184 REPORT— 1860. 



the calculation of chnnees, and wherever the events subject to those chances have 

 been observed and recorded in numbers sufficient to afford an average, the prudence 

 or imprudence of the undertaking depends on that average. To give that average 

 is the business of the statistician. To act on it is the business of the speculator. If 

 in London one house in two thousand were burnt down every year, nothing would 

 be gained or lost by insuring houses in London at a shilling per cent, per annum. 

 If one in a thousand were burnt down, such insurance would be ruinous. If only one 

 in three thousand, it would be very profitable. But, I repeat that the observation, 

 the recording and the arranging facts, which is the science of statistics, and the 

 ascertaining, from observation and from consciousness, the general laws which 

 regulate men's actions with respect to production and exchange, which is the 

 science of political economy, are distinct from the arts to which those sciences are 

 subservient. We cease to be scientific as soon as we advise or dissuade, or even 

 approve or censure. 



I said, that I had been led into this train of thought by looking through the 

 papers which have been communicated to this Section since 1856. I find that we 

 received during that year " Suggestions on the education of the people." 



We had a paper, " On the general principles by which Reformatory Schools 

 ought to be regulated." We had another, " On the importance of open and public 

 Competitive Examinations." 



In 1857 we had one on the prevention of crime ; one on the reasons for extending 

 limited liability to joint-stock banks ; and one on the apprenticeship system in re- 

 spect to freedom of labour. 



In 1858 we had one on the principle of open competition ; one on public service, 

 academic and teacher's examinations ; one on the importance of a colonial penny 

 postage to the advancement of science and civilization ; and one on the race and 

 language of the gvpsies. 



If it be said that in all these papers, except indeed the very last, there was a 

 reference to statistical facts, or to economic principles, and that therefore they were 

 properly communicated to this Section, the answer is, that there is no province of 

 the great arts of legislation, of administration, of commerce, of war, indeed, of any 

 of the arts which deal with human feelings, in which frequent reference must not 

 be made to political economy, and occasional reference to statistics. There is 

 scarcely a moral art therefore of which we should not be able to take cognizance. 



But I do not think that such an extension of our jurisdiction would be advi- 

 sable. I believe that in mental, as in manual arts, the division of labour is useful. 

 Within the strict limits of economic science and statistics a large field is open to us. 

 It appears to me that we shall do well, if, as far as may be practicable, without 

 much inconvenience, we confine ourselves within it, and deviate as little as we can 

 into the numerous arts to which those sciences afford principles. 



On the True Principles of an Income. Tax. 

 By the Rev. J. Booth, LL.D., F.R.S. 



On Educational Help from the Government Grant to the destitute and neg- 

 lected children of Great Britain. By Mary Carpenter. 



The educational movement, as such, is of comparatively recent date in our 

 country. The importance of popular education was not generally acknowledged in 

 England fifty years ago : but yet as early as in the sixteenth century there were 

 distinct efforts made to give instruction to the very poorest, as is proved by the King 

 Edward and many other endowed Charity Schools. These gradually became 

 employed by a higher class than the children for whom they were originally in- 

 tended, and a part of the population were uncared for. In 1781 Raikes began the 

 first Sunday school for outcast children ; in 1800 Bell and Lancaster began day 

 schools, to give gratuitous instruction to the very lowest. Now the Sunday schoofs 

 no longer receive the vagrant children, and the Bell and Lancaster schools have 

 gradually merged into the National and British pay schools. A large class of the 

 people are instructed by these schools, but those who most need instruction are not 

 able to attend them. 



At the Educational Conference in 1857, H.R.H. Prince Albert stated that there 



