only look a little further into it, and see what can practically be done, and what, in those instances where most has been doing, is the good effect upon their conduct, I am well assured they will find no ground for fear.

The cry that it is teaching too much-it is teaching them astronomy, mathematics, &c., is very high sounding, and implies much more than can be done, or even is attempted; then, again, consider the small number who remain even for this ;but the fact is, it is not teaching them astronomy, &c., but it is merely making them acquainted with facts in those subjects of a scientific kind which they are capable of understanding-which will be verified afterwards by their own experience which open their minds, and bear upon their occu pations in life-facts most useful and interesting to them, and which, even independent of their usefulness, give a greater interest to education than can be given in any other way.

It might as well, and with as much truth, be said that floating a small paper boat on a tub of water was teaching them navigation;-besides, why assume that knowledge, when communicated to the lower orders, must necessarily have a tendency to evil?-why imagine that a boy who is told how the sailor steers by the compass, and who knows a little of geography, will run away to sea and become a Paul Jones, a buccaneer, or a pirate, rather than, if he does so, that he will run in a right course-go to China, or join Mr. Brooke in Borneo, and help to civilize the world. But even in Shakspeare's time there seems to have been those who objected to much being done in this way, although I think there are few at present who would quite adopt the words which he puts into the mouth of Jack Cade, in his Henry the Sixth: "Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books than the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and thou hast built a papermill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ears can endure to hear."

In presenting this outline of secular teaching in our ele mentary schools, I have done it with a view to its helping to an improved system, and towards what I think most important at the present time, the establishing schools combining the

education of the labouring classes with those of the employers. This has been the aim which I had in the one here, and it is, in my opinion, one of its most important and leading features, and has in this respect been completely successful.

The number in the school when visited by the Rev. H. Moseley, her Majesty's Inspector, in March, 1847, was 173, and their average ages throughout the school-boys, ten years and three months-girls, ten years and eight months; and although many of the labourers' children remain considerably beyond the usual ages in schools of this kind, yet, generally speaking, they leave between ten and eleven, and many even before that. It appears from the report of Mr. Moseley, in 1845, that the average age of the monitors in the numerous schools which he inspected is not more than eleven years.

The number of children at present (April, 1848) in the school is upwards of 180, in addition to which there is a small infant school of about thirty children, kept in a cottage hard by, and managed in turn by the girls who are pupilteachers from this it would appear that a very large proportion of the population is at school, being upwards of a sixth of the whole, but about thirty are from neighbouring parishes.

The proceeds of the school for the year from Christmas 1846, to Christmas, 1847, were £152 2s. 2d., this includes books, the payments for which during the year by the children amounted to £29 14s. 6d. This is a sure test of the value which the parents attach to the education their children are getting.

It is now advanced in its sixth year, and, having watched the working of it in all its bearings, from the first, with a great deal of attention, I feel that I may, with some degree of confidence offer a few observations, in addition to those I published in a pamphlet entitled Hints towards a Self-Paying System of Education.

The reception the pamphlet met with, and the number of attempts which are being made in the same direction, and which I hope may meet with the same success, have in some measure led to this publication. I there stated, that schools for the education of the children, both of the labourer and employer, might be very extensively established in the larger parishes throughout England, by the assistance of the clergy

and others interested in the education of the poor: this I still repeat, and with increased conviction of its truth. I repeat this passage from knowing that it has been misquoted and reasoned upon as if I had said in all parishes—a thing manifestly impossible in small ones-but these ought, and no doubt would, for the bigger children, take advantage of the neighbouring schools.

Increased experience has confirmed what I then stated, that the better the labouring classes are educated, the better they will become in all the social relations of life, and that no great improvement can be effected in the manners of the people but by the education of the rising generation.

"It is difficult, if not impossible, to change the habits of men whose characters are formed and settled. The prejudices. of ignorance that have grown up with them will not yield to new impressions, whilst youth and innocence may be moulded into any form you may choose to give them."

There is one class of men in our rural districts, and no doubt a similar class in towns, to whom schools of this kind are the greatest possible boon, that is, the tradesmen and smaller farmers. Hitherto they never have had an education for their children within their reach, but when it is so, they show themselves willing and anxious to profit from it.

