It appears to your Committee impossible not to see that the very essence of a denominational system is to leave the majority uneducated in order thoroughly to imbue the minority with peculiar tenets. It is a system always tending to excess or defect, the natural result of which is, that wherever one school is founded, two or three others will arise, not because they are wanted, but because it is feared that proselytes will be made; and thus a superfluous activity is produced in one place and a total stagnation in another. It is a system impossible to be carried out in a thinly inhabited country, as many of its firmest advocates have admitted to your Committee, and being exclusively in the hands of clergy, it places the State in an awkward dilemma of either supplying money whose expenditure it is not permitted to regulate, or of interfering between the clergy and their superiors to the manifest derangement of the whole ecclesiastical polity.

It has, indeed, been suggested to your Committee that a denominational system might be allowed to continue in Sydney and the larger towns, while a general one was adopted for the County Districts, but your Committee cannot yield to this suggestion; convinced as they are of the superiority of a general to a denominational system, and conceiving, for reasons to be stated hereafter, that the present denominational schools may place themselves under the Government Board of Education, and thus continue to derive support from the public funds, without the slightest surrender of principle, your Committee have thought it better to recominend that one uniform system shall be established for the whole of the Colony, and that an adherence to that system shall be made the indispens able condition under which alone public aid will be granted.

Your Committee have had under their consideration two General Systems of Education: the British and Foreign System, and Lord Stanley's system of National Education; the first of these appears to them to be surrounded with insurmountable difficulties. These difficulties are stated in Mr. Secretary Stanley's letter to the Duke of Leinster of October 1831. The determination to enforce in all their schools the reading of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, was undoubtedly taken with the purest motives; with the wish at once to combine religious with moral and literary education, and at the same time not to run the risk of wounding the peculiar feelings of any sect by catechetical instruction or comments which might tend to subjects of polemical controversy. But it seemed to have been overlooked that the principles of the Roman Catholic Church were totally at variance with this principle, and that the reading of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, by children must be peculiarly obnoxious to a Church which denies even to adults the right of unaided private interpretation of the sacred volume, in articles of religious belief. These views are borne out by the experience of this colony. When the British and Foreign System was proposed in 1839, it was not supposed the Roman Catholics could join in it, and it was intended that a separate system should be established for them. Your Committee are not prepared to recommend a renewal of this project,

which would perpetuate that which they are most anxious to avoid-the denominational character of public education.

Your Committee have decided to recommend to the Council Lord Stanley's system of national education, the only plan sufficiently comprehensive to include both Protestant and Catholic. This system was devised to carry out the recommendation of a committee of the House of Commons in 1828, that a system should be adopted which should afford if possible a combined literary and a separate religious education, and should be capable of being so far adapted to the views of different religious persuasions as to render it in truth a system of National Education for the lower classes of the community.' The key-stone of the system is a Board composed of men of high personal character, professing different religious opinions. This Board exercises a complete control over the schools erected under its auspices, or which, having been already established, place themselves under its management and receive its assistance. The following are the conditions under which aid is granted :

1. The ordinary school business-during which all the children of whatever denomination they be are required to attend, and which is expected to embrace a competent number of hours in each day is to consist exclusively of instruction in those branches which belong to a literary and moral education. Such extracts from Scripture as are prepared under the sanction of the Board may be used, and are earnestly recommended by the Board to be used during those hours allotted to this ordinary school business.

2. One day at least in each week (independently of the Sunday) is to be set apart for the religious instruction of the children, on which day such pastors, or other persons as are approved of by the parents or guardians of the children, shall have access to them for that purpose, whether those pastors have signed the original application or not.

3. The managers of schools are also expected, should the parents of any of the children desire it, to afford convenient opportunity and facility for the same purpose, either before or after the ordinary school business (as the managers may determine), on other days of the week.

4. Any arrangement of this description that may be made is to be publicly notified in the schools, in order that those children, and those only, may be present at the religious instruction, whose parents and guardians approve of their being so.

5. The reading of the Scriptures, either in the Authorised or Douay Version, is regarded as a religious exercise, and as such is to be confined to those times which are set apart for religious instruction; the same regulation is also to be observed respecting prayer.

The following passage from the Eighth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, being their report for the year 1841, will also tend to explain the nature of the religious instruction imparted under this system: It seems still to be supposed that we prescribe the studies to be pursued in all national schools, and that we exclude the Scriptures; but

the reverse is the fact; it belongs not to us, but to the local patrons of each to determine the course of instruction to be given therein, subject only to a power in us to prohibit the use of any books which we may deem improper, and so far are we from prohibiting the use of the Scriptures that we expressly recognise the right of all patrons to have them used for the purpose of religious instruction in whatever way they may think proper, provided that each school be open to poor children of all communions, that due regard be had to parental right and authority; therefore that no child be compelled to attend, or be present at any religious instruction to which his parents or guardians object, and that the time for giving it be so fixed that no child be thereby in effect excluded, directly or indirectly, from the other advantages which the school affords. We may add that in very many of the national schools religious instruction is given day by day, as it may be in all if the patrons think proper, by means both of the Holy Scriptures and of the approved Catechisms of the Church to which both the children receiving it belong; but the times for reading the Holy Scriptures and for Catechetical instruction are so arranged as not to interfere with or impede the scientific or secular business of the school; and no child whose parents or guardians object is required to be present or take part in those exercises. Still further to show how unwarrantable it is to represent us as excluding instruction by means of the Holy Scriptures, we request your Excellency's attention to the following extracts from the preface to the Scripture lessons which we have published. These selections are offered not as a substitute for the sacred volume itself, but as an introduction to it, and they have been compiled in the hope of their leading to a more general and more profitable perusal of the Word of God.'

