REFORM IN THE POOR LAWS.

121

of its assistant commissioners, would supersede the expensive necessity of many special Parliamentary commissions, and would always be at hand to afford to the government or to Parliament any information relative to the labouring classes.

That such a Board may finally be made subservient to more general purposes is evident.* Its appointment would be popular with all classes, save, perhaps, the paupers themselves-it would save the country immense sums-it would raise once more in England the pride of honest toil.

It is time that a government so largely paid by the people should do something in their behalf. "The Poor shall be with you always," are the pathetic words of the Messiah; and that some men must be poor and some rich, is a dispensation, with which, according to the lights of our present experience, no human wisdom can interfere. But if legislation cannot prevent the inequalities of poverty and wealth, it is bound to prevent the legislative abuse of each ;—the abuse of riches is tyranny; the corruption of poverty is recklessness. is recklessness. Wherever either of these largely exist, talk not of the blessings of free institutions; there is the very principle that makes servitude a curse. Something is, indeed, wrong in that system in which we see “Age

*

enormous

of

I mention Recruiting as one. At present, as we have before seen, nothing in the army requires so much reform as the system of recruiting it. A Central Board with its branch commissioners, with its command over the able-bodied applicants for work, might be a very simple and efficacious machine for supplying our army-not, as now, from the dregs of the people—but from men of honesty and character. The expense of our present system of recruiting is -it might in a great measure be saved by a Central Board. Emigration is, of course, another purpose to which it might be applied. Is it true that population presses on capital? In this country it assuredly does, the area support is undeniably confined-meanwhile the population increases. Very well, we know exactly how many to remove. Mr. Wakefield has settled 'this point in an admirable pamphlet. He takes the British population at twenty millions; he supposes that their utmost power of increase would move at the rate of four per cent. per annum, the constant yearly removal of the per centage, viz., 800,000, would prevent any domestic increase. But of these 800,000 you need select only those young couples from whom the increase of population will proceed these amount to 400,000 individuals-the expense of removing them at 107. a head, is four millions a year. We now therefore know exactly what it will cost to prevent too great a pressure of the population on the means of subsistence! But what individual emigration-companies can either preserve the balance or persuade the people to accede to it? Is not this clearly the affair of the state, as in all ancient polity it invariably was? See the evidence before the Emigration Committee of 1827, and the intelligent testimony of Mr. Northhouse.

122

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

going to the workhouse, and Youth to the gallows." But with us the evil hath arisen, not from the malice of Oppression, but the mistake of Charity. Occupied with the struggles of a splendid ambition, our rulers have legislated for the poor in the genius not of a desire to oppress, but of an impatience to examine. At length there has dawned forth from the dark apathy of Ages a light, which has revealed to the two ranks of our social world the elements and the nature of their several conditions. That light has the properties of a more fiery material. Prudence may make it the most useful of our servants; neglect may suffer it to become the most ruthless of our destroyers. It is difficult, however, to arouse the great to a full conception of the times in which we live the higher classes are the last to hear the note of danger. The same principle pervades the inequalities of Social Life, as that so remarkable in the laws of Physical Science: they who stand on the lofty eminence,-the high places of the world,-are deafened by the atmosphere itself, and can scarcely hear the sound of the explosion which alarms the quiet of the plains!

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK THE THIRD.

SURVEY OF THE STATE OF EDUCATION,
ARISTOCRATIC AND POPULAR,

AND OF THE GENERAL INFLUENCES OF
MORALITY AND RELIGION IN ENGLAND.

INSCRIBED TO

THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREW's.

"Men generally need knowledge to overpower their passions and master their prejudices; and therefore to see your brother in ignorance is to see him unfurnished to all good works: and every master is to cause his family to be instructed; every governor is to instruct his charge, every man his brother, by all possible and just provisions. For if the people die for want of knowledge, they who are set over them shall also die for want of charity."

BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR.

"O curvæ in terras animæ et celestium inanes! "-PERSIUS..

CHAPTER I.

THE EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER CLASSES.

Religion and Education, subjects legitimately combined-Quintilian's Remark against learning too hastily-We learn too slowly-Reason why Parents submit to a deficient Education for their Children-Supposition that Connexions are acquired at Schools considered and confuted-Supposition that Distinctions at a Public School are of permanent Advantage to the after ManIts fallacy-Abolition of Close Boroughs likely to affect the Number sent to Public Schools-What is taught at a Public School?—the Classics only, and the Classics badly.-The abuses of Endowments thus shown-The Principle of Endowments defended-In vain would we defend them unless their Guardians will reform-The Higher Classes necessitated, for Self-preservation, to establish a sounder System of Education for themselves.

SIR,

No man, in these days of trite materialism, and the discordant jealousies of rival sects, has been more deeply imbued than yourself with the desire of extending knowledge, and the spirit of a large and generous Christianity. It is to you that I most respectfully, and with all the reverence of political gratitude, dedicate this Survey of the present state of our Education, coupled with that of our Religion. In Prussia, that country in which, throughout the whole world, education is the most admirably administered, the authority over the Public Worship of the State is united with that over the Public Instruction. The minister of the one is also minister of the other. In the Duchy of Saxe Weimar, which has seemed as the focus of a brilliant philosophy to the eyes of abashed Europe, in which liberty of thought and piety of conduct have gone hand in hand, the whole administration of the instruction of the people may be said to be intrusted to the clergy, and the light which has

*

*A member of the Laity has, indeed, been added to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of Saxe Weimar; but he unites entirely with them in the ecclesiastical spirit. That ecclesiastical spirit in Saxe Weimar is benevolence.