88 



whole nation suffer. Poor England, standing by idle, is too 

 late. Her workingmen, grown up uneducated, cannot now be 

 educated, are too old to learn. They have lost a generation. 

 Where was the fault? where the blame? Why did not our 

 statesmen and aristocracy, already provided with special uni- 

 versities and schools for their own training, foresee that our 

 trade was going away to more skilled nations, and warn us in 

 time? The contrast between England and Switzerland is this; 

 England spends more than five times as much on pauperism 

 and crime as she does on education, and Switzerland spends 

 seven times as much on education as she does on pauperism 

 and crime." 



It was in view of startling facts and statements like these 

 from her own countrymen that England organized in 1870 an 

 efficient system of public education. It is a striking fact that 

 the latest statistics show a great diminution of both pauperism 

 and crime. Instead of a million of paupers in 1870, the num- 

 ber returned January, 1878, was 726,000.* The cost of juvenile 

 crime and pauperism has been remarkably reduced. The 

 London Police Commissioners testify to a great diminution of 

 juvenile offences and affirm that every gang of juvenile thieves 

 known to them has been broken up. Even the adult popula- 

 tion has been reached and elevated in some degree through 

 their children. New hope and ambition have come to many 

 an illiterate farm laborer, himself born to despair, by reason of 

 ignorance born to helplessness and hopelessness, as he finds, 

 though a thing unknown and undreamed of before, his children 

 at school, and hence sees dawning upon them better prospects 

 and possibilities than ever fell to his hard lot. The hopes cher- 

 ished for children have thus cheered many a humble cottage. 



In striking contrast to the depressed condition of the farm 

 laborer in his own land it is interesting to see the picture of the 

 New England farmer drawn by Kev. Dr. E. W. Dale, of 

 Birmingham, in an address at Canonbury, England, January 

 17, 1879. When traveling in this country, he frequently ex- 

 pressed his surprise and admiration in view of the intelligence 

 and independence of the farmers of New England. 



* The unprecedented financial embarrassments now experienced in England 

 will no doubt swell the next returns. 



