The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-12-17 00:00:00

THE ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT.

LECITHE BY THE RBY.V. MAGINNIS.

On Sunday evening lust the Rev. D. Raginnis delivered
a lecture, the subj rt ot which was" How the Education
Act way be best applied lor the public good," to a I age
congregation in the Presbyterian Chapel, Lower nigh.
street.

The rev. gentleman, in commencing, said: In Hosea,
iv. c., oth verse, •• My people are destroyed for lark of
knowledge." Proverbs. 22nd c., oth veree, "Train up a
child in the way he should go. and when he is old lie will
not depart from it." St. Luke, 14 e., 23rd verse, •• Cl,,
Out into the highways tied hedge., and compel them to
come in, that my house may be tilled." St. John, 4th
c., 21st verse, "And this commandment have we front
him. that lie who loveth God, loveth his brother also."
Galatians, oth c., thul snd 10th verse's, " Bear ye one
another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. As
we have perefore opportunity, let us do good unto all
men." he conaition of the criminal ar.d pauper dosses
of our population has long engaged the earnest and
anxious consideration of the thoughtful and benevolent.
Political eeimismy asks, Can they not be utilised instead
of being only 'tasteful and dangerous conaumers ? Is it
not possible to convert them into useful and helpful pro-
ducers? Humanity asks, Can nothing be done to tame
and civilise the savage, the poupelieed, the vicious, and
the degraded classes that exist in our mint? Religion
asks, Can nothing be done to elevate and improve their
condition? The national conscience has at length been
awakened to the importance of the subject, and to the
necessity of applying a suitable remedy, and as • conse-
quence it has declared that the people must be educated.
I have faith in the remedy, though we must not expect
too much from it. The circumstances under which the
remedy is to be applied are unfavourable to great or im-
mediate results. Believing, however, that it is only
through a wise education we can gradually raise the .
social and mural standard of these classes. I hail with '
Joy any ageney that seems calculated to bring them under
the humanising and elevated iniluences of education, and
I consequently consider that even the pulpit cannot be I
better emploaed than in attempting to interest the people
in the Education Act of the last Session, and in showing ,
how that Act may be made to promote the public good. ,
The problem to bi solved is one of gigantic proportions, I
and involves considerations of grave importance in con- '
unction with the prosperity and the well-being of the
nation. According to last year's judicial statistics our
criminal population amounts to 97,000, and our pauper ,
population, according to the last report of the Poor Law !
Board, was at thss beginning of the present year 1,096,199. '
The Po/erica/ A'eonoraist says that all the able-bodied
amongst these vast numbers should be contributing by
some honest and useful calling to the wealth of the na.
tson. But, instead of that, both these large classee are
living at the cost of the industrious, producing next to
nothing, and most costly to maintain ; the industrious
having not only to support them, but to keep up expee-
sive forces to protect themselves against the ravages of
the criminals. Is the official year 1869, the public sap.
poet of tue poor of England and Wales cost £7,673,109.
being equal to • tax of 7a 01 a head upon the entire
population of all ages. The criminal classes cost us in
the maintenance of police, gaols, criminal prosecutions,
and the like, not less than 3I millions a year, being to-
gether for tbe maintenance of the poor and the punish.
meat of crone over £11,000,000 sterling ; more than los
per head in the entire population of men, Women, and
chilaren. And then there is to be added to this the vast
amount which is given away annually in private charity,
and the further amount abstracted by the criminal class
in theft. Mr. Clay, the well-known prison chaplain, esti-
mated the plunder of thieves in Liverpool alone, as not
lesa than it:200,000 a year, sod he added that there are
many hundreds of pickpockets robbing at the rate of
2309 to £1,990 a year each. The cost of pauperism and
crime to the country is therefore very great, and the
worst of it is that the expenditure increase.; and what
is worse imil it is unproductive. In one item of police
alone there is an increase of £196,851 in the last two
years, while for the support of the poor the expeediture
has increased in the last three years by the large sum of
£1,283,595 sterling. Well may the political economist
ask can nothing be done to diminish the vast and grow.
nig expenditure. There is one fact in connection with
the statistics of crane that instantly arrests attention,
sad suggests a remedy, and that is the low state of mho
cation—l might gay absence of education—among crino
Malt From last year's judicial statistics we learn that '
of the persons convicted (taking round numbers) 33 yet
cent. ot the males, and 39 per cent, of the females—
more than tine-third of the whole number—coad not
e,eu read, and that 62 per cent, of the males, and 58 pei
