The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-12-06 00:00:00

te 3t(ntrhriby Ohsertrer.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1873.

THE RECENT SCHOOL BOARD

ELECTIONS.

The triennial School Board elections which
are now taking place throughout the coun-
try have been contested with more or less
interest, and amid the eargerness of religious
denominations to return their representa-
tives, some suggestions apart from the strug-
gles of rival sects, naturally present them-
selves. In the first place, it may be safely
assumed that whichever creed or party may
succeed in winning seats, one result of thel
Act of 1870 nmst be to give a very consider-
able impetus to the work of national educa-
tion. Since the passing of that measure,
large numbers of poor children, who pre-
viously did nothing but roam the streets, and
learn to lead a life of crime, have been ga-
thered into the schools or placed in indite.
trial institutions. And there is a little doubt
that, although much has been done in this
way, a great deal more will be effected as
time goes on. A vast machinery has had to
to be called into existence, staffs organised,
rules framed, the basis of the education set-
tled, officials appointed, and in many cases
schools built, before—where the voluntary
'system did not prevail—a single child could
be instructed at all. But now, after the lapse
of three years, the more importent parts of
these preliminaries have .13,?en sett'ed, and the
time which has hitherto had to be do cited to
them can now be turned entirely to the im-
mense work of education. What a stupend-
ous work it is may be seen by the interest
excited by the election of those who will
have its control. It has often been a re-
proach to England,. that with all her wealth,
all her power, all her possession of that
which is beautiful in art and costly in mate-
rial, and with the enormous extent of her
Commercial intercourse, no inconsiderable
portion of her people have been allowed to
grow up in the densest and grossest ignor-
ance. Where parents have been too poor to
pay to send their children to school—and
there are hosts of such cases in the agricul-
tural districts —there has been no interfer-
ence on the part of the State with a view of
imparting that knowledge to the rising gene-
ration without which it is impossible to com-
pete successfully on the great stage of human
life. The State has gone on extending its
influence over various parts of the habitable
globe, building navies, equipping armies, and
raising taxes, leaving the chief work of edu-
cation to the enterprise of the religions de-
nominations. This, however, is so no
longer ; and if parents, through poverty, are
now unable to provide their children with
instruction, the State steps in and does it
for them at the expense of the ratepayers.
There is now positively no excuse for allow-
ing a child to grow up without a knowledge
of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and
with the advance of time the proportion of
those who are unable to do so must neces-
sarily become less and less. Great Britain
will be then an educated nation, arrd it would
not be unnatural to expect a material dim-
inution in the pauper and criminal rolls.
The objections formerly urged against uni-
versal education seem to be gradually dying
away under the spread of increased intelli-
gence. It has, for instance, been contended
that if we teach all the lower classes how to
get on in the world through the medium of
a good schooling, we shall obtain neither
domestic servants nor agricultural labourers,
and there will be a universal resort to those
avocations requiring educated persons. To
this there is one obvious reply. The labour
market must always be regulated by the
laws of supply and demand, and cannot be
governed by extraneous or artificial causes.
From the days of Holy Writ to the present
time, there have , always been "hewers of
wood and drawers of water," and the country
will never be deterred from doing its duty
by an unfounded fear that the race is about
to become extinct,