Education of Labouring Classes 197 



moulding them into beings other than such as 

 those described by Mr. Freeman in his admir- 

 able work on Boy Life and Labour. What we 

 require at present is a Government which will 

 carry through measures calculated to improve 

 the housing of the poor, to amend our 

 poor laws, including boy labour; when 

 this work is accomplished it will be time 

 to take seriously into consideration the 

 kind, and scope of instruction to be given 

 in State-supported elementary schools through- 

 out the country. 



The main object to be kept in view in 

 educating the children of our labouring classes, 

 is to mould the instinctive and association 

 areas of their brains into a form which, under 

 proper stimuli, will become manifest in a self- 

 reliant, loyal character, steadfast in honest 

 good work, in whatever state of life the indi- 

 vidual may be placed. This purpose, as we 

 have endeavoured to show, may be accom- 

 plished by the continued employment in early 

 childhood of appropriate stimuli through 

 sensory organs, and thus of securing the co- 

 ordinate working of the higher and lower 



