EDUCATION OF THE POOR. "Just education forms the man." GAY. Mr. URBAN, Feb. 1. HE

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bountiful eye" sees the

poor, and the "benevolent heart" feels for them, as brethren, who contain within them the common excellent nature, intelligent minds, and capacities for improvement. The truth and liberality of this sentiment, to the honour of the age and country in which we live, is spreading through the kingdom, from the worthiest motives, the warmest hearts, and with the most extraordinary pro ptitude and energy, to ameliorate the condition of the poor, from the pressures of extreme poverty, to a practical system of intelJectual culture and proficiency. It is only to develope talents, in order to improve them; and it is not too much to say, we may expect, from the obscured endowments amongst the lower classes of the people, "to hail the general dawn" of understanding that illumines and invigorates the mind of man, as the dawning day opens all nature, and expands all her powers.

Acts of charity are distinguished in as many different ways as there are different occasions for them: but the finest feelings of humanity are those expressed in the comprising plan and happy combination of " eleemosynary alms and elementary instruction," that the poor, provided not only with sustenance, and other human comforts, to the relief of their necessities, may be "taught" also to improve their condition in common life, and in the approach of death to acknowledge thankfully the "gift of knowledge," aud religious education.

We have an instance upon record, and that record, it is to be hoped, indelible, where an Act was proposed [Ric. II.] "that no villaines should put their children to school," or, in plain language, that the poor should

in the cause

not be taught to read; and was rejected, in the Council of the Nation, from the most generous feelings, and lively sense and interest of humanity. If ever there has been a question, it is no longer entertained in these enlightened days, whether " in having been taught to write," the poor have not derived, from this manual ac quirement, a benefit to themselves as essential as their services to the community.-Instruction, it is true, may be perverted, as fine penmanship may lead to forgery: but, if seminaries for educating certain classes of the people," who are unable to purchase instruction," are not encour aged; if institutions similar, for instance, to that of Christ's Hospital, are not filled as at present, and, it is hoped, ever will be filled, with youth trained to industry and integrity, educated and exercised in all branches of knowledge useful to themselves and to the community; then the succession of able men, and of assistants, inust fail to serve the commercial world, the church, and state. Here the " original observation of Sir Robert Ladbroke, knt." in the House of Commons, is to be recorded, "that not one of the thousands educated in Christ's Hospital had ever held up their hand at the Old Bailey."

If then material qualifications are obtained from education, for the purposes of common life, how deplorable is the state of the "uneducated," where the seeds of knowledge have never been sown, or the latent sparks of improvement have not been elicited! The mind of man, depressed, detained, en laved by ignorance, is lost to virtue and exertion, in the deprivation or neglect of the "intellectual better half," whilst the machine of body, the wonderful structure, and the work of God, remains on earth to vegetate and rot, till it shall be restored to a re-union of soul and body, where knowledge shall not be withheld, but perfected in every individual.

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it;" the way of religious wisdom, in which all morality is in

cluded.

In every system of education, morals form a principal part or prominent feature of it; but, as principles, morals are subordinate to those of religion. It is highly important, therefore, when schism is dispensed and dispersed sed through the kingdom, to express and explain the distinction between moral virtues and Christian graces. A moral man may not be religious, but a religious must necessarily be a moral man. The one loves justice and temperance, the other lives by faith rooted in charity. The one conforms his manners and actions strictly and uniformly towards all his fellow-creatures in this world; the other "early in the morning," " as one day telleth another," "directs his prayers, as he looks up," to his Creator and Preserver; and in the evening of a well-spent life, lies down reposed in hope and confidence of an eternity of happiness " in another world."

This distinction obviously presents itself in adopting a general plan, and national institution, of schools for edu cating the poor, and in tracing it through all its varieties of captivating ingenuity and comparative excellence. The plan, imported from abroad, is a scion of an Eastero indigenous plant, committed to the care and culture of "two persons," eminently qualified to propagate it. The exceeding pains taken by Mr. Lancaster are so meritorious in the cause of humanity, and of the unlettered poor, as to transcend, common praise and commendation; in drawing forth latent sparks of mind, and hidden talents; in furnishing means, and pointing to materials hi therto unnoticed and undistinguished in this climate; and in putting them literally into the hands of the poor, by which they learn to "delineate" legibly, what is to be " imprinted on the mind indelibly," through the exercise of human faculties, and to the probable extent of them.

