in.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 33 



with the stability of society by proving to him, once for all, 

 that it is better for his own people, better for himself, better for 

 future generations, that he should starve than steal ? If you 

 have no foundation of knowledge, or habit of thought, to work 

 upon, what chance have you of persuading a hungry man that 

 .a capitalist is not a thief &quot; with a circumbendibus ? &quot; And if 

 he honestly believes that, of what avail is it to quote the 

 commandment against stealing, when he proposes to make the 

 -capitalist disgorge ? 



Again, the child leams absolutely nothing of the history or the 

 political organisation of his own country. His general impression 

 is, that everything of much importance happened a very long 

 while ago ; and that the Queen and the gentlefolks govern the 

 country much after the fashion of King David and the elders 

 and nobles of Israel his sole models. Will you give a man with 

 this much information a vote ? In easy times he sells it for a 

 pot of beer. Why should he not ? It is of about as much use 

 to him as a chignon, and he knows as much what to do with it, 

 for any other purpose. In bad times, on the contrary, he applies 

 his simple theory of government, and believes that his rulers are 

 the cause of his sufferings a belief which sometimes bears 

 remarkable practical fruits. 



Least of all, does the child gather from this primary &quot; educa 

 tion &quot; of ours a conception of the laws of the physical world, or of 

 the relations of cause and effect therein. And this is the 

 more to be lamented, as the poor are especially exposed to 

 physical evils, and are more interested in removing them than 

 any other class of the community. If any one is concerned in 

 knowing the ordinary laws of mechanics one would think it is 

 the hand-labourer, whose daily toil lies among levers and 

 pulleys ; or among the other implements of artisan work. And 

 if any one is interested in the laws of health, it is the poor 

 workman, whose strength is wasted by ill-prepared food, whose 

 health is sapped by bad ventilation and bad drainage, and half 

 whose children are massacred by disorders which might be 

 prevented. Not only does our present primary education 



D 



