Some thoughts about the school of the future: a sketch of the solution which time appears to be preparing for the difficult educational questions of the day

-NRLF

Henry D. Bacon,

St. Louis, Mo.

U NIVERSITY OF . Q\LIBORNIAr

G-IFT OF

HENRY DOUGLASS BACON.

1877.

Accessions No._/_j?_&_4<:0___ Shelf No.. _'_..^:^: ,

THE

SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

By the same Author,

HOW MUCH LONGER ARE WE TO CONTINUE TEACHING

NOTHING MORE THAN WHAT WAS TAUGHT TWO OB THREE
CENTURIES AGO? 8vo. Is. HATCHARD, Piccadilly.

And,

WHY MUST WE EDUCATE THE WHOLE PEOPLE? AND
WHAT PREVENTS OUR DOING IT? 8vo. 1*. GROOMBBIDGE, Paternoster

LONDON :

SPOTTISWOODKS and SHAW,
New-street-square.

SOME THOUGHTS

ABOUT THE

SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE!

A SKETCH OF THE SOLUTION WHICH

TIME APPEARS TO BE PREPARING FOR THE DIFFERENT
EDUCATIONAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.

REV.. FOSTER BARHAM ZINCKE,

VICAR OF WHERSTEAD, NEAK IPSWICH.

0?

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
1852.

PREFACE.

THE title which I have ventured to give to this
little work seems to require a word or two of ex-
planation. I have adopted it merely for the pur-
pose of indicating the kind of education, and the
kind of school-system which I conceive would most
effectually meet the wants, and enable us to avail
ourselves of the resources, of the present day. I
cannot but think that the enlightened philanthrophy
of the upper classes, and the rapid increase now
taking place among the lower classes in all the chief
elements of social and political power, — in their
numbers, intelligence, wealth, and means for com-
bined action, — will lead to the creation of some
such system ; and that the character of the instruc-
tion given in our future schools will not be very
dissimilar to that which I have sketched. Nor can
I imagine any other way in which the management
of the schools of a free country can be conducted.

WHERSTEAD VICARAGE,
Feb. 3rd, 1852.

CONTENTS.

THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE - Pages 1 — 160

APPENDIX.

No. I. — The late Exhibition, regarded as an exponent of the
present state, and of the tendencies, of Society ;
and as affording grounds for a comparison of the
present with the past - - 161

II. — On the influential position which the Schoolmasters
of the future will probably occupy - - 215

III. — On the present position, and the prospects, of Literary
and Scientific Institutions, Mechanics' Institutes,
Provincial Museums, and other voluntary Associa-
tions of an educational character - 217

IV. — That the competition of the United States will oblige
us to improve and extend popular education - 222

V. — A proposal for the appropriation of the surplus funds
of the late Exhibition - - - 227

TJSIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

THE master-conditions under which we have to con-
struct our system of Education appear to be the
following : —

I. That every member of the community must
now be educated, and, therefore, that the School
ought now to be at every man's door.

II. That, in consequence of the extension of
knowledge, and of the variety of the wants and
requirements of the present state of society, and in
consequence of what have now become the conditions
of success in life, and of well-being, particularly
among the vast industrial populations of our towns,
the range of subjects upon which instruction ought
to be given must now be very much extended.
This would almost seem to imply, that the practice
of restricting ourselves to what a single master is
capable of teaching (which is for the most part the
case in our present classical, commercial, and primary
schools), ought to be considered rather as having

B

2 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

belonged to the circumstances of the past than as
suitable to our present wants.

III. That, as the social and political relations of
the different orders of the people are, by the diffusion
of knowledge, and through the operation of other
causes connected with the progress of society, now
assuming new aspects, education must be made to
meet the new state of things, and, as far as possible,
to prepare all orders for it, in such a manner as that
good and not evil may be the result.

In other words, all must be taught; each must
have the opportunity of learning whatever it will be
most conducive to his own and to the general advan-
tage that he should know; and in organizing our
schools we must not ignore the social facts and irre-
sistible tendencies of the present day.

While considering this question, we must never
lose sight either of the present state of knowledge,
or of the present state of society in this country.

It may, however, be worth while, as a preliminary
consideration, to dwell for a few moments upon some
of the most prominent evils of the present state of
education amongst us. This shall be done as briefly
as possible.

1. In the first place, our present schools teach
very little of what ought in these days to be taught.
In two pamphlets which I published upon this sub-
ject, one last year, and the other in the previous year,
I endeavoured to draw attention to the fact that our

DEFECTS OF PRESENT SYSTEM. 3

public schools and the University of Oxford were
then hardly beginning to think about teaching any
thing more than what was taught two or three cen-
turies ago. The advances which knowledge has
made since our present system of education was
established do, perhaps, exceed in amount and im-
portance the advances which had been made in all
the previous thousands of years during which man
had existed upon the earth. Physical Science in its
numerous departments, and almost endless minuter
ramifications ; Physical Geography, which shows the
bearings and connections of so much of Physical
Science ; Modern History, containing so large a por-
tion of the history of Man and of Civilisation ; Eth-
nology ; General Philology ; the Social and Econo-
mical Sciences ; the Literature of the polished nations
of modern Europe; — have all now become highly
important branches of study : any one of them can
well bear comparison, in respect of its intrinsic value,
with the study of Latin and Greek, and yet all of
them are excluded from our schools ; the reason,
perhaps, being, that the knowledge which we possess
upon these subjects has been acquired — the reader
will be aware of the few deductions which may be
made from this remark — subsequently to the esta-
blishment of our present system of classical educa-
tion. What we know upon these subjects constitutes
the highest and most important (which might almost
be inferred from the fact of its being the most
B 2

SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

recent) part of the knowledge which man has been
allowed to acquire. The new powers of various kinds,
and of infinite application, which modern Science has
conferred upon us, and the ideas and sentiments
which have been derived from an enlarged study (now
possible) of Man's History, and from a successful in-
vestigation of the laws to which society is subject, do
in a great measure support our present civilisation,
and carry it forward, modifying as well as elevating
it day by day. Knowledge of this kind interprets,
as far as we have attained to their interpretation, the
greater part of the phenomena and facts by which we
are surrounded, and in the midst of which, and with
a reference to which, we have to act our part in life,
and upon our ability to cope with which our success
in life depends ; and yet it can hardly be said that
any part of this all-important knowledge has gained
admission into our schools. In our higher schools
we are only just beginning to think of looking
beyond the language and literature of Greece and
Rome. Enter any good library, arid you will be
struck with the smallness of the proportion of the
works upon classical subjects ; or take up any one of
our modern Cyclopedias, and, although some centu-
ries back there was scarcely any thing to be learnt
excepting what was contained in the Classics, you
will at a glance perceive how small is the proportion
of space which it is now thought necessary to allot
to subjects of classical interest ; and yet an acquaint-

PROPOSED REMEDY UNSATISFACTORY. O

ance with the Classics formed the object and the
instrument of the education of every one of us.
And, besides, we go on teaching the language and
the literature of Greece and Rome in such a manner,
that, while it is certain that in a great majority of
cases not even these will be learned, it is all but
impossible to engraft any thing else upon the system.
A proof of this may be found in the fact, that even
in our two chief Universities the Professors of many
of the above-mentioned sciences, though very able
men, and though they are desirous of forwarding the
study of the subjects upon which they are commis-
sioned to teach, are, notwithstanding, unable to
make themselves of any use.

It has been proposed that some part of the Uni-
versity course should be devoted -to the study of
science, modern history, and modern literature.
This proposal shows a misapprehension of the ques-
tion before us. I. In the first place, its adoption
would contribute towards perpetuating the idea of
the disconnection of the different branches of know-
ledge ; whereas it ought to be a main object with us,
throughout the whole course of education, to show
their connection and inter-dependence. II. In the
next place, after the student has devoted his attention
up to about the twentieth year of his age to classical
studies, so that his mind has become habituated to
the idea of restricted and exclusive study, and pre-
occupied with classical tastes, an inaptitude and dis-

JB 3

6 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE,

taste for general knowledge and more enlarged
studies will be acquired. After this has been done,
it will be futile to direct his attention, for some part
of the University course, to the general body of
human knowledge* III. And furthermore, this way
of settling the difficulty only affects the case of the
Universities, leaving the case of the schools entirely
out of the question ; whereas both the relative and
intrinsic importance of universities is daily diminish-
ing, while the importance of the school, where all
but the whole population will receive the whole of
their education, is daily increasing.

As to our public schools, and our grammar schools,
at present, as far as the character of the instruction
given in them is concerned, they can hardly be re-
garded as more than nurseries and feeders of the
Universities. To introduce the study of modern
subjects and general knowledge into them would be
a still more difficult task than that of introducing it
into our Universities. At the Universities there are
professors of almost every department of knowledge ;
and, if it were desirable, their number might easily
be increased ; so that, with respect to them, we do
already, to a considerable extent, possess the machin-
ery requisite for teaching all that ought in these
days to be taught ; and much might be done, were it
not that the whole system and genius of the place
(I speak with more particular reference to the Uni-
versity of Oxford) are thoroughly opposed to the

WRONG AIMS OF OUR PRESENT SCHOOLS. 7

feelings and ideas which such teaching would intro-
duce. The attempt, however, to give instruction of
a more general character can not be made at our
public schools without entirely recasting the whole
of their present system. The system of instruction
they pursue was devised for the purpose of teaching
one thing, and it cannot be expanded into a system
which shall embrace a much wider range, or which
shall aim at teaching many things. There is no way
in which it can be made to admit of a variety of
studies. The ten years spent at a public school in the
study of Latin and Greek is not sufficient time, in
nine cases out of ten, for the acquisition of a compe-
tent knowledge of those languages ; nor will it be, as
long as we continue to teach them in the manner in
ivhich they are at present taught in our public schools.
And for this almost every thing else is sacrificed.

Nothing need be said of the inefficiency of those
schools, which professedly undertake the education
of the commercial or middle classes.

There remain the schools at which the bulk of
the people are supposed to be educated — the only
schools which are open to the children of the labour-
ing classes. These schools are for the most part
more or less of an eleemosynary character ; and have
even less reference, than our grammar or commercial
schools, to the circumstances of the times, and the
wants of the class whose children frequent them.
Their object is not, to enable those who will be en-
B 4

8 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

tirely dependent through life upon their own know-
ledge, industry, and prudence, not only for their
well-being, but for their very bread, to see how they
may turn their powers to the best account, and so be
able to provide for themselves. Speaking generally,
in these schools religious instruction occupies the
place which is held by classical instruction in the
education of the upper orders ; while, from the hum-
ble character to which almost all these schools are
doomed by our present system, this religious instruc-
tion seldom goes beyond the Text of Scripture.
Most persons who take an interest in educational
matters have now acknowledged that this is of very
little practical value. There are two ways of in-
fluencing a mans conduct; one is by training his
feelings and the moral part of his nature aright ; and
the other is by enlightening his understanding, and so
giving him the means of coming to right conclusions :
the best system of education would unite the two :
these schools are incapable of doing either to any
effectual extent,

2. Another evil, inseparable from the present sys-
tem, is its enormous expense, both as a whole, and to
the individuals who avail themselves of it. The
expense to which the smaller gentry and the middle
classes are put for the education of their children is
very severely felt ; in many cases families are crippled
by it ever afterwards. Many a professional man,
many clergymen, and many officers in the army and

EXPENSIVENESS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 9

navy, are paying 100Z. a year for each child at our
public schools. At some of our great public schools
the expenses do even exceed this sum. How many
hundreds does it often require to educate a family
upon the present system ! It is not improbable that
there are many cases in which the education of
single families is now costing what, in these days,
would be sufficient to support a really good school,
capable of educating, up to their thirteenth or four-
teenth year, two or three hundred children.

The cost, indeed, of our present system of classical
education is almost incredible ; nor is it easy to see
how it can be diminished as long as we make the
acquisition of the old learning the main object of
education. Suppose we were to undertake to sup-
port a part of the population upon some exotic
delicacy, which could only be brought to maturity by
laying out vast sums in glass-houses, fuel, and at-
tendance, while, at the very time, the surrounding
fields were teeming with a great variety of better
and more wholesome food. The folly and expense
of such a proceeding would illustrate the folly and
expense of our present system of education, which
retains for its object an acquaintance with the litera-
ture of Greece and Rome.

If our common schools taught what the people
understood the value of, and were desirous of learn-
ing, we might maintain a good school in every neigh-
bourhood ; and our great public schools would be all
B 5

10 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

the more flourishing. In school matters, as in every
thing else in these days, we must " go for numbers'*
— we must have a system which will command the
support of the great body of the people : and such a
system of schools for the people will, in the most
effectual manner, assist, improve, and strengthen our
higher schools and universities.

Now if we were but to avail ourselves of the faci-
lities and resources (what these are will be pointed
out) which we do at the present moment possess,
for the purpose of establishing good local schools, in
many cases almost the whole of this expense might
be saved, and in all cases up to the thirteenth or
fourteenth year of a child's age. Under such a sys-
tem as we might now organize, an education, or, at
all events, the foundations of an education, worthy of
these times, might be given at a yearly cost of per-
haps not more than what parents are now paying for
the travelling expenses of their children to some dis-
tant school, four or six journeys between home and
the school being made every year. .

The expensiveness of our university education is
notorious.

The greatest obstacle also to the extension of
education amongst the labouring classes is the diffi-
culty of raising sufficient funds for the erection and
maintenance of schools conducted on the present
system.

3. Another evil, which is inseparable from our

CHILDREN SENT FROM HOME TOO EARLY. 11

present system of education, as far as the children of
the upper, and a great proportion of the children of
the middle, classes are concerned, is the want of
proper supervision at its commencement, we may say
from the age of seven or eight to that of thirteen or
fourteen. For children of this age no substitute can
be found for the affectionate vigilance of a parent.
A child who, up to the age at which children are
usually sent to boarding schools, has been secluded
from every evil influence, and trained to virtue with
ever watchful affection and care, is on a sudden sent
off to a boarding school, where he will have to live
amongst a number of boys of various ages. Few
parents can submit their children, at so impressible an
age, to this ordeal, without some serious misgivings;
perhaps without some bitter pangs. Many a child is
thus prematurely introduced to, and familiarized
with, much that is bad and contaminating. This is
a fault of the system which no supervision or vigi-
lance on the part of the masters of the school could
prevent. Do what they may, it must take place :
there is no remedy for it : it belongs to the system.
Arnold was fully aware of this objection to public
schools ; and it is one which every day will be felt
more strongly. It is often met by the observation,
that this early familiarity with evil is a good pre-
paration for the world. This seems to be a mistake.
Early familiarity with evil may be a good preparation
for the clever and discreet practice of evil in after

B 6

12 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

life, but it can hardly be a good preparation for any
thing else. How many bad habits — such as extra-
vagance, irregularities of various kinds, disinclination
to any kind of study, or of mental exertion — has the
public school system a direct tendency to produce.

That there are great advantages also in our public
school system few people are disposed to deny : the
question is, how may we secure these without running
a very great risk of more than counter-balancing evils ?
Perhaps this might be done by keeping the child, up
to about his thirteenth year, under his parents' eyes,
and in the mean time giving him, in company with
other children) a better education than he could possibly
receive at a public, or a boarding, school. During
this time, which is the very period in which we
receive the strongest and most abiding impressions,
principles might be implanted which would after-
wards enable a youth to pass three or four years at a
public school without any very great risk. Perhaps
we now possess the means of constructing a general
school system which might be fully adequate to the
instruction of all children, at least up to a certain
age, when those who were intended for public
schools might proceed to them, better prepared for
turning to good account the peculiar advantages of
the public school system, and less likely to suffer
from its dangers. Under the present system a boy
is sent to a public school before he has acquired any
habits of attention, or industry, and almost before

DOES NOT ADMIT OF COOPERATION. 13

he is acquainted with the difference between right
and wrong ; and is left to form his own opinions and
habits, as chance, and the public opinion of the
school, may influence him.

4. A fourth evil inherent in our present system
of education is the fact that each part of it stands
by itself, entirely isolated and disconnected from all
the other parts. Our public schools and univer-
sities in no way aid, nor are they in any way
connected with, our middle or commercial schools.
Nor, again, do our schools for the labouring classes
receive any aid from, nor are they in any way con-
nected with, our middle schools, or our universities.
These three divisions of our educational system,
which might upon a better organised plan very
effectually assist and strengthen each other, stand
entirely aloof from each other. This is a very
serious impediment to the improvement and progress
of education amongst us : in what way it is so will
be pointed out more fully when we have arrived at
another part of our subject: at present my" object is
only to direct attention to it as one of the evils of
the present state of education in. this country. The
friends of education would do well not to lose sight
of the necessity of providing some remedy for it in
any plan for which they may be desirous of obtain-
ing the attention and favour of the public.

It can hardly be necessary to say that the pre-
ceding remarks contain nothing that is in any degree

14 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE*

inconsistent with the highest appreciation of the
value of classical knowledge. What is wanted upon
this point is, not that the classics should be neglected
— for then we should lose our connection with the
past; we should lose one of the most important
chapters in the history of man's mind, and one of
the most important in the history of his fortunes —
but that they should be studied by better methods,
and to better purpose, and with a better economy of
time ; and that they should be studied conjointly with
other subjects and departments of knowledge, which
would necessarily conduce to a better understanding,
and a higher appreciation, of the classics themselves.

I again repeat that I have no wish to depreciate
classical learning : far from it. I simply, but ear-
nestly, wish to deprecate the continuance in these
days of the practice of making an acquaintance with
the classical tongues (for we can hardly call it an
acquaintance with classical literature) the real ob-
ject, and almost the sole instrument, of school
education; the reasons which once made this abso-
lutely necessary having, in this present state of
knowledge, of society, and of our own literature,
ceased to have any existence.

Latin might be taught — attention being directed
merely to the language, and not at all to the litera-
ture — with great advantage in all good schools.
There would be no harm in the more intelligent
among the children of small farmers and trades-

QUALIFICATIONS FOR TEACHING THE CLASSICS. 15

men, and even of labourers^ being brought in this
way to have more distinct ideas on the subject of
grammar, some insight into the nature of language,
and a better understanding of their own tongue.
But then it must be taught upon a totally different
plan from that now- adopted in our public schools.

The qualifications necessary for the profitable
teaching of the classics in our higher schools and
universities are, — 1. Extensive philological know-
ledge ; because the study of Language should be one
of our objects in teaching them ; 2. Correct taste,
and enlarged views of literary criticism ; because in
some departments of literature the classics are very
far from being the best models, and in no depart-
ment ought they to be presented as models without
comment; 3. An acquaintance with metaphysical,
ethical, and political theories, of our own times as
well as of the classical period ; for the constitution
of society is at present totally different from what it
was in classical times ; and the spirit and views which
pervade classical literature are in many essential
points at variance with the views and spirit of our
own day ; 4. Extensive historical knowledge, that
the bearing, and import, and value of the events of
those times, as a portion of general history, might
be explained and illustrated.

Neither ought it to be inferred, from any thing
which may be found in these pages, that there is in
them a concealed intention to depreciate the efforts

16 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

of those who are now carrying on the work of edu-?
cation in our classical schools and colleges. The
public is fully aware that they are actuated by a
conscientious desire to carry out the objects of the
system with which they are connected. It is not
with them, but with the system, that fault is found.
The evils of the system are in these days very great,
and perhaps ineradicable. It is a system inapplicable
to the knowledge and circumstances of the times in
which we live. It prevents much good from being
done ; and does indirectly produce a considerable
amount of evil. It is not so much a few alterations
and a few additions which are needed, but that we
want new views and a new system — not the views
and the system which were best for 1550, but what
would be best for 1850.

WE WILL NOW proceed to consider in what way a
school might aim at fulfilling the conditions imposed
upon us by those circumstances of our times, which
bear upon education. The reader will recollect that
of these conditions the three most important — the
master-conditions of any system which is to meet
the wants of the present day — have been already
specified. He will also, perhaps, be disposed to be
of the opinion, that of the three kinds of schools
established in this country — that which undertakes

SKETCH OF A GENERAL SYSTEM. 17

the education of the upper classes ; that which under-
takes the education of the middle classes ; and that
which undertakes the education of the labouring
classes — not one attempts to fulfil these conditions:
or, in other words, to adapt itself to the present
state of society, and the present state of knowledge.

There ought, then, to be found in every neigh-
bourhood a school, or schools, so situated as not to
be at an inconvenient distance from any part of the
neighbourhood ; the system of instruction adopted
in these schools — all the schools in a neighbourhood
working connectedly, the larger ones giving higher
and more advanced instruction than the smaller ones
— should be such, that every thing which it is de-
sirable we should be taught in these days, might
easily, and as it were naturally, be taught in them,
either by the regular masters, or by extraneous aid.
Such arrangements, and such methods of instruction,
should be carried out, that all classes (at all events
up to a certain age) might, supposing parents were
desirous of it, receive instruction in the same class-
rooms, and at the same time ; and the school fees
should be fixed on such a scale that, while the expense
of educating their children would scarcely be felt by
the middle classes, a good education for their children
would be within the reach of the labouring classes.

L1O

It may be as well to state at once what is meant
when it is said that the schools to be proposed in

18 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

these pages ought to be such as that the children of
the middle, and even of those above the middle,
classes might attend them with advantage. It is not
supposed that many children from these classes
would frequent them at first ; nor, of course, would
they ever do so, unless it became very manifest,
that to do so would be greatly to their advantage.
What I shall endeavour to show is, that in these
days we ought to have, and that we easily might
have, schools in which a better education might be
given to all, than the children of the upper classes
are now receiving, at all events for the first five or
six years of their school career, at the schools now
appropriated for their especial use ; and that we
shall never have good schools, or make any very
great advances in the cause of popular education, as
long as we adhere to the plan of establishing schools
for the labouring classes exclusively.

In recommending a change from a system appli-
cable to a by-gone state of things to a system
applicable to the wants and circumstances of our
own times, we shall be compelled to encounter many
prejudices, and perhaps some interests. The reader,
however, will see that it does not constitute a bar
to the consideration of what will be proposed to
him, that there never has been a time when any
thing like it has, or could have, been adopted
amongst us. There never has been a time in his-
tory — the present in this respect stands quite alone

A GENERAL SYSTEM. 19

— when there were millions of the lower, and of
the middle, classes to be educated ; when there
existed the means for educating them ; and also the
necessity for doing it. This at once makes it
evident that we are discussing a question in which
references to the practices and wisdom of our fore-
fathers are inapplicable : being placed in new cir-
cumstances, and rinding ourselves beset by new
wants, we must decide for ourselves what is the best
way of meeting these wants.

I would begin, then, by setting aside the idea
that there ought to exist essential differences be-
tween the kind of instruction given in primary, in
middle, and in high schools. Whatever differences
may exist in the schools of districts or parishes,
where it may be thought advisable to have several
schools, ought not to be looked upon as essential
differences, but merely as different steps in the de-
velopment of the best scheme of instruction which
we can devise : as differences in degree, not in kind.
In these times what is a good education for one man
is in the main a good education for all others. The
admission of this will at once reduce to the commu-
nity the cost of education, by enabling schools and
classes to co-operate, which are now standing apart,
or even perhaps in an attitude of opposition to each
other.

Up to a certain age all children must receive
primary instruction : a department, therefore, for

20 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

primary instruction ought to belong to every school ;
whether, however, under the same roof, or not, would
of course be merely a matter of arrangement. It
ought to depend upon the number and character of
the population of a district, whether this formed a
separate preparatory school, or a part of a single
school, to which we may suppose that it would be
desirable for some districts to confine their efforts.
If a child is in any way capable of availing himself of
the advantage of remaining at school beyond a cer-
tain age, he ought, irrespective of his station in life,
to have the opportunity of learning more than can
be taught in a primary school.

The effect of. this would be two-fold; in the first
place, a great improvement would be effected in the
character of the schools which we now call primary,
because the main idea respecting the school, which
would be present to the mind both of the master and
of the pupil, would be, not that it was a place where
instruction was to be restricted to a few elementary
subjects, but that it was itself a school, or that it
was connected with schools, in which a good educa-
tion, advancing and expanding, in proportion to the
increasing age and capacity of the pupil, was to be
given. The other effect would be an economical
one: there are at present many districts which pos-
sess only primary schools, these being too of a very
low character, and very inefficient ; now it might
not be difficult, by the adoption of a better system.

A GENERAL SYSTEM. 21

to raise these into good general schools, their primary
classes being retained. This would very much lessen
the cost of educating their children to a great many,
who are at present obliged to have recourse to dis-
tant schools. In this way the whole expense at pre-
sent incurred for the maintenance of elementary
schools in any neighbourhood, and the whole ap-
paratus of masters, school-houses, &c., would at once
become available for the purpose of maintaining
good and efficient schools, at which all the children
of the neighbourhood, whose parents were desirous
of allowing their children the advantages such schools
would offer, might be properly educated. We can-
not, however, expect to see any thing of this kind
done, until the well-to-do and intelligent part of
the community shall have become aware how much
they are themselves interested in maintaining good
schools within reach of their own doors. The want
of this feeling is at present a serious obstacle in the
way of the extension and improvement of popular
education.

Supposing such a school to exist in any neigh-
bourhood, the working of the system would be some-
thing of this kind : children who stayed long enough,
would pass out of the primary or elementary classes
into those where the subjects of instruction were
higher and more varied. Some, as would be the
case generally with the children of the poor, would
leave the school before making much progress in

22 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

these higher classes. Still it would have been an
advantage even to them to have frequented a school
where general knowledge and enlightenment of the
understanding were distinctly aimed at, and where
reading, writing, and arithmetic were regarded as
useful instruments, and not as the ultimate objects
for the attainment of which they had been sent to
school. If any, however, of the children of the poor
had given decided indications of talent, means would,
in some way or other, be found for continuing such
children at school. By availing ourselves of resources,
which will be pointed out presently, a great deal more
than most of us would now think possible, might be
taught in what would then be our humblest schools.

The excellence of the school ought, of course, to
increase in proportion to the populousness of the
parish or district.

The larger villages, in which a few shopkeepers
and mechanics were to be found, would have better
schools, which might be attended by the older chil-
dren from the smaller parishes around, who had got
beyond the means of instruction possessed by the
schools of the smaller parishes.

Every town possessing nine or ten thousand in-
habitants, and no part of the country is far distant
from such a town, ought to support a kind of col-
lege, where a system of instruction might be carried
on in perfect harmony with that of the schools, the
difference being that the range of subjects would

A GENERAL SYSTEM. 23

be still further increased, and these more extended
studies carried on under abler superintendence. These
colleges might take charge of the education of the
elder children of the towns, and as many from the
neighbouring districts as had got beyond the country
schools, and had the means of attending the classes
of the college in the town. Being supported by a
considerable number of students, and being in towns,
they would find themselves able to secure the ser-
vices of able instructors. Higher and more sys-
tematic instruction would be given in them than
would be possible in the country or district schools.
Those, therefore, who were desirous of carrying their
education further than these schools admitted, would,
at about the age of fifteen or sixteen, begin to attend
the classes of the neighbouring college ; where they
might remain two or three years, that is, until they
were in their seventeenth or eighteenth year.

Above all these would stand our great Universities,
upon which the pressure from without, and from be-
low, has already begun to tell, and which will, per-
haps, before long, voluntarily adapt themselves to the
requirements of the age, and so make themselves
worthy of the position which they occupy. Vast
numbers of real students would be prepared for them
by schools and colleges of the kind which I am pro-
posing for the reader's consideration.

With respect to the education of the children of
the upper orders, hitherto we have regarded the

24 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

grammar school, within the walls of which nine or
ten months out of the twelve are spent, as the place
where their moral character is to be formed ; and,
with respect to the children of the lower orders, we
have hitherto regarded the parochial school as the
place where their religious character is to be formed.
In neither case, however, has the result been answer-
able to the expectation ; both the moral training of
the grammar school and the religious training of
the parochial school are all but complete failures ;
nor could it be otherwise, because, as constituted and
worked at present, neither of them possesses the means
and opportunities necessary for succeeding respect-
ively in these objects. In the former case, the devo-
tion of several years to that which to a child must
ever be the driest of all studies, — namely, that of the
grammar of a dead language, and which does not
awaken a single emotion in the mind of the child but
that of wearisomeness and disgust, and which neither
has, nor can have, any interest for him ; and this, too,
at the very period of childhood when the rnind is
most open to receive moral impressions, — must have a
very prejudicial effect upon the right and full deve-
lopment of the moral faculties. While in the case
of the children of the poor the religious feelings are
too frequently stunted and deadened by a similar
misuse of the Text of Scripture. There is, however,
no doubt but that schools might generally be so
organised and managed as that good feelings and

WHY OUR TEACHERS ARE HELD IN DISREPUTE. 25

good motives would be predominant in them ; there
is no doubt of this, because several such schools
already exist. Such schools would aid most effectu-
ally in the right development of the moral and
religious feelings. For these purposes, however,
wherever circumstances admit of their superintend-
ence, parents must always be in many respects the
best educators, and home the best school. Hence
the value of a school system which would give pa-
rents the opportunity of keeping their children at
home till about the twelfth or thirteenth year, after
which they might be sent to a distant school; which,
if not entered till this age, when some foundations
for character had been laid, would have great advan-
tages, with but small counterbalancing risks. Under
such a system home-influences, which are the in-
fluences ordained by nature, and on some points the
only influences which can be brought to bear, would
not be lost, as is the case at present in the education
of the children of the upper orders, while all the
influences for good which public schools possess
would be made the most of.

Every one who is desirous of seeing a higher and
more effectual education given to our children, — an
education which shall really nurture gentleness, and
goodness, and patience, and which shall really teach
self-reliance and self-denial, love of what is good, and
distaste for what is evil ; arid which shall prepare the
mind for the intellectual work required of it in these

C

26 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

days, — regret the disrepute into which the office of
teacher, the living instrument by which all this is
to be effected, is pretty generally held in this
country. Now this disrepute in which the teacher
is held seems to result from the disrepute into which
the system which he is employed in carrying out has
fallen. If a master of a school were known in his
neighbourhood as possessing knowledge which in
these days men value and respect, he would be him-
self valued and respected. No persons in this
country are more valued and respected than those
who are distinguished in any department of know-
ledge about which people are interested. Now, if
masters of schools were possessed of knowledge of
this kind, or if their schools belonged to a system by
which this knowledge was conferred upon our
children, they would then naturally command our
respect and our regard, because we should all see,
without any doubts as to the fact, that they were
conferring the greatest benefits upon our children.
We should see that there was a connection be-
tween their instruction and the success in life and
happiness of our children. They would therefore,
as a matter of course, occupy a high place amongst
us, and be regarded with feelings of affectionate
esteem. But it is impossible to look in this light
either upon those who are nothing more than dis-
tant instruments in a system for communicating to
our children, at a cost of twelve or thirteen years,

ARNOLD. 27

some acquaintance with the classical languages, the
connection of which with the work of these times,
and with virtue and happiness, few are able to
trace ; or upon those who, in the capacity of the
humble dependants of the Parochial Clergy, teach
little more than the Church Catechism and a textual
acquaintance with Scripture. The common sense
of mankind informs them, that those who give
these kinds of instruction, however estimable they
may be on other accounts, are not entitled for their
works sake to a very high place in public estimation.

The regard in which Arnold was held, and the
fame he left behind him as a schoolmaster, resulted
in a great measure from the vigour and success of his
attempt to give to classical education a practical
bearing on the questions of the present day, and to
connect it with the higher intellectual work of the
age. He saw that the defect of this part of our
system consisted in its not aiming at any thing,
either of a moral, a religious, or a practical kind :
this extraordinary deficiency he laboured to supply.

The discredit that deservedly belongs to antiquated
and fruitless systems will, notwithstanding all the
regrets which may be expressed on this subject,
attach itself to those who are employed in carrying
them out. Under a different system, worthy of and
suitable to our own times, those engaged in educa-
tion would command the respect of all. All would
delight to honour them. Let the system of educa-
c 2

28 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

tion be improved, and the schoolmaster would be
immediately elevated in the estimation of the public.
We must now extend the range of instruction
throughout all our schools from the highest to the
lowest with a constant reference to the present state
of knowledge, and to the present state and want of
society amongst ourselves. Our object must be to
teach what it will be of advantage in these days for
those whom we educate to know, and what it will be
for the advantage of the community should be known.
This is the task to which not only the friends of
education, but also both those who think it impos-
sible to arrest, or change, the career of the modern
civilisation, and those who approve of its spirit and
tendency, must now direct their attention. It can
hardly now be necessary to give a warning against
regarding with feelings of satisfied complacency what
has been done of late years in the erection of schools.
It is doubtless very gratifying, on a comparison of
the present with the past, to find, that in almost
every neighbourhood a school of some sort or other
does now exist, or rather the beginning of a school.
The next step, however, and that which at the
present moment we are called upon to take, is
the attempt to make these schools fulfil the pur-
poses at which schools ought in these days to aim.
What ought to be taught is entirely a relative ques-
tion : the circumstances and wants of the times
must be considered. All that it was necessary for a

EDUCATION A RELATIVE QUESTION. 29

New Zealand savage to learn was how to kill and
cook his enemies. In the middle ages the Clergy
alone felt that learning was necessary. At the
Reformation there was no necessity for giving school
instruction to any except the upper classes ; and a
man then became an accomplished gentleman, and
fitted for the work of his age, through an acquaint-
ance with classical literature, metaphysical questions,
and theological controversies. At the present day
to educate, in such a country as Russia, the moral
and intellectual capacities of the bulk of the people
would be the most revolutionary measure that could
be imagined. Sound policy there consists not in
elevating and strengthening the moral and intellectual,
capacities of the people, but in dwarfing, depressing,
and perverting them : nothing need be educated
except the feelings of superstition and submission.
In this country, at the present day, we are obliged
by a social necessity, which is every day becoming
more strongly felt, to educate the whole people, so
as to prepare every man for taking care of himself
in the midst of a free, busy, and enlightened com-
munity ; this cannot be done without moral and intel-
lectual culture ; and the more there is of this culture
the more effectual will be the preparation. In the
education of the lower classes we must aim distinctly
and earnestly at this culture, for the simple reasons
that those who have to take care of themselves must
be enabled to see their way; and that those in whose

c 3

30 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

hands the circumstances of the times and the course
of events have placed social and political power,
must be taught how to exercise it. Since this is
what we have to do, what amount of instruction that
our schools are capable of giving can be considered
too much, or what amount of moral culture too high ?
In the present state of things, every step gained in
the cultivation of the moral and intellectual capa-
cities of any individual , be lie ivlw he may, is just so
much gained both for the individual himself, and for
the community to which he belongs.

WE WILL NOW turn to the consideration of the kind
of school which ought to exist in every large rural
parish, or in every district of three or four small
rural parishes — the easy accessibility of the school
from every part of the district being the consideration
which must settle the extent of the district. We
will take, for the purpose of illustrating the system,
the schools which would occupy the lowest place in a
general system of education adapted to the wants and
knowledge of the present day. But as the wants of
society, and the knowledge which we must now make
use of in the work of education, must ultimately
force us to give, in the main, the same education to
all classes, these schools will form the basis of the
system. The higher schools will, in more than one
respect, rest upon these, differing from them chiefly

A PAROCHIAL, OR DISTRICT, SCHOOL. 31

in aiming at a fuller and more complete development
of the ideas which will be embodied in all alike.

A school, then, of this kind should, in the first
place, be so conducted, and the instruction given in
it should be such, that all the children of the parish
or district — at least, up to a certain age — might
receive instruction in it together. Under any of the
present systems this would be impossible. At any
former time it would have been impossible. Perhaps,
however, it may not be found an impossible task in
these days to establish district schools of this cha-
racter, in which professional men at all events
might feel that their children up to a certain age
would receive, through the joint influences and in-
struction of the school and of home, a better edu-
cation than would be possible in a distant school,
especially if the aims and system of that distant
school were those of our present schools.

We will, then, suppose some locality containing
about 250 children, of an age to attend our school ;
and that of these four-fifths belong to the labouring
classes, the remaining fifth belonging to the middle
classes, that is to say, being made up of the children
of farmers and of persons in trade : for at present we
will not take any credit for the children of profes-
sional men, and of the smaller gentry. This is re-
stricting ourselves to less than what has already been
done at King's Somborne. In Scotland, too, we
know the children of different classes have for a long

C 4

32 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

time been educated together with the best effect.
For the present, however, we will confine ourselves
to 200 children from the labouring classes, and 50
from the class of farmers and tradesmen.

