ontroversy. Parliament had as yet done little. A bill
brought in by Whitbread had been passed in 1807 by the House of
Commons, enabling parishes to form schools on the Scottish model, but
according to Romilly,[79] it was passed in the well-grounded
confidence that it would be thrown out by the peers. A committee upon
education was obtained by Brougham after the peace, which reported in
1818, and which led to a commission upon school endowments. Brougham
introduced an education bill in 1820, but nothing came of it. The
beginning of any participation by government in national education was
not to take place till after the Reform Bill. Meanwhile, however, the
foundation of the London University upon unsectarian principles was
encouraging the Utilitarians; and there were other symptoms of the
growth of enlightenment. George Birkbeck (1776-1841) had started some
popular lectures upon science at Glasgow about 1800, and having
settled as a physician in London, started the 'Mechanics' Institution'
in 1824. Brougham was one of the first trustees; and the institution,
though exposed to a good deal of ridicule, managed to take root and
become the parent of others. In 1827 was started the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which Brougham was president, and
the committee of which included James Mill. In the course of its
twenty years' existence it published or sanctioned the publication by
Charles Knight of a great mass of popular literature. The _Penny
Magazine_ (1832-1845) is said to have had two hundred thousand
subscribers at the end of its first year of existence. Crude and
superficial as were some of these enterprises, they clearly marked a
very important change. Cobbett and the Radical orators found enormous
audiences ready to listen to their doctrine. Churchmen and Dissenters,
Tories and Radicals were finding it necessary both to educate and to
disseminate their principles by writing; and as new social strata were
becoming accessible to such influences, their opinions began to
exercise in turn a more distinct reaction upon political and
ecclesiastical affairs.

No party felt more confidence at the tendency of this new
intellectual fermentation than the Utilitarians. They had a definite,
coherent, logical creed. Every step which increased the freedom of
discussion increased the influence of the truth. Their doctrines were
the truth, if not the whole truth. Once allow them to get a fulcrum
and they would move t