91 



Mr. Balman observed that it was not his province to enter 

 upon the very important, and at present popular subject of 

 National Education ; whether this is to be accomplished by 

 the voluntary co-operation of individuals, or the more potent 

 arm of the State, it was not permitted him, even if prepared, 

 to answer in this Society ; nevertheless, it must be the 

 conviction of all who have calmly and dispassionately 

 reflected upon the onward current of crime, pauperism, and 

 misery, necessarily attendant upon the degrading and 

 demoralizing tendency of some of the industrial occupations 

 of this country, that the people must be educated, at 

 whatever cost. 



Mr. Porter has shown that the proportion of crimes 

 committed by the ignorant to the crimes committed by the 

 instructed classes is equal to nine-tenths of the whole.* 

 But it is to the physical, rather than to the moral and 

 intellectual wants of the people, he would direct our 

 attention, for what, he asks, ought to be the great end and 

 object of every system of education, but to make men 

 wiser, happier, and better, and to prepare them, in accord- 

 ance with the will of the Almighty, to earn their bread by 

 the sweat of their brow. 



Mr. Balman repudiated any desire to see the wild and 

 sanguinary sports of the Ancients revived, the Circenses ludi 

 of the Komans, or the Olympic Games of the Greeks ; but 

 this he would have — physical and mental education advance 

 together, and whilst children are taught principles of religion 

 and virtue, temperance and cleanliness, as a preparation 

 for their respective social duties in after life, they should 



• In the six years comprised in the returns for England and Wales, from 

 1836 to '41. out of 143,591 persons committed, and whose degrees of instruction 

 were ascertained, the great proportion 129,441, or more than 90 in 100, were 

 uninstructed persons ; while only 076 persons had enjoyed the advantages of 

 instruction beyond the elementary degree, and only 13,474 had mastered, without 

 advancing beyond, the arts of reading and writing. — Progress of the Nation, 

 page 102, vol. 3. 



