MAY 203 



be expected to send a delicate girl to walk a mile through the mud 

 in such foot-gear, which was all she had. 



There are many cases of this nature, but of course there are 

 still more of utterly shiftless parents who will submit to be sum- 

 moned and fined again and again rather than take the trouble to 

 get their children to school. Also there exists an aggravating 

 class who, when any of their family fall sick, wait till a summons 

 is taken out against them to appear in court and explain the cause 

 of absence, of course without corroboration in the shape of a 

 doctor's certificate. These people are so numerous that on this 

 bench we have found it necessary to make a rule that they shall 

 be fined, however ill the child may have been, unless they can 

 bring medical evidence (which costs them nothing) to that 

 effect. 



Since writing the above, a month or more ago, I have read 

 the remarks of Sir J. Gorst, the Vice-President of the Com- 

 mittee of Council on Education, made on the occasion of the 

 discussion of the Education Vote in Committee. 



I see that he quotes, apparently with approval, the report of 

 Mr. Currie, in which Mr. Currie states 'that the farmer and the 

 squire are no friends of elementary education,' &c. Here I take 

 the liberty to join issue with Sir John Gorst and Mr. Currie. The 

 farmer and the squire, at any rate in this part of the world, desire 

 to see the children educated, but it is true that occasionally they 

 find a difficulty in the enforcing of the draconian regulations 

 enacted to that end. It is also true that certain of the more old- 

 fashioned and conservative among them, while acknowledging the 

 necessity and advantages of education in these days of hurry and 

 progress, sometimes wonder whether the increased bitterness of 

 competition that learning naturally brings about, and the inducing 

 of so many thousands of young men to forsake the rural occupa- 

 tions which contented their forefathers, in order to put on a black 

 coat and to struggle to obtain a place, however ill-paid, in a city 

 office, do in fact conduce to the happiness in life of those immedi- 

 ately concerned 