And here there are two considerations which we
ought to bear in mind for the sake of the encour-
agement which they contain: the first being that
we possess, almost ready made to our hands, such
abundant means for establishing really good schools,
means so far superior to those possessed by the in-
habitants of any other country, or by those who have
gone before us in this country, that we may reason-
ably expect to effect such improvements in popular
education as would formerly have been thought un-
attainable. Should these expectations be realised,
we need not fear but that our schools will obtain all
the support which we desire for them. The other
consideration is, that, supposing we are able to send
out from our schools, every year, several thousand
persons, educated in the manner we contemplate, it
can matter very little from what order of society they
may have originally come : there they will be in the
midst of us, doing good to others and to themselves
— better and happier than they otherwise would
have been. No one would be dissatisfied with such
a result.

We have supposed, then, a case in which we have
to educate about 250 children. They are the children
of a rural parish — a large village ; and we have to

IMPORTANCE OF FEMALE EDUCATION. 33

provide for the education of both the boys and the
girls. Now, the first questions which arise are those
connected with masters and mistresses ; — how many
must we have ? what ought their qualifications to be ?
&c. Questions of this kind precede on the present
occasion that of ways and means, because the point
before us just now is, what a school ought to be, in
order that it may meet the wants of, and be worthy
of, these times. When we shall have come to
some conclusions upon this point, we shall be better
able to judge how much it will require to maintain
it. And when we know how much may be required,
we shall be in a better position for inquiring how
our funds are to be raised.

One good master then, and one good mistress, at
least, are indispensable. It would doubtless very
much simplify our inquiries, if no allusion were made
in these pages to school-mistresses, or to female edu-
cation : to do this, however, would be to omit, at all
events as far as the lower orders are concerned, half
our subject. In the present state of society the
education of woman is as important as that of man :
I say in the present state of society, because it was
not so under the feudal system, or under the ancient
civilisation ; nor, to take the state of society most
dissimilar to our own, has it ever been so under the
oriental civilisation. Amongst ourselves, however,
in the management and well-being of the family, it
is as important that the duties which devolve upon

c 5

34 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

woman, as that those which devolve upon man, should
be rightly arid intelligently discharged. Individually,
too, without reference to the conduct and well-being
of the family, woman is as much interested as man
in receiving the best moral and intellectual culture.
Whatever observations, however, we may venture to
make on the subject of mistresses and girl-schools,
will be intended to apply to the education of the
daughters of those who belong to the labouring
classes, and to the lower strata of the middle classes ;
because it is plain that they must always be educated
at schools of a more or less public kind, while per-
haps a home education will always continue to be
the best for the daughters of the wealthier classes.

What then ought to be the qualifications of the
master, and what the qualifications of the mistress?
What these ought to be will come out more distinctly
as we proceed. A rude way, however, of measuring
their qualifications, but still to a certain extent an
intelligible one, is that of measuring them by the
amount of the salary which is supposed to represent
the value of their services. Now, the master ought
to be a teacher whose attainments and character
would command for him a salary of not less than
901. a year ; while the services of the mistress ought
to be worth not less than 7(W. a year, each being in
addition provided with apartments. Of course it
would be very desirable that the salaries should be
higher, and so perhaps after a time they will be ; for

MASTERS — MISTRESSES — INFANT SCHOOLS. 35

the present, however, we may suppose that they
receive respectively the above sums. Now this
would show at once that the master was a person
whose services were considered of quite as much
value as those of the curate of the parish ; and that
the mistress was a person whose services were con-
sidered worth quite as much, when estimated in
money, as those of the governesses in the houses of
the neighbouring gentry.

There would, then, out of the 250 children, be
about 50, for we are taking all the children of the
village, who might be considered as fit subjects for
an infant school. These we will at once dispose of
For the moment we will suppose that the room in
which the infant school is to be carried on has been
provided, and that it has been furnished with all
the requisite apparatus. Each of the 50 children
would pay %d. a week. Now the amount of these
weekly fees would go far towards defraying the ex-
penses of this department, if the infant school were
under the same roof as the girls'-school ; in which
case it might be taught by the elder girls, or pupil-
teachers, as was done at King's Somborne, each
taking her turn under the direction and supervision
of the mistress of the girls'-school. So far would
this be from interfering with the studies of the
elder girls, or pupil-teachers, that it would, most
probably, be found that no part of their time was
more profitably employed. It would teach them the

c 6

36 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

management of children, and would be an early
initiation into the difficulties and the art of teaching.
In towns, and wherever the infant school was a large
one, of course the experience and authority of a
regular mistress would be indispensable.

We now have to provide for two schools, one con-
taining about 100 boys, and the other about the same
number of girls. At present we must content our-
selves with a single master and a single mistress for
each respectively ; nor will 100 children form too
large a school for a skilful teacher, aided in the in-
struction of the junior classes by his most advanced
pupils, for which the present system of allowing
pupil-teachers gives great facilities ; supposing him
also at the same time to have some assistance, about
which I shall speak particularly a little further on.

But how shall we provide for the salary of a master
whose services are worth at least 90/. a year, and of
a mistress whose services are worth at least 70/. a
year, each being also provided with apartments ? It
would of course be better if the salaries were higher ;
it would also be better if both master and mistress
had an assistant, but as such schools as I have
taken for the purpose of illustration might be carried
on without assistance of this kind, I shall omit for
the present the consideration of what it would cost.
Nothing, however, at all worthy of these times can be
done without the efficient, and, therefore, the high-
priced, master and mistress, so that if we cannot afford

HOW SCHOOLS ARE TO BE SUPPORTED. 37

to pay for their services, then the attempt to establish
3 system of education, which shall give the moral and
intellectual culture adapted to the present state of
knowledge, and the present state of society, must be
abandoned, and nothing more need be said upon the
subject. This is the first and most necessary con-
dition of success. Should our inability to pay such
salaries be proved, we must rest satisfied with our
present state of precarious, eleemosynary, elementary,
and inefficient education, for the great body of the
people, at the very time when the education of the
masses, and of the lower strata of the middle classes
— on account of the manner in which they have of
late years increased in numbers, power, and half-
informed, and often ill-directed, intelligence — has
become of such supreme importance as to be among
the very first necessities of the present state of
society.

How, then, shall we raise this 90/. a-year for a
competent master, and this 70/. a-year for a com-
petent mistress? This 1601. a-year is absolutely
necessary for the kind of work we wish to have
done. The reader will remember that at this mo-
ment I am only proposing the introduction of a
certain kind of school here and there, wherever
circumstances may be favourable. If this is the
kind of school we want, and if it be the kind of
school best suited to the times we live in, the sooner
we begin to exhibit it in operation here and there,

38 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

the sooner may we hope to see it generally adopted.
Now perhaps there are some places so circumstanced
that it might be possible to raise in them this sum ;
and the greater the variety of ways in which it may
be raised the better ; and this variety probably
exists, for what is quite inapplicable to one locality
may perhaps be the very thing which can most easily
be carried out in another.

1. First, then, there are many places where it
might be advisable to require an uniform payment
from all the children alike of 2d. a week; the
farmer's and tradesman's children paying no more
than the labourer's. Labourers in many districts
will gladly pay 3d. a week for the schooling of their
children, even at some of the worst of our present
schools : this was the ordinary payment at the old
dames' school. At the Birkbeck schools, which have
been established for the education of the upper
stratum of the labouring classes, the payment is 6d.
a week. But supposing an uniform payment of %d.
a week, after deducting six weeks for holidays, which
will be amply sufficient for children residing at home
— three weeks at harvest, two at Christmas, and one
at Whitsuntide — we shall have 76/. 13s. 4?d. from
this source. Now there are a great many parishes
where the remaining deficiency might at once be
made up out of an existing educational endowment.
This arrangement, then, would be sufficient for a
great many places.

UNIFORM AND GRADUATED FEES — ENDOWMENTS. 39

The advantages of this uniform payment are, that
managers of schools would thus escape the difficulty
of settling who are to pay the higher and who the
lower scale of fees.

And a feeling of independence and of honest pride
would be encouraged in the poor by the knowledge
of the fact that they were paying as much as those
above them for the education of their children.

It would also be a great advantage gained that no
child would feel himself in an inferior position to the
other children whom he met in the school.

2. In places where other circumstances were fa-
vourable for the establishment of such schools, but
where the endowment was so small as that a larger
sum than 76/. must be raised each year from the
scholars, the King's Somborne, or graduated, system
of payments might be adopted. The children of the
labouring class — that is, of those who live by weekly
wages — might be required to pay 2d. a week each,
while the children of tradesmen and farmers would
be required to pay 10s. a quarter each. This would
give, supposing one-fourth, or fifty, of the children
belonged to the latter class — this proportion of
course would vary, for in "small country towns it
might frequently become much more considerable —
a sum of 100/. a year; and for the remaining 150 a
yearly sum of 57 /. 10s.

At King's Somborne this plan has been found suf-
ficient for the entire maintenance of schools, the

40 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

excellence of which is known every where, no aid
being received either from endowment or subscrip-
tions. This plan, then, may be brought in to aid a
very small endowment ; or, where there are active
and intelligent persons to manage the schools, it has
been demonstrated by the example just referred to,
that it is possible to work it in such a manner, as to
enable the schools to be entirely self-supporting.
The success of this plan will entirely depend upon
the character of the schools ; in other words, upon
the activity, kindly feelings, and intelligence of those
who manage them : narrow views, whether of an edu-
cational, or religious, or social kind, would be fatal to
its success.

3. A third method would be to bring an (at present
voluntary) school-rate-in-aid to supply the deficiency
of either the first or the second scheme of school
fees. It would, just at the present moment, be a
great point gained if this could be done any where ;
and I cannot help thinking that there must be
some neighbourhoods, where, by the example and
influence of some great proprietor, or of the clergy-
man, or of some person of weight in the parish, the
majority of the parishioners might be brought to
see how desirable it would be for them, and how
much it would conduce to their own pecuniary
interest, and to the lasting advantage of their chil-
dren, that they should contribute to the maintenance
amongst themselves of such schools.

SCHOOL-RATE PARLIAMENTARY GRANTS. 41

An advantage which might be expected to follow
the adoption of such a school-rate-in-aid would be,
that every one who paid it would be interested in the
efficiency and success of the schools.

It would also immediately lead those in any parish
who were called on to contribute towards a school,
to see first whether any endowment for educational
purposes which might exist in the parish, was being
made the most of, and applied to the purposes for
which it was intended. By the sure operation of
this motive we should soon find the educational
endowments of the country, which exist in great
numbers, and in many cases are of very considerable
value, looked into, and turned to good account.
The cause why so many educational endowments
are at present misappropriated, is that, under the
present system, no one is interested in seeing them
rightly applied.

4. A fourth means which may be indicated is
that of grants-in-aid from the Educational Com-
mittee of the Privy Council.

I altogether exclude from this enumeration that
to which we now almost universally have recourse,
I mean the system of supporting our schools by sub-
scriptions. It is quite unnecessary to say anything
for the purpose of showing, that under such a system
it is impossible to have either good schools, or a
general plan for the education of the whole people.

42 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

Though perhaps the majority of our schools are
dependent upon it, there are several reasons which
make it most objectionable. I do not at all mean to
imply that we can at present dispense with the aid
which we receive from this quarter ; without it many
of our present schools would be unable to exist. I
avoid, however, on account of the various and serious
objections which may be made against it, setting it
down here as one of the means which it would be
desirable to have recourse to in our attempt to intro-
duce a better system of education.

We must remember that a large proportion of
those who at present are ready to subscribe would
be in favour of a rate. Those, however, who sub-
scribe for the purpose of keeping the education of
the people in their own hands, and of modifying it
according to their own ideas, would most probably be
opposed to a rate.

Of course the objections which lie against main-
taining a school by subscriptions do not apply to
building and starting a school by contributions and
donations. Not that, under an improved system of
general education, it would be desirable to resort to
contributions even for this purpose ; but at present
we are only speaking of the attempt to introduce an
improved system to general notice ; and until we shall
have got beyond this point, there can be no objection
to receiving contributions for the purpose of building
schools, or for improving existing school buildings.

HOW SCHOOLS ARE TO BE STARTED. 43

And when we consider how much is done in this
way for the purpose of promoting our present in-
efficient system of education, we may be sure that
not less will be done, when the motive for doing it
will be very much strengthened by the acknowledged
efficiency and value of the kind of school to be bene-
fited by such contributions.

Suppose 400Z. or 500/. were required for altering
or adding to existing school buildings in any place,
so as to fit them for the kind of school of which we
have been speaking, including apartments for the
master and mistress : this certainly would be a large
sum : there are, however, ways in which it might
perhaps be raised for such a school. There are
thoughtful and benevolent persons who might easily
be brought to understand the advantages of our pos-
sessing schools of this kind, and who, therefore, would
think it a happiness to present to their respective
neighbourhoods the requisite school-buildings, or the
funds necessary for altering existing buildings, if
found inconvenient and unsuitable to the purposes of
an improved system. Even as things now are, we
see this done frequently. In former times it was
looked upon as a pious and noble act of munificence
to endow schools : and many schools, such as suited
the wants of those times, were consequently built and
endowed by individuals. Men can hardly feel in this
way with respect to schools of the kind which we are
now maintaining. The desire, however, to do good

44 SCHOOL OP THE FUTURE.

was never more strongly felt ; only let the object pre-
sented to the good intentions of the benevolent be a
school of such a kind that it will be manifestly suited
to the wants of the present day, and we cannot doubt
but that so excellent an object will revive the old
practice.

Or part of the necessary sum might be granted out
of the fund which Parliament places at the disposal
of the Educational Committee of the Privy Council ;
the other part having been previously raised, no
matter in what way, in the locality itself. We are
here only speaking of the means to which we may
resort for building and starting schools, not about
the different ways in which they may be supported
afterwards. Now, no valid objections lie against the
proposal that Government should aid in building
and starting schools, though some serious objections
lie against the proposal, that Government should
continue to contribute to their support.

Or perhaps in some cases where endowments exist,
a sum might be raised for erecting new school-build-
ings, or for improving those already in use, the
interest of the money raised for such purposes being
in these cases paid out of the endowment. Our
endowments must some day be thoroughly looked
into, and it will be found in many cases that the
purposes of the endowment will best be answered by
securing such school-buildings as will render the
existence of a good school possible. It must be

SCHOOL-RATE ULTIMATELY NECESSARY. 45

evident that there must be a great many localities
in which more would be done for the improvement
and extension of education, and therefore for the
position of the schoolmaster himself, by providing
suitable buildings for the school, than by allowing
things to remain as at present. If, for the purpose
of providing such buildings, twenty or thirty pounds
a year were deducted from that part of the school-
master's income which the endowment supplies, the
part which he derives from his scholars would in
many cases be increased to an amount which would
far more than compensate for this deduction.

Eventually — that is, if any thing of a general kind
is ever established — -our school-system must rest upon
a system of local school-rates : we must always — I am
now speaking of a general system — be able to de-
pend upon the aid of an extraordinary rate for the
purpose of enabling us to start a new school, where
one may be wanted ; or, at all events, supposing the
government should think it best that the assistance
necessary in starting a school should come from the
general resources of the country (and perhaps it
would be better that it should be so), we must always
be able to depend upon local rates for supplementing
our school funds derived from other sources to the
amount requisite for carrying on the school effi-
ciently, and in such a manner as to provide for the
proper education of all the children in each district.

With respect, however, to school-rates, this must

46 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

be remembered, that the possession of power to
impose them is not all that is wanted. There will
be very great difficulties in the way of raising an
adequate rate, but a still greater difficulty will be
found in turning to any useful account what has
been raised, if the school to be built, or maintained,
be intended for the children of the lower classes only.
In such a case perhaps not one of the rate- payers of
the district, or parish, would take any interest in the
erection and success of the school. But if, on the
contrary, the school proposed be of such a character,
that its establishment would be a general benefit,
then all might be brought to join even in the self-
imposition of a sufficient rate ; and many would
interest themselves in seeing that all that the school
required for its efficiency was provided.

Perhaps, however, the best method of proceeding
under present circumstances would be that a moiety,
in some cases a larger proportion, of the cost of
starting our schools should be paid out of a parlia-
mentary grant, on the other moiety, or certain pro-
portion, having been raised by subscriptions, or
donations, or bequest, or rate, or in any way. The
means, however, of maintaining schools, except in
some special cases, ought to be supplied by those
who are within the district to which the school be-
longs, and ought not to be drawn from the public
purse.

If the middle classes can be brought to understand

THE INTEREST OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 47

the value to themselves of good local schools, we
shall soon find them springing up all over the coun-
try. And the most effectual way of persuading
these classes of their value is to get as soon as pos-
sible such schools established here and there about
the country. In this way we must endeavour to
show to parents, that they may keep their children
at home under their own watchful superintendence,
and at the same time give them a higher moral and
intellectual education, and, too, at a much less cost
than is possible at the schools they are now obliged
to make use of.

In towns there would be much less difficulty in
raising the funds necessary for the first establishment,
as well as for the after support of such schools.

Nothing has been said of the way in which the
expense of repairs, fuel, and attendance would be
met. • In such establishments the cost of these items
would not be great ; but as it would constitute a
yearly charge, it would be necessary to meet it out
of the same sources, whatever in each case those
sources may be, to which the school shall have re-
course for paying the salaries of the master and mis-
tress. Books may either be paid for out of the same
fund, or by the children themselves ; each plan
having certain advantages.

If these schools are properly managed, and if the
instruction given in them is what it ought to be,
the probability is, that the classes above the farmer

48 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

and tradesman will, for the education of their own
children up to the age of twelve or thirteen, avail
themselves of the advantages which they will offer,
and which they will be unable to find elsewhere. This
would proportionally raise the income of the schools
as far as it depended upon fees, and so render a
larger number of them able to dispense with the
rate.

Of course, in the majority of purely rural parishes,
so large a school as that of which I have been speak-
ing would not be required. In every instance the
school-managers would decide upon what was best
for their own neighbourhood. In some places, per-
haps, they would decide on having a master only, in
others still smaller, perhaps a mistress only. Now,
as things are at present, this would be a very serious
disadvantage, but under an improved general system
most of the disadvantages which at present would
belong to cases of this kind would be removed by
the connection and understanding which would na-
turally spring up between neighbouring schools
when the object of all the schools was the best edu-
cation of the people, and not the benefit of the
schoolmaster, or the gratification of the wishes of
some influential person in the parish. Many of our
present difficulties do not fairly belong to the subject
of education, but are accidental, being the result of
the present position of the question ; and will dis-
appear as soon as more enlightened views and prac-

PUBLIC SYMPATHY NECESSARY. 49

tices shall have begun to prevail. A very striking
evil of the present state of things is that each school
is entirely isolated from all others, no school receiv-
ing any assistance from those in its neighbourhood :
the fact often being that they are competing against,
and hostile to, each other.

With respect to the education of the labouring
classes, in far the greater number of cases, the only
person who takes an active part in the maintenance
and conduct of the schools is the Clergyman of the
Parish. As long as this shall continue to be the
state of things, we may have good schools here and
there, but it will be impossible to have good schools
generally. Wherever, on the contrary, a neighbour-
hood generally shall have become interested in the
maintenance of a good school, a good school, as a
matter of course, will be created and maintained.
To create this interest in the public mind ought to
be a main object with those who desire to promote
the education of the people. It is upon this that the
success of our schools must ultimately depend. It
will be utterly impossible to have good and efficient
schools, except under a system which shall command
the sympathy and aid of those persons in the neigh-
bourhood whose intellectual attainments, and the
weight of whose character, make their sympathy and
aid necessary conditions of success. If persons of
this description stand aloof from the school, and

D

50 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

show that they think disparagingly of it, the school
will never be able to effect much good.

Schools of the kind which I am describing must
form the broad basis of any plan for the education
of the people of this country* If we cannot get
these schools, little will be done. If we can get
them, every thing else that we wish for will follow
easily and naturally. They will interest every body
in the work of education. Four-fifths of the popu-
lation will receive some part of their education in
them. The great body of those who are to carry on
the intellectual work of the age will come from them.
A large proportion of our merchants, our tradesmen,
our farmers, our teachers, our lawyers, our medical
men, our manufacturers, our literary men, our clergy,
will find themselves under obligations to them.
This will react upon the schools themselves. Interest
and pride will be taken in them. They will receive
endowments from those educated in them ; but, what
will be far more valuable than endowments, many
who shall have been educated in them will repay the
debt by endeavouring to improve and perfect them.
They will give its tone and character to the education
of the country, because they will be the schools in
which the bulk of the people, the stirring and active,
the thinking and thriving men of the country will
have been educated, or will have received the earliest,
and most important, part of their education,

But I again repeat that every thing will depend

THE SCHEME OF INSTRUCTION. 51

upon the interest which the school shall be capable
of exciting in the minds of the better sort of people
in each neighbourhood, and which no body supposes
can ever be felt for our schools as long as they shall
remain what they are at present. Nor will any in-
terest of this kind be felt for secular schools, esta-
blished through an external influence, for the educa-
tion of the children of the poor ; while every body
will be interested about a school in which many of
his acquaintances and friends were educated, and in
which perhaps his own children are receiving some
portion of their education under his own eyes.

WE WILL NOW pass to the scheme of instruction. In
this the master-idea ought to be, that all the various
departments of human knowledge — just like the
various departments of the inner and of the external
world, which respectively form the subject-matter of
each — are inter-connected and inter-dependent, and
constitute together one great harmonious whole.
If we do but allow this idea to rest in our minds for
a moment, in how ridiculous a light will it place our
present practice of restricting the education of the
upper orders to a little Latin and Greek, — in most
cases only to a sham attempt to teach this little, —
and that of the lower orders to a Catechism and
to the Text of Scripture, dealt with in much the
same kind of way. The map, at least, of the vast,

D 2

52 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

varied, and rich domain of knowledge, so many fields
of which since the revival of learning, but more par-
ticularly of late years, have been explored and culti-
vated, should be exposed to view. As things are at
present, when the work of education is completed, it
can seldom happen that a young man has had his
attention directed to views and ideas of this kind ; if
he has been so fortunate as to have caught a glimpse
of the knowledge of what is around him and before
him, he was not indebted, even for that glimpse to
his school-work. Any scheme of instruction worthy
of these times ought to be based upon the idea that
it is necessary to give a general acquaintance with
the different divisions of knowledge ; at all events,
to such an extent, as that some ideas may be obtained
respecting the nature of the different parts, and
respecting the relation in which they severally stand
each to the rest.

For this purpose I would propose the following
plan, as adapted for the kind of school which I have
been describing. I do not propose it for adoption
in our classical, or commercial, or present parochial
schools ; it could not be grafted upon the systems of
instruction pursued in any one of these three kinds
of school. But I would propose it for the improved
kind of school for all, up to the age of thirteen, four-
teen or fifteen, whom their parents may be disposed
to send, and which kind of school we have yet to
create. For schools of this kind we still have to
form both our scheme of instruction and our m??.ters.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 53

In the present state, however, of public opinion, and
with our present educational resources, we need not
be dismayed at finding how much we have to do.
If we set to work in an honest and common-sense
spirit, I do not conceive that we shall find any very
great difficulties in the way, either of forming the
kind of school which we are in want of, or in pro-
curing suitable masters. With respect to the future
education of the bulk of the people, we have, to a
far greater extent than is generally supposed, a clear
stage, and are almost entirely at liberty to decide
upon whatever is abstractedly the best.

I would propose, then, — I repeat that I am not
speaking of classical, or commercial, or of our present
parochial schools, nor of schools in which children
will remain beyond their thirteenth, fourteenth, or
fifteenth year, — that a more or less systematic, at all
events an extensive acquaintance with the operations,
forces, arrangements, and productions of nature,
should be made to constitute a distinct object and pro-
minent part in the scheme of instruction, and that
physical geography should be the frame in which the
greater part of this knowledge should be arranged ;
and that the physical geography of the immediate
neighbourhood of the school, with which the children
are to a certain extent naturally acquainted, be the
foundation upon which the whole shall be built, and
the standard to which the physical geography of the
other parts of the world shall be referred, and by a
» 3

54 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

reference to which it shall be made intelligible. I
would teach a kind of Comparative Physical Geo-
graphy, in which the Physical Geography of the
neighbourhood of the school should occupy the place
both of a starting-point, and of a constant standard
of comparison.

The teacher might begin with the most obvious
objects, and those which are the first to attract the
attention of children. For instance, he might com-
mence with the quadrupeds, birds, &c. (zoology) of
the neighbouring fields. He might point out the dif-
ferences existing among these as to appearances, use,
habits, &c., and then pass on to the animals of other
parts of the world, making use of whatever illustra-
tions he could procure. This, besides giving them
some ideas respecting the infinite variety of nature,
would lead to much collateral and connected know-
ledge, — such, for instance, as that of the character of
different countries and latitudes, and of the condition
of the people who inhabit them, the distribution of
animals, &c.

The same plan might then be pursued with respect
to the plants (botany) of the neighbourhood. " In the
fields round our village," the teacher might say, " the
trees of which you see the most are the oak, the
beech, the ash, the elm, &c. ; but in some countries "
(describing the countries) " the trees most commonly
seen are of the fir kind ; in others, again, we have
mahogany, and furniture woods, and dye woods, &c.
Tn other countries, again, the various kinds of palm

HOW TO BE TAUGHT. 55

are very conspicuous." And here he might describe
the arid deserts of Northern Africa and Arabia, and
show how useful in such places the date-palm is, &c. ;
and an interesting account might be given of the
appearance and various uses of the cocoa-nut palm,
&c. " Here," the teacher might go on to say, " you
see growing in the fields wheat, barley, clover, tur-
nips, &c. ; in other places cotton, rice, sugar-cane,
maize, the vine, the olive, tobacco, tea, &c. are cul-
tivated." A great deal of interesting information
might be given respecting each of these. He might
go on to say, that in China a great part of their
furniture, and even of their houses, the sails of their
ships, &c. are made from a kind of grass, some
species of which grow above sixty feet in height (the
bamboo), &c. &c.

The teacher might afterwards go on to speak
about climate, &c. (meteorology). " Here," he
might say, " you see ice and snow in winter, and we
have long hot days in summer, and here we have
variable winds, and there is no knowing when we
shall have fine weather, and when wet weather ; but
in some parts of the world there is perpetual ice, in
others perpetual heat. In others they know what
wind will be blowing at certain times ; they know in
some places when they are to expect dry weather,
and when to expect wet." He might then go on
to explain the more obvious phenomena of heat,
moisture, and of the atmosphere ; illustrating his

D 4

56 SCHOOL OF THE FQTURE.

explanations by the barometer, thermometer, air-
pump, &c. &c.

The character of the soil in the neighbourhood ot
the school, — the contents of the pits and quarries
(geology and mineralogy) might be pointed out.
The height of the hills might be compared with the
height of mountains in other parts of the world, and
the streams of the neighbourhood compared with the
rivers of other countries, &c. &c.

The reader will see that the above sketch may be
greatly extended, in fact that it is the merest outline.
The detail and filling up must depend upon the
knowledge and ability of the teacher. It presup-
poses a full mind, and one capable of imparting
knowledge in such a manner as to interest children.
It is a scheme of instruction which cannot be adopted
by those masters who only hear lessons.

With such a master, and with classes of children, who
had passed two or three years in our improved infant-
schools, all this knowledge might without any exer-
tion be easily acquired by the age of thirteen or four-
teen. The object-lessons of our infant-schools would
form an excellent preparation for it. The intellect
of a child who had acquired this knowledge would be
quickened. Such a child would be elevated in the
scale of intelligent beings. There would be much
less chance of his sinking in after-life into a pauper,
or a thief. Wherever he might be he would find
materials for thought and agreeable reflection. The

TAUGHT EASILY — ADVANTAGES. 57

chance of useful discoveries being made, by which
the material well-being of mankind might be ad-
vanced, would be greatly increased. Every man,
whatever his condition in life, would be the better
for such knowledge. Its moral effect would neces-
sarily be good.

, To the more advanced children some general
knowledge might be given upon the subjects of
Astronomy and Chemistry, the amount being in
proportion to the forwardness of the children, and
the abilities of the teachers. We, who have been
brought up at schools where the mere words, Physical
Geography, Astronomy, and Chemistry were never
heard, will perhaps be disposed to think that all
knowledge of this kind ought to belong exclusively
to scientific men, savans, and philosophers, and will
therefore be disposed to regard the proposal to draw
the attention of children to, and to interest them
about, the works, operations, and phenomena of
Nature, as extremely visionary and wild. Such
ideas are the natural result of our classical system of
education. The truth, however, is that what has
just been proposed might be taught with far more
ease than any thing now taught in our schools, and,
also, that it might easily be taught in addition to all
that is now taught. If taught in the manner recom-
mended such instruction would be regarded by the
children not with the distaste which is now felt by
them for almost every thing that is now taught them,

D 5

58 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

but with much interest, as something which they
were capable of understanding, and as something
which gratified their natural desire for acquiring
knowledge. It must be evident that nothing else
which we can teach children is so well adapted for
this purpose. The intelligence which such teaching
would awaken, and the interest it would create,
would probably extend itself to the other depart-
ments of the school work, and so have a strong and
good effect in other directions upon the subsequent
lives of many of the children.

To proceed to other departments of instruction :
the advantages of teaching Drawing are great and
obvious, and it will soon be considered, were it only
for the manner in which it trains the eye to habits
of accurate observation, as an indispensable part of
education : it does not, however, appear necessary to
say more at present either upon this subject, or
respecting Arithmetic and Geometry, than that they
ought each to be taught by the ordinary methods as
well as possible. Some remarks, however, may be
made upon the subjects of Grammar and of History;
but first of History, for I would propose, even in
such schools as these before us, and at which we do
not contemplate retaining the children beyond their
fourteenth year, that History should be taught — only
with this difference, that the method in which it be
taught be very dissimilar from that which we are
using in our present schools.

HISTORY — HOW IT MAY BE TAUGHT. 59

History is for the most part taught in schools in
such a manner as to render the time spent upon it
worse than wasted ; for not only has nothing after
all been taught, but the pupil has by the process
been thoroughly disgusted with the study of history.
Every one can judge how far this is true by com-
paring it with his recollections of his own school-
days. The dates of prominent events, and the suc-
cession of emperors and kings, were the chief things
taught. Lessons of this kind are, learnt with diffi-
culty ; they have no connection with any thing in-
teresting to the child ; and are soon forgotten. Such
an exercise of the memory, for it cannot be dignified
with the name of knowledge, is of no value at all.
The mere fact that these things are learnt with
difficulty, and soon forgotten, is quite enough, even
supposing that there were no other objections to
make, to show that we ought to resort to a different
method for fixing in children's minds the historical
knowledge which we wish them to possess.

In teaching history, then, to children in such a
school, I would proceed upon a somewhat similar
plan to that which I have just recommended for
drawing their attention to, and interesting them
about, Nature. I would, for instance, take as a
starting point what they already knew, what was
before them and around them, their own condition,
that of their village or town, and proceed from this to

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60 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

the history of other times, other countries, and other
races of men. Nothing should be taught except
what they could understand, connect with previous
knowledge, — at least compare with previous know-
ledge,— and take an interest in ; and therefore would
be likely to remember.

Supposing that there was an old castle in the
neighbourhood, the master might begin a series of
lessons by saying, " You see that that castle is built
in a very different way from Mr. So-and-so's new
house. At the time when the castle was built
people not only built differently from the style in
which we build, but they also lived in a different
fashion. Many things were very unlike what you
now see. In many particulars each generation has
lived differently from the generations that preceded
it, and from those that followed it. The builders of
that castle differed from us in dress, in amusements,
in occupations, in knowledge, in the way in which
•they spent their time, in their social relations," &c.
I would have him go backwards from the present
state of things in the castle, or old manor house, or
hall, through the last century — the great rebellion —
the reformation — the wars of the roses — the feudal
times. Upon all these different particulars he might
say much that would interest the children. In order
to secure as distinct an apprehension as possible of
what he was saying, he should use all the illustrations
which he could procure. He might proceed to show

HISTORY — HOW IT MAY BE TAUGHT. 61

what were the munitions of war, and what the state
of the art of war, which rendered it worth while to
erect such buildings, which once were strong places,
but now would be incapable of defence. A great
deal might be said upon the difference in the con-
dition of society implied by the erection of such a
building, &c. &c.

For the basis of another series of historical lessons
he might take the village church. He might picture
to them the state of things in Cromwell's time as
connected with their own church. And again, what
was the state of things at the Reformation. What
was the form of worship, and what the ceremonies
which that village church had witnessed in the
middle ages. How perhaps Barons and Crusaders
had been buried in it. How it happened that their
church had been built at all. What was the state
of religion in this country before churches were
built. How Christianity was introduced. How the
people, who in old times lived where now they were
living, had been idolaters and savages, &c. &c.

For another series, he might even take the neigh-
bouring fields. " They were not always cultivated
as you now see them. Not very far back there
were no root crops in the fields, and if you go
back a little further, there were no haystacks in
the farm-yards ; cattle were killed when grass
began to fail in autumn, and were salted for winter
provision. There was then a great deal of wood,

62 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

because we had not begun to use coal. Going back
further, a great part of the country was covered with
wood, and there were then plenty of wolves in the
woods." Something might be said of the different
modes and products of agriculture in other countries ;
and that some savage tribes manage to live without
any agriculture at all, &c. &c.

Their own dress might be made the starting-point
of another series. He might point out the chief
changes which the dress of the different classes had
undergone. How leather was once used very gene-
rally amongst the lower orders. How silk and cotton
had been introduced. This would be an opening for
showing how commerce had connected nations to-
gether, and was now connecting all the nations of the
earth. Something might be said of the manner in
which formerly the lower orders used to wear wool-
len next the skin, unchanged and unwashed, and
that this was supposed to be one of the causes which
at that time predisposed people in this country to
receive the plague, and other complaints which are
now much diminished, or unknown. The pictur-
esqueness, and richness, and variety of the costume
of former times might be dwelt upon. How the
women of their village had in old times employed
themselves in spinning. That machinery had cheap-
ened clothing, &c. &c.

On the subject of language the master might say,
" Those who were living here four or five hundred

HISTORY — HOW IT MAY BE TAUGHT. 63

years ago spoke a language which we should not
now understand." And then he might go back to
all the different languages which have been spoken
in England. He would show where the different
people who introduced them came from ; and give
some account of these different people ; and show
how things were in such a state, as that they could
invade us. Some ideas might be given respecting
the history of our language. Something might be
said of the varieties of languages which exist, of the
manner in which they form families, and of the way
in which languages alter, and die out, &c. &c.

On the subject of their own homes ; he might
say, " You all have chimneys and glass windows in
your houses. In former times these wrere not to
be found in the houses of kings and emperors."
He might speak of huts, log-houses, Amsterdam
built upon piles, the Bedouin's tent, the Tartar's
waggon, &c., for the purpose of giving an idea of the
different circumstances and conditions under which
men live, &c. &c.

Their lessons in physical geography would have
made them acquainted with the different countries
of the earth : the master then would have oppor-
tunities for comparing with their own condition that
of the inhabitants of other and distant countries.
This might be done with respect to a great variety
of particulars ; the main comparison being between
themselves, as Europeans, and the inhabitants of the

64 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

East; and again between themselves and savage
tribes, &c. &c.

By working upon this idea the teacher might give
a pretty just and extensive knowledge of the past
and present condition of man in different countries.
To gain this knowledge is one of the main objects of
studying history. Of course history can only be
taught in this way out of the fullness of the teacher's
own knowledge. I am far from recommending that
historical reading books should be disused; what I
would recommend is, that they should be used con-
jointly with oral instruction of the kind which I have
been endeavouring to sketch.

