EDUCATION OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 79 



public mind they have so long been labouring to implant. So great 

 indeed has been the interest manifested by nearly all classes of 

 people in this country within the last few years, that no doubt can 

 exist in the minds of any, that have at all turned their attention to this 

 subject, but that we are on the eve of a great and radical change in 

 the means provided for the education of the children of the poor. 

 Through the darkness in which the mental horizon has been so long 

 enveloped — through the mists of ignorance and superstition in which 

 mankind have been too long contented to exist, rays of light have 

 at length begim to penetrate, faint and feeble at present though they 

 be, yet sufficient to point out more clearly than we have hitherto 

 been able to see, the confusion of things around, and give a spur 

 and incentive to the exertions of those good men through whose 

 instiumentality we have been enabled to march thus far and lead the 

 mind to hope for, nay more, to predict the time when the sun of 

 education shall have arisen with all the effulgence of noon-day 

 splendour; when its cheering rays shall have penetrated and illumined 

 every obscure cot. As the natural sun at its rising doth dispel the 

 mists of morning, diffusing life through the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms, calling into existence energies and powers which for awhile 

 have laid dormant, so we may predict that a like kindly and benign in- 

 fluence will be exerted upon the minds of many who either from preju- 

 dice or ignorance of facts at present stand aloof, and by tlieir very non- 

 identification with this movement present an obstruction to the 

 otherwise rapid progress which education would make. 



I propose first to call your attention to the state of crime and 

 ignorance at present existing in a few of our principal towns, and 

 from the returns I have obtained to show the very intimate connection 

 existing between the two, deducing from this the necessity of some 

 general system of education being adopted. I do this having refer- 

 ence more particularly to that class just alluded to, whose mihds, 

 notwithstanding the mass of facts which have of late years been 

 presented to them at every turn, refuse to acknowledge the want of 

 any great extension of education being provided for the poorer 

 classes. Although we must hope this class is small in number, yet 

 I fear it is sufficiently numerous to warrant a brief investigation into 



