THE WORKING-CLASSES IN THE UNITED STATES.

IT would fill a large book and require an able writer to do justice to the subject of the condition of the Working- Classes in America. What I would propose to do here, therefore, is merely to give a brief summary of facts picked up and impres- sions made upon the mind of one well acquainted with the condi- tions of working-class life in England during a tour in the United States.

I visited America last year, at the request of the Society of Arts, with credentials from Government and numerous influential men of different classes and parties, my instructions being to note the actual condition of workpeople in the United States. I arrived in Boston in time to witness the celebration of July 4, and landed in England again towards the end of October, after an absence of exactly four months. I was everywhere very kindly received, both by private citizens and Government officers, the Secretary of State having been good enough to endorse my mission with a circular introduction to "scientific and practical men in the several states and cities of the Union who have especially identified themselves with the employments of agriculture, building, manu- facture, mining, commerce, and navigation."

My first impression of America was one of surprise, at the foreign appea1ance of everything. I had expected, after all I had heard of the kith and kindred between us, to find another English people on the other side of the ocean, and another England. I found nothing of the kind. I was indeed at a loss to settle whether the people or the objects around me were the more foreign. Our language seemed strange, coming from the mouths of men and women so unlike us in dress, looks, and manners. During the first few days, I was constantly turning round to look after people whose voices reached me in the street, wondering; as an Englishinan who hears English spoken in France or Germany is apt to do, whether the speakers were my countrymen or not ; and this was in Boston, which is the most English in appearance of any American city. The trees along the streets, gilt sign- boards, and flaring advertisements covering every wall and hoard- ing, the mode in which the shop-windows are arranged and the women dress, the number of negroes about, the careworn expres- sion on most of the faces one sees, and the general abruptness of

speech and manner which prevail, combine to dispel all ideas of our being in reality one people with the Americans. I was asked at Mr. Seward's table in Washington what had struck me most in the way of contrast between the English and American peoples, and my reply, given in perfect gravity and good faith, caused some merriment at my expense. I begged leave to remark that I had noticed a great many Americans who were black.

An English working-man cannot bear to feel that he is a for- eigner, and he does feel this much more in America than a mem- ber of the middle or upper classes can do. " Ladies and gentle- men" are nearly the same everywhere, there is much more coemo- politism, at least affected, in their intercourse with each other ; but the "common people" cherish their international antagonisms and parade their prejudices. Thus I was frequently obliged to listen to loud-mouthed tirades against England, as soon as it was known at a mechanics' boarding-house, that I was a " Britisher," which in is needless to say I did not have to do at any large hotels. I found very few English mechanics who had not been a long time settled in America, who liked it, while their wives, to a woman, were loud in their protestations that there was no place like home.. After some five or six years' residence in the States, however, our countrymen would appear to become more American than the Americans themselves. I found nobody so bitter against the old country as Englishmen who had settled in the new one, and were doing well.

I take it that the greatest advantage of working-class life ins America, is the ease with which every man can secure an educa- tion for his children. Elementary and high schools, and even colleges, are all free and wide open to everybody, whether citizens or strangers. In the presence of the teacher, too, all are •

equal ; the child of a street hawker was pointed out to me at a school in Boston seated next to a senator's sou. Private schools.

are increasing as the spirit of " hunkerdom " spreads, but most.

people outside the shoddy aristocracy still send, at least, their sons- to the public forms, however well able they may be to afford the luxury of private tuition. There is but little excuse for ignorance- in a land where not only is every one provided with schooling, but most people break the law if they keep it from their children. And yet knowledge is very far from covering even that part of the earth contained within the boundaries of the great Republic. When the last census was taken, in 1860, the total number of white people in the United States over twenty years of age who could not read and write was 1,126,575. In 1865 there were in the State of Rhode Island 10,181 persons over fifteen unable to read or write,.

out of a total population of 184,965. An examination of the- figures, however, which reveal the nationalities of these ignor- amuses is very damaging to us. They run thus :-

Population, 15 years and over.

Dunces.

