study. I know of another case in which a boy who had contracted in low company the habit of using gross and offensive language, was removed from an institution because only moral means were tried for his correction, his parent stating that he thought it better his son should go where flogging was customary, as if even his actual master would depart from his practice and inflict corporal punishment on him, he should object to its being done, for then the discredit and the pain would be too marked and severe; and so the boy was sent to a school where the cane, by being in constant requisition, lost the only value it can have, in being used very seldom and but for special delinquencies.

If, however, teachers had in general received a competent education before they entered on the duties of their office, and if some outward sign and seal were adopted by which the instructed educator should be known, the confidence of parents would be at least so far conciliated, that they would be ready to think favourably of teachers till experience had proved their incompetency and thus the intelligent among them would not have their efforts obstructed, but enjoy full opportunity for carrying out their ideas into practice, and of proving their sufficiency for their important engagements. And such confidence would also not only increase their influence with their pupils, enabling them to realise their plans and wishes, and to dispense with severity of discipline, but also raise the profession generally in public esteem, secure it a less incompetent remuneration, and call into its walks persons of superior endowments. Next to the ministers of religion, there is no body of functionaries in whose character the public has so great an interest as in the instructors of the young. With them lies no small portion of the influence which determines the happiness of each successive age; true, they make not the laws, but theirs it is to form the character of the age which gives its bearing to legislation; they do not dispense justice, but they make our judges, and determine the complexion of our calendars; and if, of any class, emphatically of the most numerous, the most exposed to temptation, the least prosperous, and the least restrained by general refinement and prescriptive observances, emphatically of the working myriads, the educators demand our most careful attention. Once raise them, raise them to a sense of the importance and dignity of their office-to no niggard sufficiency for its duties; especially raise them to a high moral tone, to a self-respect, to genuine Christian benevolence, and you have by this one act done much to elevate and refine the tone, and enlarge the happiness of the great mass of the nation. The instructors of

the youth of the labouring population, are a body of men who associate more in our Protestant country with the adult portion of them, than any other educated class. At present these instructors are too little elevated above the people and too dependent on them, to exert a very beneficial influence; indeed it is to be feared that, as they are sometimes chosen by them for qualities which are more imposing than estimable, so do they even (inadvertently it may be,) encourage in their patrons the very habits of thought, feeling and action, which they ought gently but faithfully to resist and wear away. But if the instructors were themselves duly instructed, and especially if they were men of a high but not severe moral tone, of kind and courteous deportment, yet possessed of firmness of character, they could not fail to make their indirect influence highly advantageous to the people at large. A salutary stream of moral purity, as well as of intellectual light, would go forth from each school-establishment, and while we only aimed to educate the young, we should, in reality, be securing the improvement of the mature-an improvement which in its turn would act beneficially on the schoolmaster as well as the school, refining his own character while it increased the efficiency of his direct instructions.

This train of thought brings me to a fourth requisite ; one of not less consequence than any I have yet noticed. There must be a change for the better in the character, feelings, and conduct, of not a few of the parents, before we can realise our wishes for the children. Whatever time may be occupied in school duties, how many hours does a child spend during which the professed instructor has no influence over him; spend under influences for which the parent only is and can be answerable! And these are the very periods when the young are most susceptible of impressions; when the moral and intellectual life opens spontaneously to surrounding influences, and receives them therefore most readily and most deeply. If in the actual state of things I am asked, who and what educates our young-I answer, their mother and their father, their brothers and sisters, their playmates, their casual companions. As it is, school is very much what the French term, (c a false position," a state of unnatural and irksome restraint-a sort of intellectual prison, whence the young escape as soon as they can, and escape with that gladness and impetuosity which give a zest and an impulse to every other influence in which they may be engaged. Thus even a factitious power is given to influences which are in themselves sufficiently strong; and whatever, therefore, presents itself to their acceptance out of the boundaries of the school, is eagerly accepted and VOL. III. No. 11.-New Series.

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warmly cherished. It is true that this may render the good of home a greater good than it would otherwise prove; but it also magnifies any evil which in any case may attach to it, while it makes the seductions of evil companionship irresistible. And only think how much danger there is that the evil, both within and without the precincts of home, should preponderate, when so many of the parents are either engaged in the factory, or other out-of-door employments, early and late, or offer to their children, in temper or in conduct, examples which it would be far better for them they should never behold. I can never regard it as any thing but a most unnatural and baneful state of things for the mother of a family to be found any where habitually, but in the midst of her domestic concerns. Hers is the influence which Nature designed to be the creator of her children's character. There is no influence equal to that which she sheds forth; no teacher of morality comparable for effect with the kindness of her eye and lip, the warmth of her heart, the gentleness, sincerity, and simplicity of her bearing. Unhappy the child that is severed from these fostering and guardian powers; more, infinitely more unhappy he or she in whose case these ministers of purity and love are replaced by the harsh tone, the tongue of violence and deceit, the oft uplifted hand, the brow of anger, and a life of intemperance. Even under the worst domestic training, and the greatest domestic neglect, a good school education will do something; but how much of its good will be frustrated, how much of its best influence will be overpowered in such a case; nay, there is a fear that the very knowledge which this school imparts, may be converted into power for evil, by the perverting influence of an immoral home. Yes! we must look to the parents as well as the instructors of the young. We must cleanse and enlighten the hearths of our cottages; we must strive to wean the father from guilty pleasure, and to take the mother out of the factory, and train her to love and pursue her domestic duties, ere we can reasonably expect to reap the natural rewards of a good system of popular education. And here let me bear my humble but earnest testimony to the need, the urgent need there is, for a good system of female education, especially in our manufacturing districts. The general remarks, indeed, which I made in the two previous papers, are designed to apply as much to the education of girls as to that of boys; but so long as the first are to continue to be drafted off at an early age into our factories, special efforts for their improvement, both during their school time and subsequently, are imperatively required. As it is-what, let me ask-what training does a girl engaged in factory labour receive, of a nature to prepare her for those maternal

