Suffffestions for its Improvement. 
13 
assisting the people, and leading them to the adoption of provi- 
dent liabits. 
Where habits of self-denial and forethought are duly impressed 
upon the minds of youth in the process of education, and where 
these qualities are united with intelligence, sobriety, and industry 
in after life, they constitute the real wealth of the labouring 
classes, and will not fail to secure for them as large an amount of 
comfort as is compatible with their position. This truth it must 
at all times be a leading object to inculcate. If this were 
sufficiently attended to by teachers, and if superiors would add 
the weight of their influence to enforce it, fewer improvident 
marriages would be witnessed. Young men and young women 
would then look forward, and consider how they were to furnish 
their dwellings and support a family ; and would delay entering 
upon the duties of married life, until by industry and economy 
they had acquired the means for coming together without violating 
the dictates of prudence, instead of acting in total disregard of all 
prudential considerations, as is now so frequently seen. 
To be able to read and write is, in the present state of the 
world, almost as necessary as to be able to speak and think. The 
Scriptures are opened, and divine knowledge becomes accessible 
to every one who is able to read. The history of his country is 
then no longer a sealed book to him, and every Englishman 
ought to have some knowledge of his country's historv, for how 
else can he fulfil the duties of a good citizen ? — how else can he 
be expected to have the high national feelings essential for the 
maintenance of our national honour, which every British subject 
is bound at all hazards to uphold, and to be prepared at any 
moment to peril his life in defending ? 
To a knowledge of reading and writing, the common rules of 
arithmetic ought to be added ; and here perhaps might end all' 
that is at present necessary for the labourer in the way of educa- 
tion, for agriculture, as now conducted, affords little demand 
for the higher degrees of intelligence in the labourer. The 
skilled labour now required, is for the most part limited to mere 
manual skill in the common everyday operations of the farm — . 
in ploughing, fencing, threshing, and so forth ; but agriculture 
will not always be conducted as at present. Improvement has 
commenced, and must from its nature be progressive. More 
capital will be applied to the land, and science will become 
available to the farmer, who will then have a surer guide than 
mere empiricism. When this shall be the case, it is clear that 
a sujierior description of labourers will be required to carry out 
a superior description of operations. More skilled labour, more 
intelligence, will then be necessary; and a higher degree of edu- 
cation than what is actually required in the present dav should 