"The Board of Commissioners earnestly and unanimously recommend these lessons to be used in all schools receiving aid from them. And to the religious instructors of the children they cheerfully leave, in communicating instruction, the use of the sacred volume itself, as containing those doctrines and precepts, a knowledge of which must be at the foundation of all true religion. The Law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls; the testimony of the Lord is faithful, giving wisdom to little ones.'

Your Committee would beg to lay before the Council one more passage extracted from a communication from Lord Stanley to the Synod of Ulster His Majesty's Government fully recognises the right of all who choose it to read the Sacred Scriptures, but the exercise of this right in the case of infants must be subject to the control of their parents and natural guardians, and in point of time in the national, as in all other schools, it must be limited by the appropriation of certain hours to certain other branches of study.'

From these extracts your Committee think it will be manifest that the national system is not fairly open to the charge of neglecting religious instruction. It teaches in the ordinary school hours as much of the truths of religion as can be imparted, without entering on controverted subjects, and it offers every facility and encouragement in its power to induce the

teachers of the different denominations to fill up the outline by communicating to the children those peculiar doctrines which the nature of a general system forbids it to teach. Your Committee cannot but hope that religious teachers of all denominations will feel that this is the direction in which their activity can be most profitably employed, and that they are far more likely to contribute to the spread of true religion and the dissemination of their own opinions, by co-operating than by competing with this system, which, as it teaches nothing hostile to any sect, and excludes none from teaching their own doctrines, deserves the hostility of none.

It has been the good fortune of this system to disarm many opponents and to convert them into its advocates. As an example of this your Committee have much pleasure in referring to the evidence of the Rev. Mr. Saunders (p. 95) who, with others, opposed this system in 1836, and who now most earnestly recommends it. Of the secular instruction communicated under this system, your Committee do not think it necessary to speak at large. The school books have been compiled with the most admirable care and judgment, and will save much trouble to those in whose hands the management of the system shall be placed.

Your Committee have appended to their report (see Appendix) several documents with the view of giving the Council the amplest information in their power, and they feel well convinced that the inore the plan is examined the more favourably will it be viewed.

Your Committee also trusts that that part of the Protestant community which would have preferred the British and Foreign System will appreciate the spirit of fairness and impartiality to all parties which has actuated them in their present recommendation, and will rather join in promoting a scheme which falls somewhat short of their wishes, than throw obstacles in the way of the only practicable scheme of general instruction. Your Committee also trust that Christians of all denominations will feel that the adoption of this system will tend to soften down sectarian feelings, and to the promotion of union, toleration, and charity. 'In order to carry out their recommendation, your Committee think that a Board should be appointed by the Governor, of persons favourable to the plan proposed, and possessing the confidence of the different denominations. For the success of the undertaking must depend upon the character of the individuals who compose the Board: and upon the security thereby afforded to the country that while the interests of religion are not overlooked, the most scrupulous care shall be taken not to interfere with the peculiar tenets of any description of Christian pupils.'

To this Board it will probably be necessary to attach a salaried secretary; they should be invested with a very wide discretion as to the arrangements necessary for carrying the system into effect, and all funds to be henceforth applied for the purpose of education should be administered by them. When such a Board is once constituted, it will be easy for them to select from the mass of valuable information and suggestion contained in the evidence appended to this Report principles to guide them in the execution of their duty.

Your Committee are unwilling to forestall the deliberations of this Board, but they venture to express a hope that, notwithstanding the evidence of many witnesses to the contrary, no compulsion will ever be employed to induce parents to send their children to school. Such a measure is hostile to the liberty of the subject and would infallibly rouse a spirit of determined opposition.

Your Committee are not prepared to recommend the establishment of local Boards of Education, conceiving that a central Board with an efficient system of inspection will produce results more uniform and satisfactory.

The foundation of a Normal or Model School in Sydney, for the training of schoolmasters, appears to your Committee to be an indispensable step; and the establishment of some general principle, or proportion, according to which the funds of the State are to be advanced, will merit their most serious attention.

Your Committee trusts that measures will be taken to counteract the spread of ignorance beyond the limits of location by the appointment of itinerant preachers, and by the distribution of books of a moral and religious tendency, free from sectarianism. They would also call attention to the suggestion made by several of the witnesses with regard to the establishment of Industrial schools, which, if practicable, would seem to be the fittest training that could be devised for an Australian settler.

Your Committee would also express their opinion, that if it is intended that education should be valued, it must not be gratuitous, at least to those who can pay for it.

Your Committee trusts that the liberality of the Legislature will not allow this important object to fail for want of the requisite pecuniary aid. This aid, they hope, will not exceed by a very large amount the sum now annually devoted to education, and they feel fully convinced that no money can be expended by a State to better advantage than that which is appropriated to such a purpose.

Your Committee think that this Board should be incorporated, in order that all property required for educational purposes may vest in them, by which the trouble and expense necessarily attending the vesting of property in trustees will be avoided.

Legislative Council Chambers, Sydney:

August 28, 1844.

ROBERT LOWE, Chairman.