Excerpt from National Education: Remarks on the Speech and Plan of Lord John Russell

IT behoves the people, then, well to consider, whether they are disposed to entrust the work of training the young to the Government, whether any necessity for so great a change has been shown, - whether the vast educational agencies which have done so much within the last half century have come to a stand, - whether freedom is so bad a system, and parental responsibility and religious zeal are such inadequate motives, as to compel us to surrender our dearest interests to official management, whether Government has evinced such wisdom, care, vigilance, and energy in the discharge of its other duties as to prove that it will be the best of educators, - whether especially a work involving the duties and interests of religion may be fitly handed over to Ministers of State and the Bench of Quarter Sessions, - whether the principles of legal compulsion and governmental provision and control, once adopted, may not be extended to other matters of the utmost importance and delicacy, such as religion, the press, industry, and family arrangements, - whether changes like these, from voluntary to official management, are conducive to the independent Spirit, the self-relying energies, and the moral welfare of the nation, - and whether the working classes of England are so destitute of natural affection and common sense that they neither are now, nor can ever be expected to be, fit judges of the proper duration of their children's education.

I do not deny that it is possible for the State, with some apparent and outward advantages, to direct both the religious and educational institutions of a country. But I do deny, with the emphasis of the deepest conviction, that the results on the whole are as satisfactory as when the people, thrown upon their own resources, principles, and consciences, provide themselves the means of their religious instruction and of the educa tion of their children. I believe that civil and religious freedom depends upon this self-relying action of the people and that the more the people are taught to depend upon the Government, the feebler become their virtue and their love of liberty.

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