"The measure is assuredly one of the mildest which we can adopt if we retreat at all from the present system. It may, indeed, be deemed too little of a reform, and censured as "a solecism against the simple and powerful policies of nature;" inasmuch as it involves, equally with the present mode, the undertaking to feed all the children of the poor. "It is much for the law to say, that no man's child shall starve; it is certainly too much, that it should also provide that the child shall be subsisted in the mode most agreeable to the parents, and so that no more inconvenience shall be sustained on its account, than if the parents had fulfilled their natural duties towards it. To enable them to do this, by an adequate addition to their income, is to put a pauper in a better situation than any other member of society, since some inconvenience, deprivation, or degradation follows in almost all but the very highest ranks, the birth of a numerous family. Inconveniences, and afflictions indeed, of the very nature of the present suggestion, are felt by parents in the middling classes; many of the public establishments, of which persons of moderate incomes are desirous of availing themselves, require separation at a considerable distance, and submission to rules offensive and irksome. At an age somewhat later, a banishment to distant and unhealthy climes is often the only resource. Few fathers can insure to their children a continuance in the rank of society in which they were born. In the case of the very poorest, there would be no lower degree but actual starvation; that the law attempts to prevent-not because this lowest class has a right to be exempted from the general inconvenience, but because, in such a case, the evil would be more severe than humanity allows us to contemplate,

"Yet I cannot but think it most probable, that much less of misery would be sustained by children in the proposed schools, than the most liberal administration of the Poor Laws would otherwise prevent by money payments. Large as are the sums allowed, there is still unquestionably much of squalid poverty, and much suffering from disease amongst numerous families in general. In the schools attention would doubtless be paid to the health and personal cleanliness of the children, and much more of filth and misery withdrawn from the habitations of the poor than the pecuniary allowance now averts. The inexpediency of the proposal might, perhaps, fairly be grounded, rather upon its mildness and consequent inefficiency, than upon the harshness of its pressure upon the people.'-pp. 54-56.

"Were this suggestion carried into effect, a main distinction ought tà be made between the honest and the profligate poor; and the children of the former should in no case be taken from the parents unless it were the parents' own desire: though the public ought to educate, and is bound to maintain them. The children of good parents are best situated where they are under their parents' care. In the case of profligate families' children they can learn nothing but evil-removal ought to be the condition of relief. But where children, either by the death or the notorious profligacy of their actual protectors, are thus thrown upon the public for parental care as well as for support, parental authority devolves upon the public also; which would best consult its own interest,

and that of the children, if, instead of binding them out at the proper age as parish apprentices, it should send them to the colonies, providing for them thus as part of a well arranged system of regular emigration. Even in an Utopian parish it would only be needful to suppose a regular inspection of the school by the salaried overseer, or the select vestry, and a little of that notice and that attention toward the children, on the part of the clergyman and the wealthier inhabitants, which kind hearts find a pleasure in bestowing."-vol. ii. pp. 139–142.

We venture to dissent from this opinion in the most decided terms. Of all attempts to improve the condition of the poor, none have so grossly failed as those which proceed upon the principle of taking away their children and educating them in schools and workhouses. The fact is notorious to every tradesman in London. Almost all of them will testify that children brought up in workhouses, or in schools where they are shut up and boarded and clothed, are in nine cases out of ten good for nothing. Even when the superintendence is permanently good, which it very rarely can be, the system itself spoils the child; and such as know what they are about will take no such child into their service. We observe that a question upon this subject has been introduced into the Queries circulated by the Commissioners for Inquiring into the Poor Laws. It is to be hoped that their ob ject is to call forth answers unfavourable to the proposed plan, for we could give no other name than that of a great national calamity to its adoption.

There is one other point connected with the education of the poor to which we must briefly advert; the quantum of instruction which they ought to receive, and do receive, and the means which exist, and may be provided for bringing these amounts nearer to each other than they are at present. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, the elements of Christian knowledge, and an accurate acquaintance with scripture history, are taught, as has been already said, in every well conducted national school. And we believe there are few such schools in which the knowledge of the pupil rises much above this level. It is certain that a great deal more might be taught to a boy or girl of average abilities in the course of four years; and the consequence is that neither master nor scholar has sufficient motives for diligence--both grow tired with the unvarying repetition of the same lessons, and it is well if the sameness does not terminate in disgust, and produce an actual dislike for the Bible, and for religious instruction in general. At all events the attention of the children is not excited, nor their diligence stimulated, nor their thirst for knowledge gratified. If we wish to make them fond of reading, this is not the method to effect our purpose. If we wish to attach them to their instruc

tors and so establish a gentle influence which may controul them in after life—surely this is not the best instrument for such an operation. If we wish to put them upon their guard against the mischievous publications which must fall in their way, to prepare them against the assaults of the infidel and the demagogue, and enable them to give an answer to such as would persuade them that idleness, vice, irreligion, and turbulence, were better worth cultivating than industry, virtue, religion, and contentment, surely a lad fresh from a national school, and knowing nothing more than what is generally taught there, is not prepared as he ought to be, and might be, for so fearful a conflict.

