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The Country GetitlemaiUs Magazine 



meant reduced strength ; reduced strength 

 meant susceptibUity to disease, disease en- 

 taiHng loss of work and money. For this 

 state of things the cottage factor was most 

 to blame. By "cottage factor" he meant 

 the man who bought or leased a piece of 

 ground and proceeded to build as many 

 cottages on it as it would hold, often without 

 garden, back accommodation, drain, cesspool, 

 or any provision for emptying slops, which 

 had to be thrown through the door into the 

 road; without any ventilation, and without 

 any pump or well — so many/tir/ of fever and 

 immorality. He did not so much wonder at 

 the badness of morals as at the number who 

 kept themselves pure. When father, mother, 

 girls, boys, and babes were all crowded 

 into one sleeping room, how could habits of 

 decency be maintained ? But bad cottage 

 accommodation generally was indirectly due 

 to the people themselves, to the law of 

 settlement, under which many proprietors 

 evicted the cottagers and drove them to seek 

 shelter in adjoining parishes. Of late years 

 landowners had found out that they suffered 

 for the sins of their predecessors, and were 

 doing much to remedy the evil ; but years 

 must elapse before it was rooted out. AVhen, 

 however, proper accommodation was supplied, 

 it was difficult to get the people to use it ; 

 they would bring in lodgers, and if that Avas 

 stopped they herded together, and said it was 

 too cold to use so many rooms. In this 

 respect the tone of morality wanted raising ; 

 but he did not see how it was to be raised — 

 at least not yet. He believed the present 

 movement had rendered the attaching of 

 cottages to farms almost a necessity in the 

 future. It was almost a necessity that the 

 master should have a greater hold over his 

 men than paying them wages ; if he could 

 control, not only the places but the homes 

 ■ of his men, he would be in a position to deal 

 more satisfactorily with them. It would not 

 be so well for the man ; but he did think it 

 would be needful for the master. 



EDUCATING THE LABOURING POPULATION. 



As regarded education, he was not at all 

 afraid of the labourers being taught too much, 



provided they were taught well — that was to 

 say, made to know thoroughly what they 

 knew at all. There was no fear of over-edu- 

 cating the labouring class, which he shared 

 only to a certain point. His fear was lest 

 they should be taught nothing ; that was, 

 lest, in the endeavour to teach them too 

 many things, they were taught nothing well. 

 His fears were increased by the system of 

 examination and payment by results now so 

 much in vogue. In theory, payment by 

 results was admirable. It assumed that there 

 should be no payment unless there was some- 

 thing to shew for it. Nothing could be better 

 in idea ; in practice, how did it work ? Be- 

 cause there was no payment unless there was 

 something to shew for it, and the amount of 

 payment depended on how much there was 

 to shewj great attention was paid to all sub- 

 jects of teaching which admitted of show, to 

 the detriment of those which would not allow 

 of being paraded before the eyes of the ex- 

 amining inspector. He was certain that such 

 teaching in school subjects would have a dis- 

 turbing effect on the mind and. character, and 

 that it required to be subdued and guided. 

 It was not his saying that " knowledge pufteth 

 up ; " it was drawn from a higher source than 

 mere hunian observation and wisdom, and its 

 truth was manifest to the meanest capacity. 

 He had no doubt the restlessness and restive- 

 ness under restrauit which marked the present 

 time were the fruits of knowledge ; nor did he 

 hesitate to avow his thorough conviction that 

 these were likely to increase under the school 

 system sanctioned by the Legislature. He 

 was thoroughly convinced that the more 

 school teaching was given without the accom- 

 panying restraint of religious teaching the > 

 worse would be the results socially and poli- 

 tically, to say nothing of its effects on men's 

 spiritual niterests. If the labourer's wife only 

 had anything like a simple knowledge of 

 cooking, she might turn to advantage oppor- 

 tunities without number, which without it 

 would be wasted and thrown away. He 

 would have her learn to read, learn sums in 

 order to control the house expenses, and to 

 write as the only means of communicating 

 with distant friends. Beyond this he did not 



