The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-30 00:00:00

Mr. STANSFELD, M.P., on EDUCATION.

The Right Hon. J. Stansfeld, M.P., speaking at a
large public meeting at Croydon on Monday night, at
which he distributed the prizes awarded to children
attending the Board schools of that town, remarked
flat the scheme of education adopted by the Board
ei.S characterised b
great liber ity, which he was
prepared to justify. The scheme was full of hopeful
al
and courageous aspiration, but there might be some
who thought it more generous than practical. Some
might doubt the need and the result of such an ambi-
tious scheme, but having considered it carefully, he
himself regarded it as entirely practical and urgently
needed, and one from which they had nothing to fear
but everything to hope. (Cheers.) He could see no
reason why, with time and patience and continually,
pegging away, the whole of the essential subjects of
education comprised in the Board's scheme should
not be taught to all other children of Croydon. They
wanted patience and perseverance. They must get
the children into the schools as early as possible, and
keep them regularly there. Some people thought they
might have too much education, or education too good
for those who had to rough it in the world. To those
he would say, that no education which was thorough
could do anything but good to any child on earth
as far and as high as it was practicable to carry that
education. (Cheers.) It was only superficial and
imperfect education which unsettled the youthful
mind, and indisposed it for the rough and hare
realities of life. Wherever that higher education
which he advocated was universal no sense of incon-
sistency entered into the mind of any person be-
tween the fact of education and the walk in life
however humble, of him who possessed it. (Cheers.)
That was no mere theory. It was the experience
of our own Scotland, as well as of Switzerland,
and of the greater portion of the German States.
There were great needs for an advanced education
at this moment. We are (continued Mr. Stans-
fell) behind the times. We are beginning to
feel keenly the rivalry and competition of other
countries who have stolen- marches upon us,
mainly because they have had earlier and better
systems of national education than we had ourselves.
(Cheers.) We are losing the advantages upon which
we have rested secure and supine too long—the advan-
tages cf the early discovery and working of coal and
iron, and of the intrcduction of machinery for the pur-
pose of carrying on those manufactures in which until I
lately we have always kept the lead in the markets of I
the world. We cannot trust to those old advantages
now as we could in former times. We are finding
rivals in the economical, educated, and laborious popu-
lations of Switzerland and Germany, and if we wish
itto
ihsoalbdsooulurtoelwyn,esasnd
entniaolt tfo fall inorour ntahte scale of nations,
ionalsafetythat
we. should with all our hearts and minds promote
the success of schemes for the education of the
people of this country. (Cheers.) There is another
reason why we should do so. We have enfranchised
the householders of our borough towns, and before
very long, do not doubt my prophecy—it will not
come from one side of the House of Commons alone
—before long we shall extend the principle of house-
hold suffrage from the boroughs to the counties of
this country. (Cheers.) And I will ask every man and
woman in this room, without the slightest fear as to
what the answer esell he, is it nit necessary that
an enfranchised should he an educated peorde ?
(Cheers) We have everything to hope from this
education. There is, firet of all, the moral training of
the school which often among the poor counteracts the
evil influences of the home. I am glad to see that
domestic economy is included in your curriculum and
I hope that that will be so interpreted as to include in-
struction as to the laws of health. (Cheers.) If you
teach the laws of health you cannot help, at the same
time, t( aehing the la -vs of decency and morality al well,
I, as the author of the Public Healda Act, which firet
Mapped out England into sanitary districts with respon-
sible authorities, na.turhaly i ;e the bighestvalueupon
such instruction. (Cheers.) La-t session we passed the
Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act, from which
great things in our larger towns are, and I hope justi-
fiably, expected, but 1 express to you a very strong
conviction when I say that neither the Public Health
Act, nor the Artisans' Dwellings Act, nor both
together, unaided, can ever do as much for the health
• of this country as would be secured if the whole country
were provided with schools through which the juvenile
Population might be taught hygienic laws and the
necessity of obeying them. (Cheers.)

_
In conclusion, Mr. Stansfeld expresdei his gratitude
to the Croydon School Board for the conception they
had had the courage to initiate, and for the example
they had afforded to the country at large,-and he