JOHN BROWN PATON:.
Ms name of Dr. Paton of Nottingham is honoured by all @indents of social science, and all advocates of social service, as that of one of the meet large hearted and wide minded of the Victorian pioneers. The education of the working classes, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, was the cause to which he devoted the energy and enthusiasm of a long life, He had, in his son's words, "the synoptieal and strategic mind," and at the same time "the instinct for action." He was "a seer of visions," and yet the most practical of men. And by virtue of this double gift, combined with remarkable personal attractiveness and power of inspiring others, he achieved results which in their scope and far.reaching influence recall the activities of the great Lord Shaftesbury. He was forty years old when the Elementary Education Act of 1870 Was passed; and first came into public notice as the leader of Nonconformist opposition to the Nonconformist scheme for 'secularizing" the Board Schools. It was characteristic of him that, while himself a Nonconformist by training and con- viction, he never confused the supposed advantage of his own party with the cause of religion. It was equally characteristic that he looked at facts rather than at phrases, and exposed with equal trenchancy the folly of the proposal of some of his brethren to let the Bible teach its own lesson, by reading it to children " without note or comment," and the folly of some Churchmen in denying the existence of any fundamental Christianity common to themselves and the Nonconformists. In 1902, when the "religious difficulty" came to the front again, the solution he proposed was that in every Voluntary School Bible teaching should be given three or four days in the week, and that on the other days the distinctive formularies of Churchmen and Nonconformists should be taught. What be disliked in Mr. Birrell's Bill was the treat- ing of the religions lesson as "a detachable extra." Party feeling, however, at this time ran too high for the voice of common-sense to make itself heard; and the question still remains over for settlement.
After his first victory in 1870 in the region of elementary education, it was to the cause of the children after leaving school that he devoted his main energies. Following the lead
• lots Brows Patna: a Biography. By cis Be., iota law* Yaws. Landaus Hodder and Stoughton. [122. net] set by James Stuart, he started at Nottingham the first Eaten- sion lectures for working men, and founded the Arab University College. Here he had the insight to perceive what so few Englishmen saw at the time, that what the working classes required was not only general cultivation, but the best technical and commercial training, adapted to their particular industries ; and this at Nottingham be provided. Evening classes followed, made as lively and attractive as possible, to bridge the perilous passage between childhood and manhood_ The story of Paton's efforts to build this educational bridge, first' by experiments at Nottingham, and then by publio agitation, memorials to School Boards, and Bills in Parliament, until in 1893 the scheme was adopted in Mr. Acland's Code, forms one of the most inspiring chapters in the biography. in connexion with this problem of the adolescent should be mentioned Paton's adaptation to this country of the Chautauqua Home Reading Circles, and also his Noncon- formist version of the Boys' Brigade. He recognized the value of military drill for our undisciplined youth, in securing immediate obedience and alert attention ; and he recognized the attractive force of the uniform and the brass band. Bub there were the pacificist brethren to be considered. So be enrolled his "Life Guards" only for ambulance work and life-saving from fire and drowning; and thus carried his scheme through. The endeavour by means of Social Institutes to give in a healthy form the recreation for mind and body which the public-houses at present supply, with notoriously unfor- tunate results, was another experiment tbat met with local success; but on a large scale it still waits for the awakening of the public, conscience and intelligence. "The dominant factor of the problem," said Paton, "is that throughout our country there is a vast industrial population who tired with the day's work, need and demand recreation, refreshment, and social fellowship. It is a natural, vital, human, social need which has to be met.' As long as we do not cater for this need, " we may talk temperance till the crack of doom."
It is impossible in the course of a short review to give an account of the experiments in connexion with the land problem which Paton undertook by founding the "English Land Colonization Society" and the "Agricultural Banks Association." The impetus came from Miss Sutter's book called A Colony of Mercy, which described what had been done to rescue the loafer in Westphalia by work upon the land, and the outcome was the purchase of a farm at Lingfield to train able-bodied men sent by the Poor Law Guardians in agricul- tural work. It must suffice to say that results were so satis- factory that a second farm was acquired at Starnthwaite, in Cumberland, and presently a third at harpist Dale, near Manchester. Bat Paton always protested against the Labour Colony being regarded as a panacea for all social maladies, and in a letter to Mr. Burns here given he lays down a careful statement of the various kinds of colony necessary for various alum' of case and of the methods essential to their success. It iv the justification of the large scale on which this biography is written that the social worker will find under each enterprise a clear and detailed statement of the problem it was intended to meet, and the principles which Paton conceived to underlie any possible solution of it as well as the tale of his own attempts.
We have said nothing about Paton's ministerial or literary work—he was at one time editor of the Contem- porary Beview—bat a word must be added in conclusion on the spirit which animated and directed and co-ordinated all
these various activities. Dr. Paton had early in life been
impressed by an idea, to which Immanuel Wiohern gave the name of the Inner Mission, that all who bear the Christian
name should realize that they are engaged in the great task of purifying the whole life of the community. Christianity to him, therefore, meant social reform on Christian principles; and it is an indication of the unity which be himself realized in all his manifold enterprises that the pamphlets or leaflets leaned in connexion with them were all published under the name of the "Inner Mission."
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