Thus instructed, he " that runs inay read," and the sense of ingenuity in

the original plan is the first to be acknowledged, and the first to strike the opening mind with wonder: but there is "improvement" that succeeds to invention, and superior excellence, comparatively, surpasses the merit of original imperfection, The minds of the illiterate poor, capable of receiving "moral instruction," are as capable of imbibing "religious elementary principles, and though in the "dawn" of understanding, and by the light of Nature, the Almighty Maker of the Universe and Creator of Mankind is discovered; by Revelation only is learned the rule of faith and universal redeniption. The tribute, therefore, of the most grateful thanks from the poor is universally the same, and due to Mr. Lancaster and to Dr. Bell, the scale of instruction liberally the sante, that, in their own way, Mr. L.'s brethren may be instructed to speak or to keep silence;" that hymns may remain in the hands of Dissenters, as in the kirk of Scotland; and that the Church Catechism may be put into the hands as early as possible of children educated in the principles of the Church of England,

Here commences a competition, and not compromise, in pursuing the best means to attain the same good end, "the education of the poor, and the edification of their minds." The book, of inestimable value, "the Bible," is the first put into the hands of ali, rich and poor; that sacred volume of truth, of religious duties, examples, and directions according to the Holy Scriptures. The reflection and result, therefore, in the mind of Dr. Bell, was in unison with the sentiments of all sound members of the Established Church, and "his" explanatory plan of instructing the poor was as necessary as it is commendable, to inculcate, to spread, and to maintain the truth of Creeds, and Orthodoxy in abiding in them.

Admitting it to be true, of children educated in the schools of Mr. Lancaster, " that numbers have been added yearly, and considerably," it is averred with equai truth and success, that thousands and ten thousands of the poor instructed in the principles of the Established Church, previously to the improved plan of Dr. Bell, have been initiated and educated in useful and religious knowledge, either in charity schools, in most of the large towns,

Admitting freely the merit of Mr. Lancaster, and the benefit and success of his schools for reading, writ ing, and arithmetic, and the Holy Bible put into the hands, or per mitted, of the poor, as the first and initiatory book, it is in candour and equal justice due to Dr. Bell, in his "improved" plan, to admit Creeds, Liturgy, and the Church Catechism, in his school, and mode of instruction, in order to have his scholars grounded in sound faith, and upon principles of the Established Church. He who has founded rights will not compromise them; and he who would compromise " religious principles," in times of danger, deism, secession from the church, and even persecution, is like the suppliant in a storm at sea, who would then compound his safety for genuflexion and instant prayer.

It is unnecessary to speak to Mr. L. of Articles, Creeds, Tenets, Rubric, and Formularies, excluded from his plan of education, though he professes "not to prevent instruction in them." He must not escape, however, from notice of his words, and Mr. Pope's wish added to them. Mr. L. had said, "I long to see men who profess Christianity, contend not for Creeds of faith-words and names." Mr. Pope had uttered the same sentiment a century ago. The immediate observation is as obvious as true, "though Mr. Lancaster is a man of sense, he is a Quaker-Mr. Pope, a man of genius, was a Roman Catholic;" and Dr. Bell is a sound member of the Established Church.

There are expressions also, "narrow-minded bigots and alarmists," to be noticed, as terms of intemperate language, used with vehemence, and directed against the firm adherents to ecclesiastical ordinances, and faithful watchmen, who, aware of latent insidiousness (Qui capit ille facit), are prepared against surprise, and by

alertness, misinterpreted for alarm, are ready to repel the open attacks of the adversaries of the Established Church, or, if such there be, of Revealed Religion..

In closing the subject of the Eastern systent, and mode of instructing the poor, less could not be expected from the mind and activity of Mr. Lancaster, or more from the improved plan of Dr. Beli. In commending both, highly and justly, and their exertions, as first and fast friends of the poor, and at length, in preferring the plan of Dr. Bell to that of Mr. Lancaster, we leave it to posterity to be determined, that Mr. L.'s plan was the epoch that ends where the æra of Dr. Bell's improved plan begins: but in the present age, we must all unite in the same wish and hope, that, through the exertions of the two competitors for preference, in doing the most and best for the poor, knowledge" may break forth, and be diffused, as the Sun, " with irradiations of genius and national talents," and that Christianity may be as universal as knowledge in all quarters of the world.

I am, Mr. Urban, of the Church Militant, MILES EMERITUS.

MR. DIBDIN'S BIBLIOMANIA. Mr. URBAN, Feb. 12. AVING received considerable pleasure, as well as information from this entertaining work, I am happy to see your pages, on more occasions than one, doing justice to its merits. I was lately much surprised, on accidentally opening one of our Reviews, among other, what appeared to me, irrelevant observations, to find a particularly frivolous charge brought against the texture of the dialogue. I would ask, in what manner the subject-matter was to be conveyed? Would a dry detail of catalogues, and names of books and dates, have answered the end? Or is it not obvious that many of its. present readers would have been prevented looking into it? Every one must see and acknowledge, that the dialogue is only a convenient vehicle for the more important substance of the notes, and the lively and agreeable manner in which this part is executed, has led many a reader to seek for information upon a subject to which he was before an entire stranger