384 ENGLISH SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 



am an enemy to education if it mean teaching; reading and writing*, 

 and no more : these go for nothing', if unaided by morals. The end 

 of education ought to be to make mankind fully aware of its 

 duties; and to open sources of innocent recreation, to occupy those 

 hours not devoted to our active duties. I would therefore educate 

 every man according to his station in society, and give him that 

 species of knowledge which such station demands. To say that read- 

 ing and writing are requisite to enable the poor man to perform his 

 duties, I hold to be an absurdity. If it be said that these are given 

 as a means to an end well and good ; but that end ought to be at- 

 tained. The position of the labouring poor is in general such, that 

 of themselves they cannot and will not pursue these means; and to 

 leave them in this position a prey to whosoever may choose to mis- 

 lead them, is little less than diabolical cruelty. In their natural state 

 of ignorance, with the ties of dependence in full force, they will do 

 well enough ; but they would do still better if, in addition to these 

 ties, they had superadded that degree of education which is needful for 

 them : and this is to teach them their true position, to point out how 

 and in what manner they form part of the great social chain ; and to 

 enable them to improve to the utmost their advantages ; and to bear 

 as lightly as possible their disadvantages; to make them in short 

 moral and religious. Their cup of life has in it much that is neces- 

 sarily bitter and unpalatable ; but to tell them this, and be for ever 

 calling their attention to it, is to make it nauseous and disgusting : 



" There may be in the cup 

 A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 

 And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge 

 Is not infected ; but if one present 

 The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 

 What he hath drunk, or must drink," 



this is to fill him with irrepressible loathing; and yet such has been 

 the result of education in this remarkable country upon the poor. If 

 it should ever be my lot to witness efforts of the same nature in my 

 own country, my voice shall not be wanting to point out its un- 

 avoidable evils. 



I assure my readers that the above is a plain unvarnished state- 

 ment of facts. I have " extenuated nothing, nor aught set down in 

 malice ; " for my heart was filled with grief from seeing so noble 

 an institution as public instruction thus vilely profaned. 