duties which in all probability will devolve upon her? It is true that during the two or three years which intervene between her childhood and the time of her entering the factory, she may be employed in some domestic engagement, yet in very little that is better than nursing a younger child, and that alas! not seldom under circumstances trying to her temper and contaminating to her morals. I know, indeed, there are exceptions: I rejoice to know it. There are parents who, though left without school education, are yet pure in their conversation and kindly in their intercourses; whose homes are the abode of cleanliness, order, propriety, perhaps of the light and comfort of religion. The virtue of such persons is of the highest kind, practised and preserved as it is under most adverse circumstances. But I should speak from my wishes rather than my knowledge, did I affirm that they presented any thing more than rare and most honourable exceptions. The rule is more or less the reverse, and by general facts must my observations be governed. Well, then, after nursing for some two or three years a younger, perhaps a neglected, child, the girl is sent into the factory. Those who know how far the educational clauses in the last Factory Act are evaded, and how long and hard the labour still is, and what the moral atmosphere of a factory, will not look for any influence of a decidedly beneficial character either during or after the hours of occupation, still less for any training which shall prepare the girl for the duties of maternity. Soon, however, she earns by her own exertions a weekly sum, which she is aware would suffice for her own maintenance. She has in consequence a premature sense of independence, and either becomes exacting at home, if not refractory, or quits its precincts for a residence where she can be completely her own mistress. Left thus uncontrolled by others, and having little or no self-control, she expends what she can spare from food, in finery and unimproving pleasures, well if they are not degrading; and as, perhaps, the least injurious result, contracts an early marriage, enters upon relations of whose nature and importance she has scarcely any conception, and for whose duties she is almost wholly unprepared. If there is truth in this sketch, what can be expected? of the most ordinary domestic engagements, she is nearly ignorant; domestic habits she has not been trained to; personal and domestic neatness, propriety and comfort, she understands scarcely at all; her mind is uninformed; her character undisciplined, her temper unregulated. In consequence, home is not made pleasing and cheerful to her husband, he soon begins to seek out-door gratifications; she, perhaps, returns to the factory; a family comes on, but the parents are unable to prove a father and a mother to the mind and heart of

their children; unthriftiness prevails, then waste, then want, want sometimes in the midst of plenty; want creates dissatisfaction, mutual reproaches; quarrels lead to blows, blows bring on a separation; and thus a couple who at first may have entertained kindly feeling one to another, and have entered on life with bright fancies and fairy hopes, are involved in broils and other calamities which, with occasional alternations and abatements, may, alas! endure for life. What a waste have we here of the means of happiness; what a blighting of good feeling, what moral and social devastation. The cause of this? It is not in any defect of nature, nor in any unforeseen misfortune-it is ignorance-ignorance, that great bane of the poor man, that direful curse on his domestic happiness, that irreparable-yes! too often irreparable domestic calamity! Well, then, may I ask, nay I would beg and entreat that the females of our working population may receive such a training as may rescue them from moral ruin, from the sad necessity under which too many of them now lie-a necessity not of nature but of circumstances, that sad, that bitter necessity of entailing moral and social distress on those little ones whom at first, at least, they cherish as they do their own life. Nay, did the mother duly feel the bitterness of this necessity, a remedy would not be hopeless. The evil is, that for want of having their minds opened, they allow themselves to be drawn on by outward influences-unthinking whither they are hurrying them, till retreat is almost impossible. Otherwise that holy instinct-a mother's love-would exert its mighty power for the moral preservation of the young. And after all, even in the worst condition, did parents feel that their lot is still in their own hands,-their lot, and in that, the lot of their family, were they led to look rather at what they could do for themselves and for their offspring, than at what they expect-but often in vain, others will do for them;-I say almost even at the worst, the mother and father might and would exert some restraining and salutary influence. As it is, however, existing evils of the social system are aggravated by their own failures in duty. It should never be forgotten that a child could not enter a factory but by the act of the parents. It is they, in reality, who send children there; and I weep to say it, parents are found who thinking exclusively of the addition which may hence accrue to their own pecuniary means, thinking, perhaps exclusively, how they may work less or work not at all, or have more to spend in vitiating pleasures,-parents are found who, with no higher feeling than this, with no regard to a child's education, a child's welfare, or the welfare of that child's future family, will adopt even dishonest and unlawful means to pro