The reader will recollect that I am not proposing
a method of teaching or of studying history, but
merely a method for conveying what historical know-
ledge we can — in as useful a form as we can, and in
a manner which shall interest them so much that
they may perhaps be induced afterwards, should
opportunities occur, to add to their little store — to
children under fourteen years of age. The study of
history is a very different thing from what I have
been recommending, but children are incapable of
studying history. What, however, I have been re-
commending would give many ideas ; historical in-
struction of this kind might be remembered ; it
might eventually include the dates and lines of
succession, with which it is most absurd to begin ;
and might, and probably would, create an interest

MAN, AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 65

in historical knowledge, and in some cases predispose
to historical studies in after-life.

I have dwelt, then, at some length on the two
subjects of Physical Geography and History ; and I
have proposed a method for teaching them to the
class of children who would attend the schools I now
have in view. I have done this because I conceive
that a foundation might thus be laid — by means of
these two subjects taught in the way I have described
— for the further study of the two great divisions of
human knowledge ; one being the knowledge of Man
himself, of his faculties, his affections, his duties, his
fortunes, his works, and his power ; the other being
the knowledge of Nature, of its forces, operations,
productions, and laws. The correlation of man and
of surrounding nature obliges us, in forming a scheme
of education, adapted to the present age, to provide
for the joint and connected study of both. Man has
been made the centre of this mundane system of
things. Every object in nature, and every law of
nature, whatever other relations and ends may be
imagined and inferred, has at all events a reference
to him ; but he can only exercise his dominion, as
far as he has been made lord of all things, after he
has acquired the power of reading and interpreting
Nature. Knowledge of Nature is the talisman by
which he compels Nature to yield to him her stores
and treasures, and to do his bidding ; and knowledge
of himself, and of the past history, and present con-»

66 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

dition of his race, teach him how, and for what ends,
and in what spirit he ought both to labour, and to
use the fruits of his labour.

If the schools which have been before us in the
foregoing pages should ever be established, it would
inevitably follow that from them would be drawn a
large proportion of the students for our higher schools
and colleges. And this class of students would be
found well-grounded, arid well-disposed, for more
advanced and detailed studies. In those cases, too,
constituting the vast majority, in which formal edu-
cation ended with the instruction given in these
schools, much good would have been effected ; the
range of thought would have been enlarged ; botli
would a right direction have been given to thought,
and also some materials for thought to work upon ;
and much would have been done towards giving the
preponderance to the moral and intellectual elements
of our nature.

It will perhaps be found that in good schools of
this kind sufficient grammatical knowledge or suffi-
cient accuracy in speaking English, may be obtained
without much difficulty, and without the sacrifice of
much time. The difficulty of teaching us to speak
our own language correctly has been very much over-
rated in consequence of the prevalence of the strange
idea, which our old grammar schools originated, and
still continue to foster, that the best way of teaching
us to speak English with grammatical precision, is

GRAMMAR. 67

to teach us Latin and Greek, or rather to attempt to
teach these languages, for the attempt does not
succeed even moderately in one case out of five ;
while it is evident that the great majority of those
in any country who speak their mother tongue with
purity have no idea at all of the formal rules of
grammar. Perhaps the best method of proceeding
in schools of this kind, would not be to require that
the children should get by heart a volume of rules,
the advantage of which is uncertain, even though
several years may have been spent in the task, but
rather that the master should keep the volume by
him for reference and illustration, being always very
attentive to correct mistakes in conversation and
writing, giving in each case the reasons and all the
necessary explanations. So that, supposing a child
were to leave a school of this kind at the age of
fourteen, without the intention of proceeding to any
other place of instruction, he would by that time
have obtained enough grammatical knowledge for
the purposes of the kind of life a person who finishes
his education at fourteen will most probably lead.
At all events we may be quite sure of this, that if,
by the kind of instruction I have been endeavouring
to sketch, and about which more will be said pre-
sently, a taste for reading and a desire for knowledge
shall have been implanted in a boy's mind, his
attention having been drawn constantly, in the man-
ner I have pointed out, to the grammatical accuracy

SCHOOL OP THE FUTURE.

of his language, this boy will on the whole be better
educated, and will eventually speak the English
language — which is the point now before us — more
correctly, than one who had spent a large propor-
tion of those hours of his boyhood, which are ordi-
narily devoted to study, in poring over the pages
of a grammar. The present system seems to defeat
its own object : it prevents the acquisition of higher
and more useful knowledge, which would, if accom-
panied with grammatical instruction of the kind I am
recommending, lead certainly to the acquirement of
the desired power of expressing one's self correctly.

If, however, at the age of twelve, thirteen, or
fourteen, a boy were to proceed from one of these
schools to a higher school in a town, — of these pre-
sently,— or to one of our public schools, there would
then be, according to our present system, which
keeps a youth at school till his eighteenth year,
four, five, or six years for Latin and Greek, before
the age required by our present University system
had arrived. Now it cannot be supposed but that
those who had commenced their education with
schools of this kind, and had acquired at them habits
of thought and attention, as well as a considerable
amount of knowledge, and who, before they set to
work upon the grammar of a dead language, had had
their attention drawn to the nature of grammar, and
taught to speak their own language correctly, would
acquire, by the time they reached their eighteenth

IT OVERLAYS OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 69

year, a far more profitable knowledge of Latin and
Greek than is usually acquired under the present
system ; to say nothing about what would probably
be their turn of mind, what other knowledge they
would actually possess, and what they would be
likely to acquire in after-life.

It may be worth while to consider whether in
these days we do wisely in assigning to grammatical
instruction its present position in the work of edu-
cation : we are still continuing to make it both a
main object, and a main instrument, of our highest
education. Formerly this was necessary ; there was
nothing better to teach ; it might almost be said that
there was nothing else at that time which children
could have been taught : the choice lay between this
and no instruction at all. It also happened that
those who were to be taught belonged to the upper
orders, and so had twelve or fourteen years to de-
vote to this study. Now it was out of these circum-
stances that our public school system of teaching
Latin and Greek arose, which we again repeat was
formerly not merely the best, but the only, thing we
had to teach ; and to which we are on more accounts
than one under the greatest obligations ; and which
ought still to form a most necessary part of a high
education. When, however, we consider the advances
which our own literature has made, and the advances
which knowledge has made in so many fields of in-
quiry, and the great demand which now exists for

-c 5^*

^

02P

70 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

knowledge, then the old, narrow, daudling, gram-
matical system of education must at once appear to
be thoroughly out of date. What can be a stronger
proof of this than the fact that scarcely any one
seems to regret that so many of those who are
brought up under this system, the proportion amount-
ing to all but a few out of a hundred, fail to
attain to that which is the aim of the system — a
critical acquaintance with the languages of Greece
and Rome : very few people regret this, because
very few people think that, if attained, it would have
been of much benefit. The loss of time and labour
was great, and is exceedingly to be regretted ; but
we should have to search for a man who is of
opinion that their failing to attain to that particular
knowledge for which the loss of time, and the labour
were incurred, is, in these days, a matter of much
consequence.

Grammar-schools, then, or schools in which the
old classical languages were taught, were, at the
time when the languages of modern Europe had no
literature of their own, our best, our highest, and
our only schools. In the history, therefore, of modern
culture an epoch of grammar-schools was necessary.
Has not, however, knowledge now reached that point
at which we ought to begin to look upon this kind of
knowledge, in any scheme of instruction, rather as an
incidental, or subsidiary, or subordinate study, than
as the main one ?

PHILOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR. 71

Our continuing to maintain our old grammatical
system of education for the upper orders has had a
prejudicial effect upon the schools which we have
established for the lower orders : in the education
which we ourselves received, the main effort was to
enable us to acquire a critical acquaintance with the
classical languages ; as a consequence of this, when
we establish schools for the working classes, if our
ideas get beyond a catechism proved by texts, they
stop short at English grammar, just as if there was
nothing else in the world which it would be of
advantage for them to know.

In our classical schools the study of language is
evidently made too much of; every thing else is so
completely subordinated to it, and thrown into the
shade by it, that it appears to occupy the whole
ground, to constitute the end-all and the be-all of edu-
cation. Almost the same remark may be made of our
universities, with the additional objection that they
do not pursue this study, as they might and ought
to do, in a comprehensive manner, and with enlarged
and profound views : they seem to disregard general
Philology and Comparative Grammar, and to restrict
the study of language, a restriction unnecessary even
at the grammar-school, to the limits of the two
kindred tongues of Greece and Rome. As far as
the study of language is concerned, our universities
seem to think that an acquaintance with Latin and
Greek is all that is either desirable or possible ; and

72 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

yet Oxford, at all events, has at her disposal the
services of Professors of Arabic, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and
Anglo-Saxon, and of teachers of German and French.
The history and affinities of the Indo-Germanic family
of languages, as far as its history can be recovered and
its affinities traced ; the history of our own language,
which gives good promise of becoming the chief
language in each of the four quarters of the globe ;
the points of resemblance and the points of contrast,
which are presented by the different families of
language; — are objects in the study of language to
which a great university ought to direct its attention.
If it be said, that what our universities teach is only
meant for a foundation for future superstructures,
we may reply by asking two questions: — 1. By the
age of twenty-one ought not something more to
have been attempted than the laying of a foundation ?
2. And what is the number of those out of a thou-
sand university men who in after-life add in this
way to these foundations ?

Here we may be met by the objection, that though
it would be doubtless very desirable that the instruc-
tion given at Oxford, not on the subject of Language
only, but on all other subjects also, should thus be
raised in its character, and aim higher than at pre-
sent, yet that it is quite impossible to act upon such
views, because the majority of the students would be
unequal to such studies, having neither sufficient
abilities nor sufficient previous attainments. Now

IN THESE DAYS UNIVERSITIES SHOULD TEACH 73

this is a most erroneous principle for a great univer-
sity to act upon, particularly at the present day. I
think we may attribute no small part of the disre-
pute in which Oxford is now held, to its having in a
great measure lowered and confined its teaching to
the requirements of this false principle. One reason
for its having thus lowered and restricted its teaching
may be found in the fact, that its students are not,
from a variety of causes, a large proportion of the
studious youth of this country, who have sought
out the university as the best place for pursuing the
studies in which they are interested ; but that they
are mainly young men, who, with the consent of the
university, have been forced upon her, and who there-
fore are there nominally as students, but in reality
merely for the purpose of fulfilling a preliminary con-
dition required by the Church from candidates for
Ordination. This regulation, in the present state of
society, and in the present state of knowledge, is
evidently prejudicial to the best interests of the
Church ; still it is maintained : this obliges a great
many young men to enter the university who other-
wise never would have been there, and so are not pro-
perly university students. The university, however,
seems to have adjusted her whole system of instruc-
tion for the purpose of meeting the wants of this
particular class. If the reader is interested in this
point of the education question, perhaps he will
allow me to refer him to my second Pamphlet, where

E

74 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

I was led to make some remarks upon the mutually
prejudicial effects of this alliance between the Church
and the Universities.

The principle of having a compulsory scheme of
instruction — which, because compulsory, must be
low and restricted — is, of course, the right principle
for regulating the studies of a school, but is cer-
tainly out of place in an university. At school
foundations are being laid ; these are the same in all
cases : here it would be ridiculous to talk about
choice. The students, however, of an university are
in these days not boys, but young men, who must to
a great extent be presumed to know what it will be
of advantage for them to study, and what they have
a turn for. This, it is true, does not apply with
so much force to those who are compelled to pass
through an university course. All, however, with
as few restrictions as possible, ought to be allowed
to study what they have a turn for, or what, from
any reason of their own, they may wish to study;
and the university ought on its part to furnish them
with facilities for carrying on their studies, what-
ever they may happen to be, supposing they fall
within the range contemplated by the university :
these facilities should consist in the ablest teachers,
extensive libraries, and well-chosen collections, if the
subject of study be connected with any branch of
natural history, or with the fine arts, or if it be any
science, in the study of which models, specimens,

WHAT MEN WISH TO LEARN. 75

and preparations are required for illustration. We
must not neglect the old learning, but we must, while
we retain the old, make room for the new. Or, in
other words, we must act upon the admission, that the
old learning is of no value at all, unless viewed in
connection with, and incorporated tvith, the new. We
must not regard our universities in these days as large
schools, where certain stated lessons are set to all
alike, which lessons all must learn, and nothing else,
but as places where young men may have, on easy
terms, facilities unattainable elsewhere, for carrying
on the cultivation of whichever of the fields of
human knowledge, now greatly increased in number,
they may select. The old system in its rigour is not
suited to the wants of one in five of those who in
these days wish to become real students.

The honest adoption of this principle — and the
value of that which is now excluded will oblige us to
adopt it — implies a complete change in the scheme
of our university teaching. Oxford, then, instead of
being satisfied with seeing that the colleges have
tutors lecturing on the subjects which the young men
were taught at school, will at once direct her atten-
tion to the enlargement of her scheme of instruction,
and to the perfecting of her means of teaching each
particular subject. At present no attempt of this
kind is made, because the instruction given by the
university is carried out very much upon the idea that
the university is only a large grammar school. This

E 2

76 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

is why so many of her professors are at present little
more than ornamental appendages to her system ;
under the present scheme of instruction their services
are not required. The corps of professors, however,
which the university possesses may be considered as
an acknowledgment on her part of the value of the
different branches of knowledge which they severally
represent. If it be thought advisable, let additional
professors be appointed for additional studies, and
assistants, too, if requisite. Let those students who
have been compelled to enter the university as a pre-
liminary to ordination be obliged to go through
whatever course may be thought necessary, not by
the university, but by those who obliged them to
enter the university ; but let voluntary students who
come for the purpose of study, and of whom we have
not many at present) study what they please. Let
us give to all whatever facilities we can for doing
this. Unless this be done, however much we may
perfect our instruction in Latin and Greek, and
though our wealthy classes may become far more
numerous than at present, and though the appetite
for knowledge may become much more general than
at present, the credit and influence of Oxford will go
on decreasing, and, too, with reason, because as know-
ledge increases, and as facilities for seeing the world
increase, the value of four years, and the amount of
what may be done and learnt in four years, go on in-
creasing in an equal proportion.

CLASSICS WOULD NOT BE NEGLECTED. 77

It is evident that in such a scheme of instruction
every thing we now teach would find its appropriate
place. In saying this, I have more particularly in
view our present classical studies. I think that
the number of those who would study to good
purpose the literature of Greece and Rome would
not be diminished ; that some of the difficulties
which at present attend this study would be re-
moved ; and that its real advantages would be better
understood. Should the very reasonable outcry,
now beginning to make itself heard, against the
manner in which almost every thing is being sacri-
ficed to a long, aimless, and inefficient system of
classical instruction, issue in the neglect of all clas-
sical studies, it would be a very undesirable result.
Without an acquaintance with classical literature
it is impossible to know anything about the past
history of that division of the human family to which
we belong; or to know what were the beginnings
and first stages of our modern civilization. Should
the literature of Greece and Rome be forgotten,
some of the most valuable and instructive chapters
in the history of Mind would be lost. Our study of
language, too, without an acquaintance with the
languages of Greece and Rome, would be very im-
perfect. With schools, however, of the kind which
I am endeavouring to describe in these pages, and
supposing at the same time certain changes, which

s 3

78 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

such schools for the people would force on, in our
higher schools and universities, the probability is,
that we should have many more really good classical
scholars than at present ; men who would study the
monuments of the ancient literature with far more
enlarged views than those with which they are at
present regarded in our grammar schools and colleges,
and with far more fruitful results.

Be this, however, as it may, still that the student
should begin with, and have almost his whole atten-
tion directed for thirteen years to, classical studies,
is a system of education which, though aided by the
largest educational endowments in the world, by the
whole power of the Church, and by the sentiments
which an old system, which once did good service,
can always enlist on its behalf, must in these days
fail to produce the very result for which so much is
sacrificed. The spirit of the times, and the variety
and importance of other kinds of knowledge, are such
as must prevent all but a very small number, even of
the classically educated, from giving themselves up
to the study of classical literature with anything like
devotion. We present it to young men as the only,
or the chief, object of study; and this they very
soon find out to be a practical absurdity : they find
that in their education they were made the victims
of an antiquated system ; and therefore, by a natural
reaction, as soon as they become their own masters
they neglect the old literature more than they would

CIRCUMSTANCES OF PRESENT TIME. 79

have done had no more than that degree of import-
ance which, at the present day, justly belongs to it,
been assigned to it. Our present system, on account
of the preposterous manner in which it attempts to
exalt the old learning, is a direct cause of its being
unjustly neglected, decried, and undervalued.

If these remarks lead any one to suppose that our
proposed scheme of instruction aims too high, I would
request him to bear in mind that some of the leading
circumstances under which we have to set about our
work are entirely new. For instance, the very
necessity we are under of educating the whole people
is a new necessity belonging to our own times. The
objects, too, at which we have to aim, as well as the
means which we have at our disposal for doing the
work, are in a great measure new. It must also be
borne in mind that nothing effectual, or worthy of
this great cause, can be done, unless the higher, or
at least the middle, classes can be brought to take an
interest in, and to support, our schools ; and this is
what they never will have any motive for doing, and,
therefore, never will do, as long as the schools to be
supported shall be intended for the use of the labour-
inq classes only. Should we ever succeed in con-

€/ tX

vincing the classes above the lowest that they are
interested in the existence of good parochial or
district schools, we shall soon find them desirous of
maintaining and improving such schools : our schools

£ 4

80 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

will then be what schools of the present day ought
to be ; and the fear that the lower orders may be too
highly educated will not be felt any longer.

With respect to the religious teaching given in
schools of this kind, it is not improbable that there
would be no very serious difficulties after all. It is
very generally found, whenever an attempt is made
to establish a really good school, that all difficulties
of this kind soon disappear ; or, rather, the discovery
is made that they had existed more in theory and
anticipation than in reality. At all events, we must
now acknowledge, and this acknowledgment will at
once remove a great many difficulties, that it is not
enough to say that the scheme and amount of reli-
gious instruction ought to be left entirely to the
decision of those who may have the management of
the school : for not only ought this to be done, but
it must be done ; because in any general scheme of
education for the whole people, these school-managers
will in each place represent those who pay the school-
rate. The school will be theirs. The general prin-
ciple, therefore, must be, that whatever they may
judge right upon this head must be acted upon.
Nor need we fear the result of this, because these
school-managers will be themselves fathers of fami-
lies, and will have a greater interest in the character
of the religious instruction given in their respective
schools than any other parties can possibly have : it

RELIGIOUS TEACHING — SECULAR SCHOOLS. 81

will be the religious instruction which their own
children, in many cases, will be receiving, or, at all
events, the children of their neighbours, by whose
conduct in after life they may themselves be affected
in no inconsiderable degree.

Of course, too, the clergy will everywhere have a
share in the management of these schools ; while in
the rural parishes they will have the chief share. In
many cases, also, we may eventually have clergymen
for masters. Now all these circumstances give as
good security for the tone of the religious teaching
as we now possess in our present schools, or can
reasonably expect in a matter of this kind. It will
be far more easy to give a religious tone to the kind
of instruction proposed for these schools, than either
to our present system of classical education, or to
that given in our commercial schools, or to the read-
ing, writing, and arithmetic, accompanied with cate-
chism and texts, of so many of our parochial
schools.

To make compulsory the maintenance of purely
secular schools, against the wishes and convictions of
those who are to pay for their maintenance) is a very
questionable kind of liberality; but to compel people
to send their children against their wishes and con-
victions to such schools (for in many cases it would
come to this) would certainly be an act more worthy
of an arbitrary, or even of a revolutionary, than
of a free government. If in any district it were

E 5

82 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

to happen that the majority of the parents of the
children were desirous of excluding religion from
the instruction given in the school, the question
of a secular school for that particular neighbour-
hood might fairly be entertained by the school-
managers ; but surely there is no other ground for
admitting the question. The right principle appears
to be to leave the question in each case to the
decision of the school-managers, who will, of course,
decide eventually in accordance with the circum-
stances, the wants, and the feelings of their respective
districts. This is a self-adjusting principle ; the
adoption of which will at once set aside a host of
objections, which are at present impeding our efforts
for the improvement and extension of popular edu-
cation. At all events, to condemn a neighbourhood
to maintain a secular school, in opposition to the
wishes of the educated inhabitants of, and of those
who have weight and influence in, the neighbourhood,
would be condemning the school to inefficiency and
worthlessness.

THE TASK OF finding masters and mistresses capable
of undertaking the management of these schools
would not, even as things now are, be a very difficult
one. We must not be misled here by our old ideas,
and by the experience of the past. We have to
disabuse our minds of much that has been impressed

MASTERS. 83

upon them by the schools with which we are familiar.
The schools we want neither resemble our old gram-
mar schools, though grammar will be taught in them,
and though, perhaps, those who are to come after us
will find that many a good classical scholar will have
received his earliest intellectual culture in them;
nor do they resemble our present parochial schools.
In the former we teach what once had a direct prac-
tical object, and was, for those times, of inestima-
ble value, and to which we still continue inconsi-
derately to assign the same importance, though it
has little direct connexion with the work and the
ideas, or with the moral feelings and intellectual
aims, of the age in which we are living ; and in the
latter we dole out instruction of the kind, and in
the measure, which we now happen to think suit-
able for the working classes. Now we do not want
schools at all like either of these, and, consequently,
we do not want masters such as would be required
for either of them. There are difficulties in finding
masters for both of these kinds of school. The
knowledge required for the master of a classical
school is not the natural growth of the present day :
it is a highly artificial production, a forced com-
modity, the result of endowments and bounties. We
must, therefore, pay very highly for it. And when
we suppose that we have got what we want, and have
sent our children to a classical school, very few of us
are capable of judging whether the master is, after

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84 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

all, properly qualified for teaching what he has
undertaken to teach. Few of us know any thing
about the matter, nor do we care much to know any
thing. And with respect to the teachers of our
present parochial schools, the qualifications required
of them, and the position given them, are not such
as to attract persons of any attainments, or of any
standing in society : we are even obliged to collect
our parochial school-masters, through the instru-
mentality of the training school, from the lowest
classes. As, however, the position of master in the
kind of school we are considering would be a good
one, and as the knowledge required of him is in a
great measure that which is the natural growth of
these times, and that of which we all know the value,
the situation would at once become a desirable one :
many persons of previous attainments would be
anxious to qualify themselves for it. But about this
presently.

Not an unimportant part of the instruction given
might consist of lectures, delivered by persons uncon-
nected with the school, and engaged from time to
time for the different courses. These lectures would
form a very valuable addition, or complement, to the
instruction which the masters were able to give.
The lecturer would be an instrument made use of
by the master for the purpose of conveying inform-
ation to the school upon subjects where the master
needed assistance. The whole of the moral training

LECTURES. 85

of the school would remain with the master ; he
would also have opportunities of giving whatever
moral turn he thought fit to the knowledge conveyed
by the lectures. At all events, it would be a part of
his duty to point out the bearing of the different
courses upon, and their connexion with, the other
studies of the school, and their place in the system
of general knowledge. We will suppose that there
would be four courses of these lectures in the year,
each course being in a separate quarter, and contain-
ing four or five lectures. All the children above a
certain age would be present in the school-room, or
class-room, each seated at his own desk in order that
he might take notes of the lecture.

This part of the system must not be judged by a
reference to our recollections of the schools at which
we were ourselves educated, but by a consideration
of the intellectual and educational wants of the
present day, and of the resources which are now
available for the purpose of meeting these wants.
This complementary instruction, over and above
what the masters are capable of giving, was not
wanted formerly ; while in the present day it is
necessary, because the teaching of the school must
have constant reference to the knowledge existing on
the outside of the school, in order that the school
may be enabled to meet the wants of the day. Had
instruction of this kind been needed formerly, it
would have been impossible to have procured it;

86 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

and, had it been possible to have procured it, it
would have been impossible to have connected it
with the old narrow single-subject system.

There would be no difficulty in finding persons
well qualified to give these lectures. The extent to
which the various departments of knowledge have of
late years been cultivated amongst the upper and the
middle classes would ensure our obtaining an ample
number of lecturers of this kind. In every neigh-
bourhood there would be some who would volunteer
their gratuitous services from the interest they felt
in the school at which their own children and their
neighbours' children were being educated. In con-
sidering what might be done in a matter of this kind,
we must look at the present moral and intellectual
character of the different classes of society ; we
must take into account their actual intelligence and
knowledge — their feelings and aims: nor must we
lose sight of the great changes which have of late
years taken place in the very materials of society.
Formerly five-and-twenty contiguous parishes might
have been found without a single resident clergyman,
in every one of which a clergyman is now residing,
and, if from no other motive, at least from the pres-
sure of public opinion, employing himself more or
less actively. And, comparing the whole number of
parishes in the country with the whole number of
clergy, we find almost two clergymen for every
parish. Now a large proportion of this vast body of

LECTURERS. 87

men, in number almost 18,000, and who are spread
evenly over the country, are capable of giving in-
struction on some subject or other of interest ; in
many cases, of course, on subjects connected with or
ancillary to biblical criticism and interpretation ; in
many cases, also, on subjects of literary, of scien-
tific, or of general interest. Of those who would
be capable of doing this, we cannot doubt — judging
from the manner in which the clergy in the metro-
polis, and, indeed, all over the country, are coming
forward upon the platforms of lecture-rooms, class-
rooms, and mechanics' institutes — but that many
would be glad to aid in the same way in schools of
the kind we are recommending. The fact, too, that
the incomes of the clergy are diminishing, while their
numbers, intelligence, and activity are increasing,
supplies another reason for our calculating with some
degree of confidence upon our schools receiving from
them this kind of aid. In short, the clergy I think
would be, from more than one motive., among the first
to acknowledge the value of these schools.

Every town at the present day contains a con-
siderable number of intelligent persons in the middle
classes, who have devoted themselves to some parti-
cular study or other, and who would be glad of
opportunities for giving lectures in schools of this
kind.

Mechanics' institutes and country-town museums
have already given rise to a class of persons who

88 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

make it their business to give lectures. Our schools
might avail themselves of the services of these pro-
fessional lecturers ; and the demand for their services
in our schools would lead to an increase in their
number.

Masters of neighbouring schools would also assist
each other, each lecturing for his neighbour's school
upon some subject with which he was better ac-
quainted than his neighbour.

The Professors, also, of the college in the neigh-
bouring town would render the same kind of assist-
ance.

In these various sources, then, we possess an
ample supply of materials for this part of the system.
And if it were a fixed rule that a paid lecturer
should never receive less than the fee which a
physician now receives for his advice, or which a
clergyman receives for preaching a sermon, we may
be sure that there would never be any difficulty in
procuring a duly qualified lecturer for any subject,
upon which the master needed assistance. Many
lecturers of this kind would become itinerant and
occasional school-teachers.

We might also expect that some of those who would
be ready to give lectures would also readily undertake
to teach classes on their particular subjects. If our
schools were so organised and conducted as to supply
an opening for something of this kind, we may be
sure that there would be many who would avail

LECTURERS. 89

themselves of it. The missionary spirit exists
strongly amongst us. Here would be a field for its
exercise at every .man's door. There are numbers of
intelligent and benevolent persons, with some leisure
time at their disposal, who might be of great use in
this way. And here again we might calculate more
especially, though not at all exclusively, upon the
assistance of the clergy. Many of the highly educated
would see in these classes an opportunity for turning
their philanthropy and their knowledge to some
account, and for doing much good. Wherever any
thing of the kind was done we might expect to see
some improvement in the mutual feelings of classes,
which are at present but slightly acquainted with
each other. At all events, this teaching of regular
classes upon particular subjects by those in the
neighbourhood who were willing and able to do it,
and of whom the master and managers might approve,
would virtually be an increase in the number of
masters, and would assist us much in carrying out
the idea of our proposed schools, a very essential part
of which consists in a considerable extension of the
present range of instruction, the extension being
chiefly in the direction of the knowledge in which
interest is now felt, and which is now bearing fruit
in the midst of us. As a general rule, it would be
better that a school should pay for any aid of this
kind which it received.

90 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

I WILL NOW endeavour to show where I think we
shall find a supply of masters duly qualified for
undertaking, and ready to undertake, the manage-
ment of these schools. We have supposed that our
master will receive about 100/. a year. This will be
for the kind of village or district school, of which we
have been speaking ; in towns and in larger villages the
salary might be proportionably increased. Apartments
also ought to be provided for him, if possible, under
the same roof as the school itself. This, of course,
would be equivalent to an augmentation of salary.
Now, when we consider the respectable position the
master would occupy, and that no kind of display or
unnecessary expense would be required of him, his
income would go farther than an equal one in the
hands of other members of the community not so
situated.

As far, then, as salary was concerned, the master
would be in a position superior to that of the gene-
rality of curates.

Now as all his evenings, and all his time, with the
exception of the school-hours, would be at his own
disposal (which, of course, can never be the case with
those who are chained down to the hourly duties of
a boarding-school), he would have more time for self-
improvement, recreation, and society, than falls to
the lot of the members of other professions.

As the children would be under his charge

ADVANTAGES OP THE MASTER'S POSITION. 91

during school-hours only, the master would not be
oppressed with the load of responsibility which, under
the present boarding-school system, must always be
felt, and always, too, more or less unavailingly ; for
while the present system transfers to the schoolmaster
the parental duty of watching ceaselessly over the
formation of the character of the child, it fails to
give him, nor can it ever give him, the opportunities
and the means necessary for the effectual performance
of the duty. The system, however, which is recom-
mended in these pages will divide the responsibility,
up to the thirteenth or fourteenth year, between the
schoolmaster and the parent, assigning to each that
part which each can most effectually perform ; thus
removing from the mind of the conscientious school-
master that which at present forms a very distressing
incident of the office.

With respect to his standing in society, there can
be no reason for supposing that he would be received
on a less favoured footing than other professional men.

The master of such a school as we have been con-
sidering might also look forward to securing a situa-
tion in some larger school, or in a high school or
college, — such as would be established in the towns.
This would be an inducement with a great many for
continuing to study, and to increase their store of
knowledge and their attainments. If there were
means of rising in this way, it would have a very
beneficial effect upon the class of schoolmasters,

92 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

because greater numbers than at present would
devote themselves to their work with the feeling
that it was to be the work of their lives.

With these advantages to offer, it cannot be sup-
posed that there would be much difficulty in finding
the masters we should require. Many who are now
holding curacies would feel, supposing that their
turn of mind and attainments fitted them for the
position, that they might, by taking charge of a
school of this kind instead of a parish, turn their
talents and devotedness to better account. We have
seen that such a change would not be one for the
worse in respect of worldly circumstances, and we
cannot suppose that it would be for the worse as
respects their position in society. Our master's
position might even be an enviable one to not a few
of the beneficed clergy. We may therefore suppose
that many of these schools would at once be filled by
candidates from the Church, and by men who had
received an university education. This would not
long be the case, because if the place of school-
master be made a desirable one, society is now in
such a state in this country — that is to say, education
is becoming so general, and the means of finding
remunerative employment for educated persons so
difficult — that the demand would soon be met by a
fitting supply. At first, however, we should expect
to see many who were in orders, or who intended to
enter the ministry, occupying the master's place in

SOME WOULD BE IN HOLY ORDERS, 93

our larger schools, because no other class would be
just now able to supply so many candidates, or can-
didates so well qualified.

Here, then, would be a new, and, for some time to
come, an inexhaustible field opened to the exertions
and the talents of the younger portion of the clergy.
Many of our chief difficulties about school-masters,
and more especially about training schools, would be
removed. The education which our upper and
middle classes receive, our universities, and even the
Church itself, would all indirectly, but still to a very
great extent, in many cases even adequately, supply
the necessary training.

The standing and advantages given to the office of
the teacher would make the situation of assistant
master a very desirable temporary position for a
young person entering life. Of course this remark
applies more to the case of some professions than
to that of others. At all events, we should here
have more suitable employment for a young man
only twenty-three years of age than the cure of
souls and the charge of a parish.

Indeed, can we imagine any better training for
Holy Orders ? A young man might either be or-
dained on obtaining a school appointment (a college
fellowship at present is allowed to give a title to
orders), or he might be ordained from the school
after he had acquired some experience of life, and
some familiarity with the office of teacher, which is

94 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

very near of kin to the office of Christian minister.
It need hardly be said that we possess at present no
kind of school of which it would be possible to make
this use.

This would not only elevate the school and the
teacher, but would also bring a considerable accession
of strength to the Church, both by extending its
influence particularly among the lower orders in a
thoroughly legitimate manner, and by enabling many
of the clergy to receive a more useful and practical
training for parochial work than is at present possible.
Such candidates for Orders would have to offer for
the service of the Church a certain amount and
variety of general and modern knowledge, the tact
and discretion which they had acquired in their
necessary intercourse with the parents of the children,
aptness to teach, and a familiarity with the feelings
and ideas of the people.

This would at present be the natural result of
such a school-system, though of course it would not
be its intended effect ; because the single object of
the system wrould be to give to every member of the
community such an education as would be suitable
to the present wants and the present condition of
society. Those, therefore, who had established such
a school for their own parish, or district, or town,
would necessarily feel that they had the deepest
interest in choosing the fittest persons for masters.
Their only aim would be to get the best man. The

OTHERS SUITED FOR THE WORK. 95

questions asked would be, What do you know ? and
What is your character ? Not Where do you come
from ? Where were you educated ? and Who are
your friends ? But that this would at the present
moment result in strengthening the Church would
follow from the present position and efficiency of the
Church : many of the fittest candidates, the school-
managers being the electors, would be persons in
Holy Orders ; many more would be persons whose
ultimate destination was Holy Orders.

Perhaps, also, it might be found that, just as at
present, many persons who have some little means of
their own, either in possession or reversion, do now
become clergymen, so, under such a system of
schools, would many persons similarly situated, if
such a system of schools were established, become
teachers in our schools.

But one great point which will bear repetition is,
that this system would not only offer an appropriate
field for the talent and energy of well-educated
young men at a time of life when they are incapable,
in most cases, of employing themselves usefully in
any other way, but that it would also offer a regular
and fitting field, such as we do riot at present possess,
for the labours of thousands of benevolent and well-
informed persons amongst us, some of them persons
who have retired from the active duties of life, and
who would gladly avail themselves of such oppor-
tunities for taking a part in what we must all now

96 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

consider as the highest, and the allotted, work of
the period upon which we have entered.

An opportunity here offers for mentioning another
advantage which such a system of schools might be
made to yield. On all hands it is allowed that the
expense of our university course is a very serious
evil. I would propose, then, that an under-graduate
might be permitted to commute a year of his univer-
sity course for a year spent in one of these schools as
an under-master or assistant teacher. This would
at once lessen the expense of an university education
by at least one-third to all who chose to avail them-
selves of the permission. Young men of this age are
allowed, as soon as they have taken their degree, to
become private tutors to the undergraduate members
of the Universities ; there can, therefore, be no
objection, on the score of age, or attainments, to
their assisting, under the authority of the master, in
the instruction of children in such schools as those
we have been speaking about.

Our universities direct their attention mainly to
clerical education, and have, in a great measure,
sacrificed their character of universities to their zeal
for maintaining what they imagine to be the best
education for Holy Orders. Now we cannot imagine
any better training for the duties of a parish clergy-
man than a year's teaching in such a school as I have
been describing. What more useful addition could
be made to our present clerical education ? 0*%

GOOD PREPARATION FOR HOLY ORDERS. 97

rather, if this suggestion could ever be acted upon —
and it is only proposed to make it optional — it would
form a good beginning for the work of clerical edu-
cation, for which after all it can hardly be said that
any direct or effectual provision has been made.

Perhaps the certificate of a year spent in this
manner would be amongst the best testimonials
which a candidate for Holy Orders could present to
the bishop from whom he was seeking ordination.

Of course the experience of many kinds which
would be gained in this manner would be of the
greatest value to the future clergyman : it would be
excellent training for that which was to be the work
of his life. But who is there that would not be
benefited, whatever may be the profession upon
which he is afterwards to enter, by spending a year
of his life in this manner ? We may safely predict
that whatever may be the employment of a man's
after life, this year would always be acknowledged to
have been spent more profitably than any other
throughout the course of his education.

The practicability of the above suggestion entirely
depends upon the establishment of the particular
kind of school, and of the school-system, recom-
mended in these pages. Unless the schools were
open and public, so that every thing which went on
in them might be known, and unless they were so
arranged — as these would be — that by self-acting
causes every thing would go on rightly in them, it

F

98 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

would be unwise to attempt such a plan. Such a
position in a private school would not possess any of
the advantages I have in view. The adoption of this
suggestion would, of course, contribute in some mea-
sure to the success and popularity of the schools ; it
would, however, be far more advantageous to the
universities, and, above all, to the Church and to
other religious bodies which chose to avail themselves
of it.

