EDUCATION DIMINISHES PAUPERISM AND CRIME.

Education is to be regarded as one of the most important means of eradicating the germs of pauperism from the rising generation, and of securing in the minds and in the morals of the people the best protection for the institutions of society.-DR. JAMES PHILLIPS KAY, Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner, and Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education.*

The different countries of the world, if arranged according to the state of education in them, will be found to be arranged also according to WEALTH, MORALS, and GENERAL HAPPINESS; at the same time, THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE, AND THE EXTENT OF CRIME AND VIOLENCE AMONG THEM, FOLLOW A LIKE ORDER.-NATIONAL EDUCATION, by Fred. Hill, London.

That education increases the productiveness of labor has been already conclusively established. It has also been incidentally shown that mere knowledge, valuable as it is to the laborer, is not the only advantage derived from a good common school education, but that the better educated, as a class, possess a higher and better state of morals, and are more orderly and respectful in their deportment than the uninstructed; and that for those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly goods, the most effectual way of making insurance on their property would be, to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and constituting it a police more effective than peace officers or prisons. If, then, poverty is at once a cause and an effect of crime, as is stated by a late writer, who has mad an extended survey of the relative state of instruction and social welfare in the leading nations of the world, it is directly inferable that ed

* Quoted from the Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the Training of Pauper Children, London, 1841.

+ Fred. Hill, author of National Education, whose testimony is quoted at the head of this article.

ucation will, and, from the nature of the case, must act in a compound ratio in diminishing both pauperism and crime.

This proposition is not received by a few individuals merely in comparatively unimportant communities: it is one which is generally adopted by enlightened practical educators and by liberal-minded capitalists of both hemispheres. The views of several of our principal American manufacturers have been already presented. Let us now direct our attention to the testimony of enlightened and liberal-minded capitalists residing in some of the transatlantic states.

William Fairbrain, Esq., the sole proprietor of a manufactory in Manchester, and part owner of another establishment in London, and who has between eleven. and twelve hundred persons in his employ, remarks in relation to the habits of the educated and uneducated as follows: There is no doubt that the educated are more sober and less dissipated than the uneducated. During the hours of recreation, the younger portion of the educated workmen indulge more in reading and mental pleasures; they attend more at reading-rooms, and avail themselves of the facilities afforded by libraries, by scientific lectures, and by lyceums. The older of the more educated workmen spend their time chiefly with their families, reading and walking out with them. The time of the uneducated classes is spent very differently, and chiefly in the grosser sensual indulgences. Mr. Fairbrain has given his own time as president of a lyceum for the use of the working classes, which furnishes the means of instruction in arithmetic, mathematics, drawing, and mensuration, and by lectures. In these institutions liberal provision is very properly made, not only for the occupation of the leisure hours of the laborers themselves, and for their intellectual and

social improvement, but for that of their wives and families, in order "to make the home comfortable, and to minister to the household recreation and amusement: this is a point of view in which the education of the wives of laboring men is really of very great importance, that they may be rational companions for men."* Albert G. Escher, Esq., one of the firm of Escher, Wyss, and Co., of Zurich, Switzerland, remarks as follows: We employ from six to eight hundred men in our machine-making establishment at Zurich: we also employ about two hundred men in our cotton-mills there, and about five hundred men in our cotton manufactories in the Tyrol and in Italy. I have occasionally had the control of from five to six hundred men engaged in engineering operations as builders, masons, etc., and men of the class called navigators in England.

After giving a list of the different countries from which his laborers are drawn, classifying the workmen of various nations "in respect to such natural intelligence as may be distinguished from any intelligence imparted by the labors of the schoolmaster," and remarking in relation to the influence of education upon the value of labor-where his testimony corroborates that of manufacturers in New England, already quoted -the same gentleman makes a statement which is applicable to the subject under consideration.

"The better educated workmen, we find, are distinguished by superior moral habits in every respect. In the first place, they are entirely sober; they are discreet in their enjoyments, which are of a more rational and refined kind; they are more refined themselves, and they have a taste for much better society, which they

* See evidence taken by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., Secretary to the Poor-Law Commissioners, a quotation from whose report heads this article.

approach respectfully, and consequently find much readier admittance to it; they cultivate music; they read; they enjoy the pleasures of scenery, and make parties for excursions into the country; they are economical, and their economy extends beyond their own purse to the stock of their master; they are consequently honest and trustworthy."

Scotland affords a very striking illustration of the power of education in diminishing pauperism and crime, and in improving the morals and increasing the wealth of a country. Indeed, it would be difficult to find another instance in the history of nations of a country which has made such rapid progress in the diminution of crime, the increase of public wealth, and the diffusion of comforts, as Scotland. And this gratifying change this remarkable instance of progress in the scale of being, has been concurrent with increased and increasing attention to the education of the people.

At the beginning of the last century, Scotland swarmed with gipsies and other vagabonds, who lived chiefly by stealing, and who often committed violent robberies and murders. Of these pests to society it was estimated that there were not less than two hundred thousand. Besides these, there were the more gentlemanly, though less tolerable robbers, such as the notorious Rob Roy, who made no more ado about seizing another man's cattle than a grazier does of driving from market a drove of oxen for which he has paid every shilling demanded.

But now, the laying aside of a sum sufficient for the education of his children is an object which a Scotchman seldom loses sight of, both when he thinks of marrying and settling in life, and at every future period; and it is to this habit, handed down from father to son, that the Scotch owe their morality. One of their own

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writers says, "we have scarcely any rural population who are not perfectly aware of the importance of education, and not willing to make sacrifices to secure it to their children."

Having seen something of the excellence of education in improving the social and moral habits of a community, and in banishing pauperism and crime from among those who become the happy subjects of its uplifting power, let us, for the purpose of becoming more alive to its importance, consider the condition of a péople where the masses are not brought under its benign influence.

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Spain, which has been already referred to in illustration of the evils of ignorance, affords a striking illustration for our present purpose. Until after the lapse of one third of the present century, there was but ONE newspaper published in this country! 'Yes, one miserable government gazette was the sole channel through which twelve or fourteen millions of people, spread over a vast territory, were to be supplied with information on the momentous affairs of their own country, and of the whole external world."-National Education, vol. ii., p. 136.

"The most authentic return of the number of children receiving education in Spain was made in the year 1803, and it is believed that but little change has taken place since that time. According to the returns, the number of children receiving education, exclusive of those brought up in convents and monasteries, was only one in every three hundred and forty-six of the population! M. Jonnés estimates the population at about fourteen millions and a half, and assuming, as he does, that about the same fraction of the population is receiving education as in 1803, he estimates the present number of children in school in the whole of Spain at