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I have very little faith in these positive prognostications. But neither do I pretend to be positive on the other side. I admit there is uncertainty; and I, therefore, suggest what seems reasonably well fitted to such a period of uncertainty.

Into more general topics I shall not now enter. Leases many of you have-any of you can have, as you know, on application; and I have recently provided, for covenants on my estate, a clause for compensation for unexhausted improvements to the tenant, as far as the existing law will admit. I waited only in hopes that the law might be made more effective for the purpose than it is.—I am, etc.

THOUGHTS ON NATIONAL EDUCATION.

(1855.)

AN analogy has been suggested between the position in which the question of National Education has for some time stood, and that of the question of relief to the destitute during the period of tentative legislation which preceded the enactment of the compulsory statutes at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

This analogy seems, in a certain sense, correct. It seems probable that the present generation may see the establishment of compulsory education in schools; and it will on the whole be well if such a measure be followed by as much good and as little evil as the famous statutes above referred to.

It is in the anticipation of such a measure, and in the belief that it ought to be of a character at once more stringent, more simple, and more free, than has yet been proposed, that I venture to add a few observations to the many that have been offered to the country on this subject.

The ground of the above-mentioned comparison is obvious. The alleviation of distress, and prevention of destitution, are among the first and plainest moral duties inculcated by the Christian religion. In the earlier ages of our history they were performed voluntarily, however imperfectly, and as incidents of the feudal and monastic systems. It is needless to refer to the wellknown order of events which undermined and weakened the efficacy of that voluntary principle through a long

The

course of years ending with the sixteenth century. Legislature of this country seems to have striven as long as it could against the inevitable admission of that system of compulsory maintenance of the poor, which on the one hand is most dangerous to their own virtue, and on the other is wholly alien from that principle of religious charity in the giver, of which the very essence is his own free choice. But inevitable it was, unless still greater and more certain evils were to be allowed to remain and increase.

So it is now with education; the incidence of the moral obligation, however, being here in the first instance on parents, instead of the community at large. It is of course the first duty of Christian parents to provide for the teaching and training of their children. It may further be assumed as the general rule that it is their duty, in the state in which this country is, and probably always will be, to provide for it, in the case of children of certain ages, by sending them to school. And when parents, from want of ability or want of enlightenment, do not do this, it is the duty of others more able and more enlightened to persuade and to help them to do it.

Proceeding on these truisms, Parliament and the country have for some time been engaged, in various ways, in stimulating, encouraging, and aiding the right feeling and benevolence of the people to establish and maintain schools, and fill them with scholars. This attempt has met with considerable success, and will no doubt meet with still more; but it will assuredly fall very short of the necessity of the case.

I am not, however, about to reason in favour of the

principle of compulsory education. There are quite facts enough, and arguments enough, before the public on this point. My object is, assuming that the principle will hereafter be admitted, to advert to a few of the details that would require attention in its practical application.

First, it would seem to follow, contrary to what has often been maintained, that education should not be gratuitous to any class as such, but that all should be required to pay for it. We compel parents to it, because it is a duty which they owe to society. They should therefore, when they can, bear its necessary charges.

The analogy of the Poor Law may be again resorted to. Sir John Pakington has lately said that, as the law of England declares that no one shall be destitute, so it ought to declare that no one (no child) shall be ignorant. But let the parallel be carefully adhered to. The law compels every one, as far as it can possibly be done, to supply his own physical wants from his own resources ; and will allow to no one the practical right to gratuitous relief without the most jealous inquiry in order to satisfy its administrators that he cannot provide for himself. This is in order to keep off the ever-threatening evil of the advance of pauperism. Now pauperism is the casting upon the community a legal charge by tax, for the supply of that which we are in duty bound to provide for ourselves. And free education is moral pauperism, just as free relief is physical pauperism. It is no more just or politic, if it can be avoided, that ratepayers should pay for the schooling of a child, than that they should pay for the dinner of that child.

The principle then seems clear, that, prima facie,

every one should be required to bear this burden. Exemptions there must be, to be allowed in individual cases upon careful scrutiny of each such case. In doing this there seems no serious difficulty; but it is part of the practical question of the actual meaning of the establishment of a compulsory system. To a few general remarks on this I now venture to proceed.

I suggest that such a system should be of the simplest kind. Let it be made a punishable offence for any parent or guardian not to send to school, and keep there, any child of a given age; let them be required to pay a certain sum for the schooling of such children; and let them choose freely what school it shall be.

As in the former case, it would be only the general rule that parents should be required to pay, reasonable exemptions being allowed. There may be many reasons which should excuse a parent from sending a child to school; but these would not interfere with the establishment of the general principle.

Considered in this manner, it seems an advantage to this suggestion that its principle has been already recognised and adopted in the well-known provision of the Factory laws, which makes the employment of certain children conditional on their attending some school.* It is plain that, in an essential point of view, this is the same principle. All children are not directed to be sent to school; but virtually a compulsion is exercised, with such exceptions as must always occur, on all the children in a certain district, and in a certain sphere of labour. For, of course, it is sufficient in this question to consider the case of the labouring classes, * 7 and 8 Vict., c. 15, sec. 38.

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