is,
something worse than mere denomination would scarce fail to step in.
The Combeite might then freely come forward to teach at the public
expense, that no other soul of man has yet been ascertained to exist
than the human brain, and no other superintending Providence than the
blind laws of insensate matter. Nay, even Socialism, just a little
disguised, might begin to build and teach for the benefit of the
young, secure of being backed and assisted in its work by the civil
magistrate. Further, should the grant scheme be rendered more
flexible, _i.e._ extended to a lower grade of qualification, and thus
the public purse be applied to the maintenance and perpetuation of a
hedge-school system of education,--or should it be rendered more
liberal, _i.e._ should the Government be induced to do proportionally
more, and the school-builders be required to do proportionally
less,--superstition and infidelity would, in the carrying out of their
schemes of perversion, have, in consequence, just all the less to
sacrifice and to acquire. According to the present arrangement, a
schoolmaster must realize, from salary and fees united, the sum of
forty-five annual pounds, and be, besides, furnished with a free
house, ere he can receive from the Government a grant on its lowest
scale, viz. fifteen pounds;{9} and whatever judgment may be formed of
the proportion in which the State contributes, there can be no
question that the general arrangement is a wise one. Sermonizing
dominies could be had, no doubt, at any price; and there can be as
little doubt that, at any price, would the great bulk of them turn out
to be '_doons hard bargains_;' but it is wholly impossible that a
country should have respectable and efficient teachers under from
sixty to eighty pounds a year. The thing, we repeat, is wholly
impossible; and the State, in acting, as in this arrangement, on the
conviction, does but its duty to its people. The some sixty or seventy
pounds, however, would be as certainly realized as under the present
arrangement, were it Government that contributed the forty-five
pounds, and the denomination or society the fifteen and the free
house; and this, of course, would be eminently liberal. But what would
be the effects of so happy a change? It might in some degree relieve
the Free Church Scheme from financial difficulty; but would it do
nothing more? There are Puseyite ladies in Scotland, high in rank and
influence, and possessed of much weal