CHAPTER VI.

Nor half a century has yet elapsed since an idea was very generally entertained in this country, that anything like an intellectual education for the humbler classes was a matter of very doubtful propriety. A monopoly of the higher fruits of intellect, as well as of power, was confined to the aristocracy; and, as knowledge is power, an exclusive possession of the one was equivalent to a retention of the other. It was not, therefore, to be expected that those in authority should have any strong desire to diffuse knowledge among the people. But it poured in upon them from other sources, and, instead of passing downwards to the lower classes, improved methods of education, like most other moral improvements, first took root among them, and are every day bearing fruit upwards. When the delusive excitement under which all classes laboured during the Napoleon wars, had passed away with the return of peace, the light of truth and the love of freedom pervaded the minds of the people, and led them to regard themselves as something higher in the scale of creation than the mere automata of a government. A spirit of moral and religious inquiry was also excited, and more enlarged views of the relative duties between man and man were elicited. In consequence of this a desire for knowledge increased, and led

the people to suggest modes not only of improving themselves, but of moralising and enlightening the neglected poor around them. And in the van of this heavendirected movement, as in all others of any real value, the banner of religion is found unfurled. It was a sense of the moral destitution of the children of the poorer classes, that induced Mr. Raikes of Gloucester, Mr. Fox of London, and other founders of Sunday-schools, to give the first impulse to that benevolent movement. But their early attempts only served to show the vastness of the work they had undertaken. A mass of ignorance was found to pervade the lower orders; that even the rapid spread of Sunday-schools was utterly unable to remove, or to reach. Enough was done, however, to draw down upon the originators of these schools the ire of interested parties. But the more they were persecuted the more the good work flourished; and a foundation of morality being thus laid, a more intellectual edifice arose in the erection of increased numbers of day-schools, and improved modes of instruction. To the formation of Sunday-schools, therefore, may be traced a second revival of letters in this country, and a new intellectual era, even as to the Reformation we are indebted for the first, and a new religious epoch. And not unlike the Reformation in another point, was the persecution these schools sustained at the hands of those opposed to them.

The two most prominent names in connexion with popular education, are those of Joseph Lancaster and Dr. Andrew Bell. The former, a member of the society of Friends, and the son of a private soldier, moved by a benevolent feeling towards the neglected children around his father's dwelling in the Borough Road, Southwark, opened a school, and fitted it up at his own cost, and mostly with his own hands, in which he assembled about

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ninety children. This was in 1798, a period of public distress as well as of public ignorance; and as necessity is said to be the mother of invention, in this instance a remarkable invention was certainly the result. He found it impossible to give all his attention to the crowds of children who came in upon him, and he was too poor to hire the assistance of others; when perhaps some ideas of the "marshalled host" received from his father, suggested the famous monitorial plan, afterwards identified with his name and system of teaching. Soon after this, he attracted the attention of the Duke of Bedford; and in 1805 he had an audience with George the Third, who on that occasion uttered the memorable words, "I wish that every poor child in my dominions may be able to read the Bible."

From 1807 to 1811, it is said, Lancaster travelled over the kingdom well nigh 7000 miles, and lectured to nearly 50,000 persons; and the result of his labours are the very many Lancasterian or British Schools, now established throughout the country, and the central institution of the British and Foreign School Society, which unites and aids them all.

Almost contemporaneously with this effort of Lancaster, (the priority of which, indeed, has been disputed,) and by way of honourable retaliation, a parallel movement was set on foot, and a convenient organ for the purpose was found in Dr. Bell and the Madras system. Hence arose the National School Society. But such an institution cannot with accuracy be called national any more than the former. It is simply, as every one knows, a well-intentioned scheme to teach the doctrines of religion and morality, with a sprinkling of secular instruction to children belonging to the church. This society, however, though it can never be commensurate with the wants

of the country, has also effected, within its own sphere, a vast good.

The British and Foreign School Society, and the National Society, are therefore the only regularly organised schemes for conducting the popular education of the country; but unfortunately they are inherently of so dissimilar a character as to preclude all hopes of their ever acting in concert for one object.

Another and a novel feature of modern education, is the more recent formation of Infant Schools. These seem to derive their origin from the Pastor Oberlin, who appointed teachers in each commune of the Ban de la Roche, and paid them at his own expense. He also procured rooms where children from two to six years of age might be instructed and amused. It is to the honour of Mr. Robert Owen, that, with all his errors, he was the first Englishman to establish an Infant School in this country. Lord Brougham also devoted much of his influence and talents in forwarding the same cause; and Mr. Wilderspin has laboured more than any other, in advocating and founding such establishments. Mr. Wilderspin, however, claims too much credit for his improvements in these schools; for, like many other inventors, he has simply introduced old ideas under new names. As an instance of this, he lays claim to the invention of the arithmeticon, an instrument consisting of a number of balls in a frame of wire, for teaching children to count. This instrument was described in a work on arithmetic by Mr. Friend some sixty years ago, and is, in fact, the same in principle as the abacus of the Romans.

To no one, however, is the cause of early education more indebted for an impulsive movement, than to the amiable but melancholy Swiss, Henry Pestalozzi. In his case, too, as in that of Joseph Lancaster, necessity,

that stern instructress, prompted many of his best plans. He was born at Zurich, in 1745, of poor but respectable parents. A deep dissatisfaction with existing modes of education gave a stimulus to his inquiries; and being himself much a disciple of nature, he reduced his own experience to practice, in the work of instructing others. Having selected about fifty pupils from the very dregs of society, he formed his own house into what might rather be called an asylum than a school, in which these children were provided with food, clothing, and instruction. His object was national, and he desired to show the State how the poor might educate themselves. His plans, however, were defeated; but the beneficial results of his experience are still before the world; and his method of oral instead of book instruction, of realities instead of signs, will form part of every enlightened system of instruction while the world stands.

Since the days of these pioneers in the cause of popular instruction, and by the improvements of others upon their suggestions, light has been streaming in from many sources; and philosophic minds have bent to the task of methodising those principles, and reducing them into the tangible form of a science. But while enlightened modes have been thus elicited, and an apparatus formed so adequate for raising the tone of morals and intelligence through the country, a vast hiatus yet remains to be filled up, in the practical application of these means to the wants of the community. The best instruction is to be had; but the people have it not. The sun shines high in the heavens, but darkness broods over the earth; and the fountains of knowledge are pouring abroad their waters, but the land mourneth and is desolate.

If the conviction, even at the present day, were universal, that the poorer classes ought to be educated, this