EDUCATION OF TIIE PEOPLE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

Manchester, leth October 1839.

SIR—In your publication of the 29th of September, you put forth certain statements upon the subject of national education, which appear to time so pecu. liar, that I may perhaps be excused recalling your notice to them even after the lapse of a fortnight. I should premise, hots-ever, that it is not the editor of the Spectator whose opinions and doctrine I am about to impugn, but certain gentlemen who appeared before the Educational Committee of the Houee of Cotninons in the last session, and whose evidence forms the basis of the article to which I am inviting your attention.

Those gentlemen, after exhibiting by figures both of rhetoric and arithmetic the lamentable ignorance of the poorer classes, favoured the inhabitants of Man- chester by making them, as usual, the scapegoats for their orations ; a piece of injustice which length of practice seems almost to have sanctioned, but the grossness of which I think I shall be able to exhibit to you. They then pro- ceeded to expose the causes of this ignorance ; and here they were less unani- mous than they had been in treating of its existence.

1. Dr. JAMES PHILIPS Kay says, that the children of our working popula- tion have not time to go to school ; factory labour being so profitable that their parents persist in working them from ern ly morning to nightfall.

2. Mr. James Ilimmea Wow, is of opinion, that the people cannot afford to educate their children. "The only way," he says "iii which general edu- cation can obtain, must be by an advance in the wages of the adult population." Plausible reasons both of them for the prevailing ignorance, but both, as it appears to me, far wide of the truth. And first, for Dr. Kay's reasoning. It is not necessary to state that the cotton and other factories are the great marts for labour in Lancashire t beyond them, indeed, there is not in Manchester a :greater demand for youthful labour than In any other populous town. You may be aware that prior to the passing of the Factories Regulation Act, there were employed in the cottundi ie ctors of ut Lancashire abo two hundred and twenty thousand. At that time there was no restriction of age—children might be sent from the cradle to the fac- tory ; and no provision was made for their education. The Factory Act, how- ever, stipulated, that afterJanu tty 1834 children tinder nine years should not be employed at all in cotton-factories ; and that after given periods (long since expire(I) the labour of children under eleven, twelve, and thirteen years, shiluld be limited to eight hours a day. For these latter classes it was also enacted that schools should be provided ; and masters were compellable to see to the children's attendance, and to deduct therefor a payment after the rate of a penny for every shilling earned.

Whatever, therefore, might have been the inability of parents to obtain the neressaly schooling-time prior to this enactment, after it no difficulty could exist. To the ninth year (the usual period of sehooling among operatives) children were by the Factory Act absolutely incapacitated for labour ; from nine to thirteen they are restricted to eight hours' toil, and provided with the means of schooling by their masters, if they continue to work, or they are liberated from the factory altogether, and more open to the good offices of the schoolmaster. A retutu now before me states the number of children in this latter predicament—that is, wht) were either to be dismissed from the factories, or to work only eight hours atal have schools found for them—at nearly 22,000 ; and a report of Mr. Inspectort..s.‘ tIN ta:tts (IS:15) states, that the masters usually ili•ailis-ed all of this class when it was posaible to find substitutes.

It is difficult, then, to concur in Dr. Ka Y's opinion that the cause of the prevailing ignorance is the inability it parties to find time for some education. And, looking to the actual earnings of tIn-se children, it is as difficult to believe that they could form any great temptation to parents to detain their offspring from school, if they had tiny anpreciatiou of its advantages.

I come, then, to the cause of the people's ignorance as.tigned by Mr. WOOD— the inadequate wages of the working classes; and to this pretext. it appears to roe, a very ready answer offers it-elf. Limiting attention to Lancashire, you

will find, by reference to Parliamentary returns, that the number of persons employed in the cotton.trade of the comity is about 122,000 ; and turning to the reports of the Commissionera appointed some five years ago to investigate the condition of the factory population, you will see that they estimate the average earnings of the entire number, old and young. at ten shillings weekly. Take, then, the case of a man with a wife and (if you choose) half aolozen chil- dren, two only of whom are glown up. The earnings of husband, wife, and ttvo children, even according to the rate fixed for adults and mere children in. discriminately, will be two pounds a week. Surely, from such an amount, thriftily applied, enough may be spared to pay for a little schooling. Sixpence a week fur each of the four is no great draft lot so desirable an object, whilst it is more than could possible be needed. If, therefore, of the thousands of children who by the operation °lbw new law are thrown up the streets in idleness, few or none have found their way to school—aod the fact is, I believe, unquestionably so—it is useless to plead either on the one band want of opportunity, or on the other hand want of means. Both excuses are fallacious.

Can it be, then, that the people lack the inclination to educate? Take one page of Dr. Kay's evidence, and you have an answer in the affirmative ; whilst in the next you will find him vaunting of the people's eagerness to send their children to schools conducted on a good plan ; in a third, expressing his opinion that compulsion must be used with them ; and again, in a fourth, giving it as his decided conviction that the people would cheerfully pay for edit. cation of a good sort. Upon authority so contradictory it would be unsafe to place much reliance. Woon, on the other hand, expresses himself decisively that the people would pay for education of a good sort.