Many of the persons engaged in these schools
in the work of tuition might be young persons, with-
out any very great disadvantage resulting. Attention
is purposely drawn to this for the sake of illustrating
the system. In the first place, much of the evil,
which under our present system would result from
this, would be obviated by the fact, that a large share
of the moral training of the children would still be left
in the hands of the parents. This is not said with
the intention of conveying the idea that the masters
of these schools would be absolved from the duty of
exercising a moral influence over the children they
taught : quite the contrary ; they would turn to the
best account the means and opportunities they pos-
sessed for moral training: but, in addition to this,
the education of the children would be carried on
under — to many of them — the still stronger in-
fluences of home, and of parental affection and
watchfulness. And, in the next place, the school
being among the most valued possessions, and under
the constant supervision, of every parent in the

MISTRESSES. 99

parish, or district, any act of neglect, or any thing
in any way faulty, would be known immediately, and
the proper remedy would be immediately applied.
Of course a young person would be employed as
under-master, or assistant teacher, only in cases
where no objection was felt. Those whose dearest
interests were connected with the school would take
care not to entrust the chief part, or any part, of the
management of it to persons in whom they were
unable to feel confidence.

I have endeavoured to show that there is no reason
for anticipating any difficulty in procuring properly
qualified masters : there will, I think, be still greater
facilities for procuring any number of properly qua-
lified female instructors, so soon as we shall be able to
give them the position which these schools would offer,
Every one is familiar with the regrets constantly
expressed at the want of suitable employment for
women, who, having received the careful education
of gentlewomen, afterwards find themselves in narrow
circumstances. Now here is a large field for energy,
talent, and devotedness, exactly adapted to such
cases. Here is employment, and a position, which
many a right-thinking and high-minded woman, in
the circumstances to which I have just alluded, would
regard as a great privilege. We must not for a
moment compare the position of a mistress in one of
these schools, either with the dependent position of

F 2

100 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

a governess in a private family, or with the harass-
ing and humiliating position of an ordinary school-
mistress, or school-teacher. The position of our
mistress would be very different. The amount of
responsibility which would devolve upon her would
not be overwhelming, because a part of the burden
would be borne by the school-managers, and a part
also by the parents of the children. The greater
portion, too, of her time would, as was observed
respecting the masters, be at her own disposal.
There would be nothing degrading about her work,
in which she would be supported by the school-
managers, who would be the most intelligent and
respectable persons in the district, as well as by the
respect and regard of the parents of the children.
The increasing respect, also, in which the masters of
our schools would be held, would to some extent be
reflected on the mistresses. If she were a well-
educated person, and if our schools could be so
organised as that her situation could be made what
we have been for the moment considering it, we may
be sure that she would be received well at all events
by that part of the community in the education of
whose children she was bearing a part. She would
also be animated by the hope — which few women
now engaged in tuition can feel — of some day
obtaining, in a larger or higher school, a more
extended field of usefulness, attended by an increase
of salary, and a higher position.

MISTRESSES, WHERE TO BE FOUND. 101

No greater boon than the establishment of this
system could be conferred on a very large class of
the women of this country, who now see every
avenue both to independence and to usefulness closed
against them. To how many well-educated, active-
minded, and devoted women would such a field for
labour, and such a position, be most attractive.
Here is the true substitute for the convents and
sisterhoods of mercy of other times. Female assist-
ance of this description is indispensable in any
general system of education, and we have super-
abundant materials in our modern society for sup-
plying it. We have thousands of women well
qualified for, and most desirous of, taking a part
in this the great work of our times ; and if such
schools as these were established, we should at once
give them the opportunity, which they do not now
possess, of turning their talents and devotedness to
good account. Perhaps we may see the day, not
only when many of the daughters of the clergy, of
officers in the army and navy, and of the smaller
gentry, will be desirous of securing a position of this
kind, in which either a few years or a whole life
might be spent so creditably, but even when many
of rank and station, under the influence of religious
feelings, who, had they lived in former times, would
have devoted themselves to seclusion and penance,
will devote themselves with equal piety to the task
of teaching and training the young. Perhaps with
F 3

102 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

the increase of wealth, knowledge, leisure, and
refinement, the desire to do good has also increased
in equal proportion ; we have, however, no regular
field for the realisation of this desire, as far as women
are concerned : these schools would give such a
field.

Under, then, this system of schools we should escape
from our present necessity of searching for school-
mistresses from amongst the lower orders of society.
The manners and feelings of such persons, however
excellent may be their characters, must more or less
be coloured by their antecedents and early associa-
tions : we can hardly expect them to be very refined.
, These objections may doubtless be removed to a very
great extent by a good training school; still, how-
ever, very few cases can occur in which they can be
entirely overcome in those who have known no other
life than that of the cottage. Schools of the kind
recommended in these pages, though of course they
would not decline to avail themselves of the services
of those educated at training schools, would yet, we
may be sure, have at all times at their command
numbers of volunteers from the well-educated classes
of society, better able to create around them an
atmosphere of gentleness and refinement, and to
implant a love of the beautiful and the good in the
minds of their pupils, than would be possible for a
labourer's daughter, even supposing she had had the
advantage, — which, however, only a small percentage

DEPENDENCE UPON THE TRAINING SCHOOL. 103

of our present schoolmistresses have had, — of spend-
ing two or three years in a training school. The mis-
tresses, whose services I am supposing that we should
be able to secure, would also possess a far sounder and
more varied experience of life ; and this is a kind of
knowledge which always enables its possessor to gain
much influence over children, and the want of which
they are always very sharp-sighted in detecting.
This remark is of course equally applicable to
masters.

Perhaps it may be as well to say a word or two in
reference to the manner in which our training schools
have just been mentioned. It would be difficult to
speak too highly of the services which these insti-
tutions have done of late years in the work of ele-
vating the character of our popular education. They
have been the chief centres from which have been
diffused higher ideas concerning the duties, the
attainments, and the position of schoolmasters and
schoolmistresses ; and it will be absolutely necessary
to retain these institutions, and it would be well for
us if we could increase their number, so long as the
lowness and inadequacy of our salaries, and the un-
certainty and capriciousness which belong to our
present no-system of school-management, oblige us
to take our masters and mistresses from the lowest,
and most uneducated, class of society. Under any
circumstances, too, there would be much advantage
in retaining them. "What I wish to say is, that if we

F 4

104 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

should succeed in bringing persons already well-
educated, and in whose minds higher and better
motives will be at work, to undertake the duties of
the teacher's office, we shall escape from our present
entire dependence upon the training school. It is
not considered necessary that the masters of our
public schools, or that our governesses, should have
spent two or three years in some training establish-
ment. Now we ought to aim at making our schools
of such a character that we might reasonably ex-
pect to find, among the candidates for the situation
of masters and mistresses, persons who had already
received a good education, and who, setting Latin
and Greek aside, though we should not despair even
of this in some instances, possessed as extensive
knowledge, and were as well able to interest the
minds of children in the acquisition of knowledge,
and to lead them by their moral sentiments and
affections, as our governesses, or the untrained mas-
ters of our public schools.

The school, then, which has been kept before the
reader in these pages, would be the school of the
large rural parish, or of the rural district. The
reader will see how it would adapt itself to the small
village on the one hand, or to the town on the other
hand. In small towns, and in populous neighbour-
hoods, the school would of course be larger, and
there would be a greater amount of funds at its
disposal. This would be just so much more power

LIBRARY AND READING-ROOM ATTACHED. 105

for the improvement of the school ; and none of this
power would be diverted for other purposes, as is the
case with schools established not by a neighbourhood
for its own use, but by a private individual as a
private speculation. Whatever sum was raised in
the school, or for it, would be wholly expended in
securing abler teachers, and a greater number of
them, and in otherwise improving the school.

In the larger towns this improvement would be so
great that the chief school would assume the appear-
ance of a college, by which name, perhaps, it would
be advisable to call it, because those who wished to
proceed farther in their studies than would be pos-
sible at the rural schools, would attend the classes of
these higher town schools, where there might be
means for securing the services of very able men.
The name of college, then, would be useful for the
purpose of marking their superiority to the schools
in the rural districts.

In our largest towns — those of above 50,000
inhabitants — these colleges might be of a very high
character. In such places as Liverpool and Man-
chester, if the time shall ever come when the whole
population will be educated, several colleges would
be required.

To each school a library might be attached, for
the use of the students, the masters, and the neigh-
bourhood. An additional advantage would be gained
if this library, or, in case the neighbourhood could

F 5

106 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE*

not afford a separate room for the library, a class-
or school-room, were used as an evening reading-
room. And here I would allow newspapers to be
taken in, as the daily press has now become the most
generally used means for disseminating knowledge
and ideas. For every one person who is in the habit
of reading books, there are ten persons perhaps who
never read any thing but newspapers. True wisdom
is shown not by ignoring important facts of this kind,
but by turning them to good account. This library
and reading-room would supply another, and a very
powerful means for making the school a centre of
interest, and of union, to those whose children were
receiving their education in it. It would bring them
together in a pleasing manner, on neutral ground,
and for intellectual enjoyment. It would dispose
them to regard the school with affection. Occasional
lectures also to adult classes might be given in this
library, or in the school- or class-room.

High above all, as was previously remarked, would
stand our great national universities, which, if they
chose — and, surrounded by such a system of schools,
they could not but choose — to bring their teaching
into harmony with the state of knowledge, the wants,
and the work of our free, busy, and enlightened age,
would command the love and reverence of all orders,
as the illustrious time-honoured depositaries of know-
ledge, and, again, as occupying the highest place in
its diffusion.

DIMINISHING IMPORTANCE OF UNIVERSITIES. 107

If Oxford would give up the idea of making her-
self a theological seminary for the upper orders, and
endeavour, honestly, to connect herself with the
general education of the country, there is every rea-
son for supposing that, in an age like the present,
when our numbers and our wealth have increased so
enormously, and knowledge and education are valued
so highly, her fame and her influence would soon
become even greater than they were in those old
times to which she looks back with so much pride.
Instead of doing this, she has been endeavouring to
restrict the instruction she offers to the limits of
what was taught centuries ago; forgetting that
society is in a very different state now from that in
which it was then ; that knowledge is in a very
different state ; and that, besides, in those old times
when Oxford was so famous, she taught all that men
at that time wished to know, and indeed all that was
at that time known.

At present, the studious youth of this country do
not look to Oxford as the place where they may
receive the highest and best instruction. The lead-
ing university of the Anglo-Saxon race ought cer-
tainly to be capable of offering great facilities for the
study of the different branches of science, as well as
of polite learning. But what is the fact ? Is it not
generally felt that she offers no peculiar advantages
to those who are entering upon the study of any

F 6

108 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

particular branch of science, or who intend to culti-
vate any part of the field of literature ? It would
be demanding too much to expect that she should
be in advance of the rest of the world in her physical
teaching, or in her teaching on social and econo-
mical science, or in medicine, or law; or that she
should maintain a school for the study of the fine
arts ; or that she should possess an historical, or
even a critical and philological school, from which
views might be disseminated, to which the learned
upon these subjects on the outside of the uni-
versity would be disposed to defer. We ought
not now to expect much of this kind, because
in these days scientific and literary men are every-
where able to carry on their pursuits, without aid
from the countenance or support of an university :
and the activity of the press is now so great that
every man, wherever he resides, may easily keep
himself on the level of what is known in his own
department of study, and may have upon the shelves
of his own library every thing that is worth reading
upon the subjects in which he is interested. Great
capitals, too, must, in many important respects,
always possess very considerable advantages over an
university situated as Oxford is. Still Oxford ought,
at all events, to be able to attract to herself, and to
enlist in her service, men of eminence in their
different departments, by making it worth their
while to reside within her walls, and teach in her

LIBERTY OF STUDY, AND OF TEACHING. 109

lecture-rooms. Of course this necessitates both
some changes in, and some additions to, her present
system.

Now if any thing of this kind were aimed at, there
are two questions which would have to be settled ;
the first being, How are these subjects to be admitted
into the present system of instruction ? and the other
being, Where are we to find places for the men of
eminence, who might, under different circumstances,
look to Oxford as offering the most suitable field for
their labours ? This is not the place for discussing
these questions : it appears, however, that there is
for them but one solution, and that is, that the uni-
versity must admit both a much greater liberty of
study, and, as a correlative necessity, a much greater
liberty of teaching ; the main restrictions being, as far
as respects the former, that the subjects chosen by
the student be studies which the university has sanc-
tioned and provided for ; and, as far as respects the
latter, that the teacher must be licensed by the uni-
versity. The existing colleges, the power to make
certain alterations having been allowed them, might
be left upon their present footing, in the hope that
they would of themselves sooner or later do what
would be most conducive to the public good, and to
their own interests. Should they, however, find in-
superable difficulties in the way of any such attempts,
let them continue to maintain their present restric-
tions ; but at the same time let others be allowed to

110 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

establish colleges of their own within the precincts
of the university, and let the students of these new
colleges be allowed to avail themselves of the lectures
of the professors, and to receive, on the same terms
as the students of the old colleges, the honours and
degrees which the university confers. This would
be permitting the Roman Catholics, Wesleyans,
Independents, and others to remove their colleges
from the places where they are now situated to
Oxford. Now if at the same time those graduate
members of the university who at present are al-
lowed to act as private tutors were allowed to open
licensed halls, we should have in these licensed halls
and new colleges two additions to the present system,
which would perhaps suffice for the desired liberty
of teaching. The requisite liberty of study will only
be attained when the university shall have provided
equal facilities for, and shall give equal encourage-
ment to, all the different branches of study — and
the more numerous these branches the better —
which she may be desirous of promoting. If any
thing of this kind were to be done, we should then
see some students coming to Oxford solely for the
purpose of studying mathematical or physical science;
others for the purpose of pursuing classical, critical,
and philological studies ; some to study medicine,
others law ; some history, or the social and economi-
cal sciences, and others theology. Of course some
of these branches admit of subdivision, — as, for in-

HAVE FEW REAL STUDENTS. Ill

stance, that of physical science ; while others might
be studied conjointly with advantage, as might be
the case with history, philology, and theology. The
idea is merely thrown out for the purpose of indi-
cating the system which universities must eventually
adopt : the present state of knowledge, and the
present state of society, will oblige them to adopt it.

It is by no means improbable, (such is now the
thirst for, and the actual value of, knowledge,) that
if any man of eminence in the literary or scientific
world were, — just as some celebrated philosopher
might have opened a school at Athens, — to propose
to give a course of lectures, and to instruct a class,
upon the subject where the pre-eminence of his
knowledge was incontestable, the success of the
attempt would be most signal. Should any thing
of the kind be done, it would at once point out to
the universities the necessity of abandoning the
practice of forcing upon men what they do not wish
to know, what they have no aptitude for, and will
never make any progress in ; and of teaching them,
instead, what they wish to know, and of providing
them for this purpose with the best instructors.

One consequence of the present system is, that
Oxford possesses hardly any real students. An
analysis of her undergraduate members will readily
prove this. A large proportion, amounting perhaps
to a clear majority of the whole, enter the uni-
versity, because an university degree is a necessary

112 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

preliminary to ordination. Of the remainder many
are young men who will some day possess inde-
pendent fortunes, and who are sent to Oxford, not
because their friends expect that they will study,
but because their friends do not know what else to
do with them. It is supposed, also, that it will be
advantageous for those who purpose being called to
the bar, to be able to show an Oxford degree : all
things considered, the advantage of this may reason-
ably be called in question : this idea, however, draws
some to Oxford. Some also are attracted by the
hope of securing a fellowship. Now this mere
handful of undergraduates, among whom — when we
consider the necessity which compelled some, and
the motives which induced others, to connect them-
selves with her — very few real students can be re-
cognised, is her condemnation. Her halls and col-
leges are not thronged by earnest students from the
different parts of this great empire, desirous of culti-
vating, under her guidance, some this, and others
other parts of the field of knowledge ; because she
herself is cultivating only one small corner of that
field, and this, too, a corner which has not of late
been very productive, nor ever will be again, except-
ing when cultivated in conjunction with other parts
of the field.

The establishment of schools of the kind we have
been proposing would, perhaps, eventually set all
this right, in a more complete manner, and more

SMALL COST OF THE SYSTEM. 113

expeditiously, too, than the Royal Commission in
all probability hope ever to see it done. Such
schools would show what kind of education was
wanted. The universities might aid the schools by
giving a good education to many who might after-
wards be glad to teach in the schools ; and the schools
might in turn aid the universities by sending up to
them from all parts of the country those who had
shown the greatest desire and capacity for learning.
These would be willing and real students. It has
also been shown how, by the aid of these schools, —
for none of our present schools would be of any use
for such a purpose, — the universities might lessen
the expense, and, at the same time, improve the
character of their clerical education. An university,
in order to maintain its credit, must endeavour to
supply the wants of the day. People living in the
middle of the nineteenth century very properly have
no wish to send their children to a school which can
hardly be said to teach any more than what was
known in the Middle Ages. In these days three or
four years, and 600£ or 800/., may be spent to better
purpose.

The slight cost of maintaining this system of
schools — weighing the cost with the large proportion

114 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

of the community to whom it would offer an educa-
tion suitable to the wants of the present day — may
at first sight appear to constitute an objection. It
may be asked whether so much could be done for so
little ? This reduction, however, in the cost of edu-
cation — the reduction being twofold, for it is both a
reduction in the expense of maintaining a school
capable of giving a high education, and a reduction in
the expense of a high education to each individual ;
the first being a result of the state of knowledge and
of society, and the latter of the number of persons
whom it may be desirable to educate, either partially,
or entirely, in the same manner, — is one of the advan-
tages which the progress of civilisation has now
placed within our reach. There is nothing lowering
to the dignity of the work of education in our finding
that it is subject to the general law which makes the
character of the supply of any article of general
consumption depend upon the character of the cir-
cumstances which attend the demand. The number
of consumers has increased enormously ; and, at the
same time, the facilities for producing the article in
demand have increased in quite as great a proportion,
or even perhaps in a still greater.

With respect to the particular article of education,
it is an easy matter to trace the application of this
general principle. There are stages in the progress
of society in which education is not thought of or
required : there is no demand for any thing of the

WHY NO OBJECTION. 115

kind. But to come at once to that order of things,
out of which the actual state of society has grown by
a regular sequence of events : in the dark ages, as
we have already observed, there was no demand for
education throughout the community, except among
the clergy. Though the rights and the religion of
the community rested ultimately upon letters, yet
such was the extraordinary condition of society,
that only one order of men — what we might almost
call only one profession — either did, or, indeed,
could, cultivate letters. A necessary result of this,
as well as a sufficient proof of the narrowness of the
limits within which education was restricted, was the
fact that the clergy became statesmen, architects,
lawyers, physicians, diplomatists ; not so much en-
grossing all the opportunities and power which belong
to knowledge, as receiving them in complete default
of any other claimants.

The great intellectual era of the Reformation in-
augurated very different views and practices, founded
upon a just appreciation of the wants and resources
of the day. At that time it was that the existing
system of education, as far as its main character-
istics are concerned, was established. The spread
of knowledge and the training of mind were neces-
sary for the support of the Reformation ; but, at the
same time, knowledge and intelligence, together
with habits of self-dependence and self-restraint,
were not at all needed by the great body of the

116 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

people, either for their own well-being, or for the
sake of the society in which they lived. It must
also be remembered, that at that time the population
of Great Britain could not have been more than double
that of the metropolis alone at the present day. It
was absolutely necessary to spread, to a certain ex-
tent, enlightenment, and habits of independent
thought ; and yet such were the circumstances of
society and of the times, that very few were found
capable of giving instruction, and very few were
found so circumstanced as to be capable of receiving
it. It was therefore necessary, by an apparatus of
endowed schools and endowed colleges, to force the
production of what was needed. A bounty was paid
upon education. Men were bribed to qualify them-
selves for becoming masters of schools and colleges ;
and others were bribed to listen to their instructions.
Formerly the clergy had provided for the education
of their own body ; the Reformers wished to educate
some of the laity as well as the clergy ; but, to speak
generally, they saw that, as things then were, this
could not be done, unless they provided the means
for its being done. These means they provided in
their endowed schools.

Now the very reverse of much of this is the case
at the present day. The population has become so
dense that, for the purposes of education, the whole
country may be regarded as if it were one continuous
town. Throughout these closely packed millions all

PRESENT ADVANTAGES. 117

are capable of receiving education, and all are de-
sirous of receiving it : education is now the only
resource we have for enabling each individual to
provide for himself — now that society obliges every
one to take care of himself; and education is the
chief means which society has for meeting the pe-
culiar evils by which it is assailed in these days.
And not only is it now true that all are capable of
receiving instruction, and that their well-being de-
pends upon their receiving it, but besides — so that
our position is in both respects the reverse of theirs
— we have in these days a sufficiency of persons
quite capable of giving all the desired instruction.
All that is requisite is a system of schools which
shall bring together those who wish to be taught, and
those who are able to teach. These are the favour-
able circumstances which, never having existed be-
fore, do in these days enable us to lessen the cost of,
and at the same time to improve, our education.

The great advantages which we now possess, and
we are as yet hardly conscious of their greatness, or
even that we do possess them, are, first, that we
now have such vast numbers demanding education,
that, under a properly organised system, a large pro-
portion of our schools might be made, even without
a rate-in-aid, to support themselves ; and then, that
we have abundant materials for forming our staff
of teachers ; that is to say, if we adopt such a sys-
tem as would render the position of a schoolmaster

118 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

a respectable one, while it admitted of the co-opera-
tion of those who were capable of being, and willing
to be, of use.

In the meantime, however, it seems to be the
duty of all those who are interested about the exten-
sion and improvement of education, and above all
does it appear to be the duty of the clergy, to aid in
the establishment here and there, and wherever there
are openings, of schools of the proposed kind, which
may serve as examples to the surrounding districts
of what can be done, and of what ought to be done.
This great service the Dean of Hereford has ren-
dered to the cause of education, the schools of King's
Somborne having been in this way examples, not
only to their immediate neighbourhood, but in no
inconsiderable degree to the whole country ; and it
is much to be regretted that the attempt made in
the dioceses of Winchester and Salisbury to form a
society, having specifically for its object the esta-
blishment of schools upon the model of those at
King's Somborne, was not better supported. The
clergy and gentry of any neighbourhood might unite
for the purpose of giving to the schools of some
large central village this improved character. Every
one who, by reflection on the course of events, and
the present wants of society, and by attending to the
discussion which the question of education is now
undergoing, may become desirous of doing some-
thing, may at once set to work in his own town, or
parish, or district. The best way for him to pro-

PUBLIC OPINION MUST BE ENLIGHTENED. 119

ceed will be to endeavour to get his neighbours to
join him in making the attempt. For the purpose
of exemplifying the proposed system — and the
school-system of the future must be a common and
co-operative one — it would be advisable that this
should not be the work of an individual, but a work
in which many take a personal and a common in-
terest. All who make such attempts may hope to
secure eventually the sympathy and support of every
parent who is anxious about the welfare of his chil-
dren, of every one who wishes well to his neighbours,
and of every one who wishes to see an improvement
in the moral and intellectual, and, through the moral
and intellectual, in the material condition of those
by whom he is surrounded.

Perhaps, however, the reader is now disposed to
say, all this is very well, but how is it to be done ?
Supposing that such a system of schools would meet
our wants, there yet remains the question of how
are we to get them ? We have already said some-
thing about the manner in which such schools may
be supported, and about the manner in which, and
this in most cases would prove the greater difficulty
of the two, they might be started. There is, how-
ever, a preliminary difficulty to be overcome — the
difficulty of interesting the great body of the people
in the question, the difficulty of bringing them to
see, if not the necessity in the present state of
society, yet, at all events, the value to themselves of

120 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

such schools : the people must be interested, because
it is evident both that schools of this kind can only
be supported by local resources, and that their
management also must be local. What is wanted
for such a system to rest on, is not the assist-
ance and supervision of the government, though
of course the assistance of the government will
always be of great value, and is at present quite
indispensable ; still less is it the guidance and
support of educational societies, for as soon as
parents shall have become desirous of establishing
schools for the education of their own children, it
will be plain to every body's comprehension that
these parents will know much better than any
society will be able to tell them, what it is that
they want, and will be able to manage the matter
much better themselves than any society would be
able to manage it for them : our primary want is
the enlightenment of public opinion. We want the
conviction in the minds of intelligent and right-
thinking people in any neighbourhood that they can
establish a school themselves for their own and their
neighbours' children, in which their children may
receive a cheaper and better education than they
are receiving at present. Every day it is becoming
easier to produce these convictions, for the simple
reason that they are suggested by the wants and cir-
cumstances of the times.

What, then, we ought to propose to ourselves as
our paramount objects are, first, to get adequate

OUR ULTIMATE AIMS — HOW ATTAINABLE. 121

means for enabling us to secure the services of good
masters and mistresses : ultimately this can only be
done effectually by adding, wherever it may be re-
quired, a school-rate-in-aid to the school-fees, and to
the amount of income arising from endowments wher-
ever they may happen to exist. And, in the next
place, to get the management of the schools into the
hands of those who are most interested in their good
management and success. Now those persons who
will be most interested in the good management and
success of any school will of course be those who
pay a rate for its support, and who, for the sake of
their own children, perhaps — at all events for the
sake of their neighbours' children — will be desirous
of having a good and efficient school.

It is plain, therefore, that this is a movement in
which we must aim at interesting the people. The
gentry and clergy must begin. It devolves upon
them to show what is the kind of school we want ;
what can be done by a good school ; and how a good
school may be supported. In every part of the
country, either in small towns or in large rural
parishes, there are schools already existing which
offer facilities for the introduction of the necessary
improvements : many of these are endowed schools.
Better management, perhaps some additional build-
ings, and most probably a better master, will be
required. The funds needed for these alterations
may, let us hope, be raised ultimately by the rate

G

122 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

we have been speaking of, or by a Parliamentary
grant for the express purpose of improving existing
schools : at present, however, they must be raised
from some other source ; that other source being,
for the present, the munificence of the gentry and
clergy, which has never been wanting in this country
for what is confessedly a good object.

The establishment, then, of these schools, here and
there, will, by serving as examples of what may be
done, and of the best manner of doing it, be the
most effectual way of winning the co-operation of
the intelligent and well-to-do middle classes. The
chief motive by which we shall secure their assist-
ance will be, that they will not allow their own
children to receive a worse education than the chil-
dren of artizans and labourers.

The labouring classes are already almost every-
where sufficiently alive to the advantages of giving
their children a good education, as the only means
of enabling them to rise in the world.

When the very idea of national education was
only in its germ, it was well that educational societies
sprang up capable of assisting its development, and
contributing much towards its favourable reception.
The idea, however, is now daily gaining more ex-
tended acceptance ; so much so, indeed, as to give
us good reason for hoping that the people will soon
begin to take an interest in the work: and when
this shall be the case, it will be evident that the main

UTILITY OF SOCIETIES ONLY TEMPORARY. 123

purpose for which the societies were established will
then have been answered. The societies were not
established for the purpose of controlling the educa-
tion of the people, but for the purpose of con-
tributing towards the consummation of having the
whole people educated. If any thing of this kind
is ever to take place, the scale of operations will
then be far too great for private societies : the work
will then be one which it will be only possible to
carry on by the enlightened liberality, attention, and
supervision of the inhabitants of each village, town,
or district. Nor would they submit to dictation or
interference; for a work of this kind, freedom of
action will be an essential requisite. It will, let us
trust, be some day the glory of our educational
societies that their exertions contributed much to-
wards leading the present educational movement to
so desirable an end.

If this should be the end of the present movement
some ten or fifteen years hence, it may then be a
question whether the position of the government
towards the education of the country will not be
greatly modified. How will government be able to
inspect and to have transactions of one kind or
another with 20,000 schools in Great Britain ? If
the people, however, should ever come to take the
enlightened interest in this question, or rather in
this work, which it is supposed that they will, they
will then be able to do these things for themselves.

G 2

124 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

It is plain, at all events, that if the inhabitants of
each district or parish are to pay towards the sup-
port of the schools in their respective districts or
parishes, and if their own children are being educated
in these schools, then these persons ought to have,
and will have, the management of these schools.
At present, the province of government in this
matter is to aid as much as possible in bringing
about this, the legitimate consummation of the
educational movement ; and when it shall have been
brought about to any great extent, then perhaps its
province will better be restricted to the exceptional
cases, the cases of neighbourhoods, where people
are prevented by some circumstance or other from
establishing, or are actually unable to establish and
maintain, the necessary schools.

It need hardly be noticed that the success of an
attempt to establish an improved school in any
neighbourhood must at present, while improved edu-
cation is in its infancy, and improved schools are few
in number, depend upon the qualifications of the
master in a greater degree than may be the case
perhaps hereafter, when many prejudices shall have
been removed, and good schools become common,
and correct views respecting education more gene-
rally diffused. A person who is charged with the
introduction of a new system must needs possess
not merely the requisite knowledge, but also great
tact and judgment. There is every reason, however,

ONE MAN MIGHT NOW DO MUCH. 125

for supposing that these, and every other qualifica-
tion which may be required, might easily be found,
provided the situation of master, as we have often
said already, be made a respectable and desirable
one.

It may be worth while to remind the reader how
a man whose services were needed for any special
purpose, — that, for instance, of organising schools,
or of giving advice in school matters, or of being
present at public meetings, might, as it were, multiply
himself in these days. By the aid of railways he
might be to-day in Cumberland, to-morrow in Corn-
wall, and the day following in Kent. One of the
arguments for the introduction of railways into India
rests upon the same idea ; it is said that they will
enable one soldier to do the work which, as long as
the means of communication are rude and imperfect,
must occupy several. This is one of the advantages
of the present day which would enable us to turn to
the best account the abilities of a few able men. In
estimating what may be done, credit should be
allowed for advantages of this kind. In these days
of railway travelling, and of cheap and rapid postal
communication, even a single individual might, by
visiting from school to school, and by keeping up a
correspondence with school managers and school
teachers, contribute much towards infusing a proper
spirit into, and maintaining, a proper course of in-
struction in a large number of schools.

G 3

126 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

There are some incidental questions which the
perusal of the preceding pages may have given rise
to in the minds of those, whose attention has never
been particularly directed to the differences, which
exist between the present state of knowledge and
that of the knowledge of all former periods, or to
the social wants of the present day. We will say a
few words about these difficulties, or objections, not
because we hope that by doing so we shall be able
to throw any additional light upon our subject, but
because there is an advantage in considering a sub-
ject of this kind from every point of view.

I. One question, then, which we may expect to
hear frequently asked is, Would not the children of
the poor receive, in such schools as these, too high
an education ? There are many ways in which this
objection may be answered. As a general remark it
is found to be impossible to keep the children of
the labouring classes at school beyond their eleventh
or twelfth year, and in some districts even beyond
their tenth. Now there can be little reason for
supposing that a child whose education will end at
this age will receive too high an education. The
practical difficulty lies in the directly contrary direc-
tion : the thing to be really apprehended is, that, do
what we may, we shall not have time enough for
educating them up to the point, where education
may be supposed likely to have a good effect upon
one's after life and character. Up to what point
has the education of the children of the upper orders

TOO HIGH AN EDUCATION IMPOSSIBLE. 127

been carried by their tenth or eleventh year ? If,
however, the children of the labouring classes should
ever come to stay longer at school, it will be because
the parents have become convinced, in consequence of
the improvements in our schools, that a child gains
so much by continuing at school, that it is worth
their while to sacrifice what they might themselves
gain by a child's labour, in order that the child may
receive the additional benefit of attending school a
year or two longer. And we may be sure that when
the poor — if such should ever be the case — . shall
have become so capable of appreciating a real
education as to be ready to make these sacrifices —
to them enormous sacrifices — for the purpose of
securing a little more instruction for their children,
they will not be in an unfit state, as a class, for
receiving the rudiments of an education somewhat
higher than that which aims professedly at enabling
every poor man to read — nothing being said about
understanding — a chapter in his Bible.

If we had a good system of schools, it is probable
that any poor child who showed that he was pos-
sessed of great abilities, or who took pleasure in the
acquisition of knowledge, would meet with kind
friends amongst his richer neighbours, who would be
glad to pay the small school-fees necessary for re-
taining him at school a little longer. Some of these
might afterwards, perhaps regularly, perhaps at spare
times, find means of attending some of the classes of

G 4

128 SCHOOL OR THE FUTURE.

the high school, or college, in the neighbouring
town ; and even here and there one or two of these
might afterwards, under a more open and less costly
system of University education, — we have pointed
out a way in which these schools might be made use
of for the purpose of reducing the expense of this
part of education at once by one third, — be found
amongst the students of Oxford or Cambridge, com-
pleting their education, and qualifying themselves
for taking charge of one of these schools, or even for
eventually taking charge of a parish. In this way
might society avail itself of talents wherever they
had been bestowed. Our present system precludes
us from doing this. Perhaps the day will come
when it will be found that the only effectual way of
allaying the natural and (in the present state of
society) growing discontent of the lower orders, will be
our having it in our power to demonstrate to them
by examples of the fact in every town and neigh-
bourhood, that the paths to success in life have been
opened to the lower orders, as far as possible upon
the same conditions as to those above them ; that is,
upon their showing that they have the moral charac-
ter and the abilities requisite for success. That the
lower orders should be brought to feel this practi-
cally would be a greater advance in their improve-
ment than history has yet had to record. But the
machinery for effecting any thing of this kind con-
sists in a system of improved schools.

It can hardly be necessary that any thing more

WOULD OPEN A CAREER TO MERIT. 129

should be said in reply to the objection that the
children of the poor will be receiving too high an
education. It is, of course, a truism that we ought
not to waste any part of the short time at our dis-
posal in teaching them what it will be of little or no
advantage for them to know. There can, however,
result nothing but good from putting into their
minds some of the ideas which must have been in
the mind of the Creator when He formed the
objects with which he has surrounded us, and
bestowed them upon us for our use ; nor some of
the ideas which must have been in the mind of
the Creator when He ordained the general laws
to which human societies were to be subject.
Knowledge of this kind is suitable to the capacity
of every one. Every one, irrespective of his sta-
tion in society, is capable of taking an interest in
such knowledge, and a pleasure in acquiring it.
Every one of us, in consequence of possessing it,
will perform his allotted work in life better, and be
a better and a happier man. As far as this kind of
knowledge} and the tastes and dispositions which har-
monise with it, are concerned, has any human being
ever been, or can such a thing happen as that one
should be, too highly educated ? Perhaps it may be
invidious to inquire whether the fear, expressed in
general terms, without any indication of particulars,
that the poor are receiving too high an education,
may not be interpreted to mean, when any thing is

o 5

130 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

really meant, not that the poor will ever know too
much for their own happiness, but that some
amongst them will know more, and be able to turn
what they know to better account, than the badly-
educated in the classes above them. Under any
system, similar to that now proposed, this feeling
would cease to exist : no one ought to be surprised at
finding that it exists under our present system of
education.

II. Another objection, akin to the preceding one,
is, would not the proposed system of giving instruc-
tion to the children of the labouring classes together
with the children of some of those who employ
labour, result in placing the necessary intercourse
between the two classes upon a very disagreeable
footing. To this we may reply — (1.) That this
mixture will always be optional. (2.) That it will not
be necessary for the success or usefulness of the school
that it should take place ; and the probability is that
it will be some time before it will take place to any
great extent, I say it will not by any means be ne-
cessary, though of course it would contribute towards
making the school self-supporting, and would tend to
improve it in a variety of ways. (3.) That if our
schools shall be made what they ought to be, it must
take place to a greater or to a less extent, because
parents will send their children where they will
receive the best education at the least cost. This
seems to be an inevitable consequence of the im-
provement of our schools ; and therefore, perhaps,

MIXTURE OF CLASSES IN SCHOOLS. 131

the wisest way of proceeding would be, not to ob-
ject to it, because it must take place, and because it
will follow from our having good schools, but to
endeavour to turn it to good account, as it is plain
that we may in several ways. The adoption of the
system of school-rates would, perhaps, very soon lead
to this mixture of classes.