Americans 87,605 1,552 Irish 27,030 7,313 English, Scotch, and Welsh 7,881 391

Among the 1,552 persons of American birth who are returned as- being unable to read or write, it should be pointed out that 467 coloured people are included. In San Francisco—I have it on the authority of a gentleman to whom I was recommended to apply for facts by the Governor of California—there is scarcely a China- man to be found who cannot read and write in his own language fluently. Surely it is high time some educational measures in England were taken, if we wish to keep up the character of being a civilized people.

In America, the State takes the young workman in hand at the age of five, when he enters the primary school, and with his A B gets his first lesson in republicanism and the equality of man. In Boston, at these primary schools, each child has a little desk and arm-chair to itself, detached from the rest. I never saw a prettier sight than these schools present, with their rows of happy little scholars following their teachers' eyes with faces brimful of intel- ligence. Beginning with the simplest work, such as drawing lines- and curves, the little fellows are gradually taught to recognize letters and numerals, and are removed from class to class as their store of knowledge increases. At the age of eight or nine they enter the grammar school, before obtaining which preferment they must be able to read, spell, and cipher well. In the grammar- school instruction is given in history, grammar, geography, draw- ing—mechanical and free-hand—music, natural history, and

book-keeping. If it is then thought desirable at about the age• of thirteen or fourteen the lad can become a candidate for the Latin or English high school, to enter which he must pass an examination. Upon leaving the high school, a lad is ready for the University, which he may enter if he can pass the necessary exa- mination, and keep himself while at his studies. Patriotism is carefully inculcated in American schools, every citizen being brought up in the faith that his country and its institutions are the beat in the world. In some States it is ordained by law that " On the 21st of February annually, each master shall assemble his pupils, and read, or cause to be read to them extracts from Washington's farewell address to the people of the United States, combining therewith such other patriotic exercises as he may think advisable." Military drill is in many places insisted on as part of the young citizen's education. In the English high school at Boston the head master informed me that every lad I saw in the class before me, was able to fulfil all the duties of a soldier in the field, from those of a private up to lieutenant-colonel.

If there is a fault in the American school system, it is, I think, that the children are made to study too hard. Most of them look pale and haggard. This is, however, rather the fault of the parents than the teachers, it being quite a common thing for the scholars to have as much to learn at home as at school. As a result of this, a report of certain eminent medical men declared that in one school which they examined, it was found that out of 85 pupils only 15 were perfectly well. The rest were subject to headaches, weariness, and sleeplessness at night. In addition to the regular six hours of study, these poor children had to study at home three and a half, four, and some even as much as seven hours a day ! And the Commissioners declare that among the scholars in schools of a high reputation this is quite the common practice.

Corporal punishment is not inflicted so frequently in American schools as in English, public opinion everywhere out of New England being against its continuance. It is prohibited by law in the case of girls, and in night and primary schools. Ten New York schools, with an aggregate attendance of 1,000 scholars, recently tried the experiment of doing without it, and it was found that discipline and good order were as effectually preserved by other means. Another batch of schools was content to adopt extreme moderation, instead of total abstinence in this matter, it being resolved only to revert to the birch when other means had failed. The result here was that out of nearly 1,000 boys only eleven were found impervious to the new method of persuasion. It is an interesting question what would have become of these eleven if they had happened to be in the schools where the rod was totally forbidden !

Notwithstanding all the care which is taken for the instruction of children, it is found that tens of thousands grow up to adoles- cence in a deplorable state of ignorance. To provide for these, the State in some cases, and private benevolence in others, sup- ports evening schools, where an excellent education may be had free by all who like to attend. The paternal and catholic nature of American institutions is nowhere better shown than in one of these night-schools,—say in New York city. You may see there young people from the uttermost ends of the earth ; Mexicans, Russians, Germans, Chinese, Sandwich Islanders, Americans, and English, all under one roof, and in the pursuit of a common object. During the year 1867, 16,510 pupils attended these evening schools in the city of New York.

