EDITOR'S TABLE. 



6 97 



wealth and social station. " Gentle- 

 men " (!) of education (save the mark ! ) 

 and leisure have employed, annually, in 

 the corruption of female youth and 

 childhood, sums that would have af- 

 forded decent maintenance to numbers 

 of poor families. Men whose own con- 

 dition of life had been made in every 

 way desirable, so far as money could ac- 

 complish that object, have found noth- 

 ing better to do than to employ their 

 means in spreading moral contagion 

 and destruction among the families of 

 the poor. Men who boast the name of 

 Englishmen have thought it not be- 

 neath them to trade in the souls and 

 bodies of unfortunate children. Eng- 

 land, as a nation, struck the manacles 

 from the hands of her negro slaves 

 over fifty years ago ; but some English- 

 men to-day, belonging to the most fa- 

 vored social class, do not hesitate to 

 practice, upon weaker members of their 

 own race, crimes worse than those 

 which made slavery a hissing and an 

 abomination among the civilized races 

 of mankind. 



It is needless, however, to dwell fur- 

 ther on the facts. Words can but feebly 

 express the shame and horror that they 

 involve. "What we may do with ad- 

 vantage is to consider whence such 

 evils spring, and what is their most 

 effectual remedy. 



As regards the unhappy victims of 

 the rich man's lust, there is an eco- 

 nomic side to the problem which is 

 doubtless difficult to deal with. That 

 the pressure of life should be so hard 

 upon some, as to render the path of 

 virtue one almost impossible to tread, 

 is in itself an evil of the first magni- 

 tude, and one which a more fully de- 

 veloped economic science must some 

 day grapple with. The efforts at pres- 

 ent being made, under the guidance of 

 a purely sentimental impulse, to pro- 

 vide improved dwellings for the poor, 

 and in other ways to force on them 

 higher modes of living, we do not, we 

 must confess, regard as very hopeful. 

 It is seldom that the state succeeds in 



paying Peter without robbing Paul, or 

 in closing the door to one social abuse 

 without opening it to another and per- 

 chance a greater. The economic prob- 

 lem, however, is not the only one to 

 consider, nor is it perhaps the most im- 

 portant. The educational problem de- 

 mands equal and more immediate atten- 

 tion, seeing that the knowledge neces- 

 sary for its solution is immediately 

 available. As every one is aware, a 

 vast amount has been done for popular 

 education in England within the last 

 fifteen years; yet it is precisely the 

 children who have been growing up 

 during the last fifteen years who are 

 furnishing prey for the "Minotaurs" 

 and other scoundrels of the metropolis. 

 The theory of state education is that 

 the state is bound to see that its juve- 

 nile members do not grow up ignorant, 

 and, as a result of ignorance, prone to 

 vice. It is also held that the state owes 

 it to every youthful citizen to furnish him 

 or her with such elements of education 

 as may be needed to fit them for employ- 

 ments requiring a knowledge of reading 

 and writing. From the latter point of 

 view reading and writing are looked 

 upon in the light of tools ; but why the 

 state should be required to furnish men- 

 tal tools rather than material ones to 

 furnish the child's head with the multi- 

 plication-table, but not to provide his 

 hands with saw, axe, or hammer has 

 never, to our mind, been entirely evi- 

 dent. It seems to us that if the state 

 is to educate, the whole strain and stress 

 of its effort should be to produce good 

 citizens ; not to fit this boy for a count- 

 ing-house or that girl for a position as 

 " salesdndy," but to impart to both that 

 knowledge and imbue both with those 

 principles that make for the right order- 

 ing of life and for the good of society. 

 The multiplication-table and the rules 

 of grammar may be found valuable aids 

 to these all-important objects we do 

 not say they are not but we insist that 

 they should be looked upon and treated 

 as means always, as ends never ; and as 

 means to no other objects than the ones 



