214 Family Life of the Middle Glass. 



place is a little too high, or a little too low, to be socially civil 

 to anybody else. 



In country towns there are other peculiarities, as, for 

 example, the position assigned to manufacturers, which is 

 chiefly, though not entirely, dependant upon the style in which 

 they live. The great manufacturer ranks as an important man 

 in the county as well as in the town, while the smaller maker 

 of the same article is held in little estimation. This is also 

 noticed in such businesses as brewing. Those upon whom 

 the vats and coppers have, in Johnsonian phraseology, con- 

 ferred ec a potentiality of becoming rich beyond the dreams of 

 avarice/-' are freely welcomed by great landed, or noble 

 families, while those whose vats and coppers are of smaller 

 dimensions would be snubbed if they attempted any inter- 

 course of the kind. In agricultural districts the precise 

 position of farmers' daughters is often difficult to settle, and 

 we remember serious conflicts of opinion in a little town, as to 

 whether certain young ladies of this description might be 

 invited to public balls. The general opinion of the young 

 men was in favour of the girls, whose beauty was admired ; 

 but the puzzle was how to admit them without their brothers, 

 who were voted too rough. 



It is not our purpose to inquire into the complicated rights 

 and wrongs of these social divisions; but their existence 

 materially affects the conditions of middle-class family life. 

 They make the co-operation of large bodies of the middle 

 class very difficult, and they tend to prevent the best manners 

 and the wisest opinions from spreading throughout the mass. 



As a rule the education of middle-class families is bad ; 

 on the whole that of the richer sections, though still bad, is 

 the best, while that of the poorer sections is not equal to that 

 which the working class enjoy in the best conducted British or 

 National schools. All through, there is a deplorable want of 

 any species of culture that tends to enlarge the mind. Phy- 

 sical science is woefully neglected ; political economy and 

 social sciences usually ignored, though remarkably well taught, 

 as part of the instruction supplied for sixpence a week, in the 

 famous Peckham School, founded by Mr. Ellis, and conducted, 

 by Mr. Shields. Only the dry bones of geography are usually 

 imparted in the shape of names of places and rivers, with 

 their latitudes and longitudes, and history figures as a dull 

 catalogue of battles and dates. Very rarely does any school- 

 teaching develop a capacity for enjoying or understanding the 

 great literature of our own or any other country, and many a 

 boy is cured for life of any fancy for poetry, by its being made 

 an instrument of torture in Latin or Greek. 



It would not be fair to tho schools if we were to forget that 