A little reflection, perhaps, will show that the
greater weight of probability lies upon the side of
the directly contrary supposition. If the children of
the labouring classes were to receive instruction
together with the children of some of the classes
above them, as has been done for many generations
in Scotland, as was done till lately with the best
eifect in some of the northern parts of England, and
as is now being done at King's Somborne ; and if
this instruction were given by able and judicious
masters, under the management of persons interested
personally in the success of the school, these masters
not being taken, as is now the case, from the lower
orders of society, then the probability is that the
children of the labourer or artizan and of his em-
ployer would grow up with feelings of mutual re-
spect for each other, instilled and practised from
their earliest years. Each, as the condition of having
his own rights respected, would learn to respect the
rights of others. This, of course, will depend upon
the character of the school.

Those of the class above the labourer who may,

G 6

132 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

we think, some day make use of these schools, do
not at present decline sending their children to
boarding-schools of a very inferior kind, though they
know that they will have to live in constant daily
intercourse with many children who have been much
neglected. Why, therefore, should we suppose that
they will refuse to send their children to better
schools, where every thing will be known, and where
there will be very little opportunity for evil commu-
nications to corrupt good manners.

I am quite aware that the above remarks, perhaps
the whole purport of these pages, may sound strange
to those who have been brought up under our old
scheme of education ; the practical end and aim of
which — if it has any end or aim at all — is not so
much moral and intellectual improvement as a cer-
tain kind of acquaintance with Latin and Greek ;
for we must remember that in the present state of
human knowledge and of human society an acquaint-
ance with the old learning has not the moral and
intellectual value it had two or three centuries ago.
Perhaps, too, what I have been saying will appear in
this light even to a great many of my own brethren
in the ministry, although their attention is being
constantly directed to moral and social questions,
and to the mitigation of moral and social evils.
These, however, are not at all reasons for despairing,
because improved schools of one kind or another
must soon be established, and it is equally certain

PUBLIC SCHOOLS WOULD BE STRENGTHENED. 133

that the clergy will be amongst the foremost and
ablest of their supporters. The direction which the
sympathies and mental activity of the present gene-
ration have taken, in which the clergy largely partici-
pate, the abolition of pluralities, and the enforcement
of residence, can hardly lead to any other result.

III. A third question which may be asked is,
Will not such a system of schools interfere with and,
if it succeed, ruin our great public schools ? To this
we may reply, that supposing for a moment this
were to be its effect upon our public schools, there
could only be one reason for its having this effect ;
that reason being, that parents who were capable of
judging between the two systems, and at perfect
liberty to decide according to the evidence, and who
had the strongest motives for coming to a right con-
clusion, and no motives for coming to a wrong one —
had decided that the new system of education was
better than the old one. In this case no more would
be done than was done when the mariner preferred
the guidance of the compass to that of the stars ; or
when the soldier exchanged his old bow and arrows
for the musket and bayonet ; or when the steamboat
and railway train superseded the sailing-packet and
stage-coach. We may, however, be relieved from
all apprehensions that any thing of the kind will ever
take place : we shall never see our public schools
deserted, and appealing for support to our feelings
of respect for their past history. Many of our public

134 SCHOOL OF THE FUTUKE.

schools are well endowed, and all of them have well-
established names ; and so, of course, it will always be
worth somebody's while to keep them up under a
system adapted to our present wants and the present
state of knowledge, supposing public opinion to have
expressed itself decidedly against the old system.
At all events we never need fear but that in so rich
a country as this there will always be a very large
number of parents who will very naturally prefer
sending their children to our large public schools.

The only effect which an improved and extended
system of general education can have upon our public
schools will be a very beneficial one — beneficial both
to themselves and to the public. They will be
brought to abandon their old methods of teaching,
and the old, narrow, almost single-subject system of
instruction : and having done this, we may risk the
prophecy, that they will find within their walls a
greater number of pupils than they have yet had.

Our public schools, then, aiming directly at meet-
ing the wants and availing themselves honestly and
fearlessly of the knowledge and of the resources
for teaching of these times, and being very much
strengthened by the extension and improvement of
popular schools, everywhere spreading moral and in-
tellectual enlightenment, might at the same time find
the Universities working in concert with them. For
our Universities cannot be effectually adapted to
these times unless the schools — which are to prepare

PKOPAGANDISM IMPOSSIBLE. 135

men for the Universities, and which thus form a very
essential part, in fact the very foundation of a system
of education which includes an university course,
which is merely its completion and last development
— are brought to make at the same time a corre-
sponding change in their objects and system. The
School and the University work connectedly — the one
supplying the first part, the other the latter part, of
a certain plan of education. It is not, therefore, of
much use to talk about altering the whole scope of
the education given in the one, without at the same
time making a corresponding change in the plan and
idea of the education given in the other. The
number of schoolmasters on the Oxford Commission
leads us to hope that this very essential point will
not be lost sight of. The Universities, by the cha-
racter of their examinations for matriculation, and
more particularly by the kind of knowledge to which
they assign their honours, may exert a great deal of
influence over our schools.

IV. Another objection frequently alleged against
every scheme of popular education to which the
term " system" can be made in any way to apply,
particularly if the aid or inspection of the Govern-
ment is to be admitted, is, that the masters will soon
become little more than political agitators, or propa-
gandists of opinions of one kind or another. This
the objectors allege to be the case in Prussia and
France, and affirm that we should meet with the

136 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

same result in this country. This objection is alto-
gether wide of the mark, as directed against any
system of the kind proposed in these pages. What
we have been suggesting has nothing in common with
the Government-managed systems of other countries,
which could in any way lead to the anticipated evil.
It would be a thoroughly English system, every
school being managed separately, by those who were
locally and personally interested in its efficiency and
success. It would have no political or propagandist
object of any kind, but would aim singly at meeting
the educational wants of the present day, as those
wants are felt and understood by ourselves ; and it
would avail itself of the resources which we, and
which no other people, do at this day possess.

Our teachers would not be a vast body of men in
the pay of the State, all possessed of the same kind
of knowledge and qualifications, and all serving one
master (that master being the Government), and
therefore sympathising with each other, and animated
by an objectionable esprit de corps. They would, in
each case, be engaged and paid by those who had
established the school, and who would, of course,
retain the direction of it. If, therefore, a master
were to attempt to make use of his position for pur-
poses beside his duty, or to show any unfitness for
his office, he would, of course, immediately lose his
appointment. Neither would our masters be looking
to the State for promotion, but to the fathers of

SOMETHING MOKE THAN A LITTLE LEARNING. 137

families and to the clergy of each neighbourhood or
town. Many would be themselves clergymen, or
would be persons qualifying themselves for entering
Holy Orders. Many of our female teachers might
be high-minded and well-educated gentlewomen.
Nothing more, therefore, need be said about this ob-
jection, which we maybe sure will never be applicable
to any system of education adopted in this country.

V. One more adverse remark which may be made
upon our proposed schools, is the repetition of the
old sneer about " a little learning." In which, then,
of the departments of knowledge, in which it is pro-
posed that instruction should be given, has it been
found that a little knowledge is better than entire
ignorance ? It may fairly be maintained that merely
to teach a man to read, without giving him a supply
of food for thought, that is, without giving him a cer-
tain amount of knowledge ; and without attempting
to give a right development to his tastes and moral
feelings — is a dangerous thing : but then this is an
objection not to the schools we are proposing, but to
our present parochial schools. Or, again, the sneer
may be applied to a little knowledge of Latin and
Greek, which is soon forgotten : in respect of this,
" a little learning" may certainly be said to be an use-
less thing. Our schools, however, would teach every-
thing that is now taught. Besides this, they would
give much accurate knowledge, and would lead on
the mind to general views in several departments of

138 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

knowledge, where nothing is now taught. They
would implant the desire for making further acquisi-
tions of knowledge, and lay foundations for further
acquisitions. They would quicken the intelligence,
and supply materials upon which thought might be
exercised. They would possess means for giving a
right direction to the moral feelings.

I will now recapitulate the chief advantages which
may be expected from some such system as that
which I have been endeavouring to lay before the
reader in the preceding pages : in doing this I shall
be obliged to make some repetitions.

1. Our system would be really a national one
(which can be said of no system now at work ; or, I
believe, as yet even proposed), for it would be capable
of embracing the education of all orders.

2. It views knowledge as a whole (which no system
of education now in operation does), the parts of
which are inter-connected and inter-dependent ; and
it would, therefore, gladly avail itself of opportuni-
ties for giving instruction in any branch of know-
ledge.

3. It is, therefore, both because it does not omit
either any class of society, or any department of
knowledge, something ultimate. There cannot be
any thing beyond it to come in and disturb our
work. There is nothing further to be wished for, or
imagined.

4. In the case of the middle classes and of the

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 139

upper orders, should they ever become desirous of
availing themselves of our schools and of our system
of education, it would reduce the expense of educa-
tion to an insignificant fraction of its present cost.

5. It would give to parents very strong motives
for supporting, and improving, and watching over
the schools in their respective neighbourhoods ; while
it would give them, from the nature of the schools,
the means and the opportunities requisite for doing
this effectually.

6. It would enable us to avail ourselves of the'
knowledge of every one who had any thing to com-
municate, from that of the man who might be occu-
pying the first place in the scientific or literary
world, to the knowledge of the neighbouring pro-
fessional man, or even of the neighbour who, in his
humble way, may have devoted himself to some
favourite pursuit. A school of the kind we propose
would be a field in which the good will, and the
knowledge, of a multitude of persons might be
turned to very useful account, but which, under the
present system, are allowed to run to waste.

7. This variety of teachers when it could be ob-
tained — it would be a very important part of the
office of the master to show the connexion and
bearing of every thing that was taught in the school,
to give unity to the whole of the school work, and
to make the purport of every part of it understood
— would keep up the attention of the children, and

140 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

meet their differences of taste, temper, power, and
aptitude. Under the present system one mind has
assigned to it the impossible task of transfusing itself
into a hundred or more dissimilar minds. Every
one who was educated at a large school must have
observed how much better one master's style of
teaching suited him than that of another ; while
with other boys of his acquaintance the very reverse
was felt to be the case. Of course this remark has
a still more important application as respects a
variety of subjects for instruction, than as respects
differences of style in two persons teaching upon the
same subject. If then we shall be able to secure
several teachers differing in views, feelings, attain-
ments, and manner, we shall perhaps find that each
subject upon which instruction is given, as well as
each idiosyncracy amongst the pupils, has a fairer
chance. One man's teaching will bring out points
which another's may have passed over, or left ob-
scure ; or will even make interesting a whole subject,
upon which another may have no power of awaken-
ing interest. Or one may present a moral consider-
ation under some fresh aspect, such as may awaken
feelings which would have remained dormant under
the teaching of others. Take a case : if a child were
to grow up — supposing for the moment the thing
possible — without ever having seen more than one
person, or heard more than one voice, how much
duller would be such an one's apprehensions, and how

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 141

much less would he know than would have been the
case had he been allowed to frequent the company of,
and to observe what was said and done by, and to ask
questions of, his parents, and his brothers and sisters,
and friends, and domestics, and strangers. The same
remark is applicable, and it applies with quite as
much force to the difference in result which must
exist between the instruction of a single teacher and
the instruction which might be received from a
variety of teachers. Of course we assume that one
master superintends and gives unity to the whole.

8. It will enable us to keep the instruction of the
school on a level with the knowledge and require-
ments of the age, which of course is not thought
about, or in any way considered as a desirable ob-
ject, so long as the instruction of the school is con-
fined to one subject, and that a subject disconnected,
as it is for the most part taught, from the knowledge,
the ideas, the feelings, and the work of our own
times.

9. It will easily and effectually elevate the teacher
by connecting him with the knowledge and the work
of the age; and by giving him an agreeable and
independent, and honourable, and a hopeful position.

10. It will enable us to avail ourselves of the
knowledge, and talents, and influence, and devoted-
ness of well-educated gentlewomen.

11. We shall be released from the necessity which
belongs to our present system of taking a large pro-

142 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

portion of our instructors from the lower orders.
Under the system proposed this, for reasons of which
the reader will be aware, would be less objection-
able : under the present system, however, it is both
a great and a necessary evil.

12. It will give great facilities for improving
female education throughout all classes.

13. It will bring education to bear, far more
directly than is attempted at present, upon the social
and moral evils of these times.

14. It will exclude many at present self-acting
influences of a bad tendency from, and introduce
many of a good tendency into, our schools.

15. It will save many well-intentioned persons
from becoming, what may now be witnessed in
almost every neighbourhood, impediments to the
improvement and extension of education ; and which
we shall continue to witness as long as the majority
of our parochial schools are eleemosynary establish-
ments, supported and managed by the richest part
of the community, and used exclusively by the
poorest. The results of this are, that no attempt is
made to carry out the idea of a good school for these
times ; for this attempt would entail expenses beyond
the means which such a system can command ; and
that the scheme of instruction is limited to what the
rich consider suitable for the poor ; the exact point,
which it is not deemed desirable to pass, being, in
very many cases, practically settled by the ideas the

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 143

ladies have of the point, beyond which they would
consider it inconvenient that the knowledge possessed
by their maid-servants should go. The result is
similar when the education of the poor, as a distinct
class, falls into the hands of some other section of
the community, who must necessarily, to a certain
extent, take narrow and special views of what ought
to be taught and aimed at in their schools. The
remedy for every thing of this kind evidently con-
sists in making it the interest of the intelligent part
of the community in any neighbourhood, that the.
schools in their neighbourhood should be good and
efficient schools, and then in placing the manage-
ment of these schools in their hands.

16. A school system of the kind proposed would
constitute an admirable nursery for the Church: it
would offer far more appropriate work for young
men than the cure of souls, and work which would
be an excellent preparative for the sacred ministry.

17. The foregoing remark applies to other pro-
fessions and lines of life. It often happens that
young persons — this is particularly the case in the
medical profession — find that they have a great deal
of spare time : now schools of this kind would afford
serious and improving occupation for the leisure
time of persons so situated. The study and atten-
tion which would be requisite for enabling them to
give a course of lectures, or to teach a class, upon
the subjects with which they were best acquainted,

144 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

might in many cases have a good effect upon the
character of their after lives. Of course the school
managers and master would have to decide whether
those who offered their services were qualified for
the task they were ready to undertake.

18. Another advantage which would result from
carrying on the education of the country in some
such manner as that which we have been proposing,
would be that, instead of having great educational
societies, as has hitherto been too much the case,
pulling against each other, and against the govern-
ment, and aiming at objects not strictly educational,
we should have those who, in each neighbourhood, felt
an interest upon the subject of education, busying
themselves about their own school, and attending
exclusively to the management and improvement of
that particular school.

19. It will accommodate itself to every locality ;
and we may hope that eventually, by opening a con-
nexion between the different grades of schools, and
between these and the universities, it will provide a
suitable education, not only for the children of
labourers and mechanics, but also for the children of
tradesmen, farmers, or professional men.

20. It is perhaps to the adoption of this system
that we must look for the removal of the great diffi-
culty which has been for so long a time stopping the
way to the improvement and extension of popular
education. We find that in the scheme of instruc-

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 145

tion carried out in 999 out of 1000 of the schools
established and set to work in this country, religious
instruction forms a more or less essential part. No
sooner, however, is the subject of religion touched
upon, no matter in what way, in any proposed
scheme for the general education of the people, than
the whole scheme is at once declared inadmissible.
The result is the same whether the proposal be to
give religious instruction, or to omit it, or to give it
in any particular mode or degree : it does not matter
what the proposal may be : no sooner is a word said
about this part of the subject than the whole scheme
is at once rejected. So that we are in this position,
that which a practice, all but universal, demonstrates
to be absolutely necessary, in the present state of
public opinion, for the efficiency and success of our
schools, experience demonstrates to be absolutely fatal
to any proposal for a general system of education.

Now our scheme does in a very great measure
provide for what has thus in practice been found
necessary, while at the same time it avoids what
experience has shown will ever in this country be
fatal to any educational measure. It says nothing
about religion, either that it shall be taught, or that
it shall not be taught ; or, if taught, in what way it
shall be taught ; it makes no mention of religious, or
^ of secular, schools; but leaves everything involved
in this part of the question to be settled in exactly

H

146 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

the same way in which it is settled at present ; that
is to say, by the wishes and wants of those who
establish each separate school. This will be a self-
adjusting way of overcoming the difficulty. If
parents are desirous of giving their children religious
instruction, it would savour very strongly of tyranny
to prevent their doing so ; but if it should happen,
which we will suppose to be the case, that the school
is supported by these very parents — partly by fees,
and partly by a rate — it would be an extreme act
of injustice arid oppression to interfere at all in the
matter. If from any local reasons there should
happen to be cases, where, for the sake of securing
united action, a secular school was preferred, why
then of course such a parish, or neighbourhood,
ought to be allowed to raise a rate, if such were
their wish, for a secular school. The probability,
however, is that such cases would be extremely rare.
Experience is demonstrating more and more every
day that the religious difficulty, which, when con-
sidered as a theoretical or legislative question, is
perhaps insuperable, is, after all, not nearly so for-
midable in practice. A little common sense, and
good feeling, on the part of the managers of a school,
together with the strong desire on the part of the
majority of the parents in every neighbourhood to
secure a good education for their children, from
whatever quarter it may be offered — Protestant
children in some places attending Roman Catholic

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 147

schools — at once remove a great part of the diffi-
culty, at all events from the school-room.

The system, then, in this respect, would probably
work in something like the following way.

In the vast majority of cases, the schools being
supported, as at present, mainly by Church people,
would retain the same kind of religious instruction
as at present. The increasing number, and activity,
and intelligence of the clergy, would very much
strengthen this tendency.

In some places Roman Catholics, and in most of
the towns dissenters, would be strong enough to
support schools of exactly the kind which they re-
spectively wished to have. Of course, therefore,
they would be allowed equal facilities for regulating
the religious instruction given in their schools, in
accordance with their own views ; and would share
in a general rate, according perhaps to the provisions
of the proposed Manchester Education Bill, in pro-
portion to the number of children their schools might
be actually educating. The probability, however, is,
that under such a system denominational schools
would decrease in number.

In the meanwhile, however, the laity becoming
more and more interested in school matters, and
taking an increasing part in the management of
schools, would of course — and this would be the case
more particularly in schools where Church influence
was predominant — have a tendency to make the re-

H 2

148 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

ligious teaching of as practical and, at the same time,
of as comprehensive a character as possible.

I again repeat, that the above remarks are not at
all meant as an attempt at solving the theoretical
difficulties of the religious part of the education
question, but merely as an attempt to direct attention
to a practicable way of giving greater facilities for
meeting the difficulty ; it is a practicable way, be-
cause we know that it is the only way in which the
difficulty is met at present, and overcome, as far as
that is done ; nor can we suppose that it will ever be
overcome in any other way in this country. It will
not be overcome by the establishment of Secular
Government Schools, or of Religious Government
Schools. This point we must be allowed to settle for
ourselves.

21. It will enable us to develope, and bring to the
surface, and avail ourselves of, for the purpose of
carrying on the intellectual work of the age — the
talents, at present dormant, or perverted in many
cases, of the great bulk of the people.

22. It will enlarge the range of our sympathies by
imparting to the different orders of society, to a
greater or less extent, the same knowledge, the same
ideas, and the same feelings. This will go far
towards teaching us to regard with common senti-
ments of respect the feelings and rights of each other.
Our present system of education restricts and deadens
our sympathies, and places impassable gulfs in
matters of feeling between the different orders of

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 149

society. It does this by imparting to each class
ideas, feelings, and knowledge, to a great extent at
variance with the ideas, feelings, and knowledge im-
parted to the other classes. The clergy are now
beginning to experience the bad effects of this.

23. It will connect together all our educational
efforts and establishments in such a manner as that
each part of the system shall countenance and aid
all the other parts*

24?. It will contribute much towards removing our
present low and unworthy views respecting education ;
for many of us seem to think that education has no
particular object, or that enough has been done when
it has enabled a young man to acquire as much Greek
and Latin as will enable him to obtain a degree, or
as much as will be required at his ordination ; or, if
he is ambitious, as much as will enable him to obtain
a fellowship. And we may hope that it will render
these ideas obsolete by substituting for them the
idea that the intellectual object of education is to
strengthen and develope our mental faculties, and to
make us cognisant, as far as shall be possible, of the
knowledge which existed in the mind of the Deity,
when he created man and ordained the laws to which
human societies were to conform, and when he created
and arranged, and endowed with their various pro-
perties, and set in motion everything that is in the
world around us ; and that the moral object of edu-
cation is to make us good, and gentle, and pains-

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150 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

taking, and patient, and prudent, and just, and
true.

25. It will not confine its efforts so much to the
training of the memory — necessarily the chief aim
of our present system, which makes either an ac-
quaintance with two dead languages, or a textual
acquaintance with Scripture, the main work and
object of education — but will rather aim at exer-
cising the power of thought, and at drawing out the
feelings and affections. Exercising the memory
alone cannot lead to any very striking or useful
results ; while exercising the power of thought leads
in various ways, for the intellect and the heart act
and re-act upon each other, to the strengthening and
development of our moral faculties ; besides, that it
is to the successful exercise of thought that civilisa-
tion is indebted for its material progress.

26. It will put an end to a great deal of irrelevant
discussion, such as we have been engaged in of late
years, and which in reality is not on the subject of
education : for, supposing that we succeed in getting
improved schools of this kind established, and ma-
naged and supported in the manner we propose, it is
evident that the educational questions which will then
excite the greatest interest will not be, as at present,
often only quasi-educational, being rather political or
ecclesiastical than educational, but entirely of a local
and practical character. People will then set them-
selves to work to improve the efficiency of the school

SUMMARY OF ITS ADVANTAGES. 151

in which their own, or, at all events, their neigh-
bours', children are educated. It will be a happy
consequence of this, that whatever a man may, under
such a system, do for the improvement of the school -
education of his own children, will contribute in an
equal degree to the improvement of that of his neigh-
bours' children.

27. It would give to education, in the eyes of all
orders, the prominency which of necessity belongs to
it at the present day. I say of necessity, because no
other means have been suggested for enabling us to
meet the peculiar evils, or rather the peculiar cir-
cumstances, of these times, for the circumstances
themselves are not evil: whatever evils have hitherto
ensued have arisen from our not having met our cir-
cumstances in a proper manner. The leading pecu-
liarities of our circumstances are, that we have an
enormous population of many millions more de-
pendent for their daily bread than was ever before
the case upon their skill and good conduct, in other
words, upon knowledge and moral character ; and
that the admission of the million to political power
is rapidly going on, and this is a power which
they must be trained to use aright, which brings us
again to moral and intellectual culture.

And here I would enter a parting protest against
the idea, that enough in these days is done for the
moral and intellectual culture of the children of the
H 4

152 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

upper orders when they are sent to classical schools
to take their chance of acquiring some knowledge of
Latin and Greek; and that enough is done for the
children of the lower orders when they are taught
to read the Bible, to write, and to cipher. In neither
case have the things taught any necessary connection
with moral improvement. A man may be able to con-
strue a page of Latin or Greek, or he may be able to
read the Bible and to write well, and be a good calcu-
lator — and yet be a very ignorant and a very vicious
man. With respect to the lower orders, there are
thousands who say, let us teach them reading, writing,
and arithmetic : this will be enough for persons in their
situation in life : many even consider this very liberal.
The truth, however, is, that to confer these powers
upon the lower orders without, at the same time,
giving them such ideas and such knowledge as shall
interest, enlighten, and elevate their minds ; and
without, at the same time, making some reasonable
attempts to predispose their moral feelings aright, is,
in a great many instances, to do harm. It does not
enable them to direct and govern themselves, but
rather makes them arrogant and discontented: it has
made many a socialist and anarchist, and many an un-
happy man. Of course no one supposes that any
system of education would be exempt from a multi-
tude of failures ; but perhaps most persons are now
coming over to the conclusion that it is now possible
to establish a system which would very much lessen

SOCIAL PHENOMENA OF THE PRESENT DAY. 153

the proportion of failures which attend the present
system amongst both the upper and the lower classes.

The views, then, on the subject of education which
have been laid before the reader in the foregoing
pages, and the kind of school-system which has been
proposed for his consideration, have, throughout, a
constant reference to the circumstances of the times
in which we are living. Education is not an abstract,
but a practical and a relative question ; and there
never was a time when it was so important that this
should be borne in mind as at the present moment,
because we form a community in which vast numbers
are crowded together in small spaces, in a manner
quite beyond all former precedent, and of these vast
numbers every individual has been called upon by
society to take care of himself, and has had a certain
amount of social and political power deposited in his
hands ; it is evident that the fabric of our civilisation
is resting, more than was ever before the case, on foun-
dations of a moral and of an intellectual character.

The reader will recollect that I set out by stating
what were the conditions which any system of edu-
cation constructed for these times must endeavour to
fulfil. Now, what I have been submitting to his
consideration are merely proposals for putting into a
distinct and operative form the ideas upon the subject
of education which the existence and pressure of
these conditions are suggesting to the minds of
H 5

154 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

many, and which have already begun to have some
effect upon public opinion. Doubtless such a system
could not have been worked at any other period
of the world's history ; it could not even have been
imagined, because neither the state of knowledge,
nor the state of society, at any former period sup-
plied the conditions necessary for acting successfully
upon such a system, or the facts necessary for sug-
gesting the idea of it.

That nothing of the kind has ever been attempted
before forms no objection to the proposal — in its
simplest expression — that all should receive as much
moral and intellectual culture as can, in the present
age, be bestowed upon them. If what we propose
were not to involve very considerable modifications
of our former views and practices, it could not pos-
sibly be the thing we are now in want of. The
briefest consideration of the new agencies at work
amongst us, and of the various changes which have of
late found their way into the material and structure
of society, will lead us to this conclusion. Take first
the most obvious facts which stand out upon the
very surface of what is passing around us, and we
shall in all directions find the old state of things
undergoing very extensive modifications, the ten-
dency and effect of which, in the great preponderance
of instances, is evidently to elevate the lower orders.
The manner in which of late years the steam engine
has been made to assist and to supersede human
labour has had the effect both of increasing the

SOCIAL PHENOMENA OF THE PRESENT DAY. 155

intelligence in various ways of large masses of the
working classes, and of cheapening to all alike many
of the necessaries and comforts of life. The factory
system has of late conferred a great amount of power
upon the working classes by collecting them together
in vast masses. The railway enables them to travel
in the same manner as the upper classes. The penny
postage also has given them equal facilities for cor-
responding with each other. Causes of the above
kind, together with the very general diffusion of
knowledge, have awakened thought in the minds of
many of the factory people, and of the artizans.
The wonderful extension, too, of the newspaper
press, (which must henceforth go on increasing,) con-
tributes very much to stimulate thought amongst
these classes. The leaders of these classes may, by
the aid of the railway, cheap postage, the electric
telegraph, the platform, the lecture-room, and their
own press, influence them almost simultaneously over
the whole country. The well-to-do mechanic of the
present day is able to travel more, and, perhaps,
does actually travel more, reads more, writes (such a
case is possible) and receives more letters, has his
moral and intellectual faculties more exercised, has
greater means and opportunities for gaining an in-
fluence over his own class, attends more public
meetings and lectures, than the ordinary gentleman,
certainly than the country gentleman, of 150 years
ago. Success in life among the million as well as

H 6

156 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

among the upper classes, daily comes to depend more
and more upon the personal qualifications, the intel-
ligence, and the moral character of the individual
himself. This approximation towards making the
conditions of success the same for all has the effect
of making the different classes themselves in many
respects approximate towards each other. The
increased activity of the clergy — a body of 17,000
men taken from the upper classes — has brought
them into very close contact with the middle and
lower classes ; this has animated their ministrations
with a spirit — and the effect of their schools contri-
butes to the same result — which encourages and
strengthens amongst those classes feelings, which,
perhaps, other causes belonging to the times have
originated, of an independent and democratic cha-
racter. We now have £,000,000 souls collected to-
gether in the metropolis, 2,000,000 collected together
in Lancashire, and 30,000,000 brought, by the ap-
pliances of modern science, into contact with each
other, and, as it were, collected into a single city ;
and these 30,000,000 brought into close contact with
the inhabitants of the other countries of the civilised
world. The direction of public affairs, the main-
tenance and advancement of civilisation, and so even
the destinies of our race, are rapidly descending to
the hands of the mere numerical majority, vast num-
bers of whom are at present more or less ignorant
and vicious, and whom it never will be possible to

HOW TO BE MET, AND TURNED TO ACCOUNT. 157

confront with any superior power, and who never
will be controlled by any thing excepting moral,
intellectual, and religious enlightenment.

Now these facts certainly indicate that our social
state is undergoing very great modifications, modifi-
cations indeed as extensive and important as any
which society has yet passed through ; and for this
reason they constitute a necessity for our admitting
very considerable modifications into the views and
practices which have hitherto obtained on the subject
of education : we must now give every member of
the community the best education in our power, as
the fittest and the only means of preparing the
people for the new state of things. This advance
is the true complement to all the other advances of
these times. It forms the antidote to what without
it will be evil in all the rest. It will, or, if we prefer
to be cautious, it may, enable us (and there is no-
thing else from which anything of the kind has been
hoped) to work all the other changes and innovations
of our times for our advantage, and for the advantage
of civilisation ; and as these changes and innovations
are advancing very rapidly, it is high time for us to set
about providing the means for turning them to good
account. As, however, society is always capable of
supplying the wants which arise out of its own pro-
gress and development, we may hope the best with
respect to the supply of this the great, the most press-
ing, and the most general want of our own times, and

158 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

of our form of civilisation. There are many hopeful
symptoms in the times which encourage us to trust
that these anticipations will speedily be realised in
no inconsiderable degree ; indeed the work itself has
already been commenced amongst us in attempts,
here and there, at forming schools suitable to, and
worthy of, our times, and we have the best assurance
for the extension of the work in the wishes and con-
victions of a large and influential part of the com-
munity. Nor can we believe that a beneficent design
underlies the course of society, as well as the course
of nature, without, at the same time, believing that
the time is at hand when much will be attempted for
the purpose of rescuing vast masses of our population
from their present state of ignorance, vice, and
misery.

When looked at from the religious point of view
the effect of such an improvement and extension of
education appears like a fresh extension, almost like
a new application, of the elevating, and humanizing,
and benevolent principles of the Gospel. Hitherto
society has not been in such a state as to give us
grounds for hoping that those principles could be
applied to, and made to leaven, all parts of the com-
munity : a variety of adverse circumstances forbade
our entertaining such hopes. There were the actual
defects of knowledge, the impossibility of diffusing,
and so of making use of, what was known, and along-
side of these impediments there existed very defective

CONCLUSION. 159

social arrangements. Our lot it is to live in days
when men think that they have caught a glimpse of
a better future. Much is now being removed which
heretofore impeded the development and the exer-
cise of pure and benevolent feeling. New influences
are being brought to bear upon the minds and hearts
of all orders. We are ceasing to look upon our
brother with an evil eye ; and, instead, are beginning
to entertain a desire to relieve and elevate his estate.
The high and the low are beginning to understand,
almost in a new sense, the original announcement of
our religion — of glory to God, peace upon earth,
and good will towards man ; at all events, we are
beginning to forget many of the reservations which
have hitherto rendered these sentiments of such
little effect. As the range of knowledge increases,
and as dissociating circumstances are removed, we
begin to feel that there is an elevation of spirit, and
a happiness, in regarding our fellowmen as " our
brethren," and "in honouring all men ;" expressions
which are now ceasing to be so much religious
phraseology, by which, at no very distant date,
not much was meant, and which awakened no
corresponding sentiments. The thoughts of the
better minds amongst us, and the instincts of those
who desire something better than what is imme-
diately before them, do not * now dwell so much
upon the ideas of " coming out," and of being
"a peculiar people" — necessarily prominent ideas

160 SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.

when there was no opening for the attempt to
leaven every part of society with Christian feeling —
as upon the idea of attempting to bring all within
the pale by informing the intelligence and cultivating
the moral feelings of all ; the condition of society,
and its various resources, the good will of the upper
classes, attended by great moral and intellectual ad-
vances amongst the lower orders, and the state of
knowledge having begun to render this possible now
for the first time in the history of society. We are
now beginning to see that the highest and best influ-
ences which hitherto have been made use of only in
the education of the few, and even in their case only
partially and under circumstances so disadvantageous
that almost the whole of their power was lost, may
now be brought to bear under far more favourable
circumstances, honestly, and in such a manner as
that great effects may be expected, upon the edu-
cation of all. The attempt may now be made to
christianize the spirit of all orders by an unreserved
use of all knowledge, and by an unreserved appeal
to the highest and best feelings of our nature. This
will effect more than could have been effected by
placing several additional clergymen in every parish
of the land at any former period, when knowledge
had riot made its present advances, nor, consequently,
attained its present power, and when the circum-
stances and sentiments of society were different.

VEKITAS FILIA TEMPOKIS.

APPENDIX.

I.

ON THE LATE EXHIBITION, REGARDED AS AN EXPONENT
OF THE PRESENT STATE, AND OF THE TENDENCIES, OF
SOCIETY ; AND AS AFFORDING GROUNDS FOR A COM-
PARISON OF THE PRESENT WITH THE PAST.

OUR Great Exhibition of last summer has very oppor-
tunely supplied a strong confirmation of the general
correctness of the views taken in the preceding pages.
The character of the Exhibition itself, its success, and
all its attendant circumstances, have not merely indicated
that there exist very great differences between the present
and the past, but have also directed our attention to the
causes which have produced these differences, and gene-
rally to the whole stream of tendency in social matters ;
and this has been done to such good purpose as even very
much to advance public opinion, as well respecting the
possibility and necessity of educating the whole people,
as respecting the kind of education which we ought to
provide for the people. It will not, therefore, be out of
place, and perhaps it may be worth while, to devote some
pages, as an appendix to the foregoing work, to the
object of pointing out in what way the Exhibition may
be regarded as an exponent of the present state, and of
the present wants, of society ; and as an indication of the
direction which things are taking ; and also as a measure
of the advances which society has now made.

The most prominent, and perhaps the most significant,
of all the facts connected with the Exhibition was that

162 APPENDIX.

of the number of persons who visited it. That six
millions of visitors should, within the short space of six
months, have been attracted to the same spot, a large
proportion of these millions having been contributed
from the lower classes of society, and that in this mighty
gathering every nation of the civilised world should
have been represented, is of course a fact which every
body is quite aware stands alone in the annals of the
human race.

Now it may be worth while to glance for a few
moments at some of the causes which, by their concur-
rence, have rendered this possible, because they are
either new, or are acting to an extent, and exercising
degrees of influence, which are new ; and are producing
no small portion of the social fermentation and changes
of the present day, the pressure of which we all feel,
some of us regarding them with hope and exultation,
others with fear and abhorrence, and perhaps the majority
with feelings variously compounded of these two extremes.
The success of the Exhibition, and many of the striking
circumstances which attended it, and grew out of it,
brought these causes very prominently forward, and
present as sure indications as we have yet had of their
character and power.

The millions of visitors which the Exhibition attracted,
suggests our beginning with the enormous increase of
our population during the last fifty years. Since those
amongst us were born, who have only just reached the
age at which the powers of thinking and judging are
supposed to receive their mature development, the popu-
lation of this island has doubled itself, while that of the
metropolis has been almost trebled. The presence of so
many conditions were necessary for such an augmentation
in an old country, and so many important social results
must flow from it, that this at once becomes one of the

APPENDIX. 163

most interesting of the facts of our times. The mere
increase of numbers to such an amount might have been
regarded in this light, but its importance as an element
of change, or disturbing cause, is very much heightened
by the fact that almost the whole of this vast increase
has been confined to the trading, manufacturing, and
commercial part of the population, — to that part of the
population, in short, which dwells in towns, as distin-
guished from that which dwells in the country, and is
connected with the land.

