We have in the country at present as many Dissenters as Episcopalians, yet it is a rare thing in a chapel to find a person who cannot read. Instead of only 1-277th being all that Dissenters teach, we have reason to believe, from their numbers, their attachment to education, their dread of ignorance, and their activity, that they are at this moment teaching as large if not a larger, number than the members of the Established Church. In the county of Chester alone, in which diocese Mr. Page finds only an average of one-thirtieth under the daily tuition of the Church, Mr. Baines reports one-fourteenth as receiving daily tuition in the schools of all denominations, and one-sixth of the entire population instructed in the Sabbathschools of Dissenters; and if we subtract the one-thirtieth of Mr. Page from the onefourteenth of Mr. Baines, we find that the other denominations in Cheshire are doing more for the daily tuition of the people than the Church of England. Now we have reason to conclude that the Dissenters of Cheshire are not much more active than the Dissenters of the other parts of the empire; so that they are, therefore, to say the least, as zealous throughout the country as their Episcopalian neighbours in the cause of general education. From these calculations and arguments, it is tolerably clear that one-tenth of the people is enrolled in day-schools, and that Dissenters are as diligent in this good cause as their Episcopalian fellow-citizens. In some places, doubtless, the Church outnumbers the Dissenters; and there is many a parish in which there is a National dayschool attached to the church, and no dayschool belonging to the chapel. Still, either from home or private tuition, the children of other denominations obtain as good a daily education as those of the Church of England. There are several things that conduce to this. The Dissenters profess to take the Scriptures as their creed; their members are expected to teach their families, and to pray extempore: hence to read and understand the Bible, and to be able to instruct their families in its sacred truths, is an object most ardently sought after by the great majority of their members. They are often also assailed by those that differ from them; and this whets their intellects, and makes them labour and study to be "skilful in the word of righteousness." By 66 reasoning out of the Scriptures" they greatly advance their education. They have also to pray extempore in their families and chapels; and they are taught that to worship acceptably, they must pray with their spirits and understandings also;" consequently they have in this exercise a course of mental and spiritual discipline. Without at all entering on the question of the expediency of forms of prayer, we feel assured 66 that the introduction of the Prayer Book among Dissenters would deprive them of one of their most efficient branches of intellectual and spiritual education. The young people among Dissenters also are encouraged to labour to the utmost to fit themselves to be useful. Some qualify themselves to become Sabbath-school teachers; others, as they advance in life, are employed as class-leaders, visitors of the sick, or itinerant preachers. To prepare themselves for these stations, they read and study a great deal, form book-societies, meet for mutual improvement, assemble in Bible classes, grammar and geography classes; and often do this under the superintendence of their ministers. The working of Dissent requires the talents and exertions of all the people; and to work effectively, it must have the efforts of an educated people; and therefore both ministers and members feel that their existence and success depend upon a good Scriptural education. Hence though there may be more National schools than British or Dissenting schools, still there is a constant system of daily education going on among Dissenters, which often very much surpasses in intellectual and moral value what is given by the Episcopalian schoolmaster I have not before me, and I query whether there is as yet in the country, any exact estimate of the number of Dissenting and Episcopalian day-schools. My own impression,-from having visited a considerable portion of the country, both agricultural and manufacturing, and from having had, for many years past, popular education deeply at heart, my own impression is, that there are more National schools than public Dissenting day-schools; so that numerically speaking, as far as school-rooms are concerned, the Church has the pre-eminence; but still from having narrowly watched the working of Episcopalianism and Dissent, I am persuaded that Dissenters are doing much more every day of their lives to arouse the intellects of the people, and make them rationally and Scripturally moral and religious, than is at present being done by the great majority of the clergy. The week-day services at chapel, and the character of those meetings, give an education to the people which is of infinite advantage in quickening their thoughtfulness. Then among Dissenters there is no recognised aristocracy except that of mind and piety; and hence the road to eminence is open to all. It is