Industrial Training and Technical Education. 3 1 



proportionally between the school authorities and the children 

 themselves. In schools, belonging to which the pupils worked 

 in factories, &c., the workshop accommodation would be 

 unnecessary. Girls should betaught plain needlework, washing, 

 cooking, and certain simple rules as to domestic sanitation. I 

 have seen the younger boys usefully taught knitting as well as 

 netting. It keeps the fingers pliable, necessitates attention and 

 consequent interest, and accustoms the hand and eye to work 

 together. As in institutions the success is largely due to the 

 sanitary arrangements so it is necessary not only to ensure the 

 sanitation of the school premises, but the houses in which the 

 children live. 



An Englishman's or Irishman's house may be his castle; but it 

 is intolerable that it should be a menace to the health of his 

 neighbours. Dirty walls, dirty floor and dirty ceilings harbour 

 disease, and any system but that of the removal of all excreta 

 and household slops, except by a constant water supply and 

 perfect drainage, is intolerable in civilized cities. Sanitary 

 science may be summed up in a few words — free circulation of 

 air and water. For what purpose do city or town public 

 functionaries imagine they exist, unless it be pre-eminently for 

 ensuring the safety of the inhabitants, not only from violence 

 but also from sickness. It is that low state of health which 

 unfits them for the support of wives and families, destroys 

 their children, and drives them in despair to the demon of 

 drink and to an early grave. 



Although few people are sufficiently attentive students of 

 history to draw lessons therefrom for present guidance, there is 

 one which may be germane to our present subject. The 

 embarassment of Athens, and the decline and fall and subsequent 

 degradation of Rome, were due to the rabble of paupers 

 dependent on the public bounty. Look again at the facts of 

 the several French revolutions. Do not all teach us the danger 

 to the community of a hungry, untrained, idle population .? 

 On the other hand, contrast the contentment of the industrious 

 peasantry of Switzerland and France. Perhaps the most sad 

 and really wholesome lesson for ourselves is to be drawn from 



