and the Best Means of Promoting it. 87 



I would not press for an immediate general measui'e, because it is as 

 vet unti'ied ; but I will noio proceed to show that loe have particidar facili- 

 ties for making a large experiment in that direction, vnth the very smallest 

 legislative change, and of arranging it in such a way that it would inflict 

 no disability not already existing, while it would hold out a large premium 

 to a numerous and important class of our ivorking population. 



The class to which I allude is that of factory workers ; and I wish to 

 draw particular attention to the present educational condition and pros- 

 pects of that class. There are special reasons why I should make it 

 thus prominent. One of them is, that it lies within my own sphere of 

 knowledge, and I am therefore more competent to speak of it ; but my 

 principal reason for selecting this class is, that it exclusively has been 

 made the subject of a very peculiar legislative experiment, greatly with 

 a view to its education ; and through that circumstance we have ample 

 statistics to aid our investigations. Moreover, though the number of 

 those employed in factories at any one time is only about 700,000 over 

 the whole country, yet the number who have, at some period of their 

 lives, been so employed is of course very much greater, and in fact their 

 domestic life ramifies through our whole working population, and they 

 may be fairly supposed to represent it. 



The Acts for restricting the labour of children, young persons, and 

 females in factories, and for providing for the education of children so 

 employed, have been in existence for upwards of twenty years, and it is 

 therefore not premature, after such a period of probation, to inquire how 

 they have accomplished the ends for which they were passed, and what 

 has been their effect on the condition of the classes they were intended 

 to benefit. Our inquiry is purely an educational one ; and in any 

 strictures I may pass on the Factory Acts, I wish to be distinctly under- 

 stood to refer to the educational provisions of these Acts, and to no other 

 branch of them. 



The principal regulations of these Acts are — 



That children under eight years of age cannot be employed at all in 

 factories. 



Those from eight to thirteen may be employed for the limited service 

 of GJ hours per day, subject to the condition of attending school for 

 three hours daily, with constant certificates of that attendance. 



At thirteen years of age children reach the status of full time workers, 

 allowed sixty hours' labour per week (ten hours per day), and with no 

 educational provisions or restrictions whatever. 



The shortened labour, from eight to thirteen, was humanely intended 

 by the Legislature not solely in tenderness for the physical powers of a 

 child of that age, but also for the purpose of securing its education, and 



