Education a National Concern. 569 



lecting sufficient funds, except from the charity of some rich proprietor, who 

 may or may not be resident, who, if so, may, or may not, be disposed to 

 come forward, who may, or may not, sanction a good system being pur- 

 sued ; again, looking at the difficulty, nay, impossibility, of procuring com- 

 petent masters at the inadequate recompence which is held out to them, even 

 if they could be found, we are unable to anticipate the adoption of any mea- 

 sures which will be equal to the emergency of the case, unless the subject be 

 taken up by his Majesty's government. Something societies and individuals 

 may do in accumulating information respecting the actual state of the country 

 in this particular, something they may do in inquiring into what education 

 should be, something they may do in demonstrating the practicability of 

 good systems, by establishing schools upon them; but other than as fore- 

 runners of, and as hastening an all-embracing and sound system of education 

 (in doing which they are most useful), we hold them, in a public point of 

 view, as little worthy of consideration. 



" ' Sovereigns and chiefs of nations!' says De Fellenberg, in deep earnest- 

 ness, " the fruitful source of sedition, of crime, of all the blood which flows 

 upon the scaffold, is owing to the erroneous education of people. Landlords! 

 it is here you must seek the cause of all those obstacles which the idleness and 

 growing vices of the labouring classes oppose to the increase of the produce of 

 . your estates.' ' By degrading the people we dry up the richest source of 

 I power, of wealth, and of happiness, which a state can possess.' " 



.- We merely mention Mr. Baker's Statistical paper on Mechanics' 

 Institutions and Libraries, for mere description would give the reader 

 no idea of its contents, however valuable they really are ; and for the 

 same reason we are compelled to pass over Mr. Allen's plan of teach- 

 ing- Greek, which, though not original, but almost wholly borrowed 

 from his own teachers, contains many important maxims. Mr. 

 Hawes's paper on the treatment of juvenile offenders is too good, how- 

 ever, and the subject of it is too important, to allow of its being lightly 

 passed over. If there be any one branch of judicial legislation that 

 has met with less attention than the rest, it is the management of our 

 prisons : indeed it is a shame and a reproach to us, that our misnamed 

 penitentiaries and houses of correction are nurseries of crime and 

 sinks of impurity and immorality, where the old and hardened cri- 

 minal is allowed to corrupt and pollute even the youngest and most 

 trifling offender. It is an imperative duty on the legislature to stay 

 this moral plague ; and nothing can effect this object unless it be a 

 complete separation of juvenile offenders in a prison expressly adapted 

 for their reformation and education. Mr. Hawes's plan for such a 

 prison or penitentiary is as follows : 



"We should propose that Houses of Detention rather than prisons, should 

 be established; that all acts of theft should be deemed misdemeanours, sub- 

 jecting the party at once to a long period of detention, perhaps even for as 

 long a terra as seven years, for reasons which we will give, subject to such 

 mitigation as a board established for that purpose, and under the authority of 

 the Secretary of State for the Home Department, should determine, and which 

 should be founded only upon the character of the offender, and the means of 

 support and employment which parents could command. The ground of 

 mitigation always to be recorded. 



"That upon committal to any such House, and during a probationary 

 period, which should be long or short at the discretion of the board, there 

 should be no communication whatsoever with parents or friends; that the 

 board should have the power, on the expiration of a probationary period, to 



