1848.
Av. 4.
186
LiF ow
COBRN,
{oBAP.
give the poor a stronger xaotive to educate their childre®
and at the same time a greater power to carry the motive
into practice. The real obstacle to a system of Nationa!
Education has been in my opinion the State Church, and
although the Dissenters are for the moment in a false
position, they will, I hope, with time come right.” )
“May15. ( ,, )~—Thereis no active feeling at present ”
favour of National Biducation. The Dissenters, at least Baines 8
section, who have been the only movement parby since al
League was dissolved, have rather turned popular opinio”
against it." I need not say how completely I agree with
you that education alone can ensure good self-government
Don’t sappose that I am changed, or that I intend to shirk
the question. Above all, don’t suspect that sitting for
Yorkshire would shut my mouth. I made up my mind, O°
returning from the Continent, that the best chance I could
give to our dissenting friends was to give them time to cool
after the excitement of the late Opposition to the Gover?
ment measures, and therefore I have avoided throwing the
bopic in their faces. But I do not intend to preserve my
silence much longer. If I take a part in a new refor™
movement, I shall do my best to connect the Educatio?
question with it, not as a part of the new Reform ach buf
by proclaiming my own convictions that it is by a nations!
system of education alone that people can acquire or rea’
knowledge enough for self-government. In our refor™
movement, sectarianism will not be predominant.”
“ London, July 28. ( ,, )~—~What a wretched session hag
this been! It ought to be exvunced from the minutes of
* See above, vol. i, p. 800. “I confess,” snid Cobden, ju 1851, that
fifteen years my hopes of success in establisiving a system of National Bd
cation, have always been assoniated with the idea of conpling the educatio?
of the country with the religious comuunitine which exist.” But be found
religions discordance boo viclans, end he touk mfuge, as we shail presently
aa. in the ssoniar ayateam.