With respect to the more wealthy farmers, and also professional men living in the country, many of them will, as they do here, send their children to these schools, if well conducted, when they see it is an advantage to them to do so. It would be folly to suppose that any prudent parent would hesitate to send his children when a good education is to be had at them, at a comparatively small expense, merely because their primary object was the education of the poor, and when he sees clearly that the interests of both classes may be advanced by his doing so.

The gradual improvement of the labouring classes will be such, and also of the class immediately above them, that each will see their true interests in a better light than they have hitherto done, and there will be no longer that fear of coming in contact with each other in early life which there has been, and which has been productive of anything but good.

That the occupying farmers as a class, and I speak of them more particularly from not having much knowledge of the

employers of labour in towns, are against the education of the labourer, there is no doubt; for they seldom speak of it in any other terms than as 'a parcel of stuff, a parcel of nonsense; what do they mean by attempting to teach the children all this?- —we shall not be able to get labourers," &c. All this is mere projudice, and will soon die away.

One objection running in the minds of many of them is this (a most ungenerous one it is true), that the children of the labourer in schools like the one here for I know it has been urged against this-are getting, at a cheap rate, a better education than those of the farmer. Now this would be true, supposing that the class above the labourer were to remain stationary as to education, a thing they will not do, as they will no doubt, in the end, act upon the principles of common sense, and take advantage of such schools, where they are established in their parishes or in their neighbourhood.

For what is the way in which it operates here? From the above averages as to age, it is evident that the children of the labourer leave between ten and eleven, many of them earlier; those who stay after that age are exceptions to the general rule.

Now surely this is not staying to an age at which any one can justly take alarm; yet I know that, even at this age, some of them are better educated than the children of many of the farmers have hitherto been; but in keeping their children at school to the age of fourteen or fifteen, the latter would secure to themselves their proper place in the social scale, and as it is in their power to do so, if they do not, they have no business to find fault. It has been said, that every class above another teaches that below it, and the establishment of good and cheap schools will not reverse this; on the contrary, strengthen it.

I feel, from my own experience, how much the classes above the labourer and mechanic are interested in a good and efficient system of education in our parish schools, and I wish to open their eyes to the importance of them, and to the good results which would arise, if all would unite in trying to establish schools with a view to meet the educational wants of the age in which we live.

The farmer, and those of the same class in our rural districts, may rest assured, that until it is brought home to them

into their own parishes or neighbourhood, they never will, as a class of men, get that education it is desirable they should have; and, that by standing aloof, and feeling no interest in that of the labourer, they only augment the evil which they dread-the one is advancing in intelligence, and it is time it should-the other is standing still; and I cannot but think, that in a very few years, the employers of labour will be the class which, of all others, will take the greatest interest in those very schools of which they now think so little.

It is a remark sometires made, that the physical condition of the labouring classes, particularly as regards the crowded state of their cottages, is such as to render attempts to educate almost fruitless, or at all events to be a very great hinderance to it.

In this there is no doubt much truth, for it will generally be found, that when families are crowded together into a small space-all ages and sexes sleeping in the same room— that they lose all sense of decency and respectability, and that education in such cases has great difficulties to contend with.

The remedy for this, with regard to the cottages in our rural districts, rests with the landlords rather than any one else the farmer is indifferent to it-one sleeping-room for a family, however large, satisfies him.

The system of letting cottages in a wholesale way with farms, beyond what is necessary for farm servants, and of letting out leasehold and lifehold cottages for the purpose of subletting, is one very much to be condemned, and which calls for the consideration of the landlords of this country. They have it in their power to do much good in this, and the mischief has arisen from want of attention on their part, and not in any feelings of indifference as to the welfare of the poor.

Ecclesiastical and collegiate bodies have much to answer for in this respect, and one can only hope they will make up for the past by better attention to it for the future.

There is also another mischief in letting cottages to a greater extent than is absolutely necessary with the farms; it introduces a sort of truck system, and is very often a means of oppressing the labourer; the employer deducting more than a reasonable weekly rent from his wages on a Saturday night. The difficulty of getting cottages sometimes obliges