75 



COMPULSORY EDUCATION EST ElSTaLAND. 



My obseryations during the last year, both at home and 

 abroad, refute the old objection to obligatory education, that 

 "the laboring classes won't stand it." In the County and State 

 Conventions of the Labor Unions recently held in Connecticut, 

 resolutions have been adopted in favor of the rigid enforcement 

 of the law for the prevention of illiteracy. Mixing much with 

 the laboring classes for the purpose of promoting school attend- 

 ance, I have been greatly encouraged by their growing appre- 

 ciation of education, whether Americans, Germans, Swedes or 

 Irish. In England the various labor organization^ earnestly 

 advocate compulsory education. The opposition comes from 

 the comparatively few land-holders, the politicians and large 

 farmers. In Glasgow, where the coercive regime is in full 

 vigor, but fifty-one penalties have been inflicted in three years. 

 In Birmingham, where the proportion of illiteracy was far 

 larger than in Glasgow, greater exertions have been requisite to 

 vanquish the apathy of parents. In Scotland, education has 

 long been well nigh universal, while the poorer classes in Eng- 

 land and Wales were sunk in ignorance. Under the existing 

 law, the regulation of attendance is left to the local School 

 Boards. Recent interviews with prominent friends of educa- 

 tion in England and Scotland, satisfied me that public senti- 

 ment is rapidly growing in favor of making compulsion univer- 

 sal in its application. I could learn of no signs of reaction in 

 any town where it had been adopted, but was assured that in 

 the School Boards of London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birming- 

 ham, Sheffield, Leeds, and many other large towns, there is not 

 now left a single opponent to this plan. Throughout Britain 

 experience has converted many objectors to friends. 



Sir Charles Reed, President of the London School Board, 

 gave me last summer some statements which happily illustrate 

 the good influence of compulsory education in that great me- 

 tropolis. The new system went into operation in 1871. The 



