done by the Government, not to train and prepare the people for the exercise of popular rights, but to wean them from the wish, and fighten them from the attempt to attain them? Who, that looks with any moderate degree of candour on the pitiful shifts by which Prussia has sought to evade the performance of her engagements to her subjects, and on the prompt and decided part she has taken in the proceedings of the Holy Alliance, can doubt for a moment how these questions are to be answered? The policy which she is pursuing, we are indeed persuaded, is a short-sighted and ruinous one, and will, we trust, lead speedily to its own confusion; but that it is, in principle and design, an illiberal and truly tyrannical policy, we cannot allow to be doubted, -nor withhold this expression of our wonder at the doubts of the intelligent writer before us.

Though we do not think him altogether sound in his politics, however, we have no suspicion of his candour in the statement. of ficts, or the liberality of his general views; and indeed could desire no other materials for the refutation of his practical and particular errors, than the facts he has furnished, and the principles he has avowed. The greater part of his book, however, has nothing to do with politics; and though we refrain from any farther extracts, we can safely assure the great body of our idle readers, that they will find the bulk of it much more amusing than the specimens we have last exhibted.

ART. V. Hints to Philanthropists; or a Collective View of Practical Means of Improving the Condition of the Poor and Labouring Classes of Society. By WILLIAM DAVIS.

THE

HE subject of Popular Education has frequently engaged our attention since the commencement of this Journal; but we have hitherto confined ourselves to the great fundamental branch of the question,-the provisions for elementary instruction, by schools in which the poor may be taught reading and writing, and thus furnished with the means of acquiring knowledge. We are desirous now of pursuing this inquiry into its other branch-the application of those means the use of those instruments-the manner in which the working classes of the community may be most effectually and safely assisted in improving their minds by scientific acquirements.

-

But, first, we would guard against the supposition that we are assuming sufficient provision to have been made for elementary education, when we direct the reader's attention to its

higher departments. There is no reason whatever for postponing the consideration of the latter until the former shall be completed. On the contrary, the deficiency now existing in the proportion of schools to the population of the country, would in all probability be much diminished, if useful knowledge were diffused among all those who have already learnt to read. The greater use they make of this acquirement, the more widely will the desire of having it be spread; the better informed a large portion of the people becomes, the more difficult will it be for narrow-minded men to keep any part of their countrymen in ignorance. Nay, the direct operation of knowledge will tend to eradicate ignorance. A father of a family who can barely read, and has turned this talent to little account in improving his mind, may leave his children uneducated, unless the means of instruction are afforded him by the State, or by some other charity; but one who has made some progress in science, or in acquiring general information, will rather sacrifice any personal comfort than suffer his children to be uneducated; and will take care that, in some way or other, they obtain that instruction to which his own improvement is owing. It is very far, therefore, from being true, that we should wait till schools are provided for all, and till all can read, before we consider how those who can read may best turn that faculty to account. A superficial view of the subject can alone make any one believe that the latter inquiry is premature, if it precedes the universal establishment of elementary education. The planting of schools for the young, and assisting those more advanced in their studies, are works that may well go on together, and must aid each other.

The fundamental principle which chiefly merits attention in discussing this subject, is, that the interference of the Government may be not only safe but advantageous, and even necessary, in providing the means of elementary education for children; but that no such interference can be tolerated, to the smallest extent, with the subsequent instruction of the people. If a child be only taught to read and write, it is extremely immaterial by whom, or on what terms he is put in possession of the instruments by which knowledge may be acquired. It would, no doubt, be a gross act of oppression, if the Government were to spend part of the money raised from the people at large, in forming schools from which, by the regulations, certain classes of the community should be excluded. But if those schools are only so constructed that all may enter, no dangerous influence can result to the government, and no undue bias be communicated to the minds of the children, by having them

taught the art of reading in seminaries connected with the establishment in Church and State. It is far otherwise with the use that way afterwards be made of the tools thus acquired. Once suffer the least interference with that, and the government has made a step towards absolute power, and may, with a little address, and in a short time, if unresisted, reach its journey's end. Such a jealousy as we are here inculcating, is the more essentially necessary in a country where the existence of an established church, with its appendages of universities and publick schools, has already thrown religious instruction into the hands of a particular class, and given the government great influence over the education, generally, of the higher classes. In such a community, any interference with the diffusion of knowledge among the great body of the people would be pregnant with the most fatal consequences both to civil and religious liberty. It is manifest, that the people themselves must be the great agents in accomplishing the work of their own education. less they are thoroughly impressed with a sense of its usefulness, and resolved to make some sacrifices for the acquisition of it, there can be no reasonable prospect of this grand object being attained. But it is equally clear, that to wait until the whole people with one accord take the determination to labour in this good work, would be endless. A portion of the community may be sensible of its advantages, and willing at any fair price to seek them, long before the same laudable feeling becomes universal; and their successful efforts to better their intellectual condition cannot fail to spread more widely the love of knowledge, and the contempt for vulgar and sensual gratifications.