What, however, are the facts? Mr. Woon very freely, and Dr. J. P. KAY with more caution, admit that very great benefits are derivable from Sunday schools, and very considerable advantages also from the National and Lances- terian schools. It is not found, however, that these seminaries, either of the Church or of Dissenters, are over-crowded with scholars ; and if the dogma of the modern philosophers, that a demand always begets a supply, be applicable to education, (as they say it is to religion and other "commodities,") here is at once an answer to Mr. Wool). Dr. KAY sagaciously, but un- happily for his own consistency, is of opinion that the people would like educa- tion better if they had to pay for it, (a strange contradiction to Mr. Woon's theory, by the by) : why then have we nut more National and Lancasteriau &holds?

But we have other evidence of the fallacy of Mr. Woon's opinions. In Manchester we have a Mechanics' Institution ; and the very circumstance that in such a town we have only one—that it has been reared with great difficulty, and that others, after a sickly existence, have expired—affords of itself an awk- ward comment upon Mr. W000's theory. This one institution is now con- ducted with great efficiency : it has an excellent library ; the best lecturers iu every department of art, science, allfl literature are obtained ; and there are classes with capable masters in the leading branches of every-day knowledge. The subscription is twenty shillings per annum; whereby access is obtained to all the advantages the institution otl.ers, save the classes, for the benefits of which there is is small additional payment. The institution has about a thou- sand members; whom a recent analysis showed to consist of the following de- scriptions of persons,-305 principals, engaged as merchants, manufacturers, and machinists ; 117 mechanic', millwrights, and engineers; 38 uverlookers, spinners, and other mill.hands ; 92 buildiug trades; 7ti sundry trades, chiefly handicraft ; 104 warehousemen ; 240 clerks; 52 artists, architects, engravers, ; 13 professional men ; 15 schtaalmasters ; 1 1 I shopkeepers and their as- sistants; 18 no profes-ion ; 21 ladies; 242 youths. So that there are in fact only about 250 subscribe's to this institution who really rank among those for whom the institution was designed. The fact is a curious one—so curious as to have attracted the special notice of Lord BROUGHAM, when he visited Man- chester some four or five years ago. I commend it to the attention of "alr.

WOOD.

To me it presents one among many azguments against the prevailing dispo• salon to force knowledge, or indeed any other good thing, down the threats of the people. To Dr. KAY, on the other hand, it may serve as a strong luxe. ment in the opposite direction. The worthy Doctor "cannot help saying, that though it is not perfectly consistent with the spirit of our institutions in general, it would appear to him to be not altogether an unwholesome expedient, to require, that before a parent shall make a profit by the labour of his child in any public occupation in which it would be possible for the Government to interfere, some proof should be given that he had availed himself of the meaus of conveying instruction to his child." In other words, the Doctor would

force the people to be wise. " Oh, leatned judge And why not force them to be religious?—religion is as good a thing as education. Why not force them to be cleanly ?— if education is a good thing, soap and water are gocd things too. Whv not force them to take a walk upon the Sunday after clutch ?— fresh air is a good thing. Why not force them to give up getting drunk ?— that would be a good thing. And a police for any of these purposes would open a wide field for jobbing and patronage—the only ends which appear to me in. volved in the labours of the Education Committee, and of too many (though not all) of those who discourse so wisely before them. There can be no question that some plan of compulsory education, laden with offices and emoluments, is in course of concoction by those who are at the but. tom of and are working this wise Committee. Already have they resolved that in addition to "continuing and extending Government assistence to existing societies, it is desirable that a Board or Office of Education should be esta- blished under the control of Parliament: " a good broad platform whereon to work. It behoves the people, therefore, to be on the watch. Nothing is more ridiculous than ill.timed and unprovoked commiseration; and I feel quite u• eured that the self-satisfied deplorers of " popular ignorance" are expending now much sympathy which is neither needed nor desired. Many are the Lan. caehire weavers, starving on their five or six shillings a week, who would put to silence the " ignorance" of these "foolish men." Where there is a will there is a way, says the proverb; and so it is with the education of the people. They are wiser, many of them, than their betters; * and theirs is education picked up neither at dame schools nor at mechanics' institutes, but by their own fireside% They know that the aims of all these volunteer patriots are selfish ; and, with the sturdy independence of genuine Engli-hinen, they dor not choose to be fooled by them, or to be exhibited as their sucking children. They feel—that which they who preach so much about the moral and religious education of the people seem never to think of—that their first duty is to earn their own and their children's bread ; their second to learn reading and writing, or "singing " and the other " industrial" exercises which the lights of the nine- teenth century admire so much.

I had intended to attempt to show that the allegation of greater ignorance in the manufacturing districts than in other parts of the empire is entirely un- founded ; but my remarks have already run to a length which I fear destroys the little chance they might otherwise have of obtaining your favourable consi- deration.

It remains for me, therefore, to subscribe myself yours obediently,

JANIE!, WHEELER.

• Even Th.. J. P. Kay pays a tribute to the "superior intelligence " of those whose

icumrmuimc Ii. rolesses hinisell to have had sup-rior opportunities of noting: and in

point ot gives them the preference miler the people of other counties, in the same Item, liii is loch he is assigning the nature of their employments as the cause of their greater tenoraoce!