education which is now pursued is to entrust the management of the schools to persons actuated generally by strong religious feelings, and who found the schools for the purposes of some particular sect. Then the State assists them, stipulating in return for a certain amount of secular instruction. The inspectors who go to the school owe a sort of divided allegiance. They are the servants of the State in so far as they ascertain the amount of secular instruction given; and they are the servants of the different denominations in so far as they examine into religious matters. Therefore, it is quite clear that those advance no new doctrine at all, but merely state the present system of education, who say that the State's relation to it is a secular relation, and that its business is with the secular part of popular instruction.
The third principle is, first, that the best way of carrying on education is not either to have a centralised department through which the whole shall be managed, nor is it to leave it wholly to local energy without any interference of the State, as is done in America; but that the best way is to combine the two—a local agency, the best that can be found for the purpose for carrying on the process of education, while reserving to the Government the duty of superintending and testing it—that, it is this mixture