It is a remarkable thing that, judged by their fruits, the American schools do not seem to work so satisfactorily as might be expected. There are loud complaints of the low attain- ments of the generality of lads going out into the world. For instance, the trustees of the " Cooper Institute," — a technical evening school in New York, — say that the benefits of their system are almost lost to the working-classes, owing to the general ignorance of elementary matters which pre- vails. At the beginning of one term 1,098 pupils entered, and only 632 remained to the close, the chief reason for the falling-off being this lack of elementary knowledge, which rendered half the students unable to keep up with the rest. At a teachers' conven- tion which I attended the same evil was lamented. It was stated by one of the speakers, and assented to by all present, that the results of even the New York system—generally thought the best—were anything but gratifying. Of scholars leaving the public schools in a number of districts, an examination had proved that only 28 per cent. could add numbers with anything like quickness or accuracy. The number of those who could read with ease was even smaller, being in nine districts as low as 11 per cent., and of all who left schools in these districts as educated boys, only 7 per cent. were able to read and write well. As far as my own observation went, it quite bore out this teacher's statements. I found American skilled workmen less educated than our own. There appeared to be none of that bovine stupidity which dis- graces us in our lowest labouring class, but of men having a decent stock of general information in the position of mechanics

I found very few indeed in America. I am convinced—and beg Americans' pardon for having to say it—that our mechanics would beat theirs iu any kind of competitive examination to which they might be subjected, by as long odds as the American work- ing-class as a whole would beat ours. I have been over and over again surprised at the puerile nonsense I have heard talked on all sorts of subjects by respectable young carpenters, painters, and other artisans with whom I have travelled and boarded. There is a dull dog or two in every English workshop, but you never catch six or seven dunces together at a chance meeting, as I and others have done in the United States.

The truant law is seldom enforced, being in most places practi- cally a dead-letter. The teachers generally are agitating for its more stringent enforcement, but the public is hardly yet with them. While on this subject, I may remark that I was frequently struck by American laxity in administering the law. Law and custom seem to be in numerous instances more widely separated in America than here. I was frequently told that the Into in a cer- tain case was, of course, so and so, but then of course nobody took any notice of what the law was. And yet the phrase " Americans are a law-loving people " is an exceedingly common one. In Boston a few wretched people have been fined and their children sent to a reformatory on Deer Island for the non-attendance of the latter at the public schools ; but it is notorious that thousands of children of all ages do not go to school, and yet are not punished.

A very excellent arrangement in some of the great cities is the licensing of boys for street occupations, such as boot-cleaning, hawking, &c., upon the condition that the licence-holder attends an evening school. The moment he becomes an absentee his licence is revoked. This should, I think, be introduced here.

What is called technical education is plentifully supplied in America, and—owing to the intense desire to " get on," which seems to characterize young Americans more than Englishmen- working-men are readier to avail themselves of the advantage of scientific instruction in America than they are here. At our mechanics' and literary institutions the proportion of artisans to clerks and shopmen is usually very small. In the States this is not the case. At the Cooper Institute in New York, I found that out of a total of 1,477 members attending the various classes in one year, there were 237 ironworkers, 160 carpenters, 43 pattern-makers and draughtsmen, 20 masons and builders, 45 painters, 21 pianoforte-makers, 20 engineers, 33 jewellers and watchmakers, 15 printers, 86 engravers, 12 plumbers and gasfitters, 9 coopers, 33 stone and marble cutters, 133 carvers and turners, 122 labourers ; the rest of the mem- bers being clerks, bookkeepers, artists, and " unspecified." The new but already well-known Cornell University at Ithica is the most promising of these working-men's institutions ; but there is no lack of literary and scientific colleges in every state of the Union, and free libraries and reading-rooms, which are open in the daytime and evening. In the five years before 1868, it has been computed, on reliable authority, that the following sums were given by private individuals to these various institutions, in addition to the aid which many of them received from the State, viz., 1,850,000 dols. to academies, 8,858,000 dols. to colleges, 2,605,000 dols. to schools, 1,359,500 dols. to theological semi- naries, and various other sums to miscellaneous educational societies, bringing the grand total of private benevolence in the direction of education up to 15,212,500 dols. The average cost of education in the public schools in the different States per head in the Atlantic and Western States ranges from 12 dols. per annum (in New York) to 6 dohs. 60 cents. in Detroit. The total number of educational establishments in the United States are set down in the last census at 115,224 ; 107,880 of these being public schools, with 131,099 teachers and 4,955,891 pupils.