38 Human Physiology. 



described as being "as destitute of moral and religious training 

 as men can be." According to Lord John Russell, one-half 

 the working-classes could not read, and one-third were sunk in 

 social barbarism and this in a Christian land, with its wealthy 

 aristocracy, its Established Church, far the richest in Europe, 

 its great universities and schools, and all its religious and 

 philanthropic organisations. 



Recently it was estimated that 100,000 children in London 

 were without instruction; 48,000 in Liverpool; and in other 

 large towns in some such proportion. It was time to move for 

 universal compulsory education. 



Mr. Kay, a travelling Bachelor of Cambridge, who investi- 

 gated the state of popular education in several countries ot 

 Europe, summed up the state of primary education in England 

 and Wales, from official reports and his own investigations, as 

 follows : 



" It has been calculated that there are, at present, in Eng- 

 land and Wales, NEARLY EIGHT MILLIONS OF PERSONS who 

 cannot read and write. 



" Of all the children in England and Wales, between the 

 ages of five and fourteen, MORE THAN THE HALF are not attend 

 lag any school. 



" Even of the class of farmers, there are great numbers who- 

 v^mnot read and write. 



" Here, with our vast accumulated masses , with a population 

 increasing by a thousand per diem ; with an expenditure on 

 abject pauperism, which in these days of our prosperity amounts. 

 to ; 5, 000,000 per annum; with a terrible deficiency in the 

 numbers of our churches and of our clergy, with the most 

 demoralising publications spread through the cottages of our 

 operatives ; with democratic ideas of the wildest kinds, and a 

 knowledge of the power of union daily gaining ground among 

 them ; here, too, where the poor have no stake whatever in 

 the country ; where there are no small properties ; where the 



