a National Education Establishment. 699 



reduce to practice his knowledge of the mode in which the poor contrive 

 to live. It is a great thing to know how easily the wants of man are sup- 

 plied, when he confines himself to what is necessary. A landlord, by mixing 

 at school with those men who were likely to become his tenants, tradesmen, 

 or servants, would know better what might be expected from them in these 

 capacities ; and the same as to a mistress with her future governesses, cooks, 

 and housemaids. 



To cooperate with this law rendering it obligatory to send children to 

 school till the age of puberty, we would also render it illegal to employ any 

 child for hire before that age. 



We wish it to be distinctly understood, that we do not consider either 

 the law obliging parents to send their children to school, or that rendering 

 it illegal to em[)loy children under the age of puberty, as essential parts of 

 our plan, but rather as stimulants to put it in action ; and because we 

 know that these stimulants worked well in German}^, and especially in Ba- 

 varia, thirty years ago, when, probabl}^ not above five in every hundred of 

 the labouring population could read. We were every where informed in 

 that country, in Wurtemberg, and in Baden, that these laws were now totally 

 unnecessary. We think, however, that they might be useful in protecting 

 pauper children, foundlings, orphans,and the children of the unfortunate and 

 of bad characters, for which reason we should prefer commencing with them. 



We are aware how unsuitable these ideas will appear to a number of 

 minds among the higher classes, but it must not be forgotten that we are 

 supposing our plan to have been some time in operation ; and, in that case, 

 we should regard this state of feeling in the higher classes as one of disease, 

 which it would be for the benefit of all parties to remove, and which, in 

 fact, circumstances would remove. 



V. Obligations of the Local Police or Vestries of Parishes. — A law being 

 passed by the government to render it obligatory to all parishes to establish 

 such schools, to such an extent as to insure the education of the whole of 

 the community, the execution of this law would devolve on the vestries of 

 parishes. These, we think, ought to be perfectly independent of each other, 

 and of any superior authority, in carrying the law into execution. We wish 

 to guard, above all things, against any thing like a hierarchy or an oligarchy 

 creeping into this system. We would impose on the parishes the duties of 

 finding the school and garden, and paying the salaries ; and we would leave 

 it to them to judge of the efficiency of their teachers. The local press, we 

 think, would be a sufficient check upon the evils incident to this part of the 

 system. The teachers ought to be independent as to their manner of teach- 

 ing, except that they should be obliged, for the benefit of grown-up people, 

 to complete a course of universal knowledge in evening lectures, once in 

 each year, in the lecture-room of the school ; to lecture on every evening ; 

 and not to employ a substitute more than three times a week, without con- 

 sent of the vestry.* The Sunday evening lectures might be devoted to 

 natural theology and morality. But as we consider the institution of ves- 

 tries, though liable to abuse, as one of the best in this country, we would 

 pass the general law by the central government, and leave it to work its 

 way among the parishes. It would be an unspeakable satisfaction to us if 

 the legislature were simply to pass a law, obliging the vestries of all parishes 



• The difficulties of giving a useful course of universal knowledge would 

 not be great, considering that there are so many excellent encyclopaedias. 

 Even a course of public reading would be of great importance. As no one man 

 or woman could be expected to attend every evening, a manuscript syllabus 

 of the lectures for the past and approaching week or month should always 

 lie on the table of the library, with references to books for such reading as 

 would serve as a substitute for the lecture. 



