CONTENTS. Infant Schools. C. BAKER, Esq. County Colleges of Agriculture. B. F. DUPPA, Esq. State of the Peasantry in the County of Kent. F. LIARDET, Esq. Education in Ireland. WILLIAM S. O'BRIEN, Esq. M. P. What are the advantages of a Study of Antiquity at the present Page CENTRAL SOCIETY OF EDUCATION. INFANTS' SCHOOLS. INSTITUTIONS for extending the benefits of education among the people have too often been looked upon with discouragement and dismay where they ought to have been hailed as the precursors of that virtuous and highlycultivated state of popular society which is the greatest of blessings to a nation. Sunday Schools had to contend with many difficulties; Lancasterian Schools and National Schools made a very slow progress in their earlier days, and were even viewed with jealousy and fear. It was prognosticated of Mechanics' Institutions that they would spread the baneful effects of debating societies throughout the land, and that knowledge would render our artisans too independent of their employers. The experience of nearly half a century has been sufficient to show, not only that no evils can result from the enlightenment of the popular mind, but that, in just the same proportion as the mass of the people become educated, will be their love of order, industry, and sobriety; and that refinement of the intellect tends to set men free from immoral and debasing pursuits and animal gratifications. Infants' Schools, on their first institution, had many of those discouragements to contend with which prevented the success of the earlier attempts for the improvement of the many; but they have outlived the day of their adversity, and even these, the latest of primary establish VOL. III. B ments for education, are almost universally acknowledged to be very powerful moral aids to popular regeneration, and to possess most decided claims for support. The superior training which a well-directed Infants' School is enabled to accomplish, the settled habits of order induced by such training from a very early age, and the high degree of moral power which is called into active exercise, have been found to be a most valuable preparation for the more advanced schools. We are disposed to set a somewhat lower value on the intellectual benefits of such schools than on their physical and moral effects, because we know that when the educational machinery of the country is perfect, and when every child can have a fair proportion of its life allotted to its instruction and improvement, and that this era must shortly approach, we are convinced, the regular and systematic course of intellectual study will commence after children have quitted the Infants' School. In the mean time, Infants' Schools have an important office to fulfil as preparatory training establishments. A generation cannot pass away from the earth without leaving traces of the spirit by which it was animated. The most abiding features of the age now passing, will be those connected with educational and moral reforms. No opinion is more prevalent at this time than that society is improved in every grade; and that it is susceptible of still higher improvement, is evident to the most superficial thinker. It is also acknowledged that the infant mind may, if placed under timely direction and cultivation, help forward this moral progress; and that the years of precious time which were formerly lost to the mass of the people, or worse than lost, for they tended to engender evil habits, are the most valuable years for restraining vicious inclinations, developing the social and kindly feelings, and implanting the germ of those virtues which exalt a people. It will be truly enough concluded from these remarks that we think Infants' Schools the most suitable preparatory seminaries for the children of all classes. Our opinion has not been hastily nor unadvisedly formed. If we consider for a moment the various circumstances connected with the domestic arrangements of the different ranks of society, we shall find that many of the most valuable elements for early moral training are not only wanting, but that they are alike inaccessible to parents of all classes. In the case of the mechanic, the labourer, the smaller shopkeeper, and the less wealthy tradesman, the mother, as well as the father, has to toil daily in procuring the means of subsistence. The elder brothers and sisters, if such there be, of these families, are employed in similar labours to their parents-in earning a maintenance. To whom can the babes of such families be committed? In the class of professional men, merchants, and the higher order of shopkeepers, nursery-maids and governesses may certainly be employed to assist the mother in the training of the infant mind. But if the mother and her assistants were, in every case, thoroughly qualified to accomplish this important task, which it is well known they are not, the work could not be carried on with the systematic efficiency which is afforded in the Infants' School, the discipline could not be sustained, the important element to good training of numbers would be wanting, the variety of dispositions and habits which require and which elicit some of the most valuable devices of the teacher would be absent, and it would be found that, even under the most favourable circumstances, the success of family instruction could bear no comparison with the modes of development practised in the wellconducted Infants' School. The experience of the writer of this article is most strongly confirmatory of the evidence of James Simpson, given before the Select Committee on Education, in July 1835. "I do not know," says this intelligent educationist, "in the present state of education in the middle and upper classes of society, that I could point out, within my own knowledge, half a dozen mothers who I should say are qualified to educate their own children; and that is one of the results of the low state of education in the middle and upper classes." By the position which the highest classes of society occupy, by the unnatural demands made upon their time, and by the bondage of conventional observances with which a few only are inclined to struggle sufficiently to free themselves, the difficulties of educating their offspring are to them increased; and their wealth cannot purchase the scope for developing and correcting the moral and intellectual faculties of their children at home, which is to be found in an Infants' School. Persons who are accustomed to the government of children, do not make those mistakes into which parents are liable to fall, who are oftentimes placed in difficult circumstances by the apparent caprice of temper manifested by their chil dren. The latter are consequently led into the exercise of undue severity, against which every child will rebel in thought, word, or deed, or to the expression of affection and applause which may, or may not, be merited. The child, however, learns what value to attach upon these parental manifestations; and, according to its natural dispositions or endowments, will be the sort of ascendancy it will obtain over its parent. Neither must the character of the parent be altogether left out of our consideration, whose treatment of the child will depend, not only upon the advantages which have been enjoyed by such parent, but also upon the natural bias which controls and directs each motive and action. The influence of servants is powerful over the young; the weak, the ignorant, the unskilful, and too often the vicious, are placed in constant contact and communication with them. These persons are sometimes indifferent to the happiness of families; often they are ignorant of how large a mass of man's happiness or misery is under their sway.* It is evidently impossible for parents to be constantly with their children; all that they can do is to unite to provide schools on a system whose value is demonstrated by its effects, and to take such a personal interest in such schools as shall ensure the introduction of all rational auxiliaries to education. The evidence of those who have paid the closest attention to the effects of Infants' Schools is in the highest degree favourable. Facts might be adduced which speak most strongly on the improvement in health, habits, man *This is a result consequent partly on the distance which is kept up between masters and servants-an evi! which has grown enormously of late years, and partly from the neglect shown in the education of the poorer classes, |