It may be said, no doubt, that although the quantum of instruction communicated at present in our schools be, as we represent it, small, yet that the deficiency in this respect is counterbalanced by the excellence of the principles which are circulated, and of the habits which are formed in these institutions. And we admit that there is weight in this observation,-provided good principles are firmly implanted, and good habits adopted and persevered in, the amount of actual knowledge acquired may be regarded as a secondary consideration. But what we contend for is, that good principles and good habits are not to be so surely produced under a system of education exclusively religious, as under one which combines general with scriptural knowledge. The children in a school, especially in a large school, are not made religious and moral by mere religious and moral lessons, any more than they are made attentive and diligent by a mere call to attention. It is necessary, in the first place, to make them like what they are about, to interest their hearts in the instruction which they receive. It is necessary, in the second place, to let them feel the pleasure and reward of doing right, and the pain and disgrace of doing wrong. It is necessary, in the third place, to make them understand that these results will follow regularly from the line of conduct which they pursue, be it good or bad. Nor is it possible that all this should be done for two or three, or perhaps five or six hundred boys, by a single master, unless the system itself does half the work to his hand. The initiating steps in education have been made plain in the infant schools, and it is now beyond dispute, that the alphabet may be learned without having recourse to compulsion. The second steps in the progress may be most materially facilitated by giving the children lessons which they can understand and like; and as their education advances, nine out of ten may be made fond of reading by supplying them with a succession of entertaining books. But then this entertainment can only be furnished by extending our limits far beyond the mere study of the Scriptures ; and then it becomes necessary to teach Ancient and Modern

History, Natural History, and Geography, even if we have no further object in view than to make the children like their lessons and their teachers. And this is not mere theory unsupported by experiment. The Sessional schools in Edinburgh, of which we gave some account in our last number, have clearly demonstrated the truth for which we are contending. And Mr. Wood has shewn what, upon a small scale, our own experience teuds also strongly to confirm, that the most indispensable preliminary is to be secured, and the greatest of all difficulties to be overcome more speedily and more completely by introducing a variety of amusing and instructive works into the general business of a school, than by any other plan that has been hitherto devised. The hearty good will and liking of the children towards their school and their school-master, is the true starting post in all systems of education. And those who begin any where else begin at the wrong end.

These facts tend to establish the general position for which we are contending in this article, namely, that the poor require more attention from the rich than they have hitherto received. For children quitting school after such an education as that which has been recommended, will immediately stand in need of an increased supply of mental food, and that too of a very different description from what they are at present provided with-and over and above all that can be done by books, a well-educated people will be qualified to receive instruction now totally beyond their reach, from the visits and conversations of those who are raised above them by knowledge, property, or station. The extent to which books of general instruction and amusement may be circulated among the labouring classes is now no longer a secret, and when their previous education has prepared them to read such books with all the benefit that can be derived from them, fresh demands will be made upon the writing portion of the human race for works calculated to interest and improve their fellow creatures.

With these sentiments we sincerely rejoice at the step recently taken by a Society intimately connected with the National and all other charity schools, we mean the appointment by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of a Special Committee for the express purpose of preparing and publishing works of general literature and education. The Useful Knowledge Society has already entered on the same field, and, with a few exceptions, has performed its work in a very satisfactory manner. But it is pledged to abstain from communicating religious instruction, and any formal avowed separation of useful from Christian knowledge is liable to so many objections, that general satisfaction has

been expressed at the attempt which is now making to bring them into closer connection than before. The establishment and the character of the Saturday Magazine has afforded an encouraging specimen of what may be expected from the new Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. They have an ample field for their labours, and if adequately supported by those who ought to take an interest in the improvement of the people, they promise to become the instrument of extensive and lasting good.

Yet education is not the field in which the most is now required to be done, much less is it that in which least has been attempted. Individual exertion and private benevolence have been manifested in that direction for many years, and to a great extent, and with an abundant return. But can this be said

when our attention is turned to the administration and actual effects of the Poor Laws, or to the provisions now existing for the punishment and prevention of crime? The former subject alone can hardly be approached without a feeling of dismay and almost of despair, naturally arising from the dismal vastness of the prospect. Not only is the present state of the law for the relief of the poor the foulest blot upon the escutcheon of England, but it is so deeply, if not so indelibly, impressed, as to require no ordinary boldness even to attempt its removal, and removed, we firmly believe, it will never be by any mere legislative enactment. The magnitude and difficulty of the undertaking seem to have paralysed all who have hitherto taken it in hand, and great as is our confidence in the Commission recently appointed for inquiring once more into the subject, we can anticipate nothing in the shape of direct or immediate parliamentary interference which will reach the root of the disease. The more violent symptoms may be palliated, the gangrenous portions of the decaying mass may be cut away, but unless thousands of active influential citizens can be persuaded to put their shoulders to the wheel, and change the existing system by a complete change in the administration of it, we entertain no hope of improvement in any degree commensurate with the evil..

The subject is far too extensive to be discussed in a few short pages, and we refer to it more for the sake of exemplifying the proposition which we are endeavouring to establish, than in the hope of saying what is new or in itself of any material importance. In fact, upon the more pressing and difficult portion of the subject, that, namely, which relates to the agricultural districts, we are not prepared to offer a single suggestion. Our remarks, slight as they are, must be confined almost exclusively to towns