10 Notes and Refections during a Tour : — 



cultivators in or about London, the great majority of French 

 gardeners and farmers are deplorably ignorant, not only in 

 the science of their profession, but in general knowledge. 

 Two thirds of them, we should think, can neither read nor 

 write ; they are badly clothed, have only wooden shoes in 

 winter, and go barefooted in summer. The French spade has 

 not a hilt, but a very long handle, and in digging is thrust 

 in by the strength of the arms. In hard ground a pick is 

 used; so that in neither case are shoes wanted. There are 

 very few men who work in gardens in France, who, in know- 

 ledge, rank above the common country labourers ; and this 

 will not soon be otherwise, because it is not likely that there 

 will soon be a great demand for intelligent serving gardeners 

 in France. The French labourers, however, in another gene- 

 ration will become as generally enlightened as British gar- 

 deners now are, in consequence of the liberty and sense of 

 citizenship which they at present enjoy, and of the extra- 

 ordinary exertions beginning to be made by the wealthier 

 class to spread among them useful education, and propagate 

 and establish every where arts and manufactures. The great 

 thing is to be able to communicate to the ignorant of every 

 country a sense of their ignorance, and to convince them that 

 all useful knowledge may be possessed by the poorest as well 

 as by the richest, without interfering with the labours by which 

 the former obtain their daily bread. It will take at least a 

 generation to do this; but when once it is done, the poor, 

 that is, those who are now and ever will be the great mass of 

 society, will take care of themselves. Of this they may be 

 certain, from reflecting on what human nature is, that, if they 

 do not, nobody will do it for them ; for no one class of society 

 will ever effect any great good for any other class. It is 

 with classes as with individuals, every one must help himself: 

 God and fortune, as Franklin says, will then also lend their 

 assistance. 



The. improved condition of the labouring classes of all 

 countries, which we contemplate, when it shall once arrive in 

 France, will give in-door employment to the wives and daugh- 

 ters of the country population, whom it is lamentable to see 

 at present performing those labours in the gardens and fields 

 which in England are only performed by men. There are 

 various light out-of-door employments, for which women and 

 children are well adapted, and which in moderation, in fine 

 weather, and with broad-brimmed straw hats and good shoes 

 and stockings, will neither injure their health nor spoil their 

 form or complexion ; points that both in a physiological and 

 moral view ought never to be lost sight of: but at present, in 



