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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



land around, he could only muster fifteen children in the 

 school. What kind of a school could anyone expect to 

 see for so small a number of children, especially when 

 the roads were so abominable that it was almost impos- 

 sible for children to attend in bad weather ? It had 

 occurred to him that in the education of the poor they 

 might have an auxiliary, and he begged to throw out a 

 hint for the consideration of those present • They had 

 reformatories for a certain class of children, and such 

 establishments were doubtless doing a great deal of 

 good ; but it had struck him as a great deficiency and 

 evil, that the industrious and honest poor had not 

 the same advantages as the depraved poor (Hear, 

 hear) ; and this matter had weighed so much on his 

 mind, that he had determined to bring the sub- 

 ject forward at the next Quarter Sessions of his 

 county. Farming as he did no less than 1,200 acres, 

 he had opportunities for introducing a great variety of 

 mechanical operations; and he was prepared, as he 

 hoped others would be who were similarly situated, to 

 establish a school for instructing agricultural labourers, 

 and fitting them to fill situations in diff"erent parts of 

 the world. Having been an active magistrate of his county 

 for many years, and had a good deal of espeiience with 

 regard to prisons, he had often been shocked by obser- 

 ving that the vicious poor had often more temporary ad- 

 vantages than the virtuous ; and he had sometimes been 

 pained to hear magistrates say to a man who came before 

 them at the end of the autumn, charged with some petty 

 crime, while the laugh went round among them, " Ah ! 

 John," or "Ah ! Thomas, you are come back to your 

 winter quarters" — the truth being that the man was 

 better off in prison than at home. To counteract such 

 a state of things, there should, he thought, be industrial 

 schools established for the well-disposed poor. One of 

 the greatest difficulties connected with education, in the 

 agricultural districts, was that children were taken away 

 from school so early. In order to meet this evil, the 

 foundation must be laid early, and the work of educa- 

 tion be afterwards carried on b/ means of the evening- 

 school. But something more was required; and he 

 thought industrial schools for young persons at a later 

 period would prove a most eff'ectual means of supplying 

 the educational wants of the labouring population. An 

 able minister of religion once told him that he used to 

 frame his sermon while he was working in his garden at 

 five o'clock in the morning ; and in like manner, he be- 

 lieved it was practicable to give most useful instruction 

 to labourers while they were digging-up mangold-wurzel 

 for sheep, or otherwise employed on the farm. He could 

 not refrain from making these remarks in reference to a 

 scheme which was then in embryo in his mind, and he 

 thanked the meeting for the attention which it had paid 

 to his remarks. 



Mr. H. H. Tatam (Moultan, Spalding) said, admit- 

 ting as he did the ability with which Mr. James had in- 

 troduced the subject, there were one or two points on 

 which he ventured to difi'er from him ; the principal one 

 being that which had reference to the benefits conferred 

 by the members of his (Mr. James') own profession in 

 regard to education. No one could suppose that he had 



any hostile feeling to the clergy, as a body, when he 

 stated that he was himself a member of the church ; 

 but he feared that the education of the people of Eng- 

 land had been more retarded by clerical interference 

 than by almost any other cause. It was with extreme 

 sorrow that he expressed such an opinion, but it was an 

 opinion which was the result of great consideration and 

 considerable public experience in his humble capacity. 

 The vast importance of education in the rural districts 

 was evident from the fact that nearly the whole body of 

 female domestic servants came from those districts, the 

 young females in other districts being generally 

 employed in various branches of manufactures. 

 If, however, education were deficient among the 

 rural population generally, it was especially so 

 amongst females, and particularly was this the case as 

 regarded that useful education which had been spoken 

 of that evening (Hear, hear). Numbers of young girls 

 were turned into the field to labour when they ought to 

 be under education ; and there many of them became 

 conversant with vice in its grosser forms. Indeed, 

 hardly anything that he could state would exceed the 

 reality of what had taken place in thinly populated dis- 

 tricts, under the present improved system of agricul- 

 ture. What he especially referred to, when speaking 

 of the clergy as having retarded education, was the 

 refusal to educate children unless the parents consented 

 that they should receive religious education. He granted 

 that it would be for the children's good to have such 

 education J but many children who would attend those 

 schools were children of Dissenters ; and because there 

 was a refusal to attend church and use a certain form of 

 prayer to whicli the parents objected, the benefits of 

 education were in fact denied. Such conduct appeared 

 to him very illiberal, and it was directly opposed to the 

 course pursued in some of the best and most successful 

 educational institutions in the country. He did not 

 concur in the remarks of Mr. Trethewy with regard to 

 the education given in the union schools. He was for 

 some years the chairman of the union in which he re- 

 sided, and he could assure that gentleman that the boys 

 and girls of the union schools were sought in prefer- 

 ence to the other children of the neighbourhood. He 

 might here observe that in union houses and in prisons 

 religion was no bar to education (Hear, hear). Persons 

 who proclaimed themselves Dissenters were allowed 

 to receive education without the accompaniment of 

 religion : they were not deprived of the benefits of 

 education because they were Dissenters (Hear, hear). 

 As regarded reformatories, he admitted that in such 

 establishments young thieves were about to receive 

 such training and education that the children of honest 

 labourers would not be able to compete with them. It 

 was bad in principle that the pauper, and even the felon, 

 should be better educated than others ; and such a state 

 of things made it incumbent on the Imperial Legisla- 

 ture to provide for the better education of the honest and 

 industrious rural population generally (Hear, hear). 



Mr. Trethewy wished to offer one or two words of 

 explanation in consequence of what had fallen from 

 Mr. Tatam. It was not so much the course of educa- 