particularly impressed upon all, that to a moral agent character is everything. The glory of God is his character. The glory of Jesus Christ is his character. The glory of angels, of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, was their character. Hence the young. people, as they are growing up, have these truths continually impressed upon their minds. They are shown the connection between thought and character; that they must 66 work out their salvation;" that they must study the Scriptures, and pray over them daily; that, to understand the Word of God, they must read other books, and obtain as much valuable knowledge as possible. The Bible is the germ of a far more extensive encyclopædia than has ever yet been published. These facts and duties being repeatedly laid before the people, it is not at all unusual to find great efforts at self-improvement going on from the age of fifteen to thirty; and as the mind during this period has more stamina and vigour, the knowledge obtained is more abiding and influential than what was gained in earlier years. I offer these remarks, not from any desire to exalt one denomination above another (alas, we have none of us done much as yet!), but merely as historical facts, and to show that in estimating the amount of daily tuition, we must not confine our attention to the bare number of National schools. Mr. Page, the National School Reports, and the Government Inspectors, all agree in showing, that hitherto the great majority of National schoolmasters have been very imperfect teachers. Some of them, it is allowed, have been grossi, ignorant and imI have known those who generally moral. spent their evenings in a pothouse, and whose mental character was not one shade better than their morals. In giving the report of such parishes, it might be said that "there were National day-schools, but that the Dissenters had no public daily school." This of course would be correct; and yet, at the same time, it could be shown, that the Dissenters in those very localities were receiving a better intellectual and moral education than the children belonging to the Church. We After all, the future, rather than the past, should chiefly occupy our attention. may justly "forget the things that are behind," and should now "reach forward to those which are before." All parties, with very few exceptions, have been awfully culpable; and hence the present degraded condition of so large a portion of the people. That not more than one-tenth of the population should be under daily tuition, is a foul blot on our country. From five to fifteen, there ought at least to be one-fourth. I know that in this opinion I differ from many, and especially from Mr. Baines. His judgment is, that only one-eighth of the people can be at school at the same time, because some may be sick; some confined at home, looking after the family; and some at work. He also states, that the children of the middle classes are not kept at school for ten years. It may perhaps throw a little light on this subject, if we just glance at 1 in 7 1 in 7 1 in 7 1 in 8 1 in 8 15. Grand Duchy of Baden (1830) 1 in 6 16. Province of Dreuthe (1835) 1 in 6 17. Province of Overyssel (1835). 1 in 6.2 19. Friesland (1835) 18. Canton of Neufchatel (1832). 1 in 6.4 20. Wurtemberg (1830) 1 in 6.8 21. Denmark (1834) 23. Scotland (1834) 22. Norway (1834) 25. Holland (1835) 24. Bavaria (1831). 26. Pennsylvania 27. Switzerland, Zurich, Berne, Basle, Schaffhausen, Argau, Vaud, Neufchâtel, Geneva Geneva (1834) 28. Austria (1832). 29. Belgium (1836) 30. England (1833) 31. Lombardy (1832). 33. France (1834) . 32. Ireland (1831). 1 in 8.3 1 in 9 1 in 9 Recent investigations have shown that this table is not far from the truth."6 Laing's Norway, Sweden, and Notes of a Traveller," "Reid and Matheson's Narrative of a Visit to the American Churches," "Sturge's Visit to the United States," &c. &c., prove to us that these statistics are tolerably correct. Now if Prussia can educate one-sixth of her people; if Saxony, Bohemia, the Canton of Zurich, &c., can instruct one-fifth of the population; if in several States of America one-fourth of the inhabitants are at school, what is to prevent England from having as large a proportion of her subjects under tuition as the United States? I cannot think that either of Mr. Baines's causes is sufficient to sanction the great difference between one-fourth and one-eighth. 1. The children which are detained at home from illness are generally very few. " give us a really educated people, and we shall have that mutual self-respect which will prove one of the best guardians of morality. Besides, females who set sufficient value upon their happiness, to refuse to change their condition until they have the Where the room is properly built and ven- | tilated, and the instruction made as interesting and animating as it ought to be, school exercise will be found to be eminently conducive to health. In the school under my own more immediate inspection we rarely have a sickly child. Sometimes an unhealthy-prospect of being able to superintend their looking lad or girl is enrolled on the book, but one month's attendance is generally quite sufficient to brighten up the countenance with health and intelligence. Children have minds as well as bodies, and when both are properly exercised, disease is not a frequent intruder. It is probable that as many persons become ill from want of learning as from neglect of walking. 