this (a most ungenerous one it is true), that the children of the labourer in schools like the one here- for I know it has been urged against this-are getting, at a cheap rate, a better education than those of the farmer. Now this would

be true, supposing that the class above the labourer were to remain stationary as to education, a thing they will not do, as they will no doubt, in the end, act upon the princples of common sense, and take advantage of such schools, where they are established in their parishes or in their neighbourhood.

For what is the way in which it operates in the Somborne school? From the above average as to age, it is evident that the children of the labourer leave between ten and eleven, many of them earlier; those who stay after that age are exceptions to the general rule.

Now surely this is not staying to an age at which any one can justly take alarm; yet I know that, even at this age, some of them are better educated than the children of many of the farmers have hitherto been; but in keeping their children at school to the age of fourteen or fifteen, the latter would secure to themselves their proper place in the social scale, and as it in their power to do so, if they do not, they have no business to find fault. It has been said, that every class above another teaches that below it, and the establishment of good and cheap schools will not reverse this; on the contrary, strengthen it.

I feel, from my own experience, how much the classes above the labourer and mechanic are interested in a good and efficient system of education in our parish schools, and I wish to open their eyes to the importance of them, and to the good results which would arise, if all would unite in trying to establish schools with a view to meet the educational wants of the age in which we live.

The farmer, and those of the same class in our rural districts, may rest assured, that until it is brought home to them in their own parishes or neighbourhood, they never will, as a class of men, get that education it is desirable they should have; and, that by standing aloof, and feeling no interest in that of the labourer, they only augment the evil which they dread-the one is advancing in intelligence,

and it is time it should-the other is standing still; and I cannot but think, that in a very few years, the employers of labour will be the class which, of all others, will take the greatest interest in those very schools of which they now think so little.

It is a remark sometimes made, that the Physical Condition of the Labouring Classes, particularly as regards the crowded state of their cottages, is such as to render attempts to educate almost fruitless, or at all events to be a very great hindrance to it.

In this there is no doubt much truth, for it will generally be found, that when families are crowded together into a small space-all ages and sexes sleeping in the same

that they lose all sense of decency and respectability, and that education, in such cases, has great difficulties to contend with.

The remedy for this, with regard to the cottages in our rural districts, rests with the landlords rather than any one else the farmer is indifferent to it one sleeping-room for a family, however large, satisfies him.

The system of letting cottages in a wholesale way with farms, beyond what is necessary for farm-servants, and of letting out leasehold and lifehold cottages for the purposes of subletting, is one very much to be condemned, and which calls for the consideration of the landlords of this country. They have it in their power to do much good in this, and the mischief has arisen from want of attention on their part, and not in any feelings of indifference as to the welfare of the poor.

Ecclesiastical and collegiate bodies have much to answer for in this respect, and one can only hope they will make up for the past by better attention to it for the future.

There is also another mischief in letting cottages to a greater extent than is absolutely necessary with the farms, it introduces a sort of truck-system, and is very often a means of oppressing the labourer; the employer deducting more than a reasonable weekly rent from his wages on a Saturday night. The difficulty of getting cottages sometimes obliges the labourer to submit to this, although he may have work offered to him on better terms elsewhere.

On this subject of crowded cottages, and the immorality it leads to, I will quote the following words of Mr. Justice Coleridge, addressed to a Labourers' Friends Association in Devonshire, and which I read in the public journals some time ago. Coming from such authority and experience, they are deserving of the highest attention.

"I beg to impress upon you the importance of improving the moral and social condition of the labouring classes, with whose well-being your own interest is very closely identified. Many amongst them are wretchedly lodged. From my own experience as a judge, the painful conviction has been forced upon my mind, that very much of the crime which disgraces our country is mainly attributable to the mixture of sexes and of ages in the dwellings of the poor; a practice that debases and demoralizes the human mind, and which, unless counteracted, must effectually neutralize every effort made towards the elevation or improvement of the people."

