It is a pity that a few thousands cannot be tithed from the vast sums spent on hopeless missions to the heathen for the support of itinerant missionaries to our emigrant countrymen: missionaries who would not disdain to be also schoolmasters. The collection of bibles in many languages in the Great Exhibition was a fine, an impressive sight; but still it is to be regretted that men of piety, rank, wealth, and influence, do not pursue rather the positive and possible than the impossible, and begin by taking care that every child in the bush of Australia shall have and know how to read a bible before sending missionaries to perish in Patagonia, or attempting an impossible Church of England Utopia in Canterbury, New Zealand.
The following are the numbers of the various religious denominations in New South Wales: Church of England, 93,137; Church of Scotland, 18,156; Wesleyan Methodists, 10,000; other Protestants, 6,472; Roman Catholics, 56,899; Jews, 979; Mahomedans and Pagans, 852; other persuasions, 740. The churches which receive State support are the English, the Scotch, the Wesleyan, and the Romish. The respective amounts paid for the year 1850 were as follows: The diocese of Sydney, £12,015 17s. 4d.; the diocese of Newcastle, £4,028 7s. 10d.; the Presbyterian Church, £3,378 1s. 1d.; the Wesleyan Church, 850; and the Roman Catholic Church, £8,159 0s. 9d,; in all about 30,000. In South Australia the places of worship of the Church of England are seventeen; of the Roman Catholics, six; Church of Scotland, seven; Methodists, twelve (having 1,300 Sunday-school scholars); Congregationalists, nine; Baptists, three or four. The Germans have six pastors, and five places where they meet for worship.
Up to 1836 education was as much neglected in Australia as in England, until Lord Brougham commenced the agitation compromised by the establishment of the miscalled national schools. A large proportion of the colonial population consisted of adult convicts, who arrived as ignorant as vicious.
We have already described in Chapter X. how Sir Richard Bourke carried through the Legislative Council, at the time that the church and school lands were surrendered, a measure for founding schools throughout the colony, on the plan of Lord Stanley's (now Earl of Derby) Irish national school system. But the opposition on the part of the late Bishop of Australia was so hot and effective that the local act remained a dead letter, and the moderate per centage of education afforded to the working classes was distributed through denominational or sectarian schools, aided by colonial funds. The result
