THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Here, in Dorsetshire, a labourer receives lls. a week wages, and pays twopence a week, ungrudgingly, for the educa- tion of the eldest child, and a penny for each of the others in his family Consequently, he pays for the education of each child, upon an average, about the hundredth part of his income. The clergyman hard by is fortunate if he can get his son educated for the tenth part of his. Dr. Rigg has shown con- clusively that in America free education fails in securing the regular attendance of the children. To be logical, therefore, the advocates of free education here must go back a step farther, and present, at the expense of the rates, a pair of boots to every Briton who pleads difficulties of locomotion in excuse for the non- attendance of his child at school. I am no alarmist about State Socialism, from which I expect many future benefits, but decidedly deprecate this particular inducement being offered to that irresponsible paternity which is the taproot of the misery of our large towns, and which, if the commonest decencies of civilised life are only insisted on with a firm hand, need by no means be so inevitable as popular laissez-faire is pleased to suppose.—I am, Sir, &c., J. Las-WARNER. Townt Gonville, Blandford, August 10th.
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