READING, WRITING, CIPHERING. 31 education of the humbler classes which is extending in England, and has been so long established in Scotland? Is it of a kind to impart useful practical knowledge for resource in life-does it communicate to the pupil any light upon the important subject of his own nature and place in creation,-on the conditions of his physical welfare, and his intellectual and moral happiness;→→ does it, above all, make an attempt to regulate his passions, and train and exercise his moral feelings, to prevent his prejudices, suspicions, envying, self-conceit, vanity, impracticability, destructiveness, cruelty, aud sensuality? Alas! No. It teaches him to READ, WRITE, and CIPHER, and leaves him to pick up all the rest as he may! It forms an instructive example of the sedative effect of established habits of thinking, that our ancestors and ourselves have so contentedly held THIS to be education, or the shadow of it, for any rank of society! Reading, writing, and ciphering, are mere instruments; when attained, as they rarely or never are, after all, by the working class to a reasonable perfection, they leave the pupil exactly in the situation where he would find himself, were we to put tools into his hands, the use of which, however, he must learn as he may. We know well that he will be much more prone to misapply his tools, and to cut himself with them, than to use them aright. So it is with his reading; for really any writing and accounting of this class, even the most respectable of them, scarcely deserve the name, and may be here put out of the account. Reading consists in the recognition of printed characters arranged into syllables and words. With this most abstract accomplishment may coexist unregulated propensities, selfish passions, sensual appetites, filthy and intemperate habits, profound intellectual darkness and moral debasement, all adhering to a man as closely after as before he could read; and, be it marked, these qualities will give their bias to his future voluntary reading, and assuredly degrade and vitiate its character; it will tend to strengthen his prejudices, deepen his superstitions, flatter his passions, and excite his animal appetites. Well is all this known to the agitator, the quack, and the corruptor. They know that the manual-labourer can read; but they know, as well, that he is incapable of thinking, or detecting their impositions, if they only flatter his passions. No just views of life have ever been given him, no practical knowledge of his actual position in the social system. We are always told, that the majority of criminals cannot read, as if the mere faculty of reading would have diminished the number of criminals. This is a great delusion. For the reasons I have stated, mere reading might have increased the number of criminals, it would be quite ineffective in diminishing them. But if the investigation had gone the length of ascertaining with which of the criminals had an attempt at moral training and useful knowledge ever been made, we should have found that columni of the table a blank, and something like cause and effect would begin to dawn upon us. It is needless to pursue so obvious a matter farther. If a national system of education is to stop at reading, writing, and ciphering, it would save much trouble and after disappointment not to attempt it at all. If I am reminded. of the great improvements introduced by the Lancasterian System, I answer, that I have not seen in the generality of such schools, any thing more than abridged methods-the monitorial chiefly-of teaching numbers to read, write and cipher.* I am aware, too, of what is called the explanatory system, at the head of which stands pre-eminently Mr. Wood of Edinburgh, which puts books of useful knowledge into the pupil's hands, and exercises him upon their import, with much collateral information. But that System does not introduce him to realities, to external nature and its qualities, and the relation thereof to himself; it does not impart to him a knowledge of the condition of his weal and happiness, and his real position in life. It is, besides, almost exclusively intellectual, and, except in religious lessons, is not addressed to the moral faculties directly. If there be a school for the children of the working class, excepting always the Wilderspin Infant Schools, which systematically takes pains to educate the pupil of this rank of life against the evils which have been shown to arise from his ignorance, and to a deplorable extent actually afflict him, I have not been so fortunate as to hear of it. In most schools, even the parochial, which by incogitate habit we call "the pride and glory of Scotland," some sprinkling of the explanatory system has been introduced; twenty years ago, no attempt was made to explain any thing; but in none certainly in none, is there any provision for the kind of education which is to make the working man wiser and better, in the manner I have attempted to describe. A new and better system will make a great change on the pride and glory of Scotland," and, in that change, conferring a rather better claim to that title upon its parochial seminaries, greatly elevate the rank and endowments of their teachers. I know these to be in general excellent persons, much accustomed to be praised and starved by the Scottish public. I know some of them who are learned men, according to the usual acceptation of the word, that is, thorough Greek and Latin scholars; others are mathematicians, and mechanical philosophers, and all are theologians; but they might as well be Brahmins for any good their manual labour * Mr. Dun, of the Edinburgh Davie-street School, decidedly the best Lancasterian teacher I have yet met with, has introduced much useful knowledge into his plan; and, if the means were afforded him, would yet do much more. pupils reap from such extra accomplishments, beyond reading, writing, and ciphering. The reader is requested now to