These observations refer to many a debated question in psychology, morals, and metaphysicsquestions of specific, difference, of free will, of responsibility, and others, about which much diversity of opinion exists, but the view herein expressed is the one consistent with all knowledge, natural and revealed, and has this advantage over others that, whether men will believe it or not, practically they all adopt it, for the social laws which are necessary to the protection of every man's life and property are founded on the assumption of individual free will and responsibility. But for this assumption it would be most unjust and illogical to punish any offender for any offence, for every criminal would plead irresponsibility and necessity.

Few persons, it is believed, will dispute the influence of teaching and training over the minds of children, and of the power of implanting vigorous and healthy action of the will, commonly called good habits, both in the intellectual and moral constitution of the mind. Few also, it is believed, will disallow the responsibility of parents, and in the absence of parents of society, to fulfil this great and all important duty for the children entrusted to their care. Yet there is probably no stronger example of the extraordinary shortsightedness and perversity of human operations than is exhibited in the common ex

perience of the management of children. Parents of the quickest sensibilities and warmest affections mourn and distress themselves about every little bodily pain and accident befalling their children, but appear to be quite blind and insensible to the danger of evil associations and of bad habits, of the blighting of the noblest faculties, and the deforming growth of the low and criminal ones; they seem to have less dread of the sure sorrow and suffering that must come to them under such circumstances than the dwellers on the brink of craters have of earthquakes. Such is their conduct in this respect that in the light of common-sense it might be supposed that · the object and end of parental rule and nurture was to produce models of vanity and vice, bravos of shame, and leaders of crime.

When we smile at the absurd folly of the bird that, to escape danger, hides its head in the sand, ignorant that it has only shut out the view of the enemy, it would be well to ask ourselves whether, in the most important acts of our lives, we are much wiser than the unreasoning ostrich? For it would seem that we are for ever running away from our real enemies, and blinding our eyes with the dust and rubbish produced by the wear and tear of the machinery of life, leaving all that is vital to take care of itself.

But education and training are not only neces

sary to develope the true ends of our being, they are essential also to the supply of our every-day wants, for whatever employment in life a man may have, he will fulfil its duties better and more successfully in direct proportion to his intelligence, and the goodness of his moral character. So true is this, that it may be confidently affirmed in the case of any healthy man or woman in want, that the cause of their indigence is either ignorance or vice; and as the want of education and the acquirement of vicious habits are generally due to the defect of early teaching and training, so every pauper is a living reproach to his parents, or to the community in which he was born and reared for his helplessness—a reproach which is greater still when, in addition to a pauper, he becomes a criminal.

If such be the importance to individuals and to society of teaching and training the minds of children, and as at that age the responsibility of the work rests, not upon them, but on their parents or in default of parents on the community-it becomes an important question to every responsible subject in the State, as well as to the State itself, to ask, how the duty is performed.

CHAPTER II.

The Evidences of Deficient Education and Training in the Country.

"Sunt lachrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt."

COMMON-SENSE Would lead us to expect that ignorance would be allied to want. Man is introduced into the world under conditions wholly different to those of the animals beneath him; the latter need to follow only the instincts of their nature to live and prosper, but man requires sources of warmth that must be obtained not by instinct but intelligence; and in few parts of the world could he survive without employing the same intelligent faculties to procure and prepare his food and shelter. His fearfully and wonderfully made organism exposes him to more disorder and disease than other creatures; and not instincts, but years of intelligent observation, deduction, and induction have led him to adopt the various

remedies that in so many instances cure those diseases.

It follows that in direct proportion to the elevation and cultivation of his intellect by personal and transmitted experiences, so are his abilities strengthened and multiplied for obtaining the means and appliances of life.

Common-sense, moreover, might predict that as population increased and the arts of civilised life extended, so the standard of intelligence in the masses must be raised if it were expected to keep pace with the increased demands for skilled. labour. Otherwise the members of the community whose subsistence depended on labour or service would be put to great disadvantage in the competition for employment; if they were not trained and educated up to the requirements of the times, it must follow that the incompetent will be left behind to languish in idleness and want the waiters upon charity; or they will become the enemies of law and order, wretched in themselves and scourges to society-paupers in the first case, criminals in the second.

The old excuses for pauperism, that of an overstocked labour market, and of the introduction of machinery rendering human labour unnecessary, are not often repeated now, the fallacies affecting them are too apparent. On the contrary, it is pretty generally acknowledged that the progress