cent. of the females could only read and write imper-
fectly ; making together 95 per cent. males and 97 pet
ceut, females who could be scarcely said to have learned
even the rudiments of an eleineutary education; many
of them not having atiempteti cien that. But 3 ler
cent, of the males and 1 per cent, of the females could
read and write well. 'Abe number of those who rescind
a good educalion was is the proportion of 1 to every 500
males, and 1 to every 5,000 females. Now, I am far
from mferring or suppoeing that the new diffusion 01
knowledge would annihilate crime or poverty. We know
too well that vice arid crime and prodigality may be found
in classes called educated. At the same time it cannot I
but strike one forcibly to find that on the convict calen-
dar hut 1 out of every 50 can read or write well, the other •
49 being either entirely or almost entirely without the
knowledge of the simplest rudiments of education. As ,
to the pauper classes, I have no means of ascertaining
the state of knowledge among them, official statistics not
including that particular. There can he no reasonable
' doubt, however, that in the really pauperieed class edu.
! cation does not exist. I soy the pauperised class, for we
I must distinguish between those whom misfortune has
I reduced to indigence, and those to whom pauperism
I seems the natural and congenial element. The latter,
generation after generation, are paupero. Their fathers
before them were paupers, their contemporary relations
are paupers, and they look forward to nothing better than
pauperiam as an inheritance to their children. Thrift,
any more than education, is but little considered in this
class. I am assured by a most intelligent official con-
nected with the administration of the Poor Laws who
has given much attention to the subject, thatabout nine-
' tenths of the applicants for out-door relief confess that
they never niade the slightest attempt to provide againat
sickness, or old age, or scarcity of employment, by join-
ing any friendly aociety or club, or investing in • Savings'
Bank. The ignorance that permits this blind improvi-
dence and thriftlessness is helpless before the temptations
to extrevogance and intemperance. The waste in this
latter direction is incalculable—the loss of time, of
money, of health, how great; and the consequences that
follow in its train—ruined prospects, rained families,
ruined characters, filling our workhouses, our peniten.
tiaries, and our gaols. Our penitentiaries 1 What a
history of wretchedness and degradation is bound up in
that one term; enough, were it rightly read, to summon
every better feeling of our nature to strenuous effort to
remedy that terrible evil ; an evil that is largely depend.
suit upon drunkenness and ignorance. On the Ist January,
1909, there were 15,153 insane paaperain our lunatic
asylums and other establishments, maintained at a cunt
of £710,911 for the year. The two great causes of in-
sanity are drunkenness and morbid views of religion.
And if ignorance is conducive to drunkenness, it is still
more so to the ;xi-called( religious views that are so
frightful a soutce of insanity. Such then is the material
. —pauper, criminal, and moral—upon which education
has to operate. The appeal of political economy in the
interests of national prosperity is unanswerable. Yon
must aboliali ignorance, and convert these wasteful dan-
gerous consumers into intelligent, thrifty producers. '
Morality and religion require that whatever can be done
shall be done to educate these classes into intelligent
recognition and faithful diecharge of their duties as citi-
gen., and an the children of God. In the past the edu-
cation of the humbler clauses in this country has been
lett very much to those who were willing to undertake it.
As might be expected under these circumstances, the
various religious denomination, entered upon the work,
and a school became a usual appendage to the church
and the chapel. Individual benevolence contributed its
share by founding and endowing schools. Friends of
unseatariau education associated themselves together,
and further increased the supply of schools. Govern.
meat came to feel that it had its duties to discharge in
regard to the education of the people, but instead if
providing a broad and adequate ayatem of national edu-
cation it determined to merely assist the sects in their
educational work by contributing. on certain conditions,
to the support of these schools. The Establiahed Church
gladly accepted the offered aid, as did also the managers
of Many uudenominationel sehools; but the great body
of the Nonconformists, holding what nre claimed to be
evangelical priceiiddi, refused to accept state aid—s
policy we rejoice to find that they Lave in late years eut-
grown ; but the effect bag been to leave the education of
Inn people very much in the hands of elects and 'maim(
that accepted state aid, that they regard and use the
schools as part of their sectarian machinery is perhaps
not to be wondered at. The Privy Council was entrusted
Iwith the superintendence of this departuirn of education.
'though constantly interfering and altering details, it
uever laid a firm hand on the system with a view to give
it coneisteancy or completeiteas. The Coattail WU Strong