This is a very strong opinion; but it is the opinon of one who has had the best opportunity of inquiring into crime, and he speaks of it as being forced upon him, and it is one to which every inquiring mind must come that has witnessed the low and degrading habits to which such practices lead. It is the duty of owners of property to do all they can to remedy it, as it is no less the duty of the poor to second their efforts in doing so; but such is the force of habit, that in many cases where the landlord has attempted a remedy, the cottagers themselves have taken in lodgers; or when a son or daughter marries, let them have a part of their cottage, a proof that any great improvement in this way must be a work of time, and can only be accomplished by degrees, as the rising generation become better educated, and more alive to social comforts, and feel that such habits lead to vice and misery, and make them every way as a class less respectable, not only in their own eyes, but in the eyes of their employers.

The present generation of children of the labouring class, now leaving school, have great difficulties and temptations to contend with; they are immediately thrown with companions who have not had the same advantages in this

respect as themselves - having confirmed habits of a kind which education is intended to correct-jealous of those who have had any education whatever, and anxious to bring them in every way to a level with themselves-so that they have, in fact, more than ordinary temptations to resist.

Nor does this apply merely to their companions and fellow-labourers, working in the same occupation with themselves, but to a very great number of others — the jeerers and scoffers, who are continually saying, "What do we want with this or with that? a little reading and writing is all that the labouring man can want;" so that, for the present, the better educated can only be looked upon as a leaven to leaven the mass, and that from the numerous temptations they meet with, there may, and no doubt will be, some who fall into the low and degrading habits of those about them; but every succeeding year will, in this respect, bring a brighter prospect with it, and education will in the end lead to that improvement in society at large which its friends have reason to expect: every one now leaving our schools at all educated as a pioneer among these rough samples of humanity, smoothing the way for a better order of things, and gradually making it smoother with each succeeding year.

The ignorance of some in the labouring classes can scarcely be understood by those who have not examined into it; and I have met with instances myself, particularly of lads just growing into manhood, whose ignorance is greater than I could have imagined possible. The parents, after the age of twelve, or even before that, lose all control over them; they have nothing to guide them beyond mere animal impulse, and of course this guides them wrong to improve them at this age and with such habits is almost hopeless, and in whatever light you view them, it must be with feelings of pity and commiseration. Characters of

this kind are in such a state, and their minds are become so completely inactive, that they work wickedness mechanically and from habit, having no idea whatever of the light in which it appears to the respectable part of society about them.

In extending education, and introducing it into our schools in such a way as to reach the classes above the labourer, we might hope that more of intelligence would be brought to bear on parochial management-in those things of a civic kind, which regard our living together in small separate communities -the parts of a whole, and working together for the general good, and having to carry into effect those internal arrangements among ourselves which the law requires for the happiness of the whole-things in which society at large is deeply interested; but notwithstanding this, they are too generally transacted in a way which loses sight of every business-principle, as well as of every principle of common sense.

In matters of this kind, it is painful to see the low standard of moral feeling which prevails in the agricultural districts, and the little regard which is paid that the public-houses, beer-houses, etc., and those places to which the labouring-man resorts, should be kept within the bounds of decency, so that from the character of those who keep them, the poor man may in some measure be protected from falling into the degraded and mischievous courses, into which many of them have been led by frequenting ill-conducted places of the kind. It has been thought somewhat of a safeguard to the morals of a parish, that the keeper of a beer-house should, in order to get a license from the excise, produce a certificate signed by six inhabitant rate-payers, rated above £6 per annum, and in theory this might seem to read well, but in practice it is found to be no protection whatever, as to regulating the number of beer-houses, and proportioning them to the population, or as to the respectability of the party to be licensed; and I can state, from my own experience, as well as from the evidence of others, that there is no character however bad, where six rate-payers in a moderate-sized parish may not be found to sign such certificate - either from what they please to term good-nature or from a thorough indifference as to the mischief which may arise from it or from a kind of bribery among the parties. I know instances annually occurring, where one might have supposed scarcely six men could be found in a whole county