estimate the value of an opinion, so common as almost to have grown into a set formula, which we are quite certain of hearing given forth, by several ladies and gentlemen at once, in every company where the education of the manual-labour class is mentioned. "I am no friend to over-educating the working classes,-education is running greatly too fast,-teach them to read and write, all beyond is above their condition, and only serves to make them discontented with it." This current twaddle comes of the imperfection of the education of those who echo it; an imperfection that has other bitter fruits, to be noticed in the next chapter; the only excuse for it, is the ignorance of these opinionists of the length, and breadth, and height, and depth, of the social error which they espouse and circulate. CHAPTER II. ON THE EFFECTS OF IMPERFECT EDUCATION ON THE CONDITION OF THE CLASS OF THE PEOPLE ABOVE MANUAL-LABOUR. The term "Educated class," relative-Our vast attainments in Physical Science Confusion and error in Moral world-Controversy and party divisions-Contrast of sound legislation-General selfishness -Demands of Christianity-Religion of the "Educated"-Large provision for it-Want of educational preparation-Fanaticism and insanity-Certain social defects remnants of barbarism, national jealousies, offensive wars, criminal code, &c.-Barbarous customs, fox-hunting, engrossing rural sports, &c.-Happiness not attained, reasons-False views of life-Young men of fortune-Waste of life, wealth, and happiness by the affluent-Their marriages-Sedentary study-Instructive illustrations on this head-Incogitate pursuit of wealth-Over-trading, glutted markets Unwelcome inquiry-Good admitted-Causes of our social evils--No moral training in education-Milton, Locke, Kames-Reading-Dead languages-False morality of classics-Barbarism of the ancients-Scientific studies -Science of Man, physiological, mental and moral, a blank in Education. But THE term "educated class," as applied to the portion of our countryman who are above manual labour, will scarcely be taken by any one to mean that they enjoy the means of education perfect, or nearly perfect. The term is relative, and certainly, when compared with the manual-labour class, who have no education at all worthy the name, we are an educated class. no error is more profound, or more prevalent, than the persuasion that we are an educated class in the best sense of the term. Our complacent conclusions on the subject are, however, exceedingly natural. Look, it is said, at our libraries, our encyclopedias, teeming, as they do, with knowledge in every branch of science and literature. See our chemical, mathematical, mechanical powers, with all their realized results, which seem to mould material nature to our will and render life proudly luxurious. Then turn to our classical literature, our belles-lettres, our poetry, our eloquence, our polished intercourse, our refined society; consider our fine arts and elegancies; and, above all, CONTROVERSY PARTIES IMPROVED LEGISLATION. 35 think of our legislation, our political economy, our institutions of benevolence and justice, and the gigantic combinations of our entire national system. There is much in these high-sounding claims that deceive us. We are prone to borrow from the large fund of credit we possess in the exact and physical sciences, to place the loan to the account of universal intellectual and moral attainment, and to conclude that a pitch of improvement, which enables us to travel thirty miles an hour, must comprise in it every thing else of knowledge and power. But alas! when we look beyond the range of physical tangibilities, and, it may be, elegant literature, into the region of mental and moral relations, in short the science of man, upon which depend the wisdom of our legislation, and the soundness of our institutions and customs, what a scene of uncertainty do we see! Fixed principles in social affairs have not yet been attained. Scarcely shall we meet two individuals who are guided by the same code. Hence controversy is the business of the moral, and assuredly, we may add, of the religious world. If any measure affecting the public is propounded, there arises a perfect hurricane of opposition and denunciation, as if it were the most monstrous of errors, and the most atrocious of crimes. No plan or project, religions, civil, economic, or merely ornamental, can be proposed, without tearing to pieces the conventions of courtesy, nay, the feelings of common charity, and exposing a lamentable scene of inconsistency and passion. We find sects of men combining to attain by their union certain proposed ends, and these seem to be guided by principles which they all acknowledge; for there is no want of party array, and skilful party tactics; but when we find that the spirit of party is violence and hatred, we must search the humbler region of selfishness for the bond of their union, for we cannot recognise among them any thing which is entitled to be called profound philosophical, or high moral, principle. Nothing more exposes the low state of our present moral attainments than the endless disputes and hatreds, which are the sum and substance of what are called our politics. If the time shall ever arrive, when legislation shall be brief and practical, founded in benevolence and justice, purified of vain personal display, freed from selfishness, party spirit, pride of caste, and sacrifice to particular interests, either of an exclusive aristocracy on the one extreme, or a reckless, impatient, and often most aristocratic democracy on the other, when it shall cease to be fettered by a constituency less enlightened than representatives animated by a single hearted love to their country and their species, when it shall become an easier task, because abuses will be already removed, and laws will come to be less 1etrospective remedies than onward meliorations, moving abreast with human improvement, what will be thought of the |