568 Education a National Concern. 



the schools, where there are any to which they can send their children, are 

 for the most part of a character, which not only forbids hope of good, but 

 even creates apprehension of evil. 



" The labourers arrive at the age of manhood without any means being 

 taken, which any reasonable person could consider as influencing them to act 

 rightly, or even giving them a knowledge of what is right ; and still, most 

 absurdly, poor human nature is blamed for mistaking the way, and punish- 

 ment dealt out to it with an unsparing hand. Most inconsiderately, indeed, 

 does man deal with his fellow-man, and through sheer ignorance offer re- 

 peated insults to the humanity to which he himself belongs, by his treatment 

 of his fellow-men, forgetful that the undervaluing of humanity in others is 

 a direct insult to himself. Let us for a moment consider the different lights 

 in which different descriptions of persons will regard the same individual. 

 The farmer considers himself as concerned in the bodies, the bones, and 

 sinews, the mechanical powers alone of his servants; the divine as only in 

 the souls of his congregation ; and the school-master as only in the intellect 

 of his pupils. Each, therefore, has tasked that portion only of the being 

 which he considered regarded him ; neglecting the other portions, as though 

 they were of no importance. But, as the Almighty has made man a com- 

 pound of all three, the action of one is never healthful without the others are 

 in harmony with it. The consequence of this has been, that the farmer, in- 

 stead of gaining what he aims at the greatest possible advantage from the 

 labour of his men, obtains only such a small portion of it as is gained from 

 the ill- directed and languid exertions of men who work without intelligence 

 and a sense of moral obligation. The divine, instead of, by his exhortations, 

 making good and happy men regardful of the rights of others, but too often 

 makes bigots and enthusiasts ignorant of their duties, uncharitable to their 

 neighbour, and despising the common occupations of life. While the school- 

 master, instead of producing men trained in body, mind, and morals to make 

 useful and intelligent members of society, sends forth beings undisciplined in 

 morals, unacquainted with the use of knowledge, but armed with a weapon, 

 of the power of which they have some indefinite notion, and from the posses- 

 sion of which they are as likely to derive and inflict injury as good. It is, 

 however, a subject of congratulation, that these different persons cannot gain 

 their respective ends in defiance of the constitution of man. What a hopeless 

 state a large portion of mankind would be reduced to, if no inconvenience 

 resulted from the gross absurdity of the farmer, for instance, in endeavouring 

 to avail himself of a man's physical powers, without taking into consideration 

 the other portions of his being; if, for instance, the miserable, ignorant, and 

 vicious peasant was, as a labourer, as diligent and as effective as one happy, 

 intelligent, and moral, there would be no hope; those who had the power 

 would attain their respective ends; they would feel no inconvenience; and 

 their peasants, like any other machinery on their farms that worked well, 

 would continue without a thought being given as to the means of improving 

 them ; but such never was, and never will be the case. Inconvenience is felt, 

 and the blame laid by the masters on all shoulders but the right ones their 

 own. Their men, they say, are not to be trusted indolent and drunken ; 

 their women dawdles, and prostitutes. In many counties it is difficult to 

 procure a servant who can wash, bake, sew, or manage a dairy. They all 

 work for the time that hunger presses closely upon them ; that removed, they 

 remain in a state of listlessness. They know no games, they sing no songs, 

 and have recourse to poaching, drinking, and debauchery, from sheer ennui. 



But looking at the little that individual exertion or influence ever has, or 

 ever can effect, the vastness of what is to be done, the numerous and large 

 districts where there is no education whatsoever, and the whole rural popula- 

 tion that is without any worthy of the name, the scattered manner in which 

 people live in the country the differing opinions which there exist respecting 

 the propriety of giving any education at all, the total impossibility of col- 