2. It is granted that great numbers are kept at home, especially girls, to look after the family while the parents are at work; and probably of the names inserted in our school entries not more than three-fourths can be stated as the average attendance. We believe that this estimate is not far from the truth, and therefore that from the onetenth which we have given as the number at present on our various school-books, at least one-fourth must be deducted for absentees. But this is not the point-we must not subscribe to the sentiment, that "Whatever is, is right." The real question is, what ought to be the proportion kept at home for domestic purposes? And the reply should be, "None." The work which children under fifteen years of age have to do, should be so arranged as not to interfere with their school hours. Mothers of families ought not to go out to work. In America, it is asserted by a competent eye-witness that not a woman engages in agricultural labour. In the Reports of the Commissioners appointed to make inquiries respecting "Women and Children employed in Agriculture," it is more than once stated, that mothers gain nothing by going out to work. I have for some years paid attention to this subject, both in agricultural and manufacturing districts, and have generally seen the supposed good more than counterbalanced by the attendant evils. In many cases I have known a shilling gained at the loss of more than double its amount; and even when some pecuniary advantage has been obtained, the sad moral consequences, arising from the absence of maternal superintendence, have been very appalling. Youths of both sexes have been entirely ruined for life, solely because their mothers were not able to watch over their early years. Were females educated as they ought to be, no young woman would think of marrying until a fair prospect has been secured of having the means of being the guardian of her offspring. Some tell us that early marriages are necessary to check vice; but households, and make their husbands and children happy, will not allow themselves to become the victims of the seducer, nor the property of the dissipated. Not only are families great losers by having mothers sent to the fields or factories, but the country at large sustains an irreparable injury. Children who are deprived of parental guidance not unfrequently grow up the pests of society. The history of crime, and of the parentage of criminals, is one of the most instructive of narratives. Were we to ransack our jails and haunts of dissipation, we should find that few, if any, of the unhappy inmates or frequenters of these places, were ever blessed with the superintendence of intellectual and pious mothers. It is therefore a sorry kind of economy that dooms the parent to forsake her children, in order that she may earn her daily bread. The nation is a great loser by this parsimony: it has to pay back in poor-rates, and for the support of prisons, policemen, judges, soldiers, &c., a far greater sum than is ever earned by these mothers. Children, therefore, ought neither to be robbed of their education nor of maternal care. If they must stay at home, then they ought, in a particular manner, to have their mothers at home with them. By depriving them of their mothers and of their education, we inflict on these innocents a double scourge; besides, what kind of citizens are we to expect, if an unruly, uneducated boy or girl is appointed the sole domestic guardian of the younger branches of the family? When we consider to what an extent we have gone in this folly and wickedness, it seems little less than a miracle that our country is not far more ignorant and vicious than it really is. 3. It is argued, that parents cannot afford to allow their children to go to school for a very long period, and that the young ought to begin to earn their bread as early as possible; but, we may ask, how is it that Bohemia, Saxony, and Switzerland, can keep one-fifth of the population at school? How is it that Prussia can instruct one-sixth, and America one-fourth? To say that these nations are richer or more liberal than we are, would be to offer a great offence to our national pride. We boast of being the richest, and most benevolent and nobleminded people upon earth; and it will be allowed that the incomes of many of our merchants, manufacturers, and landowners are much greater than the revenues of some foreign princes. To plead that provisions are dearer, is to assert that those who de mand the right of supplying the country with food, and who have generally immense incomes, demand an exorbitant price for the produce of their fields, and refuse to let the people buy in a cheaper market. The land in England is not taxed so highly as in other countries, and therefore the only reason that can be given for dear provision is, that the wealthy monopolists of the staff of life exact