CENTRAL SOCIETY OF EDUCATION. 313 



The first labours of the Society have, we have reason to know, 

 been directed to the collection of facts respecting the actual condi- 

 tion of the poorer population of a district of the metropolis. This 

 it is now occupied in examining with the greatest accuracy, going 

 from street to street, from house to house : not contenting itself 

 with ascertaining merely the literary attainments of the children, 

 but observing all those circumstances over which an individual has 

 a control, and which, consequently, indicate with certainty the edu- 

 cation he has received and the education he is in want of. The con- 

 sequences of this inquiry will, we are led to believe, be most im- 

 portant, as it will enable the Society to state precisely, in numbers, 

 the exact quantity of particulars upon which its affirmations with 

 regard to any general fact is grounded. The condition of the peo- 

 ple, in a moral, intellectual, and physical point of view, in our 

 large towns, is such that any statement with regard to it, other 

 than such as the Central Society of Education is now qualifying 

 itself to make, would be disbelieved. Those who only ride or drive 

 through the wide and clear streets of our metropolis could not credit 

 that the state of the mass is such as it is. An intelligent foreigner 

 who visited England some time back said that, for his part, he 

 could never see the poor, nor where they lived. 



From the newspapers we perceive that, in Nottingham, a public 

 meeting has been held, and a society of education formed for co- 

 operating with that in London, which has undertaken to conduct a 

 similar inquiry to that which we have just mentioned in that town 

 and neighbourhood. In other localities the same has, we trust, 

 been the case ;* for we feel an assurance that the result of such in- 

 quiries will form the strongest and most cogent argument in favour 

 of national education, and the surest indication of what it should 

 be. Of all branches of the inquiry which the society has proposed 

 to itself, that which extends to the greatest mass is the most impor- 

 tant, and to this we trust that it will, in the first instance, apply 

 its undivided attention. If we might point out two or three points 

 which stand out as prominent, we should enumerate, 1st. That of 

 parents being unable to permit their children to remain at the 

 schools for a period sufficiently long to derive full benefit from 

 them ; 2nd. The incapacity of present masters ; 3rd. The funds for 

 the support of schools ; 4th. The hands in which the power of con- 

 trolling them should be vested ; 5th. Whether it is not justice to 

 children and to the State to prevent parents from neglecting their 

 education. 



The first of these, we are disposed to think, might be met by 

 alternating study with profitable industrial occupation : experi- 

 ments to this end have, to our knowledge, been tried, both in this 

 country and on the continent, with some success. The second is, 

 perhaps, the greatest difficulty which those who are anxious to 



* A Committee has been formed in Birmingham with the view of institu- 

 ting a similar inquiry. 



VOL. V. NO. XVIII. 2 R 



