OPENING OF THE ESSEX MUSEUM, ETC. 327 



material that has been accumulated, there is still an immense amount of 

 collecting and preserving to be done to give anything approaching an adequate 

 idea of our county's natural history. The growth and organization and 

 arrangement of the contents of a museum must necessarily be a work of time. 

 You are asked to-day to see but the beginniug of a new departure in the 

 history of the Essex Field Club— a departure for which our most grateful 

 thanks are due to Mr. Passmore Edwards and to the To-.vn Council of West 

 Ham. (Loud applause.) 



And now that you have so kindly invited nie to speak about the Museum, 

 may I ask j'ou to now let me say one word upon your Technical Institute, 

 because it is chiefly as an educational enthusiast that you have so kindly 

 invited me to come here to-day, and knowing well the enlightened and 

 advanced views of West Ham I confess that the re-opening of the Technical 

 Institute was one that attracted me immensely, and it has been a great 

 pleasure to listen to the address of such a public benefactor as Mr. 

 Fassmore Edwards. May I venture to hope that, as this Institute has 

 been built for the people of this vastly populated district, it may be used by 

 the people. (Loud and continued applause.) It has so often happened that 

 such institutes are captured by well-to-do people, and are not the benefit 

 to the unprivileged workers which they ought to be ; and West Ham and 

 Stratford should hold before themselves the ideal that a course at the 

 Technical Institute should be within the reach of every West Ham and every 

 Stratford child. (Hear, hear.) It is indeed not sufficient to say that a 

 number of scholarships are available for competition by the children of parents 

 in receipt of a total income of not more than £150 per annum, as in the case 

 under the technical education board of the London County Council. The 

 child of the weekly wage earner — say, 25s. to 30s. per week has small chance 

 in competing with the child of the man who has a salary paid monthly or 

 quarterly of ;^I50. (Hear, hear.) The former works by the hour and one 

 hour's loss of work means loss of an hour's pay ; the conditions in the two 

 homes are very different. In that of the weekly wage earner, by the hour, in 

 times of sickness, yes, even in times of health, the children of ten become 

 bread winners even before they leave school, to become full-timers in the 

 workshops. I am specially thinking of the boys and girls selling matches, 

 paper boys, who get up before 6 o'clock in the mornings to sell papers and go 

 to school worn out and sleepy at g o'clock. It is, of course, easy to blame 

 the parents and preach to them that they ought to have higher ideals for 

 their children, and tell them of the scholarship ladder which we are assured 

 extends from the slum to the University. Crowded dwellings, a sordid 

 struggle to keep the wolf from the door, and the perpetual dread of the work- 

 house, are not compatible with the high ideals in education, and perhaps the 

 prosperous ones of the earth should not be too ready to blame such people 

 for looking with eagerness to the time when the little ones will be able " to 

 earn a few shillings." Of course it will be said by some, that I am taking a 

 sentimental view of this question, and they will say, " What about the 

 money spent in drink ? " Has not the time come in this England of ours 

 when we should cease to punish the children for their parents' sins — 

 even of poverty and drunkenness — and say that whatever we do with the 

 parents, the children shall not suffer, but shall all have the opportunity of 



