THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



493 



schools should be put out as soon as they were old enough, 

 and persons could be found to take them ; for if kept there 

 beyond a certain age, they were apt to imbibe the spirit 

 of hereditary paupers : paupers they were brought up, 

 and paupers they often remained as long as they lived. 



Mr. H. Gibbons (of Bucks) concurred with Mr. James 

 that education was a very useful ingredient in forming 

 the character, and that it was desirable every child on 

 British soil should have a fair portion of it. But one 

 great difficulty in the way of its general diffusion 

 throughout the rural districts had always appeared to 

 him to be the isolated position of the farmer, which 

 placed them at a manifest disadvantage in comparison 

 with the inhabitants of towns, having no National or 

 British Schools, Educational Institutes, or even Ragged- 

 schools ; in fact, tlie Sunday-school was the only institu- 

 tion which could be made available to the children of 

 the agricultural poor. The idea he had entertained, as 

 to what education was, differed rather from that of many 

 persons. Some appeared to think that education con- 

 sisted in what Mr. Tretheway had termed "book- 

 learning." For his part, he considered that an edu- 

 cated man was one who had received instruction in read- 

 ing, writing, and arithmetic — who had learnt how to use 

 his arms and legs, and knew how to get his living. 

 During the period of infancy, the mother was the child's 

 chief instructor ; but with her teachings, an intelligent 

 parent should always combine the instruction to be ob- 

 tained in the Sunday-school. The period of life which 

 followed infancy was one which, in the agricultural dis- 

 tricts, was very much occupied with labour ; but it was 

 patent to every one who was acquainted with those dis- 

 tricts, that there were seven months of the year in which 

 there was a great deal of idle time, and the blank pages 

 of rural life were left to be filled as best they might be. 

 In many villages, he was sorry to say, the only avail- 

 able places of instruction for the labouring youth was 

 the beer-shop. He himself had often grieved over the 

 situation of his 05\n farm-servants when he saw 

 them congregated at the beer-shop, and where 

 the instruction they derived was only such as led to 

 ultimate misery and destruction. For this state of 

 things the best remedy that suggested itself to his mind 

 was the establishment of village evening-schools ; and, 

 in his judgment, that was a practical question which the 

 Government might take up, and for the carrying out of 

 which some portion of the parish funds might be made 

 available. He was satisfied that by the encouragement 

 held out to them by evening schools, and the ex- 

 perience acquired by them on farms, the youths and 

 labourers in agricultural districts would be able to 

 secure to themselves quite sufficient knowledge to aid 

 them in their subsequent career through the world. In 

 the parish in which he resided (Bledlow) there was a 

 district union school for the education of pauper children, 

 and the style of education given there was more calcu- 

 lated to make them useless than useful members of 

 society ; for the simple reason that it was carried to 

 excess, and the children learnt more than reading, 

 writing, arithmetic, and the rudiments of religion, 

 with a too limited amount of industrial training. Why, 



they actually went the extent of teaching algebra! 

 (a laugh) ; and he thought no gentleman present would 

 diff'er from him when he said that in his opinion that 

 was carrying it too far! (Oh! and a laugh). Besides 

 this, the doors of the establishment were shut to the 

 children of the industrious poor, whilst they were open 

 to the illegitimate offspring of abandoned women and 

 the deserted children of worthless parents. Of the ad- 

 vantages offered by this school the people were not slow 

 to avail themselves ; for with the poor there was a strong 

 notion that "book-learning was a very fine thing." But, 

 in his (Mr. Gibbons's) opinion, book-learning alone was 

 a very bad thing, unless it were combined with useful 

 and industrious habits. Such were his views upon the 

 question, and he should be glad to hear some method 

 propounded by which schools could be established in such 

 isolated districts as those to which he had referred. How 

 to make a school available for the children of the poor 

 in the long winter nights was a great difficulty. On his 

 own farm one of his daughters had undertaken the con- 

 duct of a school, and begun with two or three children 

 of poor persons in the neighbourhood. They met once 

 a week — on the Saturday — but bringing their slates and 

 books in the interval to have their sums and copies set. 

 The progress which the children had made was highly 

 creditable to them ; and to show how ready they were 

 to receive instruction, he might add that the number of 

 attendants had grown from two or three to fourteen, and 

 that the applications of candidates for admission were 

 constantly increasing. The education imparted was 

 reading, writing, and instruction in religion : and last 

 Saturday he saw the children engaged in sewing. If they 

 could establish schools of that description generally in 

 the rural districts, the results, he was sure, would be 

 most satisfactory and useful. 



Mr. Beale Browne (of Andoversford) said he felt 

 that some apology was due from him for rising to 

 speak, as he was not a member of the club. He was 

 indebted to his friend Mr. Bullock Webster for being 

 present that evening, •nd for the high advantage of 

 listening to the remarks of Mr. James. There were a 

 few points in Mr. James's address, to which he would, 

 with the permission of the chairmain, briefly refer. 

 Nothing in that address had struck him more than the 

 observation that education did not in every case pre- 

 vent crime. But if education would not always prevent 

 crime, every one in that room would acknowledge that 

 ignorance was the parent of crime (Hear, hear). Re- 

 ligion must, as Mr. James beautifully showed, be the 

 foundation of all useful education. But religion was a 

 thing which it was not in the power of mortal man to 

 cause his fellow-man to embrace in heart and life ; and, 

 therefore, education did not of necessity prevent crime. 

 It was remarked by Mr. Gibbons that in the agricul- 

 tural districts the education of the labouring classes was 

 often surrounded with great difficulties. It was, in fact, 

 his own experience of such difficulties, and a desire to 

 ascertain how they might be removed, that had brought 

 him there that evening. He lived in a rural district 

 which must be well known to all present — theCotswold 

 Hills — and having the whole of a parish and other 



