THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



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the man or woman. Our present system of educating, 

 although it undoubtedly tends to the repression of crime 

 — crime of the individual against the community — does 

 not tend with equal force to the repression of vice — 

 crime of the individual against himself. The highest 

 cultivation of the head is compatible— and is, alas ! too 

 often found so — with the most hardened condition of 

 the heart, and the most depraved and degrading vices 

 of the body. If education, then, is to do good service 

 to the community, we believe that it must not stop con- 

 tent with informing the mind with what is called " use- 

 ful knowledge," but it must "strengthen by exercise 

 the powers of thought, quicken the lovo of truth, 

 awaken a taste for beauty, cultivate the moral sense, and 

 train in moral habits, and stop not short of imparting 

 both a knowledge of the scriptures, and a disposition 

 to believe and practise whatsoever they inculcate." 

 And here, as the most powerful end to the education of 

 the school, comes in the education of the hearth and 

 home. A writer, who has done much in elucidating the 

 essentials of a good working man's education, has some 

 pregnant remarks on this point. He says that " virtues 

 are habits, not belief," and must be inculcated by ex- 

 ample rather than by teaching, by training rather than 

 by lecturing. A point of knowledge may be imparted 

 by the persistent force of application, by repeated illus- 

 tration, by line upon line, by precept upon precept ' ' until 

 at last the mind of the learner yields to their force, and 

 becomes thoroughly saturated and penetrated by the 

 principles in question." Not so with the inculcation 

 of moral habits and feelings. Proofs in favour of any 

 one of these may be brought from the parables and pre- 

 cepts of every page, almost, of the New Testament, and 

 examples of their power in life may be cited without 

 end. Yet, while the intellect of the pupil yields a ready 

 consent to those proofs, and acknowledges the truth of 

 the examples, it is found to be a different thing to get 

 them to apply them practically to themselves, and adopi 

 them in their every-day life. The lessons of the school 

 then, must be supplemented by the precepts and exam- 

 ples of the home, and the labours of the teacher aided 

 by the authority of the parents. !3ut it must not be 

 overlooked that the education of the home must, if true 

 progress is desired, be aided by the education of the 

 school ; that is, the kind of education there imparted 

 must be of that practical stamp which will enable the 

 parents themselves to make their homes happy and 

 comfortable ; that to the lessons of piety which they 

 give to their children, they may add those of prudence 

 and of integrity, those of industry and economy. And 

 first in importance are the claims of the female to this 

 kind of practical every-day useful education. We have 

 adverted to the great influence which woman possesses 

 over the welfare of man ; and this influence is best 

 exerted under the shelter of the family roof-tree, and 

 around the family fire-side. But under the roof-tree 

 must reit;n order and regularity, and around the hearth 

 must be gathered the comforts which yield relief to toTl, 

 and those pleasures which lighten the labour of life. 

 How best to secure to the female, whose future destiny 

 is to be the wife and mother of the labourer, that edu- 



cation which will be of true service to her in her every- 

 day cottage life, is now engaging the attention of those 

 educationists who see the importance of increasing home 

 influence amongst the employed. It is little things 

 which make up the sum of household happiness ; and 

 the converse holds equally true, that it is little things 

 which make up the sum of domestic discord. How im- 

 portant then that the future wife, with all her cares and 

 responsibilities, should be taught those little things 

 which will lighten her cares and relieve her responsi- 

 bilities ! To this end it soems reasonable to suppose 

 that that education will be most beneficial which, with 

 the oducalion of the intellect and the heart, combines 

 instruction in common things ; which teaches how best 

 to make home comfortable, and to economise means and 

 time ; changing that which with improvidence would 

 be the poverty of means, into that which with economy 

 will be the provision of plenty ; that education, in short, 

 which will combine working with learning — that kind of 

 working which will enable its possessor to change the 

 habits of carelessness into those of comfort, the home 

 of thriftlessness into that of thriving. Amidst the 

 abundance of institutions calculated to elevate and qua- 

 lify for the duties of life young women belonging to the 

 upper and middle classes, there are none for those be- 

 longing to the lower ranks. The former can attend 

 establishments, and be taught cooking and those 

 branches of female education which enable them to throw 

 a charm over the domestic circle ; but the poor man's 

 daughter is entirely dependent upon her mother, and 

 cannot therefore be expected to know anything beyond 

 what her parent can teach. How little the amount of 

 teaching of this sort which the mothers of the poor can 

 give to their daughters is, let those say who know most 

 of their domestic arrangements and of their every-day 

 mode of life. To aid in this kind of teaching, it is pro- 

 posed — and no proposition made in recent times bids 

 fair to be so productive of good effects in elevating the 

 social condition of the agricultural labourer than this — 

 to add to the ordinary branches of knowledge imparted 

 in the school-room a practical acquaintance with the 

 duties of a well-regulated household ; to give to each 

 female a "knowledge of those common things with 

 which she shall have to deal the whole residue of her 

 life ;" that she may be able to "light a fire, to sweep a 

 room, to wash crockery and glass without breaking 

 half of them, or clothes, to bake bread, to dress a 

 dinner, to choose meat or fish or vegetables, and to 

 know where to keep them when bought"; to know, in 

 fact, the value of little, and appreciate the worth of 

 common things ; to know, and act moreover on the 

 knowledge — letting it be a living faith rather tljan a mere 

 dead belief — that the difference between money saved 

 and money lost at the week's end, is just the difference 

 between the right and the wrong method of doing such 

 humble things as peeling and boiling potatoes, kindling 

 a fire and poking it when kindled, mending a worn gar- 

 ment and washing a soiled one, and numberless other 

 things more humble still than these, and apparently 

 more trifling. We say apparently more trifling, for 

 this is just one of the lessons that the expectant wife 



