KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



271 



by no means uncommon, either in Germany 

 or Switzerland, for the children of some 

 gentleman in the neighborhood to attend the 

 village school, and sit at the same desks with 

 the children of the villagers." 



If this were the testinuny of a man who 

 was pursuing a crotchet, we might lay it 

 aside and think no more of it. But Mr. Kay 

 is of a very different stamp. He has under- 

 taken his task of examining into the state of 

 education at home and abroad, in the spirit 

 of a patriot and philanthropist; and he has 

 executed it with the ability of a man of sound 

 and enlarged understanding. We may there- 

 fore rely upon his statements, confirmed as 

 they are by that floating information, which, 

 in spite of our national prejudices — the 

 result of insular position — forces its way to 

 us. We see, then, that abroad, for the most 

 part, instead of there being in every town 

 crowds of children exposed to the corruption 

 of the streets — to its dirt, its idleness, and 

 bad example, disciplined in crime, and 

 educated to a fate in after-life from which 

 escape would be next to a miracle, all the 

 children — except, as before said, those too 

 young and those who have completed their 

 course — are at school; and that by these 

 means, and the good example they have 

 received from educated parents, they are so 

 civilised in manners that the children of 

 merchants, professional men, and nobles, may 

 be seen sitting in the same rooms, and at 

 the same desks with children who are being 

 educated and even clothed at the expense of 

 the municipality — their parents being too 

 poor to pay the small weekly school-fees 

 required for every child. 



And, be it observed, this happy result has 

 been brought about in the face of the strongest 

 religious differences, and is not to be traced to 

 the character of any particular creed. The 

 state of education and the condition of the 

 children of the poor are the same in Pro- 

 testant and Catholic states, in Bavaria as well 

 as in Prussia. No poor man is prevented 

 sending his children to school by inability to 

 pay the school pence, for the town pays it 

 for him as soon as the education committee 

 is satisfied of his poverty. No poor parent 

 deterred by the wretchedness of his 



is 



children's dress ; on the contrary, he is 

 induced to send them by the knowledge that 

 by doing so they will be provided with 

 comfortable clothing. No poor person is 

 prevented by objection to the religion of the 

 teacher ; for if he objects to the teachers of 

 one school, the committee will, at his request, 

 transfer his children to any other school he 

 may prefer; but, on the other hand, no 

 parent has, in the face of these liberal 

 provisions, any excuse for neglecting his 

 children, or for leaving them to grow up 

 in the streets, to become the pest8 of 



society, and the miserable victims of his 

 neglect. 



Mr. Kay relates an incident which may 

 not inappropriately be introduced here, and 

 which, perhaps, will better exemplify the 

 great difference betwixt the children of the 

 English poor and those of foreigners, than 

 any descriptive comparison. In the summer 

 of 1847, he was travelling through the 

 kingdom of Wirtemberg, from Ulm, to a 

 town in the interior, by night. His com- 

 panions in the diligence were an Oxford 

 Fellow, a German, and a Frenchman. 

 Conversation turned on the condition of 

 the poor children in the German towns. 

 The Englishman, with his insular prejudices, 

 refused to credit the account which the 

 German and his more travelled fellow- 

 countryman had given him of the educa- 

 tional efforts of Germany, but laughed 

 at them as useless and chimerical. " Well," 

 said Mr. Kay at last, seeing argument was 

 useless against prejudice, " if you are ever 

 in the streets of a German town in the 

 morning between eight and nine o'clock, 

 or between twelve and one o'clock, observe 

 what is going on, and remember what I 

 told you." 



Early the next day they stopped to 

 change horses in a small town between Ulm 

 and JStuttgard. The children of the town 

 were on their way to the schools. " I 

 begged the Oxford Fellow to get out of 

 the diligence and observe what was going 

 on around us at that time. The street in 

 which we had pulled up was full of clean 

 and respectable looking children; each of 

 the girls holding a small bag of books in 

 her hand, and each boy carrying a little 

 goatskin knapsack full of books on his back. 

 There were no rags, no bare feet, and no 

 unseemly patched and darned clothes. The 

 girls were all very neat, their hair was 

 dressed, as is always the case in Geimany, 

 with a good deal of taste, and their general 

 appearance was healthy and comfortable. 

 A stranger would have imagined them all 

 to be children belonging to the middle 

 classes. Most of them, however, were the 

 sons and daughters of poor artisans and 

 laborers. In England, many would have 

 been the squalid idlers of our gutters and 

 back alleys. In this German town, no 

 difference could be discerned between the 

 appearance of the children of the poor 

 laborer and those of the rich shopkeeper. 

 They all looked equally clean, respectable, 

 polite, and intelligent. I asked my com- 

 panion if he was convinced ; he turned to 

 me and answered, ' Yes ; this is indeed a 

 very interesting and curious sight. I do 

 not any longer doubt the accuracy of all you 

 told me last night. It is certainly very 

 remarkable.' 



