ARCHBISHOP MANNING ON EDUCATION.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1870, 30 December 1874, Page 2

ARCHBISHOP MANNING ON EDUCATION.

Dv Manning lately preached two sermons at St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. \Tlie morning sermon wa? on Edu- . cation, and the Archbishop said he could understand no man who professed to be a Christian refusing to believe that to the Church of Jesus Christ had been committed the authority to. educate the people' of the world. They heard of systems of education which were to be universal, comp lsory, free, and secular. There was a great deal in this he was ready to admit, but there was a great deal which he must reject most energetically. There were now theories by which the fath-r was di vested of authority over his child ; the child was held to be the property of a commune or State, and the parents rid thenuelves of their responsibility atid the public must educate it. A more base violation of the Jaws of nature or the. instincts of humanity he could not conceive. No man niiuht dispose of his child, as if that child were not equal to himself in the sight of God. Christian children had a right to the •whole knowledge of the father, of God, and to all the sacraments and means of grace whereby they m ght be saved ; and no power on earth coull come between them and this inheritance without guih before God. Imperial, Jioyal, or public power was nail and roid if it cam© j-ietween a baptised child and this right of its inheritance on earth. Christian edu cation did not mean being taught to read the lettei'3, to cast up figures, and to write. Some of the basest and grossest natures on earth were far more highly instructed in these things than some of the purest and noblest. Let no. man deceive himself by passing off instruction in literary things for education. Tho English were a Christian people because their education was Christian.