Now it is almost a truism to point out this marvellous
increase of the population as one of the causes which
have enabled us to supply such a stream of visitors to
the Crystal Palace. Only let the reader imagine such an
Exhibition to have been attempted in the time of Queen
Elizabeth, or of Charles II. In either case, most pro-
bably, some picturesque account would have been left us
of the manner in which the court opened, and visited,
the sight ; though of course it would have been impos-
sible for them to have approached the interest or splen-
dour of the spectacle which our generation witnessed on
the now ever memorable first of May, 1851. We should
have been told that Elizabeth, with her great ministers
and courtiers, swept along the nave with imposing state ;
or that Charles was affable and inquisitive ; but we should
not have heard any thing about a concourse of between
sixty and seventy thousand persons having been re-
peatedly attracted to the building in a single day : for a few
days there might have been assemblages of a few thou-
sands ; but there could not have been any thing more :
the population, indeed, of England and Wales, in the time
of Charles II., is not supposed to have amounted to more
than double that of London alone at the present day.
The visitors of the Crystal Palace have outnumbered the
whole adult population of Great Britain at that time.

164 APPENDIX.

But to advance another step. However numerous our
population, the Exhibition would still have failed, if there
had been amongst us an inability to appreciate it : in
this case it would have been in advance of the age ; little
interest would have been felt in it ; and the wish to see it
would not have existed in the breasts of millions. If,
also, our means of communication had been of such a
character as to have precluded those who lived at even
a comparatively short distance from the metropolis from
visiting it, except at a considerable expense of both
money and time, the same result would have attended it.
These remarks indicate two further conditions to the
success of such an undertaking, both of which, too, just
as is the case with the marvellous increase and amount
of our population, while they belong to our own times, —
one being new in degree, the other, of course, entirely —
occupy very prominent places among the causes which
are now telling in every part of society, and must give
their character and direction to many a series of events
yet in the womb of time.

I will take first the increased intelligence of the people,
because the whole project of the Exhibition rested upon
this supposition. Now there can be no doubt, though
the fact may not be flattering to certain prejudices not
everywhere obsolete, but that there has been of late years
a great increase of intelligence throughout all orders.
This increase of intelligence, although it falls lamentably
short of what is now possible, and of what will soon be
absolutely necessary for the purpose of enabling us to
direct aright the elements of change incidental to these
times, and to maintain our position in the competition of
the world, will appear, when we compare the present
with the past of only a few years ago, very considerable,
particularly among the lower strata of the middle classes,
and among that large part of the community which re-

APPENDIX. 165

ceives its support from weekly wages. We frequently
hear of great facts ; but there can hardly be one greater,
or more gratifying, than that 60,000 persons, chiefly from
these classes, should have been willing to pay, day after
day, for their admission to the Crystal Palace.

Of course this increase of intelligence is ultimately
referable to a cause which nothing can arrest, and which
is year after year acting with greater power in this
direction, — I mean, the mere course of events. It is an
observation lying quite upon the surface, that the way in
which trade and business are carried on at the present day
is very different from the way in which they were carried
on only a few years ago ; and that a corresponding differ-
ence exists in the tradesman's mode of life, and in the
influences to which his mind is subjected. Formerly he
hardly possessed a book, and seldom left his home : his
neighbours resembled him in these respects : the conse-
quence was, that his ideas were confined to his shop. The
tradesmen of the present day are members of clubs and
mechanics institutes ; they attend lectures ; they talk
about science and the fine arts ; they have their regular
excursions, and may even be met at Paris, and in
Switzerland; they look out upon the world, and know
something about what is going on in it. Among the
working classes also there is a growing capacity to feel
interest in other matters besides those in which they are
immediately concerned. Those who have much inter-
course with the lower orders will, if they attend to this
circumstance, be often surprised at finding how rapidly
an interest on any great event, or important subject,
spreads over the whole country, and penetrates even to
the humblest class of labourers. This is not to be attri-
buted merely to the press and the railway, but to the whole
aggregate of our self-acting educational influences, which,
as they arise out of the circumstances of the times, can-

166 APPENDIX.

not be repressed, can indeed hardly be controlled, and
which are developing a very great amount of thought and
intelligence in all classes from the top to the bottom of
the social scale.

And now I come to the other point : with the excep-
tion of the inhabitants of the metropolis, and of a few of
the wealthier classes, the wish to see the Exhibition
would not (the old saying notwithstanding) have created
a way. It used to be a common remark, that man was
the most difficult commodity to move : the problem, how-
ever, which we had to solve, was that of bringing up
hundreds of thousands of men, in truth millions, from
great distances, and carrying them back again, many of
them on the same day ; and this for a charge of not more
than a few shillings a head. No ingenuity, and no com-
mand of funds, could have enabled us to solve this pro-
blem twenty years ago ; now, however, it is as simple and
easy a matter, and one as much of course, as any thing
in the world. Before the shilling admission commenced
the manager of the traffic of the London and North Wes-
tern Railway informed the Commissioners that that line
alone would be able to bring up 50,000 visitors daily.
It had, however, already performed the almost still greater
marvel of bringing up to London the Crystal Palace itself.
Under the old stage coach system these 50,000 visitors
could not have been brought up to London, and taken home
again, supposing that part of them came from Warwick-
shire, and part from Lancashire, in less than 3000 coaches,
which would have required between 300,000 and 400,000
horses. Now setting aside the question of time and cost,
the thing would have been impossible. In these days,
however, a single railway company has in its own re-
sources the means of repeating this marvel daily ; while
at the very same time all the other lines terminating in
the metropolis may be employed in a similar manner.

APPENDIX. 167

The political, economical, and social value of these
facilities for communication and transport, great as are
the achievements which they have already enabled us to
accomplish, cannot yet be fully appreciated. In these
days, however, we cannot suppose that centuries, as has
been the case with the discovery of printing, will be
allowed to elapse, while society shall be employed in
gradually ascertaining the extent, and finding out how to
make the most of, the new power. The changes which
railways have produced in the habits of all classes are
already very great, and the Exhibition has given an im-
petus to these changes. The representatives of even the
class of agricultural labourers in the south and west of
England, who for the purpose of visiting the Crystal
Palace availed themselves of the railway during the sum-
mer for the first time, will for the future be found more
disposed to resort to the rail, as a means of seeking
a better field for their labour, and so of escaping the
miseries of their present lot. The glimpses of the new and
mighty world beyond their own villages, which those who
have had an excursion to London during the Exhibition
will have caught, will be seeds sown in their minds which
must germinate, and bear fruit too : with a great many
this their first trip will most assuredly not be their last.
In this way the Exhibition will amply repay the debt it
owes to our new methods of communication for having
made it both possible and successful ; for it will render
the practice of using railways for the purposes of work,
pleasure, or business, much more frequent among the
great body of the people. The 56,000,000 second and
third class passengers of two years ago will, from this
particular cause, receive very large accessions over and
above what would have accrued from the ordinary in-
crease of railway traffic.

It is a common remark, that the comparative degrees of
advancement reached by different countries, or by the

168 APPENDIX.

same country at successive periods, may be measured by
the points of excellence which they severally, or respec-
tively, reached in their means of communication. It is
evident, that the development of the ancient Greek civili-
sation was very much accelerated by the fact, that the
sea every where offered to the whole Greek race a ready
means of inter-communication ; for there was no Greek
city, from Sinope to Massilia, but was either actually
seated on, or at no great distance from, the coast. The
Roman Empire, also, as it was composed of the coun-
tries lying round the Mediterranean, to a very great ex-
tent enjoyed the same advantage ; but as these countries
reached back to great distances from the sea, and could
only be maintained in subjection by military occupation,
roads became necessary, and the excellency of these roads
has always been regarded as indicating the high civilisa-
tion to which that empire had attained : in this case,
however, there are considerations — such, for instance, as
that of the main purpose for which these roads were
made — which in some degree detract from the credit
they would otherwise reflect upon Roman civilisation.
A comparative view of the activity of mind, and indeed
of many of the most important conditions of society, as
they exist at the present day in Russia and the United
States of America, may be very fairly illustrated by the
character of the means of communication which they have
respectively established, and the use they make of those
with which nature has provided them.

Great, however, as have been the ingenuity and labour
exercised by man in supplying this particular want, our
minds will be disposed to devout and reverent feelings by
the consideration, that in all we have done even here, we
have only been working out, in the manner permitted us,
our allotted part in an evidently pre-conceived whole ; for
we find that the instincts of even the lower animals are
directed to the formation of what are actually roads, along

APPENDIX. 169

which they may travel, with comparative safety and ease,
from one feeding ground to another, or to the nearest
spring. There are paths, probably more ancient than any
formed by the hand of man in any part of the world, so
deeply indented on the sides of some of the mountains of
Southern Africa, as to be visible from considerable dis-
tances, and which have been excavated by the feet of the
herds of wild elephants, which century after century have
passed along them, each generation treading in the steps
of its predecessors; and perhaps, when the elephant shall
have become extinct upon this part of the continent, com-
munities of civilised men will make use of the path formed
by the brute, in obedience to his instinct, at a time anterior
to that at which the savage first wandered in the neigh-
bouring wood. If we pass to the other extremity of the
scale of magnitude in animated nature, we shall also find
the little emmet that we tread upon forming for itself,
often across our own highway, a carefully smoothed track,
from which it does not deviate in leaving or returning to
its home; and whicli enables it to travel with greater
rapidity, and to carry its provisions and building mate-
rials with greater ease. It is interesting, and most pro-
fitable, particularly on occasions like the present, when
we may be too much disposed to glorify the work of our
own heads and hands, forgetful of that higher Power
which pre-arranged the whole, to trace in this manner
the analogies of nature, and to see that some of the
loftiest achievements of the science and mechanical powers
of man are only the means, which have been granted to
us for supplying a want, felt equally by the brute and
the insect, and which they have been enabled to provide
for by the unerring, and for their purposes not the less
adequate, operations of instinct. Reflections of this
kind, by pointing out to us what is really the position
assigned to Man in the scale of being, indispose us

I

170 APPENDIX.

equally either to take a low view of our own nature, or to
permit ourselves at any time to be carried away by a feel-
in^ of irreverent arrogance : they contain the antidote

O "

which will enable us to exercise without stint, and with-
out fear, but rather with thankfulness, every power with
which we may find ourselves endowed, or which we may
find placed within our reach. This is solid ground upon
which our reason and heart alike can rest with pious
satisfaction.

But a view of the causes which contributed to the suc-
cess of this magnificent Exhibition would be most incom-
plete, were we to omit all reference to that which lies at
the bottom of the whole — the civil virtues, the love of
order and respect for law, in a word, the moral character,
of our countrymen. In the original conception of such
an undertaking these points must have been taken for
granted : those who first formed the project, and worked
it out, never found themselves checked for a moment in
giving its fullest development to their grand design, by a
want of faith in these qualities of the English character:
they were not afraid of assembling in London any number
of Englishmen for such a purpose ; nor were they afraid
that these assemblages of our own countrymen would be
influenced, or contaminated, by the addition of any dis-
turbing, or suspicious, element from abroad. They were
ready to receive all who might come, and were not appre-
hensive of any among ourselves. We take everything of
this kind so entirely as a matter of course, that we do not
appreciate, as fully as we ought, these national qualities.
It cannot, however, be doubted, but that this spontaneous
respect for law and order, without the slightest outward
parade of the feeling itself, and to such a degree that all
classes amongst us appear to act upon the principle with-
out any thought or reflection, struck our continental
visitors of last summer as much as any thing that they
saw in England. They were fully aware that in no other

APPENDIX. 171

European capital could any gatherings of the kind have
been allowed to take place. Elsewhere men's minds
are so unsettled, and such deep irreconcilable hostilities
now divide society, that mischief would inevitably result
from such assemblages, continued throughout a space of
six months. The mere bringing people together in the
present state of the world could hardly be risked with
impunity. Or supposing that such daily assemblages had
been allowed in any great city of the continent, it could
only have been after the safe keeping of the building, of
the main thoroughfares, and even of the town itself, had
been entrusted to a large military force, ready to act at a
moment's notice. To us, however, even while we were
in the centre of the stir, with 60,000 persons coming and
going daily, and on some of the last days with nearly
100,000, such ideas appeared almost laughable. Not a
Word of discontent was heard ; not a single disorderly
meeting was held ; not a factious motion was made in
parliament : there were even fewer police cases than on
ordinary years. It would be an insult even to the most
fanatical vestryman to suppose that he would have rejoiced
to have seen disturbances arising out of, and interrupt-
ing, the Exhibition, in the hope that under their cover
he might have advanced his political panaceas ; or that
he was so ignorant of the temper of Englishmen, as to
have imagined, in his most ecstatic moments, that those
who might have resorted to such a plan of operations would
have gained anything but discomfiture and contempt.
The above remarks would not have been worth making,
were it not for the fact that the absence of these qualities
and virtues in the inhabitants of the capitals of the con-
tinent, would have made it impossible to hold an Exhibi-
tion of the Industry of all Nations, on such a scale, and
in so open and unrestricted a manner, any where but in
London. For this element of success we have to thank

i 2

172 APPENDIX.

all orders of our countrymen alike. These are facts which
are alone sufficient to inspire confidence, that the powers
which education will confer upon the million will never
in this country be exercised for any other than their
legitimate purposes.

It is important to observe how little the daily passage
of so many thousands through our metropolis was felt in
any way : this gives some insight into our resources of
various kinds. It has just been observed, that though so
many were assembling daily from all parts of the country,
and we may almost say from all parts of the world, there
was not the slightest occasion for the government to take
any cognizance of what was going on ; nor, with the ex-
ception of the appointment of a few hundred additional
policemen, were our means for the preservation of order
at all increased ; none, however, of our most ordinary
arrangements were interfered with, or altered. There
were no obstructions to the traffic of Piccadilly ; and the
equestrians in Rotten Row were as numerous, and as
undisturbed, as in former years. We have found also
that our arrangements for providing daily food for the
2,500,000 regular inhabitants of the metropolis are so
extensive and so perfect, that we are able to entertain
with ease any additional number ever likely to visit us
even in these days of railways and steam-boats. The
prices of provisions consequently did not rise; and a joint
of meat, and a loaf of bread, did not cost more than they
would have cost had not a single foreigner visited Lon-
don last year. And, just to say a word upon another
point, where not a little uneasiness was previously felt : it
has now been satisfactorily proved that the current of
English thought and life is so strong, since the stream
has been deepened, that foreign manners and ideas have
not any power to make impressions upon us. It is amus-
ing to recollect the apprehensions which were felt and
expressed last winter by a not uninfluential section of

APPENDIX. 173

society : great changes were to be effected in the feelings
and habits of Englishmen ; our government was to be
revolutionized ; Her most gracious Majesty was to be-
come a fugitive from the wrath of her misguided sub-
jects ; the observance of the Sabbath was to be relin-
quished; Englishmen were to become ashamed of their
domestic virtues ; Jesuits in disguise were to persuade us
to revert to the payment of Peter's pence. It is true
that during the summer an invasion of London was going
on from the continents on either side of us, our invaders
arriving in detachments which perhaps in the aggregate
amounted to a greater number than that of the grand army ;
and it may also be true that many of them came armed
with very horrible ideas and opinions, and very shocking
customs, but, though we made no preparation for their
reception, we felt no inconvenience at their presence, and
expect no bad effects from their example ; nor, indeed,
any thing worse than mutual satisfaction, and a likelihood
of our being henceforth better able to understand, and
appreciate, each other.

There is no other occasion upon record, which ever
gave an opportunity for taking a connected view of the
whole human family. The Exhibition of the Industry of
all Nations enabled us to contemplate each nation in its
peculiarities, as standing in a certain sense apart, in a
relation of its own towards the everywhere varying forces
and productions of nature ; and in the next place to con-
template the relation in which each stands towards the
others as a producer, for the general good, of some of the
necessaries and embellishments of life: we were reminded
both of the influences which to a certain degree separate,
and give a distinctive character to, each nation and division
of the earth ; and, on the other hand, of the wants common
to all civilised nations, which it has been ordained shall

I 3

1 74 APPENDIX.

only be supplied from certain fixed localities, and this for
the opposite purpose of bringing us together. Never be-
fore was there collected into one view such clear evidence,
such a panoramic demonstration of the fact, that the
Creator has surrounded each division of the human family
with a peculiar combination of physical and material cir-
cumstances; and that out of these varied combinations of
circumstances the peculiar wants, as well as the peculiar
resources, of each nation arise ; and even (to mount to a
higher point) that it is with a constant relation to these
circumstances that the intelligence and the sentiments of
each are exercised and developed. To the readers of these
pages, ideas of this kind are more or less familiar ; but to
the vast majority of those who passed, beneath the roof of
the Crystal Palace, from one country and region of the
earth to another, as represented by their respective pro-
ductions, such ideas were to a very great extent new. In
one place they saw the black tent of the desert, wrhere men
neither cultivate the soil nor have fixed abodes ; in an-
other specimens of the rich and varied harvests of fertile
regions and genial climates ; and in a third, fur-bearing
skins from countries buried the greater part of the year
beneath the snow ; they looked upon the trappings of the
elephant and of the camel, as well as of the horse. The
contrasts which exist in objects of this kind could not
have failed to imply to the mind of even the uneducated
the most diverse aspects of nature, and the most opposite
conditions of human life. But to the intelligent eye, and
well informed mind, palpable contrasts of this kind were
riot more suggestive than the shades of difference which
mark the arts of neighbouring civilised nations, and
which, though, perhaps, to rougher observers almost in-
appreciable, do yet evidently belong inherently to pecu-
liar aptitudes and tastes, or to the structure and sympa-
thies of society, according as it consults the wants of
the many or the interests only of the few.

APPENDIX. 175

Starting from such a point as tins, our thoughts may
take a wide range through some of the most interesting
fields of speculation connected with the history, or with
the destiny, of our race. Here among such indications of
the life and of the character of modern civilised com-
munities, the spectator may have been led on to think
how many tribes and languages must have died out,
without leaving a record of their existence, or even a
name, in the page of history. How often in the ruder
ages of the world, we may suppose, before the progress
of social development had attached each individual to a
certain spot of earth by the arts which he exercised,
and the property which he possessed, so that henceforth
it became impossible for sudden invasions to destroy
or obliterate nations, that whole tribes, perhaps whole
languages, were suddenly swept away by invaders to
whom it mattered little in what forests they hunted, and
by what river's side they pitched their tents. In the his-
toric period, too, how many nations have passed from the
scene. Every language spoken on the face of the earth
at the time of Homer is either now dead, or so changed,
that those who now speak it would be unintelligible to
those who spoke it in his time ; his own tongue, and that
owing in some degree to his own immortal poems, offer-
ing the nearest approach to an exception : for among
savage tribes language varies more or less with each
generation ; it is civilisation, culture, and above all litera-
ture, which give it permanency. Even, too, in our own
day this destruction of races is going on : the red Indian
and the Australian native, races occupying (what we may
call) two continents, and possessing very marked pecu-
liarities of organisation, are rapidly becoming extinct.
They are disappearing before the advance of civilised
man as completely as the animals they hunted, and with-
out leaving, either upon the surface of the large portion

i 1

176 APPENDIX.

of the earth which was originally assigned them, or upon
the minds, and subsequent history, of those who are super-
seding them, any more distinct traces of their existence,
with the exception here and there of the name of a
mountain, lake, or river. Surrounded by the Industry of
all Nations, we could not but revert to these two branches
of the human family, dispossessed by ourselves of their
spacious continents, before society had advanced with
either of them to such a point as would enable them to ad-
here to the soil, and before even they could have produced
any thing worthy of the attention of their successors.
Here are the inhabitants of whole continents passing away
without ever having risen to the knowledge, the senti-
ments, and the modes of life, by which alone we deem
man to be ennobled, and without which we regard him as
excluded from the privileges of his nature. Did these
races fulfil any purpose which would not have been an-
swered as well by the existence on the same scenes of
some species of savage brute ? Or what is the difference
between the whooping savage and the beast of prey ?
Whatever solution we may be disposed to give to ques-
tions of this kind, upon one point, at least, closely con-
nected with them the Exhibition gave us certain evidence,
and that is upon the extent to which, and the rapidity
with which, civilisation is now expanding its borders at
the expense of the area hitherto occupied by barbarism ;
and perhaps, we may add, that even these savage races
will not have existed upon those continents in vain, if
they shall have left upon the minds of the civilised com-
munities which are superseding them the impression,
that what enabled themselves to take the place of those
who formerly possessed the soil was, in its simplest ex-
pression, their moral and intellectual superiority ; and
that as it was by these means alone that they rose above
the savage, so it is only by elevating and purifying the

APPENDIX. 177

feelings, increasing knowledge, and strengthening the
power of thought, that they can hope to make future
advances : as the absence of this culture would approxi-
mate them to the state of the savage who made way
for them, so are efforts to advance it the only means
permitted them for rising beyond their actual position.
They ought to bear in mind that advances of this kind
give an insight, even approaching nearer to completeness,,
into the workings and purposes both of society and of
nature, and are ever bringing the thoughts and heart of
man into closer harmony with the designs, and into a
state of more complete reliance upon th^ goodness and
wisdom, of Him who orders all things.

The character of such an Exhibition of the Industry
of all Nations must have disposed many a thoughtful
spectator to follow discursively, according to the sugges-
tions of surrounding objects, very various trains of
thought and feeling, arising out of a view of the condition,
the fortunes, and the history of the different branches of
the human family. To the minds of many who contem-
plated the Exhibition in this spirit, the large space al-
lotted to the United States, and to our Australian colonies,
must have recalled the present condition of the North
American Indian, and of the Australian native : eo ipso
praefulgebant, quod non visebantur. And out of the
number of such visitors there were, doubtless, some who
passed on to the speculation of what might be the posi-
tion which these two rising and aspiring continents would
occupy in some distant future Exhibition.

But not only did this Exhibition of the industrial
universe lead us to regard the different branches of the
\iuman family as varying, within certain prescribed limits,
in their sentiments, tastes, and intelligence, in conformity
with the variations of surrounding nature ; but it also led
us to regarJ them as bound together by common wants,

i 5

178 APPENDIX.

which they are able reciprocally to supply. It had a
unity of its own, as great as Humboldt's cosmos j and
doubtless suggested to many that our wants, with the
facilities and means for supplying them, and so the inter-
dependence of nations, increase in exact proportion to
the advances the world makes in civilisation. The most
barbarous nation upon earth is the most independent of
its neighbours, and of all the world, and the most civilised
is the most dependent : the latter will find in every part
of the world something or other that is of great use to it ;
something without the aid of which it will be unable to
carry on some process of manufacture, or* some useful or
ornamental art ; without which, in short, it must forego
some comfort or luxury. A walk down the nave of the
Crystal Palace enabled thousands to collect ample mate-
rials for this conclusion : the slightest attempt to trace
the history of the innumerable objects which formed that
wonderful display, must have shown that the productions
of every region upon earth had, in the hands of our own,
and of foreign manufacturers and artists, been made to
contribute to it. This, however, is a fact, for evidence
of the truth of which, though here demonstrated on so
large a scale, and in so complete a manner, one need
hardly have been sent so far. The Royal Exchange,
even in the time of the Spectator, raised the same reflec-
tions in the mind of Addison : and any one of us may
now be carrying about with him, upon his own person,
just as conclusive evidence of this, as far as one, at least,
of our chief wants is concerned. As the eyes of the
reader glance over these words he may be wearing a coat
made of Saxon wool ; the soles of his boots may have
been made from a Buenos Ayrean, or Australian, hide ;
the upper leather may have been tanned in France, or
Switzerland, and the whole put together with thread
made from Belgian flax ; the material from which his

APPENDIX. 179

linen was made may have grown on German soil ; for
that from which his stockings were made he was indebted
to Egypt or America, or India; his handkerchief may
have come from China, his gloves from France. All this
is quite upon the surface ; if, however, we were to trace
out every thing which was requisite for each of the dif-
ferent processes which each of these different articles had
to pass through before they were fitted for his use, and
where every thing came from which was required for
building and navigating the vessels which brought them
to our shore, the inquiry would show, that the ivhole
earth, and not that spot of earth which it does itself
occupy, is the field from which if is intended that a
civilised community should supply its wants. In sug-
gesting such ideas as these to the minds of no small pro-
portion of its visitors, the educational advantages of the
Exhibition have been very great.

This general and extensive interchange of the gifts of
nature, the fruits of toil, and the works of taste and art,
is a feature of modern civilisation. It is true that much
of what was best in its kind flowed from the provinces
around the Mediterranean, and even from greater dis-
tances, to imperial Rome, being paid for chiefly by the
tribute and plunder of those very provinces. But this
traffic was very much less extensive than might have
been supposed ; and, also, much less diversified : of the
very articles which constitute the most important items
in modern commerce, many did not enter at all, and
others only in a very slight degree, into theirs ; besides,
there was so much similarity in the productions of the
countries which surrounded the Mediterranean, that an
extensive commerce among themselves, except under par-
ticular circumstances in the article of corn, was out of
the question. In the best days of the republic the com
merce of Rome was, of course, much smaller, and the.

i c

180 APPENDIX.

variety of articles imported much less. At Athens,
though commerce and manufactures were among the sources
of her prosperity, this was equally the case, on account of
the paucity of an Athenian's wants, and the remarkable
simplicity of his private life. Considerations of this kind
mark the extent of ground over which humanising and
civilising influences have spread, and the strength they
have gained, in modern times. No country has done more
to diffuse these influences, or has felt them more strongly
herself, than our own : our extensive commerce has
brought us acquainted not more with the produce than with
the inhabitants of every part of the earth ; even our own
empire, which seems to have inherited the remark, first
applied to that of Charles V., that the sun never sets
upon it, has made us familiar with no small portion of
the productions and of the inhabitants of each of the four
continents, besides that it includes in itself the whole of
Australia. This has opened our minds for the admission
of many ideas, which tell in a very appreciable degree
upon the sentiments of individuals, especially of the lead-
ing minds amongst us, and so upon our general views.
We are more familiar than any other people with the
endless variety of nature, and with the various conditions
in which man exists in different parts of the earth. Our
extended intercourse has some effect in predisposing what
may be called the mind of the country to take enlarged
and philanthropic views upon many questions which
come before it. It is also one of the causes why an
Exhibition of so open and liberal a character, and which
aimed at representing all the productions of Nature,
Industry, and Art, was so well received amongst us.

But here a word or two upon a subject of which we
heard a great deal during the last twelvemonth — that arts
and commerce are the great pacificators. No one doubts
this ; and it was precisely for this very reason that so

APPENDIX. 181

many thoughtful persons were ready, on every occasion,
to give all honour to the Exhibition of the Industry of
all Nations, supposing that it would contribute to increase
the weight in human affairs which these influences have
already acquired. We must, however, moderate our ex-
pectations, by recollecting that no other nation can be so
alive to these influences as ourselves, because amongst
ourselves all classes are more or less affected, and to a
far greater degree than is the case with any other people,
by the vicissitudes of commerce. Those who are expect-
ing, in the present state of the world/ that the operation
of these causes may make war impossible, are expecting
far more than the circumstances of other nations at all
justify. If all nations were engaged as largely in com-
merce as we are, and if it entered as intimately into their
national life as it does into ours, then the balance of pro-
bability would be very decidedly against the recurrence
of war ; though even then he would be rash who might
undertake to say, that men would no longer allow their
passions sometimes to get the mastery over their interests
and their reason. As, however, during the last four
centuries commerce has increased all over the world so
amazingly, and as of late it has been increasing far more
rapidly than ever heretofore, we have good grounds for
indulging hopes concerning the more peaceable character
of the future : in the mean time, all honour is due to the
Industrial Exhibition, which, by showing to each nation
how dependent it is upon the rest of the world, and how
much more than it now possesses it may obtain from
others through the labours of peaceful industry, must con-
tribute in some degree towards the desired consummation.

The intelligent artizan who visited the Exhibition (and
it was a pleasing sight to meet there so many thousands
of this class) must have had it obtruded upon his atten-

182 APPENDIX.

tion, that labour is everywhere both the lot of man and
the price of success. The Exhibition was in reality
mainly an Exhibition of the results of the labour of dif-
ferent nations. The artizan, indeed, had an advantage
over the refined and wealthy visitor, in being able to ap-
preciate more accurately the amount of skill, headwork,
and finger work, which was required for the production of
the different objects set out before him. He knew how
many years a man must have handled his tools, and with
how much attention, before he could have acquired the
power of using them with so much effect; and understood
how much previous thought was required, before the power
of creating such beautiful designs could have been attained.
In this respect the Exhibition was more instructive and
profitable to this class than to any other ; and we doubt
not but that many a horny-handed, but stout-hearted, and
intelligent artizan made these reflections, and is now the
better man for having made them. This is a work-a-day
world ; and he who has no work to do in it is not a man
who is to be envied. Everything of value is the fruit of
work : only let not those whose work is chiefly that of
the hands underrate the greater wear and tear which
many of those have to go through whose work lies in
the brain. "VYe must not, however, be surprised at some-
times hearing from these classes expressions indicative
of but little respect for those who, because fortune has
released them from the necessity of labouring either with
hand or head, allow all the higher faculties of their nature
to run to waste, at the very time when the rewards which
attend the cultivation of these faculties are greater, and
the fields for their exercise more extensive, than at any
previous period of man's history.

The building itself not only contributed very largely
to the interest of the Exhibition, but did also better ex-

APPENDIX. 183

emplify some of the most prominent characteristics of
the age than any of the works of art which were exhibited
beneath its wonderful roof. M. Dupin, in an after-dinner
speech delivered at the entertainment given at Richmond
to the foreign Commissioners, observed that the problem
to be solved by the architect was the following ; how
was an edifice, larger than Windsor, the Escurial, or the
Tuileries, to be built in eight months, and in such a
manner as to be ready for use as soon as built ? These
apparently impossible conditions were complied with,
winter, too, being the time of the year during which the
work was done. So that the building was delivered over
to the Commissioners, ready for immediate use, upon the
day required. If we were to tell this to some stranger,
ignorant of what were the materials used, and the me-
thods of construction adopted, in building the Crystal
Palace, he would be ready to exclaim (and he might
afterwards find that such, indeed, had been the case)
that the architect must have been able to have summoned
to his assistance some power greater than that which has
been granted to the arms of mortal men. In truth, the
Crystal Palace, so extraordinary in its extent, constructed
with such marvellous rapidity, and so impressive in its
grand simplicity, is only the last, though perhaps the most
striking, instance of the works which man can accomplish,
now that he has found a submissive ally in the never-
wearied and all-powerful spirit of steam, which has
undertaken to relieve man himself, and his old allies, the
horse, the stream, and the wind, from bearing the burden
of all the hard work, and providing the enormous amount
of " power," without which the various requirements of
our advanced civilisation could not be complied with.

An abundant supply of iron (and the steam-engine has
enabled us to command a practically unlimited supply, of
which fact the construction of the Crystal Palace affords

184 APPENDIX.

very conclusive evidence) has now become the first neces-
sity of our material progress. In an age when this is
understood by every one who sees that all our processes
of manufacture are now effected by the aid of machinery
formed of iron, even to the rounding of a lucifer-match,
or the folding of an envelope ; and who is aware that we
now travel upon iron roads, and construct our largest
buildings, ships, and bridges of iron, it is interesting to
look back on the most ancient monuments which this
island possesses, so ancient indeed that their history is
unknown, and that we can only conjecture what were the
purposes for which they were raised. In them we see
still in existence structures of a most remote antiquity,
more perdurable perhaps than any, with the exception of
the railway embankment, which modern civilisation has
placed upon the surface of the earth ; and we find that
their very durability has been the direct result of the
fact that those who constructed them had not enough iron,
or skill, to make the few tools which would have enabled
them to dress the stones they used, and to work in ma-
sonry. It is interesting at a time when we are making
more than 2,500,000 tons of iron a year to be able to
point to still existing monuments in proof of the fact that
there was a time when the use of iron was unknown
amongst us. We may, too, suppose that, as it is by no
means certain that the use of cement was unknown to the
builders of what are called Cyclopean walls, that the
dearness and scarcity of tools had some share in giving
to that style also of architecture its peculiar character.
These walls and structures were, at all events, raised
during the age of bronze : pins of bronze have been ex-
tracted from the treasury of Atreus at Mycenas ; the sword
of Achilles was of bronze ; and all the tools of this age,
specimens of which are still found from time to time in
almost every part of Europe, were of the same material.

APPENDIX. 185

A comparison of the Crystal Palace with some of the
great buildings of former times would illustrate, in a very
interesting manner, both the progress of many of the use-
ful arts, and the moral and intellectual condition of society,
at some of the great epochs of history. Herodotus tells
us that 100,000 men were employed for twenty years
in the construction of the Grand Pyramid : a modern
engineer would be able to tell us with how many bushels
of coal he could, in so level a country as Egypt, restore
this enormous pile of stone to the quarries, from which
the greater part of it was brought at the cost of so much
time and labour. But on contemplating this stupendous
monument of what sheer labour can effect, that which is
most striking to the thoughtful mind, is not the progress
which science and the mechanical arts have made, since
the time when the Pharaohs were exacting in the valley
of the Nile from the thews and sinews of their subjects'
work, from which man has now relieved himself, and
laid upon iron and steam ; but rather what may be called
the moral and intellectual state of a civilisation which
could undertake such works. It does not give us a very
exalted idea of the wisdom of the Pharaohs, of the priest-
hood, or of the people, to find so many persons torn from
their homes for so many years, and employed in what
aimed professedly at gratifying merely the vanity (for, as
the benefit was to be confined to the royal architect, we
will not call it the religious feeling) of one man. The
Grand Pyramid is, in fact, a monument to all ages of a
most entire disregard of human suffering, a most com-
plete ignorance of what ought to be the object of human
labour, and almost as complete an absence of artistic feel-
ing, coexisting together with a knowledge of many of the
useful arts, much constructive skill, and so advanced a
state of agriculture and of general industry, that the
people were able to support for twenty years the 100,000

186 APPENDIX.

hands which had been withdrawn from the cultivation of
the soil, and their ordinary employments. Viewed as a
monument of the state of thought and feeling, and of the
condition of humanity, at the time when it was erected,
such are the inferences we must draw from its character
and history. How contemptible the moral and intellectual
condition of the man who could use up his helpless sub-
jects in this way ! How lamentable a circumstance for
his subjects to have been so employed ! How pitiable a
perversion of power and of labour !

We may also, with equal credit to our modern civilisa-
tion, compare the Crystal Palace with the greatest build-
ing of Imperial Rome. If we keep before us the character
of the purposes for which the Flavian amphitheatre was
designed, then the sums that were spent upon it, and the
magnitude of the structure, do in fact measure the
misery and degradation of the age which witnessed its
erection. Its benches were thronged with the men and
the women of Rome, eager to see their fellow-men mang-
ling each other, or torn to pieces by savage animals. The
women of Rome could gloat over the last agonies of the
dying gladiator. The vestal virgins had seats of honour
assigned to them, as ministers of religion, that they might
see to the greatest advantage these sights of a Roman
holiday. If the reader will spend a few moments in pic-
turing to himself what must have been the tone of society,
and the character of public and private life, wrhich could
harmonise with a taste for such inhuman and degrading
spectacles, he will cease to feel any surprise at reading of
the wanton destruction of populous cities, the desolation
of kingdoms, the spoliation of provinces, the wholesale
ejection of the proprietors of land, the long lists of pro-
scriptions, the existence of Neros, Caligulas, and Domi-
tians, and the astounding general corruption and rotten-
ness of the empire, followed by its miserable collapse, the

APPENDIX. 187

legitimate and inevitable consummation of these base and
cruel antecedents. Now, if we turn to our Crystal
Palace, we find that it was built by the voluntary contri-
butions of the people, not out of sums extorted from
subject provinces by a military autocrat at the head of an
army of 400,000 men ; that the purposes for which it was
built were, to refine the taste, to do honour to industry,
to increase the comforts and embellishments of life, and
to spread throughout society a knowledge of the profu-
sion, the variety, the beauty, and the beneficence of
Nature — to promote, in a word, the glory of God, peace
upon earth, and good will among men.

