and the Best Means of Promoting it. 93 



flicting no disability which their children are not already subjected to, 

 but holding out to them a premium which they cannot at present obtain. 



If successful with that class, it would be advisable very soon to 

 extend it to all other employments ; for though that could not be done 

 without imposing disabilities which the children in those employments 

 are at present exempt from, the proved benefit would easily overcome 

 that objection ; and besides, viewing the matter in the light of abstract 

 justice, it can hardly be maintained that there is any equitable reason 

 for exempting other employments from even those present regulations 

 as to age, teaching, and labour hours which are deemed necessary and 

 beneficial to factory workers. In many other employments the manual 

 labour is more severe, and the situation less healthy ; and if one class of 

 children and females is entitled to legislative protection, why not all ? 



The principal objection that has been urged against the scheme is 

 the insufficiency of the teaching that can be given to children under 

 eleven years of age ; but allowing this objection all the weight it merits, 

 — be the standard ever so low, if it only reaches the rudiments of edu- 

 cation, it is immensely better than the total blank which is the measure 

 of then- present instruction ; and certainly I do not think it is quite 

 practicable to give a child under eleven the mechanical arts of reading 

 and writing well, and much other simple teaching, which would prove 

 to many youthful minds most successful in introducing them to sub- 

 sequent self-culture. 



Neither am I bUnd to the fact, that this plan, unhke aU preceding 

 ones, makes no attempt to provide the educational supply, while the 

 best evidence of its success will be in a greatly increased demand for 

 schools and teachers ; but, in my opinion, hitherto it is the small 

 demand that has kept the Legislature lukewarm on the question of a 

 national scheme of school supply, and I do not in the least doubt, that, 

 if in any way we can make the demand urgent, parties will find some 

 means of reconcihng their difierences, and working out some practical 

 and comprehensive scheme in keeping with the progress of the age, 

 and worthy of a great, a free, and an enlightened people. 



Dr. Allen Thomson described " The Phenomena and Mechanism of 

 the Focal Adjustment of the Eye to Vision at different distances." 



On tlve Ffienomerut a/nd Causes of tlm Adaptation of the Eye to Distinct 

 Vision at different distances, as illustrated by recent observations and 

 experiments. By Professor Allen Thomson, F.R.S. 



Thk author having given a preliminary sketch of the opinions of physi- 

 ologists on the focal adjustment of the eye, proceeded to detail various 



