382 ENGLISH SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 



fair share: so you see, we wouldn't work any longer, and cursed and 

 swore at our betters. Well, these same papers taught us that we 

 might be masters if we would, because as how we were twenty to 

 one ; and so as I said, work we wouldn't, as we had learnt that we 

 must be kept out of the rates ; so you see we gave over slaving, and 

 got may-be a shilling a week a-head. Well, as the rents were 

 high, and as the rates got higher and higher, the farmers were clean 

 done over, and got more machines, and what not ; but as we were 

 too poor to buy their stuff why we determined nobody else should ; 

 and so you see we next began to break these machines; and when 

 they found we came over them that gate, why they sold their stuff in 

 the lump; and so to make matters short, and to help us to our own, 

 we burnt their stacks and any thing else that would burn ; for you 

 see if we can drive them out, we shall have fine times again." 



" Well, my friend, your tale is a melancholy one : from it, it ap- 

 pears that your education has taught you the means of being mis- 

 chievous. You describe yourselves as degenerating from a happy 

 and contented race of men, to criminality and poverty. It seems to 

 me, that those who enabled you to read should have enabled you 

 also to distinguish good from bad, and, in place of leaving you to 

 the machinations of evil and desperate men, have followed up their 

 efforts by teaching you your proper station, with its many advan- 

 tages, and pointing out how these might have been improved." 



" Well, that from a foreigner does sound sensible ; but then, you 

 see, you are not one of us, and so may be mistaken." 



" No, my friend, the dictates of common sense are applicable to all 

 countries alike ; and they tell me that the course you are pursuing 

 must end in wide-spreading misery. As a man who has seen some- 

 thing of human life and its complicated affairs, let me advise you 

 rather to work for your own support and that of your family, than to 

 read ; or if you do read, read your Bible. The result of your im- 

 perfect education has been literally afire-brand, and its farther fruit 

 will be heading, hanging, and transportation." 



" Well, really, for a foreigner, you speak to the purpose I wish 

 some of our leaders had the same sense, for I am afraid you speak 

 truth." 



" Be assured, I do speak the truth : you are losing all sense of 

 independence, for a slavery of the most sordid and base kind ; and 

 the best thing you can pray for is a return to your ancient condition. 

 I wish you farewell." 



Such, said I to myself, as I pursued my walk back to the town, 

 are the fruits of teaching the *' ready-my-daisy," and lecturing on 

 orreries and languages in place of moral instruction. Surely this 

 is a singular people, and, in this instance, mistake the means for the 

 end. They would, I presume, make a warrior by placing a sword 

 in his hand ; and an astronomer, by giving an ignorant boor a tele- 

 scope ; forgetting that the first might be used to the injury of the 

 man's neighbours, and that the only use of the second would be to 

 amuse the rustic by inciting him to gaze at distant objects, in place of 

 minding his daily toil. 



In the evening I got into one of the public conveyances, and, 