Un

But although the people must be the source and the instruments of their own improvement, they may be essentially aided in their efforts to instruct themselves. Difficulties which might be sufficient to damp or wholly to obstruct their progress, may be removed; and efforts which, unassisted, would perhaps prove a transient, or only a partial enthusiasm for the attainment of knowledge, may, with judicious encouragement, be made both a lasting and an universal habit. A little attention to the difficulties that principally beset the poor in their search after information, will at once lead us to the knowledge of those wants in which their more affluent neighbours can lend them most va

luable assistance.

Their difficulties may all be classed under one or other of two heads-want of money and want of time. To the first belongs the difficulty of obtaining those books and instructors which persons in easy circumstances can command; and to the

second, it is owing that the same books and instructors are not adapted to them, which suffice to teach persons who have leisure to go through the whole course of any given branch of science. It is also owing to their habitual occupation, that in some lines of employment, there is hardly a possibility of finding any time for acquiring knowledge. This is particularly the case with those whose labour is severe, or, though less severe, yet in the open air, for here the tendency to sleep immediately after it ceases, and the greater portion of sleep required, oppose very serious obstacles to instruction.

The first method, then, that suggests itself for promoting knowledge among the poor, is the encouragement of cheap publications; and in no country is this more wanted than in Great Britain, where, with all our boasted expertness in manufactures, we have never succeeded in printing books at so little as double the price required by our neighbours on the Continent. gown, which any where else would cost a guinea, may be made in this country for half a crown; but a volume, fully as well or better printed, and on paper which, if not as fine, is quite fine enough, and far more agreeable to the eyes, than could be bought in London for half a guinea, costs only six francs, or less than five shillings at Paris. The high price of labour in a trade where so little can be done, or at least is done by machinery, is one of the causes of this difference. But the direct tax upon paper is another; and the determination to print upon paper of a certain price is a third; and the aversion to crowd the page is a fourth. Now all of these, except the first, may be got over. The duty on paper is threepence a pound, which must increase the price of an octavo volume eightpence or ninepence; and this upon paper of every kind, and printing of every kind; so that if by whatever means the price of a book were reduced to the lowest, say to three or four shillings, about a fourth or a fifth must be added for the tax; and this book, brought as low as possible to accommodate the poor man, with the coarsest paper and most ordinary type, must pay exactly as much to government as the finest hot-pressed work of the same size. This tax ought, therefore, by all means, to be given up; but though, from its being the same upon all paper used in printing, no part of it can be saved by using coarse paper, much of it may be saved by crowding the letterpress, and having a very narrow margin. This experiment has been tried of late'in London, upon a considerable scale; but it may easily be carried a great deal further. Thus, Hume's History has been begun; and one volume, containing about two and a half of the former editions, has been published. It

is sold for six shillings and sixpence; but it contains a great number of cuts neatly executed; the paper is much better than is necessary, and the printing is perfectly well done. Were the cuts omitted, and the most ordinary paper and type used, the price might be reduced to 4s. or 4s. 6d. ; and a book might thus be sold for 12s. or 14s., which now costs perhaps two or three pounds. The method of publishing in numbers is admirably suited to the circumstances of the poor. Twopence is easily saved in a week by almost any labourer; and by a mechanic sixpence in a week may without difficulty be laid by. Those who have not attended to these matters, ( the simple annals of the poor,') would be astonished to find how substantial a meal of information may be had by twopenny-worths. Seven numbers, for fourteen pence, comprise Franklin's Life and Essays; and thirty for a crown, the whole of the Arabian Nights. But in looking over the list of those cheap publications, we certainly do not find many that are of a very instructive cast; and here it is that something may be done by way of encouragement. That the demand for books, cheap as well as dear, must tend to produce them, no one doubts; but then it is equally certain, that the publication of cheap books increases the number of readers among the poor; and we can hardly conceive a greater benefit being rendered to them than those would confer, who should make a judicious selection from our best authors upon ethics, politics and history, and promote cheap editions of them in numbers, without waiting until the demand was such as to make the sale a matter of perfect certainty. Lord John Russell, in his excellent and instructive speech upon Parliamentary Reform, delivered in 1822, stated, that an establishment was ' commenced a few years ago, by a number of individuals, with a capital of not less than a million, for the purpose of printing 'standard works at a cheap rate;' and he added, that it had been very much checked in its operation by one of those acts for the suppression of knowledge which were passed in the year 1819, although one of its rules was not to allow the venders of its works to sell any book on the political controversies of the day.' The only part of this plan which we can see the least objection to, is the restriction upon politicks. Why should not political, as well as all other works, be published in a cheap form, and in numbers? That history, the nature of the constitution, the doctrines of political economy, may safely be disseminated in this shape, no man now-a-days will be hardy enough to deny. Some points connected with those subjects are matter of pretty warm contention in the present times, and yet these may be freely handled, it seems, with safety;

6