enormous rents. Because they demand high wages for land, the people must pay so much for their food, as to be unable to afford time for the proper education of their children, and therefore to the Moloch of rent we sacrifice the minds and morals of the rising generation. These hecatombs at the shrine of avarice are very sorry proofs of our nobility and generosity. But it is said, not only provisions are high, but wages are low, and therefore children must go to work, instead of going to school. We know that wages are a good deal regulated by the demand for labour. If there are many hands out of work, aud but few hands wanted, wages are generally low, and vice verså. But still we do not state the whole truth, if we assert that the cause mentioned above is the only one that regulates the remuneration of the peasant and operative. There may be an avaricious spirit in the employer, prompting him to exact as much labour as possible for the very smallest minimum of wages; or there may be a covetous disposition in the purchaser, refusing to pay a fair price for what is bought; and as a consequence, either of these vile practices may very greatly affect the wages of the labourer. | traders in provisions, in any of the markets on the Continent. He can therefore have no apology in the world for paying those who cultivate his fields at so low a rate as to rob the youth on his estates of a proper education. He cannot say that his income is small. Not a few landowners have an immense revenue from their possessions. A gentleman who has 60,000l. a year can hardly plead poverty as the reason that the labourers on his farms have to starve on eight shillings a week. If he lowered his income one half, and spent the whole in wages, and in improving the human stock on his estates, yet even then he would not be a pauper. For if his hind can live and maintain a family on 207. or 301. a year, surely he might contrive to subsist on 30,0007. If the peasant can support his wife and children on ten shillings a week, the fellowmortal, whose land he tills, ought to be contented with 5767. per week. In fact, let the income be what it may, those who cultivate the land, and thus produce all the agricultural wealth in the country, ought to have sufficient wages to enable them to keep their wives at home to look after their houses, and to allow their children to be well educated. There can then be no valid argument produced to prove that one-fourth of the population in agricultural districts cannot be kept regularly at school. With all our overflowing riches, and vaunted liberality and honour, we ought to blush at the thought that Saxony, Prussia, or the long-maligned Americans should be able to give a better education to their citizens than we can to ours. It may be said, that the same arguments cannot apply to commercial and manufacturIn agricultural districts, it is universally ing districts that may be brought home to the allowed that wages are low; indeed so low, conscience of the landowner. It is objected that mothers are obliged to forsake their that the former are more heavily taxed, have offspring, and repair to the fields to earn a limited market, and to contend with contheir daily bread, and children are also con- stant competition. There is much force in demned to the same occupation at a very these remarks, and of course equity suggests early period. I have before me, in the that taxation should be equalized, and that Report of the Commissioners on the "Em- those who are willing to supply the wants of ployment of Women and Children in Agricul- the world, ought not, for the sake of a few ture," testimony upon testimony, that in individuals, who have already immense anconsequence of the great poverty of agricul- nual incomes, to have their trade fettered. tural labourers, their children are compelled Competition ought also not to proceed so far to go to work, instead of going to school. as to rob the labourer of his wages and the Eight, nine, and ten years of age, is a very means of educating his offspring. Purchasers, common period; but some as early as six or Christian purchasers, ought to blush at the seven are sent to the fields. Now there thought of buying the produce of labour at a ought to be no necessity for this; for there price which will starve the operative. It is is no justifiable reason either for low wages painful to reflect how many there are who or poverty in agricultural districts. The never practice economy except when paying manufacturer sometimes pleads that compe- for the productions of the skill and toil of the tition and a limited market diminish his artizan and mechanic. For every article profits, and prevent his doing all he could bought at less than its real value, there is a wish for the operative; but the landowner cry for vengeance, which enters into the has neither of these excuses. The corn laws "ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth." And have protected him from competition, and the merchant or manufacturer who, to accugiven him a market for all his produce, and mulate a large annual revenue, oppresses enabled him to put a higher price on his the hireling in his wages," will have an