There will always be plenty of half-informed persons
disposed to undervalue the times in which they live. We
often hear such persons calling the present age, depre-
ciatingly, an age of iron, of steam, of cheap printing,
of Birmingham ware, of shams ; they say that we have
no great men, no great ideas, that nothing great is in
course of development, and much more in the same strain ;
a great deal, however, of which is very much to our
credit when rightly understood. Now there surely can
be no very great difficulty in showing that these low
views of modern society are wholly untrue. Never be-
fore was society actuated by higher motives : we see this
in our literature, which gives utterance to our feelings,
and in our legislation, which is the highest embodiment
of the aspirations and spirit of society. Never before
was there so much earnestness, or so many working for
the general good and advancement ; never before was the
human intellect so actively employed, or so profitably ;
never before did right feeling, and sound moral sense,
penetrate so deeply into the great masses, which are the
broad foundations which support cultivated society. To
be most thoroughly persuaded of all this does not at all
imply a blindness to the evils of the present day : far

188 APPENDIX.

from it : those who are best able to appreciate our pecu-
liar advantages and merits will perhaps be the first to
detect and deplore the evils which unfortunately attend
them. Those who feel disposed to depreciate the present,
ought first to be sure that they have honestly endea-
voured to comprehend both what is now going on in the
world, and what was the internal condition of society at
the different epochs of the historic period ; and then they
ought to lay their finger upon some particular period,
and say, the men of that day were superior to the men of
this day, in respect of the feelings, pursuits, and attain-
ments— the particulars just mentioned as characterising
the present day point to the chief of these — which
elevate Man, and give to life here below such enjoyments
as are worthy of a being upon whom has been bestowed a
nature to feel pain at what is evil, and pleasure at what
is good ; and a large discourse of reason to comprehend
the properties, the relations, and the beauty, of the ob-
jects with which Supreme wisdom and goodness have
surrounded him.

One of the high advantages of this Exhibition was the
fact, that it brought before us many distinct and palpable
indications of the character of our civilisation ; it showed
us, in a manner in which nothing else could have shown
it, what is the spirit of our civilisation ; what it can
achieve ; and at what it is aiming ; in a word, taken with
all its attendant circumstances, it supplied the crucial
proof that there have been changes for the better, and
that the world has been advancing. Beneath the mar-
vellous roof of the Crystal Palace — for the roof is almost
the only part of the building which from within meets
the eye of the visitor — and amid the specimens both of
whatever nature has given to man in the different regions
of the earth for use or ornament, and of the art and taste
with which man has fashioned them to his purpose, he

APPENDIX. 189

whose memory was stored with recollections of the past
achievements and fortunes of his race, and whose heart
was at the same time in sympathy with the efforts and
aims of the men of his own day, naturally compared, in
some such manner perhaps as has just now been done, the
structure in which he stood with the great buildings of
other times and forms of civilisation, and the busy imagin-
ation pictured to itself the scenes which history connects
with each. From considerations of this kind, especially
of the uses to which they were respectively put, an esti-
mate may be formed in each instance of the contemporary
state of society. Our thoughts first rested on the oldest
monuments of civilisation; but they only served to re-
mind us of the miseries of helpless millions, and of the
hardhearted and objectless perversion of power which
most characterise the Oriental form of civilisation, where
thought is useless and forbidden, and improvement there-
fore impossible. The Flavian amphitheatre next rose
before us ; but that was in some respects suggestive of
still sadder thoughts : it reminded us how it happened
that the greatest opportunity the world had ever had
came to nothing. As we approach nearer to our own
times, the old Cathedrals of Western Europe, the great
monuments of mediaeval art and feeling, present an occasion
for one further comparison. We shall here be treading
on almost sacred ground : the nave, however, the transept,
and the aisles of the Crystal Palace itself must already
have frequently brought the two into a kind of juxta-
position in the minds of many ; and the reader perhaps
will not be unwilling to follow for a time the train of
thought which such a comparison awakens.

We have, then, in these structures, also, very wonder-
ful monuments of man's constructive skill ; in some
respects, indeed, they exceeded all which had been previ-
ously achieved. The summit of many a provincial Ca-

190 APPENDIX.

thedral rose almost as high above the surface of the
earth as the summit of the Grand Pyramid. Their cen-
tral avenues were of a length and loftiness unimagined by
the architects of the temples of Athens and Rome. Their
windows were formed of what would have appeared
to the inhabitants of ancient Babylon or Ecbatana pic-
tures of rubies and emeralds. Their tracery and carving
were more elaborate and profuse than what decorated the
Golden House of Nero, or the Palace of Diocletian ; the
gold and jewels in their shrines and sacristies often ex-
ceeded the treasures of princes. All this justly excites
our admiration ; but, when regarded, from our higher
points of view, as a test of the contemporary state of the
human mind, the general conclusion is in some respects
disparaging. The ignorant serf, and his almost equally
ignorant lord, who, as some procession passed by, and
the music rose to the lofty roof, and was lost along
the distant aisles, felt their hearts bowed before the
influences of the place and of the occasion, could not
have known much (and history tells us that they did
not) of that abiding influence over the heart and life,
which belongs only to distinct knowledge and reason-
able convictions. The Persian on his mountain-top wor-
shipped in a nobler temple and after a more spiritual
fashion. I am not in the least attempting to depreciate
the character, the efforts, or the achievements of the
mediaeval church : every body is now aware that we are
under the greatest obligations to it : not only was it the
keeper and transmitter of the Faith ; the guardian of the
rights of the weak ; and, to a greater degree than the
purer churches which sprang from it have been, or
are ever likely to be, the salt and the leaven of society;
but it was also the great patron and preserver of art and
literature. That, however, which concerns our present
purpose is the fact, that, itself unarmed, it had a hard
battle to fight against armed men, who, for the most part,

APPENDIX. 191

were men of violence, and so strong as often to be able
to set the laws as administered in those times at de-
fiance, and to whose reason any appeal would have been
vain. The Church could meet this only by the terrors of
the unseen world, and by the awe-inspiring and over-
powering magnificence of its ceremonial worship. For this
the cathedral was most important ; without this embodi-
ment of the reality and power of the Church, and without
the aid of the feelings, which the character of the services
carried on within its walls was calculated to inspire, even
the bishop would have been powerless in the presence of
the neighbouring baron. The cathedral was a tower of
moral strength to the Church in the conflicts of that rude
age. The splendour of its ceremonial, and the imposing
magnitude and real beauty of the sacred edifices in which
these ceremonies were celebrated, both awed the mind of
the worshipper, and invested the priesthood with dignity
in the eyes and hearts of an ignorant generation, which
was easily impressed, and which judged only by what was
on the surface. To duly estimate the force of these re-
marks, we have only to consider what the influence of
the mediaeval church would have been, had it been de-
prived in the earlier part of this period by the brand of
some Eomanist Knox, or by the prevalence of some
spiritualizing dogma, of its cathedrals and abbeys, and
churches, and reduced to the unadorned worship of the
conventicle. 'We ought to be deeply grateful that the
Anglican Reformation spared these magnificent monu-
ments of the taste and feeling of former times, in which so
much of the internal history of those times may be read ;
though it may well be doubted whether, had they been
unfortunately destroyed, there would now be any dread
of a reaction towards medievalism : the greatness, how-
ever, of our advantage in possessing them far more than
compensates for the evil resulting from it, — which evil,

192 APPENDIX.

too, we must remember, is very far from being of an un-
mixed character. The old cathedral, then, must ever be
regarded as a very wonderful monument of the piety and
munificence, a high embodiment of the feeling, an extra-
ordinary development of the art, of the times which wit-
nessed its erection and adornment. It answered well, by
peaceful and artistic means, the purposes for which it was
designed : but the use of such means for such purposes
does, upon the whole, indicate an early, rather than an
advanced, stage of society ; perhaps we might say that it
indicates that a successful attempt was being made to in-
fluence the rudeness and violence of prevailing barbarism
by appeals to the eye and the imagination through means
(in some instances improved upon) which had been rescued
from the wreck of a former civilisation. As, then, we
looked along the nave, or wandered among the courts and
aisles, of the Crystal Palace, a conviction was presented
to the mind, being the conclusion of more than one line
of thought, that the wisdom, and goodness, and power, and
other attributes of the Creator are now better understood
and more felt, than at the time when a gorgeous and
imposing ceremonial was observed in the neighbouring
abbey ; and that the ideas and feelings suggested by the
character, the sights, the attendant and resulting circum-
stances of our great Industrial Exhibition, are better
calculated to dispose the hearts of the men of this day to
piety and charity, than a return to the means resorted to
for compassing these ends by an age most unlike our own,
means of which that fine old minster will serve most
favourably and impressively to remind us.

Another fact connected with the Exhibition, and which
deserves notice, is the manner in which it has brought
forward and given, in general estimation, an useful and
honourable position to the scientific, the practical, the

APPENDIX. 193

artistic, and the working intellect of the country. The
circumstances of the times were preparing such a position
for men of this description ; and the event of last summer
seems at once to have placed them in it. And here, per-
haps, it may be interesting, as illustrative of some of the
differences between the present and the past, to compare
(but it can only be done in the briefest way) what are
our feelings towards those who, in these various ways,
are labouring for society, with what were men's feelings
in this respect at some of the great epochs of history.
The old Graeco-Roman civilisation received its full de-
velopment under the Caesars and succeeding emperors :
now it would be hard to say what description of men
were held in general estimation during this important
period in the history of Europe. Literature was patron-
ised in the time of Augustus ; but from his time there is
no first-rate name in Poetry or Philosophy, nor, with the
exception of Tacitus, in the department of History, till the
revival of learning twelve centuries later. Many of the
emperors were successful soldiers, but military men were
not held in honour, for those who wore the purple, by a
tenure more than semi-military, would naturally enough
have been jealous of great generals ; and besides, as the
limits of the empire comprised the whole civilised world,
there was not that opening for the acquisition of military
fame which had existed under the republic, when almost
yearly fresh armies, and fresh generals, were sent out
against some redoubtable foe, and great conquests were
effected. The fact is, that under the empire — excepting
only the long misunderstood Christians, who, however,
were themselves eventually unable to escape the pre-
dominant influences of this, as it then seemed, aimless
and hopeless period, — there was no class of men who
were generally worthy of respect, and no class whose
good opinion would have been of much value. And

194 APPENDIX.

how could it have been otherwise at a time, when the
inhabitants of the capital of the world consisted of the
court of an autocrat, a strong military force, a few mil-
lionaires, a vast body of citizens not far removed from
pauperism, slaves, and foreign adventurers ? When a
commonwealth so degraded had been displaced and over-
turned, and society had reconstructed itself upon new
principles, the form which for a moment it appeared to
have permanently assumed was that of Feudalism.
Though this was a rude, while the preceding had been a
polished, epoch, yet it possessed many symptoms of far
greater promise ; and foremost among these may be placed
the fact, that man was now able to hold his fellow man in
honour: the loyal knight was honoured; woman, with
almost the feeling of high respect^which Tacitus describes
as existing in the woods of Germany, was honoured ; the
churchman, as the champion of order, and protector of
the weak, was honoured ; and humanity itself, the mere
man, in obedience no less to the spirit and doctrines, than
to the letter, of the new religion, was honoured. But
Feudalism also passed away ; and the order of society
which succeeded it has, for the four last centuries, been
constantly receiving further development, and even now
we can only speculate upon what will be the form into
which it will ultimately settle. In the mean time, how-
ever, it may throw some light upon the stream of ten-
dency, if we consider who are the men now held in
highest regard and honour. They are all those, if we state
the idea in its most general form, who have in any way
benefited society. And we have come to attach to these
terms ideas somewhat different from those which would
have been connected with them during the previous epoch.
As far as regards the precept of honouring all men, the
principles of the Church in this, as in many other respects,
were, during the feudal period, very much in advance of
what it was possible to realise in such a state of society.

APPENDIX. 195

Since that time, however, so many social inequalities have
been removed, and so many strong lines of demarcation
obliterated, that it has become easy to give to this precept
a more extended, truthful, arid practical effect : what has
been lost in picturesqueness has been gained in these
essential particulars. The law of honour has enlarged
its meaning. Our ideas, too, upon the subject of the
obligations which society incurs, have been vastly im-
proved : since the emancipation of labour, there has been
growing up a feeling, which could not have existed as
long as labour was servile, that he who labours in his
vocation and calling, be they as humble as they may, to
discharge faithfully his duty to society, in return deserves
well of society : to the best of his ability he has been its
benefactor, and as such is entitled to be regarded. Now
this Great Exhibition has given prominency to this feel-
ing : its professed object was to do honour not only, to
the achievements of high art, but to every form of in-
dustry. It has been the first recognition before the world
of the higher claims of labour, the claims which it has
upon our respect, our gratitude, and our sympathy; it
has been the first express practical acknowledgment which
society has made, that the labourer, whether he be one
the labour of whose hands waits upon the labour of his
intellect, or whether his labour be merely so much mus-
cular exertion, and mechanical drudgery, is worthy of
something more than his hire.

Casting our eyes, then, first upon that division of man-
kind, whose lot it is — in some few instances whose choice
it is — to toil for the common advancement, we may sup-
pose that the wearisomeness of their daily toil will be in
some degree lightened, and a new stimulus given to their
exertions, by the consciousness that the importance of the
results of their labours will now be better understood.
And the advantages of this view of our Great Exhibition

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196 APPENDIX.

will not be confined to these classes, but will also extend
to that smaller division of mankind which graces the
opposite extremity of the social scale. Owing mainly to
the industry and virtues of the people of this country,
which have enabled us to turn to the best account our
natural advantages, this favoured division of mankind is
far more numerous in this island than in any other part
of the world. Fortune has so entirely exempted them
from the burden of more serious toil than what is neces-
sary for enjoying the hive in which they live, that our
first comparison is likely to be that of the drones and the
working bees. We might almost be disposed to imagine
that they must look down upon society from their Bel-
gravian eminence with something like the feelings of the
gods of Epicurus. There are, however, few symptoms
in our modern civilisation more hopeful than the manner
in which our wealthy classes have resisted the enervating
and debasing effects of wealth. Though they have so
much more extensive a command of the means and ap-
pliances for luxurious living than the wealthy classes of
ancient Rome, yet we never hear a word of the complaint
which used to be in the mouth of every thoughtful
Roman, that the national character was succumbing to
luxury. On the contrary ; the energy and patriotism of
our wealthiest classes have kept pace with the general
prosperity of the nation, from whose industry their riches
have been derived. To the aspirations of those among
these classes who are now young, and who will some day
occupy positions of great influence, the sights and cir-
cumstances of this Exhibition may have given an elevating
direction. They found there how much, and in a manner
of which they can have had no previous idea, Man has
been allowed to accomplish out of an endless variety of
materials, scattered over the different regions of the globe,
corresponding to an equal variety of human wants. In

APPENDIX, 197

this view of the laws and productions of nature, and of the
purposes to which they have been turned, they saw think-
ing and labouring Man every where working together
with the Author of all things, in carrying out the pre-
ordained designs and ends of human society. This may
have suggested to them the idea of a scheme, in ivhich
there is no place or honour for those who do nothing.

These remarks on what may be called the lessons which
the Exhibition was capable of teaching to all classes,
naturally lead to some mention of one of the most in-
teresting and striking sights witnessed in the Crystal
Palace. In the department assigned to machinery in
motion, there might frequently have been seen men of
the greatest distinction standing by some curious or im-
portant machine, watching its movements, and asking
questions of the operatives employed in working it. The
great man perhaps had hitherto directed his thoughts
almost entirely either to the events and routine of the
society in which he moved, or had devoted his attention
to affairs of church or state, or it might have been a case
in which the law had with still greater jealousy claimed
the whole of his previous life, and so he had hitherto had
but little opportunity for making himself acquainted with
the ingenuity and enormous power of the machinery, to
which he had been indebted for almost every manufac-
tured article that he used. And here was the Manchester
operative giving all the necessary explanations with as
much calmness and clearness as an Owen or a Faraday
delivering a lecture at the Royal Institution. This was
a suggestive sight to those who were thinking on the
uses of the Exhibition, and an interesting one as a study
of national character. Quietness of manner, absence of
all thought of display, the wish to get, or to give, a clear
idea of the object of the machine, were as marked in the
humble Lancashire operative, as in the man of distinction

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198 APPENDIX.

occupying a high position in the world. The calm self-
possession, and real dignity of demeanour, with which
all classes of Englishmen, whatever may be their rank or
occupation, go about their work, is neither the least
pleasing, nor least striking, of our characteristics ; it is
one, too, which bodes well for the future.

On looking around us for indications of the character
of the change which is coming over the spirit of society,
there can hardly be found any more significant, as well
as more pleasing, than the intelligent interest (there are
no fitter words) which the most exalted personages in the
realm showed in this Great Exhibition, and the gratifica-
tion all orders of observers felt at witnessing it. When
Mr. Cobden said in the previous winter that few persons
could be aware of the amount of labour and anxiety Prince
Albert would have to undergo, on account of the part he
was taking in the arrangements and provisions necessary
for the success of such an undertaking, he only said what
the public have since become well aware of. At the time
when most persons viewed the project with timidity, or
coldness, or even with hostility, the Prince had the sagacity
to see that the resources of our civilisation were equal to
the idea ; and foreseeing how great would be its advan-
tages, if worthily carried out, he undertook a very anxious
and laborious part in the work of bringing it to maturity ;
and, like Clive at Madras, or Sir Stamford Raffles at Java,
inspired every one with the spirit with which he himself
entered upon the undertaking. We have, however, in-
curred a second, and still greater, obligation : the Queen
and the Prince, by their early and regular visits, and by
the systematic and thorough manner in which they inves-
tigated every department, pointed out the way in which
it was to be turned to the most profitable account. There
can have been few persons who spent so many hours in
the Exhibition, and saw so much of it. The nation,

APPENDIX. 199

indeed, may well be proud at being able to compare its
present court so advantageously with those of other
periods of our history. Royalty never before had such
an opportunity of showing that it sympathised with the
efforts of the working classes, and appreciated their work ;
and never was a great opportunity better used.

Of late we have seen the great, and the wealthy, show-
ing a growing interest in, and exerting themselves to
promote the welfare and advancement of, the humbler
classes ; and in the schools, societies, and institutions of
the present day, we have substantial, and to a certain ex-
tent satisfactory, proofs of the activity of these feelings :
while the manner in which the humbler classes appre-
ciated, and conducted themselves in, the Exhibition, is
an indication that no small advance has been made by
themselves. Scarcely any of us are too young to re-
member the apprehensions which were felt only a few
years ago, that, if the mob, as the people were then
called, were to be admitted to gardens, galleries, museums,
or to any place where specimens of art were exhibited,
and where orderly behaviour on the part of the visitors
was requisite, they must do mischief, as much from igno-
rance as design; and by their unmannerly demeanour
effectually exclude all other classes. These same humbler
classes, however, have been gradually admitted to mu-
seums, galleries, and gardens ; several museums, and
institutions for the encouragement of literary and scien-
tific tastes, have been established for their especial use ; a
taste for music has been created among them, and we
even hear of places in which shilling concerts are sup-
ported by them. This has all risen up during the last
few years ; and now we have just been meeting them
among the avenues and courts of the Crystal Palace, not
on the footing upon which we meet them at the fetes

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200 APPENDIX.

given by the great on the occasion of a marriage, or of
the eldest son's having reached his majority, when they
are under the restraint which arises from a sense of obli-
gation, and from their being in the presence of those who
give them employment, and upon whom they are de-
pendent ; but on the same footing as ourselves, having
come, many of them, from a distant part of the country,
to see the same sight which had attracted us, conducting
themselves with perfect decorum, and paying like our-
selves for their pleasure and instruction. All honour,
then, to the Great Exhibition, for having thus demon-
strated the existence of a common ground — the useful,
the beautiful, and the wonderful in nature and in art, —
where all might meet with common feelings, not only the
Englishman and the foreigner, but also the high and the
low, the Prince and the peasant. Here are means, to
which no exceptions can be taken, for applying that
" touch of nature, which makes all men kin."

Particulars of this kind are the more important, on ac-
count of the glimpses they give of the tendencies, and,
without either indulging in the prophetic vein, or at all
being in the secret of the Coming Man, we may almost
say, of the future of society. All great events which
grow out of the circumstances of their times, and so of
course are in harmony with their spirit, cast very distinct
shadows before them. Suppose an Exhibition of the
Industry of all Nations had been attempted only twenty-
five years ago : every one can picture to himself, how
widely different from what we have just been witnessing
in Hyde Park would have been not merely the building
itself, the things exhibited, and the number of visitors,
but also how widely would have differed the feelings and
views of the visitors, the manner in which the public
would have regarded the proposal, and all the attendant
circumstances. We may call this difference by whatever

APPENDIX. 201

name we please, still the fact itself remains unquestion-
able,— never was there such an amount of change in any
country, or in any age, within the same space of time. It
is plain also that some of the causes which have been most
influential in bringing this about, have of late years been
acting with a continually increasing momentum. Now
beneath the roof of the Crystal Palace many a sight was
witnessed which served to throw light upon the nature
of these changes and of their causes. Reflections of this
kind must have crossed the mind of every thoughtful
visitor, suggested by the building itself, by the numbers
and character of the multitude around him, and by the
uses and history of many of the objects so marvellously
brought together. And can we suppose that any one
person out of the thousands, in whose minds thoughts of
this kind spontaneously arose, thinks that all the mighty
causes which have produced these changes, — and of their
power the Exhibition itself and its success were by no
means fallacious indications, — will, under any circum-
stances which can be imagined, suddenly cease to act;
and that we shall have no more change ? On the con-
trary, indeed, most of us think that we shall probably
have too much change ; and consequently regard the
future with various degrees of apprehension.

This is a fit occasion for speaking of these feelings. It
is true, that it is contrary both to our own experience,
and to that larger experience which history supplies, to
suppose that any change will ever be unattended with
inconveniences, or that any thing in human affairs will
ever be unmixedly good ; but it is equally contrary to
the experience of history to believe that any great change
in society is a change from good to evil. The decay of
the Roman empire, manifestly after it had fulfilled its pur-
pose, does not at all affect this position. Society is in a
more healthy state now than during the middle of the

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202 APPENDIX.

last century ; at that time it possessed the same kind of
superiority over the corresponding point of the preceding
century ; and, if we were to go backwards in this manner
to the very foundations of our monarchy, we should find
that every century was an improvement on that which
preceded it. As we travel backwards amongst the monu-
ments and records of the past, unravelling the internal
history of events as well as scanning their outward aspect,
we find men's charity as well as their views less enlarged,
and the general aims of society lower.

I would suggest, as a ready and safe criterion for set-
tling a comparative estimate of the character of different
aeras, a consideration of the objects, about which the hu-
man intellect was engaged, and the aims it proposed to
itself at these several seras. In the East we see from the
remotest times its most strenuous efforts directed to the
maintenance of certain fixed systems of law and polity.
In the Homeric Hellas there was no tendency in any direc-
tion ; no aim or effort of any kind : all was rest and enjoy-
ment : it does not appear that men were aware that hu-
man society admitted of change : though there was much
personal activity, and much vigorous enterprise, there
was nothing resembling social movement : no mind was
turned to the future. In the Grseco-Roman period, down
to the establishment of the empire, men's feelings, and
thoughts, and whole life, derived their predominant colour-
ing from the political circumstances and necessities of
the times ; the civilisation of Europe might almost be de-
scribed as comprised, during the best days of this period,
in a large number of independent cities and small states
on the shores of the Mediterranean : this led to a state of
things of which modern societies have had no experience,
and which even the Italian republics of the middle ages
reproduced but very imperfectly: every freeman was
busied throughout his life in providing for the defence of

APPENDIX. 203

his city against foreign aggression, in maintaining or assail-
ing its polity, and in administering its affairs : this pro-
duced an extraordinary amount of mental activity, which
forms the strong point of contrast between this sera and
that which followed it. Under the Roman empire all the
motives, which, during the former period, had developed
so much energy and enterprise in every petty state and
city, were at once swept away : mind became stagnant :
periods of centuries passed without a great thinker, or a
great man in any department of moral or intellectual
greatness appearing from Britain to the Euphrates, or
from the Alps to the Atlas : the benumbing union, how-
ever, which had succeeded the diversified, restless, and
fruitful antagonism of the preceding sera, was, on a wide
view of the course of events, a great advance ; because it
prepared men's minds over a large surface of the earth
for the reception of new ideas, and society for the deve-
lopment of new relations : in both instances that which
was new, being far higher than that which was superseded.
Still, even Christianity, in which these new ideas and
relations were embodied, became infected with the con-
tagion of the times in a manner from which it has not
yet recovered : it assumed the aspect, and became animated
with the spirit, almost as much of a controversy as of a
religion ; and borrowing from the idea and the spirit of
the imperial government, both gave to its organisation
an hierarchical character, and, as a consequence of this,
in direct contravention, at all events, of the teaching of
its Divine founder and of the Apostles, substituted for
the liberty of the Gospel a system of minute technical
definitions, and precise legal rules.

With respect to the mediaeval, or feudal, aera, no one,
unless he confines his attention to a few points on the
mere surface, will think that the state of society at that
period resembled the state of society which Homer de-

K 6

204 APPENDIX.

scribes. The traditions of the empire, out of the ruins of
which the new fabric had in a great measure been con-
structed ; and the active principle of aggression contained
in the church, which was ever innovating on the tem-
poral power, and ever busy in presenting to men's minds
ideas in advance of the age, produced a wide difference in
the feelings, aims, and spirit of society. We have now
arrived at our own times ; and a moment's reflection will
show that the leading ideas of the present day are connected
with the social elevation, and the moral and intellectual
improvement, of the humbler classes, — that is, of the great
mass of mankind : this is our great idea : our instinctive
aim : it is also peculiarly ours, because when these classes
were chiefly slaves or serfs, the idea could not have
existed ; nor even at a recent period was it possible that
any weight could have been attached to it, while these
classes were as yet nowhere congregated into vast bodies,
nor as yet surrounded by such circumstances as needs
must develope among them a certain kind of intelligence,
and a certain amount of mental activity.

This cursory view of Man's history is not at all out of
place, because, without some comparative estimate of this
kind, it would be impossible for us properly to under-
stand, or appreciate, the aims and spirit of our own times.
The invaluable conclusion to which it leads us is, that
the sequence of the great events of history is a regular
development ; we find that we, of this age, have firmer
ground to stand upon, and higher objects in view, than
the actors and speculators of preceding aeras ; we begin,
and be it said with the deepest reverence, to catch some
glimpses, in the operations and tendencies of human
societies, of the purposes of the Great Designer, upon
which our hearts and minds can rest with peaceful and
hopeful satisfaction. In former periods it must have
been very difficult to have felt in this manner. At the
time when throughout the civilized world the many were

APPENDIX. 205

the goods and chattels of the few, and when man treated
his fellow-maa as the savage beast treats his prey; or
during the ever-increasing corruptions of the Roman
empire ; or the oppressions and injustice of Feudalism ;
where in any thing connected with society, excepting only
the Church, could the heart or mind have rested with
any thing approaching to satisfaction ? But now we find
that all these preceding states were only preparatives,
each being an advance on that which went before ; and
that after all the aims and spirit of human society are
just, benevolent, and elevated; we now see that society
has gained sufficient wisdom, charity, and strength, vigor-
ously to stir itself for the purpose of mitigating misery,
and of removing as far as possible the causes which
produce misery and vice; that society is beginning, if
not to love and honour, at all events to regard and wish
well to all its members, and to feel the wide application
of the sacred precept, that we should do to others as we
would that they should do to us. These are facts and
reflections which ought to lead us to look upon the
changes of the present day with a hopeful rather than
with an apprehensive spirit.

I will only advert to one more consideration upon this
part of our subject : if the instruments we were using to
work out the part assigned us in the great drama of
social development, implied in their use, violence, blood-
shed, or misery ; or a vast amount of social corrup-
tion ; or the moral and intellectual degradation of a large
portion of the community, then might we with reason
be apprehensive, and even actively hostile. A walk
through the Exhibition, however, gave an epitome of
the proof, which is spread throughout society itself, that
the direct reverse of all this is the case : in that walk
evidence enough was seen for the conclusion that the
great instrument by which modern society is working
out its purpose is in one word — Knowledge. The very

206 APPENDIX.

building itself suggested one instance,' that of the number-
less important inventions of the present day, which have
enabled us to produce, with such astonishing rapidity and
economy, and almost without limit, so many of the neces-
sary and useful appliances required for carrying on the
work of our advanced civilisation. It is by these aids
that we have even been enabled to open to the Lan-
cashire operative and his million brethren, who in other
times would have been slaves, or serfs, or mere hopeless
drudges, the fields of literature and of science, and to
supply them with many advantages unknown to the
wealthy of former times : it was machinery, too, which
placed it within their means to visit, and brought them
up to, the Crystal Palace, itself the creation of machinery.
Now these are advantages which have very few con-
comitant inconveniences ; they are not purchased by the
plunder or oppression of the world, or of any part of
the community : on the contrary, they are advantages in
which all classes participate, perhaps equally, and by
which every branch of the human family must ultimately
be benefited. And, while that which produces them is
knowledge, which strengthens and exercises the human in-
tellect, we cannot suppose that there is any thing in them
to corrupt the heart : labour is the price paid for them ;
moral and intellectual culture are necessary for their en-
joyment.

There is another topic which connects itself with the
preceding view of modern society, the omission of which
would render that view very incomplete ; it is, too,
a topic upon which the Exhibition has bearings, when
considered as an exponent of modern aesthetical feeling.
Nothing is more common than to hear the present age
condemned as dull and unpoetical : this accusation is
paraded with a confidence which can only arise from a
feeling, that what has been advanced is irrefutable, and,
indeed, that very few will have the temerity to question

APPENDIX. 207

it. Now perhaps reasons may be shown for withholding
our assent from this opinion. Without any intention of
entering upon a dissertation, it may be said that there
are two great sources of poetic inspiration : one being
the faculty of feeling and appreciating the beauty of
Nature, of all that is about and external to man ; in a
word, of all that is seen ; the other being the faculty which
enables us to appreciate all that passes in the internal
world of man's heart, his hopes, his fears, his emotions in
their thousand forms and shades ; in a word, all that is
felt. Now it might be asked, which of these two sources
of poetic inspiration other ages possessed in a greater
degree than our own ? Few will question but that the
beauty and power of nature is more felt — to such a degree,
indeed, is this the case, as to supersede the necessity for
any formal comparison— at the present day than at any
former time. If we compare ourselves in this respect
with the ancients, we shall find that there are very few
indications in the whole range of classic literature (in a
more marked manner is this the case with that of Rome),
which could be adduced as proofs, that the feelings with
which we regard the beauty and power of nature, par-
ticularly what we call the picturesque, were participated
in by the ancients : we find in their writings none of
that fondness for observing, and dwelling upon, all the
details of natural scenery, we may almost say, upon every
object in nature, from the boundless immensity of the
ocean, or the majesty of the cloud-capped mountain,
to the disporting of an insect, or the pencilling of a
flower — which so strongly characterizes modern taste :
now this may be accounted for partly by the fact that
the old civilisation was cradled, and grew to maturity, in
cities ; and partly by the reflection that before the mind
and heart of man can take pleasure in the contemplation
of external nature, he must possess a certain amount of

208 APPENDIX.

knowledge in order that he may, as it were, be able to
read, and understand, the page that is spread before him ;
he must also possess the disposition to love all nature, on
the ground of his knowing it to be the work of an All-
wise and All-good Creator. With respect to the other
source of poetic inspiration, the power which enables us
to appreciate that which passes in the internal world of
man's heart, there is of course a nearer approach to
equality, though even here we ought rather to allow a
difference than an inferiority : perhaps, without going
into any detail, we may at once say that other ages were
more familiar with the stronger emotions, what we may
call more appropriately the passions, while we have the
advantage as respects what is gentle, and hopeful, and
pleasing, and touching.

I have only just indicated in what way we might deal
with this question : perhaps, however, enough has been
said to show that ours is not to be condemned without a
hearing as an unpoetical age, or as an age notoriously
devoid of the elements of poetical feeling. Our aspira-
tions after higher forms of good ; the interest we take in
every thing appertaining to humanity ; the treasures and
spoils of time which we possess so abundantly ; the con-
flict between things new and old going on around us ;
the varied and inexhaustible imagery with which our
acquaintance with all climes, and all the kingdoms, and
departments of nature has supplied us, contribute in
various ways and degrees to the creation of poetical
feeling amongst us ; and are, too, of such a character as
to cause its more general diffusion. I have spoken of
poetical feeling, rather than of the formal expression of
this feeling ; because the former is more dependent upon
times and circumstances, and because there are reasons
for its existing very abundantly in modern society ;
while the latter of course requires a poet, that is the

APPENDIX. 209

combination of so many rare qualities, that it would be
very rash to condemn an age as unpoetical, because it is
not graced with the name of a great poet ; though even
if taken upon this ground, we may perhaps have had as
many names during the last half century, that will live,
as can be shown for any other equal period of past time.
It is very probable that this country may never see a
second Shakspeare, but it would by no means follow,
this having been conceded, that there had not been since,
and would never be again in this country, so much
poetical feeling as existed in the reign of Elizabeth.
Perhaps also it might be shown that an age, in which
poetical feeling had become very largely diffused, and in
some respects more refined and fastidious, and was allow-
ing itself a far wider range among the objects of nature,
and the incidents, and relations of human life, would be
disposed to regard not rhyme only, but also numbers,
and the old poetical phraseology, in the light of mere-
tricious trammels, and almost to desert the time-honoured
forms of poetry for the purpose of obtaining greater
variety, truthfulness, and freedom of expression ; for in-
stance, would look upon Ivanhoe as not less essentially a
poem than Marmion.

The above remarks seemed necessary for the purpose
of enabling us to arrive at something like a just estimate
of the value and importance of the Exhibition of the
Arts and Industry of all Nations, as far as it aimed at
reflecting the powers, feelings, aspirations, and tenden-
cies of our own age. In nothing that I have said have I
any wish to depreciate the past, or to exalt the present
at the expense of the past. We ought rather to view the
past and the present as the inseparably connected parts
of one grand whole. Those who have gone before us
laid the foundations upon which we are building : they
bore the heat and burden of the day, without enjoying

210 APPENDIX.

the fruit of their toil : we have to a great extent entered
upon their labours. New powers have been placed in
our hands, because we were fit for them ; but we never
could have been fitted for them, except by a long course
of preparatory events. The man, therefore, who regards
other ages with contempt is, by this very feeling, inca-
pacitated from forming a right estimate of the character
of the events of even his own day : he shows that he is
unacquainted with the path along which society has ad-
vanced to its present position, and the supports it needed
on the way : he ought not, therefore, to be listened to
when he undertakes to interpret the present, or to advise
respecting the future.

If we look through the pages of history for some event
or Institution, with which our Great Exhibition of the
Industry of all Nations may be compared, we shall find
nothing at all resembling it, with the partial exception
of the festival held by the Greek race, upon the banks of
the little stream of the Alpheus. Rome, though the mis-
tress of the world, and though she deemed it her peculiar
glory to have everywhere received the vanquished foe as
the adopted citizen, was incapable of conceiving the idea
of an Institution which might, only on a large scale, have
reflected the spirit and object of the Olympic reunions.
Her ambition, as understood and interpreted by herself,
was merely to secure the substantial advantages of com-
plete dominion ; its aims were confined to the temporali-
ties of empire, and, in this respect being very unlike the
aims of Greek or Saracenic ambition, had no ideal side.
She had no respect for intellectual refinement; and no
ideas which she was desirous of disseminating, except
that of submission to her power. An appreciation of art,
and a love of literature, never characterised the national
mind, or had any effect upon the manners of the people ;

APPENDIX. 211

these tastes, indeed, were rather regarded with a harsh and
contemptuous feeling, and from a military point of view,
as active causes of moral deterioration. We must, how-
ever, constantly bear in mind the great historic truth that
in the long, and still evidently very incomplete, work of
the development of human society, Rome had allotted to
her an especial task ; and that that task was very different
from what the preceding age had been called upon to ac-
complish, or from what has been laid upon us. I have
already had occasion to observe that all the good of the
foregoing period had resulted from the existence of a
state of the most intense antagonism : every city had
stood alone : such a stimulus was requisite for causing
the germination of the first seeds of improvement. But
this step having been gained, it devolved upon Rome to
fuse these isolated and discordant elements into one mass,
so that men might everywhere feel their common nature,
and become capable of being influenced by the same ideas :
under the circumstances of those times the iron hand
without the velvet glove was necessary for this work.
And these ends were so thoroughly answered by the
manner in which the Roman empire was established and
maintained, that the old feeling, that every city was
under the protection of a different deity, and that its
handful of inhabitants were further separated from the
rest of mankind by some more or less important distinc-
tion of race, were all but obliterated, and the ground pre-
pared for the reception of the two connected ideas, of
one Supreme Being over all nature, caring for all men
equally, and of the universal brotherhood of mankind.
Having, then, accomplished the work for which civilisa-
tion had become ripe, and the necessity for its being done
was the very cause which enabled Rome to do it, her em-
pire decayed, leaving in its ruins many of the elements
which were to feed the growth of more spiritual and more

212 APPENDIX.

highly developed forms of society. Feudalism also has
passed away, which was not so much a bridge by which
the civilisation of Rome was brought over to us, as an at-
tempt, after a vast and disastrous inundation, again to
cultivate the soil much enriched both by its long pre-
vious culture, and by new elements of fertility which the
inundation had deposited upon it ; to re-establish land-
marks ; and reconstruct shelter with the confused ma-
terials and imperfect appliances that were at hand, and
under many disadvantages.

