CHAPTER III.-THE EFFORTS OF SOCIETY AND THE STATE TO MITIGATE THE EVILS OF DEFICIENT EDUCATION AND TRAINING.

The children of the poor, instead of reinforcing the strength and progress of the country, are trained or neglected for evil or destruction, 48-49-The early stage of humanity represents a force with a small beginning, but an infinite extension for benefit or mischief, 49-Origin of the Poor-Laws, 49-The repressive policy of the Poor-Laws, 50-Dr. Richardson's inquiries into the management of workhouses, 50-53-Origin of charity schools, 53-Of Sunday-schools, 54-Of Lancasterian schools, 54-Of the national society for educating the poor, 54-The Charity Commission and Education Grants, 54-The Home and Colonial school society, the voluntary school society, the congregational board of education, and ragged-schools, 55-The action of the Poor-Law Board, 55— District and separate schools, 56-Distribution of children in workhouse, district, and parish schools, 57-60-Denison's Act, 61 -The State aid to education, its method and machinery, 62-64-Its results and cost, 64-66-Review of Revised Code, its merits and its failures, 66-74-The causes of failure, 75-76,

CHAPTER IV.-SCHEME FOR THE GENERAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

The inferences deduced from a consideration of parental and social responsibility, the large amount of pauperism and crime in the country, and from the failure of the public means employed to mitigate it, 77-78-The necessity for a compulsory law, 78-79The example of Prussia and other foreign countries, 79-80-The authority of Mr. Mill, 81-83-Arguments in support of the opinion that Government should intervene, 83-84-In what spirit should Government intervene, and what should be the scope of its enactment, 85-86-The school age; the number of children within the school age, and what number are found under education, 86-89— Anticipation of objections, 89-Scheme for supplying the pecuniary means to carry out a general requirement for education, 91School fees; voluntary subscriptions; Government rewards for results; child labour; and rate in aid for parochial schools, 92-94 -How to defray the cost of the Government machinery, 94-The education and training, its method and mechanism, 94-97-The amount to be paid by Government in rewards for results, 97-The different kinds of elementary schools, endowed, denominational, self-supporting, normal, and parochial, 98-100-Recapitulation of claims for the consideration of this scheme, 100-105.-Interferences with the appropriate action of education and training, 105-108.

PREFACE.

If an apology be required of a Physician for publishing views on a subject not directly connected with the science of medicine, he may fairly plead that no man's daily path in life is beset with more abundant evidence of the countless ills which flow from the want of education and training, and common humanity alone would supply him with sufficient motive for the emphatic utterance of his testimony; but love of country and anxious thought upon the stirring and troubled times in prospect, may also excuse the public expression of strong convictions respecting a question of paramount importance to the welfare of the community.

John Stuart Mill has said-"Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that others should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his

name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself, and use his mind on the subject." *

That the times are stirring and demand the thought and work of all the friends of order and true progress, is manifest by a very little reflection. If we were ignorant of the facts, and were told that the human race with all its inherent love of power and conquest, had flourished on this scene for many thousand years without making any very important addition to its physical and advancing forces; and then suddenly within the last fifty years had experienced a development of power which enabled men to travel three or four times faster than they ever could before; to carry burdens fifty or a hundred times heavier than their predecessors, and to speak to each other through intervening spaces many thousand times more apart than before, not to speak of other important accessions, such as to the powers of offence and defence and of the beautiful services of light,—such a statement would be thought incredible and absurd.

The warriors of science who captured for us. the invisible and imponderable forces of heat, light, and electricity, and turned them to our use, could never have imagined the importance of their victories, nor the extent of the revolutions they

* Inaugural Address at St. Andrews, 1867.

But

would effect in the material, social, and political institutions of the world. They could not foresee the flood of letters and literature that would overflow the population as a consequence of the operation of those discoveries, nor could they predict a result evident now-the rousing into activity the spirit of human progress in the masses. so it is, and like all forces that make up for the insignificance of the individual units by the preponderance of numbers, it already constitutes a power which cannot be arrested. Capable alike of advance and retrogression, according to the nature of the directing influence, it knows neither rest nor fixity; agitation signals its approach, noise and tumult attend its march, and the ancient barriers of rank, wealth, and arbitrary law no more resist its attack than do wooden walls the

modern missiles. Denied a free passage, the explosive force of heat may engulph a city by earthquake, or smother it in lava and ashes; but well directed it ministers with equal efficacy to the health and happiness of man. It is not otherwise with the force of popular movement,— once set in action no ordinary influence can arrest its course,-laws and constitutions may fall before it, and beneath its desolating flood it may destroy kingdoms and bury the cultiva tion and the treasures of ages. But when well directed and controlled this same force becomes

harmless and benign, it increases the stability of governments, it will heighten the glory and enlarge the usefulness of all that is sacred, good, and venerable.

What then is the controlling influence? Where is the cunningly devised engine that will hold and safely employ for the general benefit this irresistible force ?

The controlling influence is the superior force of truth, and the engine is education and training.