character, and having
no fixed principle of action. His lordship also objected to the plan
for giving a secular rather than a religious education; contending that
schoolmasters entrusted with the instruction of youth should be of sound
doctrine. He concluded by moving an amendment to this effect, "That an
address be presented to her majesty to rescind the order in council for
constituting the proposed board of privy-council." Lord Morpeth
said that he conceived that the speech of Lord Stanley went to this
extent--to separate by a specific vote of the house the executive
government of the country from all superintendence and control over the
general education of the people. He combated this notion at considerable
length; arguing that so long as the state thought proper to employ Roman
Catholic sinews, and to finger Unitarian gold, it could not refuse to
extend to those by whom it so profited the blessings of education. Lord
Ashley said that he considered the scheme propounded to the house to
be hostile to the constitution, to the church, and to revealed religion
itself, although he did not mean to assert it was unconstitutional. The
remainder of the debate was conducted by Mr. Wyse, Mr. D'Israeli, Sir
Robert Inglis, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Gladstone, and Sir Robert Peel. The
house divided on the original question, that the order of the day for
a committee of supply be read, which was carried by a majority of two
hundred and eighty against two hundred and seventy-five. In accordance
with this vote Lord John Russell, on the 24th of June, moved that
the house should resolve itself into a committee of supply, in which
committee, after recapitulating many of the arguments previously urged
by himself and other members, he proposed that L30,000 be granted by her
majesty for public education in Great Britain for the year 1839.
Lord Mahon said, he felt it his duty to meet the motion with a direct
negative. The debate which followed was chiefly remarkable for an
eloquent speech delivered by Mr. Shiel in support of the motion. After
a few words from Mr. Goulburn in opposition to the grant, the committee
divided, and Lord John Russell's proposition was carried by a majority
of two only, the numbers being, for the grant, two hundred and
seventy-five; against it, two hundred and seventy-three.

The subject of national education was introduced in the lords on the
5th of July, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; who, after defending the
clergy