commodities than is charged by his brother-awful account to settle at the bar of God. If 66 "to increase in riches" he has robbed the young of the means of education, his treasure, in a far blacker sense than that of Judas, is the "price of blood." We never think without horror of the moment when Alexander or Napoleon had to face the victims of their ambition in another world; and our forebodings are equally gloomy, when we contemplate the awful scene that must be presented when the landowner, the merchant, and the manufacturer have to meet at the bar of God the myriads of immortal beings whom their avarice and ambition doomed to ignorance, vice, and everlasting perdition. “Go to, now," saith St. James, "ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." We fear this text has not been preached from hardly more than once in a century by any state priests since the days of James. It is fashionable now for ministers to congratulate those who are growing wealthy, and St. Luke's, rather than a pulpit, would be deemed the fitter place for him who should call on the rich "to weep and howl." These solemn truths might be enlarged upon to a much greater extent, but enough has been stated to show that we are just as able to keep one-fourth of the population at school as the Americans. We are as wealthy as they, we have as many resources as they, and we ought to have as much humanity and equity. The education of the people is a question of justice. To give the people time and means to fit themselves for earth and heaven ought never to be mentioned among the categories of charity. Justice, even-handed justice, demands this of the nation. We ought surely to hesitate before we scorn the niggardly republicans of the other hemisphere, or the tyrannical monarchies of Europe, if with our boasted constitutional liberties, and untold riches, we dole out a pitiable education to only one-tenth of our population. It is said that if we give the people the means of education, by allowing them wages and time, yet they are too ignorant or indifferent to use them. The same parties used to tell us that the blacks would not work nor even gather the spontaneous productions of the earth unless urged thereto bythe incentives of slavery and the cart-whip. These representations are as true in one case as in the other. We have never seen an instance in which the advantages of education were fairly pointed out, and proper facilities for obtaining them afforded, without the boon being hailed with delight. The following is the testimony of an operative :-"Whatever," he says, "the great may think of us, the poor have hearts of flesh; and while I could afford it I kept my wife at her fireside, where a British mother ought to be, to take care of the younger children, and I sent my two boys to school that the reproach might be taken from our nation that we send our children to work before they can read their Bibles; and my daughter was taught those useful arts that might make her one day a good wife to an honest man. As for myself, I was as happy as the day was long, and we all met at the evening meal with contentment and mutual joy." The same individual added, that when provisions rose and his income decreased, he had "to take his boys from school," "his girl from her needle," "his wife from her infants;" all had to go to work, and the family had to be intrusted to the care of a hireling. The children were now left to a 66 stranger's guidance." This is not a solitary case. We generally find that when all the means are afforded, the parents very readily avail themselves of the advantages of education. Of course where not only ignorance but poverty, almost approaching to starvation, prevails, we must not wonder if bread is preferred to knowledge. But let the physical wants of the people be supplied, and the benefits of education pointed out, and we shall not find parents objecting to have one-fourth of the population kept at school. I have under my own eye, at this moment, the children of operatives who are still at a day-school although much beyond their fifteenth year. Hence we see that the remuneration for labour is not altogether unconnected with national education. It has been said that unless children are sent to work early they will become idle. There is no foundation for this objection. Schools might be connected with industry. In all rural districts there might be good agricultural schools. In other parts, tuition might be associated with labour of different kinds, and thus the training rendered perfect. Witness, for example, Lady Byron's school at Ealing. In many cases parents might variously and profitably occupy their children during a portion of the day, and do it in such a manner as not to interfere with school exercises. But even could not this be done, we feel assured that minds properly trained until their fifteenth year would then be much more qualified to apply to any kind of labour, and make far better servants and operatives than those who, without any mental or moral culture, are almost in infancy driven to toil for their daily bread. Youths left in ignorance and vice until they are fifteen may then be unfit for anything |