And now it is interesting and instructive to find our
European civilisation, — the stages of the Roman empire
and of the middle ages having been passed through,
which were necessarily stages of hard and enforced sub-
jection, — still true to its earliest instincts, of the exist-
ence of which it had all along been conscious, and of
which it had never ceased to give indications ; and re-
verting to the free exercise of intellectual and artistic
power, as the highest and surest means for elevating
and uniting civilised communities : by the exercise of
these powers man embodies in poetry, in literature, in
music, in painting, in sculpture, in the decorative arts,
but above all in his manners and modes of life, the feel-
ings with which he interprets his own nature, and the
circumstances of human life, and the feelings with which
he regards the objects of the external, and of the unseen
world. Nothing can be more interesting, or more in-
structive, than thus to find ourselves, more than 2000
years having passed by, during which man was rather
laying the foundations of future good at much cost, than
enjoying the fruits of his labour, and which is still too
much the picture of society, going back again to the
ideas, and almost to the practices, of ancient Hellas, and
reproducing as a means of union and improvement, but
on a scale commensurate with the power, and the attain-

APPENDIX. 213

ments, and after the particular fashions which harmonize
with the spirit, of our modern civilisation, the assemblages
of those early days.

Here, however, as upon every other point of history
with which our subject has brought us in contact, we
find how great is the difference between the present or-
ganisation and spirit of society, and its organisation and
spirit at other great epochs. We, like the ancient Greek,
hope that meetings of this kind may lead to an increas6
and a wider dissemination of knowledge, to a more fruit-
ful cultivation of taste, and to a more healthful growth
of common feeling; we suppose that our visitors from
Glasgow, Oxford, or Manchester, and even (for, unlike
the Greek, we do not exclude all but our own race) from
Italy, Germany, France, or America, will be able to
form such an estimate of the general character and ten-
dencies of modern civilisation from what they saw not
only in the Crystal Palace, and in all its attendant cir-
cumstances, but also in the thronging and busy life of
our metropolis, in many respects the centre and capital
of the world, as may be of use in enabling them to cor-
rect feelings and ideas, which the peculiarities of their
several situations and circumstances dispose them to
entertain. But not only did our wider sympathies, and
our juster estimate of humanity, indispose us to confine
our festival and its advantages to ourselves, but the very
class also whom we hoped to benefit the most, and by
benefiting whom we expected our civilisation to be so
much advanced, is that large portion of society with
whom the Greek could have had no sympathy, and whom
he could not elevate.

This points to the most fruitful of all the differences
between modern and ancient societies : the old civilisa-
tion, because it held the humbler classes in a state of
slavery, could derive no moral advancement from the

214 APPENDIX.

virtues which may be practised by those who toil ; by
the check which their opinions and self-respect may pro-
duce upon those above them in the social scale ; and by
the sympathy which may be felt by the rich at witness-
ing the struggles of the poor. Nor could it receive, like
our modern civilisation, any intellectual advancement
from the aid of thoughtful and able men, who them-
selves, or whose fathers, had sprung from the mass of the
working classes. These classes, because they were held
in slavery, though perhaps this condition was necessary
for the advancement of the earlier stages of civilisation,
were to the ancients sources of weakness and of corrup-
tion ; while we are beginning to reckon them among the
sources of both our moral and intellectual strength. We
were anxious to bring them up to our metropolis from
all parts of the country, from the most retired villages
as well as from the busiest towns, to show them the wealth
and enterprise of the capital of the world ; and to take
them to the Crystal Palace, for the purpose of pointing
out to them what Art and Science have done, and of
enabling them to form some idea of the usefulness and
beauty of the productions with which the various regions
of the earth have been made to abound for man's enjoy-
ment and convenience. We trusted that we should in
this way be giving much pleasure which would be pro-
fitable, and much knowledge which would humble, while
it elevated ; we trusted that we should save many a
deserving man from toiling to complete what had already
been accomplished, or from aiming at points of excellence
lower than that which had been already passed. We
hoped that out of so many thousand visitors the sight
might sow seeds in the minds of some, which would in
time produce very good and useful fruit ; and that it would
inspire many with renewed- energy from a contemplation
of the honour in which successful labour and thought are
held. We were not afraid of their seeing and knowing

APPENDIX. 215

every tiling, nor of the ideas and feelings which such a
sight might suggest taking a wrong direction : on the
contrary, it will be the greatest of all the advantages
which the Exhibition may confer upon us, if it shall have
given to these classes some ideas on a level with the pre-
sent state of civilisation : the cost of the marvellous sight
will be amply repaid, if it has been the means of effecting
any thing of this kind. Those who are desirous, from a
variety of concurrent reasons, of educating these classes
as well as possible, would rejoice at finding that there was
no village so remote or secluded as not to have received
in some way or other, from what had been seen or heard
of the Great Show, some little enlightenment, and some
useful materials for thought to work upon. Assuredly
we do not grudge to these classes as much intellectual and
sesthetical enjoyment as the discoveries of art and sci-
ence, and their applications to the purposes of life, can
possibly place within their reach. Civilisation — that is,
the well-being and power of man — will be advanced by
every increase in their intelligence. In the minds of a
population of thirty millions we possess a field of inex-
haustible fertility, capable, if duly cultivated, of supply-
ing all the wants of the future.

n.

ON THE INFLUENTIAL POSITION WHICH THE SCHOOL-
MASTERS OF THE FUTURE WILL PROBABLY OCCUPY.

THE adoption of any thing like what I have been re-
commending in the preceding pages, (and the people will
take care that something of the kind shall be established),
implies the introduction of a new and powerful element
into our social system. I say new? because at present
school-masters, as a profession, possess little, or no, direct

216 APPENDIX.

social influence. A school system at all like that which
I have been contemplating, would create a body of able
and well-informed men, as numerous as, perhaps more
numerous than, the clergy ; and dispersed, like them, over
the whole country, for there would be at least one repre-
sentative of the body in almost every parish : the cha-
racter, too, of their duty would bring them into contact
with almost every household. The influence upon society
of such a body of men so employed, would necessarily be
great.

An officer in the army or navy is respected from the
estimation in which the service to which he belongs is
held ; the respect felt for the law is reflected upon the
members of the bar ; the humblest curate is treated with
deference because he is a clergyman ; a medical man has
something conceded to him because he is one of the
faculty : our present schoolmasters alone derive no ad-
ditional estimation or standing from their employment :
this proves that teaching is not yet regarded in the light
of an honourable profession. Nor will it be so regarded,
as long as of the schools in any neigbourhood, some are
private speculations, and so to a certain extent rival
establishments, and others possess endowments suffi-
ciently large to make the master independent of the
success of his school, while some again have been called
into existence for the purpose of teaching rival dogmas,
not of educating, and others are merely charitable in-
stitutions for the most elementary instruction.

When, however, we shall possess a body of men at all
like what we have been supposing, each member of it
will naturally have a feeling of professional pride : there
will then be some proper esprit de corps among school-
masters ; each one will be conscious that he belongs to a
large, intelligent, and powerful class of men. And these
feelings cherished among themselves, and entertained on

APPENDIX. 217

just grounds, will contribute very much to increase the
estimation in which the public will hold them, and to
strengthen therefore their influence in society. They will
become one of the most influential of our professions.
Nor will their influence with the public be weakened by
rivalries among themselves, for they will all have but one
common object, that of furthering, each within the sphere
of his own school, the cause of general education.

But, though their numbers, and intelligence, and the
character of their employment may give the school-
masters of the future much weight and influence, they
will be powerless for any bad purpose, because they will
always be under the control, not of the government, but
of those who in each town or village will pay for, and
therefore manage, the school.

The existence of so large a body of men, so dispersed
over the country, as that one at least of its members
should be present in every neighbourhood, having for his
office the dissemination of knowledge, the inculcation of the
feeling of duty, and the practice of religion ; so situated as
that he may be called to account by his neighbours at any
moment ; and having as strong motives for maintaining a
life void of offence as those which actuate the clergy, would
be felt throughout society as an enormous advantage.

III.

ON THE PRESENT POSITION AND THE PROSPECTS OF
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS, MECHANICS*
INSTITUTES, PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS, AND OTHER VO-
LUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHA-
RACTER.

I LIVE in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, and am a mem-
ber of the Ipswich Museum, an institution so young, that

L

218 APPENDIX.

on the 17th and 18th of the present month — December,
1851 — it celebrated only its fourth anniversary. The
first of these anniversaries was presided over by our late
lamented Bishop Stanley ; and the three following have
been presided over by our present Diocesan, who, upon
each occasion, came from a distance for the purpose, and
has always expressed his entire approval of the object of
the Institution, and promised us the continuance of his
hearty support. On each of these anniversaries a lecture
has been delivered by some one of eminence in the
scientific world ; on previous occasions we listened to
Owen, Edward Forbes, and Sedgwick, and on the last
occasion we were addressed by Sir Charles Lyell : the
Astronomer Royal has also given us a course of five
lectures.

I wish to draw particular attention to the fact that
Sir Charles Ly ell's audience, for a lecture delivered
at 8 o'clock in the evening of the 17th of December, ex-
ceeded the number of one thousand. It is, I think, very
important that a fact like this should be known, because
it shows what a field of usefulness is before institutions
of this kind. Sir Charles Lyell would of course attract
a large audience wherever it was known that he was
about to lecture ; but that in the town of Ipswich, a
place of no great size, such an audience, consisting, with
very few exceptions, of the inhabitants of the town itself,
should have come together to hear him, is a fact from
which some useful inferences may be drawn.

Had he been lecturing in a professorial chair at Oxford
or Cambridge, what may we suppose would have been the
number of his class ? Probably not more than one, cer-
tainly not more than two, per cent, of his Ipswich audience,
notwithstanding that his subject, that of Geology, is more
popular at the Universities than any other of the sciences
which have been entrusted to professorial teaching.

An audience of a thousand persons is indeed almost

APPENDIX. 2 1 9

equal to the whole body of students, whom Oxford is able
at any one time to attract from the whole kingdom.

Of course out of the thousand persons present no one
supposes that a very large proportion were pursuing the
study of Geology in earnest, still it is a very significant
fact, that in a town of the size of Ipswich so large a
number of persons can be induced, from the interest they
feel on a scientific subject, to leave their firesides on a
winter evening for a lecture that was to last nearly two
hours.

There is also in the town of Ipswich a Mechanics' In-
stitute, which is well supported, and is doing much good
by means of its educational classes and lectures.

And here I may repeat a fact mentioned in an educa-
tional pamphlet I published last year, that, with the
exception of the clergy, I am not aware of a single person
in the town of Ipswich having received an university
education ; and this is the more remarkable, as Ipswich
is not a manufacturing town, but the county town of an
agricultural county, and contains a population of about
33,000 souls.

It may, I think, be safely inferred from these facts
that there is something very faulty in our university
system : my object, however, in mentioning them is to
show to institutions like those at Ipswich how wide a
field is opening before them : there are indications that
they are entering upon a long career of extensive utility.
They have sprung up in every town ; they have been
entirely created by the people for the purpose of supply-
ing wants of which they were conscious. They aim at
imparting the knowledge of the day to persons of all ages
and all classes. This is an idea for which neither the
state of society, nor the state of knowledge, was here-
tofore ripe ; but it is one which there is now some pros-
pect of our being able to realise. It is a far grander idea

L 2

220 APPENDIX.

than that which is embodied in our old mediaeval univer-
sities, which neither are'now, nor were originally, intended
to aid in the education of the whole people, having been
established at a time when any idea of this kind was im-
possible : they have special objects, about which, though
intrinsically very important, the great body of the people
take but little interest ; and, as long as they shall con-
tinue to confine themselves to these special objects, they
will continue to be amply sufficient for 20,000,000, or
perhaps for twice 20,000,000 of Englishmen. What
we now want is, not additional universities restricting
their instruction to the old learning, but an institution
in every town — those in our large towns numbering more
students than our two universities combined — offering, at
a cost to each individual of nearer two than two hundred
pounds a year, instruction upon whatever subjects men
may, in these days, be desirous of studying. Our Ipswich
institutions, and others like them springing up all over the
country, are the first rude efforts of the people to create
something for themselves that may answer this purpose.
There is no reason why institutions of this kind may not
some day supply our old universities with a great many
students.

Professor Henslow, who occupies the botanical chair
at Cambridge, is president of the Ipswich Museum; and
as this institution can now collect an audience of a
thousand persons, no one, I think, will hesitate to decide,
that, as president of the Ipswich Museum, he occupies as
useful and honourable a position as that which is given
him by his possession of the botanical chair at Cambridge.

The Ipswich Museum had sixty thousand visitors last
year ; and, if the president should succeed in an effort he
is now making, he will be able to offer to the members
and working classes of the town one gratuitous lecture in
each week of the ensuing year.

APPENDIX. 221

The change which has come over men's minds with
respect to these institutions is a good augury for their
future success. A very few years ago they were every
where assailed with abuse or ridicule. Many laughed at
the idea of there being any use in teaching more than
what had been taught, time out of mind, in our public
schools and universities ; others were jealous of putting
the power which knowledge confers into the hands of the
middle and lower classes ; while some loudly proclaimed
that knowledge, unless it were classical or mathematical,
was hostile to religion. The course of events has now
silenced all these objections. These institutions, there-
fore, have before them a clear stage for their growth and
development.

The great difficulty with which they now have to
combat is the want of sufficient funds — such funds as
would enable them to offer adequate remuneration for
good lectures, and good class-teaching. This, however,
is a difficulty which there is much reason for hoping will
gradually diminish. They are attracting, year by year,
more general support : if their character should become
more formally and decidedly educational, they may,
perhaps, some day be allowed to share in an educational
rate. At all events I think we may be sure that when
their usefulness has begun to be extensively felt, they
will not be left to struggle against inadequate funds.

In a scheme, which I shall place at the end of this
volume, as a suggestion for the appropriation of the
surplus funds of the late Exhibition, I shall point out a
way in which that surplus may be so employed as imme-
diately to give very great importance to institutions of
this kind.

At present it appears that the best means in their
power for securing good lecturers, is that of combination
for this particular purpose. If those in any district, and

L 3

222 APPENDIX.

in these days railways make distance a matter of very
little importance, were desirous of carrying out this idea,
they might contribute to a common fund in proportion to
the number of their respective subscribers. Suppose
those in the district had in all 5000 members ; if they
were to give but one shilling for each member, here
would be a fund of 250/., which might be given each
winter to some able man, who would spend his winter in
the district, and give a course of four or five lectures
before the members of each of the allied institutions.
His travelling expenses might be paid out of what would
be taken at the doors of the different lecture-rooms, from
the non-subscribers who entered. This 25QL might be
sufficient to secure the services, not, of course, of a first-
rate man, but still of a very able man. A different sub-
ject, and a new lecturer, would of course be chosen each
year. Any system of this kind would, in a few years,
create a great many very good lecturers.

IV.

THE COMPETITION OF THE UNITED STATES WILL OBLIGE
US TO IMPROVE AND EXTEND POPULAR EDUCATION.

A PAPER, headed " Locomotion by river and railway
in the United States," which appeared in the " Times" of
the 18th of September, and excited a great deal of atten-
tion and interest, concluded with the following summary,
and accompanying remarks.

" To what extent this extraordinary rapidity of ad-
vancement made by the United States in its inland
communications is observable in other departments will
be seen by the following table, exhibiting a comparative
statement of those data, derived from official sources,
which indicate the social and commercial condition of a

APPENDIX. 223

people, through a period which forms but a small stage
in the life of a nation : —

1793. 1851.

Population - 3,939,325 24,267,488

Imports - - £6,739,130 £38,723,549

Exports - - -£5,675,869 £32,367,000

Tonnage - - 520,704 3,535,451

Lighthouses, beacons, and lightships 7 373

Cost of their maintenance - 2,600 115,000

Revenue - - - £1,230,000 £9,516,000

National expenditure - £1,637,000 £8,555,000

Post offices 209 21,551

Post roads (miles) - 5,642 178,670

Revenue of Post Office • - £22,800 £1,207,000

Expenses of Post Office - - £15,650 £1,130,000

Mileage of mails - 46,541,423

Canals (miles) - 5,000

Railways (miles) - - - 10,287

Electric telegraph - - 15,000

Public libraries (volumes) - 75,000 2,201,623

School libraries - - 2,000,000

" If they were not founded on the most incontestible
statistical data, the results assigned to the above table
would appear to belong to fable rather than history. In
an interval of little more than half a century, it appears
that this extraordinary people have increased above 500
per cent, in numbers; their national revenue has aug-
mented nearly 700 per cent., while their public ex-
penditure has increased little more than 400 per cent.
The prodigious extension of their commerce is indicated
by an increase of nearly 500 per cent, in their imports
and exports, and 600 per cent, in their shipping. The
increased activity of their internal communication is ex-
pounded by the number of their post-offices,, which has
been increased more than an hundred-fold ; the extent of
their post-roads, which have been increased thirty-six-
fold; and the cost of their post-office, which has been

L 4

224 APPENDIX.

augmented in a seventy-two-fold ratio. The augmentation
of their machinery of public instruction is indicated by
the extent of their public libraries, which have increased
in a thirty-two-fold ratio ; and by the creation of school-
libraries, amounting to 2,000,000 volumes. They have
completed a system of canal navigation, which, placed in
a continuous line, would extend from London to Calcutta ;
and a system of railways, which, continuously extended,
would stretch from London to Van Diemen's Land ; and
have provided locomotive machinery, by which that
distance would be travelled over in three weeks, at a cost
of I±d. per mile. They have a system ofjnland naviga-
tion, the aggregate tonnage of which is probably not
inferior in amount to the collective inland tonnage of all
the other countries of the world ; and they possess many
hundreds of river steamers, which impart to the roads of
water the marvellous celerity of roads of iron. They
have, in fine, constructed lines of electric telegraph which,
laid continuously, would extend over a space longer by
3000 miles than the distance from the north to the south
pole, and have provided apparatus of transmission by
which a message of 300 words despatched under such
circumstances from the north pole, might be delivered
in writing at the south pole in one minute ; and by which,
consequently, an answer of equal length might be sent
back to the north pole in an equal interval.

" These are social and commercial phenomena for
which it would be vain to seek a parallel in the past
history of the human race."

Wonderful as are the above facts, the wonder might
have been still further increased, if it had entered into
the design of the writer to have made some mention of
the enormous natural advantages possessed by this ex-
traordinary people, and which the marvellous instances
of progress which he has adduced show that they will not
fail to turn to the best account. He might have men-

APPENDIX. 225

tioned their inexhaustible mineral wealth, — the abundance
in which they possess the most valuable of the precious,
and the most necessary of the useful, metals : that one
of their coal-fields extends over a space larger than the
surface of Great Britain ; that the natural navigation of
their chief river and its tributaries exceeds 26,000 miles ;
that the numerous rivers which descend from the high
ground of the Alleghany range to the Atlantic sea-board,
present a practically illimitable amount of manufacturing
power, and that many of these rivers possess good har-
bours at their embouchures; that their territory, more
than twenty-seven times larger than the area of the
United Kingdom, supplies them with almost every pro-
duction, both of the tropics and of the temperate zones ;
and that the vast continent which they occupy lies mid-
way between Europe and Asia, a situation which, while
it renders an invasion of their territory almost impossible,
will give to them the command of the Atlantic and of the
Pacific, and equal facilities for commerce with either ex-
tremity of the old world.

If the present rate of the increase of the population of
the United States is maintained for the next seventy -five
years, persons now alive may see it reach 200,000,000
souls. Add to this a corresponding progress upon those
heads of material wealth which were mentioned in the
summary just quoted; arid, furthermore, let the reader
remember that the power of these 200,000,000 must
not be measured by what may be supposed to be the
power of an equal number of Europeans, among whom
the vast majority would be little better than mere
machines; they will all be thoughtful, well informed,
independent, and enterprising, and will all speak the
same language. The probability, then, is, that any con-
jectures which might be formed at present respecting the
effect which this extraordinary people are destined to

L 5

226 APPENDIX.

produce upon the future history of the human race,
would fall short of what that effect really will be.

In the meantime, however, there is one thing which
appears to be plain enough, and that is that the only way
in which we shall be able to hold our own against them,
will be by making our people their equals in intelligence
and mental power. We may not have to meet them by
land or sea, and yet they may, in the legitimate pur-
suit of their own advantage, inflict upon the millions of
Lancashire and Yorkshire, and through them upon the
whole country, the greatest disasters, if, by their superior
arrangements and greater economy of manufacture, they
become able to undersell us in the market of the world.
Do what we will, we shall have a hard battle to fight, for
our adversaries are an offset from our own body, in many
respects more favourably circumstanced than ourselves
for the development of practical ability and enterprise.
Perhaps the only effectual way of preparing for the
contest will be by educating the whole people. There can
be little of which a population of 30,000,000, in the
enjoyment of political and commercial freedom, as well
educated as our population may now be, and circum-
stanced in other respects as we are in this country,
need be apprehensive. In the minds of 30,000,000 of
people we possess unimagined resources — a mine of
inexhaustible wealth.

In the Pamphlets which I published last year and the
year before last, I endeavoured to direct attention to
the course of competition with the United States, upon
which we are now entering, as supplying a very urgent
reason for the immediate extension and improvement of
popular education. The 2,000,000 volumes mentioned
in the preceding table as belonging to school libraries in
America, show that on that side the Atlantic the value of
education, as a means of developing the power and re-
sources of a nation, is understood.

APPENDIX. 227

V.

A PROPOSAL FOR THE APPROPRIATION OF THE SURPLUS
FUNDS OF THE LATE EXHIBITION.

LET no part of the capital be spent in building, or in
purchasing a lease of buildings already erected, or in any
other way ; but let the whole sum be invested, and the
interest, which we may suppose would amount to about
5000/. a year, be applied to the carrying out of the sub-
joined plan.

I think that it would be possible in these days to create
a kind of imperial, or itinerant, university, which might
dispense entirely with the whole cost of buildings, libra-
ries, fees, officers, residence &c. &c., and in which the
only thing paid for would be just so much of the services
of some of the ablest and most eminent men in the
country as might be required, their ability and eminence
being the only points considered in their selection. It
would be necessary for the success of the plan I have in
view, that persons of this description should be more
highly remunerated for their work than has been usual
in this country ; and the income derivable from the
surplus would be sufficient to enable the commissioners
to do this upon the plan I am about to propose. I use
the words imperial, or itinerant, university, merely for
the purpose of conveying at once to the reader some
general idea of the scheme ; we must remember that
much of what was quite impossible only a few years ago
is of very easy accomplishment at the present moment.

I would propose, then, that some of the ablest men in
the country — such men as Lyell, Grote, Herschell, Owen,
Hallam, Faraday, &c. — be requested to prepare each a
course of lectures, each course consisting of four or five
lectures, and that each lecturer be paid for his course 5GO/.

228 APPENDIX.

For reasons which will be mentioned presently, I would
add to this list two or three foreigners of eminence.

The subject assigned to each lecturer would of course
be that to which he had especially directed his attention,
and upon which subject the public would be more de-
sirous of hearing him than any other man.

Each of the lecturers might be requested to deliver his
course in some of the chief towns of the country ; to this
work it would probably be advisable to request them to
devote two months in the spring, and two in the autumn.

In this way every part of the country would receive
directly, from the highest sources, views in every depart-
ment of knowledge and science, upon a level with all
that is known. This is a far grander idea than that in-
volved in our present university system, and its realisa-
tion would lead to far grander results.

If it were necessary to repeat any of these lectures a
second year, for the benefit of towns which could not be
visited during the first year, each lecturer might be paid
for the repetition of his lectures, 400/. But in no case
ought more than two months in spring and two in autumn
to be devoted to this, in order that the public might
know when to expect the lectures, and that they might
not tire of them from their being too long continued ;
this arrangement would also allow the lecturers, even in
those years when they were employed, far the greater
part of the year for their ordinary pursuits. A man of
science or learning might occasionally, or even frequently,
give up two months in spring and two in autumn, with-
out considering it any very serious interruption of what
he had chalked out as the plan of his life. It would be
wrong to countenance the idea of permanent employment,
or of an eventual pension ; the rule ought to be high pay
for all the work done, and nothing further.

APPENDIX. 229

Whenever a new course of lectures was required, 500/.
ought to be paid for it ; whenever a repetition of an old
course, 4007.

Any institution in a town desirous of obtaining the
delivery of the series of lectures, — if the town were of
sufficient importance to justify its making such a request,
— would put itself in communication with the commis-
sion. This might be done by literary and scientific in-
stitutions, mechanics' institutes, provincial museums, or
even by the corporations 'of boroughs in some instances,
or by committees of the chief inhabitants. Some body
of this kind, it would be immaterial which of them,
in some places one, in others another, of them, might
make the necessary arrangements for the reception of
the lecturers, &c.

To be connected with such a great institution, capable
of supplying them with the most able and eminent men
as lecturers, would give new life and great importance to
provincial literary and scientific institutions, mechanics'
institutes, and museums ; it would make them very ef-
fective instruments for popular education.

One shilling should be paid for admission to each
course of lectures. General experience, as well as that
of the Exhibition itself, shows that while this would offer
hardly any hindrance to attendance, it would produce
the greatest result in money.

This might be expected to raise a large sum, out of
which all the travelling expenses of the lecturers might be
paid. If any surplus remained from this source, it might
be employed in increasing the number of lecturers.

The commission would have a secretary in London,
who ought to be a very able man, and who would devote
himself entirely to the work. It might be difficult to
find a man fitted for so important an appointment : he
ought to be a man of encyclopaedic mind ; one in whose

230 APPENDIX.

mind science and knowledge had a connected and subjec-
tive aspect. He ought not to be a special student, but
one who had turned his thoughts to the ensemble of
knowledge, and to the contemplation of the various in-
fluences which make man what he is at the present day,
and which modified his tastes, his character, and his
manners, at other periods. Among special investigators,
a secretary who was himself only a special investigator
would do almost as much harm as one who was merely
superficial and plausible.

With the secretary a copy of each course of lectures
would be deposited, and it would be part of his duty to
edit a journal, containing, each month, two or three of
these lectures. The price of this journal would be one
shilling, and its sale would probably be enormous. The
names of the lecturers, their connection with the Exhibi-
tion, and with the great institution which rose out of it,
and the fact that the lectures were brought before every-
body's notice by their itinerant character, would render
the journal everywhere known. Many would take it in,
that they might know what was the point which the lead-
ing thinkers of the age had reached in their respective
departments.

As a compliment to foreign nations, and for the pur-
pose of maintaining the original character of the Exhibi-
tion, copies of this journal would be presented to the
leading literary and scientific institutions of all foreign
countries.

It would also be in keeping with the character of the
Exhibition, and contribute much to the success of the
plan, if, as I have already said, foreigners of well-known
eminence were requested to deliver courses of lectures.
In each case of this kind the 500/. would be paid. In
order to secure the entire independence of the commis-
sion, this rule would in no case be departed from. It

APPENDIX. 231

would also be necessary that all lecturers, both English
and foreign, and the ablest as well as those who had not
quite so much ability, should be paid the same sum.

The journal would be invaluable, if for nothing else,
yet, merely as a complete record of the progress of
thought and knowledge.

Its educational importance, however, would be very
great, for it would carry to every fireside, and place in
every body's hands, the knowledge and ideas which the
lecturers had laid before those who in the chief towns had
been able to attend the delivery of the lectures. It
would make the educational effect of the lectures as
widely felt as that of the Exhibition itself.

The duties of the Secretary would be so arduous, and
would require so much ability for their proper discharge,
that he ought to be remunerated very highly. This
ought to be done both as a proper recompense for his
services, and as a guarantee to the public, that he was
a man of ability. He ought not to have less than 1000Z.
a year.

For the above purposes, I would propose that the Koyal
Commission be made permanent, and that for the future
it be recruited exclusively from those who have delivered
lectures. This ought to be a fundamental rule, under no
circumstances, and in no case, to be departed from. As
the number of eligible persons increased committees for
special purposes might be formed to advise and assist the
commission. This would be drawing together and con-
centrating upon the single point of the advancement of
knowledge and society, the strength of all the great
thinkers of the country.

I should not despair of seeing such a body of men, if
able to bring their influence to bear in the manner I have
pointed out, gaining in the public mind such a position
for intellectual pursuits, and questions of social ameliora-

232 APPENDIX.

tion, as would in a very great and perceptible degree
detract from the importance which polemical and political
considerations would otherwise acquire : they would pre-
occupy much of the ground. There would be an adequate
power in such a body of men, if able to bring their
thoughts and influence to bear upon the whole popula-
tion, to produce such an effect. I think that in this
country political feeling does not reach the height it
otherwise would do, because the minds of so large a pro-
portion of the people, particularly of the middle and lower
classes, are pre-occupied with religious discussions, and
religious questions : this, though destructive of Christian
feeling and prejudicial to the cause of religion itself, has,
notwithstanding, this good incidental effect. Just in the
same way would the ideas and tastes, which such a body
of men coming in contact with the whole people would
implant in the public mind, constitute an element of
thought and feeling and of intellectual life, which would
grow at the expense of what now goes to constitute the
polemical and political elements of strife. A turn would
be given to many of the most active minds; their atten-
tion would be directed to, and they would become inter-
ested about, the progress of thought and discovery. At
all events, in the present state of society, it is well worth
our while to try if something of this kind can be done ;
and there are reasons for thinking that in this country it
may be done, if set about in the right way, and if sufficient
power be brought to bear.

Nothing would give the public so much confidence in
an institution of the kind I am proposing, as their feeling
certain that no one was admitted to the governing body
excepting those who had first proved their qualification
by lecturing before the country. The public would thus
feel assured that the Institution was as worthy of the
position to which it aspired — that of leading the mind of

APPENDIX. 233

the country upon certain subjects — as it was possible to
make it. Its utility and success would depend upon its
being above suspicion in these respects. The rule of ad-
mission, by which it would perpetuate itself ought to be
an iron rule, that could neither be bent, pr broken. It
would be a great thing to make it the first institution the
world has yet seen, from which interest, jobbery, and
mistakes were all alike equally, and necessarily, excluded.

If this rule were one without exceptions, then the being
requested to deliver a course of lectures might be regarded
as a more valuable distinction than the decoration of an
order of merit.

Of course the difficulty at first would be to find men to
commence with, of sufficient eminence and ability. I
have already mentioned the names of Lyell, Grote, Owen,
Faraday, Hallam, Herschel: to these might be added
two or three good foreign names, and perhaps a Scotch
and an Irish name.

If the whole course were delivered in each town, then
the inferiority of a part of the number would not be of
so much consequence, because the impression left would
be the result of the aggregate of the whole course.

The fact, also, that the whole course was delivered
before each audience would have another good effect : it
appears to be a common fault with scientific men, and
with the students of any particular branch of knowledge,
that they become too special, abstract, and objective.
They have a tendency to look at but one object, and not
even to consider that one in its bearings, connections,
and uses ; the astronomer becomes merely an investigator
of the phenomena of the heavens; and the historian
merely a collector of the facts and events of the past.
But if the whole course were delivered before each
audience, those audiences would naturally pass on to take
connected and subjective views of knowledge. This is

234 APPENDIX.

an advantage which does not in any degree belong to
our present system of education ; it would, however, be
the spontaneous result of having the various branches
of science and knowledge submitted to our consideration
almost in a synoptical manner.

Supposing that at starting we were unable to secure
the services of the men who stand the highest in their
respective departments, still the hope of securing such
high remuneration for each engagement, together with
the distinction which would attend being requested to
lecture, would, we may be sure, soon create a body of
eminent men worthy of such an institution. This is an
additional reason for beginning with the apparently high
payment of 500/. for each course of lectures, consisting
of not more than four or five. It would be the surest
and quickest means of creating whatever might be
wanted, as well as of getting many of the ablest men to
put forth their full force at once.

The effect of such an institution upon our whole edu-
cational system would be great and immediate. Our
teachers would be the ablest men, and they would address
the whole country. There would be the highest instruc-
tion within the reach of every one who was desirous of
profiting by it.

The fund, the best appropriation of which we are dis-
cussing, was contributed by all parts of the country, and
by all classes ; such an institution would be a channel by
which the debt might be repaid with interest to all
classes, and to all parts of the country alike.

It could hardly fail to be well received, because it
would be in harmony with the spirit, and on a level with
the knowledge, of the age. It would be popular, because
it would be, as it were, the creation of the people, and
because it addressed itself to the people.

It would make the Exhibition in reality the inaugura-

APPENDIX. 235

tion of a new era in education : the circumstances of the
times, but more particularly the late Exhibition itself,
have prepared the ground for it ; the funds, the ma-
chinery, and the public, are ready for it. Five thousand
a year, derived from any other source, and in other hands,
though the attempt might be made to apply it in the
same manner, could not be made to produce the effect I
am contemplating. The eminent persons who formed
the conception, and worked out the idea, of the Exhibi-
tion, might not, perhaps, be indisposed to countenance
and support a kindred plan of this kind.

Of course the main difficulty would lie in obtaining
the services of the best men ; perhaps, however, there
are men of eminence who might think that nothing would
so much contribute to the increase of their reputation as
their taking an active part in a work which, in all pro-
bability, would have such extensive and such beneficial
effects. The Astronomer Royal has given a course of five
lectures to the members of the Ipswich Museum ; Mr.
Edward Forbes, the professor of geology at Cambridge,
and Sir Charles Lyell, have also given them lectures ;
the professor of botany at Cambridge is the president of
the institution, and devotes to it a great portion of his
time. These facts show that the missionary spirit is
strongly felt among our men of science.

But even supposing that we were not able to get the
most eminent men at starting, we should still, with such
a plan of operations, get an adequate educational return
for the very small sum spent, only 5000/. a year — no
more than the salary which many in Church or State are
now receiving. At all events we should, by offering 500/.
for each course of four or five lectures, soon create a
body of lecturers who would be well worth all the money
spent. The journal also alone, as an exact record of the
progress of thought and knowledge, would almost be a
sufficient return for so small an expenditure.

236 APPENDIX.

The above scheme would be entirely in harmony with
the character of the Exhibition ; it would be as compre-
hensive as the Exhibition itself. It would have all the
simplicity of Paxton's conception of the Crystal Palace,
admitting of any degree of enlargement, as funds might
flow in from some future Exhibition, or from any other
source. It would be of general utility, and would com-
mand general sympathy and support. It would include
foreign nations, in perhaps the only practicable way in
which they can be included, in any plan having England
for the theatre of its execution ; for they would receive
copies of the journal, be invited to join in the work by
the delivery of lectures, and by this means become
eligible to a place in the deliberations of the commission,
It would, in as great a degree as the Exhibition did,
address itself to all classes and professions, to the young
as well as to those who are older, to both sexes, to all
parts of the country, to every home, and to foreign coun-
tries. It would not be a falling off from the original
idea of the Exhibition, though that idea was realised so
magnificently, but rather a still higher and nobler deve-
lopment of it.

If, after a fair trial, reasons should appear for aban-
doning the plan, the whole of the surplus fund would
still be available for any purpose that might then be
thought desirable. Not one shilling of it would have
been spent.

THE END.

LONDON :

SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW,
New-street-Square.

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW

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DEC 21 1943

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